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Jan 13, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
True Blue , 1 hour ago linkAI Agent , 1 hour ago linkFeral, yes; rabid, absolutely; smart... not so much. Why is anyone surprised?
The DemoRats have never been a party dedicated to peace; the only ones thinking that are the walking bong-holes who assuage their cognitive dissonance by telling themselves that. Both the demorats and their willing accomplices 'across the aisle' have led us into constant war for nearly eight decades. Lilliputian Big enders and Little enders all.
desertboy , 36 minutes ago linkShe's a good lying propagandist... but she's not brilliant. Smart? maybe. Brilliant? Cow flop has more shine than Madcow.
Throat-warbler Mangrove , 1 hour ago linkMaybe he meant "brilliant manipulator" -- sometimes they have meant the same thing.
BlackChicken , 1 hour ago linkScrew the war mongers and the MIC.
richardsimmonsoftrout , 1 hour ago linkIf you read the article, it's obvious that [neo]liberals/whores are the apogee of hypocrisy.
navy62802 , 1 hour ago link"they're likely to emerge from 2020 with not only smeared consciences, but four more years in the opposition."
"Smeared consciences"... that's rich, pretty sure the psychopaths don't have a conscience.
holdbuysell , 1 hour ago linkPerpetual war is about $$$. It knows no party. Never has and never will.
Yup. It's always about the money. As Fitts would say, that screeching you hear is the cash flow drying up for the rentiers. The murdering of women and children be damned. Hillary's demonic cackle is but the grotesque cherry on top: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fgcd1ghag5Y
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Jun 26, 2019 | www.unz.com
...If you bomb Syria, do not admit you did it to install your puppet regime or to lay a pipeline. Say you did it to save the Aleppo kids gassed by Assad the Butcher. If you occupy Afghanistan, do not admit you make a handsome profit smuggling heroin; say you came to protect the women. If you want to put your people under total surveillance, say you did it to prevent hate groups target the powerless and diverse.
Remember: you do not need to ask children, women or immigrants whether they want your protection. If pushed, you can always find a few suitable profiles to look at the cameras and repeat a short text. With all my dislike for R2P (Responsibility to Protect) hypocrisy, I can't possibly blame the allegedly protected for the disaster caused by the unwanted protectors.
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Dec 31, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Sasha , Dec 29 2019 18:44 utc | 11
Now that Trump so much complains and threats by Twitter about "civilians" in Idlib...we remember the aerial bombing of the Iraq-Kuwzit highway by US...This crime cannot be overstated as one of the most disgusting acts the US committed in the region. A column of withdrawing soldiers and civilians which were even found to be in compliance with UN resolution 660, were completely eviscerated by the US Air Force. A war crime. https://twitter.com/mideastwitness/status/1211109428759613440DFC , Dec 29 2019 20:59 utc | 18
As Lozion said, USAF has attacked five positions of the PMU's (KH units), three in Irak and two in Syria, it seems there are a scores of people have been killed and injured in those air strikes, some of them seems to be senior commandershttps://southfront.org/u-s-announces-strikes-against-iranian-backed-forces-in-iraq-syria/
Could be the Third Iraq War? or may be the First Iran War?
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Dec 30, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com
You can hear echoes of progressive realism in the statements of leading progressive lawmakers such as Senator Bernie Sanders and Congressman Ro Khanna. They have put ending America's support for the Saudi war on Yemen near the top of the progressive foreign policy agenda. On the stump, Sanders now singles out the military-industrial complex and the runaway defense budget for criticism. He promises, among other things, that "we will not continue to spend $700 billion a year on the military." These are welcome developments. Yet since November of 2016, something else has emerged alongside the antiwar component of progressive foreign policy that is not so welcome. Let's call it neoprogressive internationalism, or neoprogressivism for short.
Trump's administration brought with it the Russia scandal. To attack the president and his administration, critics revived Cold War attitudes. This is now part of the neoprogressive foreign policy critique. It places an "authoritarian axis" at its center. Now countries ruled by authoritarians, nationalists, and kleptocrats can and must be checked by an American-led crusade to make the world safe for progressive values. The problem with this neoprogressive narrative of a world divided between an authoritarian axis and the liberal West is what it will lead to: ever spiraling defense budgets, more foreign adventures, more Cold Wars -- and hot ones too.
Unfortunately, Senators Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have adopted elements of the neoprogressive program. At a much remarked upon address at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, the site of Churchill's 1946 address, Sanders put forth a vision of a Manichean world. Instead of a world divided by the "Iron Curtain" of Soviet Communism, Sanders sees a world divided between right-wing authoritarians and the forces of progress embodied by American and Western European progressive values.
"Today I say to Mr. Putin: We will not allow you to undermine American democracy or democracies around the world," Sanders said. "In fact, our goal is to not only strengthen American democracy, but to work in solidarity with supporters of democracy around the globe, including in Russia. In the struggle of democracy versus authoritarianism, we intend to win."
A year later, Sanders warned that the battle between the West and an "authoritarian axis" which is "committed to tearing down a post-Second World War global order that they see as limiting their access to power and wealth." Sanders calls this "a global struggle of enormous consequence. Nothing less than the future of the -- economically, socially and environmentally -- is at stake."
Sanders's focus on this authoritarian axis is one that is shared with his intraparty rivals at the Center for American Progress (a think-tank long funded by some of the least progressive regimes on the planet), which he has pointedly criticized for smearing progressive Democrats like himself. CAP issued a report last September about "the threat presented by opportunist authoritarian regimes" which "urgently requires a rapid response."
The preoccupation with the authoritarian menace is one Sanders and CAP share with prominent progressive activists who warn about the creeping influence of what some have cynically hyped as an "authoritarian Internationale."
Cold War Calling
Senator Warren spelled out her foreign policy vision in a speech at American University in November 2018. Admirably, she criticized Saudi Arabia's savage war on Yemen, the defense industry, and neoliberal free trade agreements that have beggared the American working and middle classes.
"Foreign policy," Warren has said, "should not be run exclusively by the Pentagon." In the second round of the Democratic primary debates, Warren also called for a nuclear "no first use" policy.
And yet, Warren too seems in thrall to the idea that the world order is shaping up to be one in which the white hats (Western democracies) must face off against the black hats (Eurasian authoritarians). Warren says that the "combination of authoritarianism and corrupt capitalism" of Putin's Russia and Xi's China "is a fundamental threat to democracy, both here in the United States and around the world."
Warren also sees a rising tide of corrupt authoritarians "from Hungary to Turkey, from the Philippines to Brazil," where "wealthy elites work together to grow the state's power while the state works to grow the wealth of those who remain loyal to the leader."
The concern with the emerging authoritarian tide has become a central concern of progressive writers and thinkers. "Today, around the world," write progressive foreign policy activists Kate Kinzer and Stephen Miles, "growing authoritarianism and hate are fueled by oligarchies preying on economic, gender, and racial inequality."
Daniel Nexon, a progressive scholar of international relations, believes that "progressives must recognize that we are in a moment of fundamental crisis, featuring coordination among right-wing movements throughout the West and with the Russian government as a sponsor and supporter."
Likewise, The Nation 's Jeet Heer lays the blame for the rise of global authoritarianism at the feet of Vladimir Putin, who "seems to be pushing for an international alt-right, an informal alliance of right-wing parties held together by a shared xenophobia."
Blithely waving away concerns over sparking a new and more dangerous Cold War between the world's two nuclear superpowers, Heer advises that "the dovish left shouldn't let Cold War nightmares prevent them [from] speaking out about it." He concludes: "Leftists have to be ready to battle [Putinism] in all its forms, at home and abroad."
The Cold War echoes here are as unmistakable as they are worrying. As Princeton and NYU professor emeritus Stephen F. Cohen has written, during the first Cold War, a "totalitarian school" of Soviet studies grew up around the idea "that a totalitarian 'quest for absolute power' at home always led to the 'dynamism' in Soviet behavior abroad was a fundamental axiom of cold-war Soviet studies and of American foreign policy."
Likewise, we are seeing the emergence of an "authoritarian school" which posits that the internal political dynamics of regimes such as Putin's cause them, ineffably, to follow revanchist, expansionist foreign policies.
Cold warriors in both parties frequently mistook communism as a monolithic global movement. Neoprogressives are making this mistake today when they gloss over national context, history, and culture in favor of an all-encompassing theory that puts the "authoritarian" nature of the governments they are criticizing at the center of their diagnosis.
By citing the threat to Western democracies posed by a global authoritarian axis, the neoprogressives are repeating the same mistake made by liberal interventionists and neoconservatives. They buy into the democratic peace theory, which holds without much evidence that a world order populated by democracies is likely to be a peaceful one because democracies allegedly don't fight wars against one another.
Yet as Richard Sakwa, a British scholar of Russia and Eastern Europe, writes, "it is often assumed that Russia is critical of the West because of its authoritarian character, but it cannot be taken for granted that a change of regime would automatically make the country align with the West."
George McGovern once observed that U.S. foreign policy "has been based on an obsession with an international Communist conspiracy that existed more in our minds than in reality." So too the current obsession with the global authoritarians. Communism wasn't a global monolith and neither is this. By portraying it as such, neoprogressives are midwifing bad policy.
True, some of the economic trends voters in Europe and South America are reacting to are global, but a diagnosis that links together the rise of Putin and Xi, the elections of Trump in the U.S., Bolsonaro in Brazil, Orban in Hungary, and Kaczyński in Poland with the right-wing insurgency movements of the Le Pens in France and Farage in the UK makes little sense.
Some of these elected figures, like Trump and Farage, are symptoms of the failure of the neoliberal economic order. Others, like Orban and Kaczyński, are responses to anti-European Union sentiment and the migrant crises that resulted from the Western interventions in Libya and Syria. Many have more to do with conditions and histories specific to their own countries. Targeting them by painting them with the same broad brush is a mistake.
Echoes of Neoconservatism
The progressive foreign policy organization Win Without War includes among its 10 foreign policy goals "ending economic, racial and gender inequality around the world." The U.S., according to WWW, "must safeguard universal human rights to dignity, equality, migration and refuge."
Is it a noble sentiment? Sure. But it's every bit as unrealistic as the crusade envisioned by George W. Bush in his second inaugural address, in which he declared, "The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world."
We know full well where appeals to "universal values" have taken us in the past. Such appeals are not reliable guides for progressives if they seek to reverse the tide of unchecked American intervention abroad. But maybe we should consider whether it's a policy of realism and restraint that they actually seek. Some progressive thinkers are at least honest enough to admit as much that it is not. Nexon admits that "abandoning the infrastructure of American international influence because of its many minuses and abuses will hamstring progressives for decades to come." In other words, America's hegemonic ambitions aren't in and of themselves objectionable or self-defeating, as long as we achieve our kind of hegemony. Progressive values crusades bear more than a passing resemblance to the neoconservative crusades to remake the world in the American self-image.
"Of all the geopolitical transformations confronting the liberal democratic world these days," writes neoconservative-turned-Hillary Clinton surrogate Robert Kagan, "the one for which we are least prepared is the ideological and strategic resurgence of authoritarianism." Max Boot also finds cause for concern. Boot, a modern-day reincarnation (minus the pedigree and war record) of the hawkish Cold War-era columnist Joe Alsop, believes that "the rise of populist authoritarianism is perhaps the greatest threat we face as a world right now."
Neoprogressivism, like neoconservatism, risks catering to the U.S. establishment's worst impulses by playing on a belief in American exceptionalism to embark upon yet another global crusade. This raises some questions, including whether a neoprogressive approach to the crises in Ukraine, Syria, or Libya would be substantively different from the liberal interventionist approach of Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Hillary Clinton. Does a neoprogressive foreign policy organized around the concept of an "authoritarian axis" adequately address the concerns of voters in the American heartland who disproportionately suffer from the consequences of our wars and neoliberal economic policies? It was these voters, after all, who won the election for Trump.
Donald Trump's failure to keep his campaign promise to bring the forever wars to a close while fashioning a new foreign policy oriented around core U.S. national security interests provides Democrats with an opportunity. By repeatedly intervening in Syria, keeping troops in Afghanistan, kowtowing to the Israelis and Saudis, ratcheting up tensions with Venezuela, Iran, Russia, and China, Trump has ceded the anti-interventionist ground he occupied when he ran for office. He can no longer claim the mantle of restraint, a position that found support among six-in-ten Americans in 2016.
Yet with the exception of Tulsi Gabbard, for the most part the Democratic field is offering voters a foreign policy that amounts to "Trump minus belligerence." A truly progressive foreign policy must put questions of war and peace front and center. Addressing America's post 9/11 failures, military overextension, grotesquely bloated defense budget, and the ingrained militarism of our political-media establishment are the proper concerns of a progressive U.S. foreign policy.
But it is one that would place the welfare of our own citizens above all. As such, what is urgently required is the long-delayed realization of a peace dividend. The post-Cold War peace dividend that was envisioned in the early 1990s never materialized. Clinton's secretary of defense Les Aspin strangled the peace dividend in its crib by keeping the U.S. military on a footing that would allow it to fight and win two regional wars simultaneously. Unipolar fantasies of "full spectrum dominance" would come later in the decade.
One might have reasonably expected an effort by the Obama administration to realize a post-bin Laden peace dividend, but the forever wars dragged on and on. In a New Yorker profile from earlier this year, Sanders asked the right question: "Do we really need to spend more than the next ten nations combined on the military, when our infrastructure is collapsing and kids can't afford to go to college?"
The answer is obvious. And yet, how likely is it that progressives will be able realize their vision of a more just, more equal American society if we have to mobilize to face a global authoritarian axis led by Russia and China?
FDR's Good Neighbor Policy
The unipolar world of the first post-Cold War decade is well behind us now. As the world becomes more and more multipolar, powers like China, Russia, Iran, India, and the U.S. will find increasing occasion to clash. A peaceful multipolar world requires stability. And stability requires balance.
In the absence of stability, none of the goods progressives see as desirable can take root. This world order would put a premium on stability and security rather than any specific set of values. An ethical, progressive foreign policy is one which understands that great powers have security interests of their own. "Spheres of influence" are not 19th century anachronisms, but essential to regional security: in Europe, the Western Hemisphere and elsewhere.
It is a policy that would reject crusades to spread American values the world over. "The greatest thing America can do for the rest of the world," George Kennan once observed, "is to make a success of what it is doing here on this continent and to bring itself to a point where its own internal life is one of harmony, stability and self-assurance."
Progressive realism doesn't call for global crusades that seek to conquer the hearts and minds of others. It is not bound up in the hoary self-mythology of American Exceptionalism. It is boring. It puts a premium on the value of human life. It foreswears doing harm so that good may come. It is not a clarion call in the manner of John F. Kennedy who pledged to "to pay any price, bear any burden." It does not lend itself to the cheap moralizing of celebrity presidential speechwriters. In ordinary language, a summation of such a policy would go something like: "we will bear a reasonable price as long as identifiable U.S. security interests are at stake."
A policy that seeks to wind down the global war on terror, slash the defense budget, and shrink our global footprint won't inspire. It will, however, save lives. Such a policy has its roots in Franklin Delano Roosevelt's first inaugural address. "In the field of World policy," said Roosevelt, "I would dedicate this nation to the policy of the good neighbor, the neighbor who resolutely respects himself and, because he does so, respects the rights of others, the neighbor who respects his obligations and respects the sanctity of his agreements in and with a World of neighbors."
What came to be known as the "Good Neighbor" policy was further explicated by FDR's Secretary of State Cordell Hull at the Montevideo Conference in 1933, when he stated that "No country has the right to intervene in the internal or external affairs of another." Historian David C. Hendrickson sees this as an example of FDR's principles of "liberal pluralism," which included "respect for the integrity and importance of other states" and "non-intervention in the domestic affairs of neighboring states."
These ought to serve as the foundations on which to build a truly progressive foreign policy. They represent a return to the best traditions of the Democratic Party and would likely resonate with those very same blocs of voters that made up the New Deal coalition that the neoliberal iteration of the Democratic Party has largely shunned but will sorely need in order to unseat Trump. And yet, proponents of a neoprogressive foreign policy seem intent on running away from a popular policy of realism and restraint on which Trump has failed to deliver.
James W. Carden is contributing writer for foreign affairs at The Nation and a member of the Board of the Simone Weil Center for Political Philosophy.
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Dec 29, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com
The other possible replacements include Treasury Secretary Mnuchin, Deputy Secretary of State Biegun, U.S. ambassador to Germany Ric Grenell, Trump's Iran envoy Brian Hook, and two hard-liners from the Senate, Marco Rubio and Tom Cotton. Most of these names inspire some mixture of loathing and dread, and of the seven men being considered Biegun is the only one remotely qualified to take the job. Hook has disqualified himself , and he shouldn't even be working at the State Department right now much less running it. Grenell functions as little more than an international troll , and he has done a terrible job representing the U.S. in Berlin, so promoting him would be an equally terrible mistake.
Rubio and Cotton are fanatics with the most toxic foreign policy views, and they would also likely be very poor managers of the department. In that respect, they are very much like Pompeo. Mnuchin would likely have great difficulty getting confirmed, and replacing one sanctions-happy Secretary with the Treasury Secretary who has been enforcing those sanctions is no improvement at all. As for O'Brien, he was a bad choice for National Security Advisor , he has done nothing since he took over from Bolton to suggest otherwise, and so it makes absolutely no sense to promote him. Biegun clearly has the confidence of the Senate following his overwhelming confirmation vote to be Deputy Secretary, so having him take over the department for whatever time is left in Trump's term seems the best available choice.
It is a measure of how chaotic and unsuccessful Trump's foreign policy is that we are talking about the possible nomination of a third Secretary of State in less than three years. Pompeo has outlasted many of his administration colleagues to become one of the longest-serving Cabinet officials under this president, and his tenure is not even two years old. It is no wonder that the list of likely replacements is so weak. Who would want to join a scandal-ridden administration with a failed foreign policy?
Pompeo's departure will be good news for the State Department, and the sooner it comes the better. There has rarely been a Secretary of State as dishonest and political as Pompeo, and his brief time running the department has been one of the low points in its history. Considering the damage that Pompeo has done along with the harm done by Tillerson, the next Secretary of State will have a lot of work to do to rebuild and not much time to do it in. Pompeo should clear the way for the next Secretary and resign as soon as possible.
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Dec 29, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
yaridanjo , 21 minutes ago link
Reality_checkers , 18 minutes ago linkCongress' constitutional duty is putting Israel first!
- House Dems Unanimously Vote to Condemn Withdrawal From Syria - Oct 16, 2019
In a Wednesday vote, the House overwhelmingly backed a resolution expressing opposition to the end of the US war in Syria, and calling on the US to protect the Syrian Kurds from Turkey. The vote was 354-60, with the majority of Republicans supporting it, and unanimous support from Democrats who cast votes .- Positions from Democrat leaders suggested an unconditional opposition to Trump ending any war and withdrawing any troops under any circumstances. They also objected to the notion that a president could end a war without their permission .
- Translation: 85.5% of the USA Congress opted to take 'bribes' from the Rothschild Banking Cartel instead of stopping the death and bloodshed in Syria. What is worse, they 'objected to the notion that a president could end a war without their permission (a war that they had not voted for to begin with).
H.J.Res. 77: Opposing The Decision To End Certain United States Efforts To Prevent Turkish Military Operations Against Syrian Kurdish Forces In Northeast Syria. - Oct 16, 2019
Yea 86% (354) Nay 14% (60)yaridanjo , 11 minutes ago linkMIGA!
You can find here who the warmongers in congress are:
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/116-2019/h560
the warmongers voted 'yea' to get their bribes from the Rothschild Banking Cartel!
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Dec 29, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com
The other possible replacements include Treasury Secretary Mnuchin, Deputy Secretary of State Biegun, U.S. ambassador to Germany Ric Grenell, Trump's Iran envoy Brian Hook, and two hard-liners from the Senate, Marco Rubio and Tom Cotton. Most of these names inspire some mixture of loathing and dread, and of the seven men being considered Biegun is the only one remotely qualified to take the job. Hook has disqualified himself , and he shouldn't even be working at the State Department right now much less running it. Grenell functions as little more than an international troll , and he has done a terrible job representing the U.S. in Berlin, so promoting him would be an equally terrible mistake.
Rubio and Cotton are fanatics with the most toxic foreign policy views, and they would also likely be very poor managers of the department. In that respect, they are very much like Pompeo. Mnuchin would likely have great difficulty getting confirmed, and replacing one sanctions-happy Secretary with the Treasury Secretary who has been enforcing those sanctions is no improvement at all. As for O'Brien, he was a bad choice for National Security Advisor , he has done nothing since he took over from Bolton to suggest otherwise, and so it makes absolutely no sense to promote him. Biegun clearly has the confidence of the Senate following his overwhelming confirmation vote to be Deputy Secretary, so having him take over the department for whatever time is left in Trump's term seems the best available choice.
It is a measure of how chaotic and unsuccessful Trump's foreign policy is that we are talking about the possible nomination of a third Secretary of State in less than three years. Pompeo has outlasted many of his administration colleagues to become one of the longest-serving Cabinet officials under this president, and his tenure is not even two years old. It is no wonder that the list of likely replacements is so weak. Who would want to join a scandal-ridden administration with a failed foreign policy?
Pompeo's departure will be good news for the State Department, and the sooner it comes the better. There has rarely been a Secretary of State as dishonest and political as Pompeo, and his brief time running the department has been one of the low points in its history. Considering the damage that Pompeo has done along with the harm done by Tillerson, the next Secretary of State will have a lot of work to do to rebuild and not much time to do it in. Pompeo should clear the way for the next Secretary and resign as soon as possible.
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Dec 28, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Senior OPCW Official Busted: Leaked Email Exposes Orders To "Delete All Traces" Of Dissent On Douma by Tyler Durden Sat, 12/28/2019 - 10:30 0 SHARES
Wikileaks has released their fourth set of leaks from the OPCW's Douma investigation, revealing new details about the alleged deletion of important information regarding the fact-finding mission.
RELEASE: OPCW-Douma Docs 4. Four leaked documents from the OPCW reveal that toxicologists ruled out deaths from chlorine exposure and a senior official ordered the deletion of the dissenting engineering report from OPCW's internal repository of documents. https://t.co/ndK4sRikNk
-- WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) December 27, 2019"One of the documents is an e-mail exchange dated 27 and 28 February between members of the fact finding mission (FFM) deployed to Douma and the senior officials of the OPCW. It includes an e-mail from Sebastien Braha, Chief of Cabinet at the OPCW , where he instructs that an engineering report from Ian Henderson should be removed from the secure registry of the organisation," WikiLeaks writes. Included in the email is the following directive:
" Please get this document out of DRA [Documents Registry Archive] And please remove all traces, if any, of its delivery/storage/whatever in DRA.'"
According to Wikileaks, the main finding of Henderson, who inspected the sites in Douma, was that two of the cylinders were most likely manually placed at the site, rather than dropped.
"The main finding of Henderson, who inspected the sites in Douma and two cylinders that were found on the site of the alleged attack, was that they were more likely manually placed there than dropped from a plane or helicopter from considerable heights. His findings were omitted from the official final OPCW report on the Douma incident," the Wikileaks report said.
It must be remembered that the U.S. launched an attack on Damascus, Syria on April 14, 2018 over alleged chemical weapons usage by pro-Assad forces at Douma.
AP file image.Another document released Friday is minutes from a meeting on 6 June 2018 where four staff members of the OPCW had discussions with "three Toxicologists/Clinical pharmacologists, one bioanalytical and toxicological chemist" (all specialists in chemical weapons, according to the minutes).
Minutes from an OPCW meeting with toxicologists specialized in chemical weapons: "the experts were conclusive in their statements that there was
-- WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) December 27, 2019
no correlation between symptoms and chlorine exposure". https://t.co/j5Jgjiz8UY pic.twitter.com/vgPaTtsdQNThe purpose of this meeting was two-fold. The first objective was "to solicit expert advice on the value of exhuming suspected victims of the alleged chemical attack in Douma on 7 April 2018". According to the minutes, the OPCW team was advised by the experts that there would be little use in conducting exhumations. The second point was "To elicit expert opinions from the forensic toxicologists regarding the observed and reported symptoms of the alleged victims."
More specifically, " whether the symptoms observed in victims were consistent with exposure to chlorine or other reactive chlorine gas."
According to the minutes leaked Friday: "With respect to the consistency of the observed and reported symptoms of the alleged victims with possible exposure to chlorine gas or similar, the experts were conclusive in their statements that there was no correlation between symptoms and chlorine exposure ."
The OPCW team members wrote that the key "take-away message" from the meeting was "that the symptoms observed were inconsistent with exposure to chlorine and no other obvious candidate chemical causing the symptoms could be identified".
* * *
See full details at Wikileaks.org
JohnFrodo , 28 minutes ago link
africoman , 38 minutes ago linkpity the human pawns at the center of this mess.
ponyboy99 , 40 minutes ago linkThere has been a Newsweek reporter who quite over editorial block of this OPCW case here also another interview by Grayzone
The isisrahell have such long hand to pull the plug any stories implicating their crime in progress otherwise they can put out some bs spins as bombshell reporting about US lies in Afghanistan war on their wapo for public for those who read it was nothing important revealed except being a misdirected na
ponyboy99 , 47 minutes ago linkIf you want to pay off that student loan you're going to print what they tell you to print. You're going to inject kids with what they tell you to inject them with. You're going to think what they tell you to think or you're going to spend your days in a Prole bar drinking Blatz.
Ace006 , 57 minutes ago linkIf you go thru life assuming every single thing is a farce and a lie (Roddy Piper) these events can not only be explained, they can be predicted.
Weihan , 58 minutes ago linkSOMEbody's got to ensure the intergrity of the Documents Registry Archive
Nothing , 1 hour ago linkThe globalist deep-state's reach is legendary.
Greed is King , 36 minutes ago linkyes, an attack was launched, 50 missiles I believe, after loud warnings that it was coming, and none of them actually hit anything significant ... this is the way the game is played .... the good news is that the missiles cost $50 million, and now they will have to be replaced, by the Pentagon, first borrowing the money through the US Treasury offerings, and then paying for them from new money printed by the Federal Reserve. capische?
africoman , 16 minutes ago linkThat`s the way it`s always been, it`s the eternal war of good against evil.
And when one evil enemy is defeated, it`s necessary to create a new evil enemy, how else can the Establishment Elite make money from war, death and destruction.
Thordoom , 1 hour ago linkIt's really very awkward & telling how ***** these bunch of western nations are looking tough on taking out poor defenceless country like Syria on ******** & at the satried to ease real kickass Russian as you described when they launch the attacks
I kind wish the US & their Zionist clown launch such huge attacks on Iran based on false flag
I really wanted these evil aggressive powers to taste what it is like to get bombed back even one they used to throw on multiple weaker nations freely with nothing to fear as retribution etc
DCFusor , 1 hour ago linkThis organisations are all set up in Europe and US run by the filthiest filth on earth who still think they have God given right to imperial rule over the world.
British elite is the worst of all.
St. TwinkleToes , 1 hour ago linkYour military-industrial-intelligence complex at work, creating justification for more funding, like always - and who cares if people die as a result? Like Soros said, if they didn't do it, someone else would. (do I need /sarc?).
They don't like to be shown to be in charge, just to be in charge. And if you think this is a function of the current admin, you've been slow in the head and deaf and blind for quite some time.
I've watched since Eisenhower, and "it's always something". Doesn't matter what color the clown in chief's tie is.
veritas semper vinces , 2 hours ago linkImagine millions of government employees paid for by America's tax payer class, involved in covert operations undermining nation states for the benefit of war mongering shadow overlords counting on more never ending chaos feeding their hunger for power.
This isn't Orwell's 1984, this Team America on opioids.
holgerdanske , 1 hour ago linkSenior OPCW official had orders from US/ the Donald. Remember that the Donald bombed Syria based on this fake report , after a false flag done by Al Qaeda's artistic branch, the White Helmets.
lwilland1012 , 3 hours ago linkIt was May that insisted on this attack. Remember the "poison" attack and the evil Russians?
ken , 1 hour ago linkPray, do tell where are the consequences for these literal demons that engaged in war crimes? It is quite clear: as long as you are a member of the establishment, you can do whatever the f*ck you want. Why do we even follow the law, then? Given the precedent that is being set, we might as well not have any.
WorkingClassMan , 3 hours ago linkWell, they are looking forward to using all those Israeli weapons, er, uh, products, that local law enforcement has purchased...so watch out for Co-Intel Pro elicitation going forward....?
turkey george palmer , 3 hours ago linkEverybody knows the Golem (USA) does Isn'treal's bidding in Syria and elsewhere in the Near East. Hopefully they keep hammering in the fact that this "gas attack" was an obvious set-up to use as a pretext (flimsy itself on the face of it) to brutalize Assad and Syria on behalf of Isn'treal.
The whole thing is built on ******* lies. Worst part about it is, nothing will happen.
adonisdemilo , 3 hours ago linkOnly official news is to believed. You see it and it is a lie. they tell you to believe it. A lot of people casually believe whatever is spoken on TV. They become teachers and are taught in college what is right and wrong. We only have a few years before all the brain dead are in charge and robotically following the message like zombies with no brain
johnnycanuck , 3 hours ago linkThird rate script, third rate actors and crooked investigators. TPTB seem to have a plan worked out. Their problem now is that we, the hoi-polloi, have seen it all before, many times, and we can now recognise ******** when it's used to try to influence us.
5fingerdiscount , 3 hours ago linkIt is difficult to underestimate the seriousness of this manipulative act by the OPCW. In a response to the conservative author Peter Hitchens, who also writes for the Mail on Sunday – he is of course the brother of the late Christopher Hitchens – the OPCW admits that its so-called technical secretariat "is conducting an internal investigation about the unauthorised [sic] release of the document".
Then it adds: "At this time, there is no further public information on this matter and the OPCW is unable to accommodate [sic] requests for interviews". It's a tactic that until now seems to have worked: not a single news media which reported the OPCW's official conclusions has followed up the story of the report which the OPCW suppressed.
And you bet the OPCW is not going to "accommodate" interviews. For here is an institution investigating a war crime in a conflict which has cost hundreds of thousands of lives – yet its only response to an enquiry about the engineers' "secret" assessment is to concentrate on its own witch-hunt for the source of the document it wished to keep secret from the world.
If this is not lamentable enough, the OPCW – whose final report came to more than a hundred pages and which even issued an easy-to-read precis version for journalists – now slams shut its steel doors in the hope of preventing even more information reaching the press.
Helg Saracen , 3 hours ago linkInstead of these pieces concentrating on the whistleblower how about putting a little heat on the 50 lying bastards who initiated the coverup?
carbonmutant , 4 hours ago linkThe destruction of the countries of the Middle East for the sake of a dwarf with giant ambitions is the most stupid thing the United States has done over the past 30 years in its foreign policy. And yes, all the wars in the Middle East were grounded in lies. And the Americans paid for it all from start to finish. When Americans realize that they need to defend their national interests, and not other people's national interests, maybe something in the Middle East will change for the better. True, I am afraid that with the hight level of stupidity and shortsightedness that is common among Americans, the United States is more likely to be destroyed faster. No offense.
And I propose to remember the Syrian Christians who were destroyed by the Saudi Wahhabis, hired by the CIA with the money of American taxpayers and at the request of Israel. Until the Americans begin to investigate the activities of the CIA (and this activity causes the United States only harm), the responsibility for this genocide (you heard right) will be on the American nation. It turns out that in the Middle East you are primarily destroying Christians. How interesting, why such zeal.
dogbert8 , 4 hours ago linkYou gotta wonder how much the deep state has deleted about their interference in Trump's administration...
Joiningupthedots , 4 hours ago linkPretty much everyone with a brain realizes this all was a lie; only the M5M and the DC swamp continue to pretend it wasn't.
ClickNLook , 3 hours ago linkWho really made the order though?
Condor_0000 , 4 hours ago linkSebastien Braha, Chief of Cabinet at the OPCW needs to be interrogated to find out.
Newsweek Reporter Quits After Editors Block Coverage of OPCW Syria Scandal
Aaron Mate
According to whistleblower testimony and leaked documents, OPCW officials raised alarm about the suppression of critical findings that undermine the allegation that the Syrian government committed a chemical weapons attack in the city of Douma in April 2018. Haddad's editors at Newsweek rejected his attempts to cover the story. "If I don't find another position in journalism because of this, I'm perfectly happy to accept that consequence," Haddad says. "It's not desirable. But there is no way I could have continued in that job knowing that I couldn't report something like this."
New leaks continue to expose a cover-up by the OPCW – the world's top chemical weapons watchdog – over a critical event in Syria. Documents, emails, and testimony from OPCW officials have raised major doubts about the allegation that the Syrian government committed a chemical weapons attack in the city of Douma in April 2018. The leaked OPCW information has been released in pieces by Wikileaks. The latest documents contain a number of significant revelations – including that that about 20 OPCW officials voiced concerns that their scientific findings and on-the-ground evidence was suppressed and excluded.
This is, without a doubt, a major global scandal: the OPCW, under reported US pressure, suppressing vital evidence about allegations of chemical weapons. But that very fact exposes another global scandal: with the exception of small outlets like The Grayzone, the mass media has widely ignored or whitewashed this story. And this widespread censorship of the OPCW scandal has just led one journalist to resign. Up until recently, Tareq Haddad was a reporter at Newsweek. But in early December, Tareq announced that he had quit his position after Newsweek refused to publish his story about the OPCW cover up over Syria.
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Dec 25, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com
Moscow Exile December 24, 2019 at 1:20 am
S&P Global Platts does not seem to be in the same jubilatory mood as is the troll in his belief that Nord Stream 2 has been well and truly fucked by the mighty Empire:Nord Stream 2 pipelayer Allseas suspends operations on US sanctions
The move by Allseas will certainly mean new delays to the completion of the 55 Bcm/year pipeline, which had originally been scheduled to start operations at the end of 2019.
Delays to the completion of the pipeline?
Delays????
Are you serious Platts?
The Empire has once again been victorious against the doltish Mongol-Tatar subhumans, who have no technology, no wits, no gumption no nothing , when faced with the awesome might of the Exceptional Nation.
Nord Stream – 2 is totally fucked, I tell ya!
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thern Star December 24, 2019 at 12:02 pm https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-50902496Dec 25, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com
Patient Observer December 24, 2019 at 1:03 pm
A remarkably disingenuous article I would say. Russia sanctioned and sanctioned again with threats of being kicked out of SWIFT and isolated in every way takes minimal precautions against an internet collapse and is criticized. For example, DNS resolution function which I believe resides in various western countries could be denied rendering much of the Russian internet useless.https://myopswork.com/how-does-my-browser-find-the-right-website-8b156037c3eb
US cellphones and computer OS have more back doors than a bordello and Russia is criticized for developing their own OS.
Mr. Putin – Build the Wall!
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Dec 24, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Authored by Pepe Escobar via ConsortiumNews.com,O nce in a blue moon an indispensable book comes out making a clear case for sanity in what is now a post-MAD world. That's the responsibility carried by " The (Real) Revolution in Military Affairs ," by Andrei Martyanov (Clarity Press), arguably the most important book of 2019.
Martyanov is the total package -- and he comes with extra special attributes as a top-flight Russian military analyst, born in Baku in those Back in the U.S.S.R. days, living and working in the U.S., and writing and blogging in English.
Right from the start, Martyanov wastes no time destroying not only Fukuyama's and Huntington's ravings but especially Graham Allison's childish and meaningless Thucydides Trap argument -- as if the power equation between the U.S. and China in the 21stcentury could be easily interpreted in parallel to Athens and Sparta slouching towards the Peloponnesian War over 2,400 years ago. What next? Xi Jinping as the new Genghis Khan?
(By the way, the best current essay on Thucydides is in Italian, by Luciano Canfora (" Tucidide: La Menzogna, La Colpa, L'Esilio" ). No Trap. Martyanov visibly relishes defining the Trap as a "figment of the imagination" of people who "have a very vague understanding of real warfare in the 21st century." No wonder Xi explicitly said the Trap does not exist.)
Martyanov had already detailed in his splendid, previous book, "Losing Military Supremacy: The Myopia of American Strategic Planning," how "American lack of historic experience with continental warfare" ended up "planting the seeds of the ultimate destruction of the American military mythology of the 20thand 21stcenturies which is foundational to the American decline, due to hubris and detachment of reality." Throughout the book, he unceasingly provides solid evidence about the kind of lethality waiting for U.S. forces in a possible, future war against real armies (not the Taliban or Saddam Hussein's), air forces, air defenses and naval power.
Do the MathOne of the key takeaways is the failure of U.S. mathematical models: and readers of the book do need to digest quite a few mathematical equations. The key point is that this failure led the U.S. "on a continuous downward spiral of diminishing military capabilities against the nation [Russia] she thought she defeated in the Cold War."
In the U.S., Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) was introduced by the late Andrew Marshall, a.k.a. Yoda, the former head of Net Assessment at the Pentagon and the de facto inventor of the "pivot to Asia" concept. Yet Martyanov tells us that RMA actually started as MTR (Military-Technological Revolution), introduced by Soviet military theoreticians back in the 1970s.
One of the staples of RMA concerns nations capable of producing land-attack cruise missiles, a.k.a. TLAMs. As it stands, only the U.S., Russia, China and France can do it. And there are only two global systems providing satellite guidance to cruise missiles: the American GPS and the Russian GLONASS. Neither China's BeiDou nor the European Galileo qualify – yet – as global GPS systems.
Then there's Net-Centric Warfare (NCW). The term itself was coined by the late Admiral Arthur Cebrowski in 1998 in an article he co-wrote with John Garstka's titled, "Network-Centric Warfare – Its Origin and Future."
Deploying his mathematical equations, Martyanov soon tells us that "the era of subsonic anti-shipping missiles is over." NATO, that brain-dead organism (copyright Emmanuel Macron) now has to face the supersonic Russian P-800 Onyx and the Kalibr-class M54 in a "highly hostile Electronic Warfare environment." Every developed modern military today applies Net-Centric Warfare (NCW), developed by the Pentagon in the 1990s.
Rendering of a future combat systems network. (soldiersmediacenter/Flickr, CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons)
Martyanov mentions in his new book something that I learned on my visit to Donbass in March 2015: how NCW principles, "based on Russia's C4ISR capabilities made available by the Russian military to numerically inferior armed forces of the Donbass Republics (LDNR), were used to devastating effect both at the battles of Ilovaisk and Debaltsevo, when attacking the cumbersome Soviet-era Ukrainian Armed Forces military."
No Escape From the KinzhalMartyanov provides ample information on Russia's latest missile – the hypersonic Mach-10 aero-ballistic Kinzhal, recently tested in the Arctic.
Crucially, as he explains, "no existing anti-missile defense in the U.S. Navy is capable of shooting [it] down even in the case of the detection of this missile." Kinzhal has a range of 2,000 km, which leaves its carriers, MiG-31K and TU-22M3M, "invulnerable to the only defense a U.S. Carrier Battle Group, a main pillar of U.S. naval power, can mount – carrier fighter aircraft." These fighters simply don't have the range.
The Kinzhal was one of the weapons announced by Russian President Vladimir Putin's game-changing March 1, 2018 speech at the Federal Assembly. That's the day, Martyanov stresses, when the real RMA arrived, and "changed completely the face of peer-peer warfare, competition and global power balance dramatically."
Top Pentagon officials such as General John Hyten, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs, have admitted on the record there are "no existing countermeasures" against, for instance, the hypersonic, Mach 27 glide vehicle Avangard (which renders anti-ballistic missile systems useless), telling the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee the only way out would be "a nuclear deterrent." There are also no existing counter-measures against anti-shipping missiles such as the Zircon and Kinzhal.
Any military analyst knows very well how the Kinzhal destroyed a land target the size of a Toyota Corolla in Syria after being launched 1,000 km away in adverse weather conditions. The corollary is the stuff of NATO nightmares: NATO's command and control installations in Europe are de facto indefensible.
Martyanov gets straight to the point: "The introduction of hypersonic weapons surely pours some serious cold water on the American obsession with securing the North American continent from retaliatory strikes."
Kh-47M2 Kinzhal; 2018 Moscow Victory Day Parade. (Kremilin via Wikimedia Commons)
Martyanov is thus unforgiving on U.S. policymakers who "lack the necessary tool-kit for grasping the unfolding geostrategic reality in which the real revolution in military affairs had dramatically downgraded the always inflated American military capabilities and continues to redefine U.S. geopolitical status away from its self-declared hegemony."
And it gets worse: "Such weapons ensure a guaranteed retaliation [Martyanov's italics] on the U.S. proper." Even the existing Russian nuclear deterrents – and to a lesser degree Chinese, as paraded recently -- "are capable of overcoming the existing U.S. anti-ballistic systems and destroying the United States," no matter what crude propaganda the Pentagon is peddling.
In February 2019, Moscow announced the completion of tests of a nuclear-powered engine for the Petrel cruise missile. This is a subsonic cruise missile with nuclear propulsion that can remain in air for quite a long time, covering intercontinental distances, and able to attack from the most unexpected directions. Martyanov mischievously characterizes the Petrel as "a vengeance weapon in case some among American decision-makers who may help precipitate a new world war might try to hide from the effects of what they have unleashed in the relative safety of the Southern Hemisphere."
Hybrid War Gone BerserkA section of the book expands on China's military progress, and the fruits of the Russia-China strategic partnership, such as Beijing buying $3 billion-worth of S-400 Triumph anti-aircraft missiles -- "ideally suited to deal with the exact type of strike assets the United States would use in case of a conventional conflict with China."
Beijing parade celebrating the 70th anniversary of the People's Republic, October 2019. (YouTube screenshot)
Because of the timing, the analysis does not even take into consideration the arsenal presented in early October at the Beijing parade celebrating the 70thanniversary of the People's Republic.
That includes, among other things, the "carrier-killer" DF-21D, designed to hit warships at sea at a range of up to 1,500 km; the intermediate range "Guam Killer" DF-26; the DF-17 hypersonic missile; and the long-range submarine-launched and ship-launched YJ-18A anti-ship cruise missiles. Not to mention the DF-41 ICBM – the backbone of China's nuclear deterrent, capable of reaching the U.S. mainland carrying multiple warheads.
Martyanov could not escape addressing the RAND Corporation, whose reason to exist is to relentlessly push for more money for the Pentagon – blaming Russia for "hybrid war" (an American invention) even as it moans about the U.S.'s incapacity of defeating Russia in each and every war game. RAND's war games pitting the U.S. and allies against Russia and China invariably ended in a "catastrophe" for the "finest fighting force in the world."
Martyanov also addresses the S-500s, capable of reaching AWACS planes and possibly even capable of intercepting hypersonic non-ballistic targets. The S-500 and its latest middle-range state of the art air-defense system S-350 Vityaz will be operational in 2020.
His key takeway: "There is no parity between Russia and the United States in such fields as air-defense, hypersonic weapons and, in general, missile development, to name just a few fields – the United States lags behind in these fields, not just in years but in generations [italics mine]."
All across the Global South, scores of nations are very much aware that the U.S. economic "order" – rather disorder – is on the brink of collapse. In contrast, a cooperative, connected, rule-based, foreign relations between sovereign nations model is being advanced in Eurasia – symbolized by the merging of the New Silk Roads, or Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU), the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the NDB (the BRICS bank).
The key guarantors of the new model are Russia and China. And Beijing and Moscow harbor no illusion whatsoever about the toxic dynamics in Washington. My recent conversations with top analysts in Kazakhstan last month and in Moscow last week once again stressed the futility of negotiating with people described – with overlapping shades of sarcasm – as exceptionalist fanatics. Russia, China and many corners of Eurasia have figured out there are no possible, meaningful deals with a nation bent on breaking every deal.
Indispensable? No: VulnerableMartyanov cannot but evoke Putin's speech to the Federal Assembly in February 2019, after the unilateral Washington abandonment of the INF treaty, clearing the way for U.S. deployment of intermediate and close range missiles stationed in Europe and pointed at Russia:
"Russia will be forced to create and deploy those types of weapons against those regions from where we will face a direct threat, but also against those regions hosting the centers where decisions are taken on using those missile systems threatening us."
Translation: American Invulnerability is over – for good.
In the short term, things can always get worse. At his traditional, year-end presser in Moscow, lasting almost four and a half hours, Putin stated that Russia is more than ready to "simply renew the existing New START agreement", which is bound to expire in early 2021: "They [the U.S.] can send us the agreement tomorrow, or we can sign and send it to Washington." And yet, "so far our proposals have been left unanswered. If the New START ceases to exist, nothing in the world will hold back an arms race. I believe this is bad."
"Bad" is quite the euphemism. Martyanov prefers to stress how "most of the American elites, at least for now, still reside in a state of Orwellian cognitive dissonance" even as the real RMA "blew the myth of American conventional invincibility out of the water."
Martyanov is one of the very few analysts – always from different parts of Eurasia -- who have warned about the danger of the U.S. "accidentally stumbling" into a war against Russia, China, or both which is impossible to be won conventionally, "let alone through the nightmare of a global nuclear catastrophe."
Is that enough to instill at least a modicum of sense into those who lord over that massive cash cow, the industrial-military-security complex? Don't count on it.
* * *
Pepe Escobar, a veteran Brazilian journalist, is the correspondent-at-large for Hong Kong-based Asia Times . His latest book is " 2030 ." Follow him on Facebook .
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Dec 25, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com
Jen December 23, 2019 at 8:12 pm
My hunch is that a lot of Pentagon defence spending already props up communities throughout the US. Private defence companies set up factories in towns that would otherwise be ghost towns to manufacture armaments or parts for planes or ships in programs funded by the US Department of Defense, in states across the country .Patient Observer December 23, 2019 at 9:50 pmPart of the reason is to lobby politicians representing the electorates where their factories are located for more Pentagon funding to finance more contracts. Politicians willingly support more defense funding because they know these companies provide jobs and keep unemployment down.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/ba63OVl1MHw?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent
The issue then is how to keep those jobs and keep those factories but change what engineers are designing and workers are making from machines of destruction into machines that sustain life and communities.
Yes, the absolute truth. Defense spending is spread over as many states and regions as possible to keep strong political support. It seems every month the state is sponsoring seminars aimed at educating small/medium manufacturers on how to bid on defense contracts. Even small mom-and-pop machine shops get their share of defense business. One small shop in our region makes compressor blades for cruise missiles. Every time the US fires off a barrage of missiles, they probably get an order; everybody is happy except those in the target area.yalensis December 24, 2019 at 4:33 amMany American communities also depend on the Military-Industrial Complex to educate their children. I personally know several families who had children enlist in the military in order to get a free college education; one that their families could otherwise not afford. The parents put their kids in the army and navy, and then just cross their fingers and hope they won't be deployed to a war zone.
The system is actually perfect. The odds of any one of these young people actually getting killed in a war, is actually quite low. The vast majority get a good education with lots of perks, all expenses paid including housing, they do their time, and never see a bullet. All at the taxpayers expense.
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Dec 25, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com
Northern Star December 23, 2019 at 5:19 pm
"Dan Crenshaw did not serve his country. Dan Crenshaw is not a hero. Dan Crenshaw participated in a military occupation that after 18 years and counting has claimed tens of thousands of lives for no benefit to any ordinary American at all. All he served during his time in that country was the geostrategic imperialist agendas of unaccountable government agencies and the profit margins of war plutocrats, yet upon returning home he's been able to convert his stint as a glorified hired thug into social collateral which got him elected to the US House of Representatives and secured him a punditry platform from which he can spout war propaganda. All because people agree to play along with the completely nonsensical narrative that US war veterans are heroes."Mark Chapman December 23, 2019 at 5:32 pm("glorified hired thug" LOL!!!)
"I'm not saying to be mean to veterans, and I'm not saying veterans are bad people, in fact, one of the most heinous injustices about these corporate wars is that they turn many of our finest and bravest young people toward the very most toxic and pernicious ends possible. Many of them sincerely enlisted due to an impulse to help make the world a better place; it's the same impulse which led Julian Assange to set up a leaking outlet to help expose unaccountable power structures, the only difference is that Assange saw clearly through the fog of propaganda and they did not. But the reverence and fairy tales have got to go.
There are no war heroes. There are only war victims. It's time to grow up and stop pretending otherwise."Damn!!!! Caitlin is Spot F'n On !!!
BTW Notice how these war 'heroes' seem to bear a striking family resemblance.
Who does that pix of Crenshaw bring to mind??? LOL!!! Weird huh!!!So we go to THEIR homeland as if they had come here to our homeland-which they haven't.
Maybe that's what Dan would have said if he were a straightforward truthful kinda guy which of course he isn't.
https://www.checkpointasia.net/stop-telling-veterans-that-they-are-heroes/
Be careful. Playing upon her military service is a big part of Tulsi Gabbard's gravitas and authenticity. It's quite true that she uses it to argue against regime-change wars, but a position that military records only mean you served as a dupe for war profiteers and enabled their plundering will not do her any good at all, and Caitlin has set it up so there is little wiggle room for intentions.
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Dec 25, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com
Moscow Exile December 24, 2019 at 1:20 am
S&P Global Platts does not seem to be in the same jubilatory mood as is the troll in his belief that Nord Stream 2 has been well and truly fucked by the mighty Empire:Nord Stream 2 pipelayer Allseas suspends operations on US sanctions
The move by Allseas will certainly mean new delays to the completion of the 55 Bcm/year pipeline, which had originally been scheduled to start operations at the end of 2019.
Delays to the completion of the pipeline?
Delays????
Are you serious Platts?
The Empire has once again been victorious against the doltish Mongol-Tatar subhumans, who have no technology, no wits, no gumption no nothing , when faced with the awesome might of the Exceptional Nation.
Nord Stream – 2 is totally fucked, I tell ya!
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Dec 25, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com
Northern Star December 24, 2019 at 2:01 am
No video games hereMore USAAF Eighth Air Force men were killed over Europe than the total number of USMC men killed in the Pacific.
The footage is grim. Particularly the concluding encounter between a Bf-110 and a B-17. The former was equipped with 20 or 30mm cannon besides machine guns. It would have been miraculous if that B-17 somehow made it back to England
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Dec 25, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com
Patient Observer December 24, 2019 at 4:41 am
Just a quick take, the separation of the Russian government/ruling elites from Russian culture suggests foreign influence as in Russia's elites looking to the West and aping Western ideas – think of Peter the Great or Gorbachev. That was a betrayal of Russian values and a historical mistake of immense proportions. Russia is learning to how to minimize the core values of the West – greed, deception and narcissism.yalensis December 24, 2019 at 10:44 amChina has done a better job than Russia in that regard but on the other hand it has a vastly different history and enjoyed more isolation from Western meddling if not outright invasions.
I would make a distinction here. Mastering Western technology is not necessarily the same thing as "aping Western ideas". Also would distinguish between Peter the Great who won some remarkable geopolitical victories for Russia (think Poltava); vs Gorbachov, who completely betrayed Russia. To the extent he even left Russia vulnerable to American nuclear attack for a window of 2 whole hours, or more.
As I showed in this old post .Gorby in phone conversation to George W. Bush Daddy:
"And now concerning Russia – this is the second most important theme of our conversations. In front of me, on the table, lies the Decree of the President of the USSR, concerning my resignation. I am hereby also relieving myself of the duties of the Commander-in-Chief and handing over my responsibilities for employing nuclear weapons , to the President of the Russian Federation. In other words, I continue to manage these affairs right up until the completion of the constitutional process. I can assure you, that everything is under strict control. The moment I announce my resignation, these orders will become effective. There will not be any kind of dispute about this. You can spend your Christmas evening in complete peace of mind."In other words, Gorby not only left the Soviet Union completely vulnerable to nuclear attack for a period of 2 hours or so; but even announced that fact to their greatest enemy. What kind of national leader does something like that? The only reason any Russians are even around today, is because George Bush Daddy was either too kind, or too dull-witted to take advantage of that once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
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Dec 25, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com
Northern Star December 24, 2019 at 5:20 pm
Cohen on impeachment
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Dec 25, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com
et Al December 24, 2019 at 2:35 am
Euractiv: How a EURACTIV journalist inadvertently coined the 'Worst Phrase of the Year' 2019Moscow Exile December 24, 2019 at 4:35 am
https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/news/how-a-euractiv-journalist-inadvertently-coined-the-worst-phrase-of-the-year-2019/It's official: "Freedom gas" is the Worst Phrase of the Year, according to the Plain English Foundation. But where does the expression come from? EURACTIV did not have to look far to get the answer
So where does the whole story come from?
On 1 May, EURACTIV's energy and climate reporter Frédéric Simon attended a briefing with US energy secretary Rick Perry in Brussels. He recalls the events below.
The four journalists in the room had spent about an hour asking Perry a basic question: why would Europeans choose to pay for expensive LNG imported from the US when they have access to cheap Russian gas?
"But my surprise soon turned to dismay when Perry suddenly took a grave face and started talking about the Normandy landings during WWII for which commemorations were planned days after."
Here's what Perry went on to say: Seventy-five years after liberating Europe from Nazi Germany occupation, "the United States is again delivering a form of freedom to the European continent," the US energy secretary told reporters that day.
"And rather than in the form of young American soldiers, it's in the form of liquefied natural gas," he added. "So yes, I think you may be correct in your observation," he said in reference to Fred's suggestion about 'Freedom gas' .
####Quite instructive about the mindset (f/king nuts) they are over in the States. They really do live in their own universe where no-one picks up their dogs' (and their own) crap. They neither notice the smell nor link to the slipperyness underfoot to their own actions. They don't care either.
They like to talk about the European "blood-debt" to the USA.I don't know what they think a large number of unfortunate young men were doing on Gold, Juno and Sword beaches in June, 1944, or indeed that there were such beaches. Even moreso, they are apparently unaware of the over 22 million Soviet citizens who died 1941-1945 during what is known as "The Great Patriotic War for the Fatherland, 1941-1945"..
The what???
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Dec 24, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com
Analysts have identified a way to increase the export of Gazprom to bypass the Ukraine The Eugal pipeline built to deliver gas from "Nord Stream-2 " to end users, will be operating in 2020, despite US sanctions. "Gazprom" will redirect gas to this pipeline from "Northern stream-1", experts say
The capacity of the Eugal onshore gas pipeline, built specifically for delivering gas from the Nord Stream-2 offshore gas pipeline to end users, may allow Gazprom to increase supplies to Europe bypassing the Ukraine, despite the fact that the United States has imposed sanctions against laying the Nord Stream-2 gas pipeline. , said experts interviewed by RBC.
The Gascade Gastransport operator, controlled by Gazprom and the German Wintershall Dea , will commission the first of two Eugal pipelines with a capacity of 30.9 billion cubic metres per year from January 1, 2020 (total pipe capacity should be 55 billion cubic metres), which will go from German Greifswald on the Baltic Sea to the south to the border with the Czech Republic, the Eugal press service said on December 20. And the next day it became known that the European pipe-laying company Allseas had suspended the construction of Nord Stream-2 (which should pump 55 billion cubic meters per year) in the Baltic Sea.
Eugal will lay another 36 billion cubic metre capacity OPAL landline, built to pump gas from the first Baltic gas pipeline of Gazprom and partners, Nord Stream-1, which achieved at full capacity 55 billion cubic metres per year back in October 2012. Since 2013, Gazprom could only use 50% of OPAL capacity because of restrictions, and in 2016, the company received permission to connect to 90% of the pipeline capacity. However, in September 2019, Gazprom was forced to reduce gas pumping through OPAL, and then through Nord Stream-1, because of a decision of the European Court of Justice, which, in lawsuit filed by Poland, limited supply by almost half – from 90 to 50% of capacity , or up to 18 billion cubic metres per year.
"The launch of Eugal will ensure a full load of Nord Stream-1. About 20 billion cubic metres of gas per year can be delivered via a new land gas pipeline, which volume was lost because of restrictions imposed as a result of Poland's victory in court", said Mikhail Korchemkin, director of East European Gas Analysis, to RBC. The remaining 17–20 billion cubic metre Gazprom can pump through a second branch from the offshore gas pipeline NEL , which runs only through Germany to the west of Greifswald, so Poland could not achieve restrictions on its capacity.
At the peak of capacity, OPAL pumped up to 103 million cubic metres of gas per day owing to a decision of the European Court to decrease transit to 50 million cubic metre. Last week, it fell to 12 million cubic metres per day. This is due to an increase of 115 million cubic metres per day in supplies to the NEL gas pipeline, as well as an increase in transit to Europe through the territory of the Ukraine, Korchemkin points out.
"Now most of the gas from Nord Stream-1, which continues to operate at its design capacity, is sent to the markets of northwestern Europe through NEL, that is, the limitation of the use of OPAL by the decision of the European Court has practically had no affect on the load of Nord Stream", added Deputy General Director of the National Energy Policy Fund, Alexey Grivach. According to him, after the introduction of Eugal, part of the gas can go to Central Europe through a new onshore gas pipeline, depending on the current market needs and the optimization of Gazprom's export portfolio.
Despite the impending U.S. sanctions, the possibility of using Eugal to pump Gazprom's gas was recognized in November by Arno Bux, chief commercial officer of gas transmission operator Fluxys, which is a minority shareholder in Gascade. According to him, since 2020, from 80 to 90% of the Eugal capacity has already been booked for 20 years at auctions. "Since the transportation facilities are reserved on a ship-or-pay basis (" transport or pay "), the potential delays of the Nord Stream-2 project do not affect Eugal's revenues", he told Interfax, noting that the flows from the gas pipeline Nord Stream 1 can be routed through Eugal.
"We cannot predict the volumes that will be transported through Eugal, because it depends on requests from transport customers", Gascade spokesman Georg Wustner told RBC on December 23, declining to specify whether gas supplies from Nord Stream-1 will begin on January 1 through a new onshore pipeline. A representative of Gazprom Export declined to comment; the press service of Nord Stream AG (operator of the Nord Stream-1 project) did not respond to a request from RBC.
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Dec 25, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com
Northern Star December 24, 2019 at 4:43 pm
An excellent show from last week. However still relevant with some reminders from the 80s that are quintessential irony. Sanchez's journalistic delivery is impressive.https://www.youtube.com/embed/6nSAhjsYx-w?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent
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Dec 25, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com
Mark Chapman December 23, 2019 at 5:11 pm
Rapoza's latest effort, for Forbes, is his review of the Russia/Ukraine gas deal that everyone is talking about. His take, in summary, is that Russia did not really have to give up very much, it would be to Ukraine's advantage to stop fucking around and concentrate now on the issues, that Ukraine dropped a very large amount in claims in return for not very much money (although he does not say how likely Ukraine would have been to win them in court, and my personal opinion is not very), that Nord Stream II will be completed with not a significant amount of delay, and that Russia can implement the same no-gas-through-Ukraine in five years if it does not like the way things are going.
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Dec 25, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com
Moscow Exile December 23, 2019 at 10:12 pm
I linked a Russian newspaper article above which analysed the deal and in which it was pointed out that the $3 billion that Gazprom coughed up is 1% of the annual turnover of that company. And another thing that the article pointed out was that the deal is between Gazprom and Naftogaz not Russia and the Ukraine. In return for that $3 billion, which will be pocketed by many Yukitard bastards, I am sure, Gazprom's never ending altercations with the Yukie gas outfit over compensation and claims and counter-claims have had a line drawn under them. I suppose that's really why the Porky bloc in the rada is taking action against the deal: they fear that their nice little earner is being stifled, in that penalties imposed by arbitration courts against Gazprom have seemingly ended.Moscow Exile December 23, 2019 at 10:40 pm$3 billion that Gazprom coughed up is 1% of the annual turnover of that company.No!
The source that I linked to previously: The Gas War Has Retreated, but the Most Interesting Thing Is Yet to Come .
To reiterate:
All talk about a Ukrainian victory or a Russian victory should be left to politicians for domestic consumption, although, to be fair, it is worth noting: Ukrainian functionaries immediately claimed it is a victory for Ukraine. This sounded against the background of the absence of fanfare in Russia, which, in the face of the most difficult negotiations, would be extremely inappropriate.
Why?
Because Gazprom is Gazprom, not Russia. Confusion in concepts is a very characteristic phenomenon for immature structures and individuals on both sides. So talk of Russia allegedly forgiving Ukraine $3 billion in credit has nothing to do with the topic at all. There is no word in the document about this, which is natural, because, I will repeat: Russia is not Gazprom.
However, the Naftogaz fanfare coming from Vitrenko's mouth is also understandable on the other hand: the [Naftogaz] board (8 people) will not have to return millions of dollars already distributed to their pockets as part of the prize according to the results of the Stockholm Arbitration. Moreover, now, if Gazprom pays the claim amount, the premium will increase significantly.
As for the amount Gazprom has pledged to pay – about $3 billion – it is less than 1% of the assets of the Russian gas giant (not to be confused with capitalisation). Few will notice this drop in the ocean. And for Naftogaz? In the absence of up-to-date information about the assets of this structure, I believe that the figure is comparable to all assets, especially since, according to the current reform, the Ukrainian gas transit system, the market value of which is no more than $1.5 billion (according to the Chairman of the Board Kobolev), leaves from under Naftogaz in general.
Conclusion: tactically Naftogaz and its board benefited from a contract with Gazprom. Strategically, as it seems, Gazprom at least did not lose, firstly, significantly reducing the term of the contract and the volume of pumping on the gas transit system of Ukraine, taking into account the forthcoming and inevitable implementation of "Nord Stream-2" and, secondly, leaving itself the right to disagree with transit tariffs, which remain the subject of negotiations
My stress.
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Dec 24, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com
Patient Observer December 23, 2019 at 10:54 am
Boeing's problems go far deeper than the CEO. The Boeing Starliner capsule test did not go well either. Time will tell.Mark Chapman December 23, 2019 at 12:47 pmLike Like
I agree; it's not Muilenberg's fault, or not entirely. But firing the CEO is about as far from American corporate tradition as you can get – it is much more customary to identify 'a few bad apples' from the lower echelons, fire them and announce the company has undergone a purge and is now 'all better'. And they had to have had it in for the engineers who shot off their mouths. 'They' being the investors and the board of Boeing. Letting Muilenberg take the fall might have something to do with his very early admission of company responsibility. Mind you, he was also the CEO when Boeing fought so hard against grounding the type, and only did it when pretty much everyone else had already done so for aircraft under their own control.
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Dec 24, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com
Lengthy But Martin and Low-key draw interesting parallels between the situations on both sides of the 'pond' as they call it. Apparently Pompeo stated that if Corbyn were to win, extraordinary measures would be taken to neutralize the problem. (Dallas option ??) This together with some in the military
warning a coup would result from a Corbyn win. Sound familiar? Did you know that it was not until 1928 that Brits who are not property could vote for members of Parliament!! I sure didn't realize that!!https://www.youtube.com/embed/2cdxjYW_g_E?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent
Moscow Exile December 23, 2019 at 12:43 pm
You mean British voters who were not owners of property were disenfranchised until 1928?Northern Star December 23, 2019 at 1:20 pmNot true! It was only women who had no property that were not allowed to vote until 1928, so no big deal!
In 1832, the Great Reform Act broadened the spectrum of voters to include the likes of landowners and shopkeepers as part of the property criteria. Householders paying more than £10 in annual rent were also given the vote.
The act still defined voters as 'male persons', however, and continued to exclude swathes of working class workers from elections. Subsequent reforms in 1867 and 1884 increased the electorate further with broader property and rental criteria. They also continued to make voting boundaries more fair, but failed to make any changes for women.
In February 1918, the Representation of the People Act made two major changes to voting criteria – it removed practically all property requirements for men over 21 and allowed women over 30 to vote. Property qualifications were kept in place when giving women over 30 the vote, however.
With Equal Franchise Act, 1928, women were at last given voting equality to men. In 1928, the Equal Franchise Act gave all women over 21 the right to vote, removing property requirements completely. Some 15 million women were eligible to vote in the following 1929 General Election.
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I stand corrected. But I nevertheless learned something!Mark Chapman December 23, 2019 at 5:11 pmRapoza's latest effort, for Forbes, is his review of the Russia/Ukraine gas deal that everyone is talking about. His take, in summary, is that Russia did not really have to give up very much, it would be to Ukraine's advantage to stop fucking around and concentrate now on the issues, that Ukraine dropped a very large amount in claims in return for not very much money (although he does not say how likely Ukraine would have been to win them in court, and my personal opinion is not very), that Nord Stream II will be completed with not a significant amount of delay, and that Russia can implement the same no-gas-through-Ukraine in five years if it does not like the way things are going.Patient Observer December 23, 2019 at 5:27 pmhttps://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2019/12/23/ukraine-and-russia-together-again/#48e1ac18376b
Riffing a bit on the theme that Russia did not really have to give up very much, he highlights an angle all other western coverage has missed; adding Ukraine's transit volumes to all other pipelines running flat out (which he says pipelines hardly ever do and cannot sustain for long periods) actually increases Russia's pipeline export capacity to 230 BcM. That seems like a lot, but Gazprom announces it expects to export 200 BcM to Europe in 2020. That's not far off. Groningen, the world's tenth-largest gas field, is shutting down production altogether in 2022, owing to the increased danger of earthquakes. Production from Groningen has already dropped from annual volumes of 42 BcM in 2014 to only 17 BcM today.
That could mean an additional annual export sale of 20 BcM for Gazprom if it plays its cards right, over and above the record volumes it expects to export this coming year. No wonder the US State Department is rattling Poroshenko's chain. Perhaps it is beginning to dawn on them what they actually achieved by pressuring Russia into a continued transit deal with Ukraine.
If ever there was the time for a good poker face, Mr. Putin, it's now. And start thinking seriously about your successor, because the expansion of Gazprom's export capacity is going to outlive the Putin presidency. The USA's efforts to put a stick through the spokes of a chosen successor will outstrip all its regime-change efforts to date, because if Russia gets what is essentially a younger Putin in charge, that's it.
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Too lazy to confirm but IIRC, the guaranteed minimum volume is 40 BcM of which Ukraine would typically consume 20 BcM leaving a net 20 BcM as transit gas. Russia only pays transit fees for the transit volume. Moreover, any gas entering the pipeline that does not make it out of the other end is automatically assumed to have been consumed by Ukraine putting an end to gas theft. This implies flow meters at each international crossing that will be used to enforce the foregoing agreement. To me, that is a big deal.Mark Chapman December 23, 2019 at 5:33 pmThe agreement does allow Ukraine to use reverse flow gas purchasing which may mean that gas Ukraine purchase from a 3rd country would including transit fees plus whatever profit the 3rd party wishes to make.
The above agreement also suggests the end of Ukraine's past shenanigans of blocking gas transit while blaming the Russians and pocketing billions of dollars of free gas.
The more we know about the deal, the better it sounds for Russia and Europe.
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Yes, that's correct; 65 BcM minimum the first year, followed by four years at 40 BcM minimums.Patient Observer December 23, 2019 at 5:33 pmLike Like
The Russia that will exist in 2024 when Putin retires ought to be richer, stronger and more secure than ever. Although that is good, it is also dangerous in that the temptation to take down one's guard and to trust the West could cloud good judgement.Jen December 23, 2019 at 8:12 pmOn the other hand, the US could be a true economic basket case by then greatly diminishing its ability to bully and coerce beyond its borders.
My hope is that the US can have a soft landing, learn to live within its means and redirect its defense spending to rebuilding the country.
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My hunch is that a lot of Pentagon defence spending already props up communities throughout the US. Private defence companies set up factories in towns that would otherwise be ghost towns to manufacture armaments or parts for planes or ships in programs funded by the US Department of Defense, in states across the country. Part of the reason is to lobby politicians representing the electorates where their factories are located for more Pentagon funding to finance more contracts. Politicians willingly support more defense funding because they know these companies provide jobs and keep unemployment down.Patient Observer December 23, 2019 at 9:50 pmhttps://www.youtube.com/embed/ba63OVl1MHw?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent
The issue then is how to keep those jobs and keep those factories but change what engineers are designing and workers are making from machines of destruction into machines that sustain life and communities.
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Yes, the absolute truth. Defense spending is spread over as many states and regions as possible to keep strong political support. It seems every month the state is sponsoring seminars aimed at educating small/medium manufacturers on how to bid on defense contracts. Even small mom-and-pop machine shops get their share of defense business. One small shop in our region makes compressor blades for cruise missiles. Every time the US fires off a barrage of missiles, they probably get an order; everybody is happy except those in the target area.Like Like
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Dec 21, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com
Mark Chapman December 21, 2019 at 8:12 pm
Pride goeth before a fall. Washington is proud of itself, but a day will come when it will count the cost, and mutter, "What the fuck was I thinking?" It was not ever going to actually interrupt, and then seize for itself, Russia's share of the European gas market – that was just another example of its addled belief in exceptionalism and its ability to overcome any and all limiting factors, including distance and capacity.Northern Star December 21, 2019 at 9:30 pmWhat it HAS done is reveal itself as a petulant global child who will break anything that does not please it, and therefore a dangerous and unpredictable business partner.
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Ummm MarkNorthern Star December 21, 2019 at 6:19 pm
You , other people (or nations) shouldn't think 'bad thoughts' about 'Murica!https://jimmydorecomedy.com/Moscow Exile December 22, 2019 at 1:40 amThus spake the official Washington arsehole in Germany:Moscow Exile December 22, 2019 at 2:02 amThe American Ambassador in Berlin Richard Grenell, about whom it has already been requested in Germany that he be recognized as persona non grata because of his repeated attacks against the German leadership, has said that the sanctions imposed by Washington against the pipeline "Nord Stream-2" had been introduced in the interests of the EU and many countries of Europe are grateful for them.
"Seriously: from 15 European countries, the European Commission and the European Parliament have all expressed their concerns about the project. We have long heard from our European partners that the United States should support their efforts. Therefore, sanctions represent a very Pro-European solution", said Grenell to the publication Bild am Sonntag . [A German arsewipe publication of the first magnitude -- ME]
According to him, European diplomats have allegedly already repeatedly expressed their gratitude for the measures taken by Washington.
Recall that the United States, which from time to time has opposed the emergence in Europe of a strong competitor for its gas, imposed sanctions against the pipelines "Nord Stream-2" and "Turkish Stream", requiring that the companies involved in their laying immediately stop construction. In response, the German government has said it "rejects such extraterritorial sanctions" directed "against German and European companies.
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Just found the RT take on the above:Northern Star December 22, 2019 at 3:44 amOh, really? US envoy to Germany says Nord Stream 2 sanctions 'EXTREMELY PRO-EUROPEAN' despite Berlin & EU criticism
22 Dec, 2019 07:31Seems like Grenell has his head so far up his own arse, or someone else's, that he has lost all sense of reality.
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Your link didn't seem to workNorthern Star December 22, 2019 at 3:50 amhttps://www.rt.com/news/476586-nordstream-germany-grenell-sanctions/
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LOL!Moscow Exile December 22, 2019 at 2:18 am
Same problem with my link!Like Like
About Russia's New Gas Transit Agreement with UkraineMoscow Exile December 22, 2019 at 7:31 am
December 21, 2019
Stalker ZoneJust two events that occurred during Saturday night have turned into one of the main news stories in recent months and years: Russia, the Ukraine and the European Commission signed a trilateral agreement on the transit of gas over the coming years from Russia to the EU via the Ukrainian GTS, and President Trump signed a law on the defence budget, in which US parliamentarians have written separate clauses concerning sanctions against companies involved in the construction of the pipeline "Nord stream – 2″Patient Observer December 22, 2019 at 2:27 pmIf anyone has forgotten, allow me to remind you that Vladimir Putin has never talked about the categorical refusal as regards the transit to Europe via the Ukraine of Russian gas. Always, he has only stressed that it is a question exclusively of a commercial nature, without any political overtones, and that such transit be carried out on favourable terms. Vice-Premier of the Russian government Dmitry Kozak has said about the new contract to be signed before the New Year that he parties had agreed on favourable terms. In addition to this, the Ukrainian side said that "Gazprom" had agreed to pay "Naftogaz" $3 billion, according to the decision of the Stockholm arbitration. So, can the Ukraine celebrate a "victory"?
So far, only Kiev has stated this figure of $3 billion. On the Russian side, there has been no confirmation of this yet, but even if the Kiev figure is correct, I do not see much reason to celebrate "victory", for if Russia has paid this money to the Ukraine ($2.6 billion + penalties), then the Ukraine is obliged to return $4.5 billion to Russia (3 billion Eurobonds + penalties). The balance is not in favour of Kiev. In addition, the Ukraine has pledged to stop all legal disputes on gas issues. Yes, in one case there is a dispute between economic entities, and in a second case there is a dispute about sovereign debt. However, since both Naftogaz and Gazprom are budget-forming state companies, to a certain extent this difference in debt statuses is leveled.
Now on transit. There is no denying that for Russia it is not only important but necessary to transit gas through the Ukraine at the moment, since under long-term contracts with Europe, Gazprom is obliged to supply the volumes of gas stipulated in them, regardless of the circumstances. Otherwise, the Russian company would have to pay heavy fines and penalties. By concluding the contract, Gazprom has once again proved its reliability as a supplier, which, by the way, was has already been emphasized by the European Commission following the negotiations.
The only thing currently known about the transit contract is that it has been concluded not for 10 years as Kiev had wanted, but for 5 years. Apparently, a longer term is not relevant, chiefly because of complete uncertainty about the future of the Ukraine -- by the way, in the next few days Kiev is likely to start an active struggle against the agreements already reached, and if something threatens them at the moment, it is only Ukrainian instability. According to data received from the Russian company, the volume of transit through the Ukraine next year will be about 65 billion cubic metres. This is certainly a very significant figure, but it is significantly less than the 90 billion cubic metres pumped through the Ukrainian GTS in 2017. In 2021-2024, the annual transit volume will drop to 40 billion cubic metres. This volume allows the Ukrainian GTS to operate at a plus rather than a minus, but Kiev will not receive any significant financial gain through it.
By the way, a certain demand for Ukrainian transit will remain after the Nord Stream-2 gas pipeline has reached its design capacity, as European gas demand grows annually and a number of fields operated in the EU countries are decommissioned in the coming years. As for NS-2 itself, by the time the sanctions are imposed, less than 50 kilometres will have been left on one pipeline and about 70 kilometres on the other. Even if the Swiss company gathers up its belongings, Russian pipe-laying ships will finish the job, and even though they lay pipes 3 times slower, they have absolute immunity from American sanctions. One of them is now located in the area of Indonesia, and the second pipe-laying ship, "Fortuna", which, by the way, has already participated in the implementation of "NS-2", is in a German port and is ready to start working within a few days. [My stress! See that Finnish troll? -- ME]
So, by and large, the question is only one of time. But in any case "SP-2" will be completed in terms of installation, testing and commissioning, and can be put into operation, at most, at the end of the first half of 2020.
I really really doubt that the US military will attack overtly or covertly. The US already announced that it will sanction other Russian energy projects if North Stream is placed in operation.Mark Chapman December 22, 2019 at 5:12 pmI don't imagine that will be necessary. Be pretty hard to argue then that they were not acting solely in their own interests, wouldn't it? It would make a hell of a thriller novel, though – the pipeline is on the seabed, so any American efforts to tamper with it would probably have to be from underwater. A submarine has no business being there, so its mission would have to be super-secret and plausibly deniable. And in that scenario, if it simply disappeared, the Americans would have to just proceed as if it never existed. There you go, Karl; a great book idea, you should write it. But I want 20%; 30% if I have to proofread it before publication to take out all the rhapsodizing about freedom and democracy, and rewrite the ending where the Americans blow up the pipeline and miraculously escape, sailing home to a ticker-tape parade and leaving Putin with angry tears running down his face.Moscow Exile December 22, 2019 at 11:49 amBulgaria is an instructive example here. Remember when it stopped South Stream in its tracks, and was the hero of America and the EU? And Bulgaria strutted and swaggered, and was pretty proud of itself while it waited for the rewards of its bravery. And then the USA built them a Middle School or a new fence or something, I forget, and there were lots of 'well done, old chap!' compliments, and and then that was it. Bulgaria did not become everyone's preferred business partner and the destination of enormous foreign investment. And then, gradually, everybody stopped talking about what a great and brave thing Bulgaria did, and it just sort of sat there with its mouth half-open, trying to take in how skillfully it had been creampied, and evidently all for nothing.
And eventually, Bulgaria repented, and went back to Russia and Putin, cap in hand. And Russia received it warmly, like a brother who fell in with a bad crowd but was not really, at heart, bad himself. It did not say that Bulgaria must prove itself by repudiating its former friends. It seemed willing to let bygones be just that.
It is not even too much of a stretch to imagine that might one day be Ukraine as well, although it certainly could not be under the current conditions. The nationalists would have to be purged, hard. And there would have to be a completely new political administration. But there's time, and lots of it. The west is not going to make a prosperous paradise of Ukraine, it is only interested in stripping it of anything of value, and in the meantime it will go down and down, because nobody wants to put any money into it. Except, ahem; Russia.
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And as predicted above:Mark Chapman December 22, 2019 at 6:47 pmby the way, in the next few days Kiev is likely to start an active struggle against the agreements already reached
Партия Порошенко инициирует санкции против поставок газа из России
22.12.2019 | 22:12Party Poroshenko initiates sanctions against the supply of gas from Russia
The faction of "European solidarity" in the Ukrainian Parliament initiates sanctions against the Russian gas supplies directly, reports RIA "Novosti".
As stated by the ex-President and leader of the faction of Petro Poroshenko, the political force will require the convening of the national security Council on this issue, and "implementation of sanctions" against the gas supplies from Russia
In the best interests of Banderastan?
Or of the Exceptional Nation?
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I thought Poroshenko was facing a corruption investigation. Shouldn't he be keeping his head down?Jen December 22, 2019 at 8:20 pmLike Like
The only place where Porky will keep his head down is in a trough full of truffles paid for by North American and European taxpayers through the IMF.yalensis December 23, 2019 at 4:05 amThe people who elected Zelensky expected him to put Porky behind bars. But, surprise surprise, Zel is a wimp who couldn't bring himself to buck his American overlords.karl1haushofer December 22, 2019 at 7:47 am
Said Overlords like Porky and want to keep him around, as the new leader of the Opps, with hope he gets back into power some day.
Porky is the Ukrainian version of Saakashvili, there is simply no getting rid of him!"German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz said Berlin "firmly rejects" U.S. sanctions but would not retaliate."Mark Chapman December 22, 2019 at 5:53 pmHow surprising.
What if Germany, angered by American high-handedness, decided to move away from the US dollar. Could that happen?Moscow Exile December 22, 2019 at 11:05 amIt could. Analysts caution that it would be unwise for Washington to laugh at efforts by nations to make themselves less dependent on the dollar, because it also makes those nations less susceptible to American sanctions. The world outside America is getting fed up with the USA's sanctions-happy punishments, which have mushroomed from 5 targeted countries at the start of the George W. Bush administration to 22 targeted countries at the end of 2018.
https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/28418/ofac-sanctions-and-the-new-dollar-diplomacy
One of the ways Russia has hardened its economy against American tampering is in increasing its use and accumulation of gold as a hedge, which is immune to 'freezing' by the USA, so long as the gold is held in Russian vaults. That's the key, and momentum is slowly gathering in other countries. Hungary repatriated all its gold from the Bank of England in October of this year, and increased its holdings tenfold as well. Romania has submitted a bill to parliament which mandates that only 5% of the country's gold can be stored abroad. Currently about 60% of its 103 tonnes is stored at the Bank of England. In 2017 Germany repatriated around $31 Billion worth of gold which had been stored in New York and Paris. This week, Poland and Slovakia called for a return of their gold, which is being held by, you guessed it, the Bank of England. The lesson of Venezuela's stolen gold was not lost on anyone, and the less foreign gold the Bank of England has in its vaults, the less useful it is to Washington and its 'freeze' orders.
http://news.goldseek.com/GoldSeek/1576513102.php
Germany was chafing at US bullying back in 2018, and talking up policies to pull away from the US dollar. Would this latest example of American meddling make them more, or less inclined to pursue financial policies which did not include the United States as a partner, do you think?
AKADEMIK CHERSKIYMoscow Exile December 22, 2019 at 9:00 pmOh look! Under Russian flag. So is the USN navy thinking of sinking it?
Position Received: 2019-12-22 18:31 UTC
10 minutes ago42.79881° / 132.8823°
Near Vladivostok
Incapable of laying 50 kms of pipeline?
The Gas War Has Retreated, but the Most Interesting Thing Is Yet to ComeMoscow Exile December 23, 2019 at 2:51 am
December 22, 2019
Stalker Zone"Russia" is weeeeeeeak!!!!
Meanwhilekarl1haushofer December 23, 2019 at 4:23 amNord Stream 2 will be operational in 2nd half of 2020 despite US sanctions setting project timing back – top German official
23 Dec, 2019 09:17 / Updated 1 hour agoMore potential trouble for NS2: https://www.spglobal.com/platts/en/market-insights/latest-news/natural-gas/122119-nord-stream-2-pipelayer-allseas-suspends-operations-on-us-sanctionskarl1haushofer December 23, 2019 at 4:27 am"According to S&P Global Platts Analytics, Nord Stream 2 would have to seek alternative vessels and contractors to complete the remaining section of pipe in Danish waters if the sanctions are enacted.
"While the most challenging parts of Nord Stream 2 have been laid in water depths of around 200 meters, the remaining section in Danish waters at 90 meters depth remains complicated," it said.
Russian companies operate capable offshore pipe-lay vessels, which have completed projects in challenging Arctic conditions, including the MRTS Defender, which worked on the offshore stretch of the Bovanenkovo-Ukhta pipeline.
Platts Analytics believes MRTS Fortuna could be used to complete Nord Stream 2, but is capable of laying just 1 km/d.
A further obstacle, according to Platts Analytics, is that the Danish permit application states that it is assumed that the vessels used to complete the Danish section will have dynamic positioning capabilities (such as those of the Allseas vessels) which are not present on MRTS Fortuna.
A Russian pipelaying vessel that already has dynamic positioning capabilities, Akademik Cherskiy, could be used, but it would take up to two months to arrive to Danish waters as it is currently stationed in Russia's Far East."
It is surprising that the Gazprom management didn't prepare for this situation! If this article is correct the only Russian vessel that can be used to finish the project is currently stationed in Vladivostok, and it will take about two months for it to arrive to Danish waters.Mark Chapman December 23, 2019 at 4:42 amThe sanction threat has been looming for months, but it seems that Gazprom did not prepare for it in any meaningful way.
I would be pleasantly surprised if this project is finished in 2020.
Karl, this is no attitude for the Christmas season – don't be so dour and pessimistic. It takes two years to build a specialized ship, at a minimum, and that's just a regular design like an LNG tanker – should Gazprom have built two or three, only to have the Americans laugh and not impose sanctions? Then you would have chuckled ruefully over how foolish Gazprom was to waste its money; there's no pleasing you. Only two days ago you were moaning over how the entirety of the funds spent so far would be wasted; the pipeline could not be completed, America is just too strong. You can go back and look. Now it looks as if it can be completed, just the remainder will be done at about a third the speed it could have been. But the money which would have gone to Allseas will be saved, and really there's no hurry now; they have 5 years if they need it. In 2 months the worst of the winter weather should be over, and any further slowdowns between now and completion can be blamed on the Americans, whose fault of course it is. It would have been done now but for American pressure on Denmark to hold out.Trond December 23, 2019 at 10:46 amI wouldn't say it couldn't have turned out better, but all things considered the results are not that bad for Russia and not very good for the USA, which has incurred a lot of resentment and ill-will in exchange for really nothing. It is not going to stop the pipeline from completing, but it has made a lot of enemies, and even the Poles have stopped yapping and do not appear to be celebrating too loudly, lest they anger other Europeans.
""While the most challenging parts of Nord Stream 2 have been laid in water depths of around 200 meters, the remaining section in Danish waters at 90 meters depth remains complicated," it said."Mark Chapman December 23, 2019 at 2:31 pmNorwegian divers welded pipelines at 900 meters depth (And, yes they had some problems).
90 meters is now a problem?
Let me guess – the United States has threatened to confiscate the assets in the USA of any company which sells dynamic-positioning systems to the Soviets (oops! I mean the Russians!), and so now they will have to develop the technology themselves. Why not just threaten to slap sanctions on anyone giving 'aid and comfort' to the Russians? I mean, they're the enemy, right? Right?? So nobody sell them boots or warm clothes, or anything. See how they like laying pipe in their skivvies, barefoot.Moscow Exile December 23, 2019 at 4:27 amSay, I'll bet that attitude is good for market share for the remaining American businesses still operating in Russia. And speaking of that, here's another example – gosh, there are so many – of America's love affair with sanctions; CAATSA, the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act. According to an analyst at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, it's a failure , because it did not prevent Turkey from buying the S-400 system from Russia when they were supposed to buy the Patriot from the USA, or prevent Egypt from buying the Sukhoi S-35 from Russia when they were meant to buy the F-35. Oh, but they were frustrated in that because Israel did not want them to have it. Washington never misses an opportunity to show Israel it still loves it despite all the actions Israel makes it take against its own best interests.
"Egypt turned to Moscow for the Su-35 aircraft after being frustrated in repeated attempts to get a foothold in the F-35 program, a move closely watched in Israel, which remains the only country in the region to receive the fifth-generation aircraft."
America threatened Egypt with – you guessed it – sanctions if it continued with plans to buy Russian fighters worth $2 Billion in sales, but Egypt basically ignored them, only not laughing because it would be impolite to laugh.
"The Egyptian leadership views the US threats as not credible, based on a long history of Egyptian/US relations where the US has made threats and even withheld assistance, but in the end has always capitulated," said Andrew Miller, who was director for Egypt and Israel military issues in the Obama administration's National Security Council."
Egypt also bought the two MISTRAL class light assault carriers that Washington made France cancel the sale of when Russia had already paid a security deposit, which had to be returned. Egypt quickly purchased helicopters from Russia to outfit its new ships.
In fact, America seems to be losing its grip on the Middle East and Africa. And its newly-discovered and somewhat childlike faith in sanctions as a cure-all is ruining its traditional alliances and eroding its global reach. Much less-powerful countries now routinely ignore its threats to impose sanctions and more sanctions. The fewer foreign businesses interested in locating significant assets in the United States – so as to prevent their being seized in a fit of pique – the less influence Washington can bring to bear through sanctions. Its most loyal toady, the UK, will soon no longer be a part of the EU, while nations jostle one another in eagerness to get their gold back from the Bank of England where the United States cannot slap a 'hold' order on it through its devoted proxies.
Russian dolts just don't have the technology, isn't that right ?Cortes December 23, 2019 at 5:51 amFrom the Finnish naysayer:
In retrospect the biggest mistake Russia did was to start the Nord Stream 2 project without possessing the technology to complete the project and relying on the Western technology. This made Nord Stream 2 and Russia vulnerable for the sanctions and this vulnerability was exploited.
Will Russia learn and not start any major project in the future without having the means to complete the project itself without relying on the West? I doubt it.
Russia has ships to complete Nord Stream 2 pipeline without European help
23 Dec, 2019 11:27 / Updated 41 minutes agoYes, they hired the biggest and probably best pipelayer to do the job: who could blame them for that?
But they dropped a right bollock in choosing such shit, lily-livered firm ashas Allseas turned out to be.
Who in their right minds would hire Allseas now?
Like Like
As mentioned earlier, commercial contracts normally include provisions for frustration – supervening illegality can prevent performance of obligations contracted under different circumstances and no one would expect a company to commit suicide. It's just a business problem. But a business problem which, as Mark states, leaves the instigator – the USA – diminished by its own actions.Patient Observer December 23, 2019 at 6:18 amEvery contract has Force Majeure provisions to address factors beyond the control of the supplier. The list includes of acts of God (weather, for example), civil unrest, labor disputes, etc. "US sanctions" need to be added.Northern Star December 23, 2019 at 5:38 amAccording to ME they were within 50 kilometers of landfall. According to Karl the replacement vessel can lay pipe at a 1km/day rate. The resulting calculation isn't rocket science mathematics. Ribbons will be cut and valves will be turned on in a few months to the clink of vodka and champagne glasses.Northern Star December 23, 2019 at 5:54 amPeskov did not say a fuckin' thing about "hope" that the pipeline will be completed. He stated that the sanctions will NOT work to bring about substantial delay.Moscow Exile December 23, 2019 at 6:17 amhttps://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-russia-nord-stream-kremlin-idUSKBN1YR0RU
Two pipelines are being laid in parallel. One line , if I rightly recall, has 50 kms left to be laid, the other 75 kms. The Russian pipelayers, again if I rightly recall, lay at one third of the speed as did the Allseas vessel. The Russians are also aware of the geopositioning requirement that the Danes may impose. Only one Russian pipelayer, the one at present in the Far East, has this capability. from hereMoscow Exile December 23, 2019 at 12:11 pm"Pioneering Spirit" and" Solitaire" crossed the border of Swedish and Danish waters on 27 and 28 November, respectively, since which time the former has covered 89 km, the latter -- a little less than 70 km, i.e. they move at a speed of 3.5–4.5 km per day. This means that they should be able to complete the construction within a month. But maintaining this momentum depends on the weather conditions.
There was only 1 month's worth of laying left when Allseas fucked off.
The Russians are seemingly, from the troll's point of view, faced with such insurmountable odds that he is coming in his pants. They'll never finish the job.
Like when they said they would never finish that bridge, across the petersburg-Simferopol train crosses for the first time this coming Christmas Day?
From same source as above, namely Moskovskiy Komsomolets :According to a representative of one of the contractors involved in the creation of the offshore section of "Nord Stream – 2", Gazprom began to insure against sanctions against companies involved in laying the pipeline in October. The Fortuna pipe-laying barge, built in 2010 at a Russian shipyard and later upgraded at Chinese shipyards, has been used. This vessel has been based for about two months in the German port of Mukran, where the pipes required for the gas pipeline construction are shipped.
According to an MK interlocutor who wished to remain anonymous, despite the fact that Fortuna is the most powerful domestic vessel in its class, it is unlikely that it can fully replace Allseas pipelayers. "Fortuna" is able to do such works, but the speed of the project will be slowed down. "Fortuna specializes in laying infield and linear pipelines on land, while Gazprom charters vessels with foreign registration for offshore sections.
At the same time, Fortuna has experience working in deep water areas. As part of the Sakhalin-3 project, the barge was deploying an underwater production facility in the Kirinskoye field at a depth of 100 meters. The depth of the sea in the Danish section of the NS-2, which remains to be completed by Gazprom, does not exceed this mark, while Fortuna has a depth limit of 200 meters", explains the MK interlocutor.
Yeah, according to the Troll:
it is surprising that the Gazprom management didn't prepare for this situation! If this article is correct the only Russian vessel that can be used to finish the project is currently stationed in Vladivostok, and it will take about two months for it to arrive to Danish waters.
The sanction threat has been looming for months, but it seems that Gazprom did not prepare for it in any meaningful way.
I would be pleasantly surprised if this project is finished in 2020.
For "pleasantly surprised" above, read: "bitterly disappointed".
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May 21, 2015 | The Unz Review
Currently the United States is assisting Ukraine against Russia by providing some non-lethal military equipment as well as limited training for Kiev's army. It has balked at getting more involved in the conflict, rightly so. With that in mind, I had a meeting with a delegation of Ukrainian parliamentarians and government officials a couple of weeks ago. I tried to explain to them why many Americans are wary of helping them by providing lethal, potentially game changing military assistance in what Kiev sees as a struggle to regain control of Crimea and other parts of their country from militias that are clearly linked to Moscow. I argued that while Washington should be sympathetic to Ukraine's aspirations it has no actual horse in the race, that the imperative for bilateral relations with Russia, which is the only nation on earth that can attack and destroy the United States, is that they be stable and that all channels for communication remain open.I also observed that the negative perception of Washington-driven democracy promotion around the world has been in part shaped by the actual record on interventions since 2001, which has not been positive. Each exercise of the military option has wound up creating new problems, like the mistaken policies in Libya, Iraq and Syria, all of which have produced instability and a surge in terrorism. I noted that the U.S. does not need to bring about a new Cold War by trying to impose democratic norms in Eastern Europe but should instead be doing all in its power to encourage a reasonable rapprochement between Moscow and Kiev. Providing weapons or other military support to Ukraine would only cause the situation to escalate, leading to a new war by proxies in Eastern Europe that could rapidly spread to other regions.
The Ukrainians were not buying any of that. Their point of view is that Russia is seeking to revive the Soviet Union and will inevitably turn on the Baltic States and Poland, so it is necessary to stop evil dictator Vladimir Putin now. They inevitably produced the Hitler analogy, citing the example of 1938 and Munich as well as the subsequent partition of Poland in 1939 to make their case. When I asked what the United States would gain by intervening they responded that in return for military assistance, Washington will have a good and democratic friend in Ukraine which will serve as a bulwark against further Russian expansion.
I explained that Russia does not have the economic or military resources to dominate Eastern Europe and its ambitions appear to be limited to establishing a sphere of influence that includes "protection" for some adjacent areas that are traditionally Russian and inhabited by ethnic Russians. Crimea is, unfortunately, one such region that was actually directly governed by Moscow between 1783 and 1954 and it is also militarily vitally important to Moscow as it is the home of the Black Sea Fleet. I did not point that out to excuse Russian behavior but only to suggest that Moscow does have an argument to make, particularly as the United States has been meddling in Eastern Europe, including Ukraine where it has "invested" $5 billion, since the Clinton Administration.
I argued that if resurgent Russian nationalism actually endangered the United States there would be a case to be made for constricting Moscow by creating an alliance of neighbors that would be able to help contain any expansion, but even the hawks in the U.S. Congress are neither prepared nor able to demonstrate a genuine threat. Fear of the expansionistic Soviet Union after 1945 was indeed the original motivation for creating NATO. But the reality is that Russia is only dangerous if the U.S. succeeds in backing it into a corner where it will begin to consider the kind of disruption that was the norm during the Cold War or even some kind of nuclear response or demonstration. If one is focused on U.S. interests globally Russia has actually been a responsible player, helping in the Middle East and also against international terrorism.
So there was little to agree on apart from the fact that the Ukrainians have a right to have a government they choose for themselves and also to defend themselves. And we Americans have in the Ukrainians yet another potential client state that wants our help. In return we would have yet another dependency whose concerns have to be regarded when formulating our foreign policy. One can sympathize with the plight of the Ukrainians but it is not up to Washington to fix the world or to go around promoting democracy as a potential solution to pervasive regional political instability.
Obviously a discussion based on what are essentially conflicting interests will ultimately go nowhere and so it did in this case, but it did raise the issue of why Washington's relationship with Moscow is so troubled, particularly as it need not be so. Regarding Ukraine and associated issues, Washington's approach has been stick-and-carrot with the emphasis on the stick through the imposition of painful sanctions and meaningless though demeaning travel bans. I would think that reversing that formulation to emphasize rewards would actually work better as today's Russia is actually a relatively new nation in terms of its institutions and suffers from insecurity about its place in the world and the respect that it believes it is entitled to receive.
Russia recently celebrated the 70 th anniversary of the end of World War Two in Europe. The celebration was boycotted by the United States and by many Western European nations in protest over Russian interference in Ukraine. I don't know to what extent Obama has any knowledge of recent history, but the Russians were the ones who were most instrumental in the defeat of Nazi Germany, losing 27 million citizens in the process. It would have been respectful for President Obama or Secretary of State John Kerry to travel to Moscow for the commemoration and it would likely have produced a positive result both for Ukraine and also to mitigate the concern that a new Cold War might be developing. But Obama chose to stay home as punishment for Putin, which I think was a bad choice suggesting that he is being strongly influenced by Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and the other neocons who seem to have retained considerable power in his administration.
And I also would note a couple of other bad choices made during the past several weeks. The Trans-Pacific multilateral trade agreement that is currently working its way through Congress and is being aggressively promoted by the White House might be great for business though it may or may not be good for the American worker, which, based on previous agreements, is a reasonable concern. But what really disturbs me is the Obama explanation of why the pact is important. Obama told a crowd gathered outside the Nike footwear company in Oregon that the deal is necessary because "if we don't write the rules, China will "
Fear of the Yellow Peril might indeed be legitimate but it would be difficult to make the case that an internally troubled China is seeking to dominate the Pacific. If it attempts to do so, it would face strong resistance from the Japanese, Vietnamese, Filipinos and Koreans among others. But what is bothersome to me and probably also to many in the Asian audience is that Obama takes as a given that he will be able to "write the rules." This is American hubris writ large and I am certain that many who are thereby designated to follow Washington's lead are as offended by it as I am. Bad move Barack.
And finally there is Iran as an alleged state sponsor of terrorism. President Obama claims that he is working hard to achieve a peaceful settlement of the alleged threat posed by Iran's nuclear program. But if that is so why does he throw obstacles irrelevant to an agreement out to make the Iranian government more uncomfortable and therefore unwilling or unable to compromise? In an interview with Arabic newspaper Asharq al-Awsat Obama called Tehran a terrorism supporter, stating that "it [Iran] props up the Assad regime in Syria. It supports Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. It aids the Houthi rebels in Yemen so countries in the region are rights to be deeply concerned " I understand that the interview was designed to reassure America's friends in the Gulf that the United States shares their concerns and will continue to support them but the timing would appear to be particularly unfortunate.
The handling of Russia, China and Iran all exemplify the essential dysfunction in American foreign policy. The United States should have a mutually respectful relationship with Russia, ought to accept that China is an adversary but not necessarily an enemy unless we make it so and it should also finally realize that an agreement with Iran is within its grasp as long as Washington does not overreach. It is not clear that any of that is well understood and one has to wonder precisely what kind of advice Obama is receiving when fails to understand the importance of Russia, insists on "writing the rules" for Asia, and persists in throwing around the terrorist label. If the past fifteen years have taught us anything it is that the "Washington as the international arbiter model" is not working. Obama should wake up to that reality before Hillary Clinton or Jeb Bush arrives on the scene to make everything worse.
Tom Welsh, May 19, 2015 at 7:02 am GMT • 100 Words
All of this misses the point, IMHO. There is really no need to explain that Russia has no plans to conquer Europe, China has no plans to take over the Pacific, etc. Anyone with a little historical knowledge and some common sense can see that plainly. What is happening is that the USA has overweening aspirations to control (and then suck dry) the entire world – and Europe, Russia and China are next on its hit list.
So it naturally accuses those nations of aspiring to what it plans to do. Standard operating procedure.
The Priss Factor, May 19, 2015 at 7:19 am GMT • 100 Words
"The Ukrainians were not buying any of that. Their point of view is that Russia is seeking to revive the Soviet Union and will inevitably turn on the Baltic States and Poland, so it is necessary to stop evil dictator Vladimir Putin now."
I can understand Ukrainian animus against Russia due to history and ethnic tensions.
But that is ridiculous. They can't possibly believe it. I think they're repeating Neocon talking points to persuade American that the fate of the world is at stake.
It's really just a local affair.And Crimea would still belong to Ukraine if the crazies in Ukraine hadn't conspired with Neocons like Nuland to subvert and overthrow the regime.
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Dec 18, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com
Rather than drawing down, Trump has sent some 14,000 service members overseas to a region we can't seem to extricate from. ARABIAN GULF (Nov. 22, 2019) An F/A-18F Super Hornet attached to the "Jolly Rogers" of Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 103 launches from the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72). (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Jeremiah Bartelt/Released)
The Trump administration's national security strategy was supposed to refocus the U.S. military's efforts on great power threats from China and Russia. However, like the prior Obama administration's "pivot to Asia," the Trump policy has been shipwrecked on the ever-demanding shoals of the Middle East.
For example, sources at the Pentagon admit that despite Trump's national strategy and his pledge to terminate "endless wars" in the greater Middle East, General Mike Milley, his new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is emphasizing Iran and Syria . Furthermore, instead of drawing down American forces in the region, the administration has sent 14,000 more troops to the Persian Gulf since May, including more than 3,000 to Saudi Arabia . In addition, President Trump has twice ordered American forces to be withdrawn from Syria, only for that order to be first ignored by the military and then largely offset by the hasty infusion of heavier forces to "guard" Syrian oil. Such backsliding in the Middle East is due to the administration's hazy strategic focus.
The emphasis of Trump's national security strategy on the great powers is commendable. However, that priority has not been implemented on the ground. With a $23 trillion national debt, the United States can no longer afford to police the globe. It must choose to let regional allies take up the slack in certain areas. Trump's lack of experience in foreign policy, and the fact that our national security bureaucracies are still mired in Cold War thinking 30 years after the Berlin Wall fell, have led to muddled implementation of the strategy.
The president is naturally prone to wander away from his goals, with the "maximum pressure" campaign against Iran as a prime example. It is Trump's own fault that America's footprint hasn't yet been reduced in a region of lessening strategic importance. Iran is "acting up" largely because the U.S. welshed on a perfectly good international agreement that limited its ability to get a nuclear weapon. Instead of getting relief from international economic sanctions in return for limiting its nuclear program, Iran got a Trump-coerced "maximum pressure" campaign by international banks and businesses.
As a result, Iran has retaliated by capturing oil tankers and launching air attacks on Saudi oil fields, which has in turn led to a U.S. infusion of more troops into the Persian Gulf region. Domestic unrest in Iran, caused in part by increased U.S. economic pressure, may cause the Iranians to lash out even more against American allies there. In Syria, U.S. troops are ridiculously being used to guard a limited supply of Syrian oil from Russia forces and Iranian militias (not from ISIS, which would not require heavy American units).
If the Persian Gulf was ever strategic for the United States (a dubious proposition), that time has now passed. The fracking boom of hydrocarbon production in the United States has made America once again the world's largest petroleum producer, even further lessening the Middle East's importance. But what about the threat of terrorism -- that is, ISIS and al-Qaeda? Islamist fundamentalism has been around for centuries, but these two groups in particular were generated by the very American Middle Eastern interventionism that President Trump is supposed be reducing. When the United States legitimately draws down from this theater of lessening strategic value, those groups will be much less inclined to attack U.S. targets. However, current American policy inertia continues to mire us in the Greater Middle East -- in Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Chad, and Mali -- at the same time that we're jousting with Iran.
But the model for an American withdrawal from the region is not that of the faux pullback from Syria, which did little beyond endangering U.S. military personnel and pulling the rug out from under friends who had sacrificed greatly to help the United States battle ISIS. Friends and allies in the region must be given adequate warning of U.S. withdrawal and sold adequate weapons to defend themselves. A responsible reordering of our security priorities is desperately needed, given the huge national debt and a rising China, the latter of which may eventually pose a very real security problem.
Ivan Eland is a senior fellow at the Independent Institute and director of the Independent Institute's Center on Peace & Liberty. His new book, War and the Rogue Presidency: Restoring the Republic After Congressional Failure, was released in May 2019.
Israel's Janissaries, courtesy of the US taxpayer...interguru • 5 days agoLes Duffey • 3 days ago" pulling the rug out from under friends who had sacrificed greatly to help the United States battle ISIS."While I greatly appreciate the sacrifices the Kurds made battling ISIS, they did not do it to help us, but to save themselves. ISIS is only a distant threat, if at all, to the US, but a direct threat to the Kurds. They are in their neighborhood, not ours.
Israel seems to be the nation that dictates our foreign policy.paisley1943 • a day agoI'm not sure why anybody would have believed Trump when he said he would bring the troops home. He is a serial liar.
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Dec 23, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com
The President of the USofA has no power to turn this ship around. The seat of power is no longer residing in the hands of civilian/political actors prime ministers or presidents though they may be.
Candidate Trump indicated very early on that he intended to withdraw from Afghanistan. Unfortunately, he soon succumbed to his advisors and generals advice of increasing troop strength in 2017 as part of a surge strategy. This makes him no better or worse than his two predecessors who succumbed to the same kind of advice.However Trump has recently restarted negotiations with the Taliban and has renewed his pledged to remove several thousand troops. "We're going down to 8,600 [from the 12,000 and 13,000 US troops now there] and then we make a determination from there as to what happens," Trump told Fox last August. "We're bringing it down." Of course the drawdown will be seen by the neocons as a unilateral concession to the Taliban. That shouldn't phase Trump. I think he plans to reannounce this withdrawal next month. DoD officials have said that the smaller US military presence will be largely focused on counterterrorism operations against groups like al Qaeda and IS, and that the military's ability to train and advise local Afghan forces will be reduced considerably. Sounds like they're still looking for a reason to stay.
Trump can break the cycle. He holds no ideological conviction for staying in Afghanistan. If he could get over his BDS (Bezos derangement syndrome), he could seize this Washington Post series, or at least the SIGAR lessons learned reports, and trumpet them through his twitter feed and helicopter talks. I believe he alone can generate a public cry for getting the hell out of Afghanistan and carry through with that action no matter how much his generals scream about it. But without a loud public outcry, especially from his base, Trump has no incentive to break the cycle. So all you deplorables better start hootin' and hollerin'. Hopefully enough SJWs will join you to pump up the volume.
TTG
Mathias Alexander , 23 December 2019 at 04:37 AM
If someone wanted to destabilize China,Russia and Central Asia the parts of Afghanistan America controls might be usefull for that.JMH , 23 December 2019 at 07:11 AMExcellent, right up to the last sentence. SJWs are mere tools of people like George Soros and have zero anti-war agenda nor do they care about America's manufacturing base ect.. In fact, many are chomping at the bit to join, what was once termed in the SST comments, the LGBTQ-C4ISR sect. I refer you to mayor Pete's exchange with Tulsi on the matter; he even invoked our sacred honor as a reason to stay the course in Afghanistan.Eric Newhill -> The Twisted Genius ... , 23 December 2019 at 03:38 PMTTG,Serge , 23 December 2019 at 07:35 AM
It's a shrinking cohort. For some of these types, their TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome) is actually causing them to side with the CIA and military. Enemy of my enemy.....and since there's no draft, they have no skin in that game.For the past 2-3 years many generals and politicians have been using the threat of ISKP as the new bogeyman for staying in Afghanistan. This threat is not wholly unfounded, a disproportionately large number of US airstrikes since 2015-2016 have been against ISKP in Nangarhar(remember the MOAB?) rather than against the Taliban. If my memory serves me correctly ISKP was responsible for every single US casualty in 2016-2017. In the past two months however ISKP has been collapsing in its erstwhile stronghold of Nangarhar, surrendering to the ANA rather than fall into the hands of the Taliba,à la Jowzjan in summer 2018. I was very surprised by the number of foreign fighters and their families to come out of there. We have the Taliban to thank for these two collapses.turcopolier , 23 December 2019 at 11:59 AMTTGThe Twisted Genius -> turcopolier ... , 23 December 2019 at 01:40 PMIMO American "exceptionalism" doomed our effort in Afghanistan Very few of us are set up mentally to accept the notion that other peoples are legitimately different from us and that they don't want to be like us and do things our way. I attribute this deformation on our part to the puritan heritage that you much admire. In your case your recent immigrant past seems to have immunized you from this deformation. As SF men we rightly fear and dread the attitudes of The Big Army, but, truth be told, it is we who are the outlier freaks in the context of American culture with its steamroller approach to just about everything.
Ah yes, all that shining city on the hill stuff biting us in the ass once again. Like the Puritans, we seem to believe we alone are His chosen people and are utterly shocked that all others don't see this. In truth, Jesus probably sees our self righteous selves and our pilgrim forefathers much as he saw the Pharisees... a bunch of douche nozzles.
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Dec 23, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com
When Will the Afghan War Architects Be Held Accountable?
Even after the release of the Afghanistan Papers, our elites are still determined to escape without blame. CERNOBBIO, ITALY - SEPTEMBER 06: Chairman of the KKR Global Institute David Howell Petraeus attends the Ambrosetti International Economic Forum 2019 "Lo scenario dell'Economia e della Finanza" on September 6, 2019 in Cernobbio, Italy. (Photo by Pier Marco Tacca/Getty Images)
Almost two weeks after the Washington Post 's Craig Whitlock published his six-part series on the trials, tribulations, and blunders of Washington's 19-year-long social science experiment in Afghanistan, those involved in the war effort are desperately pointing fingers as to who is to blame. An alternative narrative has emerged among this crop of elite policymakers, military officers, and advisers that while American policy in Afghanistan has been horrible, the people responsible for it really did believe it would all work out in the end. Call it the "we were stupid" defense.There were no lies or myths propagated by senior U.S. officials, we are told, just honest assessments that later proved to be wrong. Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution, who has advised U.S. commanders on Afghanistan war policy, wrote that "no, there has not been a campaign of disinformation, intentional or subliminal." Former defense secretary Jim Mattis, who led CENTCOM during part of the war effort, called the Post 's reporting "not really news" and was mystified that the unpublished interviews from the U.S. special inspector general were generating such shock. Others have faulted the Post for publishing the material to begin with, claiming that public disclosure would scare future witnesses from cooperating and threaten other fact-finding inquiries (the fact that the newspaper was legally permitted to publish the transcripts after winning a court case against the government is apparently irrelevant in the minds of those making this argument).
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
All of these claims and counter-claims should be seen for what they truly are: the flailings of a policymaking class so arrogant and unaccountable that it can't see straight. That they're blaming the outrage engendered by the Afghanistan Papers on anything other than themselves is Exhibit A that our narcissistic policy elite is cocooned in their own reality.
Analysts have been pouring over the Afghanistan interview transcripts for over a week in order to determine how the war went wrong. Some of the main lessons learned have long been evident. The decision to impose a top-down democratic political order on a country that operated on a system of patronage and tribal systems from the bottom-up was bound to be problematic. Throwing tens of billions of dollars of reconstruction assistance into a nation that had no experience managing that kind of money -- or spending it properly -- helped fuel the very nationwide corruption Washington would come to regret. Paying off warlords to fight the Taliban and keep order while pressuring those very same warlords into following the rules was contradictory. The mistakes go on and on and on: as Lieutenant General Douglas Lute said, "We didn't have the foggiest notion of what we were undertaking."
One of the most salient findings about this ghastly two-decade-long misadventure surfaced after the Afghanistan Papers were released: the commentariat will stop at nothing to absolve themselves of the slightest responsibility for the disaster they supported. The outright refusal of the pundit class to own up to its errors is as disturbing as it is infuriating. And even when they do acknowledge that errors were committed, they tend to minimize their own role in those mistakes, explaining them away as unfortunate consequences of fixed withdrawal deadlines, inter-agency tussling, Afghanistan's poor foundational state, or the inability of the Afghans to capitalize on the opportunities Washington provided them. Some, such as General David Petraeus , seem to sincerely believe that the U.S. was on the right track and could have made progress if only those pesky civilians in the Beltway hadn't pulled the rug out from under them by announcing a premature withdrawal.
It's always somebody else's fault.
Whether out of arrogance, ego, or fear of not being taken seriously in Washington's foreign policy discussions, the architects of the war refuse to admit even the most obvious mistakes. Instead they duck and weave like a quarterback escaping a full-on defensive rush, attempting yet again to fool the American public.
But the public has nothing to apologize for. It is those who are making excuses who have exercised disastrous judgment on Afghanistan. And they owe the country an apology.
Daniel R. DePetris is a columnist for the Washington Examiner and a contributor to The American Conservative.
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Dec 21, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Authored by James George Jatras via The Strategic Culture Foundation,
"America is a corpse being consumed by maggots. Liberals are rooting for the maggots. Conservatives are rooting for the corpse."
For a century and a half American political life has been the exclusive preserve of the duopoly of Democrats and Republicans, also known as the Evil Party and the Stupid Party . (If something is both Evil and Stupid, we call that "Bipartisan.") But the familiar Evil-Stupid dichotomy doesn't even begin to describe the descent into national dysfunction and galloping irrationality that characterizes the Trump impeachment hysteria.
Media chatter now centers on the nuts-and-bolts questions of "what's next?" Will House Speaker Nancy Pelosi send the articles of impeachment over to the Senate? (Yes. Even one of the legal "scholars" enrolled in the impeachment lynch mob avers that Trump isn't actually impeached until the Senate receives the articles .) Who will be the trial managers? (Who cares.) Will there be a "real trial," with witnesses? (It hardly matters.) Will Trump be removed? (Unlikely unless some bolt from the blue flips 20 GOP Senators.) Will impeachment be the Democrats' albatross going into November 2020? (Most polls show independents are turned off, but there's still almost a year to go.)
None of these questions, which are meaningful only in a mental universe of the Evils and the Stupids shadowboxing over a partisan allocation of political spoils, touch upon the grim – and occasionally sardonic – symptoms of America's seemingly unstoppable terminal slide.
With Trump's impeachment it's time to say goodbye to yesteryear's Team Evil and Team Stupid. Say hello in 2020 to Team Maggot and Team Corpse!
Even though Trump has not turned out to be the transformative and restorative president that many of his supporters might have hoped for, he certainly will be (assuming he survives impeachment, which he probably will) the lesser of evils in November 2020 compared to whoever ends up as the Maggot Party nominee. Worse from his opponents' point of view, he remains a toxic avatar of the old America they thought would be well and truly laid to rest for ever and ever, amen, when Hillary Clinton came into her kingdom. That having misfired in 2016, partisans of that legacy America's marginalization, displacement, and eventual extinction can't breathe easy while Trump remains in office lest he, however unlikely in view of his failures of performance, serve as a catalyst for revival of the historic American nation facing loss of its birthright : an organic, uncontrived, living ethnos characterized by European, mainly British origin (a/k/a, "white"); Christian, mainly Protestant; and English-speaking, as augmented by members of other groups who have totally or partially assimilated to it. The certified victim classes standing on the threshold of the permanent, total power that eluded them three years ago are haunted by the knowledge that there's still lots of them Muricans in red MAGA hats rallying to Trump out there in Flyover Country .
In short, Democrats hate Trump not so much for what he's done (which, contrary to what his passionate supporters think based on his Tweets, isn't much) but as an expression of an amorphous dread that by some mysterious populist alchemy he might still breathe life back into the Corpse Party's deplorable base.
With that in mind, here are a few things to note as we cruise on into Bizarro World :
" What do you mean 'we,' white man? "As the impeachment spectacle unfolded in the House, one could not fail to be touched by the hushed, heartfelt reverence with which Democrat after Democrat cited the sage words of the Founding Fathers: Madison especially, but also Jefferson and Washington. No doubt they can hardly wait for this spectacle to be over so they can go back to denouncing the Founders as dead, racist, Christian, patriarchal, " Anglo ," and (presumably) heterosexual slaveholders in wigs and knee-breeches whose memory should be expunged from the historical record . It's instructive to glance at the members of the House Judiciary Committee who – solemnly, reluctantly, and prayerfully, they assure us! – voted out articles of impeachment in the name of "the American people." But which "people" might that be? Of the 23 Democrats who voted, only four even arguably fit the heritage American, male profile of the Founding Fathers. The " gender balance " (as it's ungrammatically called nowadays) on the voting majority side of the Committee is 12-11. That's not quite up to Barack Obama's exhortation that "every nation on earth" should be "run by women ," but it's progress in that direction! (Just imagine how much more serene the world would be if all countries were ruled by peaceniks like Hillary Clinton, Madeleine Albright, Condi Rice, Susan Rice, Samantha Power, Anne-Marie Slaughter, Michèle Flournoy, Evelyn Farkas, etc., plus a bevy of Deep State Democrats now installed in Congress .) By contrast, the 17 Republicans on the Committee have approximately the same demographic composition they'd have had in 1950 – and aside from the inclusion of two women, that of the First Congress seated in 1789.
In short, in the Congressional Maggot Caucus the approaching Dictatorship of Victims defined by race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, language, religion, migratory status, etc., is already becoming a reality, and they voted to get rid of Trump. Members of the Corpse Caucus defending him still belong demographically and morally to the declining legacy America, though they'd never, ever admit it. Impeachment is thus more than just the latest iteration of the years-long anti-constitutional coup to overturn a presidential election, though it is that too . Even more fundamentally, it's a coup against the people whose identity, traditions, and values the Constitution was intended to ensure for themselves and their posterity.
Foreign interference in our deMOCKracy.Even more absurd than Democrats' presumption in lip-synching the venerable principles of an American constitutional tradition they despise almost as much as they loathe the ethnos that ordained and established it is their feigned horror – horror! – that Trump's phone chat with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky realized the Founders' worst fears of foreign influence over American domestic politics. Leaving aside the fact that Ukraine under Zelensky's predecessor, Petro Poroshenko, did try to queer the 2016 election in favor of Hillary, and that Hunter and Joe Biden are crooks, the Maggoteers' ability to maintain a straight face of shocked indignation smack in the middle of a souk, a flea market, a bazaar where both domestic and foreign interests buy, sell, and trade favors like vintage baseball cards is nothing less than heroic.
While the bipartisan leadership has not yet taken up the helpful suggestion that barcodes be affixed to legislators' foreheads so that interested persons and organizations can conveniently scan prices and self-checkout , they have provided a helpful guide to what are called " Congressional Member Organizations (CMOs )," also called coalitions, study groups, task forces, or working groups. Memberships in many but not all CMOs serve as virtual barcodes for potential (mostly legal) campaign donors, including, in the case of "friends of" this or that foreign country, contributions from ethnic compatriots who are US citizens, or at least are supposed to be. Here's a partial selection:
Argentina Caucus, Armenian Issues Caucus, Azerbaijan Caucus, Bangladesh Caucus, Bosnia Caucus, Brazil Caucus, Cambodia Caucus, Central America Caucus, Colombia Caucus, Congressional Caucus on Bulgaria, Croatian Caucus, Czech Caucus, Ethiopian-American Caucus, Ethnic and Religious Freedom in Sri Lanka, EU Caucus, Friends of Australia Caucus, Friends of Denmark Caucus, Friends of Egypt Caucus, Friends of Finland Caucus, Friends of Ireland Caucus, Friends of Liechtenstein Caucus, Friends of New Zealand Caucus, Friends of Norway Caucus, Friends of Scotland Caucus, Friends of Spain Caucus, Friends of Sweden Caucus, Friends of the Dominican Republic Caucus, Friends of Wales Caucus, Georgia Caucus, Hellenic Caucus, Hellenic Israel Alliance Caucus, House Baltic Caucus, Hungarian Caucus, India and Indian Americans Caucus, Iraq Caucus, Israel Allies Caucus, Israel Victory Caucus, Kingdom of Netherlands Caucus, Korea Caucus, Kyrgyzstan Caucus, Macedonia and Macedonian-American Caucus, Moldova Caucus, Mongolia Caucus, Montenegro Caucus, Morocco Caucus, Nigeria Caucus, Pakistan Caucus, Peru Caucus, Poland Caucus, Portuguese Caucus, Qatari-American Strategic Relationships Caucus, Republican Israel Caucus, Romania Caucus, Serbian Caucus, Slovak Caucus, Sri Lanka Caucus, Taiwan Caucus, UK Caucus, Ukraine Caucus, U.S.-Bermuda Friendship Caucus, U.S.-China Working Group, U.S.-Japan Caucus, U.S.-Kazakhstan Caucus, U.S.-Lebanon Friendship Caucus, U.S.-Philippines Friendship Caucus, U.S.-Turkey Relations and Turkish American, Uzbekistan Caucus, Venezuela Democracy Caucus
Recalling Your Working Boy 's years at the State Department – where there still exists no "American Interests Section" – the reader can search the above in vain for anything that looks remotely like "Friends of the United States of America."
Russia! Russia! Russia!In fact, the Democrats' core impeachment narrative – Russia bad, Ukraine good – is itself an example to which American policy is in the grip of foreign antipathies and attachments against which the Father of Our Country warned us in his 1796 farewell address :
"[N]othing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest."
In his closing statement before the impeachment vote House Judiciary Chairmaggot Adam "Captain Ahab" Schiff , in his frenzied hunt for the Great Orange Whale , provided a textbook example of what Washington feared:
"[W]e should care about our allies. We should care about Ukraine. We should care about a country struggling to be free and a Democracy. We used to care about Democracy. We used to care about our allies. We used to stand up to Putin and Russia. We used to. I know the party of Ronald Reagan used to. 'Why should we care about Ukraine?' But of course it's about more than Ukraine. It's about us. It's about our national security. Their fight is our fight. Their defense is our defense. When Russia remakes the map of Europe for the first time since World War II by dint of military force [ JGJ : Well, there was Kosovo, but never mind ] and Ukraine fights back, it is our fight too."
Indeed, one wonders how hysterical Democrats missed accusing Trump outright of treason , which actually is specified as grounds for impeachment in Article II, Section 4 . After all, as described by Schiff, didn't Trump's actions constitute (under Article III, Section 3 ) "adhering" to our evil enemies the Russians, and "giving them aid and comfort"? It's an open and shut case of a capital crime – and the House Majority Whip is ready to get the rope ! (Really, how did the Democrats miss this? Maybe GOP stupidity has migrated to the other side of the aisle )
It is noteworthy that not a single House Republican dared or even cared to question Schiff's framing of the issue, which was bolstered by witnesses from the permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic establishment, including Trump's appointees.
Nor is any Republican Senator likely to point out the inconvenient truth that we have no defense treaty with Ukraine, which thus is not really our "ally." Partisanship is the variable; Russophobia is the constant. The sole retort from Trump's establishment defenders : He released the aid to Ukraine, including the Javelin missiles Obama denied them! He's every bit the warmonger you want him to be! So there!
Thus, even with Trump's almost (at this point) certain survival of a Senate impeachment trial, the relevant foreign inveterate antipathies and passionate attachments will remain entrenched. (Not just in the case of Ukraine/Russia but with respect to the rest of the world our habitual hatreds and fondnesses remain firmly in place and are unlikely to change for the balance of Trump's presidency, if ever. Trump's Korea initiative is on life support. Israel/Iran is a flashpoint that could explode at any time : "Israel, even less than the US, cannot take casualties. A couple of bull's eyes, a lot of Israelis go back to Brooklyn. The 82 million people in Iran have no place else to go.")
Senate Demaggotic Leader Chuck Schumer gave the game away when he demanded that the World Greatest Deliberative Body receive testimony from cashiered National Security Adviser John Bolton and acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney but not from the man at the center of the whole Ukraine "drug deal" (as Bolton described it): Rudy Giuliani. Why wouldn't the assembled Maggotrats jump at the chance to grill him under oath? Because he'd dole out the real dirt on Ukraine and its legendary corruption that would make a Nigerian prince blush. For the same reason, Corpsublicans won't want to hear from him either, any more than they're interested in whether the "sub-sources" of the Steele Dossier – whose identity the US Justice Department knows and who were available to the IG's investigators – really had anything to do with the Russian government . We wouldn't want to debunk all that yammering about " fake Kremlin dirt ," would we.
Meanwhile, back in what remains of America, regardless of how impeachment turns out, the lines of irreconcilable division deepen . Whether or not Trump is reelected (the politics look good for him, the demographics don't ) he will eventually be gone, whether in 2020, 2021, or 2025. He will almost certainly be the last Republican president, depending on when Texas goes the way of Virginia . One way or the other, we'll soon see whether the corpse has any fight left in it .
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Dec 22, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Roger Casement , 2 hours ago link
hoffstetter , 2 hours ago linkIt turns out that the US military hires more shills and clowns and runs more "news" worldwide than all the real news agencies, combined.
For Soetoro to turn this $hit loose on us exposes his truly sinister intent. Here you all are, thinking the bull$hit on TV is remotely relevant other than exposing the gangsters who direct it and rob us to pay for it against our will.
All these High Crimes on Pelosi and Schumer's watch.
https://www.businessinsider.com/ndaa-legalizes-propaganda-2012-5
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_Information_Awareness was shut down in 2003 by Congress after dinosaur exposed mass surveillance abuses establishing "Total Information Awareness" over all US citizens. The program was continued in overt defiance of Congress through Trillions in black funding.
https://epic.org/privacy/profiling/tia/
https://fas.org/irp/crs/RL31730.pdf
https://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/definition/Total-Information-Awareness
https://www.wired.com/story/darpa-total-informatio-awareness/
https://www.businessinsider.com/ndaa-legalizes-propaganda-2012-5
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countering_Foreign_Propaganda_and_Disinformation_Act
Or you could just point to the massive expansion of debt and reduction of freedoms signed by Trump last night while the whole government was telling you "nothing up my sleeve!"
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Dec 21, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Authored by James George Jatras via The Strategic Culture Foundation,
"America is a corpse being consumed by maggots. Liberals are rooting for the maggots. Conservatives are rooting for the corpse."
For a century and a half American political life has been the exclusive preserve of the duopoly of Democrats and Republicans, also known as the Evil Party and the Stupid Party . (If something is both Evil and Stupid, we call that "Bipartisan.") But the familiar Evil-Stupid dichotomy doesn't even begin to describe the descent into national dysfunction and galloping irrationality that characterizes the Trump impeachment hysteria.
Media chatter now centers on the nuts-and-bolts questions of "what's next?" Will House Speaker Nancy Pelosi send the articles of impeachment over to the Senate? (Yes. Even one of the legal "scholars" enrolled in the impeachment lynch mob avers that Trump isn't actually impeached until the Senate receives the articles .) Who will be the trial managers? (Who cares.) Will there be a "real trial," with witnesses? (It hardly matters.) Will Trump be removed? (Unlikely unless some bolt from the blue flips 20 GOP Senators.) Will impeachment be the Democrats' albatross going into November 2020? (Most polls show independents are turned off, but there's still almost a year to go.)
None of these questions, which are meaningful only in a mental universe of the Evils and the Stupids shadowboxing over a partisan allocation of political spoils, touch upon the grim – and occasionally sardonic – symptoms of America's seemingly unstoppable terminal slide.
With Trump's impeachment it's time to say goodbye to yesteryear's Team Evil and Team Stupid. Say hello in 2020 to Team Maggot and Team Corpse!
Even though Trump has not turned out to be the transformative and restorative president that many of his supporters might have hoped for, he certainly will be (assuming he survives impeachment, which he probably will) the lesser of evils in November 2020 compared to whoever ends up as the Maggot Party nominee. Worse from his opponents' point of view, he remains a toxic avatar of the old America they thought would be well and truly laid to rest for ever and ever, amen, when Hillary Clinton came into her kingdom. That having misfired in 2016, partisans of that legacy America's marginalization, displacement, and eventual extinction can't breathe easy while Trump remains in office lest he, however unlikely in view of his failures of performance, serve as a catalyst for revival of the historic American nation facing loss of its birthright : an organic, uncontrived, living ethnos characterized by European, mainly British origin (a/k/a, "white"); Christian, mainly Protestant; and English-speaking, as augmented by members of other groups who have totally or partially assimilated to it. The certified victim classes standing on the threshold of the permanent, total power that eluded them three years ago are haunted by the knowledge that there's still lots of them Muricans in red MAGA hats rallying to Trump out there in Flyover Country .
In short, Democrats hate Trump not so much for what he's done (which, contrary to what his passionate supporters think based on his Tweets, isn't much) but as an expression of an amorphous dread that by some mysterious populist alchemy he might still breathe life back into the Corpse Party's deplorable base.
With that in mind, here are a few things to note as we cruise on into Bizarro World :
" What do you mean 'we,' white man? "As the impeachment spectacle unfolded in the House, one could not fail to be touched by the hushed, heartfelt reverence with which Democrat after Democrat cited the sage words of the Founding Fathers: Madison especially, but also Jefferson and Washington. No doubt they can hardly wait for this spectacle to be over so they can go back to denouncing the Founders as dead, racist, Christian, patriarchal, " Anglo ," and (presumably) heterosexual slaveholders in wigs and knee-breeches whose memory should be expunged from the historical record . It's instructive to glance at the members of the House Judiciary Committee who – solemnly, reluctantly, and prayerfully, they assure us! – voted out articles of impeachment in the name of "the American people." But which "people" might that be? Of the 23 Democrats who voted, only four even arguably fit the heritage American, male profile of the Founding Fathers. The " gender balance " (as it's ungrammatically called nowadays) on the voting majority side of the Committee is 12-11. That's not quite up to Barack Obama's exhortation that "every nation on earth" should be "run by women ," but it's progress in that direction! (Just imagine how much more serene the world would be if all countries were ruled by peaceniks like Hillary Clinton, Madeleine Albright, Condi Rice, Susan Rice, Samantha Power, Anne-Marie Slaughter, Michèle Flournoy, Evelyn Farkas, etc., plus a bevy of Deep State Democrats now installed in Congress .) By contrast, the 17 Republicans on the Committee have approximately the same demographic composition they'd have had in 1950 – and aside from the inclusion of two women, that of the First Congress seated in 1789.
In short, in the Congressional Maggot Caucus the approaching Dictatorship of Victims defined by race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation, language, religion, migratory status, etc., is already becoming a reality, and they voted to get rid of Trump. Members of the Corpse Caucus defending him still belong demographically and morally to the declining legacy America, though they'd never, ever admit it. Impeachment is thus more than just the latest iteration of the years-long anti-constitutional coup to overturn a presidential election, though it is that too . Even more fundamentally, it's a coup against the people whose identity, traditions, and values the Constitution was intended to ensure for themselves and their posterity.
Foreign interference in our deMOCKracy.Even more absurd than Democrats' presumption in lip-synching the venerable principles of an American constitutional tradition they despise almost as much as they loathe the ethnos that ordained and established it is their feigned horror – horror! – that Trump's phone chat with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky realized the Founders' worst fears of foreign influence over American domestic politics. Leaving aside the fact that Ukraine under Zelensky's predecessor, Petro Poroshenko, did try to queer the 2016 election in favor of Hillary, and that Hunter and Joe Biden are crooks, the Maggoteers' ability to maintain a straight face of shocked indignation smack in the middle of a souk, a flea market, a bazaar where both domestic and foreign interests buy, sell, and trade favors like vintage baseball cards is nothing less than heroic.
While the bipartisan leadership has not yet taken up the helpful suggestion that barcodes be affixed to legislators' foreheads so that interested persons and organizations can conveniently scan prices and self-checkout , they have provided a helpful guide to what are called " Congressional Member Organizations (CMOs )," also called coalitions, study groups, task forces, or working groups. Memberships in many but not all CMOs serve as virtual barcodes for potential (mostly legal) campaign donors, including, in the case of "friends of" this or that foreign country, contributions from ethnic compatriots who are US citizens, or at least are supposed to be. Here's a partial selection:
Argentina Caucus, Armenian Issues Caucus, Azerbaijan Caucus, Bangladesh Caucus, Bosnia Caucus, Brazil Caucus, Cambodia Caucus, Central America Caucus, Colombia Caucus, Congressional Caucus on Bulgaria, Croatian Caucus, Czech Caucus, Ethiopian-American Caucus, Ethnic and Religious Freedom in Sri Lanka, EU Caucus, Friends of Australia Caucus, Friends of Denmark Caucus, Friends of Egypt Caucus, Friends of Finland Caucus, Friends of Ireland Caucus, Friends of Liechtenstein Caucus, Friends of New Zealand Caucus, Friends of Norway Caucus, Friends of Scotland Caucus, Friends of Spain Caucus, Friends of Sweden Caucus, Friends of the Dominican Republic Caucus, Friends of Wales Caucus, Georgia Caucus, Hellenic Caucus, Hellenic Israel Alliance Caucus, House Baltic Caucus, Hungarian Caucus, India and Indian Americans Caucus, Iraq Caucus, Israel Allies Caucus, Israel Victory Caucus, Kingdom of Netherlands Caucus, Korea Caucus, Kyrgyzstan Caucus, Macedonia and Macedonian-American Caucus, Moldova Caucus, Mongolia Caucus, Montenegro Caucus, Morocco Caucus, Nigeria Caucus, Pakistan Caucus, Peru Caucus, Poland Caucus, Portuguese Caucus, Qatari-American Strategic Relationships Caucus, Republican Israel Caucus, Romania Caucus, Serbian Caucus, Slovak Caucus, Sri Lanka Caucus, Taiwan Caucus, UK Caucus, Ukraine Caucus, U.S.-Bermuda Friendship Caucus, U.S.-China Working Group, U.S.-Japan Caucus, U.S.-Kazakhstan Caucus, U.S.-Lebanon Friendship Caucus, U.S.-Philippines Friendship Caucus, U.S.-Turkey Relations and Turkish American, Uzbekistan Caucus, Venezuela Democracy Caucus
Recalling Your Working Boy 's years at the State Department – where there still exists no "American Interests Section" – the reader can search the above in vain for anything that looks remotely like "Friends of the United States of America."
Russia! Russia! Russia!In fact, the Democrats' core impeachment narrative – Russia bad, Ukraine good – is itself an example to which American policy is in the grip of foreign antipathies and attachments against which the Father of Our Country warned us in his 1796 farewell address :
"[N]othing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest."
In his closing statement before the impeachment vote House Judiciary Chairmaggot Adam "Captain Ahab" Schiff , in his frenzied hunt for the Great Orange Whale , provided a textbook example of what Washington feared:
"[W]e should care about our allies. We should care about Ukraine. We should care about a country struggling to be free and a Democracy. We used to care about Democracy. We used to care about our allies. We used to stand up to Putin and Russia. We used to. I know the party of Ronald Reagan used to. 'Why should we care about Ukraine?' But of course it's about more than Ukraine. It's about us. It's about our national security. Their fight is our fight. Their defense is our defense. When Russia remakes the map of Europe for the first time since World War II by dint of military force [ JGJ : Well, there was Kosovo, but never mind ] and Ukraine fights back, it is our fight too."
Indeed, one wonders how hysterical Democrats missed accusing Trump outright of treason , which actually is specified as grounds for impeachment in Article II, Section 4 . After all, as described by Schiff, didn't Trump's actions constitute (under Article III, Section 3 ) "adhering" to our evil enemies the Russians, and "giving them aid and comfort"? It's an open and shut case of a capital crime – and the House Majority Whip is ready to get the rope ! (Really, how did the Democrats miss this? Maybe GOP stupidity has migrated to the other side of the aisle )
It is noteworthy that not a single House Republican dared or even cared to question Schiff's framing of the issue, which was bolstered by witnesses from the permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic establishment, including Trump's appointees.
Nor is any Republican Senator likely to point out the inconvenient truth that we have no defense treaty with Ukraine, which thus is not really our "ally." Partisanship is the variable; Russophobia is the constant. The sole retort from Trump's establishment defenders : He released the aid to Ukraine, including the Javelin missiles Obama denied them! He's every bit the warmonger you want him to be! So there!
Thus, even with Trump's almost (at this point) certain survival of a Senate impeachment trial, the relevant foreign inveterate antipathies and passionate attachments will remain entrenched. (Not just in the case of Ukraine/Russia but with respect to the rest of the world our habitual hatreds and fondnesses remain firmly in place and are unlikely to change for the balance of Trump's presidency, if ever. Trump's Korea initiative is on life support. Israel/Iran is a flashpoint that could explode at any time : "Israel, even less than the US, cannot take casualties. A couple of bull's eyes, a lot of Israelis go back to Brooklyn. The 82 million people in Iran have no place else to go.")
Senate Demaggotic Leader Chuck Schumer gave the game away when he demanded that the World Greatest Deliberative Body receive testimony from cashiered National Security Adviser John Bolton and acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney but not from the man at the center of the whole Ukraine "drug deal" (as Bolton described it): Rudy Giuliani. Why wouldn't the assembled Maggotrats jump at the chance to grill him under oath? Because he'd dole out the real dirt on Ukraine and its legendary corruption that would make a Nigerian prince blush. For the same reason, Corpsublicans won't want to hear from him either, any more than they're interested in whether the "sub-sources" of the Steele Dossier – whose identity the US Justice Department knows and who were available to the IG's investigators – really had anything to do with the Russian government . We wouldn't want to debunk all that yammering about " fake Kremlin dirt ," would we.
Meanwhile, back in what remains of America, regardless of how impeachment turns out, the lines of irreconcilable division deepen . Whether or not Trump is reelected (the politics look good for him, the demographics don't ) he will eventually be gone, whether in 2020, 2021, or 2025. He will almost certainly be the last Republican president, depending on when Texas goes the way of Virginia . One way or the other, we'll soon see whether the corpse has any fight left in it .
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Dec 27, 2018 | www.rt.com
President Trump's big announcement to pull US troops out of Syria and Afghanistan is now emerging less as a peace move, and more a rationalization of American military power in the Middle East. In a surprise visit to US forces in Iraq this week, Trump said he had no intention of withdrawing the troops in that country, who have been there for nearly 15 years since GW Bush invaded back in 2003.
Hinting at private discussions with commanders in Iraq, Trump boasted that US forces would in the future launch attacks from there into Syria if and when needed. Presumably that rapid force deployment would apply to other countries in the region, including Afghanistan.
In other words, in typical business-style transactional thinking, Trump sees the pullout from Syria and Afghanistan as a cost-cutting exercise for US imperialism. Regarding Syria, he has bragged about Turkey being assigned, purportedly, to "finish off" terror groups. That's Trump subcontracting out US interests.
Critics and supporters of Trump are confounded. After his Syria and Afghanistan pullout call, domestic critics and NATO allies have accused him of walking from the alleged "fight against terrorism" and of ceding strategic ground to US adversaries Russia and Iran.
'We're no longer suckers of the world!' Trump says US is respected as nation AGAIN (VIDEO)
Meanwhile, Trump's supporters have viewed his decision in more benign light, cheering the president for "sticking it to" the deep state and military establishment, assuming he's delivering on electoral promises to end overseas wars.
However, neither view gets what is going on. Trump is not scaling back US military power; he is rationalizing it like a cost-benefit analysis, as perhaps only a real-estate-wheeler-dealer-turned president would appreciate. Trump is not snubbing US militarism or NATO allies, nor is he letting loose an inner peace spirit. He is as committed to projecting American military as ruthlessly and as recklessly as any other past occupant of the White House. The difference is Trump wants to do it on the cheap.
Here's what he said to reporters on Air Force One before touching down in Iraq:
"The United States cannot continue to be the policeman of the world. It's not fair when the burden is all on us, the United States We are spread out all over the world. We are in countries most people haven't even heard about. Frankly, it's ridiculous." He added: "We're no longer the suckers, folks."
Laughably, Trump's griping about US forces "spread all over the world" unwittingly demonstrates the insatiable, monstrous nature of American militarism. But Trump paints this vice as a virtue, which, he complains, Washington gets no thanks for from the 150-plus countries around the globe that its forces are present in.
As US troops greeted him in Iraq, the president made explicit how the new American militarism would henceforth operate.
"America shouldn't be doing the fighting for every nation on earth, not being reimbursed in many cases at all. If they want us to do the fighting, they also have to pay a price," Trump said.
'We give them $4.5bn a year': Israel will still be 'good' after US withdrawal from Syria – Trump
This reiterates a big bugbear for this president in which he views US allies and client regimes as "not pulling their weight" in terms of military deployment. Trump has been browbeating European NATO members to cough up more on military budgets, and he has berated the Saudis and other Gulf Arab regimes to pay more for American interventions.
Notably, however, Trump has never questioned the largesse that US taxpayers fork out every year to Israel in the form of nearly $4 billion in military aid. To be sure, that money is not a gift because much of it goes back to the Pentagon from sales of fighter jets and missile systems.
The long-held notion that the US has served as the "world's policeman" is, of course, a travesty.
Since WWII, all presidents and the Washington establishment have constantly harped on, with self-righteousness, about America's mythical role as guarantor of global security.
Dozens of illegal wars on almost every continent and millions of civilian deaths attest to the real, heinous conduct of American militarism as a weapon to secure US corporate capitalism.
But with US economic power in historic decline amid a national debt now over $22 trillion, Washington can no longer afford its imperialist conduct in the traditional mode of direct US military invasions and occupations.
Perhaps, it takes a cost-cutting, raw-toothed capitalist like Trump to best understand the historic predicament, even if only superficially.
This gives away the real calculation behind his troop pullout from Syria and Afghanistan. Iraq is going to serve as a new regional hub for force projection on a demand-and-supply basis. In addition, more of the dirty work can be contracted out to Washington's clients like Turkey, Israel and Saudi Arabia, who will be buying even more US weaponry to prop the military-industrial complex.
'With almost $22 trillion of debt, the US is in no position to attack Iran'
This would explain why Trump made his hurried, unexpected visit to Iraq this week. Significantly, he said : "A lot of people are going to come around to my way of thinking", regarding his decision on withdrawing forces from Syria and Afghanistan.
Since his troop pullout plan announced on December 19, there has been serious pushback from senior Pentagon figures, hawkish Republicans and Democrats, and the anti-Trump media. The atmosphere is almost seditious against the president. Trump flying off to Iraq on Christmas night was reportedly his first visit to troops in an overseas combat zone since becoming president two years ago.
What Trump seemed to be doing was reassuring the Pentagon and corporate America that he is not going all soft and dovish. Not at all. He is letting them know that he is aiming for a leaner, meaner US military power, which can save money on the number of foreign bases by using rapid reaction forces out of places like Iraq, as well as by subcontracting operations out to regional clients.
Thus, Trump is not coming clean out of any supposed principle when he cuts back US forces overseas. He is merely applying his knack for screwing down costs and doing things on the cheap as a capitalist tycoon overseeing US militarism.
During past decades when American capitalism was relatively robust, US politicians and media could indulge in the fantasy of their military forces going around the world in large-scale formations to selflessly "defend freedom and democracy."
Today, US capitalism is broke. It simply can't sustain its global military empire. Enter Donald Trump with his "business solutions."
But in doing so, this president, with his cheap utilitarianism and transactional exploitative mindset, lets the cat out of the bag. As he says, the US cannot be the world's policeman. Countries are henceforth going to have to pay for "our protection."
Inadvertently, Trump is showing up US power for what it really is: a global thug running a protection racket.
It's always been the case. Except now it's in your face. Trump is no Smedley Butler, the former Marine general who in the 1930s condemned US militarism as a Mafia operation. This president is stupidly revealing the racket, while still thinking it is something virtuous.
Finian Cunningham (born 1963) has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published in several languages. Originally from Belfast, Northern Ireland, he is a Master's graduate in Agricultural Chemistry and worked as a scientific editor for the Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, England, before pursuing a career in newspaper journalism. For over 20 years he worked as an editor and writer in major news media organizations, including The Mirror, Irish Times and Independent. Now a freelance journalist based in East Africa, his columns appear on RT, Sputnik, Strategic Culture Foundation and Press TV.
dnm1136
Once again, Cunningham has hit the nail on the head. Trump mistakenly conflates fear with respect. In reality, around the world, the US is feared but generally not respected.
My guess is that the same was true about Trump as a businessman, i.e., he was not respected, only feared due to his willingness to pursue his "deals" by any means that "worked" for him, legal or illegal, moral or immoral, seemingly gracious or mean-spirited.
William Smith
Complaining how the US gets no thanks for its foreign intervention. Kind of like a rapist claiming he should be thanked for "pleasuring" his victim. Precisely the same sentiment expressed by those who believe the American Indians should thank the Whites for "civilising" them.
Phoebe S,
"Washington gets no thanks for from the 150-plus countries around the globe that its forces are present in."
That might mean they don't want you there. Just saying.
ProRussiaPole
None of these wars are working out for the US strategically. All they do is sow chaos. They seem to not be gaining anything, and are just preventing others from gaining anything as well.
Ernie For -> ProRussiaPole
i am a huge Putin fan, so is big Don. Please change your source of info Jerome, Trump is one man against Billions of people and dollars in corruption. He has achieved more in the USA in 2 years than all 5 previous parasites together.
Truthbetold69
It could be a change for a better direction. Time will tell. 'If you do what you've always been doing, you'll get what you've always been getting.'
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Sep 01, 2017 | nationalinterest.org
opaw , August 30, 2017 8:29 PM
Try Harder , August 31, 2017 2:45 AMWhile I admire America's democratic society, I hate how America brought wars and chaos to the world in guise of "freedom and liberation".
I hate how America exploit the weak. president moon should offer an olive branch to fatty Kim by sending back the thaad to America and pulling out American base and troops. he should convince fatty Kim that should he really like to proliferate his nuclear missile development as deterrence, aim it only to America and America only. there is no need for Koreans to kill fellow Koreans.
Try Harder Guest , August 31, 2017 4:16 PMVery good idea, after having pushed Ukraine and Georgia to a war lost in advance, lets hope US will abandon South Korea and Japan because they were helpless in demilitarizing one of the poorest countries in the world....
Zsari Maxim Guest , August 31, 2017 11:50 AMWas it necessary to bomb civilians of Ossetia for Georgia to get rid of Russia? Was it necessary to provoke a coup d'état against fully legitimate and democratically elected government in Ukraine? Life isn't fair indeed : not only they will never enter in NATO (even less EU) and no one will protect them, but they can say farewell to the land they lost. People in Georgia and Ukraine are less and less gullible and Pro Russians sentiment is gaining ground btw. Ask yourself why ?
Thomas Fung , August 31, 2017 5:04 PMSphere of influence, the same reason why Cuba and Venezuela will pay for their insolence against the hegemon. The world is never a fair place.
In this person's opinion, the article raises a good point with regards to US defense subsidies. However, its examples are dissimilar. Japan spends approximately 1% of its GDP on defense; South Korea spends roughly 2.5% of its GDP defense.
In fact, it seems to this person that a better example of US Defense Welfare would be direct subsidies granted to the state of Israel.
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Apr 09, 2019 | failedevolution.blogspot.com
The start of current decade revealed the most ruthless face of a global neo-colonialism. From Syria and Libya to Europe and Latin America, the old colonial powers of the West tried to rebound against an oncoming rival bloc led by Russia and China, which starts to threaten their global domination.
Inside a multi-polar, complex terrain of geopolitical games, the big players start to abandon the old-fashioned, inefficient direct wars. They use today other, various methods like brutal proxy wars , economic wars, financial and constitutional coups, provocative operations, 'color revolutions', etc. In this highly complex and unstable situation, when even traditional allies turn against each other as the global balances change rapidly, the forces unleashed are absolutely destructive. Inevitably, the results are more than evident.
Proxy Wars - Syria/Libya
After the US invasion in Iraq, the gates of hell had opened in the Middle East. Obama continued the Bush legacy of US endless interventions, but he had to change tactics because a direct war would be inefficient, costly and extremely unpopular to the American people and the rest of the world.
The result, however, appeared to be equally (if not more) devastating with the failed US invasions in Iraq and Afghanistan. The US had lost total control of the armed groups directly linked with the ISIS terrorists, failed to topple Assad, and, moreover, instead of eliminating the Russian and Iranian influence in the region, actually managed to increase it. As a result, the US and its allies failed to secure their geopolitical interests around the various pipeline games.In addition, the US sees Turkey, one of its most important ally, changing direction dangerously, away from the Western bloc. Probably the strongest indication for this, is that Turkey, Iran and Russia decided very recently to proceed in an agreement on Syria without the presence of the US.
Yet, the list of US failures does not end here. The destruction of Syria and Libya created massive refugee flows which have proved that the European Union was totally unprepared to deal with such a major issue. On top of that, the latest years, we have witnessed a rapid rise of various terrorist attacks in Western soil, also as a result of the devastating wars in Syria and Libya.
Evidence from WikiLeaks has shown that the old colonial powers have started a new round of ruthless competition on Libya's resources. The usual story propagated by the Western media, about another tyrant who had to be removed, has now completely collapsed. They don't care neither to topple an 'authoritarian' regime, nor to spread Democracy. All they care about is to secure each country's resources for their big companies.
The Gaddafi case is quite interesting because it shows that the Western hypocrites were using him according to their interests .Whenever they wanted to blame someone for some serious terrorist attacks, they had a scapegoat ready for them, even if they had evidence that Libya was not behind these attacks. When Gaddafi falsely admitted that he had weapons of mass destruction in order to gain some relief from the Western sanctions, they presented him as a responsible leader who, was ready to cooperate. Of course, his last role was to play again the 'bad guy' who had to be removed.
Economic Wars, Financial Coups – Greece/Eurozone
It would be unthinkable for the neo-colonialists to conduct proxy wars inside European soil, especially against countries which belong to Western institutions like NATO, EU, eurozone, etc. The wave of the US-made major economic crisis hit Greece and Europe at the start of the decade, almost simultaneously with the eruption of the Arab Spring revolutionary wave and the subsequent disaster in Middle East and Libya.
Greece was the easy victim for the global neoliberal dictatorship to impose catastrophic measures in favor of the plutocracy. The Greek experiment enters its seventh year and the plan is to be used as a model for the whole eurozone. Greece has become also the model for the looting of public property, as happened in the past with the East Germany and the Treuhand Operation after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
While Greece was the major victim of an economic war, Germany used its economic power and control of the European Central Bank to impose unprecedented austerity, sado-monetarism and neoliberal destruction through silent financial coups in Ireland , Italy and Cyprus . The Greek political establishment collapsed with the rise of SYRIZA in power, and the ECB was forced to proceed in an open financial coup against Greece when the current PM, Alexis Tsipras, decided to conduct a referendum on the catastrophic measures imposed by the ECB, IMF and the European Commission, through which the Greek people clearly rejected these measures, despite the propaganda of terror inside and outside Greece. Due to the direct threat from Mario Draghi and the ECB, who actually threatened to cut liquidity sinking Greece into a financial chaos, Tsipras finally forced to retreat, signing another catastrophic memorandum.
Through similar financial and political pressure, the Brussels bureaufascists and the German sado-monetarists along with the IMF economic hitmen, imposed neoliberal disaster to other eurozone countries like Portugal, Spain etc. It is remarkable that even the second eurozone economy, France, rushed to impose anti-labor measures midst terrorist attacks, succumbing to a - pre-designed by the elites - neo-Feudalism, under the 'Socialist' François Hollande, despite the intense protests in many French cities.
Germany would never let the United States to lead the neo-colonization in Europe, as it tries (again) to become a major power with its own sphere of influence, expanding throughout eurozone and beyond. As the situation in Europe becomes more and more critical with the ongoing economic and refugee crisis and the rise of the Far-Right and the nationalists, the economic war mostly between the US and the German big capital, creates an even more complicated situation.
The decline of the US-German relations has been exposed initially with the NSA interceptions scandal , yet, progressively, the big picture came on surface, revealing a transatlantic economic war between banking and corporate giants. In times of huge multilevel crises, the big capital always intensifies its efforts to eliminate competitors too. As a consequence, the US has seen another key ally, Germany, trying to gain a certain degree of independence in order to form its own agenda, separate from the US interests.
Note that, both Germany and Turkey are medium powers that, historically, always trying to expand and create their own spheres of influence, seeking independence from the traditional big powers.
Economic Wars, Constitutional Coups, Provocative Operations – Argentina/Brazil/Venezuela
A wave of neoliberal onslaught shakes currently Latin America. While in Argentina, Mauricio Macri allegedly took the power normally, the constitutional coup against Dilma Rousseff in Brazil, as well as, the usual actions of the Right opposition in Venezuela against Nicolás Maduro with the help of the US finger, are far more obvious.
The special weight of these three countries in Latin America is extremely important for the US imperialism to regain ground in the global geopolitical arena. Especially the last ten to fifteen years, each of them developed increasingly autonomous policies away from the US close custody, under Leftist governments, and this was something that alarmed the US imperialism components.Brazil appears to be the most important among the three, not only due to its size, but also as a member of the BRICS, the team of fast growing economies who threaten the US and generally the Western global dominance. The constitutional coup against Rousseff was rather a sloppy action and reveals the anxiety of the US establishment to regain control through puppet regimes. This is a well-known situation from the past through which the establishment attempts to secure absolute dominance in the US backyard.
The importance of Venezuela due to its oil reserves is also significant. When Maduro tried to approach Russia in order to strengthen the economic cooperation between the two countries, he must had set the alarm for the neocons in the US. Venezuela could find an alternative in Russia and BRICS, in order to breathe from the multiple economic war that was set off by the US. It is characteristic that the economic war against Russia by the US and the Saudis, by keeping the oil prices in historically low levels, had significant impact on the Venezuelan economy too. It is also known that the US organizations are funding the opposition since Chávez era, in order to proceed in provocative operations that could overthrow the Leftist governments.
The case of Venezuela is really interesting. The US imperialists were fiercely trying to overthrow the Leftist governments since Chávez administration. They found now a weaker president, Nicolás Maduro - who certainly does not have the strength and personality of Hugo Chávez - to achieve their goal.
The Western media mouthpieces are doing their job, which is propaganda as usual. The recipe is known. You present the half truth, with a big overdose of exaggeration. The establishment parrots are demonizing Socialism , but they won't ever tell you about the money that the US is spending, feeding the Right-Wing groups and opposition to proceed in provocative operations, in order to create instability. They won't tell you about the financial war conducted through the oil prices, manipulated by the Saudis, the close US ally.
Regarding Argentina, former president, Cristina Kirchner, had also made some important moves towards the stronger cooperation with Russia, which was something unacceptable for Washington's hawks. Not only for geopolitical reasons, but also because Argentina could escape from the vulture funds that sucking its blood since its default. This would give the country an alternative to the neoliberal monopoly of destruction. The US big banks and corporations would never accept such a perspective because the debt-enslaved Argentina is a golden opportunity for a new round of huge profits. It's happening right now in eurozone's debt colony, Greece.
'Color Revolutions' - Ukraine
The events in Ukraine have shown that, the big capital has no hesitation to ally even with the neo-nazis, in order to impose the new world order. This is not something new of course. The connection of Hitler with the German economic oligarchs, but also with other major Western companies, before and during the WWII, is well known.
The most terrifying of all however, is not that the West has silenced in front of the decrees of the new Ukrainian leadership, through which is targeting the minorities, but the fact that the West allied with the neo-nazis, while according to some information has also funded their actions as well as other extreme nationalist groups during the riots in Kiev.
Plenty of indications show that US organizations have 'put their finger' on Ukraine. A video , for example, concerning the situation in Ukraine has been directed by Ben Moses (creator of the movie "Good Morning, Vietnam"), who is connected with American government executives and organizations like National Endowment for Democracy, funded by the US Congress. This video shows a beautiful young female Ukrainian who characterizes the government of the country as "dictatorship" and praise some protesters with the neo-nazi symbols of the fascist Ukranian party Svoboda on them.
The same organizations are behind 'color revolutions' elsewhere, as well as, provocative operations against Leftist governments in Venezuela and other countries.
Ukraine is the perfect place to provoke Putin and tight the noose around Russia. Of course the huge hypocrisy of the West can also be identified in the case of Crimea. While in other cases, the Western officials were 'screaming' for the right of self-determination (like Kosovo, for example), after they destroyed Yugoslavia in a bloodbath, they can't recognize the will of the majority of Crimeans to join Russia.
The war will become wilder
The Western neo-colonial powers are trying to counterattack against the geopolitical upgrade of Russia and the Chinese economic expansionism.
Despite the rise of Donald Trump in power, the neoliberal forces will push further for the expansion of the neoliberal doctrine in the rival field of the Sino-Russian alliance. Besides, Trump has already shown his hostile feelings against China, despite his friendly approach to Russia and Putin.
We see, however, that the Western alliances are entering a period of severe crisis. The US has failed to control the situation in Middle East and Libya. The ruthless neo-colonialists will not hesitate to confront Russia and China directly, if they see that they continue to lose control in the global geopolitical arena. The accumulation of military presence of NATO next to the Russian borders, as well as, the accumulation of military presence of the US in Asia-Pacific, show that this is an undeniable fact.
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Jul 08, 2015 | The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity
The United States already has by far the per capita largest prison population of any developed country but I am probably one of the few Americans who on this Independence Day would like to see a lot more people in prison, mostly drawn from politicians and senior bureaucrats who have long believed that their status makes them untouchable, giving them license to steal and even to kill. The sad fact is that while whistleblowers have been imprisoned for revealing government criminality, no one in the federal bureaucracy has ever actually been punished for the crimes of torture, kidnapping and assassination committed during the George W. Bush and Barack H. Obama presidencies.
Why is accountability important? After the Second World War, the victorious allies believed it was important to establish responsibility for the crimes that had been committed by officials of the Axis powers. The judges at the Nuremberg Trials called the initiation of a war of aggression the ultimate war crime because it inevitably unleashed so many other evils. Ten leading Nazis were executed at Nuremberg and ninety-three Japanese officials at similar trials staged in Asia, including several guilty of waterboarding. Those who were not executed for being complicit in the actual launching of war were tried for torture of both military personnel and civilians and crimes against humanity, including the mass killing of civilians as well as of soldiers who had surrendered or been captured.
No matter how one tries to avoid making comparisons between 1939 and 2015, the American invasion of Iraq was a war of aggression, precisely the type of conflict that the framework of accountability provided by Nuremberg was supposed to prevent in the years after 1946. High level US government officials knew that Iraq represented no threat to the United States but they nevertheless described an imminent danger posed by Saddam Hussein in the most graphic terms, replete with weapons of mass destruction, armed drones flying across the Atlantic, terrorists being unleashed against the homeland, and mushroom clouds on the horizon. The precedent of Iraq, even though it was an abject failure, has led to further military action against Libya and Syria to bring about "regime change" as well as a continuing conflict in Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, the US has been waging a largely secret "long war" against terrorists employing torture and secret prisons. The American people and most of the world bought into the lies and half-truths because they wanted to believe the fiction they were being spoon fed by the White House, but is there a whole lot of difference between what the US government did against Iraq in 2003 and what Hitler's government did in 1939 when it falsely claimed that Polish troops had attacked Germany? Was subsequent torture by the Gestapo any different than torture by a contractor working for Washington?
Many Americans would now consider the leading figures in the Bush Administration aided and abetted by many enablers in congress from both political parties to be unindicted war criminals. Together they ignited a global conflict that is still running strong fourteen years later with a tally of more than 7,000 dead Americans and a minimum of hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis, Afghans, Libyans, Somalis and Syrians.
War breeds more war, due largely to the fact that guilty parties in Washington who piggyback on the prevailing narrative move onward and upward, rewarded in this life even if not necessarily so in the hereafter. A friend of mine recently commented that honest men who were formerly part of the United States government do not subsequently get hired by lobbying firms or obtain television contracts and "teaching" positions at prestigious universities. Though not 100% accurate as I know at least a couple of honorable former senior officials who wound up teaching, it would seem to be a generalization that has considerable validity. The implication is that many senior government officials ascend to their positions based on being accommodating and "political" rather than being honest and they continue to do the same when they switch over to corporate America or the equally corrupted world of academia.
I thought of my friend's comment when I turned on the television a week ago to be confronted by the serious, somewhat intense gaze of Michael Morell, warning about the danger that ISIS will strike the US over the Fourth of July weekend. Morell, a former senior CIA official, is in the terror business. He had no evidence whatsoever that terrorists were planning an attack and should have realized that maneuvering the United States into constantly going on alert based on empty threats is precisely what militant groups tend to do.
When not fronting as a handsomely paid national security consultant for the CBS television network Morell is employed by Beacon Global Strategies as a Senior Counselor, presumably warning well-heeled clients to watch out for terrorists. His lifestyle and substantial emoluments depend on people being afraid of terrorism so they will turn to an expert like him and ask serious questions that he will answer in a serious way suggesting that Islamic militants could potentially bring about some kind of global apocalypse.
Morell, a torture apologist, also has a book out that he wants to sell, positing somewhat ridiculously that he and his former employer had been fighting The Great War of Our Time against Islamic terrorists, something comparable to the World Wars of the past century, hence the title. Morell needs to take some valium and relax. He would also benefit from a little introspection regarding the bad guys versus good guys narrative that he is peddling. His credentials as a warrior are somewhat suspect in any event as he never did any military service and his combat in the world of intelligence consisted largely of sitting behind a desk in Washington and providing briefings to George W. Bush and Barack Obama in which he presumably told them what they wanted to hear.
Morell is one of a host of pundits who are successful in selling the military-industrial-lobbyist-congressional-intelligence community line of BS on the war on terror. Throw in the neocons as the in-your-face agents provocateurs who provide instant intellectual and media credibility for developments and you have large groups of engaged individuals with good access who are on the receiving end of the seemingly unending cash pipeline that began with 9/11. Frances Townsend, who was the Bush Homeland Security adviser and who is now a consultant with CNN, is another such creature as is Michael Chertoff, formerly Director of the Department of Homeland Security, who has successfully marketed his defective airport scanners to his former employer.
But the guys and gals who are out feathering their own nests are at least comprehensible given our predatory capitalist system of government. More to the point, the gang that ordered or carried out torture and assassination are the ones who should be doing some hard time in the slammer but instead they too are riding the gravy train and cashing in. To name only a few of those who knew about the torture and ordered it carried out I would cite George Tenet, James Pavitt, Cofer Black and Jose Rodriguez from the intelligence community. The assassination program meanwhile is accredited to John Brennan, currently CIA Director, during his tenure as Obama's Deputy National Security Advisor. And then there are Doug Feith and Paul Wolfowitz at the Pentagon together with John Yoo at Justice and Scooter Libby, Dick Cheney, and Condi Rice at the White House, all of whom outright lied, dissimulated and conspired their way to bring about a war of aggression against Iraq.
There are plenty of nameless others who were "only carrying out orders" and who should be included in any reckoning of America's crimes over the past fifteen years, particularly if one also considers the illegal NSA spying program headed by Michael Hayden, who defended the practice and has also referred to those who oppose enhanced interrogation torture as "interrogation deniers." And then there are Presidents Bush and Obama who certainly knew what was going on in the name of the American people as well as John Brennan, who was involved in both the torture and renditions programs as well as the more recent assassinations by drone.
So where are they now? Living in obscurity ashamed of what they did? Hardly. Not only have they not been vilified or marginalized, they have, in most cases, been rewarded. George W. Bush lives in Dallas near his Presidential Library and eponymous Think (sic) Tank. Cheney lives in semi-retirement in McLean Virginia with a multi-million dollar waterfront weekend retreat in St. Michaels Maryland, not too far from Donald Rumsfeld's similar digs.
George Tenet, the CIA Director notorious for his "slam-dunk" comment, a man who cooked the intelligence to make the Iraq war possible to curry favor with the White House, has generously remunerated positions on the boards of Allen & Company merchant bank, QinetiQ, and L-1 Identity Solutions. He sold his memoir At the Center of the Storm, which has been described as a "self-justifying apologia," in 2007 for a reported advance of $4 million. His book, ironically, admits that the US invaded Iraq for no good reason.
James Pavitt, who was the point man responsible for the "enhanced interrogation" program as Tenet's Deputy Director for Operations, is currently a principal with The Scowcroft Group and also serves on several boards. Cofer Black, who headed the Counter-Terrorism Center, which actually carried out renditions and "enhanced interrogations," was vice chairman of Blackwater Worldwide (now called Xe) and chairman of Total Intelligence Solutions, a Blackwater spin-off. He is now vice president of Blackbird Technologies, a defense and intelligence contractor. Rodriguez, who succeeded Black and in 2005 illegally destroyed video tapes made of Agency interrogations to avoid possible repercussions, is a senior vice president with Edge Consulting, a defense contractor currently owned by IBM that is located in Virginia.
John Yoo is a Professor of Law at the University of California Berkeley while Condoleezza Rice, who spoke of mushroom clouds and is widely regarded as the worst National Security Advisor and Secretary of State in history, has returned to Stanford University. She is a professor at the Graduate School of Business and a director of its Global Center for Business and the Economy as well as a fellow at the Hoover Institution. She is occasionally spoken of as either a possible GOP presidential candidate or as a future Commissioner of the National Football League. Her interaction with students is limited, but when challenged on her record she has responded that it was a difficult situation post 9/11, something that everyone understands, though few would have come to her conclusion that attacking Iraq might be a good way to destroy al-Qaeda.
Paul Wolfowitz, the Bush Deputy Secretary of Defense, is seen by many as the "intellectual" driving force behind the invasion of Iraq. He is currently a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and advises Jeb Bush on foreign policy. A bid to reward Wolfie for his zeal by giving him a huge golden parachute as President of the World Bank at a salary of $391,000 tax free failed when, after 23 months in the position, he was ousted over promoting a subordinate with whom he was having an affair. His chief deputy at the Pentagon Doug Feith left the Defense Department to take up a visiting professorship at the school of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, which was subsequently not renewed. He is reported to be again practicing law and thinking deep thoughts about his hero Edmund Burke, who no doubt would have been appalled to make Feith's acquaintance. Feith is a senior fellow at the neoconservative Hudson Institute and the Director of the Center for National Security Strategies. His memoir War and Decision did not make the best seller list and is now available used on Amazon for $.01 plus shipping. If the marketplace is anything to go by Feith and Tenet are running neck-and-neck on secondary book exchanges as George also can be had for $.01.
The over-rewarding of former officials who have in reality done great harm to the United States and its interests might well seem inexplicable, but it is all part of a style of bureaucracy that cannot admit failure and truly believes that all its actions are ipso facto legitimate because the executive and its minions can do no wrong. It is also a symptom of the classic American character flaw that all things are of necessity measured by money. Does anyone remember the ancient Roman symbol of republican virtue Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, who left his farm after being named Dictator in order to defeat Rome's enemies? He then handed power back to the Senate before returning to his plowing after the job was done. The historian Livy summed up the significance of his act, writing "It is worthwhile for those who disdain all human things for money, and who suppose that there is no room either for great honor or virtue, except where wealth is found, to listen to his story." George Washington was America's Cincinnatus and it is not a coincidence that officers of the continental army founded the Cincinnati Society, the nation's oldest patriotic organization, in 1783. It is also reported that Edward Snowden used the alias "Cincinnatus."
Lord Acton once observed that "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely." More recently essayist Edward Abbey put it in an American context, noting "Power is always dangerous. Power attracts the worst and corrupts the best." That senior government officials and politicians routinely expect to be generously rewarded for their service and never held accountable for their failures and misdeeds is a fault that is perhaps not unique to the United States but it is nevertheless unacceptable. Handing out a couple of exemplary prison sentences for the caste that believes itself untouchable would be a good place to start. An opportunity was missed with David Petraeus, who was fined and avoided jail time, and it will be interesting to see how the Dennis Hastert case develops. Hastert will no doubt be slapped on the wrist for the crime of moving around his own money while the corruption that was the source of that money, both as a legislator and lobbyist, will be ignored. As will his molestation of at least one and possibly several young boys. One thing for sure about the Washington elite, you never have to say you're sorry.
Reprinted with permission from Unz Review.
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Dec 02, 2019 | bracingviews.com
Doug Barr December 1, 2019 at 7:24 PM
I just read your article in TD. In my opinion you buried the reason for never ending wars. You mention exceptionalism. I call that concept preeminence. With it is one of the few ways we try to fill the void, or as you said in fewer words, try to give meaning to life. There can be no doubt our lives are becoming increasingly meaningless so we double down and double down again with what we know despite the self-destruction. https://thelastwhy.ca/poems/2015/6/25/life-a-reaction-to-the-voidwjastore December 1, 2019 at 7:46 PMLike Like
Yes. "War is a force that gives us meaning," as Chris Hedges wrote. It provides (false) meaning and purpose. It's an amazingly powerful force, which is one reason why only Congress should declare war. And the last time that happened in the USA was December of 1941.greglaxer December 2, 2019 at 12:13 AMLike Like
Doug Barr–It appears to me you are trying to blur some lines, or perhaps you are confused about, what one might call general human psychology and the official policies of a specific government, that of the USA. [As a student of Anthropology, I point out that though our primate ancestors are prone to outbursts of violence, there is no evidence that making war, especially in the contemporary phase of human society, fulfills an innate "need."] Yes, the US seeks to be "pre-eminent"–or to be blunter, DOMINANT–over the rest of the globe. Where "exceptionalism"–which I have designated the American Disease–enters the picture is the attempt to justify military aggression by suggesting (some are less subtle and openly assert) that the US somehow has been granted a "right" to do this by "a higher power." (Apparently God Himself revealed to George W. Bush that he was born to be "a war president" and the genius Rick Perry asserted recently that Donald Trump was put in the presidency by direct Divine action.) A "right" to send assassin drones anywhere, anytime, to target anyone who's been designated a Bad Guy. This is absurd, if not insane, on the face of it. (In olden times, Rudyard Kipling called it "the white man's burden" to bring civilization to less "enlightened" peoples.) If there was an international court that had some teeth, the US would be vigorously swatted down, ordered to cease and desist. But one of the greatest tragedies of our time is that there is no power on Earth that could stand up to this Monster (as John Kay and his band Steppenwolf rightly identified the US 50 years ago) even if it could find the backbone to make the attempt.
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Apr 27, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Idealistic Realist , Apr 27, 2019 1:24:45 PM | link
Best analysis by a candidate for POTUS ever:
American foreign policy is not a failure. To comfort themselves, observers often say that our leaders -- presidents, advisors, generals -- don't know what they're doing. They do know. Their agenda just isn't what we like to imagine it is.To quote Michael Parenti: "US policy is not filled with contradictions and inconsistencies. It has performed brilliantly and steadily in the service of those who own most of the world and who want to own all of it."
The vision of our leaders as bunglers, while more accurate than the image of them as valiant public servants, is less accurate and more rose-tinted than the closest approximation of the truth, which is that they are servants of their class interest. That is why we go to war.
Those who buy the elite class's foreign policy BS, about the Emmanuel Goldsteins they conjure up every three years, are fools. Obviously Hussein and Milošević were bad; but "government bad" does not mean we must invade. Wars occur for economic, not humanitarian, reasons.
- Teodoro Obiang Nguema, the president of Equatorial Guinea, is a kleptocrat, murderer, and alleged cannibal. This is him and his wife with Barack and Michelle Obama.
- Islam Karimov, the president of Uzbekistan, was said to have boiled political prisoners to death, massacred hundreds of prisoners, and made torture an institution. This is him with John Kerry.
- Paul Kagame, the president of Rwanda, has been involved in the assassination of political opponents, perpetrated obvious election fraud, and had his term extended until 2034. This is him with Barack and Michelle Obama.
Why have we supported Nguema, Karimov, and Kagame but not the ones who are thorns in our sides? The reasons are obvious. It's not the lives of their citizens - it's power for the elite class. We intervene abroad because we want to further the interest of the wealthy.
America will always pick and choose the leaders it props up and tears down. It never was and never will be for humanitarian reasons -- that is a clever veil. We denounce ethnic cleansing and then fund it. We call for free elections and then support Pinochet, Stroessner, and Videla.
Opposing war is a noble and courageous act, and there will always be smears. Opposing war isn't supporting dictators; it's opposing death and destruction in the service of the wealthy. Never believe what they tell you about why they're sending your kids to die. Never.
Mike Gravel
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Mar 13, 2019 | www.unz.com
ChuckOrloski says:
March 12, 2019 at 5:25 pm GMT • 200 Words @AnonFromTN Superfluously impossible, AnonfromTN said: "It is simple, really. The US needs a law prohibiting anyone with dual citizenship to hold public office."Hi AnonfromTN.
Hard to comprehend how you persist to deny how the "US law" is Zionized. (Zigh) Israeli "dual citizenship and holding "Homeland" public office is an irretractable endowment lawlessly given to US Jews by ruling international Jewry.
They barged into our Constitution like a cancer and feast upon The Bill of Rights.
What's worse now is how livin' the "American dream" has reversed, and at present, President t-Rump demands huge increases in war funding.
No one gets informed that future wars converge with Israel's will.Please consider looking at the Wikileaks video linked below? It illustrates a barbaric type of war crime-free & unaccountability to "international law," including a lawless US military Rules of Engagement modus operandi, which governed the serial killing activity of an Apache attack chopper crew in the Baghdad sky. Look close at the posed threat!
Tell me AnonfromTN? As you likely know, Bradley Chelsea Manning is, and under "Homeland" law, in-the-klink for exposing the war crimes to America. Is their one (1) US Congressman raising objection to the imprisonment? Fyi, you can look at the brave writing of Kathy Kelly on the Manning case, and which appears at Counterpunch.org.
AnonFromTN , says: March 12, 2019 at 6:01 pm GMT
@ChuckOrloski I can only agree. The patient (the US political system) is too far gone to hope for recovery. As comment #69 rightly points out, our political system is based on bribery. Lobbyism and donations to political campaigns and PACs are perfectly legal in the US, while all of these should be criminal offenses punished by jail time, like in most countries. Naturally, desperate Empires losing their dominant position resort to any war crimes imaginable, and severely punish those who expose these crimes.I can add only one thing: you are right that greedy Jews are evil, but greedy people of any nationality are just as evil as greedy Jews. Not all greedy globalists and MIC thieves are Jews, but they are all scum. I watch with dismay the US Empire heading to its crash. Lemmings running to the cliff are about as rational as our degenerate elites. Israel influence is toxic, but that's not the only poison the Empire will die from.
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Mar 08, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
by Tyler Durden Fri, 03/08/2019 - 23:55 240 SHARES Authored by Eric Zuesse via The Strategic Culture Foundation,
The Syrian National News Agency headlined on February 26th, "Gold deal between United States and Daesh" (Daesh is ISIS) and reported that,
Information from local sources said that US army helicopters have already transported the gold bullions under cover of darkness on Sunday [February 24th], before transporting them to the United States.
The sources said that tens of tons that Daesh had been keeping in their last hotbed in al-Baghouz area in Deir Ezzor countryside have been handed to the Americans, adding up to other tons of gold that Americans have found in other hideouts for Daesh, making the total amount of gold taken by the Americans to the US around 50 tons, leaving only scraps for the SDF [Kurdish] militias that serve them [the US operation].
Recently, sources said that the area where Daesh leaders and members have barricaded themselves in, contains around 40 tons of gold and tens of millions of dollars.
Allegedly, "US occupation forces in the Syrian al-Jazeera area made a deal with Daesh terrorists, by which Washington gets tens of tons of gold that the terror organization had stolen, in exchange for providing safe passage for the terrorists and their leaders from the areas in Deir Ezzor where they are located."
ISIS was financing its operations largely by the theft of oil from the oil wells in the Deir Ezzor area, Syria's oil-producing region, and they transported and sold this stolen oil via their allied forces, through Turkey, which was one of those US allies trying to overthrow Syria's secular Government and install a Sunni fundamentalist regime that would be ruled from Riyadh (i.e., controlled by the Saud family) . This gold is the property of the Syrian Government, which owns all that oil and the oil wells, which ISIS had captured (stolen), and then sold. Thus, this gold is from sale of that stolen black-market oil, which was Syria's property.
The US Government claims to be anti-ISIS, but actually didn't even once bomb ISIS in Syria until Russia started bombing ISIS in Syria on 30 September 2015, and the US had actually been secretly arming ISIS there so as to help ISIS and especially Al Qaeda (and the US was strongly protecting Al Qaeda in Syria ) to overthrow Syria's secular and non-sectarian Government. Thus, whereas Russia started bombing ISIS in Syria on 30 September 2015, America (having become embarrassed) started bombing ISIS in Syria on 16 November 2015 . The US Government's excuse was "This is our first strike against tanker trucks, and to minimize risks to civilians, we conducted a leaflet drop prior to the strike." They pretended it was out of compassion -- not in order to extend for as long as possible ISIS's success in taking over territory in Syria. (And, under Trump, on the night of 2 March 2019, the US rained down upon ISIS in northeast Syria the excruciating and internationally banned white phosphorous to burn ISIS and its hostages alive, which Trump's predecessor Barack Obama had routinely done to burn alive the residents in Donetsk and other parts of eastern former Ukraine where voters had voted more than 90% for the democratically elected Ukrainian President whom Obama's coup in Ukraine had replaced . It was a way to eliminate some of the most-undesired voters -- people who must never again be voting in a Ukrainian national election, not even if that region subsequently does become conquered by the post-coup, US-imposed, regime. The land there is wanted; its residents certainly are not wanted by the Obama-imposed regime.) America's line was: Russia just isn't as 'compassionate' as America. Zero Hedge aptly headlined "'Get Out Of Your Trucks And Run Away': US Gives ISIS 45 Minute Warning On Oil Tanker Strikes" . Nobody exceeds the United States Government in sheer hypocrisy.
The US Government evidently thinks that the public are fools, idiots. America's allies seem to be constantly amazed at how successful that approach turns out to be.
Indeed, on 28 November 2012, Syria News headlined "Emir of Qatar & Prime Minister of Turkey Steal Syrian Oil Machinery in Broad Daylight" and presented video allegedly showing it (but unfortunately providing no authentication of the date and locale of that video).
Jihadists were recruited from throughout the world to fight against Syria's secular Government. Whereas ISIS was funded mainly by black-market sales of oil from conquered areas, the Al-Qaeda-led groups were mainly funded by the Sauds and other Arab royal families and their retinues, the rest of their aristocracy. On 13 December 2013, BBC headlined "Guide to the Syrian rebels" and opened "There are believed to be as many as 1,000 armed opposition groups in Syria, commanding an estimated 100,000 fighters." Except in the Kurdish areas in Syria's northeast, almost all of those fighters were being led by Al Qaeda's Syrian Branch, al-Nusra. Britain's Center on Religion & Politics headlined on 21 December 2015, "Ideology and Objectives of the Syrian Rebellion" and reported: "If ISIS is defeated, there are at least 65,000 fighters belonging to other Salafi-jihadi groups ready to take its place." Almost all of those 65,000 were trained and are led by Syria's Al Qaeda (Nusra), which was protected by the US
In September 2016 a UK official "FINAL REPORT OF THE TASK FORCE ON COMBATING TERRORIST AND FOREIGN FIGHTER TRAVEL" asserted that, "Over 25,000 foreign fighters have traveled to the battlefield to enlist with Islamist terrorist groups, including at least 4,500 Westerners. More than 250 individuals from the United States have also joined." Even just 25,000 (that official lowest estimate) was a sizable US proxy-army of religious fanatics to overthrow Syria's Government.
On 26 November 2015, the first of Russia's videos of Russia's bombing ISIS oil trucks headed into Turkey was bannered at a US military website "Russia Airstrike on ISIS Oil Tankers" , and exactly a month later, on 26 December 2015, Britain's Daily Express headlined "WATCH: Russian fighter jets smash ISIS oil tankers after spotting 12,000 at Turkish border" . This article, reporting around twelve thousand ISIS oil-tanker trucks heading into Turkey, opened: "The latest video, released by the Russian defence ministry, shows the tankers bunched together as they make their way along the road. They are then blasted by the fighter jet." The US military had nothing comparable to offer to its 'news'-media. Britain's Financial Times headlined on 14 October 2015, "Isis Inc: how oil fuels the jihadi terrorists" . Only America's allies were involved in this commerce with ISIS -- no nation that supported Syria's Government was participating in this black market of stolen Syrian goods. So, it's now clear that a lot of that stolen oil was sold for gold as Syria's enemy-nations' means of buying that oil from ISIS. They'd purchase it from ISIS, but not from Syria's Government, the actual owner.
On 30 November 2015 Israel's business-news daily Globes News Service bannered "Israel has become the main buyer for oil from ISIS controlled territory, report" , and reported:
An estimated 20,000-40,000 barrels of oil are produced daily in ISIS controlled territory generating $1-1.5 million daily profit for the terrorist organization. The oil is extracted from Dir A-Zur in Syria and two fields in Iraq and transported to the Kurdish city of Zakhu in a triangle of land near the borders of Syria, Iraq and Turkey. Israeli and Turkish mediators come to the city and when prices are agreed, the oil is smuggled to the Turkish city of Silop marked as originating from Kurdish regions of Iraq and sold for $15-18 per barrel (WTI and Brent Crude currently sell for $41 and $45 per barrel) to the Israeli mediator, a man in his 50s with dual Greek-Israeli citizenship known as Dr. Farid. He transports the oil via several Turkish ports and then onto other ports, with Israel among the main destinations.
After all, Israel too wants to overthrow Syria's secular, non-sectarian Government, which would be replaced by rulers selected by the Saud family , who are the US Government's main international ally .
On 9 November 2014, when Turkey was still a crucial US ally trying to overthrow Syria's secular Government (and this was before the failed 15 July 2016 US-backed coup-attempt to overthrow and replace Turkey's Government so as to impose an outright US stooge), Turkey was perhaps ISIS's most crucial international backer . Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's leader, had received no diploma beyond k-12, and all of that schooling was in Sunni schools and based on the Quran . (He pretended, however, to have a university diploma.) On 15 July 2015, AWD News headlined "Turkish President's daughter heads a covert medical corps to help ISIS injured members" . On 2 December 2015, a Russian news-site headlined "Defense Ministry: Erdogan and his family are involved in the illegal supply of oil" ; so, the Erdogan family itself was religiously committed to ISIS's fighters against Syria, and they were key to the success of the US operation against Syrians -- theft from Syrians. The great investigative journalist Christof Lehmann, who was personally acquainted with many of the leading political figures in Africa and the Middle East, headlined on 22 June 2014, "US Embassy in Ankara Headquarter for ISIS War on Iraq – Hariri Insider" , and he reported that the NATO-front the Atlantic Council had held a meeting in Turkey during 22-23 of November 2013 at which high officials of the US and allied governments agreed that they were going to take over Syria's oil, and that they even were threatening Iraq's Government for its not complying with their demands to cooperate on overthrowing Syria's Government. So, behind the scenes, this conquest of Syria was the clear aim by the US and all of its allies.
The US had done the same thing when it took over Ukraine by a brutal coup in February 2014 : It grabbed the gold. Iskra News in Russian reported, on 7 March 2014 , that "At 2 a.m. this morning ... an unmarked transport plane was on the runway at Borosipol Airport" near Kiev in the west, and that, "According to airport staff, before the plane came to the airport, four trucks and two Volkswagen minibuses arrived, all the truck license plates missing." This was as translated by Michel Chossudovsky at Global Research headlining on 14 March, "Ukraine's Gold Reserves Secretly Flown Out and Confiscated by the New York Federal Reserve?" in which he noted that, when asked, "A spokesman for the New York Fed said simply, 'Any inquiry regarding gold accounts should be directed to the account holder.'" The load was said to be "more than 40 heavy boxes." Chossudovsky noted that, "The National Bank of Ukraine (Central Bank) estimated Ukraine's gold reserves in February to be worth $1.8 billion dollars." It was allegedly 36 tons. The US, according to Victoria Nuland ( Obama's detail-person overseeing the coup ) had invested around $5 billion in the coup. Was her installed Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk cleaning out the nation's gold reserves in order to strip the nation so that the nation's steep indebtedness for Russian gas would never be repaid to Russia's oligarchs? Or was he doing it as a payoff for Nuland's having installed him? Or both? In any case: Russia was being squeezed by this fascist Ukrainian-American ploy.
On 14 November 2014, a Russian youtube headlined "In Ukraine, there is no more gold and currency reserves" and reported that there is "virtually no gold. There is a small amount of gold bars, but it's just 1%" of before the coup. Four days later, bannered "Ukraine Admits Its Gold Is Gone: 'There Is Almost No Gold Left In The Central Bank Vault'" . From actually 42.3 tons just before the coup, it was now far less than one ton.
The Syria operation was about oil, gold, and guns. However, most of America's support was to Al-Qaeda-led jihadists, not to ISIS-jihadists. As the great independent investigative journalist Dilyana Gaytandzhieva reported on 2 July 2017 :
"In December of last year while reporting on the battle of Aleppo as a correspondent for Bulgarian media I found and filmed 9 underground warehouses full of heavy weapons with Bulgaria as their country of origin. They were used by Al Nusra Front (Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria designated as a terrorist organization by the UN)."
The US had acquired weapons from around the world, and shipped them (and Gaytandzhieva's report even displayed the transit-documents) through a network of its embassies, into Syria, for Nusra-led forces inside Syria. Almost certainly, the US Government's central command center for the entire arms-smuggling operation was the world's largest embassy, which is America's embassy in Baghdad.
Furthermore, On 8 March 2013, Richard Spenser of Britain's Telegraph reported that Croatia's Jutarnji List newspaper had reported that "3,000 tons of weapons dating back to the former Yugoslavia have been sent in 75 planeloads from Zagreb airport to the rebels, largely via Jordan since November. The airlift of dated but effective Yugoslav-made weapons meets key concerns of the West, and especially Turkey and the United States, who want the rebels to be better armed to drive out the Assad regime."
Also, a September 2014 study by Conflict Armaments Research (CAR), titled "Islamic State Weapons in Iraq and Syria" , reported that not only east-European, but even US-made, weapons were being "captured from Islamic State forces" by Kurds who were working for the Americans, and that this was very puzzling and disturbing to those Kurds, who were risking their lives to fight against those jihadists.
In December 2017, CAR headlined "Weapons of the Islamic State" and reported that "this materiel was rapidly captured by IS forces, only to be deployed by the group against international coalition forces." The assumption made there was that the transfer of weapons to ISIS was all unintentional.
That report ignored contrary evidence, which I summed up on 2 September 2017 headlining "Russian TV Reports US Secretly Backing ISIS in Syria" , and reporting there also from the Turkish Government an admission that the US was working with Turkey to funnel surviving members of Iraq's ISIS into the Deir Ezzor part of Syria to help defeat Syria's Government in that crucial oil-producing region. Moreover, at least one member of the 'rebels' that the US was training at Al Tanf on Syria's Jordanian border had quit because his American trainers were secretly diverting some of their weapons to ISIS. Furthermore: why hadn't the US bombed Syrian ISIS before Russia entered the Syrian war on 30 September 2015? America talked lots about its supposed effort against ISIS, but why did US wait till 16 November 2015 before taking action, "'Get Out Of Your Trucks And Run Away': US Gives ISIS 45 Minute Warning On Oil Tanker Strikes" ?
So, regardless of whether the US Government uses jihadists as its proxy-forces, or uses fascists as its proxy-forces, it grabs the gold -- and grabs the oil, and takes whatever else it can.
This is today's form of imperialism.
Grab what you can, and run. And call it 'fighting for freedom and democracy and human rights and against corruption'. And the imperial regime's allies watch in amazement, as they take their respective cuts of the loot. That's the deal, and they call it 'fighting for freedom and democracy and human rights and against corruption around the world'. That's the way it works. International gangland. That's the reality, while most of the public think it's instead really "fighting for freedom and democracy and human rights and against corruption around the world." For example, as RT reported on Sunday , March 3rd, about John Bolton's effort at regime-change in Venezuela, Bolton said: "I'd like to see as broad a coalition as we can put together to replace Maduro, to replace the whole corrupt regime,' Bolton told CNN's Jake Tapper." Trump's regime wants to bring clean and democratic government to the poor Venezuelans, just like Bush's did to the Iraqis, and Obama's did to the Libyans and to the Syrians and to the Ukrainians. And Trump, who pretends to oppose Obama's regime-change policies, alternately expands them and shrinks them. Though he's slightly different from Obama on domestic policies, he never, as the US President, condemns any of his predecessors' many coups and invasions, all of which were disasters for everybody except America's and allies' billionaires. They're all in on the take.
The American public were suckered into destroying Iraq in 2003, Libya in 2011, Syria in 2011-now, and so many other countries, and still haven't learned anything, other than to keep trusting the allegations of this lying and psychopathically vicious and super-aggressive Government and of its stenographic 'news'-media. When is enough finally enough ? Never? If not never, then when ? Or do most people never learn? Or maybe they don't really care. Perhaps that's the problem.
On March 4th, the Jerusalem Post bannered "IRAN AND TURKEY MEDIA PUSH CONSPIRACY THEORIES ABOUT US, ISIS: Claims pushed by Syrian regime media assert that US gave ISIS safe passage out of Baghuz in return for gold, a conspiracy picked up in Tehran and Ankara" , and simply assumed that it's false -- but provided no evidence to back their speculation up -- and they closed by asserting "The conspiracies, which are manufactured in Damascus, are disseminated to Iraq and Turkey, both of whom oppose US policy in eastern Syria." Why do people even subscribe to such 'news'-sources as that? The key facts are hidden, the speculation that's based on their own prejudices replaces whatever facts exist. Do the subscribers, to that, simply want to be deceived? Are most people that stupid?
Back on 21 December 2018, one of the US regime's top 'news'-media, the Washington Post, had headlined "Retreating ISIS army smuggled a fortune in cash and gold out of Iraq and Syria" and reported that "the Islamic State is sitting on a mountain of stolen cash and gold that its leaders stashed away to finance terrorist operations." So, it's not as if there hadn't been prior reason to believe that some day some of the gold would be found after America's defeat in Syria. Maybe they just hadn't expected this to happen quite so soon. But the regime will find ways to hoodwink its public, in the future, just as it has in the past. Unless the public wises-up (if that's even possible).
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Jun 13, 2018 | www.unz.com
In truth, infinite war is a strategic abomination, an admission of professional military bankruptcy. Erster General-Quartiermeister Ludendorff might have endorsed the term, but Ludendorff was a military fanatic.
Check that. Infinite war is a strategic abomination except for arms merchants, so-called defense contractors, and the " emergency men " (and women) devoted to climbing the greasy pole of what we choose to call the national security establishment. In other words, candor obliges us to acknowledge that, in some quarters, infinite war is a pure positive, carrying with it a promise of yet more profits, promotions, and opportunities to come. War keeps the gravy train rolling. And, of course, that's part of the problem.
Who should we hold accountable for this abomination? Not the generals, in my view. If they come across as a dutiful yet unimaginative lot, remember that a lifetime of military service rarely nurtures imagination or creativity. And let us at least credit our generals with this: in their efforts to liberate or democratize or pacify or dominate the Greater Middle East they have tried every military tactic and technique imaginable. Short of nuclear annihilation, they've played just about every card in the Pentagon's deck -- without coming up with a winning hand. So they come and go at regular intervals, each new commander promising success and departing after a couple years to make way for someone else to give it a try.
... ... ...
Congressional midterm elections are just months away and another presidential election already looms. Who will be the political leader with the courage and presence of mind to declare: "Enough! Stop this madness!" Man or woman, straight or gay, black, brown, or white, that person will deserve the nation's gratitude and the support of the electorate.
Until that occurs, however, the American penchant for war will stretch on toward infinity. No doubt Saudi and Israeli leaders will cheer, Europeans who remember their Great War will scratch their heads in wonder, and the Chinese will laugh themselves silly. Meanwhile, issues of genuinely strategic importance -- climate change offers one obvious example -- will continue to be treated like an afterthought. As for the gravy train, it will roll on.
Anon [323] Disclaimer , June 7, 2018 at 9:57 pm GMT
"The United States of Amnesia."unseated , June 7, 2018 at 11:00 pm GMTThat's actually a universal condition.
@Andrei Martyanovc matt , June 8, 2018 at 1:18 pm GMT1. WW1 had total casualties (civilian and military) of around 40M. WW2 had total casualties of 60M. So yes WW2 was more deadly but "pales in comparison" is hardly justified, especially relative to population.
2. Marshal Foch, 28 June, 1919: "This is not a peace. It is an armistice for 20 years."
WW1 inevitably led to WW2."Enough! Stop this madness!"anonymous [340] Disclaimer , June 8, 2018 at 2:08 pm GMTThe only politician with a modest national stage to have said that (and meant it) in the last 50 years was Ron Paul, who was booed and mocked as crazy. Trump made noises in that direction, but almost as soon as the last words of his oath echoed off into the brisk January afternoon, he seemed to change his tune. Whether he never meant it, or decided to avoid the JFK treatment, who knows.
No, as I believe Will Rogers said, democracy is that form of government where the people get what they want, good and hard.
@c mattCarlton Meyer , Website June 8, 2018 at 4:02 pm GMTYes.
I supported Ron Paul in 2012. But after his candidacy was crookedly subverted by the Establishment (cf., Trump's) I vowed never to vote again for anyone that I believe unworthy of the power wielded through the public office. I haven't voted since, and don't expect to until the Empire collapses.
Kirk Douglas starred in a great film about fighting in World War I: "Paths of Glory." I highly recommend the film for its accuracy, best described in Wiki by the reaction of governments:Mike P , June 8, 2018 at 4:33 pm GMTControversy
On its release, the film's anti-military tone was subject to criticism and censorship.
In France, both active and retired personnel from the French military vehemently criticized the film -- and its portrayal of the French Army -- after it was released in Belgium. The French government placed enormous pressure on United Artists, (the European distributor) to not release the film in France. The film was eventually shown in France in 1975 when social attitudes had changed.[17]
In Germany, the film was withdrawn from the Berlin Film Festival to avoid straining relations with France;[18] it was not shown for two years until after its release.
In Spain, Spain's right-wing government of Francisco Franco objected to the film. It was first shown in 1986, 11 years after Franco's death.
In Switzerland, the film was censored, at the request of the Swiss Army, until 1970.[18]
At American bases in Europe, the American military banned it from being shown.[18]
TG , June 8, 2018 at 7:44 pm GMTNo, it's not the generals who have let us down, but the politicians to whom they supposedly report and from whom they nominally take their orders.
I'd say both. The generals have greatly assisted in stringing along the trusting public, always promising that victory is just around the corner, provided the public supports this or that final effort. Petraeus in particular willingly played his part in misleading the public about both Iraq and Afghanistan. His career would be a great case study for illuminating what is wrong with the U.S. today.
As to the apparent failure of the Afghanistan war – one must be careful to separate stated goals from real ones. What kind of "lasting success" can the U.S. possibly hope for there? If they managed to defeat the Taliban, pacify the country, install a puppet regime to govern it, and then leave, what would that achieve? The puppet regime would find itself surrounded by powers antagonistic to the U.S., and the puppets would either cooperate with them or be overthrown in no time. The U.S. are not interested in winning and leaving – they want to continue disrupting the peaceful integration of East, West, and South Asia. Afghanistan is ideally placed for this purpose, and so the U.S. are quite content with dragging out that war, as a pretext for their continued presence in the region.
An interesting and thoughtful piece.Left Gatekeeper Dispatch , June 8, 2018 at 9:10 pm GMTI would disagree on one point though: "Today, Washington need not even bother to propagandize the public into supporting its war. By and large, members of the public are indifferent to its very existence."
This is an error. A majority of the American public think that wasting trillions of dollars on endless pointless foreign wars is a stupid idea, and they think that we would be better off spending that money on ourselves. It's just that we don't live in a democracy, and the corporate press constantly ignores the issue. But just because the press doesn't mention something, doesn't mean that it does not exist.
So during the last presidential election Donald Trump echoed this view, why are we throwing away all this money on stupid wars when we need that money at home? For this he was attacked as a fascist and "literally Hitler" (really! It's jaw-dropping when you think about it). Despite massive propaganda attacking Trump, and a personal style that could charitably be called a jackass, Trump won the election in large part because indeed most American don't like the status quo.
After the election, Trump started to deliver on his promises – and he was quickly beaten down, his pragmatist nationalist advisors purged and replaced with defense-industry chickenhawks, and now we are back to the old status quo. The public be damned.
No, the American people are not being propagandized into supporting these wars. They are simply being ignored.
When are you going to stop insulting our intelligence with this Boy's State civics crap? You're calling on political leaders to stop war, like they don't remember what CIA did to JFK, RFK, Daschle, or Leahy. Or Paul Wellstone.James Kabala , June 9, 2018 at 11:24 pm GMTYour national command structure, CIA, has impunity for universal jurisdiction crime. They can kill or torture anyone they want and get away with it. That is what put them in charge. CIA kills anybody who gets in their way. You fail to comprehend Lenin's lesson: first destroy the regime, then you can refrain from use of force. Until you're ready to take on CIA, your bold phrases are silent and odorless farts of feckless self-absorption. Sack up and imprison CIA SIS or GTFO.
@Carlton Meyerexiled off mainstreet , June 10, 2018 at 1:15 am GMTSince Spain was smart enough to stay out of both World Wars (as was Switzerland, of course), I wonder what Franco was thinking when he banned the film. Anyway, the final scene may be the best final scene in the history of movies.
This writer, a retired military officer whose son died in service to the yankee imperium seems to have as good a grasp as any if not a better grasp than any about the nature of the yankee system of permanent war.smellyoilandgas , June 13, 2018 at 4:48 am GMT@TGMr. Anon , June 13, 2018 at 4:49 am GMTWhile I agree the slave-American is ignored, I think the elected, salaried members of the elected government are also ignored.. The persons in charge are Pharaohs and massively powerful global in scope corporations.
Abe Lincoln, McKinnley, Kennedy discovered that fact in their fate.Organized Zionism was copted by the London bankers and their corporations 1897, since then a string of events have emerged.. that like a Submarine, seeking a far off target, it must divert to avoid being discovered, but soon, Red October returns to its intended path. here the path is to take the oil from the Arabs.. and the people driving that submarine are extremely wealthy Pharaohs and very well known major corporations.
I suggest to quit talking about the nation states and their leaders as if either could beat their way out of a wet paper sack. instead starting talking about the corporations and Pharaohs because they are global.
The yawning silence accompanying the centennial of the Great War is baffling to me. It was the pivotal event of the 20th century. It was the beginning of the unmanning, the demoralization of Western Civilization. It was the calamity that created the World we inhabit today.MarkinPNW , June 13, 2018 at 5:49 am GMTI've heard nary a peep about it in the U.S. over the last four years. It's as if it were as remote in people's consciousness as the Punic Wars.
The World Wars (I and II) can be seen as an increasingly desperate attempt of a fading British Empire to hold on to and maintain its power and hegemony, with the material, human, and moral cost of the wars actually accelerating the empire's demise.animalogic , June 13, 2018 at 8:14 am GMTLikewise, the current endless "War on Terra" can be seen as an increasingly desperate attempt of a fading American Empire to hold on to and maintain its power and hegemony, again with the material, human, and moral cost of this war actually accelerating its demise.
But in the meantime, in both examples, the Bankers and the MIC just keep reaping their profits, even at the expense of the empires they purportedly support and defend.
@Mike PTom Welsh , June 13, 2018 at 10:05 am GMTGood points Mike P.
Author says: "strategy has ceased to exist".
In a traditional sense the author is right. Strategy is the attainment of political goals, within existing constraints. (diplomatic, political, resources etc)
"Goals" traditionally means "victories". (WWI is a great example of the sometimes dubious idea of victory)
Has the US ceased to have a strategy ? No. (Their strategy is myopic & self destructive – ie it's not a "good" strategy)The US strategy is based on two core principles: (1) Maintain – extend hegemony over whole world. (Resources, military etc etc) (2) Act as Israel's Golom. Afghanistan, at (relatively) minimal cost, US controls key land mass (& with possible future access to fantastic resources). Threaten, mess up Russian – Chinese ambitions in this area. Iraq: Israeli enemy, strategic location, resource extraction. Syria: Israeli enemy, strategic location, key location for resource transfer to markets (EU esp). Deny Russia an ally. Libya: who cares ? Gaddafi was a pain in the arse. Iran: Israeli enemy, fantastic resources, hate them regardless.
Of course this (very abbreviated) view of US "strategy" is open to the criticisms that it's both dumb & evil. As if US establishment cares. Compared to cost of traditional "war" it's pretty cheap ( which is funny, because it's such a yummy gravy train for the 1% sorry, actually, forgot the FIRST core principle of US strategy: enrich all the "right" people)
'There has never been a just [war], never an honorable one–on the part of the instigator of the war. I can see a million years ahead, and this rule will never change in so many as half a dozen instances. The loud little handful–as usual–will shout for the war. The pulpit will– warily and cautiously–object–at first; the great, big, dull bulk of the nation will rub its sleepy eyes and try to make out why there should be a war, and will say, earnestly and indignantly, "It is unjust and dishonorable, and there is no necessity for it." Then the handful will shout louder. A few fair men on the other side will argue and reason against the war with speech and pen, and at first will have a hearing and be applauded; but it will not last long; those others will outshout them, and presently the anti-war audiences will thin out and lose popularity.annamaria , June 13, 2018 at 2:06 pm GMTBefore long you will see this curious thing: the speakers stoned from the platform, and free speech strangled by hordes of furious men who in their secret hearts are still at one with those stoned speakers–as earlier– but do not dare to say so. And now the whole nation–pulpit and all– will take up the war-cry, and shout itself hoarse, and mob any honest man who ventures to open his mouth; and presently such mouths will cease to open. Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception'.
- Satan, in Mark Twain's "The Mysterious Stranger" (1908)
@Carlton MeyerEuropean politicians, the war on terror, and the triumph of Bankers United: https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2018/06/12/europe-brainwashed-normalize-relations-russia/
"Europe has not had an independent existence for 75 years. European countries do not know what it means to be a sovereign state. Without Washington European politicians feel lost, so they are likely to stick with Washington .Russian hopes to unite with the West in a war against terrorism overlook that terrorism is the West's weapon for destabilizing independent countries that do not accept a unipolar world."
The world is ripe for barter exchange. Screw the money changers.
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Aug 04, 2017 | www.moonofalabama.org
virgile | Aug 4, 2017 11:18:14 AM | 1
"linear"?, I would say amateurish and often stupid! It seems that the USA cannot see far enough as it's submitted to regime changes every 5 years and decisions are finally left to powerful lobbies that have a better continuity.Sid2 | Aug 4, 2017 11:24:08 AM | 2Provided the gross flaws of the intelligence, one has to wonder about the quality of the education in politics provided by Harvard and other expensive universities.. What they seem to learn very well there is lying.
Moqtada had a million man army 10 years ago. He may still have it, in the "things do go astray" department.Sid2 | Aug 4, 2017 11:28:23 AM | 3"Linear" and all that is the mushy feel-good stuff on top of your arrogance. Kleptocracy only NOW putting down its roots? Come on. Let's get back to the 90's where it started. Vengeance for 9/11? Cover?somebody | Aug 4, 2017 11:32:33 AM | 4I think it is because US business is ruled by the quarter .Emily | Aug 4, 2017 11:36:18 AM | 5So there may be long term plans and goals but the emphasis for everybody is always short-term.
Second paragraph.JSonofa | Aug 4, 2017 11:43:23 AM | 6'There are features of how the United States makes and executes foreign policy'
There was no need for the rest. The United States makes and executes foreign policy on the direction of Tel Aviv and to meet the demands of the MIC.
Nuff said - surely.
You lost me at Walt Whitman or Barack CIA 0bama.Skip | Aug 4, 2017 11:44:16 AM | 7It seems the, "Mission Possible" of the alphabet agencies is not intelligence, but chaos. All's well in the world with them as long as the USSA is grinding away on some near helpless ME country. Drugs and other natural resources flow from and death and destruction flow to the unsuspecting Muslim targets.Simplyamazed | Aug 4, 2017 12:15:58 PM | 8With America, you're our friend, (or at least we tolerate you) until you're not (or we don't), then God help you and your innocent hoards.
The organized and well scripted chaos has been just one act in the larger play of destroying western civilization with throngs of Muslims now flooding western Europe and to a lesser degree, USA. Of course, the Deep State had felt confident in allowing Latinos to destroy America...Trump has put a large crimp in the pipeline--one of the reasons he is hated so badly by the destructive PTB.
Your analysis of linearity is interesting. However, you make what I believe is a critical error. You assume you know the objective and the path to follow and base your critique accordingly.aniteleya | Aug 4, 2017 12:33:51 PM | 9It is entirely possible that the underlying objective of, for instance, invading Iraq was to win a war and bring democracy. Subsequent behaviour in Iraq (and Afghanistan) indicates that there might be (likely is) a hidden but central other objective. I do not want to state that I know what that is because I am not "in the know". However, much that you attribute to failure from linear thinking just as easily can be explained by the complexity of realizing a "hidden agenda".
Perhaps we can learn from history. Did the U.S. enter the First World War to save the world and democracy, or was it a game of waiting until the sides were exhausted enough that victory would be a walkover, the prize a seat at the center of power and the result that the U.S. could now take advantage of a superior position over the now exhausted former superpowers, having sat out the worst of the fighting and sold to both sides at a healthy profit?
Invading Afghanistan and Iraq gives the U.S. a dominant role in the center of the Asian continent, the position coveted by Britain, Russia, France and the Ottoman Empire during the Great Power rivalry leading up to the Great War. It can be seen as partial success in a policy of encirclement of Russia and China. Redefining the Afghanistan and Iraq wars along these lines make them look more successful, not less, however odious we may thing these objectives might be from moral and international law perspectives.
Russia learnt a huge lesson from their experience in Afghanistan. There they retreated in the face of a violent Wahabist insurgency and paid the price. The Soviet union collapsed and became vulnerable to western free-market gangsterism as well as suffering the blowback of terrorism in Chechnya, where they decided to play it very differently. A bit more like how Assad senior dealt with the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1980's.john | Aug 4, 2017 1:14:02 PM | 10Russia knew that if ISIS and friends were allowed to destroy Syria like the Mujahadeen had done in Afghanistan, then it would only be a matter of time before blowback would come again to Russia.
Russia's involvement is entirely rational and in their national interest. It should never have come as a surprise to the US, and the US should shake off their cold war propaganda and be grateful that people are willing to put their lives on the line to defeat Wahabist terrorism. Russia has played a focused line with integrity. Many Syrians love them for this, and many more in the Middle East will likewise adopt a similar line.
Jackrabbit | Aug 4, 2017 1:26:29 PM | 11In other words, the linear mindset blocks out all non-conforming realities in the present and those contingent elements which might arise in the futureyou mean non-conforming realities like the rule of law, and possible future contingencies like war crimes tribunals?
i kinda skimmed this piece, but it seems to me that trying to write some kind of rational analysis of a US foreign policy without mentioning the glaring fact that it's all absolutely illegal strikes me as an exercise in confusion.
Brenner: Washington never really had a plan in Syria.jsn | Aug 4, 2017 1:31:06 PM | 12Really? Firstly, the author's focus on successful implementation of policy is misguided. That the Iraq War was based on a lie, the Libyan bombing Campaign was illegal, and the Syrian conflict was an illegal proxy war does not trouble him. And the strategic reasons for US long-term occupation of Afghanistan escapes him.
Although he laments the failure to plan for contingencies, the words "accountable" and "accountability" never appear in this essay. Nor does the word "neocon" - despite their being the malignant driving force in US FP.
The bleach in Brenner's white-washing is delivered with the statement that Washington never really had a plan in Syria. Seymour Hersh described the planning in his "The Redirection" back in 2007(!):
The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.Lastly, Brenner's complaint that Obama has been "scape-goated" as having created ISIS conveniently ignores Obama's allowing ISIS to grow by down-playing the threat that it represented. Obama's called ISIS al Queda's "JV team" and senior intelligence analysts dutifully distorted intelligence to down-play the threat (see below). This was one of many deceptions that Obama took part in - if not orchestrated (others: "moderate rebels", Benghazi, the "Fiscal Cliff", bank bailouts).In testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in January [2007], Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that there is "a new strategic alignment in the Middle East," separating "reformers" and "extremists"; she pointed to the Sunni states as centers of moderation, and said that Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah were "on the other side of that divide."
<> <> <> <> <> <> <> <>
House GOP task force: Military leaders distorted ISIS intel to downplay threat
After months of investigation, this much is very clear: from the middle of 2014 to the middle of 2015, the United States Central Command's most senior intelligence leaders manipulated the command's intelligence products to downplay the threat from ISIS in Iraq" . . .The Joint Task Force can find no justifiable reason why operational reporting was repeatedly used as a rationale to change the analytic product, particularly when the changes only appeared to be made in a more optimistic direction . . .
The US is playing checkers, the Russians Chess. We shall sanction them until they learn to play checkers.Enrico Malatesta | Aug 4, 2017 1:31:39 PM | 13aniteleya | Aug 4, 2017 12:33:51 PM | 9Duncan Kinder | Aug 4, 2017 1:33:14 PM | 14There have been many lessons for the Russians since Afghanistan, two that Russia was directly involved with were the 90's break-up of Yugoslavia in the 90's (and the diplomatic invention of R2P) and the Chechen turmoil of the last decade.
Russia has also benefited through the non-linear analysis of US diplomacy failures of the last two decades. Russia has created a coalition backing up their military entry into the Middle East that allows achievement of tangible objectives at a sustainable cost.
But b's article is about the US's dismal diplomacy that is exacerbating its rapid empire decline and it does very well to help explain the rigid lack of thought that hastens the deterioration of US influence.
This article makes a lot of good points, but I didn't really grasp exactly what "linear" thinking is. OK. Venezuela very well may be turning into a situation. What is the "linear" approach? What, instead, would be the "non-linear" approach? This article cites many "linear" failures. It would be helpful also to learn of some non-linear successes. If not by the United States then by somebody else.Duncan Kinder | Aug 4, 2017 1:38:51 PM | 15Let me clarify my prior posting. This article seems to be asserting that the United States has attempted to pound the square peg of its policy objectives into the round hole of the Middle East. I pretty much agree with that idea. But how is this "linear," as opposed to "bull-headed"? How does being "non-linear" help with the pounding? Would not adapting our policies to pound a round peg instead be just as "linear" but more clever?PavewayIV | Aug 4, 2017 1:46:40 PM | 16Thanks for posting these great observations by Michael Brenner, b.nonsense factory | Aug 4, 2017 2:00:27 PM | 17The link to his bio on University of Pitsburg site is broken and the page is gone, but it still exists for now in Google's cache from Aug. 1st here . His bio can also be found under this ">https://www.theglobalist.com/united-states-common-man-forgotten-by-elites/">this article from The Globalist
Everything I've read of Dr. Brenner that I've stumbled across is brilliant. My only gripe with his work is that he always describes multiple aspects of psychopathy in his observations of U.S. foreign policy and the Washington ruling elite, but never goes as far as to conclude the root of all our problems are psychopathic individuals and institutions, or a culture of psychopathy infesting larger groups of the same, e.g., Washington elite, "The Borg", etc.
While he is quite accurate in describing the symptoms, one is left with the impression that they are the things to be fixed. Linear thinking in a U.S. foreign policy of aggression? Absolutely, but it's pointless to 'fix' that without understanding the cause.
Linear thinking is precisely how Washington psychopaths think and execute once they have identified a targeted population for subservience and eventual exploitation. It's a laser-like focus on control using the tools psychopaths understand: money, guns and butter. U.S. leaders use linear thinking because, as psychopaths, they do not have the ability to think otherwise. Linear thinking give leaders control over how their subordinates think and execute. A culture of psychopathy means subordinates and supporters will offer slavish devotion to such a linear path. Anyone straying from the path is not insightful or innovative, they are rebels that sow confusion and weaken leaders. They must be silenced and banished from the Washington tribe.
Does anyone in Washington REALLY want to 'save' the Persians and 'rebuild' Iran as they imagine America did post WWII to German and Japan? Or is the more overriding intent to punish and destroy a leadership that will not submit to the political and commercial interests in the US? Of course the U.S. fails to deliver any benefits to the 'little people' after destroying their country and government - they are incapable of understanding what the 'little people' want (same goes for domestic issues in the U.S.).
The U.S. government and leadership do not need lessons to modify their techniques or 'thinking' - they are incapable of doing so. You can't 'talk a psychopath into having empathy' any more than you can talk them out of having smallpox. 'The law' and voting were intentionally broken in the U.S. to make them all but useless to fix Washington, yet a zombified American public will continue to use the religiously (or sit back and watch others use them religiously) with little result. Because we're a democracy and a nation of laws - the government will fix anything broken with those tools.
In a certain sense, I'm glad Brennan does NOT go on about psychopathy in his articles. He would sound as tedious and nutty as I do here and would never be allowed near Washington. I'll just be grateful for his thorough illustration of the symptoms for now.
@8 simply amazed, on this:Makutwa Omutiti | Aug 4, 2017 2:13:20 PM | 18Your analysis of linearity is interesting. However, you make what I believe is a critical error. You assume you know the objective and the path to follow and base your critique accordingly.First, this is more an analysis of military failure to "do the job" that Washington "strategic thinkers" tell them to do, and the reasons why it's such a futile game. In our system of government, the military does tactics, not strategy. And the above article, which should be passed out to every politician in this country, isn't really about "the objective".
For example, the military was told "Go to Iraq, overthrow Saddam, everything will work out once we get our contractors and corporations in after you." Paul Bremer's CPA and his "100 Orders" were supposed to fix everything. But the Iraqis objected strenuously to the oil privatization selloff (and the rest of it) and the insurgency was launched. Okay, the military was told, break the insurgency. In comes the CIA, Special Forces, mass surveillance - what comes out? Abu Ghraib torture photos. The insurgency gets even stronger. Iran ends up winning the strategic game, hands down, and has far more influence in Iraq than it could ever dream of during the Saddam era. The whole objective, turning Iraq into a client state of the U.S. neoliberal order, utterly failed.
Here's the point I think you're missing: the Washington strategists behind all this are batshit crazy and divorced from reality. Their objectives have to be rewritten every few years, because they're hopeless pipe dreams. They live and work and breathe in these Washington military-industrial think tanks, neocons and neoliberals both, that are largely financed by arms manufacturers and associated private equity firms. As far as the defense contractors go, one war is as good as another, they can keep selling arms to all regardless. Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Syria - cash cows is all they are. So, they finance the PR monkeys to keep pushing "strategic geopolitical initiatives" that are really nonsensical and have no hope of working in the long run - but who cares, the cash keeps flowing.
And if you want to know why the Borg State got firmly behind Hillary Clinton, it's because they could see her supporting this agenda wholeheartedly, especially after Libya. Here's a comment she wrote to Podesta on 2014-08-19, a long 'strategy piece' ending with this note:
Note: It is important to keep in mind that as a result of this policy there probably will be concern in the Sunni regions of Iraq and the Central Government regarding the possible expansion of KRG controlled territory. With advisors in the Peshmerga command we can reassure the concerned parties that, in return for increase autonomy, the KRG will not exclude the Iraqi Government from participation in the management of the oil fields around Kirkuk, and the Mosel Dam hydroelectric facility. At the same time we will be able to work with the Peshmerga as they pursue ISIL into disputed areas of Eastern Syria, coordinating with FSA troops who can move against ISIL from the North. This will make certain Basher al Assad does not gain an advantage from these operations. Finally, as it now appears the U.S. is considering a plan to offer contractors as advisors to the Iraqi Ministry of Defense, we will be in a position to coordinate more effectively between the Peshmerga and the Iraqi Army.It's all nonsense, there's no FSA just Al Qaeda and ISIS affiliates, plus the Kurdish proxy force is a long-term dead end - but it keeps the war going. A more rational approach - work with Russia to defeat ISIS, don't worry about economic cooperation between Syria and Iran, tell the Saudis and Israelis that Iran won't invade them (it won't), pull back militarily and focus instead on domestic problems in the USA - the think tanks, defense contractors, Saudi and Israeli lobbyists, they don't like that.
Regardless, it looks like end times for the American empire, very similar to how the Soviet Union collapsed in the 1980s, and the last days of the French and British empires in the 1950s. And good riddance, it's become a dead weight dragging down the standard of living for most American citizens who aren't on that gravy train.
Brenner is trying to mislead us with bombastic terminology like "The Linear Mindset". The root cause of America's problems is what Michael Scheuer calls Imperial Hubris: The idea that they are Masters of the Universe and so they have omnipotent power to turn every country into a vassal. But when this hubris meets reality, they get confused and don't know what to do. In such a case, they resort to three standard actions: sanctions, regime change or chaos. If these three don't work, they repeat them!Justin Glyn | Aug 4, 2017 2:51:51 PM | 20Politicians are mere puppets. Their real owners are the 1% who use the Deep State to direct policy. Among this 1% there are zionists who have enormous influence on US Middle Eastern policy and they use the neocons as their attack dogs to direct such policy. This hubris has caused so much pain, destruction and death all over the world and it has also caused America so much economic damage.
America is waning as a global power but instead of self-introspection and returning to realism, they are doubling down on neocon policy stupidity. Putin, China and Iran are trying to save them from their stupidity but they seem to be hell-bent on committing suicide. But I hope the policy sophistication of Russia, China and Iran, as well as their military capabilities that raise the stakes high for US military intervention will force the Masters of the Universe to see sense and reverse their road to destruction.
There's a lot in both this piece and the comments. In a sense, I wonder if the core issue behind the Neocon/Imperial mindset isn't a complete inability to see the other side's point of view. Psychopathy, short-termism (a common fault in businesspeople), divorce from reality and hubris are likely a good part of it, as somebody, Paveway IV, Makutwa and nonsense factory put it, but the Neocons seem to suffer from something almost worse - a misguided belief in their own propaganda. Even the psychopath manages to fake plausibility - although he has no empathy for the victim and takes a thrill out of hurting them, he can still know enough about them to predict how they will react and to fake empathy himself. This ability seems to be missing in the folk who send the troops in. Here there seems to be the genuine but unquestioning belief in one's own infallibility - that there is one right way of doing things to which all others must and will yield if enough pressure is applied. The line by one of GWB's staff was, supposedly, that "we create our own reality". It is this creation of a reality utterly divorced from the real world that seems to lead to disaster every single time.Piotr Berman | Aug 4, 2017 3:13:05 PM | 21I would paraphrase critics of b that he (she?) has fallen into linearity trap: one point is the resources spent by USA on wars of 21-st century (a lot), the second points are positive results (hardly any), and an intellectual charge proceeds from A to B.Geoff | Aug 4, 2017 3:36:33 PM | 22However between A and B there can be diversity of problems. We can stock enough gasoline, run out of potable water. And indeed, you can encounter pesky terrain. I recall a family vacation trip where we visited Natural Bridges National Monument and we proceeded to Arizona on an extremely straight highway through pretty flat plateau. Then the pavement end, and the acrophobic designated driver has to negotiate several 180* hairpins to get down on a cliff flanking Monument Valley. After second inspection, the map had tiny letters "switchbacks" and a tiny fragment of the road not marked with the pavement. Still better than discovering "bridge out" annotation on your map only when you gaze at the water flowing between two bridge heads. (If I recall, during late 20-th century Balkan intervention, US military needed a lot of time to cross Danube river that unexpectedly had no functioning bridge where they wanted to operate. Landscape changes during a war.)
That said, military usually has an appreciation for terrain. But there are also humans. On domestic side, the number of experts on those distant societies is small, and qualified experts, minuscule. Because the qualified ones were disproportionally naysayers, the mere whiff if expertise was treated as treason, and we had a purge of "Arabists". And it was of course worse in the lands to charm and conquer. Effective rule requires local hands to follow our wishes, people who can be trusted. And, preferably, not intensely hated by the locals they are supposed to administer. And like with gasoline, water, food, etc. on a vacation trip (who forgot mosquito repellent!), the list of needed traits is surprisingly long. Like viewing collaboration with Israel supporting infidels as a mortal sin that can be perpetrated to spare the family from starvation (you can recruit them, success!), but it has to be atoned through backstabbing (local cadres are disappointing).
Great analysis! This is an excellent example for why I read MOA at least once a day and most of the comments! There's something of a sad irony that Trump has made at least some kind of effort to thwart the neocons and their relentless rush toward armageddon, seeing as how lacking in any real intellectual capcity they all seem and with Trump at the helm?PavewayIV | Aug 4, 2017 3:41:38 PM | 23Mostly tptb, our political class, and the pundits for the masses, seem all to exhibit an astonishingly dull witted lack of true concern or humanity for anybody anywhere, and in my years on earth so far, at least in America, they have inculcated in the population very dubious ethical chioces, which you would think were tragic, and decisions, which you would believe were doomed, from the wars being waged, to the lifestyles of the citizenry especially toward the top of the economic ladder, and I don't know about others here but I for one have been confronting and dealing with these problems both in family and aquaintances for my entire adult life! Like the battle at Kurushetra. At least they say they "have a plan," scoffingly.
Where is chipnik to weigh in on this with his poetic observations, or I think long ago it was "slthrop" who may have been bannned for foul language as he or she raged on at the absurdities that keep heaping up exponentially? I do miss them!
Oh well, life is relatively short and we will all be gone at some point and our presense here will be one and all less than an iota. An awareness of this one fact and its implications you would think would pierce the consciousness of every human being well before drawing their final breath, but I guess every McCain fails to realize until too late that the jig is up?
Justin Glyn@20 "but the Neocons seem to suffer from something almost worse - a misguided belief in their own propaganda."Peter AU | Aug 4, 2017 3:46:58 PM | 24The propaganda part is inventing, manufacturing and embellishing some embodiment of evil that must be defeated to liberate their victims and save humanity. That's the cover story, not the underlying purpose of U.S. aggression.
Neocons do not believe that exclusively as a goal in itself - it merely dovetails rather nicely with their ultimate obsession with control, and it's and easy sell against any less-than-perfect targeted foreign leader or government. Irrational demonization is the embodiment of that propaganda.
The methods of ultimately controlling the liberated people and their nation's resources are cloaked in the guise of 'bringing Western democracy'. Methods for corrupting the resulting government and usurping their laws and voting are hidden or ignored. The propaganda then turns to either praising the resulting utopia or identifying/creating a new evil that now must also be eliminated. The utopia thing hasn't worked out so well in Libya, Iraq or Ukraine, so they stuck with the 'defeat evil' story.
Apart from psychopathy in US leadership, the US has no understanding, nor respect of, other cultures. This is not just in US leadership, but in the exceptional people in general. It shows up from time to time in comments at blogs like this, and is often quite noticeable in comments at SST.That it why the US in its arrogance has failed in Syria, and Russia with its tiny force has been so successful.
Makutwa Omutiti | Aug 4, 2017 3:51:17 PM | 25
The essence of imperial hubris is the belief that one's country is omnipotent; that the country can shape and create reality. The country's main aspiration is to create clients, dependencies and as the Godfather Zbigniew Bzrezinski candidly put it, "vassals".Such a mindset does not just appreciate the reality of contingency; it also does not appreciate the nature of complex systems. The country's elites believe that both soft and hard power should be able to ensure the desired outcomes. But resistance to imperial designs and blowback from the imperial power's activities induce cognitive dissonance. Instead of such cognitive crises leading to a return to reality, they lead to denial amongst this elite. This elite lives in a bubble. Their discourse is intellectually incestuous and anybody that threatens this bubble is ostracized. Limits are set to what can be debated. That is why realists like John Mearsheimer, Steve Walt, Michael Scheuer and Stephen Cohen are ignored by this elite even though their ideas are very germane. If other countries don't bow down to their dictates, they have only a combination of the following responses: sanctions, regime change and chaos. The paradox is that the more they double down with their delusions the more the country's power continues to decline. My only hope is that this doubling down will not take the world down with it.
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Jul 12, 2017 | www.antiwar.com
Consider this article a work of speculation; a jumble of ideas thrown at a blank canvas.
A lot of art depicts war scenes, and why not? War is incredibly exciting, dynamic, destructive, and otherwise captivating, if often in a horrific way. But I want to consider war and art in a different manner, in an impressionistic one. War, by its nature, is often spectacle; it is also often chaotic; complex; beyond comprehension. Perhaps art theory, and art styles, have something to teach us about war. Ways of representing it and capturing its meaning as well as its horrors. But also ways of misrepresenting it; of fracturing its meaning. Of manipulating it.
For example, America's overseas wars today are both abstractions and distractions. They're also somewhat surreal to most Americans, living as we do in comparative safety and material luxury (when compared to most other peoples of the world). Abstraction and surrealism: two art styles that may say something vital about America's wars.
If some aspects of America's wars are surreal and others abstract, if reports of those wars are often impressionistic and often blurred beyond recognition, this points to, I think, the highly stylized representations of war that are submitted for our consideration. What we don't get very often is realism. Recall how the Bush/Cheney administration forbade photos of flag-draped coffins returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Think of all the war reporting you've seen on U.S. TV and Cable networks, and ask how many times you saw severed American limbs and dead bodies on a battlefield. (On occasion, dead bodies of the enemy are shown, usually briefly and abstractly, with no human backstory.)
Of course, there's no "real" way to showcase the brutal reality of war, short of bringing a person to the front and having them face fire in combat -- a level of "participatory" art that sane people would likely seek to avoid. What we get, as spectators (which is what we're told to remain in America), is an impression of combat. Here and there, a surreal report. An abstract news clip. Blown up buildings become exercises in neo-Cubism; melted buildings and weapons become Daliesque displays. Severed limbs (of the enemy) are exercises in the grotesque. For the vast majority of Americans, what's lacking is raw immediacy and gut-wrenching reality.
Again, we are spectators, not participants. And our responses are often as stylized and limited as the representations are. As Rebecca Gordon put it from a different angle at TomDispatch.com , when it comes to America's wars, are we participating in reality or merely watching reality TV? And why are so many so prone to confuse or conflate the two?
Art, of course, isn't the only lens through which we can see and interpret America's wars. Advertising, especially hyperbole, is also quite revealing. Thus the US military has been sold, whether by George W. Bush or Barack Obama, as "the world's finest military in history" or WFMH, an acronym I just made up, and which should perhaps come with a copyright or trademark symbol after it. It's classic advertising hyperbole. It's salesmanship in place of reality.
So, when other peoples beat our WFMH, we should do what Americans do best: sue them for copyright infringement. Our legions of lawyers will most certainly beat their cadres of counsels. After all, under Bush/Cheney, our lawyers tortured logic and the law to support torture itself. Talk about surrealism!
My point (and I think I have one) is that America's wars are in some sense elaborate productions and representations, at least in the ways in which the government constructs and sells them to the American people. To understand these representations -- the ways in which they are both more than real war and less than it -- art theory, as well as advertising, may have a lot to teach us.
As I said, this is me throwing ideas at the canvas of my computer screen. Do they make any sense to you? Feel free to pick up your own brush and compose away in the comments section.
P.S. Danger, Will Robinson. I've never taken an art theory class or studied advertising closely.
William J. Astore is a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF). He taught history for fifteen years at military and civilian schools and blogs at Bracing Views . He can be reached at [email protected] . Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author's permission.
Afghanistan as the unfinished masterpiece....most people forget that the government is yet to complete it except when a Marine dies, they think about it for a day and then forget all over again.
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Apr 06, 2017 | economistsview.typepad.com
im1dc, April 05, 2017 at 10:16 AM"Dimon Warns 'Something Is Wrong' With the U.S."pgl -> im1dc... , April 05, 2017 at 10:16 AMDo you agree with Jamie Dimon assessment of the USA?
"Dimon Warns 'Something Is Wrong' With the U.S."
by Laura J Keller...April 4, 2017
"JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon has two big pronouncements as the Trump administration starts reshaping the government: "The United States of America is truly an exceptional country," and "it is clear that something is wrong."
Dimon, leader of world's most valuable bank and a counselor to the new president, used his 45-page annual letter to shareholders on Tuesday to list ways America is stronger than ever -- before jumping into a much longer list of self-inflicted problems that he said was "upsetting" to write.
Here's the start: Since the turn of the century, the U.S. has dumped trillions of dollars into wars, piled huge debt onto students, forced legions of foreigners to leave after getting advanced degrees, driven millions of Americans out of the workplace with felonies for sometimes minor offenses and hobbled the housing market with hastily crafted layers of rules.
Dimon, who sits on Donald Trump's business forum aimed at boosting job growth, is renowned for his optimism and has been voicing support this year for parts of the president's business agenda. In February, Dimon predicted the U.S. would have a bright economic future if the new administration carries out plans to overhaul taxes, rein in rules and boost infrastructure investment. In an interview last month, he credited Trump with boosting consumer and business confidence in growth, and reawakening "animal spirits."
But on Tuesday, reasons for concern kept coming. Labor market participation is low, Dimon wrote. Inner-city schools are failing poor kids. High schools and vocational schools aren't providing skills to get decent jobs. Infrastructure planning and spending is so anemic that the U.S. hasn't built a major airport in more than 20 years. Corporate taxes are so onerous it's driving capital and brains overseas. Regulation is excessive.
" It is understandable why so many are angry at the leaders of America's institutions, including businesses, schools and governments," Dimon, 61, summarized. "This can understandably lead to disenchantment with trade, globalization and even our free enterprise system, which for so many people seems not to have worked. "...
I meant my last comment to be a reply. No - there is a lot that Dimon said that I cannot agree with.pgl , April 05, 2017 at 10:49 AM"Inner-city schools are failing poor kids. High schools and vocational schools aren't providing skills to get decent jobs. Infrastructure planning and spending is so anemic that the U.S. hasn't built a major airport in more than 20 years. Corporate taxes are so onerous it's driving capital and brains overseas. Regulation is excessive."DrDick -> pgl... , April 05, 2017 at 11:18 AMLet's unpack his list. The 4th (last) sentence is his hope that his bank can back to the unregulated regime that brought us the Great Recession. His 3rd sentence is a call for more tax cuts for the rich.
We may like his first 2 sentences here but who is going to pay for this? Not Jamie Dimon. See sentence #3.
He also seems to falsely imply that the people associated with capital actually have functioning brains.
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Mar 31, 2017 | economistsview.typepad.com
anne , March 30, 2017 at 12:47 PMhttps://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/29/world/middleeast/us-war-footprint-grows-in-middle-east.htmlilsm -> anne... , March 30, 2017 at 01:51 PMMarch 29, 2017
U.S. War Footprint Grows, With No Endgame in Sight
By BEN HUBBARD and MICHAEL R. GORDONIn places like Yemen, Syria and Iraq, the United States is deepening its involvement in wars while diplomacy becomes largely an afterthought.
14 years as if US were going strong on Hanoi in '79!mulp -> anne... , March 30, 2017 at 04:30 PMPutin is a Tibetan Buddhist compared to Obama and so forth
Well, sending US troops is a US jobs program.Why would you object to government creating more demand for labor? Over time, wages will rise and higher wages will fund more demand for labor produced goods.
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Dec 16, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com
One of the most revealing and absurd responses to rejections of forever war is the ridiculous dodge that the U.S. isn't really at war when it uses force and kills people in multiple foreign countries:
Just like @POTUS , who put a limited op of NE #Syria under heading of "endless war," this op-ed has "drone strikes & Special Ops raids" in indictment of US-at-war. In fact, those actions are antidote to war. Their misguided critique is insult to real war. https://t.co/DCLS9IDKSw
-- Robert Satloff (@robsatloff) December 15, 2019
War has become so normalized over the last twenty years that the constant use of military force gets discounted as something other than "real war." We have seen this war denialism on display several times in the last year. As more presidential candidates and analysts have started rejecting endless war, the war's defenders have often chosen to pretend that the U.S. isn't at war at all. The distinction between "real war" and the constant U.S. involvement in hostilities overseas is a phony one. The war is very real to the civilian bystanders who die in U.S. airstrikes, and it is very real to the soldiers and Marines still getting shot at and blown up in Afghanistan. This is not an "antidote to war," but rather the routinization of warfare.
The routinization and normalization of endless, unauthorized war is one of the most harmful legacies of the Obama administration. I made this point back in the spring of 2016 :
Because Obama is relatively less aggressive and reckless than his hawkish opponents (a very low bar to clear), he is frequently given a pass on these issues, and we are treated to misleading stories about his supposed "realism" and "restraint." Insofar as he has been a president who normalized and routinized open-ended and unnecessary foreign wars, he has shown that neither of those terms should be used to describe his foreign policy. Even though I know all too well that the president that follows him will be even worse, the next president will have a freer hand to conduct a more aggressive and dangerous foreign policy in part because of illegal wars Obama has waged during his time in office.
The attempt to define war so that it never includes what the U.S. military happens to be doing when it uses force abroad has been going on for quite a while. When the Obama administration wanted political and legal cover for the illegal Libyan war in 2011, they came up with a preposterous claim that U.S. forces weren't engaged in hostilities because there was no real risk to them from the Libyan government's forces. According to Harold Koh, who was the one responsible for promoting this nonsense, U.S. forces weren't engaged in hostilities even when they were carrying out a sustained bombing campaign for months. That lie has served as a basis for redefining what counts as involvement in hostilities so that the president and the Pentagon can pretend that the U.S. military isn't engaged in hostilities even when it clearly is. When the only thing that gets counted as a "real war" is a major deployment of hundreds of thousands of troops, that allows for a lot of unaccountable warmaking that has been conveniently reinvented as something else.
It isn't just physical war that results in active service body bags but our aggression has alreay cost lives on the home front and there is every reason to believe it will do so again.SilverSpoon • 3 days agoWe were not isolationists prior to 9/11/2001, Al Qaeda had already attacked but we were distracted bombing Serbia, expanding NATO, and trying to connect Al Qaeda attacks to Iran. We were just attacked by a Saudi officer we were training on our soil to use the Saudis against Iran.
It remains to be seen what our economic warfare against Iran, Venezuela, Syria, Yemen, and our continued use of Afghanistan as a bombing platform will cost us. We think we are being clever by using our Treasury Dept and low intensity warfare to minimize direct immediate casualties but how long can that last.
"War is the health of the State"Ray Joseph Cormier • 3 days ago • editedAnd our state has been very healthy indeed in recent decades.
This article confirms what the last Real Commander-in-Chief, General/President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned about when he retired 58 years ago.Lee Green • 3 days ago
His wise Council based on his Supreme Military-Political experience has been ignored.
The MSM, Propagandists for the Military-Industrial Complex, won't remind the American People.Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well.
But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions.
Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government.
We recognize the imperative need for this development.
Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted.
Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military
machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.The psychological contortionism required to deny that we are at war amazes me. US military forces are killing people in other countries – but it's not war? Because we can manufacture comforting euphemisms like "police action" or "preventive action" or "drone strike," it's not war? Because it's smaller scale than a "real" war like WWII?Cancer is cancer. A small cancer is still a cancer. Arguing that it's not cancer because it's not metastatic stage IV is, well, the most polite term is sophistry. More accurate terms aren't printable.
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Dec 20, 2019 | angrybearblog.com
likbez , December 20, 2019 5:20 pm
> alliances like NATO, and ultimately the loss of our democracy
Changes might be coming, but Republicans and Clinton faction of Dems are now fully prepared to resist those changes tooth and nail.
Neoliberal Dems just invented the template for deposing or, at least, paralyzing any future antiwar president. Via vote of non-confidence mechanism, which essentially what House impeachment "investigation" was about.
You can always find another Fiona Hill, or Alexander Vindman or a half-dozen State Department neocon hawks (where in some cases it was unclear who is their real employee ) , or find another jingoistic and complexly detached from reality professor like Karlan, to support this action. Neocons feed from threat inflation. And money from MIC doesn't smell.
The problems with the current impeachment goes far deeper then Trump. It is a change of the constitutional system converting it closer to the UK model.
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Sep 29, 2019 | stephenlendman.org
by Stephen Lendman ( stephenlendman.org – Home – Stephen Lendman )
Actions in the Washington cesspool never surprise -- by members of both right wing of the US war party. They represent the greatest threat to world peace and ordinary people everywhere at home and abroad. Pro-war, pro-business, pro-Wall Street, anti-progressive Speaker Pelosi is part of the problem, never part of the solution.
Her long disturbing congressional record shows she exclusively serves wealth and power interests at the expense of the vast majority of Americans she disdains, proving it time and again.
Her deplorable voting record speaks for itself, backing:
- the 1999 Gramm-Leach-Blily Act repeal of Glass-Steagall, permitting some of the most egregious financial abuses in the modern era;
- the September 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), permitting endless wars of aggression in multiple theaters, raging endlessly;
- annual National Defense Authorization Acts and US wars of aggression;
- Obama's neoliberal harshness, continuing under Trump, along with tax cuts for the rich, benefitting her and her husband enormously, without admitting it;
- increasingly unaffordable marketplace medicine, ripping off consumers for profit, leaving millions uninsured, most Americans way underinsured;
- the USA Patriot Act, Anti-Terrorism Act and other police state law;
- the 9/11 whitewash Commission Recommendation Act;
- the FISA Amendments Act -- permitting warrantless spying post-9/11, Big Brother watching everyone;
- NAFTA and other anti-consumer/corporate coup d'etat trade bills;
- the repressive US gulag prison system, the world's largest by far; incarcerating millions by federal, state, and local authorities, it includes global torture prisons;
- unapologetic support for Israeli apartheid viciousness;
- fierce opposition to Russia, China, Iran, Syria, Venezuela, North Korea, and other nonbelligerent sovereign states threatening no one;
- the Russiagate witch hunt and Ukrainegate scams.
Calling exploitive/predatory "free market (capitalism) our greatest asset" shows her contempt for equity and justice.
Her support for the military, industrial, security, media complex is all about backing endless wars of aggression against invented enemies. No real ones exist.
Pelosi represents what belligerent, plutocratic, oligarchic, increasingly totalitarian rule is all about, notably contemptuous of nations on the US target list for regime change -- Russia, China and Iran topping the list.
On Friday, she falsely accused Russia of involvement in Ukrainegate, a failed Russiagate scam spinoff with no legitimacy, supported by undemocratic Dems and their echo-chamber media.
Repeating the long ago debunked Russian US election meddling Big Lie that won't die, she falsely accused Moscow of "ha(ving) a hand in this."
Referring to the Ukrainegate scam, she offered no evidence backing her accusation because none exists.
During a Friday press conference on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, Sergey Lavrov slammed Pelosi's Big Lie, saying:
"Russia's been accused of all the deadly sins, and then some. It's paranoia, and I think it's obvious to everyone."
It's unacceptable anti-Russia hate-mongering, what goes on endlessly, Cold War 2.0 raging.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the following on her facebook page:
"Speaker of the lower house of Congress Nancy Pelosi believes that Russia is involved in the scandal over July telephone conversation between us and Ukraine Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Zelensky."
"This (baseless) assumption was made on Friday Pelosi (not) explaining what it means, and without providing evidence of her words."
"Considering that it was Nancy Pelosi who caused the 'Scandal around the telephone conversation between the presidents of the United States and Ukraine,' then, according to the speaker's logic, Russia attached the hand to her."
What's going on is continuation of the most shameful political chapter in US history, ongoing since Trump took office, along with railroading Richard Nixon.
Both episodes represent McCarthyism on steroids – supported by establishment media, furious about Trump's triumph over Hillary, targeting him largely for the wrong reasons, ignoring plenty of right ones.
Mueller's probe ended with a whimper, not the bang Dems wanted, Ukrainegate their second bite of the apple to try discrediting Trump for political advantage ahead of November 2020 elections.
That's what Russiagate and Ukrainegate are all about.
These actions by undemocratic Dems and their media press agents are further clear proof that Washington's deeply corrupted political system to its rotten core is far too debauched to fix.
VISIT MY NEW WEBSITE: stephenlendman.org ( Home – Stephen Lendman ). Contact at [email protected] .
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Dec 19, 2019 | www.amazon.com
karenann , August 8, 2015
A deeply biased bookR. L. Huff , April 23, 2015Hill and Gaddy are pretty good scholars. They do a good job of providing a psychological profile of Vladimir Putin and the way he operates in the Kremlin. But they have their limitations. One of the more annoying aspects of the book is that the authors return again and again both to Putin's graduate thesis on an American management book and his 1999 manifesto on his millenial goals for Russia. A better set of writers would have covered both subjects in one section and then moved on. But Hill and Gaddy sprinkle references to these documents about five times each throughout the book, which leads me to suspect that they are padding what would otherwise be a much shorter book.
As I was reading, I felt that there was a strong bias against Putin and Russia by the authors, but I couldn't quite pinpoint their slant until the last sentence, which is a doozy:
"The onus will now be on the West to shore up its own home defenses, reduce the economic and political vulnerabilities, and create its own contingency plans if it wants to counter Vladimir Putin's new twenty-first century warfare."
For anyone who is a Russian scholar, this is proof that the authors get Russia very wrong. They reveal themselves to be in the neocon camp of hawks who want to reactivate a new Cold War very badly. And in their analysis, they ignore the fact that Russia as a country is in fact deeply defensive country far more concerned with its internal boundaries and control than some aggressive Soviet power after World War II. To be sure, Mr. Putin is no choir boy. Interestingly enough, the authors do not fully investigate the potentially criminal behavior that Putin performed with Russia's war on Chechnya. Hill and Gaddy could have strengthened their case if they had included some deeper analysis of Putin's behavior on this troublesome part of the Russian Empire. But instead they were intent on plowing their own rut, which while somewhat interesting -- ultimately becomes a little bit too pedantic.
I am reminded of some books in the 1950s that were secretly backed by the CIA, and this book certainly feels like it has the same flavor. Hill and Gaddy totally ignore Russian scholars like Stephen Cohen in his analysis of the Russian situation, which is totally the opposite of mainstream thinking unfortunately these days. But in ignoring what Cohen has to say, the predominant attitude of the American and European foreign policy establishment is in lock step with Hill and Gaddy, which is why the book has been so heavily publicized.
The neocon vision of what's wrong with Russia is so biased that it also ignores the writings of such foreign policy figures as Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Briezinski, former US Secretarys of State, both of whom are much more closer in their visions of Russia to Cohen than they are to Hill and Gaddy.
Yes, this book is all about sticking to the Rooskies, unfortunately. And the hidden motivator are all of the defense contracts that NATO can suck up, as well as all the bankers' books in reaming the Ukrainian economy as badly as they've reamed Greece. But the authors never tell you that this is their motivation, until the last paragraph.
Ultimately, this is an unsatisfying work.
karenann, 2 years ago (Edited)
Kissinger has had the good sense to state that the best hope for peace in the region is to have Ukraine as a totally neutral country, similar to Finland before the USSR collapsed. The Budapest Memorandum of NATO calls for the full military integration of Ukraine and Georgia.
As a thought experiment, what if the Soviets undermined the provincial governments of Alberta and British Columbia, and then wanted to include these governments in the Warsaw Pact? What do you think the reaction of the US would be?
OK but blinkered- look at Vladimir Putin and Mr. Putin's Russia. The book is based on intensive research and interviews with Putin, but I find it skewed by the Western biases it brings to the table. Yet it's not a demonization, as is so much of the Western Putin literature. It gives him credit for standing by the multi-racial and cultural realities of post-Soviet Russia. Compared to the real hardcore nationalists, Putin in fact has come across as a domestic liberal. The rising tide of Russian arch-nationalism, however, has taken its toll. Authors Hill and Gaddy correctly assess Putin's playing the nationalist card as a political manouver to keep one step ahead of his opponents - most of whom are not pro-Western liberal dissidents by any means. Courting the Russian Orthodox Church in recent years was one such strategy.
Yet the authors see only politics in Mr. Putin's tactics, and play down the West's own role in making him an antagonist. They take him to task for painting the Ukrainian insurrection of 2014 as a "fascist coup," and for denouncing Ukrainian nationalist partisan Stepan Bandera as a Nazi collaborator. Bandera and Hitler may have never met, but this was not necessary for the arming and use of Bandera's OUN to commit atrocities and war crimes on then-Soviet territory. Contrary to the authors' whitewash, Bandera's later persecution by Nazis consisted of special treatment in German camps, held on ice for postwar use. Of relevance is that the "regime change" of 2014 was largely the work of west Ukrainians - the backbone of the OUN movement and the very folks who today make Bandera a national hero. When he paints west Ukraine as again collaborating with Russia's enemy, Putin stands on solid historical ground. The West continues destabilizing actions all the while it blames Putin for the same.
The authors also lecture us on Putin's inability to grasp "Western values" as the root of his refusal to take the West on its own terms; on "how little Putin understands about us - our motives, our mentality, and, also, our values" (p.385) I rather think Putin grasps these "motives, mentality, and values" very well, as they seem inseparable from European economic hegemony and NATO expansion. His managed democracy comes off looking rather clean cut compared to US politics following the Citizens United ruling, where American oligarch David Koch engineered a fundamental change for the worse via the Supreme Court. In foreign policy, Putin has indeed been repeatedly "rebuffed" by the West for proposing anything that makes Russia a leading equal in its sphere. This shows not limited contacts with the West, but rather ongoing and painful ones.
The hypocrisy is breathtaking but tragically familiar. It's rather the West's (and the authors') failure to grasp regional history, and Putin's actions based on it, that fuel the "misunderstanding." Ukraine, for instance, had strong nationalist animosity toward the "Moskali" long before the 1930s holodomor/famine. Crimea was not transferred to Ukraine out of any degree of recognition of said suffering, as the authors allege on p. 367; but as part of a geo-political manouver to Russify east Ukraine with more "loyal" ethnic Russians, exactly as in the Baltic states.
His aggressive handling of terrorists within Chechnya is "decried" by the West, the authors note. Yet within a decade the US and its NATO partners would be pursuing an aggressive course in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Yemen that make Russia look the provincial amateur. Putin in fact is *not* trying to recreate the USSR, as so often charged by Western pundits with an axe to grind, nor even the old Russian empire. His strategic thinking is dominated by security rationales. A wider invasive course would only threaten Russian security. At all times he sees his actions as defensive responses. If this is self-serving, it only puts him in good company: recall the American angst over the "dissident" Dixie Chicks; the livid anger over Edward Snowden.
In truth, Vladimir Putin is the Russian Ronald Reagan, bidding his citizens to "stand tall" against enemies from without and within working against the homeland. His stance on Ukraine, arming its "contras" in a border war against an enemy "satellite regime", may make him look the intolerant war jingo; but thus did Ronald Reagan appear outside the US. Ironically it's Reagan partisans who don't grasp the working parallels. In general, I can recommend this book as a good introduction on Vladimir Putin, but it's hardly the last word and certainly not the definitive narrative.
Anon II, 4 years ago (Edited)
It is refreshing to read something on Russia written by a reviewer who knows what he is talking about. This book is full of data, but the authors lack any intellectual basis on which to organize it. They are trying to publish a book in which there will be reader interest, but they really have nothing to say. If you are eager to make an enemy of Russia, this book will be useful to you. If you are simply trying to understand what is happening, it won't be.
D.B.4 years ago
Thank you for an excellent countervailing perspective!
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Dec 19, 2019 | angrybearblog.com
likbez, December 19, 2019 6:58 pm
Afghan war demonstrated that the USA got into the trap, the Catch 22 situation: it can't stop following an expensive and self-destructive positive feedback loop of threat inflation and larger and large expenditures on MIC, because there is no countervailing force for the MIC since WWII ended. Financial oligarchy is aligned with MIC.
This is the same suicidal grip of MIC on the country that was one of the key factors in the collapse of the USSR means that in this key area the USA does not have two party system, It is a Uniparty: a singe War party with two superficially different factions.
Feeding and care MIC is No.1 task for both. Ordinary Americans wellbeing does matter much for either party. New generation of Americans is punished with crushing debt and low paying jobs. They do not care that people over 50 who lost their jobs are essentially thrown out like a garbage.
"41 Million people in the US suffer from hunger and lack of food security"–US Dept. of Agriculture. FDR addressed the needs of this faction of the population when he delivered his One-Third of a Nation speech for his 2nd Inaugural. About four years later, FDR expanded on that issue in his Four Freedoms speech: 1.Freedom of speech; 2.Freedom of worship; 3.Freedom from want; 4.Freedom from fear.
Items 3 and 4 are probably unachievable under neoliberalism. And fear is artificially instilled to unite the nation against the external scapegoat much like in Orwell 1984. Currently this is Russia, later probably will be China. With regular minutes of hate replaced by Rachel Maddow show ;-)
Derailing Tulsi had shown that in the USA any politician, who try to challenge MIC, will be instantly attacked by MIC lapdogs in MSM and neutered in no time.
One interesting tidbit from Fiona Hill testimony is that neocons who dominate the USA foreign policy establishment make their living off threat inflation. They literally are bought by MIC, which indirectly finance Brookings institution, Atlantic Council and similar think tanks. And this isn't cheap cynicism. It is simply a fact. Rephrasing Samuel Johnson's famous quote, we can say, "MIC lobbyism (which often is presented as patriotism) is the last refuge of scoundrels."
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Dec 19, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Lk , Dec 18 2019 22:19 utc | 26
The House impeachment is driven by several factors:
- After Russiagate, when Trump began to investigate its fraudulent origins, the Dems feared the exposure of Obama-era corruption if not high crimes. Hence Ukrainegate is preemptive political tactics.
- The investigation into Russiagate led right to Ukraine, and thus to Biden. In the context of Sanders' campaign, Ukrainegate became an imperative for the factions of the capitalist class that dominates the DNC. If Biden falls on Ukraine issues, then Sanders is inevitable; an anathema to Wall Street and Big Tech DNC donors.
- 3. While 1 and 2 dominate DNC machinations, foreign policy is also a factor. The foreign policy establishment is absolutely against any hesitation with respect to confronting Russia as part of a regional and global strategy for primacy. Trump's limited prevarications on Russia might threaten the long established strategy to expand Nato to Ukraine and thereby to encircle Russia and maintain US dominance over Europe. So, even though Trump names great power rivalry as the name of the game today, his inclination for making nice with Putin threatens to weaken the US hold over Europe, which Trump wants to label as an economic competitor.
It is with these points that the strategic differences become apparent: Trump is raising a realist, neo-mercantalist strategy against ALL potential competitors; the DNC and the deep state hold a strategy of liberal hegemony: globalization and US primacy through dominating regional alliances, and impregnating US hegemony INSIDE the vassal States of the empire.
All of this, however, is bound to fail for the DNC, and down the road for Trump himself.
The contradictions of US empire and global capitalism cannot be mitigated by either more liberal strategies or realist ones.
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Dec 19, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Passer by , Dec 19 2019 17:43 utc | 2
Something that no one is discussing - the US sabotage of the WTO.At the core of recent US attacks on globalisation and multilateralism lies the fact that under such conditions, the US is growing at slower pace than the world. This ultimately will nean the end of the US as a superpower.
This is a strategic move coming from the US and has nothing to do with "isolationalism" or "attempt to dismantle the Empire", as naive people here and there thought.
It is an attempt to sabotage the global economy and make sure that other countries do not grow faster than the US.
The key point of US attacks on the WTO is that they want to remove the perks for poorer countries. That means most of the world.
The aim is also, if this is not possible, to destroy the WTO, and return to law of the jungle, with open bullying and trade wars, where the stronger smash the weak in trade negotiations.
Under such conditions, the US will be able to bully most of the rest of the world into bilateral trade deals that favout its economy. This way, it will try to save itself from bankruptcy.
The US is trying everything possible to save itself. As i said in the past, they will try to destroy the global economy in order to save themselves.
Under law of the jungle, the US will benefit, as it will be the biggest bully.
This also does not look good for the EU, as the US will now prefer for it to desintegrate as it will be able to bully the different european countries one by one into better trade conditions. This is why the US is supporting Brexit.
For more on this here, article from Asia Times.
https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/12/article/wto-caught-in-crossfire-of-us-china-trade-war/
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Dec 19, 2019 | www.amazon.com
karenann , August 8, 2015
A deeply biased bookR. L. Huff , April 23, 2015Hill and Gaddy are pretty good scholars. They do a good job of providing a psychological profile of Vladimir Putin and the way he operates in the Kremlin. But they have their limitations. One of the more annoying aspects of the book is that the authors return again and again both to Putin's graduate thesis on an American management book and his 1999 manifesto on his millenial goals for Russia. A better set of writers would have covered both subjects in one section and then moved on. But Hill and Gaddy sprinkle references to these documents about five times each throughout the book, which leads me to suspect that they are padding what would otherwise be a much shorter book.
As I was reading, I felt that there was a strong bias against Putin and Russia by the authors, but I couldn't quite pinpoint their slant until the last sentence, which is a doozy:
"The onus will now be on the West to shore up its own home defenses, reduce the economic and political vulnerabilities, and create its own contingency plans if it wants to counter Vladimir Putin's new twenty-first century warfare."
For anyone who is a Russian scholar, this is proof that the authors get Russia very wrong. They reveal themselves to be in the neocon camp of hawks who want to reactivate a new Cold War very badly. And in their analysis, they ignore the fact that Russia as a country is in fact deeply defensive country far more concerned with its internal boundaries and control than some aggressive Soviet power after World War II. To be sure, Mr. Putin is no choir boy. Interestingly enough, the authors do not fully investigate the potentially criminal behavior that Putin performed with Russia's war on Chechnya. Hill and Gaddy could have strengthened their case if they had included some deeper analysis of Putin's behavior on this troublesome part of the Russian Empire. But instead they were intent on plowing their own rut, which while somewhat interesting -- ultimately becomes a little bit too pedantic.
I am reminded of some books in the 1950s that were secretly backed by the CIA, and this book certainly feels like it has the same flavor. Hill and Gaddy totally ignore Russian scholars like Stephen Cohen in his analysis of the Russian situation, which is totally the opposite of mainstream thinking unfortunately these days. But in ignoring what Cohen has to say, the predominant attitude of the American and European foreign policy establishment is in lock step with Hill and Gaddy, which is why the book has been so heavily publicized.
The neocon vision of what's wrong with Russia is so biased that it also ignores the writings of such foreign policy figures as Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Briezinski, former US Secretarys of State, both of whom are much more closer in their visions of Russia to Cohen than they are to Hill and Gaddy.
Yes, this book is all about sticking to the Rooskies, unfortunately. And the hidden motivator are all of the defense contracts that NATO can suck up, as well as all the bankers' books in reaming the Ukrainian economy as badly as they've reamed Greece. But the authors never tell you that this is their motivation, until the last paragraph.
Ultimately, this is an unsatisfying work.
karenann, 2 years ago (Edited)
Kissinger has had the good sense to state that the best hope for peace in the region is to have Ukraine as a totally neutral country, similar to Finland before the USSR collapsed. The Budapest Memorandum of NATO calls for the full military integration of Ukraine and Georgia.
As a thought experiment, what if the Soviets undermined the provincial governments of Alberta and British Columbia, and then wanted to include these governments in the Warsaw Pact? What do you think the reaction of the US would be?
OK but blinkered- look at Vladimir Putin and Mr. Putin's Russia. The book is based on intensive research and interviews with Putin, but I find it skewed by the Western biases it brings to the table. Yet it's not a demonization, as is so much of the Western Putin literature. It gives him credit for standing by the multi-racial and cultural realities of post-Soviet Russia. Compared to the real hardcore nationalists, Putin in fact has come across as a domestic liberal. The rising tide of Russian arch-nationalism, however, has taken its toll. Authors Hill and Gaddy correctly assess Putin's playing the nationalist card as a political manouver to keep one step ahead of his opponents - most of whom are not pro-Western liberal dissidents by any means. Courting the Russian Orthodox Church in recent years was one such strategy.
Yet the authors see only politics in Mr. Putin's tactics, and play down the West's own role in making him an antagonist. They take him to task for painting the Ukrainian insurrection of 2014 as a "fascist coup," and for denouncing Ukrainian nationalist partisan Stepan Bandera as a Nazi collaborator. Bandera and Hitler may have never met, but this was not necessary for the arming and use of Bandera's OUN to commit atrocities and war crimes on then-Soviet territory. Contrary to the authors' whitewash, Bandera's later persecution by Nazis consisted of special treatment in German camps, held on ice for postwar use. Of relevance is that the "regime change" of 2014 was largely the work of west Ukrainians - the backbone of the OUN movement and the very folks who today make Bandera a national hero. When he paints west Ukraine as again collaborating with Russia's enemy, Putin stands on solid historical ground. The West continues destabilizing actions all the while it blames Putin for the same.
The authors also lecture us on Putin's inability to grasp "Western values" as the root of his refusal to take the West on its own terms; on "how little Putin understands about us - our motives, our mentality, and, also, our values" (p.385) I rather think Putin grasps these "motives, mentality, and values" very well, as they seem inseparable from European economic hegemony and NATO expansion. His managed democracy comes off looking rather clean cut compared to US politics following the Citizens United ruling, where American oligarch David Koch engineered a fundamental change for the worse via the Supreme Court. In foreign policy, Putin has indeed been repeatedly "rebuffed" by the West for proposing anything that makes Russia a leading equal in its sphere. This shows not limited contacts with the West, but rather ongoing and painful ones.
The hypocrisy is breathtaking but tragically familiar. It's rather the West's (and the authors') failure to grasp regional history, and Putin's actions based on it, that fuel the "misunderstanding." Ukraine, for instance, had strong nationalist animosity toward the "Moskali" long before the 1930s holodomor/famine. Crimea was not transferred to Ukraine out of any degree of recognition of said suffering, as the authors allege on p. 367; but as part of a geo-political manouver to Russify east Ukraine with more "loyal" ethnic Russians, exactly as in the Baltic states.
His aggressive handling of terrorists within Chechnya is "decried" by the West, the authors note. Yet within a decade the US and its NATO partners would be pursuing an aggressive course in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Yemen that make Russia look the provincial amateur. Putin in fact is *not* trying to recreate the USSR, as so often charged by Western pundits with an axe to grind, nor even the old Russian empire. His strategic thinking is dominated by security rationales. A wider invasive course would only threaten Russian security. At all times he sees his actions as defensive responses. If this is self-serving, it only puts him in good company: recall the American angst over the "dissident" Dixie Chicks; the livid anger over Edward Snowden.
In truth, Vladimir Putin is the Russian Ronald Reagan, bidding his citizens to "stand tall" against enemies from without and within working against the homeland. His stance on Ukraine, arming its "contras" in a border war against an enemy "satellite regime", may make him look the intolerant war jingo; but thus did Ronald Reagan appear outside the US. Ironically it's Reagan partisans who don't grasp the working parallels. In general, I can recommend this book as a good introduction on Vladimir Putin, but it's hardly the last word and certainly not the definitive narrative.
Anon II, 4 years ago (Edited)
It is refreshing to read something on Russia written by a reviewer who knows what he is talking about. This book is full of data, but the authors lack any intellectual basis on which to organize it. They are trying to publish a book in which there will be reader interest, but they really have nothing to say. If you are eager to make an enemy of Russia, this book will be useful to you. If you are simply trying to understand what is happening, it won't be.
D.B.4 years ago
Thank you for an excellent countervailing perspective!
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Dec 17, 2019 | www.strategic-culture.org
The Washington Post , through documents released through the Freedom of Information Act, has published a long investigation into Afghanistan. Journalists have collected over 400 testimonies from American diplomats, NATO generals and other NATO personnel, that show that reports about Afghanistan were falsified to deceive the public about the real situation on the ground.
After the tampering with and falsification of the report of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), we are witnessing another event that will certainly discomfit those who have hitherto relied on the official reports of the Pentagon, the US State Department and international organizations like the OPCW for the last word.
There are very deliberate reasons for such disinformation campaigns. In the case of the OPCW, as I wrote some time back, the aim was to paint the Syrian government as the fiend and the al-Qaeda- and Daesh-linked "moderate rebels" as the innocent souls, thereby likely justifying a responsibility-to-protect armed intervention by the likes of the US, the UK and France. In such circumstances, the standing and status of the reporting organization (like the OPCW) is commandeered to validate Western propaganda that is duly disseminated through the corporate-controlled mainstream media.
In this particular case, various Western capitals colluded with the OPCW to lay the groundwork for the removal of Assad and his replacement with the al-Nusra Front as well as the very same al-Qaeda- and Daesh-linked armed opposition officially responsible for the 9/11 attacks.
As if the massaging of the OPCW reports were not enough in themselves to provoke international outrage, this dossier serves to give aid and comfort to jihadi groups supported by the Pentagon who are known to be responsible for the worst human-rights abuses, as seen in Syria and Iraq in the last 6 years.
False or carefully manipulated reports paint a picture vastly different from the reality on the ground. The United States has never really declared war on Islamic terrorism, its proclamations of a "War on Terror" notwithstanding. In reality, it has simply used this justification to occupy or destabilize strategically important areas of the world in the interests of maintaining US hegemony, intending in so doing to hobble the energy policies and national security of rival countries like China, Iran and the Russian Federation.
The Post investigation lays bare how the US strategy had failed since its inception, the data doctored to represent a reality very different from that on the ground. The inability of the United States to clean up Afghanistan is blamed by the Post on incorrect military planning and incorrect political choices. While this could certainly be the case, the Post's real purpose in its investigation is to harm Trump, even as it reveals the Pentagon's efforts to continue its regional presence for grand geopolitical goals by hiding inconvenient truths.
The real issue lies in the built-in mendacity of the bureaucratic and military apparatus of the United States. No general has ever gone on TV to say that the US presence in Iraq is needed to support any war against Iran; or that Afghanistan is a great point of entry for the destabilization of Eurasia, because this very heart of the Heartland is crucial to the Sino-Russian transcontinental integration projects like the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and the Belt and Road Initiative. In the same vein, the overthrow of the Syrian government would have ensured Israel a greater capacity to expand its interests in the Middle East, as well as to weaken Iran's main regional ally.
The Post investigation lays bare the hypocrisy of the military-industrial complex as well as the prevailing political establishments of Europe and the United States. These parties are not interested in human rights, the wellbeing of civilians or justice in general. Their only goal is to try and maintain their global hegemony indefinitely by preventing any other powers from being able to realize their potential and thereby pose a threat to Atlanticist preeminence.
The war in Iraq was launched to destabilize the Middle East, China's energy-supply basin crucial to fueling her future growth. The war in Syria served the purpose of further dismantling the Middle East to favor Saudi Arabia and Israel, the West's main strategic allies in the Persian Gulf. The war in Afghanistan was to slow down the Eurasian integration of China and Russia. And the war in Ukraine was for the purposes of generating chaos and destruction on Russia's border, with the initial hope of wresting the very strategically area of Crimea from Russia.
The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry, and this has been on full display in recent times. Almost all of Washington's recent strategic objectives have ended up producing results worse than the status quo ante. In Iraq there is the type of strong cooperation between Baghdad and Tehran reminiscent of the time prior to 1979. Through Hezbollah, Iran has strengthened its position in Syria in defense of Damascus. Moscow has found itself playing the role of crucial decider in the Middle East (and soon in North Africa), until only a few years ago the sole prerogative of Washington. Turkey's problems with NATO, coupled with Tel Aviv's open relation with Moscow are both a prime example of Washington's diminishing influence in the region and Moscow's corresponding increase in influence.
The situation in Afghanistan is not very different, with a general recognition that peace is the only option for the region being reflected in the talks between the Afghans, the Taliban, the Russians, Chinese, Indians and Pakistanis. Beijing and Moscow have well known for over a decade the real intent behind Washington's presence in the country, endeavoring to blunt its impact.
The Post investigation only further increases the public's war weariness, the war in Afghanistan now having lasted 18 years, the longest war in US history. Jeff Bezos, the owner of the Post , is a bitter opponent of Trump and wants the president to come clean on the Afghanistan debacle by admitting that the troops cannot be withdrawn. Needless to say, admitting such would not help Trump's strategy for the 2020 election. Trump cannot afford to humiliate the US military, given that it, along with the US dollar, is his main weapon of "diplomacy". Were it to be revealed that some illiterate peasants holed up in caves and armed with AK-47s some 40 years ago are responsible for successfully keeping the most powerful army in history at bay, all of Washington's propaganda, disseminated by a compliant media, will cease to be of any effect. Such a revelation would also humiliate military personnel, an otherwise dependable demographic Trump cannot afford to alienate.
The Washington Post performed a service to the country by shedding light on the disinformation used to sustain endless war. But the Post's intentions are also political, seeking to undermine Trump's electoral chances by damaging Trump's military credentials as well as his standing amongst military personnel. What Washington's elite and the Post do not know, or perhaps prefer to ignore, is that such media investigations directed against political opponents actually end up doing irreparable damage to the political and military prestige of the United States.
In other words, when journalist do their job, the military industrial complex finds it difficult to lie its way through wars and failures, but when a country relies on Hollywood to sustain its make-believe world, as well as on journalists on the CIA payroll, on compliant publishers and on censored news, then any such revelations of forbidden truths threaten to bring the whole facade crashing down.
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Dec 17, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
karlof1 , Dec 16 2019 20:51 utc | 22
Neocons lie should properly be called "threat inflation"
The underlying critical point-at-issue is credibility as I noted in my comment on b's 2017 article. I've since linked to tweets and other items by that trio; the one major change seems to have been the epiphany by them that they needed to go to where the action is and report it from there to regain their credibility.The fact remains that used car salespeople have a stereotypical reputation for lacking credibility sans a confession as to why they feel the need to lie to sell cars.
Their actions belie the guilt they feel for their choices, but a confession works much better at assuaging the soul while helping convince the audience that the change in heart's genuine. And that's the point as b notes--genuineness, whose first predicate is credibility.
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Dec 16, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Authored by Peter Svab via The Epoch Times,
A federal judge has denied requests by Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn to prompt the government to give him information he deems exculpatory and to dismiss the case against him .
District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan sided with the government in arguing that Flynn was already given all the information to which he was entitled. The judge also dismissed Flynn's allegations of government misconduct, noting that Flynn already pleaded guilty to his crime and failed to raise his objections earlier when some of the issues he now complains about were brought to his attention.
"The sworn statements of Mr. Flynn and his former counsel belie his new claims of innocence and his new assertions that he was pressured into pleading guilty," Sullivan said in his Dec. 16 opinion ( pdf ).
Flynn, former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, pleaded guilty on Nov. 30, 2017, to one count of lying to the FBI. He's been expected to receive a light sentence, including no prison time, after extensively cooperating with the government on multiple investigations.
In June, he fired his lawyers and hired former federal prosecutor Sidney Powell , who has since accused the government of misconduct, particularly of withholding exculpatory information or providing it late.
Powell has argued that Flynn's previous lawyers had a conflict of interest because they testified in a related case against Flynn's former business partner. Flynn had previously told the court he would keep the lawyers despite the conflict, but Powell said prosecutors should have asked the judge to dismiss the lawyers anyway. Sullivan disagreed, saying Flynn failed to show a precedent that the prosecutors had that obligation.
Powell also said the government had no proper reason to investigate Flynn in the first place and that it had set up an "ambush interview" with the intention of making Flynn say something it could allege was false.
Sullivan disagreed again and said that previously, with the advice of his former lawyers, Flynn never "challenged the conditions of his FBI interview."
Flynn was interviewed by two FBI agents, Joe Pientka and Peter Strzok, on Jan. 24, 2017, two days after he was sworn in as President Donald Trump's national security adviser.
The prosecutors argued that the FBI had a "sufficient and appropriate basis" for the interview because Flynn days earlier told members of the Trump campaign, including soon-to-be Vice President Mike Pence, that he didn't discuss with the Russian ambassador the expulsion of Russian diplomats in late December 2016 by then-President Barack Obama.
Flynn later admitted in his statement of offense that he asked, via Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergei Kislyak, for Russia to only respond to the sanctions in a reciprocal manner and not escalate the situation.
The FBI was at the time investigating whether Trump campaign aides coordinated with Russian 2016 election meddling. No such coordination was established by the probe, which concluded more than two years later under then-special counsel Robert Mueller.
Powell argued that whatever Flynn told Pence and others in the transition team was none of the FBI's business.
"The Executive Branch has different reasons for saying different things publicly and privately, and not everyone is told the details of every conversation," she said in a previous court filing .
"If the FBI is charged with investigating discrepancies in statements made by government officials to the public, the entirety of its resources would be consumed in a week."
Powell said Flynn's answers to the agents weren't "material," meaning relevant to the FBI investigation of election meddling.
Sullivan, however, thought otherwise, using a broader description of the investigation. The bureau, he said, probed the "nature of any links between individuals associated with the [Trump] Campaign and Russia" and what Flynn said was material to it. The description Sullivan used appears to omit the context of the probe, which focused specifically on the Russian election meddling.
Lord Raglan , 1 minute ago link
thebigunit , 22 minutes ago linkPowell was dealt a bad hand by Flynn's previous corrupt and incompetent attorneys. The judge has an obligation to honor the new views of new counsel. He can't assume that Flynn had been well advised by former counsel. There's no evidence or history of that. They sold him out.
hairlessBalls , 30 minutes ago linkNot sure what's going on.
Sounds like Flynn got bad advice from his previous lawyers, and the judge is requiring Flynn to live with the consequences. In other words, it is as if the judge is prohibiting Flynn from changing legal representation because Flynn cannot do anything different than what his first team of "counselors" advised.
benb , 11 minutes ago linkFlynn is as deep state as it gets. He would throw the book at any one of you. Make no mistake. Being a general is a political appointment.
spoonful , 8 minutes ago linkHe's so Deep State that Brennen and Clapper went to Soetoro to get him fired after the election. Flynn was going to rat them out on the treasonous Iran deal. When Obama said no because it was too close to the end of his presidency they then criminally framed Flynn.
You're talking out your butt.
VideoEng_NC , 30 minutes ago linkconcurrr
peippe , 46 minutes ago linkWe're witnessing a judge being compromised. His actions & bold off-topic statements in court earlier this year seems to be the sign. DS Strikes Back.
socialist chum , 43 minutes ago linknever speak to leo without a lawyer representing you.
poor flynn.
AHBL , 41 minutes ago linkFlynn was lied to. Flynn was a 30 year veteran and General. Flynn couldn't imagine his country turning against him like this. None of us could. But with the cabal running our country, it could and did happen. Now we have to stamp out the cockroaches before it's too late.
peippe , 39 minutes ago linkFlynn was also a ******* lobbyist for foreign governments, including Turkey,...without disclosing his advise was paid for. He sold himself out like a whore.
AHBL , 36 minutes ago linkhe had a dinner, at a gala, where foreigners were indeed present. (actually invited & not by Flynn)
Crime? You decide
peippe , 33 minutes ago linkThe **** are you talking about?
"Michael Flynn reportedly filed paperwork on Tuesday for the $530,000 worth of work he did last year that "could be construed to have principally benefited the Republic of Turkey." https://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2017/03/08/michael-flynn-admits-turkey-lobbying
Anthraxed , 33 minutes ago linkthought Turkey was our, umm, friend. Also, I did not know the cash disbursements had to be 15 million + ('Biden Sized')
to be forgiven.....or overlooked.
Interesting.
sbin , 24 minutes ago linkTony Pedoesta did the same thing. Yet, somehow was not prosecuted for it...
Soloamber , 48 minutes ago linkNATO Alliance member Turkey? How about a list of Israel friends with benefits. MIC grifters and aipac. Bloated orange imbecile can not fight only tweet.
Impotence on parade
leodogma1 , 50 minutes ago linkThis ***** judge will give him a mouse sentence to protect his own *** . We don't know the half of it . How close is the judge to Obama ? I think we are going to find out .
dibiase , 41 minutes ago linkPresident Trump should step in now and Pardon Gen.Flynn and Roger Stone both trial were fixed unethical and not based on fact and law. In Stones case a radical jury of Demon Rat-Brains were assembled to hand down a guilty verdict.
PrideOfMammon , 7 minutes ago linkStone was bragging he had dirt on Clinton from Assange and when the government called his bs, he lied to them.
Stone is a piece of ****.
sbin , 56 minutes ago linkThey say Dems and other psychos always accuse others of what they themselves are doing. Ever heard of the Clinton Foundation? Operating expenses: 95%.Benevolent aid: 5%. Suck on that for awhile.
hairlessBalls , 35 minutes ago linkFlynn did nothing wrong. Was framed setup and then blackmailed to plead. Who will pay a price. Brennan Comey Strzok? Those who stood with Trump were ruined under false pretenses.
Those who violated the constitution and rule of law are media pundants and undisturbed.
Orange dotard please divert some of your swamp creatures from destroying Iran, Venezuela and Bolivia.
America needs the secret police smashed and held accountable for sedition and treason.
VideoEng_NC , 28 minutes ago linkOh how soon you forget that Flynn commited war crimes in Grenada.
sbin , 12 minutes ago linkThen bring him up on those charges. In court those kinds of leaps are inaddmissable.
Soloamber , 59 minutes ago linkHahahaha Grenada. Reagan's signature military victory. Flynn should be a super hero. Grenada and Panama are the only victories the Pentagon clowns have managed. What should we expect they only get $1,000,000,000,000.00 a year
PopeRatzo , 1 hour ago linkThe minute they let Flynn off he talks and they sure as hell don't want that. They want to drag this out as long as possible and hope for a miracle (Trump gets beat ) or at least time enough for them to bugger off. FISA has known for years they were lied to by the FBI and now it has been confirmed . So why didn't they do anything then or now ? Were they in on it ? How do you draw any other conclusion ?
Spetzco , 28 minutes ago linkRemember that Michael Flynn waived his right to appeal this judge's decision when he plead guilty. This won't be going to a higher court. He's going down and the judge who is sentencing him is PISSED.
Flynn is going to prison. Hillary is not. The sooner you jackoffs accept that, the sooner you'll be able to move on with your lives instead of living out your pitiful existence in bitterness and regret. And no, you won't be doing any civil war. You'll just be angry, your anger will turn inward, and you'll poison yourselves with resentment, living out your days alone. Don't say you weren't warned.
GreatUncle , 15 minutes ago linkThey threatened his son if he did not plead guilty. Of course, to you Dems the means justifies the end. He will be pardoned, and deservedly so.
MurderNeverWasLove , 55 minutes ago linkI don't expect Clinton to go to jail ... committing crimes or not she is untouchable. People may wish it but it will never ever happen she has too much on all the other criminals.
sowhat1929 , 55 minutes ago linkFlynn can ask to withdraw plea, but he's turned down that opportunity three times, so judge might not allow it. Then everything Powell has been doing becomes relevant. Up to this point it's just a bunch of noise, unfortunately.
lwilland1012 , 1 hour ago linkThe house cleaning this country needs is truly astounding. This ******* judge can be swept out with all the other worthless trash
GoldenDonuts , 1 hour ago linkSo let me just be sure I understand this: he is being denied evidence that could prove innocence on a trial related to a guilty plea, which was largely the result of persecution by the FBI and we ALLOW this to happen in America? What has happened to this country?
And the same old same old continues. I really hope that all of these people receive the judgement that they so richly deserve.
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Dec 17, 2019 | thefederalist.com
While former Weekly Standard writer Warren thought the news was Cheney going after Pence, the real news is Cheney's neoconservative crowd -- much of the GOP foreign policy establishment, which can be counted on to advocate for intervention overseas -- being mad that President Trump won't listen to their terrible advice.
Cheney was one of the chief architects of the Iraq War, now in its seventeenth year with no end in sight. Given the neverending morass that war has become, and its utter failure to concretely benefit Americans in exchange for lives lost and trillions spent , it is preposterous that he would be lambasting the current vice president over foreign policy. He should instead be issuing public mea culpas.
Neocons Believe in America as Global PolicemanCheney's accusation that Trump is conducting Obama's foreign policy is inaccurate, because both Obama and neocons are internationalists, and Trump is not. Neocons generally think global peace can be achieved through spreading of freedom and democracy, often by using military force. They tend to think any region in which America is not actively involved risks being filled with a menacing geopolitical force. They often view themselves as global citizens, and see America's power as the perfect tool for peace and democracy spreading. America should act in its own interest, say the neocons, but America's interest is the global interest, and vice versa.
Among other things, this leads neoconservatives to currently advocate for regime change or at least continued U.S. presence in Syria, continued U.S. presence in Afghanistan (even as that war is nearly two decades-old), a very hardline approach to Russia (which is oddly deemed an equal or even greater threat than China), and a U.S. military presence in more than 20 African countries that you have never heard of, to fight Islamic terrorists.
Internationalists might disagree about how much force should be used to spread liberalism. President Obama took out Muammar Qaddafi in Libya, and presided over a terribly ineffective and dangerous effort to fund Syrian rebels in that country's civil war. Republican neocons like Cheney just wish Obama had done even more, and put U.S. troops on the ground in Libya and Syria as well.
The Problem with Defaulting to InterventionDespite their certainty about launching the United States into myriad global conflicts, neocons have lots of problems. First, they are incredibly naïve about fundamentalist Sunni Islam. Take the Syria example. ISIS and al Qaeda are both forms of fundamentalist Sunni Islam, which is incredibly popular across the Middle East and Northern Africa. Fighting the ideology that creates ISIS and al Qaeda could literally take forever.
It could also be self-defeating. Bombing and occupying a foreign land might make young men there more prone to outright terrorism, and infantilize the domestic forces that must take a stand in order for true progress against radicalization to occur.
In other areas too, neocons often cheer endeavors that shoot our country in the foot. They want us to stay in Syria to fight terrorism, but they were more than happy to fund and arm rebels -- many of whom were radical Sunnis with ties to al Qaeda -- in order to try to take down the regime of Bashar al-Assad. Ditto with the intervention in Shia-majority Iraq, which ultimately emboldened and empowered the dominant Shia power, Iran.
Academically speaking, neocons have learned the lesson of World War II, but haven't the lessons of World War I, Vietnam, or countless other conflicts where intervention and war had unforeseen outcomes and consequences. Thus they have a stunning record of getting foreign policy wrong. Leading neocon Bill Kristol was a huge advocate for the Iraq War , for example, and famously predicted it would be over in two months .
Despite how poorly many U.S.-involved conflicts have gone, neocons have refused to question their ideology. They will question someone's motives if -- for example -- he disagrees with entering Syria's civil war. You can point out that neither side is good, that this is largely a Shia-Sunni religious struggle that we should stay out of, and that taking out Bashar al-Assad would create a power vacuum for jihadists, but Kristol and Max Boot will respond by calling you a Russian stooge.
Trump Is Right to Not Listen to Failed AdviceEven though he still has neocons advising him in the White House, President Trump is thus smart to frequently ignore these people. In fact, pushing back against neocons is a big reason Trump got elected.
The American people agree that we shouldn't be subsidizing wealthy European countries' welfare states by fronting their defense. Germany's military is literally falling apart, but the country is more than happy to give Russia billions for natural gas. If Germany isn't concerned about Russia, is it our job to do all the work?
The American people also appreciate that Trump is trying to end the war in Afghanistan, and get American troops out of Syria, among other conflicts. Pence's statement, that Trump wants us to be thoughtful about where we place U.S. troops, jives with the thoughts of a vast bipartisan majority of Americans.
The GOP Is a Conservative PartyTrump had an easy go of his GOP contenders in 2015-16 because the GOP is not a neoconservative party, it is simply a conservative party. There is a big difference. For neocons like Cheney to act as if Donald Trump stole the party is laughable. The neocons were an aberration in conservatives' coalition.
The roots of the Grand Old Party are nationalism, foreign policy realism, and fiscal (spending) restraint. In but one example, President Eisenhower wrote a friend that cutting taxes was a reward for finding wasteful spending. President Nixon went to Communist China to exploit the rift between Beijing and Moscow. Democrats got us in the Vietnam War, and Nixon and Ford got us out.
There is a fundamental long-run contradiction between U.S. nation-building overseas and limited government here at home.Conservative voters care about localism, and tempered, non-utopian nationalism. It isn't just nice to care about the people around us, and demand our politicians do what's best for them, it is a high moral ideal -- even commanded by scripture .
Some neocons just aren't conservatives. Many are socially liberal , and view the pro-life cause as a way to get the so-called hayseeds to turn out on election day, not as a pressing moral issue. Because of this, some neocons may eventually find a home in the establishment Democrat Party.
True, neocons say they are fiscal conservatives, and many have criticized President Trump for not talking about entitlement reform (as has this writer), but in practice neocons are fiscal fakers. Their priorities never lead to downsizing the federal government. Rather, they bargain with Democrats to increase domestic welfare spending as long as the military budget also increases. There is a fundamental long-run contradiction between U.S. nation-building overseas and limited government here at home.
That's why neocons have already lost the GOP, and Trump's presidency is only just the beginning of a necessary shift. The Republican Party is finding its roots, and eventually going back to true fiscal conservatism (spending restraint that allows tax cuts, not just tax cuts for their own sake) and foreign policy realism.
But because of the American political system, this shift will occur in bits and spurts. Just this January, 47 Republican senators (that's most of them) joined Democrats to vote for an amendment pushed by Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell that sought to keep the United States in Syria and Afghanistan indefinitely. Try getting anything close to half of the American public to sign on to that. That's the real story here. Willis L. Krumholz is a fellow at Defense Priorities. He holds a JD and MBA degree from the University of St. Thomas, and works in the financial services industry. The views expressed are those of the author only. You can follow Willis on Twitter @WillKrumholz .
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Dec 17, 2019 | www.washingtontimes.com
At a time of one of the greatest political upheavals in American history that could spill over into foreign affairs, especially U.S.-Russian relations with unpredictable and devastating results, I thought Christmas might offer a chance for all of us to take a pause and search for an exit from the megacrisis.
Many people believe miracles do happen at Christmastime. However, it looks like we need President Trump , Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to perform at least three of them.
Those who wonder why Mr. Zelensky is on this list should recall that the Trump impeachment process started because of his phone call with this guy whose country the Democrats and their pathetic witnesses deem no less than vital to America's national security.
Let us start with Mr. Putin because someone has to take the first difficult step and he is the only one in a clear position to do it.
Dear Mr. Putin, please make a public statement that Russia pledges not to interfere in the next and future American elections. It would be good if the two chambers of the Russian parliament, the Duma and Federation Council, ratify this pledge as well. Please do it unilaterally without asking Mr. Trump and the U.S. Congress to respond in kind.
Dear Mr. Trump , please return to your earlier thinking about NATO as an obsolete organization that lost its purpose in 1991 after the collapse of the USSR and the Warsaw military bloc. Since then, it has been searching desperately for new missions and enemies to justify its existence.
Recall that NATO's continuous expansion drive is the major factor that squandered the exceptional opportunity for U.S.-Russian rapprochement that all Russian leaders, starting with Mikhail Gorbachev, kept proposing. Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, New York Democrat, and 18 other senators voted against President Clinton's first round of NATO expansion. "We'll be back on a hair-trigger. We're talking about nuclear war," they said.
At the same time, NATO has failed to counter international terrorism -- the real threat to European and American security. It is NATO that boosted the jihadi peril by overthrowing Libya's government, allowing that prosperous country to morph into a terrorist playground and staging point for millions of unvetted migrants crossing the Mediterranean to Europe.
Is NATO making America and our allies more secure? During the Cold War, when NATO allowed the West to stand firm against Soviet communist designs on Europe, the answer was an easy yes, but today, with NATO's reckless poking of the Russian bear, the answer is a resounding no.
A rebuilt NATO or a new organization, IATO -- International Anti-Terrorist Organization -- specifically targeting global jihad, would have a future with new partners including Russia, for which terrorism represents a major security threat. Georgia and Ukraine could join IATO as well, thus taking the first step toward reconciliation with Russia that NATO's insatiable expansion drive helped destroy.
French President Emmanuel Macron is the first Western leader who agrees with this point of view and is not afraid to say that "NATO's brain is dead." However, the U.S. president must take the lead to move past legacy NATO.Dear Mr. Zelensky , I believe that you sincerely want to end the war in your country. It is not an easy job since you face a strong and vocal radical nationalistic opposition with strong neo-Nazi overtones that declares that any compromise on your side will be met with the violent resistance and another "Maidan revolution" that may lead to your overthrow. The leader of this opposition is former President Petro Poroshenko, whom Washington supported all these years and who was given a rare privilege to speak at a joint session of Congress, where members greeted him with numerous standing ovations. At the same time, Ukrainian people hated him so much that they decided to replace him with a Jewish comic actor with no political experience.
Mr. Zelensky , I wonder if you have read the book "Shooting Stars" by Austrian novelist Stefan Zweig, which describes some important episodes in which fate gave an individual a chance at a historical turning point. Zweig says fate usually chooses for this purpose a strong personality, but sometimes it falls to mediocrities who fail miserably.
You are in a position to decide which you will be, and the pass to historical Olympus is obvious.
After a Western-backed coup overthrew the legitimate Ukrainian president in February 2014, it brought to power a government largely picked by Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland. People in the Donbass region did not accept the new government and made two conditions for remaining a part of Ukraine: special autonomy status and two state languages. This is exactly what Canada provides for its large French-speaking minority.
Those with even rudimentary knowledge of Ukrainian history and its huge ethnic Russian population would agree that these demands are not unreasonable, but the post-coup government called the separatist forces terrorists, sent aviation and tanks, and started a civil war that has been raging for five years. Washington, which was in total control of the Ukrainian political class, could have resolved this crisis easily by telling the new government to accept these modest conditions. Instead, the U.S. supported Kyiv with money, weapons, military training and political support.
Mr. Zelensky , nowadays you and your country are used as pawns in the attempts to impeach Mr. Trump , but your prime responsibility is before Ukrainian people who dismissed the party of war and placed the fate of your country and its people in your hands. They expect you to make the right decision by choosing the road to peace.
While waiting for these miracles to materialize, I wish all a merry Christmas , happy Hanukkah and peace on earth in 2020.
Edward Lozansky is president of American University in Moscow.
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Dec 16, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Authored by Alan Dershowitz, op-ed via The Hill,
The decision by the Supreme Court to review the lower court rulings involving congressional and prosecution subpoenas directed toward President Trump undercuts the second article of impeachment that passed the House Judiciary Committee along party lines last week.
That second article of impeachment charges President Trump with obstruction of Congress for refusing to comply with congressional subpoenas in the absence of a final court order. In so charging him, the House Judiciary Committee has arrogated to itself the power to decide the validity of its subpoenas, as well as the power to determine whether claims of executive privilege must be recognized, both powers that properly belong with the judicial branch of our government, not the legislative branch. The House of Representatives will do likewise, if it votes to approve the articles, as is expected to occur on Wednesday.
President Trump has asserted that the executive branch, of which he is the head, need not comply with congressional subpoenas requiring the production of privileged executive material, unless there is a final court order compelling such production. He has argued, appropriately, that the judicial branch is the ultimate arbiter of conflicts between the legislative and executive branches. Therefore, the Supreme Court decision to review these three cases, in which lower courts ruled against President Trump, provides support for his constitutional arguments in the investigation.
The cases that are being reviewed are not identical to the challenged subpoenas that form the basis for the second article of impeachment. One involves authority of the New York district attorney to subpoena the financial records of a sitting president, as part of any potential criminal investigation. The others involve authority of legislative committees to subpoena records as part of any ongoing congressional investigations.
But they are close enough. Even if the high court were eventually to rule against the claims by President Trump, the fact that the justices decided to hear them, in effect, supports his constitutional contention that he had the right to challenge congressional subpoenas in court, or to demand that those issuing the subpoenas seek to enforce them through court.
It undercuts the contention by House Democrats that President Trump committed an impeachable offense by insisting on a court order before sending possibly privileged material to Congress. Even before the justices granted review of these cases, the two articles of impeachment had no basis in the Constitution. They were a reflection of the comparative voting power of the two parties, precisely what one of the founders, Alexander Hamilton, warned would be the "greatest danger" of an impeachment.
House Democrats should seriously consider dropping this second article in light of the recent Supreme Court action. In fairness, this development involving the high court occurred after Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee made up their minds to include obstruction of Congress as an impeachment article. Yet the new circumstances give some Democratic members of Congress, who may end up paying an electoral price if they support the House Judiciary Committee recommendation, meaningful reason for voting against at least one of the articles of impeachment.
It would be a smart way out for those Democrats. More important, it would be the right thing for them to do. It would be smart and right because, as matters now stand, the entire process smacks of partisanship, with little concern for the precedential impact which these articles could have on future impeachments. If a few more Democrats voted in a way that would demonstrate greater nuanced recognition that, at the least, the second article of impeachment represents an overreach based on current law, it would lend an aura of some nonpartisan legitimacy to the proceedings.
The first article goes too far in authorizing impeachment based on the vague criterion of abuse of power. But it is the second article that truly endangers our system of checks and balances and the important role of the courts as the umpires between the legislative and executive branches under the Constitution. It would serve the national interest for thoughtful and independent minded Democrats to join Republicans in voting against the second article of impeachment, even if they wrongly vote for the first.
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Dec 17, 2019 | www.unz.com
The outsized role of U.S. Israel lobby operatives in abetting the theft of Syrian and Iraqi oil reveals how this powerful lobby also facilitates more covert aspects of U.S.-Israeli cooperation and the implementation of policies that favor Israel.
Kirkuk, Iraq -- "We want to bring our soldiers home. But we did leave soldiers because we're keeping the oil," President Trump stated on November 3, before adding, "I like oil. We're keeping the oil."
Though he had promised a withdrawal of U.S. troops from their illegal occupation of Syria, Trump shocked many with his blunt admission that troops were being left behind to prevent Syrian oil resources from being developed by the Syrian government and, instead, kept in the hands of whomever the U.S. deemed fit to control them, in this case, the U.S.-backed Kurdish-majority militia known as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
Though Trump himself received all of the credit -- and the scorn -- for this controversial new policy, what has been left out of the media coverage is the fact that key players in the U.S.' pro-Israel lobby played a major role in its creation with the purpose of selling Syrian oil to the state of Israel. While recent developments in the Syrian conflict may have hindered such a plan from becoming reality, it nonetheless offers a telling example of the covert role often played by the U.S.' pro-Israel lobby in shaping key elements of U.S. foreign policy and closed-door deals with major regional implications.
Indeed, the Israel lobby-led effort to have the U.S. facilitate the sale of Syrian oil to Israel is not an isolated incident given that, just a few years ago, other individuals connected to the same pro-Israel lobby groups and Zionist neoconservatives manipulated both U.S. policy and Iraq's Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) in order to allow Iraqi oil to be sold to Israel without the approval of the Iraqi government. These designs, not unlike those that continue to unfold in Syria, were in service to longstanding neoconservative and Zionist efforts to balkanize Iraq by strengthening the KRG and weakening Baghdad.
After the occupation of Iraq's Nineveh Governorate by ISIS (June 2014-October 2015), the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) took advantage of the Iraqi military's retreat and, amidst the chaos, illegally seized Kirkuk on June 12. Their claim to the city was supported by both the U.S. and Israel and, later, the U.S.-led coalition targeting ISIS. This gave the KRG control, not only of Iraq's export pipeline to Turkey's Ceyhan port, but also to Iraq's largest oil fields.
Israel imported massive amounts of oil from the Kurds during this period, all without the consent of Baghdad. Israel was also the largest customer of oil sold by ISIS, who used Kurdish-controlled Kirkuk to sell oil in areas of Iraq and Syria under its control. To do this in ISIS-controlled territories of Iraq, the oil was sent first to the Kurdish city of Zakho near the Turkey border and then into Turkey, deceptively labeled as oil that originated from Iraqi Kurdistan. ISIS did nothing to impede the KRG's own oil exports even though they easily could have given that the Kirkuk-Ceyhan export pipeline passed through areas that ISIS had occupied for years.
In retrospect, and following revelations from Wikileaks and new information regarding the background of relevant actors, it has been revealed that much of the covert maneuvering behind the scenes that enabled this scenario intimately involved the United States' powerful pro-Israel lobby. Now, with a similar scenario unfolding in Syria, efforts by the U.S.' Israel lobby to manipulate U.S. foreign policy in order to shift the flow of hydrocarbons for Israel's benefit can instead be seen as a pattern of behavior, not an isolated incident.
"Keep the oil" for Israel
After recent shifts in the Trump administration in its Syria policy, U.S. troops have controversially been kept in Syria to " keep the oil ," with U.S. military officials subsequently claiming that doing so was "a subset of the counter-ISIS mission." However, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper later claimed that another factor behind U.S. insistence on guarding Syrian oil fields was to prevent the extraction and subsequent sale of Syrian oil by either the Syrian government or Russia.
One key, yet often overlooked, player behind the push to prevent a full U.S. troop withdrawal in Syria in order to "keep the oil" was current U.S. ambassador to Turkey, David Satterfield. Satterfield was previously the assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs, where he yielded great influence over U.S. policy in both Iraq and Syria and worked closely with Brett McGurk, the former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Iraq and Iran and later special presidential envoy for the U.S.-led "anti-ISIS" coalition.
Over the course of his long diplomatic career, Satterfield has been known to the U.S. government as an Israeli intelligence asset embedded in the U.S. State Department. Indeed, Satterfield was named as a major player in what is now known as the AIPAC espionage scandal, also known as the Lawrence Franklin espionage scandal, although he was oddly never charged for his role after the intervention of his superiors at the State Department in the George W. Bush administration.
David Satterfield, left, arrives in Baghdad with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, right, and Joey Hood, May 7, 2019. Mandel Ngan | APIn 2005, federal prosecutors cited a U.S. government official as having illegally passed classified information to Steve Rosen, then working for AIPAC, who then passed that information to the Israeli government. That classified information included intelligence on Iran and the nature of U.S.-Israeli intelligence sharing. Subsequent media reports from the New York Times and other outlets revealed that this government official was none other than David Satterfield, who was then serving as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Near East Affairs.
Charges against Rosen, as well as his co-conspirator and fellow AIPAC employee Keith Weissman, were dropped in 2009 and no charges were levied against Satterfield after State Department officials shockingly claimed that Satterfield had "acted within his authority" in leaking classified information to an individual working to advance the interests of a foreign government. Richard Armitage, a neoconservative ally with a long history of ties to CIA covert operations in the Middle East and elsewhere, has since claimed that he was one of Satterfield's main defenders in conversations with the FBI during this time when he was serving as Deputy Secretary of State.
The other government official named in the indictment, former Pentagon official Lawrence Franklin, was not so lucky and was charged under the Espionage Act in 2006. Satterfield, instead of being censured for his role in leaking sensitive information to a foreign government, was subsequently promoted in 2006 to serve as the Coordinator for Iraq and Senior Adviser to then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
In addition to his history of leaking classified information to AIPAC, Satterfield also has a longstanding relationship with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a controversial spin-off of AIPAC also known by its acronym WINEP. WINEP's website has long listed Satterfield as one of its experts and Satterfield has spoken at several WINEP events and policy forums, including several after his involvement with the AIPAC espionage scandal became public knowledge. However, despite his longstanding and controversial ties to the U.S. pro-Israel lobby, Satterfield's current relationship with some elements of that lobby, such as the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), is complicated at best.
While Satterfield's role in yet another reversal of a promised withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria has largely escaped media scrutiny, another individual with deep ties to the Israel lobby and Syrian "rebel" groups has also been ignored by the media, despite his outsized role in taking advantage of this new U.S. policy for Israel's benefit.
US Israel Lobby secures deal with Kurds
Earlier this year, well before Trump's new Syria policy of "keeping the oil" had officially taken shape, another individual with deep ties to the U.S. Israel lobby secured a lucrative agreement with U.S.-backed Kurdish groups in Syria. An official document issued earlier this year by the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC), the political arm of the Kurdish majority and U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a New Jersey-based company, founded and run by U.S.-Israeli dual citizen Mordechai "Motti" Kahana, was given control of the oil in territory held by the SDC.
Per the document, the SDC formally accepted the offer from Kahana's company -- Global Development Corporation (GDC) -- to represent SDC in all matters pertaining to the sale of oil extracted in territory it controls and also grants GDC "the right to explore and develop oil that is located in areas we govern."
The SDC's formal acceptance of Global Development Corporation's offer to develop Syrian oil fields. Source | Al-AkhbarThe document also states that the amount of oil then being produced in SDC-controlled areas was 125,000 barrels per day and that they anticipated that this would increase to 400,000 barrels per day and that this oil is considered a foreign asset under the control of the United States by the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
After the document was made public by the Lebanese outlet Al-Akhbar , the SDC claimed that it was a forgery, even though Kahana had separately confirmed its contents and shared the letter itself to the Los Angeles Times as recently as a few weeks ago. Kahana previously attempted to distance himself from the effort and told the Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom in July that he had made the offer to the SDC as means to prevent the "Assad regime" of Syria from obtaining revenue from the sale of Syrian oil.
The Kurds currently hold 11 oil wells in an area controlled by the [Syrian] Democratic Forces. The overwhelming majority of Syrian oil is in that area. I don't want this oil reaching Iran, or the Assad regime."
At the time, Kahana also stated that "the moment the Trump administration gives its approval, we can begin to export this oil at fair prices."
Given that Kahana has openly confirmed that he is representing the SDC's oil business shortly after Trump's adoption of the controversial "keep the oil policy," it seems plausible that Kahana has now received the approval needed for his company to export the oil on behalf of the SDC. Several media reports have speculated that, if Kahana's efforts go forward unimpeded, the Syrian oil will be sold to Israel.
However, considering Turkey's aversion to engaging in any activities that may benefit the PKK-SDF – there are considerable obstacles to Kahana's plans. While the SDF -- along with assistance from U.S. troops -- still controls several oil fields in Syria, experts assert that they can only realistically sell the oil to the Syrian government. Not even the Iraqi Kurds are a candidate, considering Baghdad's firm control over the Iraq-Syria border and the KRG's weakened state after its failed independence bid in late 2017.
Regardless, Kahana's involvement in this affair is significant for a few reasons. First, Kahana has been a key player in the promotion and funding of radical groups in Syria and has even been caught hiring so-called "rebels" to kidnap Syrian Jews and take them to Israel against their will. It was Kahana, for instance, who financed and orchestrated the now infamous trip of the late Senator John McCain to Syria, where he met with Syrian "rebels" including Khalid al-Hamad – a "moderate" rebel who gained notoriety after a video of him eating the heart of a Syrian Army soldier went viral online . McCain had also admitted meeting with ISIS members, though it is unclear if he did so on this trip or another trip to Syria.
In addition, Kahana was also the mastermind behind the "Caesar" controversy, whereby a Syrian using the pseudonym "Caesar" was brought to the U.S. by Kahana and went on to make claims regarding torture and other crimes allegedly committed by the Assad-led government Syria, claims which were later discredited by independent analysts. He was also very involved in Israel's failed efforts to establish a "safe zone" in Southern Syria as a means of covertly expanding Israel's territory from the occupied Golan Heights and into Quneitra.
Notably, Kahana has deep ties -- not just to efforts to overthrow the Syrian government -- but also to U.S. Israel lobby, including the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) where Satterfield is as an expert. For instance, Kahana was a key player in a 2013 symposium organized by WINEP along with Syrian opposition groups intimately involved in the arming of so-called "rebels." One of the other participants in the symposium alongside Kahana was Mouaz Moustafa, director of the "Syrian Emergency Task Force" who assisted Kahana in bringing McCain to Syria in 2013. Moustafa was listed as a WINEP expert on the organization's website but was later mysteriously deleted.
Kahana is also intimately involved with the Israeli American Council (IAC), a pro-Israel lobby organization, as a team member of its national conference. IAC was co-founded and is chaired by Adam Milstein , a multimillionaire and convicted felon who is also on the boards of AIPAC, StandWithUs, Birthright and other prominent pro-Israel lobby organizations. One of IAC's top donors is Sheldon Adelson, who is also the top donor to President Trump as well as the entire Republican Party.
Though the machinations of both Kahana and Satterfield to guide U.S. policy in order to manipulate the flow of Syria's hydrocarbons for Israel's benefit may seem shocking to some, this same tactic of pro-Israel lobbyists using the Kurds to illegally sell a country's oil to Israel was developed a few years prior, not in Syria, but Iraq. Notably, the individuals responsible for that policy in Iraq shared connections to several of the same pro-Israel lobby organizations as both Satterfield and Kahana, suggesting that their recent efforts in Syria are not an isolated event, but a pattern.
War against ISIS is a war for oil
In an email dated June 15, 2014, James Franklin Jeffrey (former Ambassador to Iraq and Turkey and current U.S. Special Representative for Syria) revealed to Stephen Hadley, a former George Bush administration advisor then working at the government-funded United States Institute of Peace, his intent to advise the KRG in order to sustain Kirkuk's oil production. The plan, as Jeffery described it, was to supply both the Kurdistan province with oil and allow the export of oil via Kirkuk-Ceyhan to Israel, robbing Iraq of its oil and strengthening the country's Kurdish region along with its regional government's bid for autonomy.
Jeffrey, whose hawkish views on Iran and Syria are well-known , mentioned that Brett McGurk, the U.S.' main negotiator between Baghdad and the KRG, was acting as his liaison with the KRG. McGurk, who had served in various capacities in Iraq under both Bush and Obama, was then also serving Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Iraq and Iran. A year later, he would be made the special presidential envoy for the U.S.-led "anti-ISIS" coalition and, as previously mentioned, worked closely with David Satterfield.
James Jeffrey, left, meets with Kurdish Regional Government President Massoud Barzani, April 8, 2011, at an airport in Irbil, Iraq. Chip Somodevilla | APJeffrey was then a private citizen not currently employed by the government and was used as a non-governmental channel in the pursuit of the plans described in the leaked emails published by WikiLeaks. Jeffrey's behind-the-scenes activities with regards to the KRG's oil exports were done clandestinely, largely because he was then employed by a prominent arm of the U.S.' pro-Israel lobby.
At the time of the email, Jeffrey was serving as a distinguished fellow (2013-2018) at WINEP. As previously mentioned, WINEP is a pro-Israel foreign policy think-tank that espouses neoconservative views and was created in 1985 by researchers that had hastily left AIPAC to escape investigations against the organization that were related to some of its members conducting espionage on behalf of Israel. AIPAC, the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, is the largest registered Israel lobbyist organization in the US (albeit registration under the Foreign Agents Registration Act would be more suitable), and, in addition to the 1985 incident that led to WINEP's creation, has had members indicted for espionage against the U.S. on Israel's behalf.
WINEP's launch was funded by former President of the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles, Barbara Weinberg, who is its founding president and constant Chairman Emerita. Nicknamed 'Barbi', she is the wife of the late Lawrence Weinberg who was President of AIPAC from 1976-81 and who JJ Goldberg, author of the 1997 book Jewish Power, referred to as one of a select few individuals who essentially dominated AIPAC regardless of its elected leadership. Co-founder alongside Weinberg was Martin Indyk. Indyk, U.S. Ambassador to Israel (1995-97) and Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs (1997-99), led the AIPAC research time that formed WINEP to escape the aforementioned investigations.
WINEP has historically received funding from donors who donate to causes of special interest for Zionism and Israel. Among its trustees are extremely prominent names in political Zionism and funders of other Israel Lobby organizations, such as Charles and Edgar Bronfman and the Chernicks . Its membership remains dominated by individuals who have spent their careers promoting Israeli interests in the U.S.
WINEP has become more well-known, and arguably more controversial, in recent years after its research director famously called for false-flag attacks to trigger a U.S. war with Iran in 2012, statements well-aligned with longstanding attempts by the Israel Lobby to bring about such a war.
A worthy partner in crime
Stephen Hadley, another private citizen who Jeffrey evidently considered as a partner in his covert dealings discussed in the emails, also has his own past of involvement with Israel-specific intrigues and meddling.
During the G.W. Bush administration, Hadley tagged along with neoconservatives in their numerous creations of fake intelligence and efforts to incriminate Iraq for possessing chemical and nuclear weapons. Hadley was one of the promoters from within the U.S. government of the false claim that 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta met with Iraqi officials in Prague.
Hadley also worked with then-Chief of Staff to the Vice President, Lewis Libby -- a neoconservative and former lawyer for the Mossad-agent and billionaire Marc Rich -- to discredit a CIA investigation into claims of Iraq purchasing yellowcake uranium from Niger. That claim famously appeared in Bush's State of the Union address in 2002.
What this particular claim had in common with the 'Iraq meets Atta in Prague' disinformation, and other famous lies against Iraq fabricated and circulated by the dense neocon network, was its source: Israel and pro-Israel partisans.
The distribution network of these now long-debunked claims was none other than the neoconservatives who act a veritable Israeli fifth column that has long sought to promote Israeli foreign policy objectives as being in the interest of the United States. In this, Hadley played his part by helping to ensure that the United States was railroaded into a war that had long been promoted by both Israeli and American neoconservatives, particularly Richard Perle -- an advisor to WINEP -- who had been promoting regime change in Iraq for Israel's explicit benefit for decades.
In short, for covert intrigues to serve Israel that would likely be met with protest if pitched to the government for implementation as policy, Hadley's resume was impressive.
Israeli interests pursued through covert channels
Given his employment at WINEP during this time, Jeffrey's intent to advise the KRG to sustain Kirkuk's oil production despite the seizure of the Baiji oil refinery by ISIS is somewhat suspect, especially since it required that 100,000 barrels per day pass through ISIS-controlled territory unimpeded.
Jeffrey's email from June 14, therefore, demonstrated that he had foreknowledge that ISIS would not disturb the KRG as long as the Kurds redirected oil that was intended originally for Baiji to the Kirkuk-Ceyhan export pipeline, facilitating its export and later sale to Israel.
Notably, up until its liberation in mid-2015 by the Iraqi government and aligned Shia paramilitaries, ISIS kept the refinery running and, only upon their retreat, destroyed the facility.
In July 2014, the KRG began confidently supplying Kurdish areas with Kirkuk's oil per the plan laid out by Jeffrey in the aforementioned email. Baghdad soon became aware of the arrangement and lashed out at Israel and Turkey, whose banks were used by the KRG to receive the oil revenue from Israel.
One would normally expect ISIS to be opposed to such collusion given that the KRG, while a beneficiary of the ISIS-Baghdad conflict, was not an ally of ISIS. Thus, a foreign power with strategic ties to ISIS used its close ties to the KRG and assurances that it was on-board for the oil trade, to deliver a credible guarantee that ISIS would 'cooperate' and that a boom in production and exports was in the cards.
This foreign power -- acting as a guarantor for the ISIS-KRG understanding vis-a-vis the illegal oil economy, represented by Jeffrey and clearly not on good terms with Iraq's government -- was quite clearly Israel.
Israel established considerable financial support as well as the provision of armaments to other extremist terrorist groups active near the border between the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and Southern Syria when war first broke out in Syria in 2011. At least four of these extremist groups were led by individuals with direct ties to Israeli intelligence . These same groups, sometimes promoted as 'moderates' by some media, were actively fighting Syria's government – an enemy of Israel and ally of Iran – before ISIS existed and eagerly partnered with ISIS when it expanded its campaign into Syria.
Furthermore, Israeli officials have publicly admitted maintaining regular communication with ISIS cells in Southern Syria and have publicly expressed their desire that ISIS not be defeated in the country. In Libya, Israeli Mossad operatives have been found embedded within ISIS , suggesting that Israel has covert but definite ties with the group outside of Syria as well.
Israel has also long promoted the independence of Iraqi Kurdistan, with Israel having provided Iraq's Kurds with weapons, training and teams of Mossad advisers as far back as the 1960s . More recently, Israel was the only state to support the KRG independence referendum in September 2017 despite its futility, hinting at the regard Israel holds for the KRG. Iraq's government subsequently militarily defeated the KRG's push for statehood and reclaimed Kirkuk's oil fields with assistance from the Shia paramilitaries which were responsible for defeating ISIS in the area.
A 2014 map shows the areas under ISIS and Kurdish control at the time. Source | TelegraphThis arrangement orchestrated by Jeffrey, served the long-time neoconservative-Israeli agenda of empowering the Kurds, selling Iraqi oil to Israel and weakening Iraq's Baghdad-based government.
WINEP's close association with AIPAC, which has spied on the U.S. on behalf of Israel several times in the past with no consequence, combined with Jeffrey's long-time acquaintance with key U.S. figures in Iraq, such as McGurk, provided an ideal opening for Israel in Iraq. Following the implementation of Jeffrey's plan, Israeli imports of KRG oil constituted 77 percent of Israel's total oil imports during the KRG's occupation of Kirkuk.
The WINEP connection to the KRG-Israel oil deal demonstrates the key role played by the U.S. pro-Israel Lobby, not only in terms of sustaining U.S. financial aid to Israel and ratcheting up tensions with Israel's adversaries but also in facilitating the more covert aspects of U.S.-Israeli cooperation and the implementation of policies that favor Israel.
Yet the role played by the U.S. Israel lobby in this capacity, particularly in terms of orchestrating oil sale agreements for Israel's benefit, is hardly exclusive to Iraq and can accurately be described as a repeated pattern of behavior.
Agha Hussain is an independent researcher based in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. He specialized in Middle Eastern affairs and history and is an editorial contributor to Eurasia Future, Regional Rapport and other news outlets.
Whitney Webb is a MintPress News journalist based in Chile. She has contributed to several independent media outlets including Global Research, EcoWatch, the Ron Paul Institute and 21st Century Wire, among others. She has made several radio and television appearances and is the 2019 winner of the Serena Shim Award for Uncompromised Integrity in Journalism.
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Sep 10, 2012 | www.theamericanconservative.com
Peace means different things to different governments and different countries. To some it suggests harmony based on tolerance and mutual respect. To others it serves as a euphemism for dominance, peace defining the relationship between the strong and the supine.In the absence of actually existing peace, a nation's reigning definition of peace shapes its proclivity to use force. A nation committed to peace-as-harmony will tend to employ force as a last resort. The United States once subscribed to this view. Or beyond the confines of the Western Hemisphere, it at least pretended to do so.
A nation seeking peace-as-dominion will use force more freely. This has long been an Israeli predilection. Since the end of the Cold War and especially since 9/11, however, it has become America's as well. As a consequence, U.S. national-security policy increasingly conforms to patterns of behavior pioneered by the Jewish state. This "Israelification" of U.S. policy may prove beneficial for Israel. Based on the available evidence, it's not likely to be good for the United States.
Here is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu describing what he calls his "vision of peace" in June 2009: "If we get a guarantee of demilitarization we are ready to agree to a real peace agreement, a demilitarized Palestinian state side by side with the Jewish state." The inhabitants of Gaza and the West Bank, if armed and sufficiently angry, can certainly annoy Israel. But they cannot destroy it or do it serious harm. By any measure, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) wield vastly greater power than the Palestinians can possibly muster. Still, from Netanyahu's perspective, "real peace" becomes possible only if Palestinians guarantee that their putative state will forego even the most meager military capabilities. Your side disarms, our side stays armed to the teeth: that's Netanyahu's vision of peace in a nutshell.
Netanyahu asks a lot of Palestinians. Yet however baldly stated, his demands reflect longstanding Israeli thinking. For Israel, peace derives from security, which must be absolute and assured. Security thus defined requires not simply military advantage but military supremacy .
From Israel's perspective, threats to supremacy require anticipatory action , the earlier the better. The IDF attack on Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981 provides one especially instructive example. Israel's destruction of a suspected Syrian nuclear facility in 2007 provides a second.
Yet alongside perceived threat, perceived opportunity can provide sufficient motive for anticipatory action. In 1956 and again in 1967, Israel attacked Egypt not because the blustering Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser possessed the capability (even if he proclaimed the intention) of destroying the hated Zionists, but because preventive war seemingly promised a big Israeli pay-off. In the first instance, the Israelis came away empty-handed. In the second, they hit the jackpot operationally, albeit with problematic strategic consequences.
For decades, Israel relied on a powerful combination of tanks and fighter-bombers as its preferred instrument of preemption. In more recent times, however, it has deemphasized its swift sword in favor of the shiv between the ribs. Why deploy lumbering armored columns when a missile launched from an Apache attack helicopter or a bomb fixed to an Iranian scientist's car can do the job more cheaply and with less risk? Thus has targeted assassination eclipsed conventional military methods as the hallmark of the Israeli way of war.
Whether using tanks to conquer or assassins to liquidate, adherence to this knee-to-the-groin paradigm has won Israel few friends in the region and few admirers around the world (Americans notably excepted). The likelihood of this approach eliminating or even diminishing Arab or Iranian hostility toward Israel appears less than promising. That said, the approach has thus far succeeded in preserving and even expanding the Jewish state: more than 60 years after its founding, Israel persists and even prospers. By this rough but not inconsequential measure, the Israeli security concept has succeeded. Okay, it's nasty: but so far at least, it's worked.
What's hard to figure out is why the United States would choose to follow Israel's path. Yet over the course of the Bush/Clinton/Bush/Obama quarter-century, that's precisely what we've done. The pursuit of global military dominance, a proclivity for preemption, a growing taste for assassination -- all justified as essential to self-defense. That pretty much describes ourpresent-day MO.
Israel is a small country with a small population and no shortage of hostile neighbors. Ours is a huge country with an enormous population and no enemy, unless you count the Cuban-Venezuelan Axis of Ailing Dictators, within several thousand miles. We have choices that Israel does not. Yet in disregarding those choices the United States has stumbled willy-nilly into an Israeli-like condition of perpetual war, with peace increasingly tied to unrealistic expectations of adversaries and would-be adversaries acquiescing in Washington's will.
Israelification got its kick-start with George H.W. Bush's Operation Desert Storm, a triumphal Hundred-Hour War likened at the time to Israel's triumphal Six-Day War. Victory over the "fourth largest army in the world" fostered illusions of the United States exercising perpetually and on a global scale military primacy akin to what Israel has exercised regionally. Soon thereafter, the Pentagon announced that henceforth it would settle for nothing less than "Full Spectrum Dominance."
Bill Clinton's contribution to the process was to normalize the use of force. During the several decades of the Cold War, the U.S. had resorted to overt armed intervention only occasionally. Although difficult today to recall, back then whole years might pass without U.S. troops being sent into harm's way. Over the course of Clinton's two terms in office, however, intervention became commonplace.
The average Israeli had long since become inured to reports of IDF incursions into southern Lebanon or Gaza. Now the average American has become accustomed to reports of U.S. troops battling Somali warlords, supervising regime change in Haiti, or occupying the Balkans. Yet the real signature of the Clinton years came in the form of airstrikes. Blasting targets in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Serbia, and Sudan, but above all in Iraq, became the functional equivalent of Israel's reliance on airpower to punish "terrorists" from standoff ranges.
In the wake of 9/11, George W. Bush, a true believer in Full Spectrum Dominance, set out to liberate or pacify (take your pick) the Islamic world. The United States followed Israel in assigning itself the prerogative of waging preventive war. Although it depicted Saddam Hussein as an existential threat, the Bush administration also viewed Iraq as an opportunity: here the United States would signal to other recalcitrants the fate awaiting them should they mess with Uncle Sam.
More subtly, in going after Saddam, Bush was tacitly embracing a longstanding Israeli conception of deterrence. During the Cold War, deterrence had meant conveying a credible threat to dissuade your opponent from hostile action. Israel had never subscribed to that view. Influencing the behavior of potential adversaries required more than signaling what Israel might do if sufficiently aggravated; influence was exerted by punitive action, ideally delivered on a disproportionate scale. Hit the other guy first, if possible; failing that, whack him several times harder than he hit you: not the biblical injunction of an eye for an eye, but both eyes, an ear, and several teeth, with a kick in the nuts thrown in for good measure. The aim was to send a message: screw with us and this will happen to you. This is the message Bush intended to convey when he ordered the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Unfortunately, Operation Iraqi Freedom, launched with all the confidence that had informed Operation Peace for Galilee, Israel's equally ill-advised 1982 incursion into Lebanon, landed the United States in an equivalent mess. Or perhaps a different comparison applies: the U.S. occupation of Iraq triggered violent resistance akin to what the IDF faced as a consequence of Israel occupying the West Bank. Two successive Intifadas had given the Israeli army fits. The insurgency in Iraq (along with its Afghan sibling) gave the American army fits. Neither the Israeli nor the American reputation for martial invincibility survived the encounter.
By the time Barack Obama succeeded Bush in 2009, most Americans -- like most Israelis -- had lost their appetite for invading and occupying countries. Obama's response? Hew ever more closely to the evolving Israeli way of doing things. "Obama wants to be known for winding down long wars," writes Michael Gerson in the Washington Post. "But he has shown no hesitance when it comes to shorter, Israel-style operations. He is a special ops hawk, a drone militarist."
Just so: with his affinity for missile-firing drones, Obama has established targeted assassination as the very centerpiece of U.S. national-security policy. With his affinity for commandos, he has expanded the size and mandate of U.S. Special Operations Command, which now maintains an active presence in more than 70 countries. In Yemen, Somalia, the Philippines, and the frontier regions of Pakistan -- and who knows how many other far-flung places -- Obama seemingly shares Prime Minister Netanyahu's expectations: keep whacking and a positive outcome will eventually ensue.
The government of Israel, along with ardently pro-Israel Americans like Michael Gerson, may view the convergence of U.S. and Israeli national-security practices with some satisfaction. The prevailing U.S. definition of self-defense -- a self-assigned mandate to target anyone anywhere thought to endanger U.S. security -- is exceedingly elastic. As such, it provides a certain cover for equivalent Israeli inclinations. And to the extent that our roster of enemies overlaps with theirs -- did someone say Iran? -- military action ordered by Washington just might shorten Jerusalem's "to do" list.
Yet where does this all lead? "We don't have enough drones," writes the columnist David Ignatius, "to kill all the enemies we will make if we turn the world into a free-fire zone." And if Delta Force, the Green Berets, army rangers, Navy SEALs, and the like constitute (in the words of one SEAL) "the dark matter the force that orders the universe but can't be seen," we probably don't have enough of them either. Unfortunately, the Obama administration seems willing to test both propositions.
The process of aligning U.S. national-security practice with Israeli precedents is now essentially complete. Their habits are ours. Reversing that process would require stores of courage and imagination that may no longer exist in Washington. Given the reigning domestic political climate, those holding or seeking positions of power find it easier -- and less risky -- to stay the course, vainly nursing the hope that by killing enough "terrorists" peace on terms of our choosing will result. Here too the United States has succumbed to Israeli illusions.
Andrew J. Bacevich is a visiting professor at the University of Notre Dame.
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Dec 15, 2019 | www.washingtonpost.com
President Trump sometimes disrupts the pattern by vowing to end America's "endless wars." But he has extended and escalated them at every turn, offering nakedly punitive and exploitative rationales. In September, on the cusp of a peace deal with the Taliban, he discarded an agreement negotiated by his administration and pummeled Afghanistan harder than ever (now he's back to wanting to talk). In Syria, his promised military withdrawal has morphed into a grotesque redeployment to "secure" the country's oil .
It is clearer than ever that the problem of American military intervention goes well beyond the proclivities of the current president, or the previous one, or the next. The United States has slowly slid away from any plausible claim of standing for peace in the world. The ideal of peace was one that America long promoted, enshrining it in law and institutions, and the end of the Cold War offered an unparalleled opportunity to advance the cause. But U.S. leaders from both parties chose another path. War -- from drone strikes and Special Operations raids to protracted occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan -- has come to seem inevitable and eternal, in practice and even in aspiration.
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Dec 15, 2019 | crookedtimber.org
likbez 12.15.19 at 1:33 am 9
Your comment is awaiting moderation.Brexit is an eruption of English nationalism, and the Tories are now, under that shambling parody of a drunk racist English aristo, Johnson, an English nationalist party.
IMHO this is highly questionable statement. Brexit is a form of protest against neoliberal globalization. The fact that is colored with nationalism is the secondary effect/factor: rejection of neoliberalism is almost always colored in either nationalist rhetoric, or Marxist rhetoric.
Here are some quotes from paleoconservative analysis of the elections taken from two recent articles:
- Marked as [AS] Boris Johnson Is Showing Western Politicians How to Win b y Andrew Sullivan nymag.com, Dec 13, 2019
- Marked as [RD] Why Boris Won -- And How The GOP Might by Rod Dreher The American Conservative , Dec 13, 2019
While I do not share their enthusiasm about "Red Tories" rule in the UK, and the bright future for "Trumpism without Trump" movement in the USA, they IMHO provide some interesting insights into paleoconservatives view on the British elections results and elements of social protest that led to them:
[AS] It is clearer and clearer to me that the wholesale adoption of critical race, gender, and queer theory on the left makes normal people wonder what on earth they're talking about and which dictionary they are using. The white working classes are privileged? A woman can have a penis? In the end, the dogma is so crazy, and the language so bizarre, these natural left voters decided to listen to someone who does actually speak their language , even if in an absurdly plummy accent.
[AS] But just as important, he moved the party sharply left on austerity, spending on public services, tax cuts for the working poor, and a higher minimum wage. He outflanked the far right on Brexit and shamelessly echoed the left on economic policy . ... This is Trumpism without Trump. A conservative future without an ineffective and polarizing nutjob at the heart of it. Unlike Trump, he will stop E.U. mass migration, and pass a new immigration system, based on the Australian model. Unlike Trump, he will focus tax cuts on the working poor, not the decadent rich. Unlike Trump, he will stop E.U. mass migration, and pass a new immigration system, based on the Australian model. Unlike Trump, he will focus tax cuts on the working poor, not the decadent rich. It's very much the same movement of left-behind people expressing their views on the same issues, who, tragically, put their trust in Trump. What we've seen is how tenacious a voting bloc that now is, which is why Trumpism is here to stay. If we could only get rid of the human cancer at the heart of it.
[AS] Trump has bollixed it up, of course. He ran on Johnson's platform but gave almost all his tax cuts to the extremely wealthy, while Johnson will cut taxes on the poor. Trump talks a big game on immigration but has been unable to get any real change in the system out of Congress. Johnson now has a big majority to pass a new immigration bill, with Parliament in his control, which makes the task much easier. Trump is flamingly incompetent and unable to understand his constitutional role. Boris will assemble a competent team, with Michael Gove as his CEO, and Dom Cummings as strategist.
[AS] If Johnson succeeds, he'll have unveiled a new formula for the Western right: Make no apologies for your own country and culture; toughen immigration laws; increase public spending on the poor and on those who are "just about managing"; increase taxes on the very rich and redistribute to the poor; focus on manufacturing and new housing; ignore the woke; and fight climate change as the Tories are (or risk losing a generation of support).
[RD] I have no idea why the Republicans are so damned silent on wokeness, including the transgender madness. No doubt about it, the American people have accepted gay marriage and gay rights, broadly. But the Left will not accept this victory in the culture war. They cannot help bouncing the rubble, and driving people farther than they are willing to go, or that they should have to go. It's the elites -- and not just academic elites. Every week I get at least two e-mails from readers sending me examples of transgender wokeness taking over their professions -- especially big business. People hate this pronoun crap, but nobody dares to speak out against it, because they are afraid of being doxxed, cancelled, or at least marginalized in the workplace.
[RD] My friend said (I paraphrase):
"Can you blame people for not answering pollsters' questions? Everybody is told all the time that the things they believe, and the things they worry about, are backwards and bigoted. They have learned to keep it to themselves. It's the same thing here. I hate Donald Trump, but I'm probably going to end up voting for him, because at least he doesn't hate my sons. I want a good future for every child -- black, Latino, white, all of them -- but the Left thinks my sons are what's wrong with the world
[RD] Boris (and Sully) style Toryism is better than nothing, isn't it? As a general rule, in this emerging post-Christian social and political order, we conservative Christians had better not let the unachievable perfect be the enemy of the common-sense good enough.
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Dec 14, 2019 | discussion.theguardian.com
One aspect of this report in the NYT is very troubling but not a great surprise to those who pay attention to Asian affairs.The reports that US military leaders had no idea of what to do in Afghanistan and constantly lied to the public should rouse citizens in America to take a different view of military leaders. That view must be to trust nothing coming from the Pentagon or from spokespersons for the military. Included must be any and all secretaries of defence, and all branches of the military.
It is totally unacceptable that 1-2 trillion dollars and several thousand lives were spent by America for some nebulous cause. This does not include many thousands of civilians.
During the Vietnam disaster, it became obvious that American military was lying to the public and taking many causalities in an unwinnable war. Nothing was learned about Asia or Asian culture because America entered Afghanistan without a real plan and no understanding of the country or it's history.
The experience of the USSR in that country should have sent up all kinds of red flags to the invading US military but it apparently did not. Both USSR and America lost thousands of military lives -- but nothing has changed in the country. Life in Afghanistan is actually worse now than before the multiple invasions. The only think which has improved is the cultivation of poppies and the export of opium.
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Dec 14, 2019 | www.strategic-culture.org
Wayne Madsen
December 10, 2019 © Photo: Wikipedia Donald John Trump has turned back the clock in the Western Hemisphere to an era that saw coups and political unrest as the order of the day. Trump and his administration of far-right anti-socialists and pro-fascists have already overthrown the democratically-elected government of President Evo Morales of Bolivia. Trump has announced a policy of turning up the heat on President Nicolas Maduro's government in Venezuela by ratcheting up the economic blockade of Cuba, a Venezuelan ally.
Trump's reinvigoration of the 19 th century imperialist Monroe Doctrine, which Washington uses as a political lever to prevent the Western Hemisphere from adopting its own foreign and domestic policies, has, once again, cast the United States in the light of an oppressive overlord over the nations of Latin America and the Caribbean.
The Trump regime has returned to a Cold War playbook of color-coding Western Hemisphere nations with red or pink for "socialist" and "communist." Falling into the "red" category are Venezuela, which is suffering from crippling US-led economic, diplomatic, and trade sanctions, and Nicaragua and Cuba, which are also subject to sanctions. Color-coded "pink" are Mexico and Argentina, led by progressive presidents and which have shifted from their heretofore pro-US stances. Argentina elected progressive leftist Alberto Fernández as president and, as vice president, former president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. The Peronista left ticket defeated incumbent right-wing president Mauricio Macri, a one-time real estate business crony of Trump and someone who had abused the nation's security services in a failed attempt to dig up dirt to target former President Kirchner in a bogus corruption court case. The same CIA-backed "lawfare" operation was used to impeach and remove from office Brazilian leftist president Dilma Rousseff and imprison her predecessor, the wildly popular Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Lula, recently freed from prison after his trial and conviction were deemed by the Supreme Court to have been a right-wing ruse, is vowing to challenge neo-Nazi president Jair Bolsonaro in the next presidential election.
Trump and his Central Intelligence Agency's aggressive stance toward progressive hemispheric governments have seen more transitions from the "red/pink" bloc to the fascistic and pro-US bloc than the other direction. Ecuador has moved from the red/pink bloc to the blue as a result of the pro-US policies of President Lenin Moreno, who served as vice president under the leftist president Rafael Correa from 2007 to 2013. Moreno's threats against his predecessor forced Correa to flee to political exile in Belgium. The recent right-wing coup in Bolivia was supported by fascist leaders of Brazil and Colombia. Bolivia's democratically-elected president Evo Morales was forced to flee to Mexico, which granted him political asylum.
The revanchist imperialism of the Trump administration has witnessed Moreno and Morales being forced to flee the fascist "thugocracy" policies of their respective nations, which rely on abusing the legal system to stifle dissent and imprison opposition politicians. The governments of Chile and Peru have also firmly lined up with Washington and have engaged in anti-opposition policies that, in the case of Chile, has led to bloodshed in the streets as a result of brutal police actions.
A recent addition to the blue bloc from the pink/red coalition is Uruguay. After fifteen years of rule by the left-wing Broad Front, the right-wing National Party's presidential candidate, Luis Lacalle Pou, declared a razor-thin victory over Broad Front candidate Daniel Martinez. One of Lacalle Pou's first decisions was to recognize the opposition Venezuelan regime of the CIA puppet, Juan Guaido. Lacalle Pou also decided to align Uruguay with the Lima Group, a bloc of US lackey regimes dedicated to overthrowing the Maduro government of Venezuela. Lacalle Pou has also signaled his willingness to develop closer ties with the Bolsonaro regime in Brazil and distance Uruguay from the Fernandez- Kirchner government of Argentina. It is not secret that Argentina's Alberto Fernández supported the Broad Front's Daniel Martinez for president.
Of special concern to progressive Uruguayans is the role that Lacalle Pou's coalition partner, the Cabildo Abierto party of far-right winger Guido Manini Ríos, will play in his government. If the CIA's lawfare operations in Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador, and Bolivia are any indication, the Cabildo Abierto elements in Lacalle Pou's government, all supporters of the former military junta's war against leftists in the 1970s, may seek the arrest of former leftist presidents Jose Mujica, a leader of the leftist Tupamaro guerrillas in the 1970s, and Tabaré Vázquez. The Latin American fascist acolytes of Trump, from Bolsonaro and Bolivian politician Luis Fernando Camacho – known as the "Bolivian Bolsonaro" – to Manini Ríos and Colombian President Ivan Duque, all share in common a desire to imprison and even torture and execute the leftist opposition of their respective nations.
If the fascistic foreign policy power levers of the Trump White House, CIA, and State Department have their way, another leftist leader in South America will face prison or worse. Suriname's leftist president Desi Bouterse was recently convicted by a military court of the extrajudicial executions of 15 political opponents in 1982, while he served as the military leader of the former Dutch colony.
The death of the 15 opposition leaders may have been the work of the CIA, which launched a coup attempt against Bouterse in 1982. In December 1982, the CIA worked closely with Dutch intelligence to establish contacts with Bouterse's opposition in Suriname, including politicians, businessmen, and journalists. The Dutch provided assistance to former President Henck Chin a Sen and his Amsterdam-based opposition forces. The CIA plan included landing Surinamese rebels in Paramaribo, the Suriname capital, and seize power. There were also reports that the CIA planned to assassinate Bouterse during the coup, a direct violation of a White House executive order banning assassinations of foreign leaders. The CIA's chief in-country liaison for the coup was US ambassador to Suriname Robert Duemling.
A CIA dispatch from Suriname, dated March 12, 1982, describes the CIA's hands-on involvement in the coup against Bouterse: "Dissident military officers opposing the leftist trend of the military leadership launched a coup yesterday, but forces loyal to the government are still resisting. The group, calling itself the Army of National Liberation, is led by two officers who have been associated with conservative elements of the Surinamese society . . . Although the rebels have control of the Army's main barracks and ammunition depot in Paramaribo, government strongman Army Commander Bouterse and troops loyal to him apparently have taken up a defensive position in the capital's police camp some 6 kilometers away. Fighting subsided somewhat last night, with both sides claiming to be in control and appealing for support from military troops and citizenry. A large number of rank-and-file military, who had objected to Bouterse's leftist policies several months ago, probably will join the dissidents if Bouterse's position weakens further." If anyone is responsible for the deaths of the opposition figures in 1982, one does not need to look beyond CIA headquarters in Langley and its interlocutors with the Ford Foundation in New York.
Suriname's third largest ethnic group is Javanese, people who originally were settled by the Dutch colonizers from Indonesia. In 1982, Barack Obama's mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, who spoke fluent Javanese, was already well-entrenched with CIA programs in Java through her employment with the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Ford Foundation. Dunham, who used her Indonesian last name, re-spelled Sutoro from Soetoro, was a valuable asset for the CIA's program to destabilize Suriname through its business-oriented and very anti-Bouterse Javanese minority. Curiously, Ann Sutoro's employment contract with the Ford Foundation ended in December 1982, the same month that the CIA attempted to oust Bouterse. During her 1981-1982 contract with the Ford Foundation, Dunham Sutoro spent much of her time liaising with the Ford Foundation's headquarters in New York, a city that was also a base for the CIA-backed Surinamese opposition.
Perhaps not coincidentally, Bouterse was on a state visit to China when the court delivered its guilty verdict, along with a 20-year prison sentence. Bouterse seized power in 1980 during an era that saw leftist leaders like Daniel Ortega and his Sandinistas, Panamanian President Omar Torrijos, Ecuadorian President Jaime Roldos, Bolivian President Hernán Siles Zuazo, Jamaican Prime Minister Michael Manley, and Grenadian Prime Minister Maurice Bishop all buck Washington's influence in the hemisphere. Bouterse became a destabilization target of the Ronald Reagan-George H. W. Bush administration. After stepping down from power in 1987, Bouterse and his National Democratic Party returned to power when Bouterse was elected president in 2010 and re-elected in 2015. In 2012, the National Assembly passed a bill that granted Bouterse immunity from prosecution. It was later overturned by a court in another blatant display of Washington-orchestrated lawfare. In 1999, the Dutch weighed in against Bouterse by being convicted by a Netherlands court of drug-trafficking. Bouterse denies all the claims against him and remains popular among the primarily Afro-Surinamese population.
The legal action against Bouterse appears to be part of the Trump administration's program to curb China's international "Belt and Road Initiative," particularly in Latin America. Trump has countered with his own contrivance, called the "Growth in the Americas" program. Peru has signaled that it will join Argentina, Chile, Jamaica, and Panama in supporting the American anti-Chinese bloc. It is clear that if Washington is able to depose Bouterse from power in Suriname, it can prevent China from establishing a foothold in the country.
The Trump regime is attempting to move its chess pieces around on the Western hemisphere's political chessboard. Increasingly, it will be up to exiled progressives like Correa and Morales, as well as the recently-liberated Lula, to counter the march to fascist rule from Tierra del Fuego to the Rio Grande.
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Dec 14, 2019 | crookedtimber.org
by John Quiggin on December 14, 2019
Now that Brexit is almost certainly going to happen, I'm reposting this piece from late 2016 , with some minor corrections, indicated by strike-outs. Feel free to have your say on any aspect of Brexit.Since the collapse of faith in neoliberalism following the Global Financial Crisis, the political right has been increasingly dominated by
tribalismTrumpism. But in most cases, including the US, this has so far amounted to little more than Trilling's irritable mental gestures . To the extent that there is any policy program, it is little more than crony capitalism. Of all thetribalistTrumpist groups that have achieved political power the only ones that have anything amounting to a political program are the Brexiteers.The sustainability of
tribalismTrumpism as a political force will depend, in large measure, on the perceived success or failure of Brexit. So, what will the day after Brexit (presumably, sometime in March 2019) look like, and more importantly, feel like? I'll rule out the so-called "soft Brexit" where Britain stays in the EU for all practical purposes, gaining some minor concessions on immigration restrictions. It seems unlikely and would be even more of an anti-climax than the case I want to think about.Hidari 12.14.19 at 9:14 am (no link)
Doubtless one of the attractions of Brexit at least to those who thought it up (Farrage etc.) is that it is a completely token rebellion: it appears to change very much while in reality changing very little.likbez 12.14.19 at 4:57 pm (no link)Only one thing:
'On the contrary, it seems pretty clear that all EU citizens will get permanent residence, even those who arrived after the Brexit vote.'
Are we completely sure about this?
'One thing that this post missed completely is that Brexit is an entirely English project, imposed on the Scots and Irish. That's become more and more evident, and looks sure to dominate the days after Brexit happens.'
I kept on putting this point forward in various CT threads, getting, for some reason, massive pushback*, despite the fact that it is obviously true and always has been. Perhaps a colour coded map of the 'new' UK (which shows, essentially, the entirety of England as blue, with the exception of larger conurbations), the Welsh speaking ('outer') parts of Wales as green, essentially the entirety of Scotland as yellow, and the majority of the North of Ireland as being green, will make that point for me.
*I'm not sure why, but I think it's something to do with an unwillingness to see that in all four sections of the 'United' Kingdom we are seeing an eruption of nationalism: the SNP in Scotland, Sinn Fein in NI, Plaid in Wales and of course the Tories in England, with the Tories now functioning as, so to speak, the political wing of UKIP, or, if you want, UKIP/the Brexit Party with the 'rough edges' shaved off.
'Liberal' intellectuals have always had a blind spot for nationalism, and have always tended to reason that because nationalism is 'irrationalism' or whatever, that no one could 'really' think that way and that, therefore, nationalism doesn't 'really' exist. It obviously does, as a 1 second glance at the 'new' UK map will demonstrate.
Everything Trump does is consistent with regular conservatism
I respectfully disagree. It is not. Paleoconservatives hate Trump. Neocons for some strange reason also hate Trump, although it is not clear why -- he completely folded and conduct their foreign policy. Which is as far from classic conservatism as one can get.
I view Trumpism as specific for the USA flavor of "national neoliberalism" -- domestic neoliberalism without neoliberal globalization, or with globalization of a different type. The one based on bilateral treaties where stronger state can twist hands of the weaker state and dictate the conditions -- kind of neo-imperialism on steroids ( neoliberalism always was neo-imperial in foreign policy toward weaker states) .
The irony of Corbin defeat is that he was/is a critic of the EU imperialism, which by-and-large is Franco-German imperialism (EU role in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Ukraine, Libya, Syria, Greece) . The EU is not the dominant superpower, so it can't bully the US or China, or Russia. It can do it only when dealing with lesser powers. That's why it's difficult for anyone living inside a major EU-member to actually notice such a behavior: the desire to crush resistance of any lesser country and to force it to abide by its very own rules, whether the other countries want it or not.
The Blairites euphoria that the left was defeated, and neoliberalism still reins supreme is IMHO unwarranted. Neoliberalism as an ideology is dead and that means that Labour Party in its current form is dead as well. The same is true about the US Dems. They can achieve some tactical successes but they can't overturn their strategic defeat.
And Brexit means more close alliance with the USA (in a form of subservience) as alone GB can't conduct previous imperialist policies. It was punching above her weight within the EU (with Scripals false flag as the most recent example, see Tony Kevin take on the subject https://consortiumnews.com/2019/12/08/a-determined-effort-to-undermine-russia ) , and this opportunity no longer exists.
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Dec 14, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Md4 , 8 hours ago link
No reputable legal authority would fear ensuring due process for an accused, unless it had no evidence of an actual crime to justify prosecution...but DID have ulterior motives and nefarious purposes for doing so.
Let's be clear.
To date, not a single shred of actual evidence has ever been produced to prove Russian involvement or interference in the 2016 presidential election.
***.
Nada.
We have the opinion of domestic intelligence agencies, but we have no physical or direct evidence.
On the contrary, we have as much reason to believe some or all of them interfered in the Trump campaign, to orchestrate and execute a foreign interference hoax against Trump, before and after his election.
Daily, and throughout this sick prog left congressional abuse of power, we have repeatedly heard claims of an "ongoing war with Russia" in Ukraine.
Which war is this? Is this a continuation of the non-invasion of the Donbas in 2014? The specious and false claims of Russian troop concentrations, and tanks rolling, that even spy satellites didn't see? Are we still lying about this? If so, where are the media reports of Russian airstrikes, burning Ukrainian villages, or body bags?
In any "on-going" war with Russia, we would've been treated to near-constant news video of Russian armor all over eastern Ukraine. Have we? Perhaps this war they keep telling us about is like the Russian "invasion" of Crimea that didn't happen either.
We clearly remember the two Crimean-initiated referenda which put them back in their ancestral Russian homelands, but none of that had anything to do with invading Russians, who already had a substantial military presence in Crimea for decades.
No sir, Professor Turley.
There is no basis whatsoever for Trump's impeachment.
There is mounting evidence of a continued coup against this president, and the substantial number of Americans who actually elected him.
We too are closely monitoring the actual situation...
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Dec 14, 2019 | discussion.theguardian.com
One aspect of this report in the NYT is very troubling but not a great surprise to those who pay attention to Asian affairs.The reports that US military leaders had no idea of what to do in Afghanistan and constantly lied to the public should rouse citizens in America to take a different view of military leaders. That view must be to trust nothing coming from the Pentagon or from spokespersons for the military. Included must be any and all secretaries of defence, and all branches of the military.
It is totally unacceptable that 1-2 trillion dollars and several thousand lives were spent by America for some nebulous cause. This does not include many thousands of civilians.
During the Vietnam disaster, it became obvious that American military was lying to the public and taking many causalities in an unwinnable war. Nothing was learned about Asia or Asian culture because America entered Afghanistan without a real plan and no understanding of the country or it's history.
The experience of the USSR in that country should have sent up all kinds of red flags to the invading US military but it apparently did not. Both USSR and America lost thousands of military lives -- but nothing has changed in the country. Life in Afghanistan is actually worse now than before the multiple invasions. The only think which has improved is the cultivation of poppies and the export of opium.
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Dec 13, 2019 | discussion.theguardian.com
... Women have proven over the centuries that they can be just as bloodthirsty when in power. Indeed one of them is busy in The Hague as we speak.
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Dec 13, 2019 | discussion.theguardian.com
Freedom4Wessex , 10 Dec 2019 14:44
And this is where we must listen to the wisdom of Trump.."As of a couple of months ago, we have spent $7 trillion in the Middle East. Seven trillion dollars. What a mistake. But it is what is," Trump said Monday at a White House meeting on with officials and lawmakers on infrastructure. "We're trying to build roads and bridges and fix bridges that are falling down, and we have a hard time getting the money. It's crazy."
"Think about it: As of a couple of months ago, $7 trillion in the Middle East and the Middle East is far worse now than it was 17 years ago when they went in and not so intelligently, I have to say, went in. I'm being nice.'' 2/13/18 Newsweek
''..when they went in and not so intelligently, I have to say, went in. I'm being nice...''
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Dec 13, 2019 | www.unz.com
JOHN CHUCKMAN , says: Website December 12, 2019 at 11:58 am GMT
Is there anyone we can trust?Perhaps not.
Is it just part of the human condition that as any writer or any publication gains a reputation for truth and revelation and dependability, that that reputation is sooner or later leveraged for gain or influence or access?
I can think of a number of examples where I'm almost certain that that is the case, although I'll avoid writing their names.
In the end, we are all of us really quite alone in the universe, enjoying only periods with the illusion of support and fellowship.
On the example of the Kennedys, the assassinations provide perhaps the greatest illustration of how things work.
I should say that I regard them as two chapters in one book. John's killers had to be Bobby's killers also because that intense younger man, once holding the powers of the presidency, would have relentlessly hunted down his brother's killers.
We know that he did not believe the Warren Commission, though he did not go around saying that. He even apparently had some idea of who the killers might be, never telling others any details of his suspicions.
Books have for decades been churned out by either the CIA or friends of the CIA or unwitting assets of the CIA arguing for the truth of the Warren Commission.
On the other hand, as someone with a long interest in the events, I believe that a great many of the books against the Warren Commission were also written by the same interests. Not all of them, but many.
Books especially that either are so preposterous or poorly written and edited that they effectively discredit those who do not accept the (absurd) findings of the Warren Commission.
After all, it was some CIA disinformation officer who came up with the term "conspiracy theorist" in the 1960s to discredit genuine critics of the Warren Commission, a term of such lasting power, it is still widely used, its application having spread to a large number of topics.
Those with power do tend to keep guiding events no matter how hard we struggle to understand and correct the course of affairs.
Power is a very real thing, almost physical in its presence, and it is rarely overturned by truth or justice or fairness.
It's not an inspiring view, but I fear it is reality.
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Dec 13, 2019 | discussion.theguardian.com
Richard Thorton , 10 Dec 2019 15:03
Any particular American war has no purpose, but the USA waging it does. The main points of what war does:1. Transfers wealth from social services to the military industrial complex. Americans don't have education, infrastructure, or healthcare, but they do have a generation of soldiers with PTSD, national debt, worldwide hatred, and an ever increasing sense of exceptionalism.
2. Traps Americans in a cycle of fear and persecution. Americans don't need a bogeyman, but our corporate overlords do, its how they monetize the populace. Find some disparate population of brown people who want self autonomy, send in the CIA to fuck them up, and when they retaliate tell Americans that people who live in a 3rd world land locked country several thousands of miles away are a threat to their very existence and way of life because they don't like God and Walmart.
CourgetteDream , 10 Dec 2019 14:36
Sadly the US uses the MIC to keep a large chunk of its population under control, as well as providing a convenient coverup of the actual numbers of people who are unemployable or would be unemployed if it were'nt for the taxpayer funding humungous spending in the so-called defence sector, which needs a a constant supply of conflict to keep going. The frankly moronic 'thank you for your service' soundbite drives me insane but it shows how much the American public has been brainwashed.jimbomatic -> Michael Knoth , 10 Dec 2019 14:36For years my home state of Washington had a New Deal Democrat Senator named Henry Jackson, AKA the Senator from Boeing.Rikyboy , 10 Dec 2019 14:11
He did good things for the state & was hugely popular here. One reason being that because he brought the Federal pork back home.
IMO the things Gen. Butler wrote about in the 1920s are still the modus operandi of US foreign policy.If the Afghanistan war ends, the USA will go to war with someone else. You cannot spend so much on military & not be at war. America must have an enemy. And, don’t forget, they always have “God on our side!”Mauryan , 10 Dec 2019 13:05The neocons in power during 2001 were hell bent on taking out Saddam Hussein. When 9/11 happened, they were looking for avenues to blame Iraq so that they could launch the war on that nation. Since things could not be put together, and all evidence pointed to Afghanistan, they took a detour in their war plan with a half hearted approach.In fact Afghanistan was never the problem - It was Pakistan that held Afghanistan on the string and managed all terror related activities. Everything related to 9/11 and beyond pointed directly at Pakistan. Whatever threat Bush and his cronies projected about Iraq was true in the case of Pakistan. The war was lost when they made Pakistan an ally on the war on terror. It is like allying with Al Capone to crack down on the mafia.
Pakistan bilked the gullible American war planners, protected its assets and deflected all the rage on to the barren lands of Afghanistan. They hid all key Al Qaeda operatives and handed off the ones that did not align with their strategic interests to the US, while getting reward for it. War in Iraq happened in a hurry because the Bush family had scores to settle in Iraq. Pressure was lifted on Afghanistan. This is when the war reached a dead end.
The Taliban knew time was on their hands and waited it out. Obama did understand the situation and tried to put Af-Pak together and tightened the grip on Pakistan. He got the troops out of Iraq. Pakistan is almost bankrupt now for its deep investment on terror infrastructure. The US has drained billions of dollars and lives in Afghanistan due to misdirected goals. I am surprised Bush and Cheney have not been sent to jail on lies to launch the Iraq war and botching the real war on terror.
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Dec 13, 2019 | discussion.theguardian.com
Redswordfish , 10 Dec 2019 15:05
I read Bob Woodward's book, "FEAR: Trump in the White House" which has a section talking about a time when Trump wanted to withdraw a substantial number of troops from Afghanistan. Lindsey Graham, Mattis, and Tillerson all opposed the withdrawl and spoke to him in person about it. They all just kept saying that we needed troops in Afghanistan "to prevent the next 9/11." Lindsey Graham was especially forceful about this. "If you withdraw those troops, then you're responsible for the next 9/11" he says [paraphrase].GalahadThreepwood , 10 Dec 2019 12:37This is the only section of the book where I actually found myself agreeing with Trump. How exactly does keeping troops in Afghanistan "prevent the next 9/11"? It seems like a bizarre non sequitur.
And this is a surprise because? There is a revolving door between Washington D.C. and defence contractors. When you have a multi trillion dollar industry making stuff that goes bang, the customers will want to use it. And the more the industry can encourage them to use it, the more money they make. Better still, when they have finished blowing a foreign country to hell, their friends in the civil engineering and construction companies can make more trillions rebuilding it all.And if you then claim victory and withdraw enough of your troops, the incumbent Neanderthals can start slaughtering their own people all over again, giving the perfect excuse to go back in and blow it all to hell again.
With careful planning, you can maintain the cycle of profits for decades, if not centuries.
Next week - bears implicated in forest defecation scandal.
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Dec 13, 2019 | discussion.theguardian.com
... Women have proven over the centuries that they can be just as bloodthirsty when in power. Indeed one of them is busy in The Hague as we speak.
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Dec 11, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com
John Glaser and Christopher Preble have written a valuable study of the history and causes of threat inflation. Here is their conclusion:If war is the health of the state, so is its close cousin, fear. America's foreign policy in the 21st century serves as compelling evidence of that. Arguably the most important task, for those who oppose America's apparently constant state of war, is to correct the threat inflation that pervades national security discourse. When Americans and their policymakers understand that the United States is fundamentally secure, U.S. military activism can be reined in, and U.S. foreign policy can be reset accordingly.
Threat inflation is how American politicians and policymakers manipulate public opinion and stifle foreign policy dissent. When hawks engage in threat inflation, they never pay a political price for sounding false alarms, no matter how ridiculous or over-the-top their warnings may be. They have created their own ecosystem of think tanks and magazines over the decades to ensure that there are ready-made platforms and audiences for promoting their fictions. This necessarily warps every policy debate as one side is permitted to indulge in the most baseless speculation and fear-mongering, and in order to be taken "seriously" the skeptics often feel compelled to pay lip service to the "threat" that has been wildly blown out of proportion. In many cases, the threat is not just inflated but invented out of nothing. For example, Iran does not pose a threat to the United States, but it is routinely cited as one of the most significant threats that the U.S. faces. That has nothing to do with an objective assessment of Iranian capabilities or intentions, and it is driven pretty much entirely by a propaganda script that most politicians and policymakers recite on a regular basis. Take Iran's missile program, for example. As John Allen Gay explains in a recent article , Iran's missile program is primarily defensive in nature:
The reality is they're not very useful for going on offense. Quite the opposite: they're a primarily defensive tool -- and an important one that Iran fears giving up. As the new Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) report entitled "Iran Military Power" points out, "Iran's ballistic missiles constitute a primary component of its strategic deterrent. Lacking a modern air force, Iran has embraced ballistic missiles as a long-range strike capability to dissuade its adversaries in the region -- particularly the United States, Israel, and Saudi Arabia -- from attacking Iran."
Iran's missile force is in fact a product of Iranian weakness, not Iranian strength.
Iran hawks need to portray Iran's missile program inaccurately as part of their larger campaign to exaggerate Iranian power and justify their own aggressive policies. If Iran hawks acknowledged that Iran's missiles are their deterrent against attacks from other states, including our government, it would undercut the rest of their fear-mongering.
Glaser and Preble identify five main sources of threat inflation in the U.S.: 1) expansive overseas U.S. commitments require an exaggerated justification to make those commitments seem necessary for our security; 2) decades of pursuing expansive foreign policy goals have created a class dedicated to providing those justifications and creating the myths that sustain support for the current strategy; 3) there are vested interests that benefit from expansive foreign policy and seek to perpetuate it; 4) a bias in our political system in favor of hawks gives another advantage to fear-mongers; 5) media sensationalism exaggerates dangers from foreign threats and stokes public fear. To those I would add at least one more: threat inflation thrives on the public's ignorance of other countries. When Americans know little or nothing about another country beyond what they hear from the fear-mongers, it is much easier to convince them that a foreign government is irrational and undeterrable or that weak authoritarian regimes on the far side of the world are an intolerable danger.
Threat inflation advances with the inflation of U.S. interests. The two feed off of each other. When far-flung crises and conflicts are treated as if they are of vital importance to U.S. security, every minor threat to some other country is transformed into an intolerable menace to America. The U.S. is extremely secure from foreign threats, but we are told that the U.S. faces myriad threats because our leaders try to make other countries' internal problems seem essential to our national security. Ukraine is at most a peripheral interest of the U.S., but to justify the policy of arming Ukraine we are told by the more unhinged supporters that this is necessary to make sure that we don't have to fight Russia "over here." Because the U.S. has so few real interests in most of the world's conflicts, interventionists have to exaggerate what the U.S. has at stake in order to sell otherwise very questionable and reckless policies. That is usually when we get appeals to showing "leadership" and preserving "credibility," because even the interventionists struggle to identify why the U.S. needs to be involved in some of these conflicts. The continued pursuit of global "leadership" is itself an invitation to endless threat inflation, because almost anything anywhere in the world can be construed as a threat to that "leadership" if one is so inclined. To understand just how secure the U.S. really is, we need to give up on the costly ambition of "leading" the world.
Threat inflation is one of the biggest and most enduring threats to U.S. security, because it repeatedly drives the U.S. to take costly and dangerous actions and to spend exorbitant amounts on unnecessary wars and weapons. We imagine bogeymen that we need to fight, and we waste decades and trillions of dollars in futile and avoidable conflicts, and in the end we are left poorer, weaker, and less secure than we were before.
Daniel Larison is a senior editor at TAC , where he also keeps a solo blog . He has been published in the New York Times Book Review , Dallas Morning News , World Politics Review , Politico Magazine , Orthodox Life , Front Porch Republic, The American Scene, and Culture11, and was a columnist for The Week . He holds a PhD in history from the University of Chicago, and resides in Lancaster, PA. Follow him on Twitter .
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Oct 27, 2017 | www.breitbart.com
The Washington Free Beacon, funded by GOP mega-donor Paul Singer, was the original funder of Fusion GPS' research project that attempted to dig up dirt on then-candidate Donald Trump -- a project that would later be funded by the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton's campaign.
The Washington Examiner first reported Friday that lawyers for the Free Beacon -- a conservative outlet based in the nation's capital -- funded the project from fall 2015 to spring 2016, when it pulled its funding as Trump looked set to clinch the nomination.
Lawyers for the Free Beacon informed the House Intelligence Committee of its role in the funding on Friday. The outlet issued a statement standing by its decision to fund the project:
Since its launch in February of 2012, the Washington Free Beacon has retained third party firms to conduct research on many individuals and institutions of interest to us and our readers. In that capacity, during the 2016 election cycle we retained Fusion GPS to provide research on multiple candidates in the Republican presidential primary, just as we retained other firms to assist in our research into Hillary Clinton.
After the Democrats took over funding of the operation in mid-2016, Fusion GPS would hire former British spy Christopher Steele and would lead to the production of the so-called "Trump dossier," filled with salacious but unconfirmed claims about how Trump was compromised by the Russians.
Fusion has come under scrutiny for its alleged ties to Russia, including the fact that many of the claims originate from Kremlin sources -- meaning that the information came from inside the Russian government.
The Free Beacon noted in its statement that it had "no knowledge of or connection to the Steele dossier, did not pay for the dossier, and never had contact with, knowledge of, or provided payment for any work performed by Christopher Steele."
"The Washington Free Beacon has issued a statement asserting that it had no involvement with Christopher Steele or the dossier he compiled from Russian sources," Jack Langer, spokesman for the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, told Breitbart News. "The Beacon has agreed to cooperate with the House Intelligence Committee to help the Committee verify this assertion."
Yet, the revelation is likely to fuel questions about the role the so-called "Never Trump" movement played in an effort that would eventually inflict damage on President Trump, and that was possibly part of a Russian misinformation scheme.
The Free Beacon is funded in large part by the New York hedge fund billionaire and major GOP donor Paul Singer. The New York Times reports that Singer initially supported Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) for the Republican nomination, but later spearheaded a campaign to deny Trump the nomination even after Rubio dropped out of the race.
While supporting Republican establishment favorites such as Rubio and 2012 presidential candidate Mitt Romney, Singer was a major backer of Common Core and was the founder of a super-PAC that has the express purpose of turning the GOP pro-gay marriage.
The Examiner reports that the Free Beacon was originally part of the 501(c)(4) tax-exempt organization -- the Center for American Freedom -- but in 2014 became a for-profit organization. The Center's original board of directors includes William Kristol, a prominent "Never Trump" activist.
Kristol is also the founder of the Weekly Standard, which like the Free Beacon has a neoconservative foreign policy outlook. The Free Beacon was co-founded by two former Weekly Standard writers, chairman Michael Goldfarb and editor-in-chief Matthew Continetti.
***Update***
"The Washington Free Beacon has issued a statement asserting that it had no involvement with Christopher Steele or the dossier he compiled from Russian sources," Jack Langer, spokesman for the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, told Breitbart News. "The Beacon has agreed to cooperate with the House Intelligence Committee to help the Committee verify this assertion."
TrumpAlways • 2 years ago • edited I smell McCain. Anyone else smell McCain with a little bit of Bush in there...
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Dec 10, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com
Wherefore President Trump, by such conduct, has demonstrated that he will remain a threat to national security and the Constitution if allowed to remain in office, and has acted in a manner grossly incompatible with self-governance and the rule of law. President Trump thus warrants impeachment and trial, removal from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust, or profit under the United States.
I agree with everything you say in the article, Mr. Larison. And yet, I have serious qualms about whether Congress should impeach and remove Trump.likbez Clyde SchechterFrom a purely legal perspective, they should. But impeachment is a blend of legalism and politics. And the politics here are murky at best. The problem is that Congress does not come to these issues with clean hands. It is common knowledge that Congress, too, is corrupt and sells out the national interest in favor of their own political and personal interests on a daily basis. They have no moral credibility here; who are they to judge the President? Neither the impeachment itself, nor the subsequent, apparently inevitable, acquittal by the Senate will be seen as legitimate, except by partisans of the respective acts. It is all the more problematic because an election is less than a year away.
Yes, I want Trump out of office, too. But unfortunately our Congress lacks the moral legitimacy to do this; the impeachment and trial will serve only to reinforce each party's views of the other as treasonous. The impeachment will be seen as an attempted coup, and the acquittal will be seen as a whitewash and cover-up. (If by some odd circumstance he is removed rather than acquitted, it will be seen as a successful coup, an undoing of the 2016 election.)
There are no really good outcomes from this scenario. It would, I think, be better for the the country were the Democrats to reverse course and leave the removal of Trump to the people next November. We have survived nearly three years of him, we can survive one more. I fear the fallout from impeachment and trial will create more problems than are solved.
I agree. I also respectfully disagree with Larrison's judgment and consider this development as very dangerous for the Republic. We need to weight our personal animosity toward Trump with the risks of his forceful removal on dubious charges.Please remember that nobody was impeached for the Iraq war. That creates a really high plank for the impeachment. And makes any Dems arguments for Trump impeachment not only moot but a joke.
The fundamental question is: How is lying the country into the Iraq war not impeachable, and this entrapment impeachable?
The furor over Russian interference in the election, which was extremely minor, if existed at all, compared to what Churchill did in 1940, was primarily about excusing the corrupt and incompetent Clinton wing of Democratic Party leadership (Neoliberal Democrats.) Political "shelf life" for whom is over in any case as neoliberalism is dead as an ideology and entered zombie ( bloodthirsty ) stage. Hillary political fiasco taught them nothing. Russiagate was and still is a modern witch hunt, the attempt to patch with Russophobia the cracks in the neoliberal facade. Neo-McCarthyism, if you wish.
In view of the Iraq war, the impeachment of Trump means the absolute contempt for the plebs. Again, Trump's election happened because neoliberalism as ideology died in 2008, and plebs in 2016 refused to follow corrupt neoliberal democrats and decided to show them the middle finger. They will not follow the neoliberal elite in 2020, impeachment, or no impeachment. So the whole "Pelosi gambit" (and from the point of view of Nuremberg principles she is a war criminal like Bush II and Co ) will fail.
The House Democrats did not act as ethical prosecutors. They have failed to develop the evidentiary record, and provide the equality of procecutor and the defense in the process which is the fundamental part of the Due Process prior to filing charges. A large part of their witnesses (Karlan, Hill, Vindman) were just "true believers" (Karlan) or corrupt Deep Staters (Hill, Vindman) taking a stand to defend their personal well-being, which is based on warmongering. And protect their illegal role in formulating the USA foreign policy (actually based on the quality of Fiona Hill book alone, she should be kept at mile length from this area; she is a propagandist not a researcher/analyst)
Among State Department witnesses there could well be those who were probably explicitly or implicitly involved in the money laundering of the US aid money via Ukraine (Biden-lights so to speak)
The article of impeachment saying:
Wherefore President Trump, by such conduct, has demonstrated that he will remain a threat to national security and the Constitution if allowed to remain in office and has acted in a manner grossly incompatible with self-governance and the rule of law. President Trump thus warrants impeachment and trial, removal from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust, or profit under the United States.opens a huge can of worms (this is essentially the Moscow show trials method of removing politicians.) This is equivalent to a change in the Constitution, introducing the vote of no confidence as the method removal of the top members of the executive branch.
Impeachment is always a political decision. And here I am not sure the "Pelosi gambit" will work. I think many independents, who would stay home or would vote for Dems in 2020 now will vote for Trump as a protest against the abuse of impeachment by the Neoliberal/Corporate Dems.
That people are still dredging up the ludicrous Russiagate conspiracy theory is beyond pathetic. If that were not enough, there is no evidence that "Russian hackers" or anyone "screw[ed] with swing states' election databases".
Full disclosure: were I allowed to decide Trump's fate, impeachment would be the least of his fears. I would subject him to the fate of the defendants at Nuremberg.
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Dec 10, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
karlof1 , Dec 8 2019 22:32 utc | 45
To the Bar--What I see is copious amounts of wailing from the usual sources about the demise of what was supposed to be an era of Unipolar dominance by the Evil Outlaw US Empire and blame being thrown in all directions hoping some sticks instead of directing it at themselves for they are he true authors of the Empire's decline--they being the Current Oligarchy and their Congressional, Administrative, and BigLie Media accomplices. The Empire's current "defense" doctrine calls for war to be waged against the nation(s) impeding the Empire's unilateralism. The brats are spoilt beyond belief and 100% believe they're entitled to having Full Spectrum Dominance because of their exceptionalist ideology--they've destroyed their own basic law to attain that goal; the impeachment derangement is just the most overt symptom being shown at the moment. Just look at the unanimity on the two recent anti-China votes--Congress is in almost 100% lockstep with Marco Rubio's insanity.
IMO, there were saner heads in 1962 than now, particularly in Congress. What's worse than an Evil Outlaw US Empire is it's becoming deranged.
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Dec 09, 2019 | www.wsj.com
Enthusiasm over entrepreneurship is now found in every corner of society -- even, apparently, within the federal bureaucracy. Witness after witness in last month's House impeachment inquiry hearings referred to "the interagency," an off-the-books informal government organization that we now know has enormous power to set and execute American foreign policy.
The first to testify before the House Intelligence Committee, State Department official George Kent, seemed to conceive of the interagency as the definitive source of foreign-policy consensus. That Mr. Trump's alleged decision to withhold military aid to Ukraine deviated from that consensus was, for Mr. Kent, prima facie evidence that it was misguided.
Next up, Ambassador William Taylor told the committee that it was the "unanimous opinion of every level of interagency discussion" that the aid should be resumed without delay. Fiona Hill, a former National Security Council official, gave the game away by admitting how upset she was that Gordon Sondland, President Trump's ambassador to the European Union, had established an "alternative" approach to helping Kyiv. "We have a robust interagency process that deals with Ukraine," she said.What is the interagency, and why should its views guide the conduct of American diplomatic and national-security professionals? The Constitution grants the president the power to set defense and diplomatic policy. Where did this interagency come from?
I first heard of the interagency in Baghdad in 2009. I was there as part of a Council on Foreign Relations delegation to Iraq. As a U.S. Army general briefed us on how the war was being fought, he spoke of the interagency as the source of the strategy he was executing. Naively, I asked why he wasn't operating according to orders from his military superiors or the secretary of defense.
How Did Adam Schiff Get Devin Nunes's Phone Records? How did Adam Schiff get Devin Nunes's phone records?bb0282a3-e4cb-42ba-9988-2f3df57fd912@1.00x Created with sketchtool. He explained that American war-fighting was being guided by a "whole of government" philosophy. Incredibly, he explained that the war couldn't be won without, among other agencies, the U.S. Agency for International Development and the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Health and Human Services, Justice and Labor. Iraq needed economic expansion, modern farming, business statistics, new hospitals, a working court system and workplace regulations. The strategy framed by the interagency was nothing less than a yearslong engagement in nation building -- precisely what President George W. Bush had rejected in his 2000 campaign.
Interagency cooperative agreements have been around for decades. The Justice Department, for example, has opioid-interdiction programs that require it to work with the Department of Homeland Security. Today a dictionary of more than 12,500 official terms exists to guide bureaucrats in writing interagency contracts that repurpose federal funds appropriated to various executive departments. Often these interdepartmental initiatives devised by bureaucrats are unknown to Congress. It's hard to imagine that the legislative branch wouldn't object to these arrangements, if only it were aware of them.
When the war on terror opened, with all the secret activity it required, professional cadres in the diplomatic corps, the military and the nation's many intelligence agencies were able to transform interagency cooperative agreements that had existed since the Cold War into a de facto agency -- a largely informal and virtual bureaucracy -- with the assumed power, if need be, to determine and execute a foreign policy at odds with the intent of the president and Congress.
Last month's testimony before the Intelligence Committee shed light on this club whose members are a permanent shadow government credentialed by family histories, elite schools and unique career experiences. This common pedigree informs their perspective of how America should relate to the world. The dogmatists of the interagency seem to share a common discomfort with a president who probably couldn't describe the doctrine of soft power, doesn't desire to be the center of attention at Davos, and wouldn't know that Francis Fukuyama once decided that history was over.
The impeachment hearings will have served a useful purpose if all they do is demonstrate that a cabal of unelected officials are fashioning profound aspects of U.S. foreign policy on their own motion. No statutes anticipate that the president or Congress will delegate such authority to a secret working group formed largely at the initiation of entrepreneurial bureaucrats, notwithstanding that they may be area experts, experienced in diplomatic and military affairs, and motivated by what they see as the best interests of the country.
However the impeachment drama plays out, Congress has cause to enact comprehensive legislation akin to the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986, which created more-efficient structures and transparent processes in the Defense Department. Americans deserve to know who really is responsible for making the nation's foreign policy. The interagency, if it is to exist, should have a chairman appointed by the president, and its decisions, much like the once-secret minutes of the Federal Reserve, should be published, with limited and necessary exceptions, for all to see.
Mr. Schramm is a university professor at Syracuse. His most recent book is "Burn the Business Plan."
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Dec 09, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
john brewster , Dec 8 2019 18:34 utc | 18
This comment follows onto earlier comments about Ukrainian influence and media censorship.I have always tried to keep politics out of science, in order to be able to focus clearly on the study of nature, instead of the opinions of people. Admittedly, some areas of science are completely political, such as climate change, ecology, and nuclear power. I also recognize that the so-called prestige press for science - journals such as Nature (UK) and Science (US) - are going to reflect the conventional, if not the corporate perspective.
Nevertheless, a book review in this week's (5 DEC 2019) issue of Nature really pissed me off. The book is about natural gas pipelines and their ability to overcome political differences:
The Bridge: Natural Gas in a Redivided Europe
by Thane GustafsonOf course, such a topic is completely political and the author is a political scientist. Gustafson is Professor of Political Science at Georgetown University and Senior Director of Russian and Caspian Energy for HIS Cambridge Energy Research Associates, whose chairman and founder is Dr. Daniel Yergin, author of many best-selling books on the oil industry.
The offensive review is by Andrew Moracsik, whom I had never heard of. But, after a little googling, I discover that his wife is the appropriately named, Anne-Marie Slaughter. She of bomb Libya fame. (NOTE 1.) Andrew himself has quite the pedigree: educated at Stanford and Johns Hopkins (Nitze SAIS), professor at Harvard and Princeton. He is a prominent scholar of the EU and of Eastern Europe, and an editor at the journal Foreign Affairs.
Now to the review. Dr. Moracsik admits up front that:
(the book) offers a readable, intelligent, even-handed historical interpretation of this relationship.In other words, he can't fault the book for inaccuracy. But his purpose is really to bring the non-stop villification of Russia to the pages of a scientific journal. Here are the unfounded, false, and weasel-worded assertions he makes:
Russia also provoked a series of interventions and conflicts in Georgia, Moldova, Syria, and Ukraine. The West responded by imposing sanctions...More recently, Russia has become involved in the disruption of elections in the West, and in cyberwarfare.Andrew Moravcsik is professor of politics and international affairs, and director of the EU Program, at Princeton University in New Jersey.
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Why is it that whenever I find a US scholar talking about Eastern Europe, they have some kind of refugee from Communism pedigree? Well, the obvious answer is that that is the pedigree that gets you into the club of Russia hatred and gets you a free pass from criticism about bias. In an earlier comment at MoA, I mentioned how the fascist Ukrainian spy network of Reinhard Gehlen became the lens through which all CIA (and therefore US) foreign policy was seen.
In Moravcsik's case the pedigree runs through his father, Michael Julius Moracsik. Michael was a refugee from Hungary in 1948, who subsequently got a Ph.D in physics from Cornell. He eventually became a scientific fellow at NATO. (NOTE 2.)
Just to round out the players' pedigrees, the author, Dr. Gustafson has given papers at the Danyliw Seminar on Contemporary Ukraine, which describes itself as
"A unique forum for researchers from Canada, Ukraine and elsewhere open to all social science and humanities research topics touching on Ukraine."(Ah, Canada, whose deputy prime minister is Chrystia Freeland, an unrepentant defender of her Banderite Ukrainian grandfather.) So, clearly Gustafson is a member of the club and hence, the acknowledgement of factual correctness by Moravscik.
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This book review in this journal has driven home to me how complete the propaganda bubble is in the Five Eyes countries. How does one have an impact in the face of such overwhelming institutionalized propaganda? We have certainly reached the point described by Hannah Arendt:
Equality of condition among their subjects is not sufficient for totalitarian rule because it leaves more or less intact certain nonpolitical communal bonds between subjects, such as family ties and common cultural interests. If totalitarianism takes its own claim seriously, it must come to the point where it has "to finish once and for all with the neutrality of chess," that is, with the autonomous existence of any activity whatsoever. The lovers of "chess for the sake of chess", aptly compared by their liquidator with the lovers of "art for art's sake", are not yet absolutely atomized elements in a mass society whose completely homogeneous uniformity is one of the primary conditions for totalitarianism. From the point of view of totalitarian rulers, a society devoted to chess for the sake of chess is only in degree different and less dangerous than a class of farmers for the sake of farming.-p 322
So, I continue to read and post at MoA, but I have no expectation that it amounts to anything more than German's listening to the BBC in WW2 did. What I do expect is that, sooner or later, MoA will be blacklisted for simply relating true facts.
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NOTE 1Slaughter served on the faculty of the University of Chicago Law School from 1989–1994On 23 January 2009, U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, announced the appointment of Slaughter as the new Director of Policy Planning under the Obama administration.
In July 2005, Slaughter wrote in the American Journal of International Law about the responsibility to protect (R2P).
Slaughter wrote a strong endorsement of Western military intervention in Libya. In this op-ed, Slaughter challenged the skeptics who questioned the NATO use of force in Libya,
On 25 August 2011, she was roundly criticized by Matt Welch, who sorted through many of Slaughter's prior op-eds and concluded that she was a "situational constitutionalist".
Clifford May on 15 October 2014 wrote a piece in which he drew a straight line between Annan and Slaughter's R2P "norm", and the failure in Libya. May noted that President Obama had cited the R2P norm as his primary justification for using military force with Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi, who had threatened to attack the opposition stronghold of Benghazi.
In an 11 November 2014 piece entitled What Happened to the Humanitarians Who Wanted to Save Libyans With Bombs and Drones?, Glenn Greenwald denounced her and her policies
NOTE 2:Michael Julius Moravcsik - Hungarian, American physics professor.
Recipient Derek de Solla Price memorial medal;
Scientists and Engineers for Economic Development grant, 1974,
Senior fellow in Science, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, 1974.Background
Moravcsik, Michael Julius was born on June 25, 1928 in Budapest, Hungary.
Arrived in United States, 1948, naturalized, 1954.Education
Student, University Budapest, 1946 -- 1948.
AB cum laude, Harvard University, 1951.
Doctor of Philosophy, Cornell University, 1956.
John Gilberts , Dec 8 2019 16:43 utc | 10
Banderite lobby (Ukrainian World Congress) seeks to sabotage upcoming Normandy Four summit:james , Dec 8 2019 20:27 utc | 34https://mailchi.mp/ukrainianworldcongress/uwc-expresses-condolences-on-death-of-osce-monitor-741073
"Ahead of the Normandy Four meeting in Paris, I once again highlight the key priorities of the Ukrainian World Congress position in support of the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine. We ask that Ukrainian communities around the world maintain and call upon their national leaders to maintain a clear and unequivocal position, specifically that..."
@29 john brewster... here - let me ''react''.. you gave a few really great examples.. i don't know that anyone here would dispute how insipid all these russophobic articles are, or worse, that they all follow a constant theme running out of the 5 eyes central offices..jayc , Dec 8 2019 23:27 utc | 51it is entirely predictable at this point and you're absolutely correct - 110% propaganda... y
ou've given another good example here with the treatment of stephen cohen... what i find shocking is the lack of embarrassment towards all of this..
people in the west seem to be devoid of any type of response to it all, other then us commenting on moa about it.. i don't know how any of it is going to change..
it seems to me the desire to protest all this is really low here in the west..
i admire the french for the protests they have been engaged in the past few months, which get very little msm coverage.. i wish we could protest about all the propaganda we are subject to here in canada or the usa, but we haven't reached a critical point in it all yet it seems..
james #27 - " the drivel chris brown - regular columist for cbc posts.. and typically his drivel is not open to comments.. here is his latest bs - In an obliterated landscape, war-weary Ukrainians hope peace summit ends fighting for an insight into completely lopsided reporting"
Is it my fading memory, or was the CBC once a relatively professional source of international reporting? This piece is notably bad - not just from the skewed account of 2014's events, or the insistence on describing Donbass as "separatist", or the map which includes Crimea as part of Ukraine. How is it that the Minsk Accords no longer seem to exist in the corporate media, or the upcoming meeting in Paris properly described as a continuation of that process (alleged failure to "live up" to said accords was used as a stick against Putin for several years, and now their possible realization is vaguely referred to as something bad). Why does a Chatham House spokesperson get to define Ukraine's supposed "red lines", which are in reality the political position of the badly defeated former government? Why is Zelensky's oft stated policy position presented here as Russian-induced capitulation? Brown interviews four women of whom he says "none would tell us their last name out of fear of repercussions from local authorities" except they allowed for their photos to be taken and published. All of these story points result from conscious decisions, not sloppy errors.
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Dec 09, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
NATO Seeking To "Dominate The World" & Eliminate Competitors: Russia's Lavrov by Tyler Durden Mon, 12/09/2019 - 02:45 0 SHARES
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has charged NATO with wanting to "dominate the world" a day after 70th anniversary events of the alliance concluded in London.
"We absolutely understand that NATO wants to dominate the world and wants to eliminate any competitors, including resorting to an information war, trying to unbalance us and China," Lavrov said from Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, while attending the 26th Ministerial Council of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
He seized upon NATO leaders' comments this week, specifically Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, naming China as a new enemy alongside Russia . Stoltenberg declared at the summit that NATO has to "tackle the issue" of China's growing capabilities.
Image via AFPLavrov told reporters Thursday: "I think that it is difficult to unbalance us and China. We are well aware of what is happening. We have an answer to all the threats that the Alliance is multiplying in this world." He also said the West is seeking to dominate the Middle East under the guise of NATO as well.
The new accusation of 'world domination' comes at a crisis moment of growing and deep divisions over the future of the Cold War era military alliance, including back-and-forth comments on Macron's "brain death" remarks, and looming questions over Turkey's fitness to remain in NATO, and the ongoing debate over cost sharing burdens and the scope of the mission.
"Naturally, we cannot but feel worried over what has been happening within NATO," Lavrov stated. "The problem is NATO positions itself as a source of legitimacy and is adamant to persuade one and all it has no alternatives in this capacity, that only NATO is in the position to assign blame for everything that may be happening around us and what the West dislikes for some reason ."
A consistent theme of Lavrov's has been to call for a "post-West world order" but that NATO has "remained a Cold War institution" hindering balance in global relations where countries can pursue their own national interests.
NATO still exists, according to Lavrov, in order to "eliminate competitors" and ensure a West-dominated global system in search of new official enemies.
beemasters , 7 minutes ago link
45North1 , 34 minutes ago linkRemember the last Bilderberg meeting. Russia and China were not invited. The globalists have planned this, and apparently, Russia has better intelligence to know what's going on, and they will take the necessary precautions, along with China. Let's just hope it's not going to lead us to WW3.
Helg Saracen , 49 minutes ago linkI'm wondering how many NATO states don't have US Military Bases positioned in them. It's a small distance between a forward operating base and an occupying forces.
Helg Saracen , 42 minutes ago linkNATO is not trying to dominate, NATO is trying to extend its profit from frightened European donkeys who still believe that the USSR exists, and Uncle Joe sits in the Kremlin and eats a Christian baby in garlic sauce for lunch.
SnatchnGrab , 2 hours ago linkWhat NATO is doing is called racketeering. Only the problem of Europe is not Russia, but the ******* Wahhabis, who are the best friends of the same Americans and NATO.
So there will be a big "raspathosovka" with shooting and explosions, do not even doubt it.. Only the problem of Europe is not Russia, but the ******* Wahhabis, who are the best friends of the same Americans and NATO. So there will be a big **** with shooting and explosions, do not even doubt it.
I'll just repeat the erased: NATO - lovers of freebies and they don't refuse this freebie voluntarily. Children sometimes need a made-up friend, and these bastards need a made-up enemy. Russia is perfect for this.
schroedingersrat , 2 hours ago linkNATO is obsolete. The organization no longer serves US interests, and quite frankly, hasn't for some time. I respectfully suggest the USA move all forces out of Germany on day 1, and station them at Fort Trump in Poland.
Day 2, the US forms a new "mutual defense pact" with Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. (Former Eastern Bloc nations)
Russia and Germany can duke it out, just not where our guys are hanging out. Hades, Germany and France can limp wrist at each other as they have done in the past so many times. But insofar as US troops leaving continental Europe forever? Sorry Sergei, that ain't happening, no matter how much propaganda you shove up western europe's (willing) ***.
BritBob , 2 hours ago linkNATO is obsolete. The organization no longer serves US interests,
LOL. The NATO ONLY serves US interests. It has the same function as always. Keep the US in, Russia out and Germany down.
Noob678 , 3 hours ago linkMeanwhile Vlad makes new friends around the world... Last year Putin signed accords with President Macri of Argentina which included Russia recognizing Argentina's Falklands claim. (La Voz, 23 Jan 2018).
An Argentinian claim based upon 'usurpation' – meaningless in the 18th century and inheritance from Spain just like Mexico inherited California and Texas.
Falklands – Argentina's Inheritance Problem (1 pg): https://www.academia.edu/35194694/Falklands_Argentinas_Inheritance_Problem
BobPaulson , 2 hours ago linkNATO, ISIS, US military, muslim terror groups, all 5Eyes+1 are all Zionist proxy armies.
Shemp 4 Victory , 1 hour ago linkThe NATO advantage right now is of the least dirty shirt variety. As it stands, I am not excited about the thought of the US empire collapsing. People have been predicting that for a while and for the moment, I don't see a legit replacement stepping up to the plate. The US is a crooked gangster, but the other countries are not exactly ready for the big league.
khnum , 4 hours ago linkThe NATO advantage right now is of the least dirty shirt variety.
The NATO disadvantage right now is of the "sitting with pants full of **** and asking others who farted" variety.
As it stands, I am not excited about the thought of the US empire collapsing.
The collapse of the US empire has been underway for years. Nobody is excited about it because, instead of gracefully adapting to change with the dignity of a great nation, the US will continue to cling to denial, lashing out at all and sundry as reality intrudes upon the myth of American exceptionalism.
I don't see a legit replacement stepping up to the plate.
US imperial decline is reminiscent of Casey at the Bat.
but the other countries are not exactly ready for the big league.
Or they've decided the US game is not worth playing.
Luau , 3 hours ago linkSince 2013 I have followed Russian foreign policy and actions in the middle east and elsewhere,thanks to statesmen like Lavrov they have crossed every t and dotted every i following international law and convention, true history will be a lot kinder to Russia than N ot A nother T errorist O rganisation
Arising , 4 hours ago linkWhat is happening to Europe is the same as what's happening to Russia, only Russia didn't ask for it. Nevertheless, Azeris and Tatars are on the rise demographically, and Russians are on the decline.
iuyyyyui , 4 hours ago linkCome on Mr Lavrov, how dare you use diplomacy to state the obvious?
Conscious Reviver , 42 minutes ago linkI don't think Russia ... or China for that matter ... need to worry much. The West is imploding and NATO will implode along with it. The West can't even depend on its technical superiority anymore ( see Boeing 737MAX ); it sure can't depend on (most of) its people to do any real fighting.
Thom Paine , 4 hours ago linkI'm sure as Rome collapsed, there were half-wits back then, swearing it wasn't happening too.
HRClinton , 4 hours ago linkNATO is fading and becoming a contradictory mess. China and Russia will be the foe, with possibly India, and far more effective, economically and militarily. Europe doesn't stand a chance against these no matter how they posture, their slope is downward.
US geopolitics has created a foe it cannot defeat without itself being destroyed.
HRClinton , 4 hours ago linkTechnocratic sociopaths, doing a CYA for their incompetence.
IBID:
"The problem is ZATO positions itself as a source of legitimacy and is adamant to persuade one and all it has no alternatives in this capacity, that only ZATO is in the position to assign blame for everything that may be happening around us and what the West dislikes for some reason ."
FIFY, Lavrov
ZATO cries out in pain as it strikes you.
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Dec 09, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
john brewster , Dec 8 2019 18:34 utc | 18
This comment follows onto earlier comments about Ukrainian influence and media censorship.I have always tried to keep politics out of science, in order to be able to focus clearly on the study of nature, instead of the opinions of people. Admittedly, some areas of science are completely political, such as climate change, ecology, and nuclear power. I also recognize that the so-called prestige press for science - journals such as Nature (UK) and Science (US) - are going to reflect the conventional, if not the corporate perspective.
Nevertheless, a book review in this week's (5 DEC 2019) issue of Nature really pissed me off. The book is about natural gas pipelines and their ability to overcome political differences:
The Bridge: Natural Gas in a Redivided Europe
by Thane GustafsonOf course, such a topic is completely political and the author is a political scientist. Gustafson is Professor of Political Science at Georgetown University and Senior Director of Russian and Caspian Energy for HIS Cambridge Energy Research Associates, whose chairman and founder is Dr. Daniel Yergin, author of many best-selling books on the oil industry.
The offensive review is by Andrew Moracsik, whom I had never heard of. But, after a little googling, I discover that his wife is the appropriately named, Anne-Marie Slaughter. She of bomb Libya fame. (NOTE 1.) Andrew himself has quite the pedigree: educated at Stanford and Johns Hopkins (Nitze SAIS), professor at Harvard and Princeton. He is a prominent scholar of the EU and of Eastern Europe, and an editor at the journal Foreign Affairs.
Now to the review. Dr. Moracsik admits up front that:
(the book) offers a readable, intelligent, even-handed historical interpretation of this relationship.In other words, he can't fault the book for inaccuracy. But his purpose is really to bring the non-stop villification of Russia to the pages of a scientific journal. Here are the unfounded, false, and weasel-worded assertions he makes:
Russia also provoked a series of interventions and conflicts in Georgia, Moldova, Syria, and Ukraine. The West responded by imposing sanctions...More recently, Russia has become involved in the disruption of elections in the West, and in cyberwarfare.Andrew Moravcsik is professor of politics and international affairs, and director of the EU Program, at Princeton University in New Jersey.
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Why is it that whenever I find a US scholar talking about Eastern Europe, they have some kind of refugee from Communism pedigree? Well, the obvious answer is that that is the pedigree that gets you into the club of Russia hatred and gets you a free pass from criticism about bias. In an earlier comment at MoA, I mentioned how the fascist Ukrainian spy network of Reinhard Gehlen became the lens through which all CIA (and therefore US) foreign policy was seen.
In Moravcsik's case the pedigree runs through his father, Michael Julius Moracsik. Michael was a refugee from Hungary in 1948, who subsequently got a Ph.D in physics from Cornell. He eventually became a scientific fellow at NATO. (NOTE 2.)
Just to round out the players' pedigrees, the author, Dr. Gustafson has given papers at the Danyliw Seminar on Contemporary Ukraine, which describes itself as
"A unique forum for researchers from Canada, Ukraine and elsewhere open to all social science and humanities research topics touching on Ukraine."(Ah, Canada, whose deputy prime minister is Chrystia Freeland, an unrepentant defender of her Banderite Ukrainian grandfather.) So, clearly Gustafson is a member of the club and hence, the acknowledgement of factual correctness by Moravscik.
-------
This book review in this journal has driven home to me how complete the propaganda bubble is in the Five Eyes countries. How does one have an impact in the face of such overwhelming institutionalized propaganda? We have certainly reached the point described by Hannah Arendt:
Equality of condition among their subjects is not sufficient for totalitarian rule because it leaves more or less intact certain nonpolitical communal bonds between subjects, such as family ties and common cultural interests. If totalitarianism takes its own claim seriously, it must come to the point where it has "to finish once and for all with the neutrality of chess," that is, with the autonomous existence of any activity whatsoever. The lovers of "chess for the sake of chess", aptly compared by their liquidator with the lovers of "art for art's sake", are not yet absolutely atomized elements in a mass society whose completely homogeneous uniformity is one of the primary conditions for totalitarianism. From the point of view of totalitarian rulers, a society devoted to chess for the sake of chess is only in degree different and less dangerous than a class of farmers for the sake of farming.-p 322
So, I continue to read and post at MoA, but I have no expectation that it amounts to anything more than German's listening to the BBC in WW2 did. What I do expect is that, sooner or later, MoA will be blacklisted for simply relating true facts.
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NOTE 1Slaughter served on the faculty of the University of Chicago Law School from 1989–1994On 23 January 2009, U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, announced the appointment of Slaughter as the new Director of Policy Planning under the Obama administration.
In July 2005, Slaughter wrote in the American Journal of International Law about the responsibility to protect (R2P).
Slaughter wrote a strong endorsement of Western military intervention in Libya. In this op-ed, Slaughter challenged the skeptics who questioned the NATO use of force in Libya,
On 25 August 2011, she was roundly criticized by Matt Welch, who sorted through many of Slaughter's prior op-eds and concluded that she was a "situational constitutionalist".
Clifford May on 15 October 2014 wrote a piece in which he drew a straight line between Annan and Slaughter's R2P "norm", and the failure in Libya. May noted that President Obama had cited the R2P norm as his primary justification for using military force with Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi, who had threatened to attack the opposition stronghold of Benghazi.
In an 11 November 2014 piece entitled What Happened to the Humanitarians Who Wanted to Save Libyans With Bombs and Drones?, Glenn Greenwald denounced her and her policies
NOTE 2:Michael Julius Moravcsik - Hungarian, American physics professor.
Recipient Derek de Solla Price memorial medal;
Scientists and Engineers for Economic Development grant, 1974,
Senior fellow in Science, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, 1974.Background
Moravcsik, Michael Julius was born on June 25, 1928 in Budapest, Hungary.
Arrived in United States, 1948, naturalized, 1954.Education
Student, University Budapest, 1946 -- 1948.
AB cum laude, Harvard University, 1951.
Doctor of Philosophy, Cornell University, 1956.
John Gilberts , Dec 8 2019 16:43 utc | 10
Banderite lobby (Ukrainian World Congress) seeks to sabotage upcoming Normandy Four summit:james , Dec 8 2019 20:27 utc | 34https://mailchi.mp/ukrainianworldcongress/uwc-expresses-condolences-on-death-of-osce-monitor-741073
"Ahead of the Normandy Four meeting in Paris, I once again highlight the key priorities of the Ukrainian World Congress position in support of the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine. We ask that Ukrainian communities around the world maintain and call upon their national leaders to maintain a clear and unequivocal position, specifically that..."
@29 john brewster... here - let me ''react''.. you gave a few really great examples.. i don't know that anyone here would dispute how insipid all these russophobic articles are, or worse, that they all follow a constant theme running out of the 5 eyes central offices..jayc , Dec 8 2019 23:27 utc | 51it is entirely predictable at this point and you're absolutely correct - 110% propaganda... y
ou've given another good example here with the treatment of stephen cohen... what i find shocking is the lack of embarrassment towards all of this..
people in the west seem to be devoid of any type of response to it all, other then us commenting on moa about it.. i don't know how any of it is going to change..
it seems to me the desire to protest all this is really low here in the west..
i admire the french for the protests they have been engaged in the past few months, which get very little msm coverage.. i wish we could protest about all the propaganda we are subject to here in canada or the usa, but we haven't reached a critical point in it all yet it seems..
james #27 - " the drivel chris brown - regular columist for cbc posts.. and typically his drivel is not open to comments.. here is his latest bs - In an obliterated landscape, war-weary Ukrainians hope peace summit ends fighting for an insight into completely lopsided reporting"
Is it my fading memory, or was the CBC once a relatively professional source of international reporting? This piece is notably bad - not just from the skewed account of 2014's events, or the insistence on describing Donbass as "separatist", or the map which includes Crimea as part of Ukraine. How is it that the Minsk Accords no longer seem to exist in the corporate media, or the upcoming meeting in Paris properly described as a continuation of that process (alleged failure to "live up" to said accords was used as a stick against Putin for several years, and now their possible realization is vaguely referred to as something bad). Why does a Chatham House spokesperson get to define Ukraine's supposed "red lines", which are in reality the political position of the badly defeated former government? Why is Zelensky's oft stated policy position presented here as Russian-induced capitulation? Brown interviews four women of whom he says "none would tell us their last name out of fear of repercussions from local authorities" except they allowed for their photos to be taken and published. All of these story points result from conscious decisions, not sloppy errors.
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Dec 09, 2019 | www.wsj.com
Enthusiasm over entrepreneurship is now found in every corner of society -- even, apparently, within the federal bureaucracy. Witness after witness in last month's House impeachment inquiry hearings referred to "the interagency," an off-the-books informal government organization that we now know has enormous power to set and execute American foreign policy.
The first to testify before the House Intelligence Committee, State Department official George Kent, seemed to conceive of the interagency as the definitive source of foreign-policy consensus. That Mr. Trump's alleged decision to withhold military aid to Ukraine deviated from that consensus was, for Mr. Kent, prima facie evidence that it was misguided.
Next up, Ambassador William Taylor told the committee that it was the "unanimous opinion of every level of interagency discussion" that the aid should be resumed without delay. Fiona Hill, a former National Security Council official, gave the game away by admitting how upset she was that Gordon Sondland, President Trump's ambassador to the European Union, had established an "alternative" approach to helping Kyiv. "We have a robust interagency process that deals with Ukraine," she said.What is the interagency, and why should its views guide the conduct of American diplomatic and national-security professionals? The Constitution grants the president the power to set defense and diplomatic policy. Where did this interagency come from?
I first heard of the interagency in Baghdad in 2009. I was there as part of a Council on Foreign Relations delegation to Iraq. As a U.S. Army general briefed us on how the war was being fought, he spoke of the interagency as the source of the strategy he was executing. Naively, I asked why he wasn't operating according to orders from his military superiors or the secretary of defense.
How Did Adam Schiff Get Devin Nunes's Phone Records? How did Adam Schiff get Devin Nunes's phone records?bb0282a3-e4cb-42ba-9988-2f3df57fd912@1.00x Created with sketchtool. He explained that American war-fighting was being guided by a "whole of government" philosophy. Incredibly, he explained that the war couldn't be won without, among other agencies, the U.S. Agency for International Development and the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Health and Human Services, Justice and Labor. Iraq needed economic expansion, modern farming, business statistics, new hospitals, a working court system and workplace regulations. The strategy framed by the interagency was nothing less than a yearslong engagement in nation building -- precisely what President George W. Bush had rejected in his 2000 campaign.
Interagency cooperative agreements have been around for decades. The Justice Department, for example, has opioid-interdiction programs that require it to work with the Department of Homeland Security. Today a dictionary of more than 12,500 official terms exists to guide bureaucrats in writing interagency contracts that repurpose federal funds appropriated to various executive departments. Often these interdepartmental initiatives devised by bureaucrats are unknown to Congress. It's hard to imagine that the legislative branch wouldn't object to these arrangements, if only it were aware of them.
When the war on terror opened, with all the secret activity it required, professional cadres in the diplomatic corps, the military and the nation's many intelligence agencies were able to transform interagency cooperative agreements that had existed since the Cold War into a de facto agency -- a largely informal and virtual bureaucracy -- with the assumed power, if need be, to determine and execute a foreign policy at odds with the intent of the president and Congress.
Last month's testimony before the Intelligence Committee shed light on this club whose members are a permanent shadow government credentialed by family histories, elite schools and unique career experiences. This common pedigree informs their perspective of how America should relate to the world. The dogmatists of the interagency seem to share a common discomfort with a president who probably couldn't describe the doctrine of soft power, doesn't desire to be the center of attention at Davos, and wouldn't know that Francis Fukuyama once decided that history was over.
The impeachment hearings will have served a useful purpose if all they do is demonstrate that a cabal of unelected officials are fashioning profound aspects of U.S. foreign policy on their own motion. No statutes anticipate that the president or Congress will delegate such authority to a secret working group formed largely at the initiation of entrepreneurial bureaucrats, notwithstanding that they may be area experts, experienced in diplomatic and military affairs, and motivated by what they see as the best interests of the country.
However the impeachment drama plays out, Congress has cause to enact comprehensive legislation akin to the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986, which created more-efficient structures and transparent processes in the Defense Department. Americans deserve to know who really is responsible for making the nation's foreign policy. The interagency, if it is to exist, should have a chairman appointed by the president, and its decisions, much like the once-secret minutes of the Federal Reserve, should be published, with limited and necessary exceptions, for all to see.
Mr. Schramm is a university professor at Syracuse. His most recent book is "Burn the Business Plan."
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Dec 08, 2019 | consortiumnews.com
Retired Australian diplomat Tony Kevin, in conversation with former Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr, says the West is unnecessarily determined to undermine Russia. A t an event last week in Sydney, Kevin and Carr discussed how the West, led by the United States, has been on an aggressive campaign to destabilize Russia, without cause.
When Kevin said he returned to Russia after more than 40 years in 2016 he realized he "had to take sides" in the U.S.-Russia standoff when all Nato countries boycotted the Moscow celebrations of the 70th anniversary of the end of the Second World War.
"I had to take a moral position that it is not right for the West to be ganging up on Russia," Kevin says in his conversation with the former Australian foreign minister.
The New Cold War can traced back to a broken promise made to Moscow on Nato expansion eastward. "London and Washington are orchestrating a disinformation" campaign today against Russia, as the New Cold War has heated up over Syria, Ukraine, NATO troops on Russia's borders and Russiagate.
Watch the hour-long in depth discussion which was filmed and produced by Consortium News' CN Live! Executive Producer Cathy Vogan.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/dJiS3nFzsWg?feature=oembed
ElderD , December 9, 2019 at 15:03
Tony's (especially!) and Bob's sane and sensible view of this dangerous and destructive state of affairs deserve the widest possible distribution and attention.
George McGlynn , December 9, 2019 at 13:27
A quarter century has passed since the fall of the Soviet Union, and little has changed. Cold War patterns of thinking about Russia show no sign of weakening in America. The further we distance ourselves from the end of the Cold War, the closer we come to its revival. Hostility to Russia is the oldest continuous foreign policy tradition in the United States. It is now so much of a part of America's identity that it is unlikely to be ever cured.
peter mcloughlin , December 9, 2019 at 10:45
It is a dangerous miscalculation to think the "New Cold War" will end like the first. Russia (the USSR) had a buffer zone then, it doesn't today. For Moscow the coming war (world war) will be about survival. All that is left is the fall-back position of nuclear deterrence doctrine – annihilation. I don't think western capitals see how perilous the situation is.
AnneR , December 9, 2019 at 07:48
The latest efforts at attacking Russia via smear, allegation and Doublespeak have been, are via that US supported supposed oversight committee, WADA which has done what the US-UK wanted: banned Russia for four years from international sporting events including the upcoming Tokyo Olympics and World Cup (Football – soccer to Americans).
Then there were allegations – of those "highly likely" (therefore one knows to be untrue and unadulterated propaganda to increase Russophobia) sort – about Russian hackers (always giving the impression that the "Kremlin" is behind itl) being the Labour Party's source of the Tory party's US-UK trade deal which would/will deliberately and finally destroy the NHS and replace it with (of course) US "health" insurance company profiteering.
(Always the Tory intention from the NHS's initiation in May of 1948; only its popularity among many Tory party supporters among the working and lower middle classes prevented them from a full-frontal killing off the NHS; the Snatcher's government began the undermining, via installing a top-heavy bureaucratization, siphoning off a sizable proportion of the funds that would otherwise have gone to medical care, demanding that hospitals not "lose" money – a concept completely beyond the remit of the NHS as originally conceived and constructed and like exactions.)
Then there are snide remarks about the meeting today concerning the Ukrainian Azov (Neo-Nazi) attacks on the Donbass (NOT how either the BBC or NPR speaks of this of course) in France. This struggle, between the Russian-speaking Donbass peoples and the neo-Nazis of western Ukraine, has killed many thousands of people (most likely mostly those of the Donbass). The Donbass fighters are spoken of as "Russian-supported" in an attempt to deny them and the reasons for their struggle *any* legitimacy (meanwhile the support for the neo-Nazis goes unmentioned, leaving the listener with the impression that they are the Ukrainian military, thus legitimately fighting a foreign funded and manned insurgency).
Someone even suggested that President Putin needed to be diplomatic. Really? From what I've read the man is the most diplomatic and intelligent politician (not just political leader) along with Xi Jinping and the Iranian government that exist on the world stage. None of them are hubristic, solipsistic, eager beaver killers of peoples in other countries. Unlike their western "world" political counterparts.
Jeff Harrison , December 8, 2019 at 18:30
Mad Dog Mattis spoke the truth when he said that an opponent wasn't defeated until they agreed they were defeated. The US merely assumed that Russia agreed that they were defeated and are doubling down when they now suddenly realize that Russia never said any such thing.
St. Ronnie's whole thing back in the 80's was to outspend Russia militarily and it worked well. We're trying to do it again but Russia isn't playing the same game this time and now it is the US that has a mountain of debt and Russia that doesn't. SIPIRI tags US military spending at $650B and Russian military spending at $62B. But we know that the $650B number is bogus because it doesn't include our in-violation-of-the-NNPT nuclear program which is in the energy department or our veteran's expenses which are in HHS. I don't know what's missing from Russia's $62B but I'll bet they can sustain that a whole lot better than we can sustain our $650B and rising bill.
Antonio Costa , December 9, 2019 at 13:17
Good point regarding Russia's downsizing the Soviet Union. From Gorbachev to Putin there was NEVER a surrender, intended in any way. The intent has been multilateral partnerships. For Russia the US/West won nothing at all except the opportunity to live and work in peace. (By the way this policy has a long Russian history.)
They gave up the Warsaw Pact and America with our worthless "word" expanded NATO.
The US foreign policy has lost even the semblance of sanity. Our naked aggression is clear as never before, a mad man throwing a global fit armed with megaton nuclear projectiles on trigger first strike alert. What could go wrong?
nondimenticare , December 8, 2019 at 15:56
If, magically, Consortium News/CN Live! were a mass-distribution network/magazine (hence universally consulted), allowing the light in for the mass of the viewing and listening public, it could change the world – both an exalting and despairing thought.
Lily , December 8, 2019 at 09:52
It is a great joy to listen to this conversation!
I am really sick of the smearing of Russia done by the US and UK. The Skripal as well as the MH17 case are plain ridiculus. Anybody can see through these silly plants. US and UK obviously don't feel obliged to respect any international rules any more. (The one person who is suffering most at the moment from the decline in respect is Julian Assange, an Australian citizen!)
I wish people would have the courage to break away from the group pressure originated by a nation which has been started by killing more than 90% of the indigenous people in their country and since then has turned the worl into a very insecure place.
Chapeau, Tony Kevin! Thanks to Bob Carr and Consortiums News.
Lily , December 9, 2019 at 01:18
It seems that some facts are beginning to be realized in the military department.
www(dot)zerohedge(dot)com/geopolitical/pentagon-alarmed-russia-gaining-sympathy-among-us-troops
Bob Van Noy , December 8, 2019 at 09:22
Simply, wonderful
OlyaPola , December 8, 2019 at 07:43
Words are catalysts of connotations and connotations are functions of expectations/framing..
Some conflate cause with purpose thereby limiting perception of cause and purpose.
Some understand that causation is interactive and in any lateral system the genesis of causation is difficult to determine.
Some understand that evaluation is a function of purpose and that purpose can be evaluated through such portals into wonderlands such as "What is the "United States of America" and how is it facilitated?"
As thumb-nailed in the comments section of the article Capitalism's suicidal trajectory – OlyaPola
December 6, 2019 at 07:46"From 1922 onwards the strategic purpose of the Soviet Union was to defend the Soviet Union not global domination, whereas the purpose of the "West" has always been global domination. "
From 1922 onwards various tactics have been attempted by the "West" to facilitate their purpose, including attempts at "Orange revolution" in many areas which catalysed many lateral trajectories including the process of transcendence of the "Soviet Union" by the Russian Federation in the period from 1991 to 2005.
Consequently Mr. Suslov's observation re war of "The United States of America" can be extended into present times and hence no "New cold war" exists.
""What is the "United States of America"
An initial step through the portal is that "The United States of America" is – a regime of social relations to facilitate its purpose – the social relations not being restricted to the "nation state" presently self designated "The United States of America" but including classes in other "nation states".
Consequently alternative purposes and social relations pose an existential threat to "The United States of America"; this being perceived of lesser significance in regard to "The Soviet Union" and greater in regard to the Russian Federation.
JOHN CHUCKMAN , December 8, 2019 at 07:30
"At an event last week in Sydney, Kevin and Carr discussed how the West, led by the United States, has been on an aggressive campaign to destabilize Russia, without cause."
The American establishment's problem with Russia is simply that Russia is the only country on earth capable of obliterating the United States. Not even China has yet reached that capacity.
"Carthago delenda est"
Skip Scott , December 9, 2019 at 06:13
There is "cause." Russia was our latest vassal under Yeltsin. Putin stopped the looting, and worked to benefit average Russian citizens. Just watch "The Magnitsky Act, behind the scenes" to know the "cause".
Bruno DP , December 8, 2019 at 02:34
The West is ganging up on Russia? Replace "West" by "United States of America", and I will agree.
Much of the West (i.e. Germany) has been dragged by force into damage control mode. The Magnitsky Act monster, the election interference hysteria, are just 2 crying examples met with shock and disbelief across the pond. The Fiona Hill testimony was a very telling moment for the inner workings of a self perpetuating logic.
Russia is no lightweight by any means, and not always friendly.
But it has regularly done the right thing in international conflicts which the Kremlin seems to understand better than all of "the Western" intelligence combined.
Martin Schuchert , December 8, 2019 at 17:33
I'm German, living in the US, and I agree with your comment. I especially love the last two sentences:
"Russia is no lightweight by any means, and not always friendly.
But it has regularly done the right thing in international conflicts which the Kremlin seems to understand better than all of "the Western" intelligence combined."
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FB says: Website December 7, 2019 at 2:36 am GMT 600 Words @Erebus
I had assumed that a real outsider couldn't have gotten to his position and that they had a plan and would make a stand against the Empire's nomenclatura to try to turn the ship of state to face the coming crisis head on.
Everybody has a plan until they get hit in the face.–'Iron' Mike Tyson
Yes indeed E I think PCR has commented at length about how Trump just doesn't have anyone in his corner and yes, it is kind of surprising
Now the funny thing is that I too thought for the longest time there must be some kind of establishment faction behind the scenes that was backing the Trump agenda of getting real and changing course from an obvious dead end path
But I'm not so sure about that anymore Trump may indeed be the guy that 'wasn't supposed to win' as far as all the invisible heavyweights behind the curtain are concerned
The way I see it now he basically had the backing of big Jewish gangstas like Adelson plus his own charisma resonated with a lot of people plus the fact that what self-respecting human on earth could vote for the she-devil Hillary ?
I think too a lot of people were sick of Obama who was clearly one of the greatest con artists of all time President Hopium, as Mike Whitney tagged him
So other than his rich Jewish friends The Donald really is pretty much alone except for a very lot of regular folks and I mean right across the socio-economic spectrum it's not just the blue collar folks, but a lot of people I know in my own profession [and others]
But at this point it becomes abundantly clear that what Prof Cohen says here is what everybody knows the ' permanent foreign policy establishment' which is quite out in the open and neither 'deep' nor secret
For me that 'Anonymous' oped in the NYT was the milestone event that they could be that brazen and open about basically ripping the wheel out of the president's hands I mean that's brass they even called themselves the 'steady state' not even worried one bit about what that says about this sham 'democracy'
It's like everyone knows right and is cool with it ?
Amazing
So all things considered, I think Trump has actually made some pretty spectacular plays considering he is a one-man football team LOL
I point to the Syria almost-withdrawal which is in reality almost as good as a full withdrawal since the SAA has regained almost its entire northern border and the remaining fleck of a US footprint is a logistical and political impossibility
Let's face it for all the complainers [and yes, we've all got a lot of legit beefs] who the fuck would have been able to do even this anyone else would have escalated a long time ago this is the die-hard imperialist mentality of the neocons
I remember reading how some of these very people named here [including I think the harpy Fiona Hill] were mouth-foaming freaking out at the SDF leadership and literally breaking pencils in their face to try to stop them from accepting the lifesaver offered by the Russians and SAA, with the Turks bearing down on them
I mean these people are just NUTS they are simply not rooted in reality at some point you run into a brick wall going 500 miles an hour that is what awaits this crowd
As for Trump I think he's going to be re-elected the 'resistance' is just making themselves look incredibly bad they are getting up everyone's fucking nose and even Pelosi, as she was standing there the other day announcing the 'impeachment' darn well knew it they are toast
In the second term watch out Trump is not as dumb as they think
Erebus , says: December 7, 2019 at 10:34 am GMT
@FBanonymous [307] Disclaimer , says: December 7, 2019 at 5:54 pm GMTthe 'permanent foreign policy establishment'
AKA, the Imperial Staff.
In the days of Kissinger, Baker, et al the Imperial Staff were well coached in the Calculus of Power, knew the limits to Empire and thrived within them. Since the end of history, and the apparent end of limits, policy makers had no more need of realists and their confusing calculations and analyses.
The US had power, and no-one else had any. That's all they needed to know, and set about creating new, wonderfully intoxicating realities. As Rove famously inverted the MO they'll act first, creating realities and the analysis and calculation can come later. In awe of their creations, they failed to notice that while history may have ended in Washington, elsewhere it moved on to surround them with a reality where they found themselves in zugzwang, with no understanding how they got there. Flailing (and wailing) like a Mastodon in a tar pit, they've managed only to attract an unhelpful crowd of onlookers, fascinated by the abomination.
In the second term watch out Trump is not as dumb as they think
I too believe he isn't dumb, but the real question is whether he's playing the fool in furtherance of a plan, or whether it's just who he is and his successes are accidental.
The Deep State's (aka: PFPE's) ongoing behaviour indicates that Trump's using buffoonery to work a plan that's anathema to their created realities, and their increasing shrillness indicates it's working. At every turn, he's managed to make unavailable the resources their reality called for. From the M.E., to the Ukraine to N. Korea to Venezuela, things just aren't working the way they're supposed to. In fact, they're invariably working out in a way that exposes the Deep State's ineptitude and malevolence, and maximizes its embarrassment.
If that's so, his is the most extraordinary political performance I thought I'd ever see. Even though I can't imagine a more effective single handed way to accomplish what he promised to do, that he's lasted this long and has been so effective is astonishing. I guess we'll see if he abandons buffoonery when his opponents finally sink into the tar.
Fascinating.
The latest zionist plan designed by Donald Trump and associate to zionist stooges Pompeo and Brian Hook, intend to expand the war against Iran, has been failed. Trump ordered fomenting riots using the poor citizen of these countries who are under the Jewish mafia economic sanction in Iraq, Iran and Lebanon to create choas for the expansion of Jewish mafia and Israel in the region that he is a member of. Trump expanded the WAR against these counties, axis of resistance, using the US treasury runs by dual citizens pro Israel, and then supporting a US/Israel/Saudi proxies in these counties funded by the Saudi Arabia – to kill the citizens who are fed up with economic pressure force upon them by the criminal Tribe and its stooge Trump, and to burn buildings to create chaos so Trump can use it against Iran. This project was funded by the MBS Saudi Arabia and UAE.FB , says: Website December 7, 2019 at 7:03 pm GMTBrian Hook, a U.S. Special Representative for Iran, has done everything to satisfy his masters, the Jewish mafia and made a big HOOK to bring down Iran, but he couldn't and now they are trying to go after Iran with FABRICATED news, spreading lies that Iran has killed up to 1000 people.
Trump must answer his own crimes against humanity FIRST and then shut up and focus on US interest NOT a Israel interests, because he will be viewed as a fifth column.
Trump is a thief and an occupier in Syria, Afghanistan and many other countries. Only dummies think that he is a man of 'peace'. Only impostors spread lies that he wants to bring 'peace' but the 'deep state' does not allow. In fact the phony 'deep state' does not want war with Iran because knows that they will never win, only chaos. Israel wants war, and his servant Trump is pushing for one.
... ... ...
https://www.globalresearch.ca/iranian-unrest-cover-up-mass-killings-infowar-conspiracy/5696826
@Erebusannamaria , says: December 7, 2019 at 7:11 pm GMTthey failed to notice that while history may have ended in Washington, elsewhere it moved on to surround them with a reality where they found themselves in zugzwang , with no understanding how they got there.
Flailing (and wailing) like a Mastodon in a tar pit, they've managed only to attract an unhelpful crowd of onlookers, fascinated by the abomination.
LOL that is quote-worthy E
What can I add here you've pretty much nailed 'er down to the floor
I agree with you about all those examples Ukraine, Venezuela, even Iran seem to be a case of giving 'his' neocon 'team' enough rope to hang themselves while POTUS holds the hammer and ultimately gives a big NAY to going kinetic and then the whole thing crumbles into cracker crumbs
If that's so, his is the most extraordinary political performance I thought I'd ever see. Even though I can't imagine a more effective single handed way to accomplish what he promised to do, that he's lasted this long and has been so effective is astonishing.
Yup the one-man football team and he's actually WINNING LOL
@National Institute for Study of the ObviousRubicon , says: December 7, 2019 at 7:31 pm GMT"CIA runs your country." -- Correct. As a subsidiary of Mossad.
@Priss Factor Over the years that we've been reading Dr. Cohen who has written about Russia, the US, etc., we've become more and more convinced that Dr. Cohen, as a Jew, refuses to come out in bold-faced print to tell the real truths; in this case The Ukraine.annamaria , says: December 7, 2019 at 7:36 pm GMTIf he were to do so, his Jewish brethren, as seen in The Deep State and in Ukraine would simply destroy this man. In effect, he's a milquetoast figure of little importance.
@Bardon Kaldianannamaria , says: December 7, 2019 at 9:20 pm GMT"Chinese will soon become a majority in swaths of Russia; why not let them vote to secede & join the Han motherland?"
-- You think by the zionists' rules, whether the rules are applied in Palestine or Ukraine. Just give some efforts to learning the history of Russia and the history of Ukraine. You might also need to refresh your knowledge of the history of the Middle East, for good measure.
@NegroPantera Leave the ancient civilization of Persia alone. Тhe US that had been messing with democratic development in Iran in the 1950-s. The "chosen" behave like homicidal maniacs towards Iran and cannot wait to see Americans dying for Eretz Israel project.Bill Jones , says: December 7, 2019 at 9:42 pm GMTOn 1 May, Mosaddegh nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, canceling its oil concession (expired in 1993) and expropriating its assets.
"Our long years of negotiations with foreign countries have yielded no results thus far. With the oil revenues, we could meet our entire budget and combat poverty, disease, and backwardness among our people. Another important consideration is that by the elimination of the power of the British company, we would also eliminate corruption and intrigue, by means of which the internal affairs of our country have been influenced. Once this tutelage has ceased, Iran will have achieved its economic and political independence."
In March 1953, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles directed the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which was headed by his younger brother Allen Dulles, to draft plans to overthrow Mossadegh. On 4 April 1953, Allen Dulles approved $1 million to be used "in any way that would bring about the fall of Mosaddegh". Soon the CIA's Tehran station started to launch a propaganda campaign against Mossadegh.
@refl The plan is the dissolution of Russia into half a dozen client states.annamaria , says: December 7, 2019 at 9:45 pm GMT@Bardon Kaldianannamaria , says: December 7, 2019 at 9:54 pm GMTThe zionized "progressives" have a new battle cry -- "Putin is new Hitler." Worked great for Hillary Clinton, this model of "humanitarian" interventionist.
It does not do any good for your brains to read the Atlantic Council's idiotic propaganda. It is the same as the "Integrity Initiative" production, the dirty and poisonous brew made on orders by NATO/MIC/the Lobby.
Here are some of the Atlantic Council stars: Eliot Higgins (Bellingcat) and Anne Applebaum ("historian").
- Eliot Higgins is no journalist -- his forte has been to manage sales of ladies underwear and to produce laughable and ignorant stuff about Ukraine and Syria. He has zero (0) training in engineering, military, sciences. He is a perfect useful idiot and successful war-profiteer.
- Anne Applebaum is no journalist (and no historian) -- she is a propagandist-on-hire from a roster of presstitutes maintained by the "Integrity Initiative." https://www.mintpressnews.com/the-integrity-initiative-and-the-uks-scandalous-information-war/253014/
The exposing of the Integrity Initiative has just scratched the surface of what appears to be a much more sophisticated, insidious, and extremely online version of Operation Mockingbird.
You are on the wrong forum.
@Erebusanon [113] Disclaimer , says: December 7, 2019 at 11:01 pm GMT"There are no patriots in Washington " -- So tragically true. Only profiteers.
@Erebus TULSI2020Vojkan , says: December 7, 2019 at 11:16 pm GMT"There are no patriots in Washington "
Don't be so sure. Note that Trump congratulated Tulsi on Kamala's demise. If she isn't the nominee, her mere presence in the campaign is a boon to Trump because she exposes the rot in the DNC . and the Empire.
Dem Establishment can't control me and that scares the hell out of them
https://www.youtube.com/embed/IC98dmTAKbM?feature=oembed
@anonymous Because Israel is cautious not to cross a line beyond which Russia will have no choice but to retaliate. Contrary to Americans, Russians don't have a short fuse and don't feel the need to "pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world she means business". Since Russia got involved, Israel's actions have had exactly zero effect on the course of events in Syria. Russia's goal is not to further ignite the Middle East. Overreacting to Israel's gesticulations would be counterproductive.annamaria , says: December 7, 2019 at 11:59 pm GMT@anonymous "The zionist WHORE, Christian Amanpour "Carroll Price , says: December 8, 2019 at 12:07 am GMT-- Christiane Amanpour is a valuable presstitute and a quite successful war-profiteer (net worth about $12.5 mln). "The Bloviations of Christiane Amanpour, Queen of Fake News:" https://off-guardian.org/2017/09/14/the-bloviations-of-christiane-amanpour-queen-of-fake-news/
Scum like Amanpour operating from within anti-imperialist countries are the reason why those places ever needed laws curtailing the hallowed "freedom of the press." Words ARE weapons, and the West knows this
Comments:
When Nazi propagandist Julius Streicher could get hanged at Nuremberg in 1946 for crimes against humanity, I wonder, why not the likes of Amanpour? Guess history is written by the winning side.
"Anissa Naoui takes on CNN presstitute Amanpour: CNN heavily redacts RT host's interview:" http://robinwestenra.blogspot.com/2015/10/anissa-naoui-takes-on-cnn-presstitute.html
Say hello to more than a century of perpetual war for profit. The Deep State, consisting of Jewish bankers and their hanger-ons, has been calling the shots since passage of the Federal Reserve Act in the closing hours of 1913, while most members of Congress were home on holiday recess.Erebus , says: December 8, 2019 at 5:50 am GMTRead; The Creature From Jekyll Island
@denk Relax denk.Meimou , says: December 9, 2019 at 1:06 am GMTThe world is simply re-bifurcating into 2 camps. More specifically, the Anglo-World is splitting away from whatever parts it can't bring into their sphere of dominance. They couldn't dominate the whole playground, so they're taking their toys and carving out a corner of it for themselves.
The current demonisation of China and Russia sets the stage for the real split that will happen in the 2020s. Gotta get the sheeple used to the notion so that they will accept, even demand, bringing the Bamboo Curtain down when the time comes.
What we're seeing now in Europe, the M.E., S. America etc is nothing more than the Anglo-World's attempt to bring more along with them, and the RoW's attempts to minimize their success.
With people like these, who needs the ptb ???
The PTB needs the people, not the other way around. People are happy to believe anything that makes them comfortable. Instilling Sino/Russo-phobia in their otherwise empty heads is but the prelude to splitting them off from demonic Eurasia/Eastasia, and also so they'll be happy with whatever they get in Oceania.
They'll be living in the Free World again! Smaller this time around, but Freeeee!!!
It worked the last time. It'll work this time too. One stands in awe of how easy it is.
@FB BS@Realist
True. If he appointed all these banksters and neocons by mistake, then there should have been a few who weren't neocons or banksters. Making a lot of mistakes could be seen as proof of stupidity. Making nothing but mistakes has to be by designThat pos said that those who commit "hate crimes" should get the death penalty without trail.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=ep3A0HvcI8w
3d chess right?
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Anonymous [627] Disclaimer , says: December 7, 2019 at 1:28 am GMT
@Dave from Oz Dietrich Doerner's Logic of Failure makes clear that decision makers consistently make grotesque errors based on faulty modeling of the world, incomplete feedback assumed to be complete, and so on. Even the data are often mistaken for deductive truths, but if one looks at, for example, the number of actual weather data points used to create those complex surface maps, it becomes obvious why the results are disappointing -- in that case possibly spoiling a picnic, but with the military, destroying a civilization.Jim Christian , says: December 7, 2019 at 5:21 am GMTYou might recall the lessons of Longterm Capital Management's use of predictions based on PDE's, with results that should have been foreseen as being predictably as unreliable as weather forecasting, and for the same reasons -- that beneath all the fancy math lie guesses of all too fallible men.
Regarding a faulty worldview, could there possibly be a more distorted model of reality than America serving as Israel's footstool, the country that with its fifth column is responsible for Lavon, USS Liberty, JFK/RFK, and, not least, 9/11. In the world of probabilities, there is no standard of textual evidence evaluation or mathematical demonstration so low it won't give cover to the Pentagon's costumed bureaucrats and members of Congress to look the other way regarding Israel and its fifth columns' acts of war against the country they're all sworn to protect.
@AnonymousWalter , says: Next New Comment December 8, 2019 at 3:08 pm GMTJFK/RFK, and, not least, 9/11.
MLK became a problem when he joined RFK against Vietnam in early 1968. When he started counseling his young Black men against Vietnam, he had to go too. I'll never forget that. Hideous.
Why do they always shoot their rivals in the head? Never a miss back then, ever..
@Anonymous I have doubts that zionists were central to, or instigators of, the JFK coup, but the Jewish mob sure was in on it, and since they knew and were involved, as was Lyndon, that gave the zionists Mossad the blackmail they needed to put Lyndon in their pocket. They proved this when he covered up the Liberty affair. Since then the zionists have been free to do as they wished. I propose these changes were gradual, and that zionism has been curated as a MI6 intelop since the Balfour Declaration, in part to create the 5th column we have now. Looks like it got out of control, Golem-like. This is a pity, as it may result in the ruin of their own people, just as we see Semitic zionists shooting Semitic natives in a sort of turkeyshoot every Friday is it kosher to kill on Shabbos? I wonder.. . a kind of civil war, so we see a vast schism forming between Jews and nominally Jewish zionists.ivegotrythm , says: Next New Comment December 8, 2019 at 7:11 pm GMT@Walter The Zionism Psy-Op began much earlier than the Balfour declaration. It was a result of losing sovereignty when Poland disappeared in 1772 and was partitioned between Prussia, Russia, and Austria. (Poland was a condominium with two governments, a Jewish one and a Polish one. The Jews had their own parliament, and the Poles theirs, plus a king. This evolved out of the original agreements the Khazars of the south made with the Lithuanians to be a mercenary army, police force, and tax collectors.) Having lost control of one country, Poland (through their own misuse of taxes), the High Command in Lithuania decided they needed another country. The propaganda was that the riots -- pogroms -- that began in Russia at the end of the 19th century were anti-Jewish riots; that the Czar was anti-Jewish, etc. And the big Psy-Op was the Dreyfus Affair, which was completely fake. Which is why the original written offer to sell "secrets" -- which were not secrets at all -- mysteriously disappeared before the Germans occupied France in 1940. But the phony Dreyfus Affair immediately led to the first Zionist Congress in Basel. Herzl was only a hired propagandist, and disposed off when he finished the job for which he was recruited as a journalist (as was Wilhelm Marr -- who popularized the term "Antisemitism"). World War I and the Balfour agreement to get America into the war on the British side delivered the goods.
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Alistair says: December 7, 2019 at 3:47 pm GMT
Trump is right about the NATO members inadequate military spending; the US expects NATO members to spend 2% of their GDP on their own defence, the US however, does not require them to purchase American made weapons, they can produce their own weapons, like French do, or buy from each other like Germans -- they just have to make their military up and ready in case of emergency, that's not an unreasonable expectation.
Among the NATO members however, Canada's case is unique; due to its closeness and joint high command (NORAD) with the US -- and direct threat from Russian claim on the Canadian Arctic, Canada needs and must increase its military spending significantly, Canada should purchase modern Air force fleet, Advanced Surveillance equipment, Warships and Submarines for the defence of the Arctic; F-35, F-22, AH-64 Apache, Nuclear powered Icebreaker and Submarines etc. because all these equipment will we be partially built in Canada which bring many high tech jobs and economic growth to the Canadian communities.
Trump is right, NATO and Canada should spend much more on their own defence, and buying American advanced weapons is the best strategic choice for the Canadians forces, there shouldn't be any doubt about that.
Jmaie , says: December 7, 2019 at 6:12 pm GMT
LOL to the first comment, Russia is *zero* threat to Canada ** . Russia is zero threat to the US or Europe either. NATO has long outlived its purpose and needs to die.Alistair , says: December 7, 2019 at 8:26 pm GMT** I suppose Russia could claim the north pole, and threaten to hold Santa hostage.
@Jmaie Russian annexation of Crimea was a blatant assault on the International Law, yet it went off without serious consequences to Russia -- it's not a secret that Russia has claims on Canadian Arctic seabed, Russia has already planted its flag on the Arctic seabed; here is a Link that you should want to see:joe2.5 , says: December 7, 2019 at 11:59 pm GMT
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/aug/02/russia.arctic@Alistair Alistair @ 3voicum , says: Next New Comment December 8, 2019 at 2:46 am GMTI'd really be interested to understand how on earth the reintegration, by overwhelming majority in a plebiscite acknowledged by all sides as free and unconstrained, of Crimea, a Russian province for 300+ years, and a majority-Russian area for quite a long time, is "a blatant assault on the International Law".
The "International Law" you quote must be a newcomer.
@Alistairlikbez , says: December 8, 2019 at 4:00 am GMTAre you insane ? This is where your money and my money should be spent ?
@joe2.5 @4.joe2.5animalogic , December 8, 2019 at 5:23 am GMT • 100 Words"I'd really be interested to understand how on earth "
It is very easy to understand. As Upton Sinclair observed "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."
Alistair repeats typical neocon viewpoint. Nothing original here. Neocons make their living off threat inflation and this isn't cheap cynicism. It is simply a fact.
Fiona Hill is a shining recent example here -- this intellectual prostitute of MIC is a member of Brookings Institution, Atlantic Council and other MIC lobbing organization that promote Cold War 2 and neoliberal globalization.
The real question is "Why we should believe any of these chickenhawks?" They has been proven liars so many times that they deserve the rotten tomatoes to be thrown at them on any of their public appearances or, which is sadly impossible, at their Internet posts
But again money do not smell: unless neocons start facing very real and very personal consequences, nothing will change. And like with any sect there is small number of intellectually deficient people who still believe them.
See Stephen M. Walt https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2019/12/04/a-manifesto-for-restrainers/
3. Restrainers Want Realistic Foreign Policy Goal s. Instead of engaging in costly and futile efforts to remake the world in our image, restrainers want U.S. foreign policy to pursue more feasible objectives. The U.S. military must be strong enough to deter attacks on the U.S. homeland, a task that is relatively easy to accomplish. When necessary, the United States can also help other states uphold the balance of power and deter war in a few key strategic areas outside the Western Hemisphere. America's economic clout will also give Washington considerable influence over the institutions that manage trade, investment and other beneficial forms of international cooperation, and it should use that influence to ensure these institutions are working properly. But the United States has neither the need, the capacity, nor the wisdom to conduct massive social engineering projects ("nation-building") in deeply divided and conflict prone societies, and it should cease trying.
4. Restrainers Want Credible Foreign Commitments . The United States keeps taking on new security obligations in Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, but it rarely debates their wisdom or value. Americans are now formally committed to defending more countries around the world than at any time in U.S. history, even though some of these states are hard to defend, have little strategic importance for the United States, and sometimes act in ways that damage U.S. interests. Washington is also engaged in less visible military activities in dozens of other countries, some of them shrouded in secrecy. Yet anytime U.S. leaders contemplate trimming these obligations, alarmists warn that the slightest reduction in America's global presence will undermine U.S. credibility, embolden rivals, and lead to catastrophe. Having allowed itself to become overextended, the United States ends up fighting endless wars in places with no strategic value in order to convince allies and adversaries that it will still fight in places of greater importance.
The sooner the EU & Europe generally either discard NATO or create its own defence force in parallel with NATO, the better.
Europe MUST take control of its own destiny. It can not have an external nation, the US, with different, if not opposing interests, dictating European policy & action.
The “Russia” situation is a perfect example of this divergence of interests. Europe’s future clearly lies with greater Eurasian integration. Energy, primary products, & mercantile trade all lie to the East, through Russia to China, Vietnam etc. Notably, some countries such as Italy are already pulling away from official EU policy & turning East.
Unfortunately, The US has bribed & threatened (many) EU leaders, leaders who couldn’t even imagine a change to the status quo. Thankfully, though, it seems that many average Europeans are sick to their back-teeth with the status quo & Europe’s “evermore” subservience to US imperialism.
The Alarmist , says: Next New Comment December 8, 2019 at 10:31 am GMT
German tax-payers, like most other Europeans, see no need to spend billions of hard-earned euros against a non-existent threat from the East.
They don’t even want to spend their money turning back the actual threats spilling across their borders, but climate change is way up there on the agenda. De-industrialised Europe chock-full of third-world denizens is going to be heaven on earth.
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Dec 08, 2019 | responsiblestatecraft.org
The unrivaled and unchallenged exertion of American military power around the world, or what's known as "primacy," has been the basis for U.S. Grand Strategy over the past 70 years and has faced few intellectual and political challenges. The result has been stagnant ideas, poor logic, and an ineffective foreign policy. As global security challenges have evolved, our foreign policy debate has remained in favor of primacy, repeatedly relying on a select few, poorly conceived ideas and arguments. Primacy's greatest hits arguments are played on repeat throughout the policy and journalism worlds and its latest presentation is in a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, written by its chief foreign policy correspondent, titled, "America Can't Escape the Middle East." The piece provides a case study in how stagnant these ideas have become, and how different actors throughout the system present them without serious thought or contemplation.
Hyping the threat of withdrawal
The WSJ piece trotted out one of the most well-worn cases for unending American military deployments in the region. "The 2003 invasion of Iraq proved to be a debacle," it rightly notes. However, there's always a "but":[B]ut subsequent attempts to pivot away from the region or ignore it altogether have contributed to humanitarian catastrophes, terrorist outrages and geopolitical setbacks, further eroding America's standing in the world."
Primacists often warn of the dire security threats that will result from leaving Middle East conflict zones. The reality is that the threats they cite are actually caused by the unnecessary use of force by the United States in the first place. For example, the U.S. sends military assets to deter Iran, only to have Iran increase attacks or provocations in response. The U.S. then beefs up its military presence to protect the forces that are already there. Primacists use the security threats that are responding to the unnecessary use of U.S. military force to justify why the U.S. shouldn't stop, or in fact increase, the use of force.
These stale arguments claim there will be consequences of leaving while conveniently ignoring the consequences of staying, which of course are far from trivial. For example, veteran suicide is an epidemics and military spending to perpetuate U.S. primacy continues at unnecessarily high rates. The presence of U.S. soldiers in these complex conflicts can even draw us into more unnecessary wars. The United States can engage the world in ways that don't induce the security dilemma to undermine our own security; reduce our military presence in the Middle East, engage Iran and other states in the region diplomatically and economically, and don't walk away from already agreed upon diplomatic arraignments that are favorable to all parties involved.
Terrorism safe havens
And how many times have we heard that we must defend some undefined geographical space to prevent extremists from plotting attacks? "In the past, jihadists used havens in Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria and Iraq to plot more ambitious and deadly attacks, including 9/11," the WSJ piece says. "Though Islamic State's self-styled 'caliphate' has been dismantled, the extremist movement still hasn't been eliminated -- and can bounce back."
The myth of the terrorism safe havens enabling transnational attacks on the United States has persisted despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary and significant scholarly research that contradicts it. The myth persists because it provides a simple and comforting narrative that's easy to understand. September 11th was planned in Germany and the United States, the ability to exist in Afghanistan under the Taliban without persecution didn't enable 9/11, and denying this space wouldn't have prevented it.
Terrorists don't need safe havens to operate, and only gain marginal increases in capabilities by having access to them. Organizations engage in terrorism because they have such weak capabilities in the first place. These movements are designed to operate underground with the constant threat of arrest and execution. The Weatherman Underground in the United States successfully carried out bombings while operating within the United States itself. The Earth Liberation Front did the same by organizing into cells where no cell knew anything about the other cells to prevent the identification of other members if members of one cell were arrested. Organizations that engage in terrorism can operate with or without safe havens.
Although safe havens don't add significantly to a terrorist groups' capabilities, governing your own territory is something completely different. ISIS is a commonly used, and misused, example for why wars should be fought to deny safe havens. A safe haven is a country or region in which a terrorist group is free from harassment or persecution. This is different from what ISIS created in 2014. What ISIS had when it swept across Syria and Iraq in 2014 was a proto-state. This gave them access to a tax base, oil revenues, and governing resources. Safe havens don't provide any of this, at least not at substantial levels. The Islamic State's construction of a proto-state in Syria and Iraq did give them operational capabilities they wouldn't have had otherwise, but this isn't the same as the possible safe havens that would be gained from a military withdrawal from Middle Eastern conflicts. The conditions of ISIS's rise in 2014 don't exist today and the fears of an ISIS resurgence like their initial rise are unfounded .
Credibility doesn't work how you think it works
For those arguing to maintain the ongoing forever wars, American credibility will always be ruined in the aftermath of withdrawal. Here's the WSJ piece on that point: "When America withdraws from the Middle East unilaterally, the Russians internalize this and move into Crimea and Ukraine; the Chinese internalize it and move into the South China Sea and beyond in the Pacific."
Most commentators have made this claim without recognition of their own contradictions that abandoning the Kurds in Syria would damage American credibility. They then list all the other times we've abandoned the Kurds. Each of these betrayals didn't stop them from working with the United States again, and this latest iteration will be the same. People don't work with the United States because they trust or respect us, they do it because we have a common interest and the United States has the capability to get things done. As we were abandoning the Kurds this time to be attacked by the Turks, Kurdish officials were continuing to share intelligence with U.S. officials to facilitate the raid on ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi because both the United States and the Kurds wanted Baghdadi eliminated and only the United States had the capability to get it done.
Similarly, the idea that pulling out militarily in one region results in a direct chain of events where our adversaries move into countries or areas in a completely different region is quite a stretch of the imagination. Russia moved into Crimea because it's a strategic asset and it was taking advantage of what it saw as an opportunity: instability and chaos in Kiev. Even if we left troops in every conflict country we've ever been in, Russia would have correctly assessed that Ukraine just wasn't important enough to spark a U.S. invasion. When the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan, did the United States invade Cuba? What alliance did the Soviets or Chinese abandon before the United States entered the Korean War? Assessments of credibility , especially in times of crisis (like that in Ukraine), are made based on what leaders think the other country's interests are and the capabilities they have to pursue those interests. There is no evidence to support -- in fact there is a lot of evidence that contradicts -- the idea that withdrawing militarily from one region or ending an alliance has any impact on assessments of a country's reliability or credibility.
Not all interests are created equal
Threat inflation isn't just common from those who promote a primacy-based foreign policy, it's necessary. Indeed, as the WSJ piece claimed, "There is no avoiding the fact that the Middle East still matters a great deal to U.S. interests."
The exorbitant costs of the U.S.'s numerous military engagements around the world need to be justified by arguing that they secure vital U.S. interests. Without it, Primacists couldn't justify the cost in American lives. Whether the military even has the ability to solve all problems in international relations aside, not all interests are equal in severity and importance. Vital interests are those that directly impact the survival of the United States. The only thing that can threaten the survival of the United States is another powerful state consolidating complete control of either Europe or East Asia. This would give them the capabilities and freedom to strike directly at the territorial United States. This is why the United States stayed in Europe after WWII, to prevent the consolidation of Europe by the Soviets. Addressing the rise of China -- which will require some combination of cooperation and competition -- is America's vital interest today and keeping troops in Afghanistan to prevent a terrorism safe haven barely registers as a peripheral interest. There are U.S. interests in the Middle East, but these interests are not important enough to sacrifice American soldiers for and can't easily be secured through military force anyway.
Consequences
Most of these myths and arguments can be summarized by the claim that any disengagement of any kind by the United States from the Middle East comes with consequences. This isn't entirely wrong, but it isn't really relevant either unless compared with the consequences of continuing engagement at current levels. We currently have 67,000 troops in the Middle East and Afghanistan and those troops are targets of adversaries, contribute to instability, empower hardliners in Iran, and provide continuing legitimacy to insurgent and terrorist organizations fighting against a foreign occupation. One article in The Atlantic argued that the problem with a progressive foreign policy is that restraint comes with costs, almost ironically ignoring the fact that the U.S.'s current foreign policy also comes with, arguably greater, costs. A military withdrawal, or even drawdown, from the Middle East does come with consequences, but it's only believable that these costs are higher than staying through the perpetuation of myths and misconceptions that inflate such risks and costs. No wonder then that these myths have become the greatest hits of a foreign policy that's stuck in the past.
This article originally appeared on LobeLog.com .
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Dec 08, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com
Here is a congealing conventional wisdom around sending military assistance to Ukraine that is as absurd as can be, and it cropped up again this morning:
"Fight them over there so we don't have to fight them over here" was extremely stupid when applied to terrorism. It is much more stupid when applied to Russia, and shows how impoverished the FP thinking of even bright, engaged Americans is. My goodness.
-- Justin Logan (@JustinTLogan) December 4, 2019
It is discouraging to see that one of the dumbest talking points from the Bush era has returned. "Fight them there" was always a silly justification for waging unnecessary wars in other countries, and now it is being repurposed to justify the questionable policy of throwing weapons at a conflict in Europe. When it was used in the context of Bush-era wars, it was an attempt to make what were clearly wars of choice seem as though they were unavoidable. When a government needs to defend a bad policy, it will usually claim that they have no choice but to do what they are doing.
When Bush and his allies used this rhetoric, they were trying to spin a war of aggression as an act of self-defense. Now it is part of an even more ludicrous effort to make supplying weapons and other military assistance to Ukraine seem as if it is vitally important to the U.S. Simply put, this is propaganda, and it isn't even very good propaganda at that.
I have written many times why I think it is a mistake to arm Ukraine. It just encourages escalation at worst and the prolongation of the conflict at best. Until recently, the arguments in favor of doing this have not been very compelling, but at least they weren't quite so mindless. Needless to say, Russia's conflict with Ukraine is a local one, and the U.S. doesn't have much at stake in that conflict. Ukrainians aren't fighting Russia and its proxies on our behalf or to prevent them from attacking someone else, but for the sake of their own country.
If Russia hawks insist on providing Ukraine with weapons and other assistance, they should at least be able to acknowledge that this is a peripheral interest of the United States. Exaggerating the importance of this policy to U.S. security just calls attention to how little it matters to U.S. security.
Obviously, we aren't going to be fighting the Russians "here" no matter what happens in this conflict. These are the sorts of irrational claims that we get after decades of irresponsible threat inflation and mistakenly assuming that every conflict in the world is somehow our business.
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Dec 08, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com
Donald Trump is driven by desire to sweeten the balance sheet of the US as well as a deluded belief in whatever it is that he thinks Israel stands for. Israel seeks to manipulate the medieval barbarism of Saudi Arabia to further its fantasy of regional hegemony. They should "wise up."
The Saudi who killed three people at Pensacola is representative of the breed.
It is time for a basic re-appraisal of our relationships in the ME. pl
blue peacock , 07 December 2019 at 09:33 PM
Col. Lang,oldman22 , 08 December 2019 at 11:57 AMIt seems the Gulf Arab sheikhs and the Al Saud family have been writing big checks to all the movers & shakers in the West, including the political and governmental elites, think tank sinecures, and of course many media personalities.
Tony Balir became a wealthy man with the money of the sheikhs. In an earlier thread you had posted, we read about the Lebanese man who was a conduit for Gulf arab money going to Hillary's campaign. Then there was the post-9/11 Republican administration of George Bush who along with the so-called liberal media and most members of Congress from both parties put a complete kibosh on investigating any Saudi role with respect to the 11 out of 15 terrorists of Saudi nationality.
We can see how Trump is already covering for the Saudis by saying the King was apologetic and will compensate all those killed and injured by the Saudi airman in Pensacola.
When American and western leaders are so easily purchased by the sheikhs, how can we have a re-appraisal of our relationships in the ME? The few who are calling for such a re-appraisal like Tulsi Gabbard are being smeared as Russian bots.
Col Lang, you taught at West Point.Mathias Alexander , 08 December 2019 at 01:01 PM
So I am wondering if you have a view of Tim Bakken's new book:
The Cost of Loyalty: Dishonesty, Hubris, and Failure in the U.S. Military
I am not trying to argue here, I have only been at West Point as an athlete competing against it.
Bakken book reviewed here:
https://dissidentvoice.org/2019/12/west-point-professor-builds-a-case-against-the-u-s-army/If the USA withdraws support from the Saudis then the Saudis might stop pricing their oil only in dollars. What effect would this have on the value of the dollar? Then again how much oil is left in Saudi Arabia? The ARAMCO shares sell off doesn't seem to be doing great buisness, maybe the market understands the situation better.Elora Danan , 08 December 2019 at 02:59 PMPat, could I ask you a question?HK Leo Strauss , 08 December 2019 at 05:40 PMIt is a bit off-topic. but not so...in the end...
Just finished viewing he three part series on CIA, The Company , and as you always tell the hell about current CIA situation...
Col Lang,Would you have been in a position at the time to know if there there were any Carter Doctrine contrarians within the FP/IC/DoD establishment in the late 70's? Curious how extensive the debate over deeper ME engagement was at the time, or if it was all just a knee-jerk reaction to Revolutionary Iran.
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Dec 08, 2019 | www.unz.com
JoaoAlfaiate , says: December 6, 2019 at 11:44 am GMT
From page 12 of Martyanov's RRMA, " people such as Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz, none of whom had spent a day serving in cadre officer uniform "Andrei Martyanov , says: Website December 6, 2019 at 1:50 pm GMTRumsfeld was in fact a Naval Aviator who flew ASW aircraft for a number of years and retired from the Navy Reserve as a full Captain.
@JoaoAlfaiateAndrei Martyanov , says: Website December 6, 2019 at 2:19 pm GMTRumsfeld was in fact a Naval Aviator who flew ASW aircraft for a number of years
A Tracker, in 1950s for a couple of years, while having a degree in Political Science. That sure qualifies him for making strategic decisions, right? Especially in the 21st century. Well, we all saw results, didn't we?
@Jim Christian Jim, a lot of truth in what you say. But especially this:Jim Christian , says: December 6, 2019 at 3:46 pm GMTAs for the military? A reflection of our society. When I went into the Navy in 1975, it was Stars and Stripes and we served in large part for Mom, Apple Pie and Chevrolet.
Here is a quote from one of Russian undercover intelligence assets which was outed when Anna Chapman was outed. Unlike her, however, this guy was a real deal. Here is what he had to say recently about US:
What is THEIR weakness? As enemies these guys are mediocrities, second rate. They overate. Their previous generation was stronger. They respected us, we respected them. We don't respect these ones,they didn't deserve it. They can bully, as for the real fight–we'll see about that They are enraged that soon they will have to live within their means.They forgot how to do so long time ago. That is why they want to solve a problem with us now, while others are still afraid of them.
here is an original in Russian, just in case.
I remember 70s and 80s clearly, being myself a Cold Warrior, these were different times. many different people. Today, as you say, I see decay everywhere in everything, the country (the US) was literally robbed, people blinded and all for a reasons of bottom line in "business" and for Israel's, Saudi and corporate interests. The America I encountered in 1990s is gone.
@Andrei MartyanovA Tracker, in 1950s for a couple of years, while having a degree in Political Science.
Rummy flew a Stoof? Git the farg outta here? I thought he only had balls with OTHER people's lives..
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Dec 08, 2019 | www.unz.com
Bailiff, Whack his Peepee , says: December 6, 2019 at 1:23 pm GMT
There's one additional revolutionary factor:The threat to US official impunity panics the regime more than any number of Russian Sarmats or nuclear ramjets. The ICC is one very new judicial forum, and its halting efforts to get its institutional footing panicked the US into imposing illegal sanctions on accredited diplomats. The real threat of the Rome Statute is the universal obligation to prosecute or extradite war criminals and enemies of humanity.
An increasing number of the most influential US functionaries will be unable to travel freely. This is, in effect, pariah-state status more abject than North Korea's. This has been a mounting challenge for years – GW Bush fled Switzerland, scared off by a war crimes accusation from a single legislator.
And international criminal law is one jaw of a pincer. It complements the doctrine of state responsibility for internationally wrongful acts. State responsibility provides the civil equivalent of international criminal law, with the potential to impose restitution, reparation, satisfaction, and compensation with interest. Satisfaction articulates directly with international criminal law by providing for prosecution of designated criminals. The US faces insupportable liabilities for its internationally wrongful acts, and US functionaries know that any one of them could be sacrificed to get the regime off the hook.
Russian policy is to enforce this law at gunpoint. Iranian policy is to make its case in independent international courts. China is vocal about upholding rule of law, and as its deterrent improves, it will be increasingly active in applying it. The G-192 – 96% of the world's population – pitches in by withholding the "waterfall" of G-5 privileges. The UK recently got pushed off the ICJ bench for the first time ever for its lawless conduct. The US is next.
The US is an underdeveloped country ineffectually waving second-rate weapons. The world is leaving it behind.
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Dec 06, 2019 | responsiblestatecraft.org
For the past two centuries and, particularly the last three decades, direct foreign military intervention in the affairs of ostensibly sovereign and independent states has been perhaps the most consistent and destructive common denominator that shapes our region's worsening condition. Direct warfare by foreign powers almost always paves the way for decades, if not centuries, of continuing instability -- whether in the cases of Napoleon in 1798, the Soviet Union and the United States in Afghanistan in the decades after 1979, the U.S. in Iraq in 2003, or Russia, Iran, and seemingly half the world in Syria since 2015.
Direct foreign military attacks or other "security" activities inside Middle East lands inevitably create traumatic local power imbalances that portend chronic local ideological conflicts, and spark resentments and resistance to the foreign invader or to the invader's local ruling ally. Foreign invaders also create local authority vacuums that open the door for other states to intervene (see Iraq, Syria, and Libya), and also create the ideal spawning ground for radical, militant, resistance, or terrorist movements of all stripes. Israel repeatedly encountered this instinctive local resistance to its predatory militarism in Lebanon and Gaza, as did the U.S. and the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, and the U.S. and its allies in Iraq.
Almost nothing good emerges from direct foreign militarism in the Middle East, and even when the fighting stops surreptitious foreign support to local warring parties also perpetuates tensions and clashes, which only spur economic waste, corruption, collapse, and widespread poverty and suffering among the citizenry.
It is clear now that foreign militarism plays a destructive and sustained role in the two biggest problems that now tear apart much of the Arab region (and also touch on non-Arab Mideast states like Iran, Turkey and Israel). The first is mass pauperization that now sees over two-thirds of all Arab citizens living in poverty or vulnerability, in states that have reached or approach bankruptcy and allow citizens no meaningful political rights. This will get much worse because all prevailing economic trends that could counter it are flat or negative (trade, tourism, direct investment, remittances, job creation).
The second problematic big regional trend -- very much states' reactions to their citizens' helpless pauperization -- is the growing militarization and securitization of governance. This is evident in bloated military and security budgets that are controlled by a handful of unelected, unaccountable leaders, and expanded use of anti-terrorism laws since September 2011 to deter or imprison domestic political foes, or prevent any independent political expression by the public (see Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain). Foreign militarism since the 1940s has inevitably promoted local military rule within Arab states. The incompetence, autocracy, and corruption of Arab military rulers since the 1970s have driven economies into the ground, and sparked the nonstop street uprisings we witness today across the region.
The centuries of cumulative interventions by foreign powers inside Arab states reached a new peak in the past eight years in Syria, where dozens of foreign and regional actors that joined the fray inside the country charted new ground in the historical legacy that had mostly seen big power, usually Western and colonial, interventions in the region's affairs.
Of course Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman, Persian, and other imperial dominance in the region across time all played a role in defining the Middle East as a frontline battlefield in the recurring waves of global imperial dominance and cultural influence. Starting in the 19th Century, however, as imperial powers started to come to terms with their imminent historical demise, the British and the French mostly wrote the book on the ugly heritage of battling for strategic supremacy in our region. The 20th Century saw foreign powers fight at will in the Middle East, and also provide indirect political and "security" support to their favorite local partners, allies, surrogates, and stooges, who kept fighting it out inside Arab countries that proved to be only nominally sovereign and independent states.
The civil war in Syria that started in 2011 was the logical outcome of this legacy. It mirrors other states where authority and legitimacy collapsed in the eyes of their own people, and the sovereign control of their lands and resources succumbed to the many foreign actors that came in to save the dying beast or bite off pieces of its carcass. Syria offers one of the most important examples of this, given the wide variety of warring parties that joined its several overlapping local, regional, and global wars.
The fighters in Syria included dozens of Arab states and non-state armed groups, local militias and tribal forces, regional non-Arab powers like Iran, Turkey, Israel, and Hezbollah and their clients, wannabe regional powers like Saudi Arabia and the UAE, leading global powers like the U.S. and Russia, second-tier powers like the U.K. and France, and a few smaller countries around the world that joined directly or provided mercenaries mostly to win credits with bigger Arab or foreign powers.
The eight-year war in Syria is at once a consequence and a high-water mark of sustained foreign military interventions in the Arab region, and a harbinger of how such foreign and local militarism will operate there for years to come. We can already see in Libya, Lebanon, Yemen, Somalia, Iraq and scattered other corners of our troubled region several noteworthy legacies of today's foreign militarism in Syria and its antecedents since Napoleon.
Regional and foreign powers' rolling interventions in Syria have redefined how such powers engage across the region, where two opposing loose alliances, loosely allied with Saudi Arabia or Iran, now face off -- each comprises Arab states, regional Arab and non-Arab powers, global powers, and local non-state actors. The sheer number and variety of foreign forces that directly or indirectly fought in Syria portend badly for fragile states whose illusory sovereignty can collapse at any moment in the face of dozens of armed actors that pounce like wolves circling a dazed gazelle. The "international community" that actively joined and fueled the fighting also responded weakly to the alleged and real war crimes on both sides This suggests that the "international community" is something of a fiction, but also that, whatever it represents, it can live with the Middle East's continuing authoritarian, lawlessness, and violent political systems -- as long as the violence, refugees, terrorists, and turmoil remain in the Middle East.
Indeed, global and regional powers actively engage in cross-border militarism and neo-colonialism that we can see in several arenas: Washington's support for Israeli settlements expansion and annexations of occupied Arab lands, and its lingering presence in Syria and Iraq; Russian and American support for Turkish incursions into northern Syria; Saudi Arabian and Emirati moves to control parts of the south of Yemen for their own strategic aims; British and American direct involvement in the war on Yemen; and, French, Emirati, Russian, and Egyptian support for the rebel forces of Khalifa Haftar in Libya, to mention only the most obvious.
These are only the most current but ongoing consequences of over two centuries of non-stop foreign military and political interference that our region has experienced, with devastating long-term impacts. Internal and regional wars, in a climate of very high Arab military spending, continue to propel countries back into dilapidated or vulnerable conditions every few decades. The Arab examples of this only increase, including Lebanon, Palestine, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, and Jordan. Non-Arab Iran, Turkey, and Israel face their own challenges, as they simultaneously suffer the damages of external militarism and also engage in it themselves around the region.
It is time for all foreign and regional powers to start learning the hard lessons of these historical trends and instead seek non-violent diplomatic solutions to challenges they now mostly address with their guns blazing. A regional population of half a billion poor and powerless people held in check by hundreds of billions of dollars of military spending linked to foreign troops who enter our countries at will is probably a far greater real threat to their wellbeing than anything they can imagine today.
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Dec 08, 2019 | www.unz.com
Mulegino1 , says: December 5, 2019 at 5:58 pm GMT
Arioch , says: December 5, 2019 at 8:58 pm GMTUS political "elites" are generally appallingly incompetent in matters of war and are "educated" mostly through Hollywood and Clansiesque "literature". I am not even sure that they comprehend what Congressional Research Service prepares for them as compressed briefings. Neocon wing of US political elite is simply mentally inadequate.
Very true, especially the part about "Hollywood and Clansiesque 'literature.'" I used to read Clancy's books and, while entertaining, in retrospect they appear ridiculous, even childish. But they probably capture the popular notion of American military invincibility better than any other.
Most of Hollywood's output is garbage anyway, and its grasp of real war and military matters appears to be that of a not so precocious third grader.
@joe tentpeg> USSR Katyn forrest massacre (Poland), Afghanistan.
Katyn, whoever did it, was much before Cold War and before even first relatively small nuclear blast.
And if you want to go that far – why not remember crisis over West Berlin, where tank armees were watching one another, but no one pulled trigger?
Afghanistan was attacking one's own ally. Same as Prague 1968 and Hungary 1956. If you want to compare – that is like USA invading Panama to remove their no longer reliable puppet Norriega. Did American attack on their own Panama risk USSR going ballistic? Hardly so. There was no Soviet invasion into Pakistan nor there was Chinese/American invasion into India.
And looking away from purely military events, there was no attempt to arrest the whole embassy stuff them, neither in Moscow nor in DC. No killing Soviet ambassadors in NATO states during official events.
Those dirty games had red lines, both sides maintained. Today? Today USA even is no more an entity. You can not negotiate a thing with "America" because there is no such institution any more, but a hellish swarm of infighting spiders, each delightfully breaking anything negotiated by a rival spider.
> deploying conventional anti-ballistic missile defenses around their most important cities.
No, by then effective treaty both USSR and USA had only ONE region they were allowed to protect. Those were some nuclear launchpads in USA i guess, and one single city (Moscow) in USSR. No more.
> deterrence [did not] worked
> See the last phrase in bullet 2.You suppose USSR killed itself trying to keep deterrence working. That does not show it did not work, already. That shows it worked so well (at least from Soviet perspective) that they gambled all they had on the futile effort of keeping that deterrence working into the future.
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Dec 07, 2019 | www.unz.com
Never in the history of America, probably never in the history of any country, had there been such open and direct control of governmental activities by the very rich. So long as a handful of men in Wall Street control the credit and industrial processes of the country, they will continue to control the press, the government, and, by deception, the people. They will not only compel the public to work for them in peace, but to fight for them in war. -- John Turner, 1922
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Dec 07, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com
RC (Ron) Weakley said in reply to ilsm... , December 01, 2019 at 08:16 AM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_United_StatesRC (Ron) Weakley said in reply to RC (Ron) Weakley... , December 01, 2019 at 08:25 AMList of wars involving the United States
[Only the listed war names and dates copied without all the references and details.]
- American Revolutionary War - (1775–1783)
- Cherokee–American wars - (1776–1795)
- Northwest Indian War - (1785–1793)
- Shays' Rebellion - (1786–1787)
- Whiskey Rebellion - (1791–1794)
- Quasi-War - (1798–1800)
- Fries Rebellion - (1799–1800)
- First Barbary War - (1801–1805)
- 1811 German Coast Uprising - (1811)
- Tecumseh's War - (1811)
- War of 1812 - (1812–1815)
- Creek War - (1813–1814)
- Second Barbary War - (1815)
- First Seminole War - (1817–1818)
- Texas–Indian Wars - (1820–1875)
- Arikara War - (1823)
- Aegean Sea Anti-Piracy Operations of the United States - (1825–1828)
- Winnebago War - (1827)
- First Sumatran expedition - (1832)
- Black Hawk War - (1832)
- Texas Revolution - (1835–1836)
- Second Seminole War - (1835–1842)
- Second Sumatran expedition - (1838)
- Aroostook War - (1838)
- Ivory Coast expedition - (1842)
- Mexican–American War - (1846–1848)
- Cayuse War - (1847–1855)
- Apache Wars - (1851–1900)
- Bleeding Kansas - (1854–1861)
- Puget Sound War - (1855–1856)
- First Fiji expedition - (1855)
- Rogue River Wars - (1855–1856)
- Third Seminole War - (1855–1858)
- Yakima War - (1855–1858)
- Second Opium War - (1856–1859)
- Utah War - (1857–1858)
- Navajo Wars - (1858–1866)
- Second Fiji expedition - (1859)
- John Brown's Raid on Harpers Ferry - (1859)
- First and Second Cortina War - (1859–1861)
- Paiute War - (1860)
- American Civil War - (1861–1865)
- Yavapai War - (1861–1875)
- Dakota War of 1862 - (1862)
- Colorado War - (1863–1865)
- Shimonoseki War - (1863–1864)
- Snake War - (1864–1868)
- Powder River War - (1865)
- Red Cloud's War - (1866–1868)
- Formosa expedition - (1867)
- Comanche Campaign - (1867–1875)
- Korea expedition - (1871)
- Modoc War - (1872–1873)
- Red River War - (1874–1875)
- Las Cuevas War - (1875)
- Great Sioux War of 1876 - (1876–1877)
- Buffalo Hunters' War - (1876–1877)
- Nez Perce War - (1877)
- Bannock War - (1878)
- Cheyenne War - (1878–1879)
- Sheepeater Indian War - (1879)
- White River War - (1879–1880)
- Pine Ridge Campaign - (1890–1891)
- Garza Revolution - (1891–1893)
- Yaqui Wars - (1896–1918)
- Second Samoan Civil War - (1898–1899)
- Spanish–American War - (1898)
- Philippine–American War - (1899–1902)
- Moro Rebellion - (1899–1913)
- Boxer Rebellion - (1899–1901)
- Crazy Snake Rebellion - (1909)
- Border War - (1910–1919)
- Negro Rebellion - (1912)
- Occupation of Nicaragua - (1912–1933)
- Bluff War - (1914–1915)
- Occupation of Veracruz - (1914)
- Occupation of Haiti - (1915–1934)
- Occupation of the Dominican Republic - (1916–1924)
- World War I - (1914–1918)
- Russian Civil War - (1918–1920)
- Last Indian Uprising - (1923)
- World War II - (1939–1945)
- Korean War - (1950–1953)
- Laotian Civil War - (1953–1975)
- Lebanon Crisis - (1958)
- Bay of Pigs Invasion - (1961)
- Simba rebellion, Operation Dragon Rouge - (1964)
- Vietnam War - (1955–1964[a], 1965–1973[b], 1974–1975[c])
- Communist insurgency in Thailand - (1965–1983)
- Korean DMZ Conflict - (1966–1969)
- Dominican Civil War - (1965–1966)
- Insurgency in Bolivia - (1966–1967)
- Cambodian Civil War - (1967–1975)
- War in South Zaire - (1978)
- Gulf of Sidra encounter - (1981)
- Multinational Intervention in Lebanon - (1982–1984)
- Invasion of Grenada - (1983)
- Action in the Gulf of Sidra - (1986)
- Bombing of Libya - (1986)
- Tanker War - (1987–1988)
- Tobruk encounter - (1989)
- Invasion of Panama - (1989–1990)
- Gulf War - (1990–1991)
- Iraqi No-Fly Zone Enforcement Operations - (1991–2003)
- First U.S. Intervention in the Somali Civil War - (1992–1995)
- Bosnian War - (1992–1995)
- Intervention in Haiti - (1994–1995)
- Kosovo War - (1998–1999)
- Operation Infinite Reach - (1998)
- War in Afghanistan - (2001–present)
- 2003 invasion of Iraq - (2003)
- Iraq War - (2003–2011)
- War in North-West Pakistan - (2004–present)
- Second U.S. Intervention in the Somali Civil War - (2007–present)
- Operation Ocean Shield - (2009–2016)
- International intervention in Libya - (2011)
- Operation Observant Compass - (2011–2017)
- American-led intervention in Iraq - (2014–present)
- American-led intervention in Syria - (2014–present)
- Yemeni Civil War - (2015–present)
- American intervention in Libya - (2015–present)
{ finis }
This list tells quite a story. It deserves a name such as "US History Written in Blood," but more ironically and yet sufficient would be "An Inconvenient List." In any case, mass murder for fun and profit has defined war throughout the entire history of humankind. That in the modern era of late that the US has pioneered rentier capitalism as a means of extracting profits from the industrial war machine is a matter of the natural evolution of state sanctioned murder, far better at returning profits to investors than the mere slaughter of stone age natives to steal their land.RC (Ron) Weakley said in reply to RC (Ron) Weakley... , December 01, 2019 at 08:45 AMNeoconservatives in this context are traditionalists rather than some aberration of modern political thought.RC (Ron) Weakley said in reply to RC (Ron) Weakley... , December 01, 2019 at 08:50 AMOTOH, pacifism is indeed an aberration of political thought, not necessarily an unwarranted aberration, yet one that should be subject to close inspection for its bona fides. My Cherokee ancestors inform me to always be suspect of the good intentions of white men claiming that they despise war.ilsm -> RC (Ron) Weakley... , December 03, 2019 at 05:14 AMRome martyred Christians bc up to Constantine they were all "draft dodgers".ilsm -> RC (Ron) Weakley... , December 03, 2019 at 05:20 AMPacifism for me is individual. I was a cold warrior (pacifist not!) from '72 to '85 when I went from supporting operating weapons to the "dark side" in weapons development, which a lot was also nuclear related.JohnH -> RC (Ron) Weakley... , December 02, 2019 at 07:59 AMOne of the first things that happened after Trump announced his withdrawal [not!] from Syria is that Pelosi hopped on a plane to Jordan:RC (Ron) Weakley said in reply to JohnH... , December 02, 2019 at 12:30 PM"House Speaker Nancy Pelosi led a group of American lawmakers on a surprise visit to Jordan to discuss "the deepening crisis" in Syria amid a shaky U.S.-brokered cease-fire."
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/20/nancy-pelosi-goes-to-jordan-for-vital-discussions-about-syria-crisis.htmlI mean, what's with that?
It's pretty obvious that Team Pelosi is more concerned with the affairs of the Empire, even though she has no constitutional responsibility. than for the welfare of the American people. The focus of the impeachment hearing on American policy in Ukraine is further evidence.
Meanwhile, I have gotten no answer to my basic question: what are the top 5 pieces of progressive legislation that Pelosi has passed--legislation that representations can brag about to their constituents when running in 2020? It's pretty obvious that their have been almost none.
Team Pelosi has gone rogue as has Trump.
Yet, I have been assured by others here at EV that our two party representative political system is not merely engaging in so much Kabuki theatre in order to appear relevant. Who knew?kurt -> RC (Ron) Weakley... , December 02, 2019 at 05:02 PMOutside of the fact that this fellow is a liar of monumental proportion - for instance, this post alone contains 3 different lies - it is fundamentally untrue that BOTH parties are just engaged in theater. One actually passes legislation to help people and to reduce the influence of $$$. The other - as former Republican party member Norm Orenstein has pointed out - is anti-democracy, pro-despotism and a insurgent danger with a propaganda arm.ilsm -> kurt... , December 03, 2019 at 05:12 AMHuh... all team Pelosi/Schumer of is rant against the US constitution, demean the congress, disdain the office of the President and make up things about the Donald.ilsm -> JohnH... , December 03, 2019 at 05:08 AMSee the continuing resolution good through 20 Dec because Pelosi who owns the House won't face the responsibility to try and run the US government's purse.
Team Pelosi like the faux liberals are sponsored by the same owners of the swamp!JohnH -> EMichael... , December 05, 2019 at 05:13 PMNever attribute to Trump derangement what can be explained by a criminal conspiracy.
More selective outrage from EMichael, the partisan hack.kurt -> EMichael... , December 06, 2019 at 11:18 AMSure, it's horrendous that Trump pardoned a war criminal. But let's not forget that Obama never even prosecuted torturers ... or closed Guantanamo as promised.
As usual for EMichael and his ilk, what's a horror when their party does something, it's perfectly acceptable when his party does it.
All these years of being a almost pacifist and now I am seeing the error in my ways. Sometimes - hopefully increasingly less often - good people must rise up and stomp out evil. The pardons were not just condoning war crimes - it was telling the nazi ahs in the ranks that they can do the same domestically. The right has an army within the US. Most of the officers are okay - but that said, they are tolerating nazis, white supremacists, oathkeepers and dominionists in their ranks. These exceptions are to let the other nazis know they can mass murder if the want.
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Dec 07, 2019 | www.unz.com
gsjackson , says: Next New Comment December 7, 2019 at 3:44 am GMT
@Z-man I wasn't sure how to characterize McMaster and Kelly. My sense was that they represented the foreign policy establishment consensus, ergo neocon by default.TellTheTruth-2 , says: Website Next New Comment December 7, 2019 at 3:50 am GMTI share your optimism about Trump -- because it's the only strand of hope out there, and his enemies are so impeccably loathsome -- but am fully prepared to be proved wrong.
The neocon communist warmongers have Trump all tied up. Trumping Trump: A Gulliver Strategy (right click) https://medium.com/everyvote/trumping-trump-a-gulliver-strategy-3fc96e4d5d93renfro , says: Next New Comment December 7, 2019 at 4:53 am GMTfreedom-cat , says: Next New Comment December 7, 2019 at 5:51 am GMT"How did this unusual and dysfunctional situation come about? One possibility is that it was the doing and legacy of the neocon John Bolton, briefly Trump's national security adviser. But this doesn't explain why the president would accept or long tolerate such appointees."
It started before Bolton came on board.
Believe Trump when he says "Loyalty to me first". And that begins with his son in law Jared .his former personal attorney Jason Greenblatt .his former bankruptcy attorney David Friedman and his largest donor Sheldon Adelson .
Trump is too stupid to see that his Zios have no loyalty to him. Trump doesn't appoint anyone, doesn't even know anyone to appoint to national security or foreign policy. He never had any associations or confidents in his business life in NY except the above Jews .
Ask yourself how a 29 year old Jewish boy (now gone) with zero experience got brought onto the WH NSC. He was recommended by Gen. Flynn who did it as a favor to Zio Frank Gaffney of Iraq fame, and Jared because he was a friend of Jared and Gaffney was a friend Ezra's family. ..getting the picture?
All Trumps appointments look like a chain letter started by Kushner and his Zio connections.
It may be as simple as Trump does not really know what he's doing. He doesn't seem to understand the complexity and dynamics of foreign policy. The way he handled Israel is an example as well as some of the bombs he ordered dropped on Afghanistan and Syria. Was he behind that or was someone else?Erebus , says: Next New Comment December 7, 2019 at 10:34 am GMTHe's a walking contradiction.
After Bolton came onboard, and then Eliot Abrams, the 24/7 Russia-gate suddenly stopped. That was also around the time USA was fomenting a Venezuelan coup. Was obvious that Russia-Gate was designed to control Trump.
There was a lull in the attacks on Trump between the time they stopped the 24/7 Russia-gate garbage and start of Impeachment inquiry.
He did something else to tick them all off, so now impeachment is on front burner.
@FBPandour , says: Website Next New Comment December 7, 2019 at 1:37 pm GMTthe 'permanent foreign policy establishment'
AKA, the Imperial Staff.
In the days of Kissinger, Baker, et al the Imperial Staff were well coached in the Calculus of Power, knew the limits to Empire and thrived within them. Since the end of history, and the apparent end of limits, policy makers had no more need of realists and their confusing calculations and analyses.
The US had power, and no-one else had any. That's all they needed to know, and set about creating new, wonderfully intoxicating realities. As Rove famously inverted the MO they'll act first, creating realities and the analysis and calculation can come later. In awe of their creations, they failed to notice that while history may have ended in Washington, elsewhere it moved on to surround them with a reality where they found themselves in zugzwang, with no understanding how they got there. Flailing (and wailing) like a Mastodon in a tar pit, they've managed only to attract an unhelpful crowd of onlookers, fascinated by the abomination.
In the second term watch out Trump is not as dumb as they think
I too believe he isn't dumb, but the real question is whether he's playing the fool in furtherance of a plan, or whether it's just who he is and his successes are accidental.
The Deep State's (aka: PFPE's) ongoing behaviour indicates that Trump's using buffoonery to work a plan that's anathema to their created realities, and their increasing shrillness indicates it's working. At every turn, he's managed to make unavailable the resources their reality called for. From the M.E., to the Ukraine to N. Korea to Venezuela, things just aren't working the way they're supposed to. In fact, they're invariably working out in a way that exposes the Deep State's ineptitude and malevolence, and maximizes its embarrassment.
If that's so, his is the most extraordinary political performance I thought I'd ever see. Even though I can't imagine a more effective single handed way to accomplish what he promised to do, that he's lasted this long and has been so effective is astonishing. I guess we'll see if he abandons buffoonery when his opponents finally sink into the tar.
Fascinating.
Decades old rhetorical question and answer-the indolent, indoctrinated and illiterate masses who only care about the Super Bowl and other sports,Disneyland and burgers. Twelve per cent of Americans have never heard of the Vice President Mike Pence - that is 30,870,000 American adults.Johnny Walker Read , says: Next New Comment December 7, 2019 at 2:11 pm GMTWho Is Making US Foreign Policy?It is the same people who have been making it since the creation of central banks in America (all three of them).
Never in the history of America, probably never in the history of any country, had there been such open and direct control of governmental activities by the very rich. So long as a handful of men in Wall Street control the credit and industrial processes of the country, they will continue to control the press, the government, and, by deception, the people. They will not only compel the public to work for them in peace, but to fight for them in war. – John Turner, 1922
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Dec 07, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com
Fred C. Dobbs , December 01, 2019 at 07:12 AM
We've turned our attention to Latin America again. That's bad for Latin America.anne -> Fred C. Dobbs... , December 01, 2019 at 09:51 AM
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2019/11/27/opinion/weve-turned-our-attention-latin-america-again-thats-bad-latin-america/?event=event25 via @BostonGlobeStephen Kinzer - November 27
As Bolivian soldiers were firing tear gas at a funeral for slain protesters recently, the US State Department issued a statement saluting "Bolivia's political transition to democracy" and declaring that the military leaders who had just overthrown the elected government were "standing up for their constitution." It was the latest example of intensifying US support for violently oppressive regimes south of our border. We are paying attention to Latin America again. That's bad news for Latin America.
The US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan nearly 20 years ago are sometimes described as wars in which everyone lost. In an odd way, though, Latin America won those wars. For more than a decade, the US government focused so obsessively on the Middle East that it forgot about Latin America. Free of intervention from Washington, voters in several countries elected progressive or leftist leaders whom the United States would never have tolerated in an earlier era. That cycle is now ending. The United States is returning to its traditional role in Latin America, embracing retrograde regimes just as we did during the dark days of military dictatorship in the 1970s and 1980s.
In Bolivia, the landlocked heart of South America, the military deposed President Evo Morales on Nov. 10 after opponents charged that he had used fraud to secure his re-election three weeks earlier. Morales was Bolivia's first indigenous president and an outspoken socialist. He had nationalized the oil and gas industries. Some feared that he was preparing to limit foreign exploitation of his country's rich lithium deposits. His indigenous identity was a permanent affront to the white ruling class. The little-known politician who has installed herself as provisional president, Jeanine Añez, once tweeted: "I dream of a Bolivia free of satanic indigenous rituals."
Morales may have -- manipulated election laws to give himself an extra presidential term. But in its first days, the new regime has shown little democratic impulse. Morales has been forced to flee the country. Senior members of his party have been attacked or arrested. If his masses of indigenous followers are pushed back into political isolation despite constituting the country's majority, many will feel disenfranchised and angry.
Their cousins in Honduras would know the feeling. Late one night in 2009, the elected Honduran president, Manuel Zelaya, who like Morales had alienated both the United States and his own ruling elite, was pulled out of bed and put on a plane out of the country while still in his pajamas. In the decade since then, the new regime in Honduras has eagerly handed out mining and hydroelectric contracts to foreign corporations. It has abolished term limits for presidents -- the very sin for which we denounced President Morales in Bolivia. Mass protests have been harshly suppressed. Environmental activists are killed with impunity.
Last month in a New York court, the brother of Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez was convicted on charges of large-scale drug trafficking. A witness testified that the drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman had contributed $1 million to Hernandez's presidential campaign. Yet just a couple of days after the trial ended, the senior American diplomat in Honduras was photographed partying with President Hernandez. Hondurans who saw those pictures could hardly miss the message: the United States happily supports a Latin American government that holds power unconstitutionally, allows political killers to rampage freely, and is widely reported to be infiltrated by drug traffickers -- as long as it is friendly to the United States. How has Honduras showed that friendship? By keeping leftists out of power and agreeing to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
The other Latin American country in which the United States is most assiduously wrecking prospects for democracy is Guatemala. Like neighboring Honduras, it has long been dominated by a clique of lavishly corrupt oligarchs. But over the last decade, a force has emerged that for the first time mounted a serious challenge to drug traffickers, larcenous politicians, organized-crime kingpins, and death squad leaders. In 2006, the government invited a squad of investigators and prosecutors assembled by the United Nations to come to Guatemala and build cases against powerful criminals. Since then the squad, known by the Spanish acronym CICIG, has secured more than 400 convictions and deeply shaken the political elite. Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama recognized that this process might help stabilize Guatemala, and provided moral support and funding for CICIG.
This year, at the request of senior Guatemalan officials who seemed likely to be indicted for corruption, the State Department agreed to stop backing CICIG. That crippled the first serious effort in generations to confront the violent corruption that throttles civic life in Guatemala. What did President Trump ask in return? That Guatemala open an embassy in Jerusalem and agree to serve as a "safe haven" for Honduran and Salvadoran immigrants the United States doesn't want to accept -- a sick joke considering that Guatemala is plagued by violence and has one of the world's highest murder rates.
Bashing leftists in Latin America and embracing their quasi-fascist enemies is one of Washington's oldest habits. It feels good and pays electoral dividends in Florida. Bolivians, Hondurans, and Guatemalans might be forgiven for wishing that United States would once again plunge into all-consuming war somewhere far away. That might allow them to try shaping their societies as they see fit.
Important and appreciated post.Paine -> anne... , December 01, 2019 at 06:25 PMWaitjoe , December 01, 2019 at 09:24 AMThe uncle LA policy
has nothing but continuityGoing back to 1979
Review moves made under Barry
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-09-25/boise-homeless-encampment-amicus-brief-supreme-court-appeal-citiesIn addition to L.A., others in California submitting briefs include Sacramento, San Diego, Fresno, Riverside and Orange counties, as well as a slew of cities, including Sacramento, Fullerton, Torrance and Newport Beach. Several states including Idaho, Texas and Alaska have as well. Their reasons for doing so vary.
"We're saying that we agree with the central tenet of Boise that no one should be susceptible to punishment for sleeping on a sidewalk at night if there's no alternative shelter at that point," said Los Angeles City Atty. Mike Feuer. "But the rationale sweeps too broadly ... It makes the opinion unclear and, therefore, the opinion raises more issues than are resolved. And so it leaves jurisdictions like us without the certainty that we need."
---
The ninth curt ruling specified that without enough shelters, public camping cannot be banned.LA is spewing horse manure, claiming they want a humane solution, but they are filing to have the ruling overturned. LA wants to ban homeless camping and they make up a bunch of irrational horse manure because they had already invited the homeless to California with promises of shelter that does not exits. They re caught in a contradiction and end up talking out of the side of their mouth.
And no, more national debt to promise apartments for everyone just make inequality worse because we end up doing bad deals with the primary dealers. The evidence is in on that. Our ten year experiment of the '50 little hoovers' crowd has been proven fraudulent.
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Dec 07, 2019 | economistsview.typepad.com
ilsm -> JohnH... , November 29, 2019 at 09:05 AM
The average demorat, aside from worshipping Ba'al and hating the constitution, is depraved, been such since crooked Hillary forgot that the neocon, empire spreading, war mongering liberals living on the coasts do not run the world.RC (Ron) Weakley said in reply to ilsm... , November 30, 2019 at 11:56 AM"...the neocon, empire spreading, war mongering liberals living on the coasts do not run the world."RC (Ron) Weakley said in reply to RC (Ron) Weakley... , November 30, 2019 at 12:04 PM[Who says that they do not? Certainly, it is close enough to that for government work. Besides, in the end corporations and the interests of the donor class dictate the rules of engagement for both illiberal and unconservative politicians. How the dogs of politics fight over scraps thrown out for them should be of less interest to the wage class than who is throwing out the scraps to them.]
Of course a former Air Force military hardware procurements officer likely knows no more about present day life among the wage class than a banker. That would be like thinking that a kid raised in poverty by the welfare state knew how to farm. Still, it is possible for either one to be haunted by guilt late in life.ilsm -> RC (Ron) Weakley... , December 01, 2019 at 06:26 AMI stand correct the closet cultural Marxists running with wall st centered on the left coasts forgot to fix the electoral college.RC (Ron) Weakley said in reply to ilsm... , December 01, 2019 at 06:35 AMYou are bound with your adversaries in ways known only to God, not a religious testimonial but merely a proxy for the abstraction of omniscience. Some things can be seen as clear as day and remain a complete mystery, to me at least.ilsm -> EMichael... , November 29, 2019 at 09:08 AM" Ethical military decision-making does not make us weak; it makes us strong. "RC (Ron) Weakley said in reply to ilsm... , November 30, 2019 at 12:15 PMHow does Obama busting up Libya, drone assassinating US citizens and arming up al Qaeda to give them Syria fit?
Trump has committed lesser war crimes than hios predecessors, and that gets hiom in trouble with the establishment....
At the very least Trump is guilty of being Trump. So, if you believe the charges against Trump are Trumped up, then what else would you expect?RC (Ron) Weakley said in reply to RC (Ron) Weakley... , November 30, 2019 at 12:16 PMJust war theory and military ethics crumble to dust on the battle field. We rarely fight because it is right, but rather because in some context it seemed necessary at the time. After 9/11 there was an imperative that the US military wage an extended war against any and every group of Muslims that defied US global hegemony in any way.
The US Constitution was written and then rewritten repeatedly in blood going all the way back to Apr 19, 1775. That is what it means to be an American, son, my Cherokee ancestors notwithstanding.
We are all brethren, fellow sons of a bloody mother...
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Dec 06, 2019 | theamericanconservative.com
In the Year of Our Lord 2019, sixteen years after this nation launched the catastrophic Iraq War, the following words were spoken on Capitol Hill this week:
We have become the shining city on a hill. We have become the nation that leads the world in understanding what democracy is. And one of the things we understand most profoundly is it's not a real democracy, it's not a mature democracy, if the party in power uses the criminal process to go after its enemies. And I think you heard testimony - the Intelligence Committee heard testimony about how it isn't just our national interest in protecting our own elections. It's not just our national interest in making sure that the Ukraine remains strong and on the front line so they fight the Russians there and we don't have to fight them here, but it's also our national interest in promoting democracy worldwide.
This was not the second coming of the Wolfowitz-Cheney-Bolton brigade. This was Pamela Karlan, a Stanford law professor and Democrat called by her party to testify in this week's House Judiciary Committee impeachment hearing.
Wellsir, I'm old enough to remember 2002, when the Bush administration and its allies built a case for the Iraq War, using the often-heard line, "We fight the terrorists over there so we don't have to fight them here." Seriously, young folks, look it up online.
And I'm old enough to remember these lines from President Bush's second inaugural address, in 2005:
There is only one force of history that can break the reign of hatred and resentment, and expose the pretensions of tyrants, and reward the hopes of the decent and tolerant, and that is the force of human freedom.
We are led, by events and common sense, to one conclusion: The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world.
America's vital interests and our deepest beliefs are now one. From the day of our Founding, we have proclaimed that every man and woman on this earth has rights, and dignity, and matchless value, because they bear the image of the Maker of Heaven and earth. Across the generations we have proclaimed the imperative of self-government, because no one is fit to be a master, and no one deserves to be a slave. Advancing these ideals is the mission that created our Nation. It is the honorable achievement of our fathers. Now it is the urgent requirement of our nation's security, and the calling of our time.
So it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.
That didn't work out too well for us, for Iraq, or for the Middle East.
And now comes Prof. Karlan, using the same rhetoric to characterize the conflict between the US and Russia in Ukraine. She was there to talk about the legal aspects of impeachment, but she bizarrely tipped her hand by trashing Trump because he failed to play his part as a warmonger.
Loetzen • 9 hours ago • edited ,Fran Macadam Rod Dreher • 8 hours ago ,The American elites didn't learn a damn thing from IraqOn the contrary. They learned that, via deceptive rhetoric and on false pretenses, they could easily manoeuver the U.S. into fighting a war on behalf of another nation's interests rather than its own, and face no repercussions for committing such treason, no matter how many lives it costs and how much it impoverishes the U.S. (to say nothing of what bloodshed and chaos it will cause in the targeted nation -- because after all, destabilization is the point).
The same thing will happen here. Lesson learned.
Augustine • 9 hours ago ,There are, as Victoria Nuland put it, 5 billion reasons for backing the CIA-led coup that overthrew an elected government and replaced it with leaders that the she and the rest of the Obama/Clinton State Department chose. It was the Democrats, since the nineties under another Clinton, that decided to move the American military right up to Russia's borders, interfere in the 1996 election to keep the puppet Yeltsin in power, and with Wall Street leaders to pillage the Russian economy with the stated end to break up Russia into smaller satrapies with governments appointed by the IMF.
Did Joe Biden brag about a quid proof not releasing funds to the Ukraine until it ended the probe into Burisma, which was paying son Hunter millions, and dismiss the investigators altogether? Does it turn out Ukrainian power brokers favored under Obama then sought to influence the American elections against Trump, viewed as wanting to make peace with Russia? Yes, and yes.
GoDawgs912 Rod Dreher • 6 hours ago ,The US are not a democracy, since the people do not rule. Rather, it's an oligarchy, since a few influential groups do get their way all the time. Pamela is just shilling for one of these groups, the war party.
It does not matter who you vote for, you always get John McCain.
ask zippy Rod Dreher • 5 hours ago ,Agreed, I hope the Republicans agree to impeach him immediately after Election Day if he does win (which I think he will due to the opposition candidates). I'd much prefer Mike Pence to represent us than freaking Trump. I voted third party last time, but even as bad as Trump is, he's not nearly as bad as every democratic front runner.
Why the Democratic Party doesn't back Tulsi Gabard is insane, she's the only candidate who everyone could be somewhat happy with.
Taking a "Unity-Party" angle this election and nominating an anti-war military Veteran who's also a super patriotic minority women would absolutely destroy Trump. She's also a religious conservative while simultaneously being a sane social liberal, she satisfies some of the concerns of literally every part of the electorate. A Tulsi Gabard/ Joe Manchin ticket would be an 84 level blowout. A Joe Biden/ Kamala Harris ticket is literally the best thing that has ever happened to Trump. Trump will never beat an actually decent candidate, he occupies the White House because Clinton was the worst candidate in American history. He's (probably) going to win again because his opponents are even more unpopular and incompetent than he is.
TomD Rabiner • 7 hours ago • edited ,An article from someone I trust on that evidence which is not hearsay would be useful, any chance you would write one? I ask because impeachment is either political or legal. If it's political then it's just the normal noise from D.C., if it's legal then I want legal standards of evidence. The times I've paid attention the "evidence" has been at the level of someone told me they overhead a phone conversation or we all believed this, but Trump directly told me the opposite of what we all believed.
I'm looking for something like saying "I did not have sex with that woman" under oath as evidence of committing perjury.
Mitch Young Rabiner • 6 hours ago ,...OTOH, Trump's move against Hunter Biden could possibly be a "high crime and misdemeanor" worthy of impeachment, but given the existence of Acts of Congress against foreign corrupt practices and the New York Times investigation of Hunter Biden, it becomes hard to untangle Trump's motives. It would seem to be difficult to prove that an impeachable "high crime and misdemeanor" occurred if probable cause for a Hunter Biden investigation existed. If we prove (NOT assume, as the Dems currently are doing) that probable cause did not exist then impeachment would be a slam dunk. If we don't prove that then Trump's impeachment will not be seen as legitimate by large segments of the public. We really are teetering on the edge of something deep here.
Max Rockatansky • 9 hours ago ,You think that finding out what the son of a sitting vice President, a VP who was also 'point man' for Ukraine, was doing getting millions from a corrupt Ukrainian entity is strictly 'personal gain'? You think that looking into Ukrainian influence into our election is 'personal gain'?
Loetzen Max Rockatansky • 7 hours ago • edited ,Oh the spreading of democracy worldwide nonsense again! Democracies are earned not given, that lesson cost us trillions and in blood! This sycophant also brought up Pres. Trumps son Baron into the proceedings for no good reason but to score points at tea time back at Stanford. What a demagogue.
Seoulite Max Rockatansky • 6 hours ago ,It's always such a lie too, because it's never really about spreading "democracy" -- that is, they don't at all like the spread of true democracy when the people genuinely prefer and vote for Putin, Assad, Orban, etc., to say nothing of when democracy demonstrates the true will of the people in cases such as Brexit.
No, they are only using the mendacious phrase "spreading democracy" as a cover for what they really want to spread: globalist neoliberalism.
Jerry • 8 hours ago ,Democracies are earned not given, that lesson cost us trillions and in blood!
Yes please give us more democracy, so the uniparty can sell our jobs to global capital and our children's future to foreigners. Nations have survived tyranny, despots, and brutal civil wars. It is not at all clear whether the nations of the West will survive your beloved democracy.
sb • 8 hours ago ,...Of course, anyone with a brain knows it's not about Ukraine, a country having no bearing at all on the vital interests of the United States. Rather, Ukraine is a handy pretext serving the interests of America's military-industrial complex and the enrichment of our Ruling Class.
... ... ...
Stefan • 8 hours ago ,If Trump wanted to prove a really great president, he could forge a peace with Russia (which would entail getting a settlement with Ukraine). It is insane, and only to the benefit of woke liberal capitalists to frame Russia as a permanent enemy. Carving developed nations into 'us vs them', so the liberal elite can divide and rule us. They use this strategy on multiple fronts, to ensure success:
- US vs Russia
- US/UK vs EU
- 'pseudo-Christian' west vs islam
- 1st world vs multicutural diversity migration
Pragmatically, we will need an alliance with Russia (and possibly with a post-communist China) to stave off the invading colonisers looking to grift a free lunch in the 'rich' west (its only the 1% wealthy in the west who are really rich, not the >90% peasant class), not to mention the ideologically/religiously motivated muslims planning to implement the global sharia subjugation of the pseudo-Christian west demanded in the Koran.
Sadly, Trump does seem to be proving he lacks the organisational skills to drain the swamp - a virtually impossible task for any one person. A 'friendship pact' with Russia (perhaps swapping trade access to US for human rights, democratic and media freedoms in Russia) would be a big step forward to building a united free west. Perhaps bring Poland and Hungary in to to reassure Russia, and strengthen the protections for Christians and traditional family life. But for this to happen Trump needs to have a Secretary of State he trusts heavily.
Fun times to look forward to anyway...
jeremyjanson • 7 hours ago ,... Signify... whatever, anything, but please not too much thinking. Same with Washington's foreign policy blob. What matters is that the world's is forced to take America's opinions into account, no matter how bone-headed they are. If they put the world on fire that's called collateral damage (Ledeen Doctrine).
Brendan • 7 hours ago ,What I find funniest about this whole "impeachment" shenanigan is how the Democrats honestly think anyone doesn't believe they're guilty of exactly what they're accusing Trump of. All Trump has to do is reveal seven such cases to the American people after this whole shenanigan is over and turn their own words against them and they are THROUGH! This might honestly be the biggest political mistake in the history of our Republic.
Disqus10021 • 7 hours ago ,The whole thing is nonsense. Democracy is particular to the West, and is frankly innately fragile and dying a proper death -- slowly, mind you, but dying it is, and thankfully so.
The whole Russia situation is hilarious and a thousand percent ideological. I sat next to these same assholes in college in the 1980s as they blithely handwaved "no true Scotsman" type arguments about the Soviet Union, and moral equivalency and so on, and then of course without their precious hearts skipping one single beat, they switched immediately to "Russia is evil and must be stopped at all costs" when Russia emerged with a nationalist/rightist government.
The left is shameless, duplicitous and disingenous in the extreme when it comes to Russia (and frankly anything else). To be honest it was my collegiate experiences in the 1980s, comparing the handwaving garbage with what my own eyes saw in the East Bloc, that made me a lifetime, permanent rightist. The left is bankrupt, full of liars and dissemblers and needs to be stopped at any cost.
SatirevFlesti • 7 hours ago ,My guess is that Russia has enough nuclear weapons and the capability to launch them at every major city in the US. Vladimir is no drunkard like Boris Yeltsin was. We should not provoke the Russian bear into lashing out at the US. The old Soviet Union lost some 20 million of its citizens in WWII and did the heavy lifting in defeating the Nazis. Hands up if you want to send your 19 year old son to fight the Russians in Sevastopol. Does the average American even know where Sevastopol is? More than likely, a war with Russia would result in the nuclear bombing of New York, Silicon Valley, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas and Houston for starters.
GoDawgs912 • 7 hours ago ,I'd highly recommend the films "Ukraine on Fire" and "Revealing Ukraine" (available on Amazon Prime w/o extra rental $) for a good basic primer on the Ukraine over the last 15 years, particularly of US interference and malfeasance in promoting the coup in 2014. And if anyone "interfered" in the 2016 election it wasn't Russia, but the Ukraine, particularly its very pro-Hilary President Poroshenko (illegitimate though he was and remains after the unconstitutional US-backed coup in against Yanukovich in 2014).
NATO should have been moth-balled c. 1992. Instead it is hell-bent on aggressive expansion and antagonizing Russia, for no reason (other than to line the pockets of corrupt US and other officials, "business-men" i.e. oligarchs, etc.).
I'm halfway cheering for Russia in their conflict with Ukraine. That's Russia's sphere of influence, Ukraine has no business in the EU or in NATO. Any sane American government would be courting Russia in the new Cold War that's obviously coming with The Chinese Communist Party. Instead we pulled all of the former European countries in the USSR into our sphere of influence. The whole conflict was completely avoidable and is 100% due to America's and Western Europe's dumb actions since the fall of the USSR.
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Dec 06, 2019 | www.unz.com
President Trump campaigned and was elected on an anti-neocon platform: he promised to reduce direct US involvement in areas where, he believed, America had no vital strategic interest, including in Ukraine. He also promised a new détente ("cooperation") with Moscow.And yet, as we have learned from their recent congressional testimony, key members of his own National Security Council did not share his views and indeed were opposed to them. Certainly, this was true of Fiona Hill and Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman. Both of them seemed prepared for a highly risky confrontation with Russia over Ukraine, though whether retroactively because of Moscow's 2014 annexation of Crimea or for more general reasons was not entirely clear.
Similarly, Trump was slow in withdrawing Marie Yovanovitch, a career foreign service officer appointed by President Obama as ambassador to Kiev, who had made clear, despite her official position in Kiev, that she did not share the new American president's thinking about Ukraine or Russia. In short, the president was surrounded in his own administration, even in the White House, by opponents of his foreign policy and presumably not only in regard to Ukraine.
How did this unusual and dysfunctional situation come about? One possibility is that it was the doing and legacy of the neocon John Bolton, briefly Trump's national security adviser. But this doesn't explain why the president would accept or long tolerate such appointees.
A more plausible explanation is that Trump thought that by appointing such anti-Russian hard-liners he could lay to rest the Russiagate allegations that had hung over him for three years and still did: that for some secret nefarious reason he was and remained a "Kremlin puppet." Despite the largely exculpatory Mueller report, Trump's political enemies, mostly Democrats but not only, have kept the allegations alive.
The larger question is who should make American foreign policy: an elected president or Washington's permanent foreign policy establishment? (It is scarcely a "deep" or "secret" state, since its representatives appear on CNN and MSNBC almost daily.) Today, Democrats seem to think that it should be the foreign policy establishment, not President Trump. But having heard the cold-war views of much of that establishment, how will they feel when a Democrat occupies the White House? After all, eventually Trump will leave power, but Washington's foreign-policy "blob," as even an Obama aide termed it , will remain.
Listen to the podcast here . Stephen F. Cohen Stephen F. Cohen is a professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New York University and Princeton University. A Nation contributing editor, his most recent book, War With Russia? From Putin & Ukraine to Trump & Russiagate , is available in paperback and in an ebook edition. His weekly conversations with the host of The John Batchelor Show , now in their sixth year, are available at www.thenation.com .
Curmudgeon , says: December 5, 2019 at 8:49 pm GMT
Rebel0007 , says: December 5, 2019 at 10:38 pm GMTbecause of Moscow's 2014 annexation of Crimea or for more general reasons was not entirely clear.
In an otherwise decent overview, this sticks out like a sore thumb. It would be helpful to stop using the word annexation. While correct in a technical sense – that Crimea was added to the Russian Federation – the word comes with all kinds of connotations, that imply illegality and or force. Given Crimea was given special status when gifted to Ukraine for administration by the USSR, one could just as easily apply "annexation" of Crimea to Ukraine. After Ukraine voted to "leave" the USSR, Crimea voted to join Ukraine. Obviously the "Ukrainian" vote did not include Crimea. Even after voting to join Ukraine, Crimea had special status within Ukraine, and was semi autonomous. If you can vote to join, you can vote to leave. Either you have the right to self determination, or you don't.
This is what is so infuriating, Stephen! These silent coups of the executive branch have been taking place for my entire life! Both parties are guilty of refusing to appoint cabinet members that the elected presidents would have chosen for themselves, because both parties are more interested in making the president of the opposing party look bad, make him ineffective, and incapable of carrying out policies that he was elected to carry out. That is the very definition of treason!National Institute for Study of the O... , says: December 5, 2019 at 11:00 pm GMTThings are a disaster. The JCPOA is at the heart of the issue and Trump and his advisors stubborn refusal to capitulate on this issue very well may cause Trump to lose the 2020 election. Trump's anti-Iranian fever is every bit as ludicrous as the DNC's anti-Russian fever. There is absolutely nothing to support the anti-Iranian policy argument or the anti JCPOA argument. The only thing that is missing from all of this is Iranian hookers, and that would certainly be an explosive headline!
The anti-Iranian fever has created so much havoc not only with Iran, but with every country on earth other than Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. Germany announced that it is seeking to unite with Russia, not only for Gazprom, but is now considering purchasing defense systems from Russia, and Germany is dictating EU policy, by and large. Germany has said that Europe must be able to defend itself independent of America and is requesting an EU military and Italy is on board with this idea, seeking to create jobs and weapons for its economy and defense.
The EU is fed up with the economic sanctions placed on countries that the U.S. has black-listed, particularly Russia and Iran, and China as well for Huwaei 5G.
Nobody in their right mind could ever claim this to be the free market capitalism that Larry Kudlow espouses!
You know why Rhodes called it the blob, right? Why he made it sound so formless and squishy? Ask yourself, how does a failed novelist with zilch for foreign-affairs credentials get the big job of Obama's ventriloquist? That's a CIA billet. It so happens that Rhodes' brother has a big job of his own with CBS News, the most servile of the Mockingbird media propaganda mills.follyofwar , says: December 5, 2019 at 11:53 pm GMTIt's not a blob, it's a precisely-articulated hierarchy. And the top of it is CIA. So please for once somebody answer this blindingly obvious question, Who is making US foreign policy? CIA, that's who. For the CIA show trial run by Iran/Contra nomenklatura Bill Barr and his blackmailed flunky Durham, Trump's high crime and misdemeanor is conducting diplomacy without CIA supervision. They come out and say so, pointing to the National Security Act's mousetrap bureaucracy.
CIA runs your country. They've got impunity, they do what they want. We've got 400,000 academics paid to overthink it.
@Curmudgeon Pat Buchanan also uses the word "annexation" all the time.Rebel0007 , says: December 6, 2019 at 4:31 am GMTNational Institute for the study of the obvious,Haxo Angmark , says: Website December 6, 2019 at 6:01 am GMTThe CIA has no authority what so ever as defined by the supreme law of the land, the constitution. That would make them guilty of a coup which would be an act of treason, so if what you claim is true, why have they not been prosecuted.
It is a political game between to competing kleptocratic cults. The DNC and RNC are whores and will do what ever their donors tell them to do. That is also treason. This country is just a total wasteland.
Everyone has pledged allegiance to fraud.
Too big to fail, like the Titanic and the Hindenberg.
We cannot trust that the people that destroyed the country will repair it. It is run by a Cult of Hedonistic Satanic Psychopaths. If they were limited to just the CIA, America would be in far better shape than its in. The CIA is not capable of thinking or intelligence, so we should stop paying them.
Drumpf has been a tool of the Wall Street/Las Vegas Zionist billionaires for many, many years. so his selection of warmongering Zio neo-con advisors should be no surprise.Monty Ahwazi , says: December 6, 2019 at 6:03 am GMTWhat kind of stupid question is this? You mean you don't know or asking us for confirmation? If you really don't know then why are you writing an article about it? If you do know then why are you asking the UNZ readers?animalogic , says: December 6, 2019 at 6:21 am GMTPerhaps part of the reason that Trump often seems to be surrounded by people who don't support his policies or values is, as Paul Craig Roberts suggested in 2016, that Trump would have real problems simply because he was an outsider. An outsider to the Washington swamp, a swamp that Clinton had been swimming in for decades. In short he didn't know who to trust, who to keep "in the tent" & who to shut out. Thus, we have had this huge churn in Secretaries & on so on downwards.EdNels , says: December 6, 2019 at 6:49 am GMT@Rebel0007Jon Baptist , says: December 6, 2019 at 6:54 am GMTIt is run by a Cult of Hedonistic Satanic Psychopaths.
That's ok but it's a bit unfair to Hedonistic Satanic Psychopaths After all most of the country is Hedonistic as hell, it sells commercials or wtf. Satanic is philosophical and way over the heads of these clowns, though if the be a Satan, then they are in the plan for sure, and right on the mark. As for psychopaths, those are criminals who are insane, but they can have remorse and be their own worst enemies, often they just go off and go psycho and bad things happen, but can be unplanned off the wall stuff, not diabolic.
Sociopaths are the ones that do the worst because they lack any concern or "Empathy", like robots. So I read that the socio's are some of the brightest people who often are very successful in business etc. and can hide the fact that they would soon as kill as look at ya, but cool as ice, all they want is to get what the hell they want! They don't give a rats petoot who likes likes it or not, except as .
So, once upon a time, a people got so hedonistic and they didn't watch the game and theier leaders were low quality (especially religeous/morals ) and long story short Satan unleashed the Socio's , Things seem to be heading disastrously, so will bit coin save the day? Green nudeal?
The simple questions that beg to be asked are who are the accusers and what media agencies are providing the amplification to transmit these accusations?polistra , says: December 6, 2019 at 7:49 am GMT
https://forward.com/news/national/434664/impeachment-trump-democrats-jewish/
https://www.jta.org/2019/11/15/politics/the-tell-the-jewish-players-in-impeachmentThere is also this link courtesy of Haass' CFR – https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/russia-trump-and-2016-us-election
While massive attention is directed towards Russia and the Ukraine, the majority of the public are shown the slight of hand and their attention is never brought near to the real perpetrators of subverting American and British foreign policy.
https://electronicintifada.net/content/watch-film-israel-lobby-didnt-want-you-see/25876
http://joshdlindsay.com/2019/04/the-israel-lobby-in-the-u-s-al-jazeera-documentary/
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The Israeli Lobby in the United States of America (2017) – Full Documentary HDDoesn't matter if he's surrounded. A president CAN make foreign policy, and a president CAN fire people who disagree with his policy. Trump hasn't fired any of the neocons, but he proved that he CAN fire defense executives. He fired the Sec of Navy for disagreeing with some ridiculous personal thing that Trump wanted to do. Since Trump hasn't fired any neocons, we have to conclude that he's fully on board.sally , says: December 6, 2019 at 8:51 am GMT@Rebel0007Beckow , says: December 6, 2019 at 9:29 am GMTThe CIA has no authority what so ever as defined by the supreme law of the land, the constitution. That would make them guilty of a coup which would be an act of treason, so if what you claim is true, why have they not been prosecuted.
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first off the supreme law of the land maybe the Constitution and to oppose it may be Treason, but the Law that is supreme to the Law of the land is Human rights law.. it is far superior to, and it is the TLD of all laws of the land of all of the Nation States that mankind has allowed the greedy among its masses, to impose.There are so many security holes in the constitution of the USA including that it was ratified by those who invented it, not by a vote put to the people that would be made to suffer being governed by it. Basically the USA is useless as a defender of human rights (one of which is the right to self determination). The so called bill of rights (1st 10 amendments) are contractual promises, but like all clauses in contracts if there is no way to enforce them, then there is no use for the clause except maybe propaganda value.
If you note the USA constitution has seven articles..
Article 1 is about 525 elected members of congress and their very limited powers to control
foreign activities. Each qualified to vote member of the governed (a citizen so to speak) is allowed to
vote for only 3 of the 525 persons. so basically there is no real national election anywhere .Article II grants the electoral college the power to appoint two persons full control of the assets,
resources and manpower of America to conquer the entire world or to make peace in the entire world.
Either way: the governed are not allowed to vote for either; the EC vote determines the P or VP.Article III allows the Article II person to appoint yes men to the judiciary
Where exist the power of the governed to deny USA governors the ability to the use the powers the constitution claims the governors are to have, against the governed? <==No where I can find? Theoretically, the governed are protected from abuse for as long as it takes to conduct due process?
One person, the Article II person, is basically the king when in comes to constitutional authority to establish, conduct, prosecute or defend USA involvement in foreign affairs.
No where does the constitution of the USA deny its President the use of American resources or USA military power, to make and use diplomat appointments, or to use the USA to use the wealth of America and the hegemonic powers of the USA to make a private or public profit in a foreign land. <= d/n matter if the profit is personal to the President or if it assigned by appointment (like the feudal powers granted by the feudal kings to the feudal lords) to corporate feudal lords or oligarch personal interest.
AFAICT, the president can USE the USA to conduct war, invade or otherwise infringe on, even destroy, the territory, or a private or public interest, within a foreign sovereign more or less at will. So if the President wants to command a private or secret Army like the CIA, he can as far as I can tell, obviously this president does, because he could with his pen alone shut it down.
Seems to me the "NO" from Wilson's four points
- no more secret diplomacy peace settlement must not lead the way to new wars
- no retribution, unjust claims, and huge fines <basically indemnities paid by the losers to the winners.
- no more war; includes controls on armaments and arming of nations.
- no more Trade Barriers so the nations of the world would become more interdependent.
have been made the essence of nation state operations world wide.
IMO, The CIA exists at the pleasure of the President.
@Curmudgeon all of that, plus the Kosovo precedent.Beckow , says: December 6, 2019 at 9:52 am GMTIn a normally functioning world you simply can't simultaneously argue that in one case West can bomb a country to force self-determination as in Kosovo, and also denounce exactly the same thing in Crimea. On to Catalonia and more self-determination
Trump, among his other occupations, used to engage with the professional wrestling circuit. In that well-staged entertainment there is always a bad guy – or a ' heel ' – who is used to stir up the crowds, the Evil Sheik or Rocky's hapless movie enemies. It makes it ' real '. The 'heel ' is sometimes allowed to win to better manage the audience. But the narrative never changes. Our rational judgments should focus on what happens, and on outcomes – not on talk, slogans, speeches, etc Based on that, Trump is a classical ' heel ' character. He might even be playing it consciously, or he has no choice.Anon [424] Disclaimer , says: December 6, 2019 at 10:47 am GMTTo answer the question who runs ' foreign policy ', let's ignore the stadium speeches, and simply look at what happens. In a world bereft of enough profitable consumer things to do, and enough justifiable careers for unemployable geo-political security 'experts' of all kinds, having enemies and maybe even a small war occasionally is not such an irrational thing to want. Plus there are the deep ethnic hatreds and traumas going back generations that were naively imported into the heart of the Western world. (Washington warned against that 200+ years ago.)
https://russia-insider.com/en/politics/majority-germans-wants-less-reliance-us-more-engagement-russia/ri27985gotmituns , says: December 6, 2019 at 11:09 am GMTMacron said that NATO is " brain dead " :
https://www.economist.com/europe/2019/11/07/emmanuel-macron-warns-europe-nato-is-becoming-brain-dead
The more the US sanctions so many countries around the world , the more the US generate an anti US reaction around the world .
Who Is Making US Foreign Policy?DrWatson , says: December 6, 2019 at 11:20 am GMT
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Could it be israel?Trump should have kept Steve Bannon as his advisor and should have fired instead his son-in-law. Perhaps "they" are blackmailing Trump with photos like here: https://www.pinterest.com/richarddesjarla/creepy/Marshall Lentini , says: December 6, 2019 at 11:28 am GMTThat would explain why Trump is so ineffective at making a reality anything he campaigned for.
@melpol Betas in power -- an underappreciated dimension of this morass.propagandist hacker , says: Website December 6, 2019 at 11:29 am GMTor maybe trump was a lying neocon, war-loving, immigration-loving neoliberal all along, and you and the trumptards somehow continue to believe his campaign rhetoric?Realist , says: December 6, 2019 at 11:52 am GMTRealist , says: December 6, 2019 at 12:00 pm GMTAn anti-neocon president appears to have been surrounded by neocons in his own administration.
The fact is Trump is not an anti-neocon (Deep State) president he only talks that way. The fact that he surrounded himself with Deep State denizens gives lie to the thought that he is anti-Deep State no one can be that god damn stupid.
@sallyRealist , says: December 6, 2019 at 12:03 pm GMTIMO, The CIA exists at the pleasure of the President.
The CIA sees it differently; and they are part of the Deep State.
@propagandist hackerSean , says: December 6, 2019 at 12:11 pm GMTor maybe trump was a lying neocon, war-loving, immigration-loving neoliberal all along, and you and the trumptards somehow continue to believe his campaign rhetoric?
That is my contention.
MICHAEL CARPENTER Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia from 2015 to 2017.9/11 Inside job , says: December 6, 2019 at 12:14 pm GMTHalfway around the world from Washington's halls of power, Ukraine sits along a civilizational and geopolitical fault line. To Ukraine's west are the liberal democracies of Europe, governed by rule of law and democratic principles. To its east are Russia and its client states in Eurasia, almost all of which are corrupt oligarchies. [ ] In this war on democratic movements and democratic principles, Russia's biggest prize and chief adversary has always been the United States. Until now, however, Russia has always had to contend with bipartisan resolve to counter
No mention of China, and this is the problem with the whole foreign policy establishment not just the neocons. Russia is more of an annoyance than anything, but they are still operating assumptions on what is the Geographical Pivot of History , so they want to talk about Russia. Like an Edwardian sea cadet we are supposed to care about Russia getting (back) a water port in Crimea. Mahan's definition of sea power included a strong commercial fleet. After tearing their own environment apart like a car in a wrecking yard and heating up the planet China has taken time out from deforestation and colonising Tibet, to send huge container vessels full of cheap goods through the melting Arctic round the top of Russia all the better to get to Europe and deindustrialise it.
Western elites have sold out to China, seen as the future, so we hear about Russia rather than the three million Uyghurs in concentration camps complete with constantly smoking crematoria, and harvesting of organs for rich foreigners.
Who poses a greater threat to the West: China or Russia?
By the time the West finds itself in open conflict with Beijing, we will have lost our relative advantage. Brendan Simms and K.C. Lin [ ] The concept of China being a threat is harder to comprehend. In what way? Yes, its hacking and intellectual property theft is a headache. But is it worse than what Russia is up to? And don't we need Chinese investment, so does it really matter if China builds our 5G mobile networks? In London, ministers agonise over these issues -- not knowing whether to pity China (we still send foreign aid there), beg for its money and contracts (with prime ministerial trade trips), or treat it as a potential antagonist.Aid ! They sent robots to the far side of the Moon
Beijing has been the beneficiary of liberal revulsion at the Trump presidency: if the Donald is against the Chinese, who cannot be for them? As a result, Trump's efforts to address China's unfair trade practices have so far missed the mark with the domestic and international audience. As Trump declares war on free trade, China -- one of the most protectionist economies in the world -- is now celebrated at Davos as the avatar of free trade. Later this month, China's Vice-President is likely to be in attendance at Davos -- and there is even talk of him meeting with Trump. Similarly, the messiness of American politics has made China's one-party state an apparent poster boy of political stability and governability.
911endofdays.blogspot.com : "Sackcloth&Ashes – The 16th Trump of Arcana " :JOHN CHUCKMAN , says: Website December 6, 2019 at 12:25 pm GMT"TRUMP SUPPORTERS WERE DUPED – Trump supporters are going to find out soon enough that they were duped by Donald Trump. Trump was given the script to run as the "Chaos Candidate" .He is just a pawn of the ruling elite .It is a tactic known as 'CONTROLLED OPPOSITION' ".
Wasn't it FDR who said "Presidents are selected , they are not elected " ?Sick of Orcs , says: December 6, 2019 at 12:36 pm GMTTrump selected the Neocons he is surrounded with. And he's given away all kinds of property that he has absolutely no legal authority to give. He was seeking to please American Oligarchs the likes of Adelson. That's American politics. "Money is free speech." Of course, there is another connection with foreign policy beyond the truly total corruption of American domestic politics, and that's through America's brutal empire abroad.
The military/intelligence imperial establishment definitely see Israel as a kind of American colony in the Mideast, and they make sure that it's well provided for. That's what the Neocon Wars have been about. Paving over large parts of Israel's noisy neighborhood. And that includes matters like keeping Syria off-balance with occupation in its northeast. And constantly threatening Iran.
Obama or Trump, on the main matters of importance abroad – NATO, Russia, Israel/Palestine, China – there has been no difference, except Trump is more openly bellicose and given to saying really stupid things.
By the way, the last President who tried seriously to make foreign policy as the elected head of government left half of his head splattered on thec streets of Dallas.
@propagandist hacker Or he was fooled, tricked, bribed, coerced by The HoloNose.9/11 Inside job , says: December 6, 2019 at 12:37 pm GMTDon't get me wrong, the Orange Sellout is to blame regardless.
@Jon Baptist We have all been brainwashed by the propaganda screened by the massmedia ,whether it be FOX , MSNBC , CBS ,etc.. SeptemberClues.info has a good article entitled "The central role of the news media on 9/11 " :geokat62 , says: December 6, 2019 at 1:00 pm GMT"The 9/11 psyop relied foremostly on that weakspot of ours .We all fell for the images we saw on TV at the time we can only wonder why so many never questioned the absurd TV coverage proposed by all the major networks The 9/11 TV imagery of the crucial morning events was just a computer-animated, pre-fabricated movie."
Was "The Harley Guy" a crisis actor ?
@National Institute for Study of the ObviousHerald , says: December 6, 2019 at 1:05 pm GMTSo please for once somebody answer this blindingly obvious question, Who is making US foreign policy? CIA, that's who.
Close. You got 4 of the correct letters, AIPAC. You were just missing the P.
CIA runs your country.
No, Jewish Supremacist oligarchs run America.
@follyofwar Pat inhabits a strange Hollywood type world, where the US is always the good guy. He believes that, although the US may make foreign policy mistakes, its aims and ambitions are nevertheless noble and well intentioned.In Pat's world it's still circa 1955, but even then, his take on US foreign policy would have been hopelessly unrealistic.
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Dec 06, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com
J , 26 November 2019 at 08:08 PM
Colonel,Fiona Hill appears to be part of the Borg, not really sure which part she's affiliated. Some have called her a 'sleeper agent', but a sleeper for whom? British Intelligence agent of influence? Or an Israeli agent of influence, or maybe a Daniel Pipes trained NEOCON agent of influence? Any way one spins it, Fiona Hill has been undermining POTUS Trump while she was part of his NSC and his advisory team. Why her intense hatred of Putin? Does he happen to know through his nation's intelligence exactly who she is and whom she may be working on behalf of? The Skripal incident showed just how much that the British Government and Crown hate Russia. But why the intense British hatred of Russia, why?
Questions, so many questions regarding Ms. Hill and who she really works for.
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Dec 06, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com
The Michael Flynn sentencing hearing is cancelled while the judge considers the issue of exculpatory material
By Robert Willmann
New attorneys for Gen. Michael Flynn (ret.) entered appearances in his court case in June 2019. He had signed a plea bargain agreement with the office of "special counsel" Robert Mueller on 30 November 2017, and under that agreement, a criminal charge consisting of a single count was filed. He pled guilty to it in court the next day. A sentencing hearing began on 18 December 2018, but went off the rails and was to be continued at a later date.
On 30 August 2019, Flynn's new lawyers filed a request (a motion) that the prosecutors for the federal government turn over exculpatory material that they likely had access to and had not disclosed to him earlier. The motion also asked the judge to issue an order that the prosecutors show cause why they should not be held in contempt of court for not turning over the material that might be favorable and helpful to Flynn. Several papers were filed by both sides on the issue after that.
A sentencing hearing had been reset to 18 December 2019. However, as a result of the documents filed about the request for exculpatory material, Judge Emmet Sullivan decided not to have a court hearing on the motion, but instead would decide it on the documents that had been filed with the court clerk. The last paper was filed on the issue on 4 November 2019. Normally, both the prosecution and defense file memoranda about an upcoming sentencing hearing. Since 18 December was approaching, they filed a joint motion to reschedule the filing of memos and any sentencing hearing--
https://turcopolier.typepad.com/files/michaelflynn_abate_sentencing.pdf
This request was granted--
"11/27/2019 Minute Order as to Michael T. Flynn granting 140 Joint Motion to Modify Briefing Schedule. The Court hereby Suspends the briefing schedule for the supplemental sentencing memoranda. The Court hereby Vacates the sentencing hearing previously scheduled for December 18, 2019 until further Order of this Court. Signed by Judge Emmet G. Sullivan on 11/27/2019. (Lcegs1) (Entered: 11/27/2019)"
The request for disclosure of exculpatory material may or may not be granted. But the fact that a month has gone by, and now more time is needed, means that it is being given serious consideration.
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Dec 06, 2019 | www.shutterstock.com
December 5, 2019
|12:44 pm
Daniel Larison TAC contributor Gil Barndollar calls attention to the damage that endless war is doing to the military:The president has been rightly excoriated for these pardons, which dishonor the U.S. military and may degrade good order and discipline. But amid this uproar, Americans should note the bigger lesson: Endless wars, especially endless counterinsurgency or counterterrorism wars, slowly chip away at both a military's ethics and its critical war-fighting skills.
These wars are particularly corrosive because they cannot be conclusively won, and for every enemy that is destroyed it seems as if two or three more appear to replace it. Futile, open-ended wars contribute to breakdowns in discipline. Barndollar continues:
However, keeping their honor clean becomes harder and harder the longer these wars drag on. Wars among the people, as all our endless wars now are, are inherently dirty. When even senior members of the foreign policy establishment concede that we are not seeking victory in Afghanistan, it becomes harder for soldiers to make hollow mission accomplishment a higher priority than self-preservation. Treating U.S. soldiers like victims, as Trump implicitly does, also becomes more common.
When a war cannot be won, the rational thing to do would be to stop fighting it, but instead of doing that our political and military leaders treat endless war as a new normal that must not be questioned. It is bad enough when a government sends its soldiers to fight and die for a cause that it pretends can still be won when that isn't possible, but to keep sending them over and over again into war zones to fight a war they admit is futile has to be discouraging and frustrating. This also has to widen the division between the military and the civilian population. While military personnel are called on to go on multiple tours in pointless conflicts, most people back home mouth empty platitudes about supporting the troops and do nothing to bring the wars to an end. The public's failure to hold our political and military leaders accountable for these failed and unnecessary wars is bound to have corrosive effects as well.
At the same time, these wars degrade the military's ability to fight other adversaries:
Even more serious for American national security is the fact that endless small wars degrade a military's ability to fight and win big wars -- wars that have real consequences for our security and way of life.
Our endless wars have been enormously costly. It is estimated that all of the wars of the last twenty years will end up costing at least $6.4 trillion, and beyond that they have consumed our government's attention and resources to the detriment of everything else. Our political and military leaders perpetuate these wars, and the public has allowed them to do this, because they are still laboring under the faulty assumption that the U.S. is being made more secure in the process. The reality is that endless wars are undermining our security, weakening the military, and creating more enemies. They should be ended responsibly, but they must end. about the author
Daniel Larison is a senior editor at TAC , where he also keeps a solo blog . He has been published in the New York Times Book Review , Dallas Morning News , World Politics Review , Politico Magazine , Orthodox Life , Front Porch Republic, The American Scene, and Culture11, and was a columnist for The Week . He holds a PhD in history from the University of Chicago, and resides in Lancaster, PA. Follow him on Twitter .
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Dec 06, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com
J , 26 November 2019 at 08:08 PM
Colonel,Fiona Hill appears to be part of the Borg, not really sure which part she's affiliated. Some have called her a 'sleeper agent', but a sleeper for whom? British Intelligence agent of influence? Or an Israeli agent of influence, or maybe a Daniel Pipes trained NEOCON agent of influence? Any way one spins it, Fiona Hill has been undermining POTUS Trump while she was part of his NSC and his advisory team. Why her intense hatred of Putin? Does he happen to know through his nation's intelligence exactly who she is and whom she may be working on behalf of? The Skripal incident showed just how much that the British Government and Crown hate Russia. But why the intense British hatred of Russia, why?
Questions, so many questions regarding Ms. Hill and who she really works for.
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Dec 06, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
"'Our Democracy Is at Stake.' Pelosi Orders Democrats to Draft Articles of Impeachment Against Trump" [ Time ]. With autoplay video. ""The President abused his power for his own personal political benefit at the expense of our national security by withholding military aid and a crucial Oval Office meeting in exchange for an announcement of an investigation into his political rival." • So now when a President doesn't allow The Blob to dictate Ukraine policy it's an impeachable offense? Really? Yasha Levine quotes Democrat impeachment witness Karlan (see below) but the point is the same:
Yasha Levine ✔ @yashalevine
Thanks again for making explicit what I have long known: To America, Ukraine is nothing but a weapon against Russia. The whole point of support for Ukraine is to make Russia bleed—doesn’t matter how many people die or suffer in the process or how much of Ukraine is destroyed. https://twitter.com/BBuchman_CNS/status/1202267180219478024 …
So fomenting on a war on Russia's border is, it appears, self-evidently aids our national security. What's next? A war scare? Ramping up MH17?
"Read opening statements from witnesses at the House Judiciary hearing" [ Politico ]. "Democrats' impeachment witnesses at Wednesday's judiciary committee hearing plan to say in their prepared remarks that President Donald Trump's actions toward Ukraine were the worst examples of misconduct in presidential history." • So again, it's all about Ukraine. I feel like I've entered an alternate dimension. Aaron Maté comments:
My very subjective impression: I've skimmed three, and read Turley. Karlan, in particular, is simply not a serious effort. Turley may be wrong -- a ton of tribal dunking on Twitter -- but at least he's making a serious effort. I'm gonna have to wait to see if somebody, say at Lawfare, does a serious effort on Turley. Everything I've read hitherto is and posturing and preaching to the choir. (Sad that Larry Tribe has so completely discredited himself, but that's where we are.)
While on Turley, see this from his testimony:
Hat tip to alert reader David in Santa Cruz for his early call on "inchoate":
Lambert, while Trump was unable to complete his attempt to extort the President of Ukraine, as someone who practiced the criminal law for 34 years, let me be the first to clue you in to the concept in the criminal law of the inchoate offense . This is criminal law, not contract law.
An inchoate offense includes an attempt, a conspiracy, and the solicitation of a crime. All focus on the state of mind of the perpetrator, and none require that the offense be completed -- only that a person or persons having the required criminal intent took material steps toward completing the crime. Such a person becomes a principal in the contemplated crime, and in the eyes of the law is just as guilty as if he or she had completed the attempted offense.
(The details of Trump's offense differ from what David in Santa Cruz said they would be.) "Inchoate" appears only in Turley's piece, indicating, to me, that his was the only serious effort.
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Dec 04, 2019 | johnsolomonreports.com
honor and applaud Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman's service to his country. He's a hero. I also respect his decision to testify at the impeachment proceedings. I suspect neither his service nor his testimony was easy.
But I also know the liberties that Lt. Col. Vindman fought on the battlefield to preserve permit for a free and honest debate in America, one that can't be muted by the color of uniform or the crushing power of the state.
So I want to exercise my right to debate Lt. Col. Vindman about the testimony he gave about me. You see, under oath to Congress, he asserted all the factual elements in my columns at The Hill about Ukraine were false, except maybe my grammar
Here are his exact words:
"I think all the key elements were false," Vindman testified.
Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y, pressed him about what he meant. "Just so I understand what you mean when you say key elements, are you referring to everything John Solomon stated or just some of it?"
"All the elements that I just laid out for you. The criticisms of corruption were false . Were there more items in there, frankly, congressman? I don't recall. I haven't looked at the article in quite some time, but you know, his grammar might have been right."
Such testimony has been injurious to my reputation, one earned during 30 years of impactful reporting for news organizations that included The Associated Press, The Washington Post, The Washington Times and The Daily Beast/Newsweek.
And so Lt. Col. Vindman, here are the 28 primary factual elements in my Ukraine columns, complete with attribution and links to sourcing. Please tell me which, if any, was factually wrong.
- Fact 1 : Hunter Biden was hired in May 2014 by Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian natural gas company, at a time when his father Joe Biden was Vice President and overseeing US-Ukraine Policy. Here is the announcement. Hunter Biden's hiring came just a few short weeks after Joe Biden urged Ukraine to expand natural gas production and use Americans to help. You can read his comments to the Ukrainian prime minister here . Hunter Biden's firm then began receiving monthly payments totaling $166,666. You can see those payments here .
- Fact 2 : Burisma was under investigation by British authorities for corruption and soon came under investigation by Ukrainian authorities led by Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin.
- Fact 3 : Vice President Joe Biden and his office were alerted by a December 2015 New York Times article that Shokin's office was investigating Burisma and that Hunter Biden's role at the company was undercutting his father's anticorruption efforts in Ukraine.
- Fact 4 : The Biden-Burisma issue created the appearance of a conflict of interest, especially for State Department officials. I especially refer you to State official George Kent's testimony here . He testified he viewed Burisma as corrupt and the Bidens as creating the perception of a conflict of interest. His concerns both caused him to contact the vice president's office and to block a project that State's USAID agency was planning with Burisma in 2016. In addition, Ambassador Yovanovitch testified she, too, saw the Bidens-Burisma connection as creating the appearance of a conflict of interest. You can read her testimony here .
- Fact 5 : The Obama White House invited Shokin's prosecutorial team to Washington for meetings in January 2016 to discuss their anticorruption investigations. You can read about that here . Also, here is the official agenda for that meeting in Ukraine and English . I call your attention to the NSC organizer of the meeting.
- Fact 6 : The Ukraine investigation of Hunter Biden's employer, Burisma Holdings, escalated in February 2016 when Shokin's office raided the home of company owner Mykola Zlochevsky and seized his property. Here is the announcement of that court-approved raid.
- Fact 7 : Shokin was making plans in February 2016 to interview Hunter Biden as part of his investigation. You can read his interview with me here, his sworn deposition to a court here and his interview with ABC News here .
- Fact 8 : Burisma's American representatives lobbied the State Department in late February 2016 to help end the corruption allegations against the company, and specifically invoked Hunter Biden's name as a reason to intervene. You can read State officials' account of that effort here
- Fact 9 : Joe Biden boasted in a 2018 videotape that he forced Ukraine's president to fire Shokin in March 2016 by threatening to withhold $1 billion in U.S. aid. You can view his videotape here .
- Fact 10 : Shokin stated in interviews with me and ABC News that he was told he was fired because Joe Biden was unhappy the Burisma investigation wasn't shut down. He made that claim anew in this sworn deposition prepared for a court in Europe. You can read that here .
- Fact 11 : The day Shokin's firing was announced in March 2016, Burisma's legal representatives sought an immediate meeting with his temporary replacement to address the ongoing investigation. You can read the text of their emails here .
- Fact 12 : Burisma's legal representatives secured that meeting April 6, 2016 and told Ukrainian prosecutors that "false information" had been spread to justify Shokin's firing, according to a Ukrainian government memo about the meeting. The representatives also offered to arrange for the remaining Ukrainian prosecutors to meet with U.S State and Justice officials. You can read the Ukrainian prosecutors' summary memo of the meeting here and here and the Burisma lawyers' invite to Washington here .
- Fact 13 : Burisma officials eventually settled the Ukraine investigations in late 2016 and early 2017, paying a multimillion dollar fine for tax issues. You can read their lawyer's February 2017 announcement of the end of the investigations here .
- Fact 14 : In March 2019, Ukraine authorities reopened an investigation against Burisma and Zlochevsky based on new evidence of money laundering. You can read NABU's February 2019 recommendation to re-open the case here , the March 2019 notice of suspicion by Ukraine prosecutors here and a May 2019 interview here with a Ukrainian senior law enforcement official stating the investigation was ongoing. And here is an announcement this week that the Zlochevsky/Burisma probe has been expanded to include allegations of theft of Ukrainian state funds.
- Fact 15 : The Ukraine embassy in Washington issued a statement in April 2019 admitting that a Democratic National Committee contractor named Alexandra Chalupa solicited Ukrainian officials in spring 2016 for dirt on Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort in hopes of staging a congressional hearing close to the 2016 election that would damage Trump's election chances. You can read the embassy's statement here and here . Your colleague, Dr. Fiona Hill, confirmed this episode, testifying "Ukraine bet on the wrong horse. They bet on Hillary Clinton winning." You can read her testimony here .
- Fact 16 : Chalupa sent an email to top DNC officials in May 2016 acknowledging she was working on the Manafort issue. You can read the email here .
- Fact 17 : Ukraine's ambassador to Washington, Valeriy Chaly, wrote an OpEd in The Hill in August 2016 slamming GOP nominee Donald Trump for his policies on Russia despite a Geneva Convention requirement that ambassadors not become embroiled in the internal affairs or elections of their host countries. You can read Ambassador Chaly's OpEd here and the Geneva Convention rules of conduct for foreign diplomats here . And your colleagues Ambassador Yovanovitch and Dr. Hill both confirmed this, with Dr. Hill testifying this week that Chaly's OpEd was "probably not the most advisable thing to do."
- Fact 18 : A Ukrainian district court ruled in December 2018 that the summer 2016 release of information by Ukrainian Parliamentary member Sergey Leschenko and NABU director Artem Sytnyk about an ongoing investigation of Manafort amounted to an improper interference by Ukraine's government in the 2016 U.S. election. You can read the court ruling here . Leschenko and Sytnyk deny the allegations, and have won an appeal to suspend that ruling on a jurisdictional technicality.
- Fact 19 : George Soros' Open Society Foundation issued a memo in February 2016 on its strategy for Ukraine, identifying the nonprofit Anti-Corruption Action Centre as the lead for its efforts. You can read the memo here .
- Fact 20 : The State Department and Soros' foundation jointly funded the Anti-Corruption Action Centre. You can read about that funding here from the Centre's own funding records and George Kent's testimony about it here .
- Fact 21 : In April 2016, US embassy charge d'affaires George Kent sent a letter to the Ukrainian prosecutor general's office demanding that Ukrainian prosecutors stand down a series of investigations into how Ukrainian nonprofits spent U.S. aid dollars, including the Anti-Corruption Actions Centre. You can read that letter here . Kent testified he signed the letter here .
- Fact 22 : Then-Ukraine Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko said in a televised interview with me that Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch during a 2016 meeting provided the lists of names of Ukrainian nationals and groups she did want to see prosecuted. You can see I accurately quoted him by watching the video here .
- Fact 23 : Ambassador Yovanovitch and her embassy denied Lutsenko's claim, calling it a "fabrication." I reported their reaction here .
- Fact 24 : Despite the differing accounts of what happened at the Lutsenko-Yovanovitch meeting, a senior U.S. official in an interview arranged by the State Department stated to me in spring 2019 that US officials did pressure Lutsenko's office on several occasions not to "prosecute, investigate or harass" certain Ukrainian activists, including Parliamentary member Leschenko, journalist Vitali Shabunin, the Anti-Corruption Action Centre and NABU director Sytnyk. You can read that official's comments here . In addition, George Kent confirmed this same information in his deposition here .
- Fact 25 : In May 2018, then-House Rules Committee chairman Pete Sessions sent an official congressional letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo asking that Yovanovitch be recalled as ambassador to Ukraine. Sessions and State confirmed the official letter, which you can read here .
- Fact 26 : In fall 2018, Ukrainian prosecutors, using a third party, hired an American lawyer (a former U.S. attorney) to proffer information to the U.S. government about certain activities at the U.S. embassy, involving Burisma and involving the 2016 election, that they believed might have violated U.S. law. You can read their account here . You can also confirm it independently by talking to the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan or the American lawyer representing the Ukrainian prosecutors' interests.
- Fact 27 : In May 2016, one of George Soros' top aides secured a meeting with the top Eurasia policy official in the State Department to discuss Russian bond issues. You can read the State memos on that meeting here .
- Fact 28 : In June 2016, Soros himself secured a telephonic meeting with Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland to discuss Ukraine policy. You can read the State memos on that meeting here .
Lt. Col. Vindman, if you have information that contradicts any of these 28 factual elements in my columns I ask that you make it publicly available. Your testimony did not.
If you don't have evidence these 28 facts are wrong, I ask that you correct your testimony because any effort to call factually accurate reporting false only misleads America and chills the free debate our Constitutional framers so cherished to protect.
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Dec 04, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com
Originally from: The U.S. Has Not Reduced Its 'Global Commitments' The American Conservative by Daniel LarisonGideon Rachman tries to find similarities between the foreign policies of Trump and Obama:
Both men would detest the thought. But, in crucial respects, the foreign policies of Donald Trump and Barack Obama are looking strikingly similar.
The wildly different styles of the two presidents have disguised the underlying continuities between their approaches to the world. But look at substance, rather than style, and the similarities are impressive.
There is usually considerable continuity in U.S. foreign policy from one president to another, but Rachman is making a stronger and somewhat different claim than that. He is arguing that their foreign policy agendas are very much alike in ways that put both presidents at odds with the foreign policy establishment, and he cites "disengagement from the Middle East" and a "pivot to Asia" as two examples of these similarities. This seems superficially plausible, but it is misleading. Despite talking a lot about disengagement, Obama and Trump chose to keep the U.S. involved in several conflicts, and Trump actually escalated the wars he inherited from Obama. To the extent that there is continuity between Obama and Trump, it has been that both of them have acceded to the conventional wisdom of "the Blob" and refused to disentangle the U.S. from Middle Eastern conflicts. Ongoing support for the war on Yemen is the ugliest and most destructive example of this continuity.
In reality, neither Obama nor Trump "focused" on Asia, and Trump's foray into pseudo-engagement with North Korea has little in common with Obama's would-be "pivot" or "rebalance." U.S. participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership was a major part of Obama's policy in Asia. Trump pulled out of that agreement and waged destructive trade wars instead. Once we get past generalizations and look at details, the two presidents are often diametrically opposed to one another in practice. That is what one would expect when we remember that Trump has made dismantling Obama's foreign policy achievements one of his main priorities.
The significant differences between the two become much more apparent when we look at other issues. On arms control and nonproliferation, the two could not be more different. Obama negotiated a new arms reduction treaty with New START at the start of his presidency, and he wrapped up a major nonproliferation agreement with Iran and the other members of the P5+1 in 2015. Trump reneged on the latter and seems determined to kill the former. Obama touted the benefits of genuine diplomatic engagement, while Trump has made a point of reversing and undoing most of the results of Obama's engagement with Cuba and Iran. Trump's overall hostility to genuine diplomacy makes another one of Rachman claims quite baffling:
The result is that, after his warlike "fire and fury" phase, Mr Trump is now pursuing a diplomacy-first strategy that is strongly reminiscent of Mr Obama.
Calling Trump's clumsy pattern of making threats and ultimatums a "diplomacy-first strategy" is a mistake. This is akin to saying that he is adhering to foreign policy restraint because the U.S. hasn't invaded any new countries on Trump's watch. It takes something true (Trump hasn't started a new war yet) and misrepresents it as proof that the president is serious about diplomacy and that he wants to reduce U.S. military engagement overseas. Trump enjoys the spectacle of meeting with foreign leaders, but he isn't interested in doing the work or taking the risks that successful diplomacy requires. He has shown repeatedly through his own behavior, his policy preferences, and his proposed budgets that he has no use for diplomacy or diplomats, and instead he expects to be able to bully or flatter adversaries into submission.
So Rachman is simply wrong he reaches this conclusion:
Mr Trump's reluctance to attack Iran was significant. It underlines the fact that his tough-guy rhetoric disguises a strong preference for diplomacy over force.
Let's recall that the near-miss of starting a war with Iran came as a result of the downing of an unmanned drone. The fact that the U.S. was seriously considering an attack on another country over the loss of a drone is a worrisome sign that this administration is prepared to go to war at the drop of a hat. Calling off such an insane attack was the right thing to do, but there should never have been an attack to call off. That episode does not show a "strong preference for diplomacy over force." If Trump had a strong preference for diplomacy over force, his policy would not be one of relentless hostility towards Iran. Trump does not believe in diplomatic compromise, but expects the other side to capitulate under pressure. That actually makes conflict more likely and reduces the chances of meaningful negotiations.
It is true that both Obama and Trump have been falsely accused of presiding over "withdrawal" and "retreat." In Obama's case, Republican hawks made this false claim so that they could attack a fantasy version of Obama's record instead of arguing against the real one. Members of the foreign policy establishment have been warning about Trump's supposed "isolationism" for four years and it still hasn't shown up. Both presidents have been criticized in such similar ways despite conducting significantly different foreign policies because these are the automatic, knee-jerk criticisms that pundits and analysts use to criticize a president.
Because there is a strong bias in favor of "action" and "leadership," the only way most of these people know how to attack a president is to say that he is "failing" to "lead" and is guilty of "inaction." It doesn't matter if it makes sense or matches the facts. It is the safe, Blobby way to complain about a president's foreign policy without suggesting that you think there is something wrong with the underlying assumptions about the U.S. role in the world. Instead of challenging the presidents on their real records, it is easier to condemn non-existent "isolationism" and pretend that presidents that maintain or increase U.S. involvement overseas are reducing it.
Rachman ends his column with this assertion:
In their very different ways, both Mr Obama and Mr Trump have reduced America's global commitments -- and adjusted the US to a more modest international role.
The problem here is that there has been no meaningful reduction in America's "global commitments." Which commitments have been reduced or eliminated? It would be helpful if someone could be specific about this. The U.S. has more security dependents today than it did when Trump took office. NATO has been expanded to include two new countries in just the last three years. U.S. troops are engaged in hostilities in just as many countries as they were when Trump was elected. There are more troops deployed to the Middle East at the end of this year than there were at the beginning, and that is a direct consequence of Trump's bankrupt Iran policy.
We should debate whether U.S. commitments overseas need to be reduced, but we really have to stop pretending that the U.S. has been reducing those commitments when it has actually been adding to them.
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Dec 02, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
By William Astore, a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF) and history professor. His personal blog is Bracing Views . Originally published at TomDispatch
Ever since 2007, when I first started writing for TomDispatch , I've been arguing against America's forever wars, whether in Afghanistan , Iraq , or elsewhere . Unfortunately, it's no surprise that, despite my more than 60 articles, American blood is still being spilled in war after war across the Greater Middle East and Africa, even as foreign peoples pay a far higher price in lives lost and cities ruined . And I keep asking myself: Why, in this century, is the distinctive feature of America's wars that they never end? Why do our leaders persist in such repetitive folly and the seemingly eternal disasters that go with it?
Sadly, there isn't just one obvious reason for this generational debacle. If there were, we could focus on it, tackle it, and perhaps even fix it. But no such luck.
So why do America's disastrous wars persist ? I can think of many reasons , some obvious and easy to understand, like the endless pursuit of profit through weapons sales for those very wars, and some more subtle but no less significant, like a deep-seated conviction in Washington that a willingness to wage war is a sign of national toughness and seriousness. Before I go on, though, here's another distinctive aspect of our forever-war moment: Have you noticed that peace is no longer even a topic in America today? The very word, once at least part of the rhetoric of Washington politicians, has essentially dropped out of use entirely. Consider the current crop of Democratic candidates for president. One, Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, wants to end regime-change wars, but is otherwise a self-professed hawk on the subject of the war on terror. Another, Senator Bernie Sanders, vows to end " endless wars " but is careful to express strong support for Israel and the ultra-expensive F-35 fighter jet.
The other dozen or so tend to make vague sounds about cutting defense spending or gradually withdrawing U.S. troops from various wars, but none of them even consider openly speaking of peace . And the Republicans? While President Trump may talk of ending wars, since his inauguration he's sent more troops to Afghanistan and into the Middle East, while greatly expanding drone and other air strikes , something about which he openly boasts .
War, in other words, is our new normal, America's default position on global affairs, and peace, some ancient, long-faded dream. And when your default position is war, whether against the Taliban, ISIS, "terror" more generally, or possibly even Iran or Russia or China , is it any surprise that war is what you get? When you garrison the world with an unprecedented 800 or so military bases , when you configure your armed forces for what's called power projection, when you divide the globe -- the total planet -- into areas of dominance (with acronyms like CENTCOM, AFRICOM, and SOUTHCOM) commanded by four-star generals and admirals, when you spend more on your military than the next seven countries combined, when you insist on modernizing a nuclear arsenal (to the tune of perhaps $1.7 trillion ) already quite capable of ending all life on this and several other planets, what can you expect but a reality of endless war?
Think of this as the new American exceptionalism. In Washington, war is now the predictable (and even desirable) way of life, while peace is the unpredictable (and unwise) path to follow. In this context, the U.S. must continue to be the most powerful nation in the world by a country mile in all death-dealing realms and its wars must be fought, generation after generation, even when victory is never in sight. And if that isn't an "exceptional" belief system, what is?
If we're ever to put an end to our country's endless twenty-first-century wars, that mindset will have to be changed. But to do that, we would first have to recognize and confront war's many uses in American life and culture.
War, Its Uses (and Abuses)
A partial list of war's many uses might go something like this: war is profitable , most notably for America's vast military-industrial complex ; war is sold as being necessary for America's safety, especially to prevent terrorist attacks; and for many Americans, war is seen as a measure of national fitness and worthiness, a reminder that "freedom isn't free." In our politics today, it's far better to be seen as strong and wrong than meek and right.
As the title of a book by former war reporter Chris Hedges so aptly put it , war is a force that gives us meaning. And let's face it, a significant part of America's meaning in this century has involved pride in having the toughest military on the planet, even as trillions of tax dollars went into a misguided attempt to maintain bragging rights to being the world's sole superpower.
And keep in mind as well that, among other things, never-ending war weakens democracy while strengthening authoritarian tendencies in politics and society. In an age of gaping inequality , using up the country's resources in such profligate and destructive ways offers a striking exercise in consumption that profits the few at the expense of the many.
In other words, for a select few, war pays dividends in ways that peace doesn't. In a nutshell, or perhaps an artillery shell, war is anti-democratic, anti-progressive, anti-intellectual, and anti-human. Yet, as we know, history makes heroes out of its participants and celebrates mass murderers like Napoleon as "great captains."
What the United States needs today is a new strategy of containment -- not against communist expansion, as in the Cold War, but against war itself. What's stopping us from containing war? You might say that, in some sense, we've grown addicted to it , which is true enough, but here are five additional reasons for war's enduring presence in American life:
The delusional idea that Americans are, by nature, winners and that our wars are therefore winnable: No American leader wants to be labeled a "loser." Meanwhile, such dubious conflicts -- see: the Afghan War, now in its 18th year, with several more years, or even generations , to go -- continue to be treated by the military as if they were indeed winnable, even though they visibly aren't. No president, Republican or Democrat, not even Donald J. Trump, despite his promises that American soldiers will be coming home from such fiascos, has successfully resisted the Pentagon's siren call for patience (and for yet more trillions of dollars) in the cause of ultimate victory, however poorly defined, farfetched, or far-off. American society's almost complete isolation from war's deadly effects: We're not being droned (yet). Our cities are not yet lying in ruins (though they're certainly suffering from a lack of funding, as is our most essential infrastructure , thanks in part to the cost of those overseas wars). It's nonetheless remarkable how little attention, either in the media or elsewhere, this country's never-ending war-making gets here. Unnecessary and sweeping secrecy: How can you resist what you essentially don't know about? Learning its lesson from the Vietnam War, the Pentagon now classifies (in plain speak: covers up) the worst aspects of its disastrous wars. This isn't because the enemy could exploit such details -- the enemy already knows! -- but because the American people might be roused to something like anger and action by it. Principled whistleblowers like Chelsea Manning have been imprisoned or otherwise dismissed or, in the case of Edward Snowden, pursued and indicted for sharing honest details about the calamitous Iraq War and America's invasive and intrusive surveillance state. In the process, a clear message of intimidation has been sent to other would-be truth-tellers. An unrepresentative government: Long ago, of course, Congress ceded to the presidency most of its constitutional powers when it comes to making war. Still, despite recent attempts to end America's arms-dealing role in the genocidal Saudi war in Yemen (overridden by Donald Trump's veto power), America's duly elected representatives generally don't represent the people when it comes to this country's disastrous wars. They are, to put it bluntly, largely captives of (and sometimes on leaving politics quite literally go to work for) the military-industrial complex. As long as money is speech ( thank you , Supreme Court!), the weapons makers are always likely to be able to shout louder in Congress than you and I ever will. \ America's persistent empathy gap. Despite our size, we are a remarkably insular nation and suffer from a serious empathy gap when it comes to understanding foreign cultures and peoples or what we're actually doing to them. Even our globetrotting troops, when not fighting and killing foreigners in battle, often stay on vast bases, referred to in the military as "Little Americas," complete with familiar stores, fast food, you name it. Wherever we go, there we are, eating our big burgers, driving our big trucks, wielding our big guns, and dropping our very big bombs. But what those bombs do, whom they hurt or kill, whom they displace from their homes and lives, these are things that Americans turn out to care remarkably little about.All this puts me sadly in mind of a song popular in my youth, a time when Cat Stevens sang of a " peace train " that was "soundin' louder" in America. Today, that peace train's been derailed and replaced by an armed and armored one eternally prepared for perpetual war -- and that train is indeed soundin' louder to the great peril of us all.
War on Spaceship Earth
Here's the rub, though: even the Pentagon knows that our most serious enemy is climate change , not China or Russia or terror, though in the age of Donald Trump and his administration of arsonists its officials can't express themselves on the subject as openly as they otherwise might. Assuming we don't annihilate ourselves with nuclear weapons first, that means our real enemy is the endless war we're waging against Planet Earth.
The U.S. military is also a major consumer of fossil fuels and therefore a significant driver of climate change. Meanwhile, the Pentagon, like any enormously powerful system, only wants to grow more so, but what's welfare for the military brass isn't wellness for the planet.
There is, unfortunately, only one Planet Earth, or Spaceship Earth, if you prefer, since we're all traveling through our galaxy on it. Thought about a certain way, we're its crewmembers, yet instead of cooperating effectively as its stewards, we seem determined to fight one another. If a house divided against itself cannot stand, as Abraham Lincoln pointed out so long ago, surely a spaceship with a disputatious and self-destructive crew is not likely to survive, no less thrive.
In other words, in waging endless war, Americans are also, in effect, mutinying against the planet. In the process, we are spoiling the last, best hope of earth: a concerted and pacific effort to meet the shared challenges of a rapidly warming and changing planet.
Spaceship Earth should not be allowed to remain Warship Earth as well, not when the existence of significant parts of humanity is already becoming ever more precarious. Think of us as suffering from a coolant leak, causing cabin temperatures to rise even as food and other resources dwindle . Under the circumstances, what's the best strategy for survival: killing each other while ignoring the leak or banding together to fix an increasingly compromised ship?
Unfortunately, for America's leaders, the real "fixes" remain global military and resource domination, even as those resources continue to shrink on an ever-more fragile globe. And as we've seen recently, the resource part of that fix breeds its own madness, as in President Trump's recently stated desire to keep U.S. troops in Syria to steal that country's oil resources, though its wells are largely wrecked (thanks in significant part to American bombing) and even when repaired would produce only a miniscule percentage of the world's petroleum.
If America's wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Somalia, and Yemen prove anything, it's that every war scars our planet -- and hardens our hearts. Every war makes us less human as well as less humane. Every war wastes resources when these are increasingly at a premium. Every war is a distraction from higher needs and a better life.
Despite all of war's uses and abuses, its allures and temptations, it's time that we Americans showed some self-mastery (as well as decency) by putting a stop to the mayhem. Few enough of us experience "our" wars firsthand and that's precisely why some idealize their purpose and idolize their practitioners. But war is a bloody, murderous mess and those practitioners, when not killed or wounded, are marred for life because war functionally makes everyone involved into a murderer.
We need to stop idealizing war and idolizing its so-called warriors. At stake is nothing less than the future of humanity and the viability of life, as we know it, on Spaceship Earth.
likbez December 2, 2019 at 3:17 AMwjastore says: December 2, 2019 at 8:09 AMI think that the main reason of the current level of militarism in the USA foreign policy is that after dissolution of the USSR neo-conservatives were allowed to capture the State Department and foreign policy establishment. This process actually started under Reagan. During Bush II administration those “crazies from the basement” fully controlled the US foreign policy and paradoxically they continued to dominate in Obama administration too.
They preach “Full Spectrum Dominance” (Wolfowitz doctrine) and are not shy to unleash the wars to enhance the USA strategic position in particular region (color revolution can be used instead of war, like they in 2014 did in Ukraine). Of course, being chichenhawks, neither they nor members of their families fight in those wars.
For some reason despite his election platform Trump also populated his administration with neoconservatives. So it might be that maintaining the USA centered global neoliberal empire is the real reason and the leitmotiv of the USA foreign policy. that’s why it does not change with the change of Administration: any government that does not play well with the neoliberal empire gets in the hairlines.
Which also means that the USA foreign policy is not controlled by the elected officials but by the “Deep State” (look at Vindman and Fiona Hill testimonies for the proof). So this is kind of Catch 22 in which the USA have found itself. We will be bankrupted by our neoconservative foreign establishment (which self-reproduce in each and every administration). And we can do nothing to avoid it.
Good point. But why the rise of the neocons? Why did they prosper? I'd say because of the military-industrial complex. Or you might say they feed each other, but the Complex came first. And of course the Complex is a dominant part of the Deep State. How could it not be? Add in 17 intelligence agencies, Homeland Security, the Energy Dept's nukes, and you have a dominant DoD that swallows up more than half of federal discretionary spending each year.likbez December 2, 2019 at 12:09 PMI agree, but it is a little bit more complex. You need an ideology to promote the interests of MIC. You can't just say -- let's spend more than a half of federal discretionary spending each year..That's where neo-conservatism comes into play. So they are not only lobbyists for MIC, but they also serve as "ideological support", trying to manipulate public opinion in favor of militarism.
wjastore December 2, 2019 at 12:25 PM
Yes. Ideology is vital. During the Cold War it was all about containing/resisting/defeating the godless Communists. Once they were defeated, what then? We heard brief talk about a "peace dividend," but then the neocons came along, selling full-spectrum dominance and America as the sole superpower.
The neocons were truly unleashed by the 9/11 attacks, which they exploited to put their vision in motion. The Complex was only too happy to oblige, fed as it was by massive resources.
Think about how no one was punished for the colossal intelligence failure of 9/11. Instead, all the intel agencies were rewarded with more money and authority via the PATRIOT Act.
The Afghan war is an ongoing disaster, the Iraq war a huge misstep, Libya a total failure, yet the Complex has even more Teflon than Ronald Reagan. All failures slide off of it.
greglaxer , December 2, 2019 at 4:12 PM
There is a still bigger picture to consider in all this. I don't want to open the door to conspiracy theory–personally, I find the claim that explosives were placed inside the World Trade Center prior to the strikes by aircraft on 9/11 risible–but it certainly was convenient for the Regime Change Gang that the Saudi operatives were able to get away with what they did on that day, and in preparations leading up to it.
Leaving that specific incident aside, the bigger picture is that the brains behind the Deep State understand that global capitalism is running out of new resources (which includes human labor) to exploit. Why is the US so concerned with Africa right now, with spies and Special Forces operatives all over that continent? Africa is the final frontier for development/exploitation. (The US is also deeply concerned about China's setting down business roots there, and wants to counterbalance their activities.)
Once the great majority of folks in Africa have cellphones and subscriptions to Netflix whither capitalism? Trump denies the severity of the climate crisis because that is part of the ideology/theology of the GOP.
The brains in the US Ruling Class know full well that natural resources will become ever more valuable moving forward, as weather disasters make it harder to access them. Thus, the Neo-Cons (you thought I'd never get around to them, right?) came to the fore because they advocate the unbridled use of brute military force to obtain what they want from the world. Or, to use their own terminology, the US "must have the capability to project force anywhere on the planet" at a moment's notice. President Obama was fully in agreement with that concept. Beware the wolf masquerading as a peaceable sheep!
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Dec 03, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Authored by Ben Norton via TheGrayZone.com,
After presiding over a far-right coup in Bolivia, the US dubbed Nicaragua a "national security threat" and announced new sanctions, while Trump designated drug cartels in Mexico as "terrorists" and refused to rule out military intervention.
One successful coup against a democratically elected socialist president is not enough, it seems.
Immediately after overseeing a far-right military coup in Bolivia on November 10, the Trump administration set its sights once again on Nicaragua, whose democratically elected Sandinista government defeated a violent right-wing coup attempt in 2018 .
Washington dubbed Nicaragua a threat to US national security, and announced that it will be expanding its suffocating sanctions on the tiny Central American nation.
Trump is also turning up the heat on Mexico, baselessly linking the country to terrorism and even hinting at potential military intervention. The moves come as the country's left-leaning President Andrés Manuel López Obrador warns of right-wing attempts at a coup.
As Washington's rightist allies in Colombia, Brazil, Chile, and Ecuador are desperately beating back massive grassroots uprisings against neoliberal austerity policies and yawning inequality gaps, the United States is ramping up its aggression against the region's few remaining progressive governments.
These moves have led left-wing forces in Latin America to warn of a 21st-century revival of Operation Condor, the Cold War era campaign of violent subterfuge and US support for right-wing dictatorships across the region.
Trump admin declares Nicaragua a 'national security threat'A day after the US-backed far-right coup in Bolivia, the White House released a statement applauding the military putsch and making it clear that two countries were next on Washington's target list: "These events send a strong signal to the illegitimate regimes in Venezuela and Nicaragua ," Trump declared.
On November 25, the Trump White House then quietly issued a statement characterizing Nicaragua as an "unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States."
This prolonged for an additional year an executive order Trump had signed in 2018 declaring a state of "national emergency" on the Central American country.
Trump's 2018 declaration came after a failed violent right-wing coup attempt in Nicaragua . The US government has funded and supported many of the opposition groups that sought to topple elected Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, and cheered them on as they sought to overthrow him.
The 2018 national security threat designation was quickly followed by economic warfare. In December the US Congress approved the NICA Act without any opposition. This legislation gave Trump the authority to impose sanctions on Nicaragua, and prevents international financial institutions from doing business with Managua.
Trump's new 2019 statement spewed outlandish propaganda against Nicaragua, referring to its democratically elected government -- which for decades has been targeted for overthrow by Washington -- as a supposedly violent and corrupt "regime."
This executive order is similar to one made by President Barack Obama in 2015, which designated Venezuela as a threat to US national security.
Both orders were used to justify the unilateral imposition of suffocating economic sanctions. And Trump's renewal of the order paves the way for an escalated economic attack on Nicaragua.
The extension received negligible coverage in mainstream English-language corporate media, but right-wing Spanish-language outlets in Latin America heavily amplified it.
And opposition activists are gleefully cheering on the intensification of Washington's hybrid warfare against Managua.
More aggressive US sanctions against NicaraguaVoice of America (VOA), the US government's main foreign broadcasting service, noted that the extension of the executive order will be followed with more economic attacks.
Washington's ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS), Carlos Trujillo, told VOA, "The pressure against Nicaragua is going to continue."
The OAS representative added that Trump will be announcing new sanctions against the Nicaraguan government in the coming weeks.
VOA stated clearly that "Nicaragua, along with Cuba and Venezuela, is one of the Latin American countries whose government Trump has made a priority to put diplomatic and economic pressure on to bring about regime change."
This is not just rhetoric. The US Department of the Treasury updated the Nicaragua-related sanctions section of its website as recently as November 8.
And in September, the Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control announced a " more comprehensive set of regulations ," strengthening the existing sanctions on Nicaragua.
Voice of America's report quoted several right-wing Nicaraguans who openly called for more US pressure against their country.
Bianca Jagger, a celebrity opposition activist formerly married to Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger, called on the US to impose sanctions on Nicaragua's military in particular.
"The Nicaraguan military has not been touched because they [US officials] are hoping that the military will like act the military in Bolivia," Jagger said, referring to the military officials who violently overthrew Bolivia's democratically elected president.
Many of these military leaders had been trained at the US government's School of the Americas , a notorious base of subversion dating back to Operation Condor. Latin American media has been filled in recent days with reports that Bolivian soldiers were paid $50,000 and generals were paid up to $1 million to carry out the putsch.
VOA added that "in the case of the Central American government [of Nicaragua], the effect that sanctions can have can be greater because it is a more economically vulnerable country."
VOA quoted Roberto Courtney, a prominent exiled right-wing activist and executive director of the opposition group Ethics and Transparency, which monitors elections in Nicaragua and is supported by the US government's regime-change arm , the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).
Courtney, who claims to be a human rights activist, salivated over the prospects of US economic war on his country, telling VOA, "There is a bit of a difference [between Nicaragua and Bolivia] the economic vulnerability makes it more likely that the sanctions will have an effect."
Courtney, who was described by VOA as an "expert on the electoral process," added, "If there is a stick, there must also be a carrot." He said the OAS could help apply diplomatic and political pressure against Nicaragua's government.
These unilateral American sanctions are illegal under international law, and considered an act of war. Iran's foreign minister, Javad Zarif , has characterized US economic warfare "financial terrorism," explaining that it disproportionately targets civilians in order to turn them against their government.
Top right-wing Nicaraguan opposition groups applauded Trump for extending the executive order and for pledging new sanctions against their country.
The Nicaraguan Civic Alliance for Justice and Democracy, an opposition front group that brings together numerous opposition groups , several of which are also funded by the US government's NED , welcomed the order.
Trump dubs drug cartels in Mexico "terrorists," refuses to rule out drone strikesWhile the US targeting of Nicaragua and Venezuela's governments is nothing new, Donald Trump is setting his sights on a longtime US ally in Mexico.
In 2018, Mexican voters made history when they elected Andrés Manuel López Obrador as president in a landslide. López Obrador, who is often referred to by his initials AMLO, is Mexico's first left-wing president in more than five decades. He ran on a progressive campaign pledging to boost social spending, cut poverty, combat corruption, and even decriminalize drugs.
AMLO is wildly popular in Mexico. In February, he had a record-breaking 86 percent approval rating . And he has earned this widespread support by pledging to combat neoliberal capitalist orthodoxy.
"The neoliberal economic model has been a disaster, a calamity for the public life of the country," AMLO has declared. "The child of neoliberalism is corruption."
When he unveiled his multibillion-dollar National Development Plan, López Obrador announced the end to "the long night of neoliberalism."
AMLO's left-wing policies have caused shockwaves in Washington, which has long relied on neoliberal Mexican leaders ensuring a steady cheap exploitable labor base and maintaining a reliable market for US goods and open borders for US capital and corporations.
On November 27 -- a day after declaring Nicaragua a "national security threat" -- Trump announced that the US government will be designating Mexican drug cartels as " terrorist organizations ."
Such a designation could pave the way for direct US military intervention in Mexico.
Trump revealed this new policy in an interview with right-wing Fox News host Bill O'Reilly. "Are you going to designate those cartels in Mexico as terror groups and start hitting them with drones and things like that?" O'Reilly asked.
The US president refused to rule out drone strikes or other military action against drug cartels in Mexico.
Trump's announcement seemed to surprise the Mexican government, which immediately called for a meeting with the US State Department.
The designation was particularly ironic considering some top drug cartel leaders in Mexico have long-standing ties to the US government. The leaders of the notoriously brutal cartel the Zetas, for instance, were originally trained in counter-insurgency tactics by the US military.
Throughout the Cold War, the US government armed, trained, and funded right-wing death squads throughout Latin America, many of which were involved in drug trafficking. The CIA also used drug money to fund far-right counter-insurgency paramilitary groups in Central America.
These tactics were also employed in the Middle East and South Asia. The United States armed, trained, and funded far-right Islamist extremists in Afghanistan in the 1980s in order to fight the Soviet Union. These same US-backed Salafi-jihadists then founded al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
This strategy was later repeated in the US wars on Libya and Syria. ISIS commander Omar al-Shishani , to take one example, had been trained by the US military and enjoyed direct support from Washington when he was fighting against Russia.
The Barack Obama administration also oversaw a campaign called Project Gunrunne r and Operation Fast and Furious, in which the US government helped send thousands of guns to cartels in Mexico.
Mexican journalist Alina Duarte explained that, with the Trump administration's designation of cartels as terrorists, "They are creating the idea that Mexico represents a threat to their national security ."
"Should we start talking about the possibility of a coup against Lopez Obrador in Mexico?" Duarte asked.
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Please enter a valid email Thank you for subscribing! Something went wrong. Please refresh and try again.She noted that the US corporate media has embarked on an increasingly ferocious campaign to demonize AMLO , portraying the democratically elected president as a power-hungry aspiring dictator who is supposedly wrecking Mexico's economy.
Duarte discussed the issue of US interference in Mexican politics in an interview with The Grayzone's Max Blumenthal and Ben Norton, on their podcast Moderate Rebels:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/7OJyCHjxCEs
Now, a whisper campaign over fears that the right-wing opposition may try to overthrow President Andrés Manuel López Obrador is spreading across Mexico.
AMLO himself has publicly addressed the rumors, making it clear that he will not tolerate any discussion of coups.
"How wrong the conservatives and their hawks are," López Obrador tweeted on November 2. Referencing the 1913 assassination of progressive President Francisco Madero, who had been a leader of the Mexican Revolution, AMLO wrote, "Now is different."
"Another coup d'état will now be allowed," he declared.
In recent months, as fears of a coup intensify, López Obrador has swung even further to the left, directly challenging the US government and asserting an independent foreign policy that contrasts starkly to the subservience of his predecessors.
AMLO's government has rejected US efforts to delegitimize Venezuela's leftist government, throwing a wrench in Washington's efforts to impose right-wing activist Juan Guaidó as coup leader.
AMLO has welcomed Ecuador's ousted socialist leader Rafael Correa and hosted Argentina's left-leaning Alberto Fernández for his first foreign trip after winning the presidency.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/D4T0zbASfbA
In October, López Obrador even welcomed Cuban President Díaz-Canel to Mexico for a historic visit.
Trump's Operation Condor 2.0For Washington, an independent and left-wing Mexico is intolerable.
In a speech for right-wing, MAGA hat-wearing Venezuelans in Miami , Florida in February, Trump ranted against socialism for nearly an hour, threatened the remaining leftist countries in Latin America with regime change.
"The days of socialism and communism are numbered not only in Venezuela, but in Nicaragua and in Cuba as well," he declared, adding that socialism would never be allowed to take root in heart of capitalism in the United States.
While Trump has claimed he seeks to withdraw from wars in the Middle East (when he is not occupying its oil fields ), he has ramped up aggressive US intervention in Latin America.
Though the neoconservative war hawk John Bolton is no longer overseeing US foreign policy , Elliott Abrams remains firmly embedded in the State Department, dusting off his Iran-Contra playbook to decimate socialism in Latin America all over again.
During the height of the Cold War, Operation Condor thousands of dissidents were murdered, and hundreds of thousands more were disappeared, tortured, or imprisoned with the assistance of the US intelligence apparatus.
Today, as Latin America is increasingly viewed through the lens of a new Cold War, Operation Condor is being reignited with new mechanisms of sabotage and subversion in play. The mayhem has only begun.
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Dec 04, 2019 | www.amazon.com
linda galella , November 19, 2019
"This may be our last chance to act to hold the man accountable..."Menkaure , November 21, 2019Well, that was "A Warning", for sure! The anonymous author of this tell all, Trump outter, goes on to proclaim "we must look deeper at the roots of the present disorder, which is why I have written this book."
Based on his/hers opening salvo, I proceeded with an open mind and hoped a first hand accounting of events would give me something more, something new, something unbiased...after reading every single word, I'm not sure what to think any more.
"A Warning", by Anonymous, is a well written political volume that speaks clearly, and authoritatively concerning the events that take place in the White House and with our president, Donald J. Trump. They have avoided all the histrionics that fill the tomes offered by most of the media members. There's plenty of passion and urgency behind what's being said it's just not crazed which for me, lends it an air of veracity. I'm settled for 60% of the discourse.
By chapter 5 my opinion of the author's recanting about the details of the POTUS's daily events has begun to become suspect and I'm starting to get that feeling that something is "off". I read on trying to keep my open mind, feelings at bay. It's not easy because the stories being told are starting to take on a schoolyard tenor such as: listing snippets of twitter tweets (only the "bad"parts), highlighting his inadequacies as a statesman/politician (DJT never claimed to be more than a businessman). It's not wrong to mention these things, it's the spirit in how it's done and the vacuum.
This is about the time that anonymous' logic becomes unfounded, for me; a Venn diagraming dilemma of if-then, WHAT?
Positing that POTUS has such a weakness for strong men that he would make egregious blunders of national security, as well as waffle on business and finance issues just doesn't make sense. Sorry. If for no other reason than his sheer business acumen, I'm rejecting this premise. Yes, he blunders on with lack of finesse in the deportment and statesman columns but...nope.
"A Warning" continues on pretty much in this manner, more and more juvenile until we end up firmly in the land of snark with chapter seven and "The Apologists" where the author in his anonymity proclaims how we can identify the various flavors of apologists, all they think and feel and all they need to do-to get , be and do better; presumptuous, IMHO. I'm sure snark wasn't the intended goal but it's how I arrived, for me.
All things considered, the writing and publishing are excellent. For the first half of the book, I was impressed with the author's ability to detail the story, taking the high road. The road got lonely along the way and anonymous veered to the access road, never joining yellow journalism highway to deliver "A Warning" 📚
Half-Hearted EpiphanyAmazon Customer , November 19, 2019A lot of reviewers are saying "It's nothing we didn't already know," and at first, that was my conclusion as well: there's no bombshells here. But upon reflection, there actually is something that we didn't know. It answered a mystery that has perplexed me for the better part of 3 years, albeit I don't think the author knows it themselves. The million dollar question: how could anyone with any morality, dignity, patriotism, or merely a sense of self-preservation work in the Trump administration? 'A Warning' is not any kind of explosive insider expose on the workings of the current White House. It's far too vague and generalized, avoiding specifics on nearly every topic to the point of exasperation. What this book is, is an attempt by the author to justify their bad, and it must be said, weak choices. It's both a sub-conscious excuse and apology for what's clear the author has still not fully come to terms with themselves. Between the lines, you can almost see him/her trying to work it out, never quite grasping his/her own moral weakness in enabling a man they know to be dangerously incompetent. Everybody, anybody, who has ever worked for somebody else has faced this dilemma at some point in their career: when the boss is bad; you either stay for self-serving reasons (like your finances) or you make a stand before the boss damages the whole enterprise. The author is trying to make a stand, and failing at it. The alarming aspect in this instance, is the stakes are so much higher, the highest, in fact. This is a book written by somebody deep in denial, attempting to work it out but not quite willing, yet, to look themselves directly in the mirror. Chapter 7, "Apologists," is the most telling. The author is not just explaining the motivations of his/her co-participants, but is unwittingly addressing their self as well. Perhaps the most important question here, is WHO does Anonymous think they are "Warning?" at this point? For the Never-Trumpers this is all old news. For the Ever-Trumpers, they're never going to read anything unapproved by their Dear Leader. For those on the fence (if there are any) they're comatose and aren't capable of comprehension. This wasn't written for anybody but the author's own conscience, and even at that, it hedges, dances around itself, and avoids mirrors.
Discusses what is already known about Trump with little in the way of solutions.joel wing , November 22, 2019The book tells readers what is already known and readily apparent about Donald Trump: his lack of empathy and curiousity, his volatility and impetuousness, his vengeful nature, the long-lasting damage he is doing to the country's institutions and norms.
The book does not delve into much, if any, new territory that has not been previously reported. Mentions of specific administration members and their individual actions are sparing and go little beyond general notions that many intitially thought Trump would turn his behavior around, are continually dumbfounded by him, try behind the scenes to keep the wheels of government on the road and fail due to his ADD, vanity, and pettiness, and that all know they are expendible to him.
The author devotes quite a bit of time discussing historical Greek democratic philosophy and examples to compare to the current situation. While interesting, it only serves to put Trump's personality and failings into yet another historical context which would surprise nobody who has paid any attention to this administration, government, politics, law, or history.
One of the largest problems with the author's arguments and solutions is that it ultimately lack individual courage. The author takes time to discuss the passengers aboard Flight 93 that fought back against the hijackers on 9/11. He/she even ends the book with the famous last words of one of the passengers who fought back: " Let's roll." While we do not know the identity of the author, his or her actions in publishing this book are not the same. The actions of passengers deciding to fight back against hijackers was not anonymous. They did not fail to show their faces. They met the danger head-on and with full knowledge of the consequences of failure. They did not try to leave it to others. The author gives the coda that the general public needs to wake up and do something, but then does not get in the aisle with the rest of the passengers to fight back. While the author's explanation of remaining anonymous is logical (that the message is more important than the messenger), the author ultimately falls prey to one of the flaws of everyone else who serves Trump: that he/she is not willing to speak truth directly to power regardless of the horrific consequences of not doing so. Former Senator Jeff Flake and Representative Justin Amash have made many of the same philosophical and logical points as the author regarding Trump's damaging actions publicly, to their own political demise. The reader cannot help but wonder if the author is still in the administration taking daily part in the passivity of those who know better but will not say it to Trump's face.
The book offers much in the way of problems but little in the way of solutions. The author suggests Americans be engaged in civics and politics at local and state levels. The author suggests that we find the political middle and return to civility. The author does not posit how the reader should, given such a dire warning, convince the many people to change course, who: 1) see what Trump really is and actually like it, 2) have been completely fooled about who Trump really is but will not respond to facts, logic, and/or self-interest, and 3) hold power to do something about Trump (i.e.: 53 Republican Senators) but remain passive due to a variety of personal, social, political, or economic factors.
Ultimately, the book puts forth an important analysis of Trump, the sycophants that surround him, and the damage he continues to do. But it doesn't come with the gravity of someone who is willing to risk his/her own skin in order to try to save the country that he/she seems to hold so dear. The message would mean more if the author was willing to risk all like the passengers of Flight 93.
Disappointing Repeats major faults w/Trump without adding any new detailsE.M. Tennessen , November 21, 2019A Warning by Anonymous who claims to be a senior Trump administration official comes on the heal of previous tell all books such as Michael Wolff's Fire and Fury and Bob Woodward's Fear. Unfortunately, if one read those books or has paid attention to the news there is nothing really new in A Warning, which outlines the argument against the Trump presidency.
Anonymous' argument is that Trump is unfit for the presidency and most be voted out of office in the next election. The author's complaints are well known. The president knows nothing about how the government, the economy or foreign policy works which leads to endless problems as he makes pronouncements, Tweets, or asks his staff to do things that can't be done, and sometimes might even be illegal. He contemplated telling the National Guard that was deployed to the border with Mexico to shoot people trying to enter illegally as a deterrent. Trump isn't inquisitive, doesn't read, and is an avid consumer of conspiracy theories. Trump for example is so adverse to reading and has such a short attention span that his staff has been reduced to briefing him with just one graphic or one slide that represents one main issue, and to repeat that point over and over in the hopes that it will sink in with the chief executive. Many times that fails. Instead, Trump's main sources of information are cable news and a variety of conspiracy theories he hears or makes up himself. The president's language is divisive. Trump revels in smack talking, and one of his favorite times is to go to rallies where he can unleash a new line against his opponents. He enjoys being a rabble rouser and inciting his followers. The president came into office with a diverse cabinet of generals, politicians, and businessmen, but most of them have left. Not only that, but some of them were willing to stand up to the president and tell him things he didn't want to hear. The author considers himself part of this group. Now Trump is surrounded by people that only tell him what he wants to hear. All together that has led the White House into one crisis after another. Trump Tweets he wanted out of Syria without telling any of his staff beforehand. The White House had outlined a $2 trillion infrastructure bill with the Democrats, but then Trump got mad watching cable TV before a planned meeting and walked away from the deal. The author has one great characterization at an end of a chapter where he says the government is like one of Trump's companies. It's badly managed, a sociopath is at its head, there is infighting, lawsuits, debt, shady deals, and everything is focused upon the owner rather than the customers.
Anonymous does make one new argument you rarely hear, and that is Trump is not a conservative. He starts off with the fact that Trump has changed his party affiliation several times. He also has violated many of the hall marks of conservatism such as free trade, fiscal responsibility, and cutting the size of the federal government. Trump for example, has created a huge budget deficit with his tax cuts while continuing to increase public spending.
Again, the problem with the book isn't the message, it's just that his has all been said before. I was at least expecting some interesting stories to go along with this laundry list of faults, but was disappointed by the lack of them. In the end, if this is the first book you're thinking of reading about Trump you will get the main arguments against his presidency. If you've been following Trump and his faults, then there's little to see here.
Familiar info in a new packageDalkasChris , November 22, 2019"A Warning" confirms with additional anecdotes what we already know--useful if you don't want to go all over the web for "all the news" about the White House's inner workings and the President's behavior. It's well-written but would have been more compelling if the op-eds, snark and name-calling had been edited out. Clearly, not written (but possibly edited) by someone with a journalism background. The chapter on "character" was the most valuable as it serves as a reminder of what we are looking for in a leader of our country, or any leader, in fact--someone with integrity, honesty, service-minded, respectful of others, clear-thinking, etc. It's clear from what's written here that if the President is re-elected, it says more about our nation than it does about a 73-year-old man who clearly has attention deficit disorder, possibly a reading disability, and absolutely no experience with statecraft. (Nor does he care. I don't know what's worse.) I'm sure this book will become a part of our interesting historical record!
Don't BotherWorld Traveller , November 22, 2019I purchased this book (against my better judgment) because I thought maybe the insights in this book would be enlightening. But I wish I hadn't spent the money. First, most of what was related in these pages, other than the opinion parts, were already well known through media, especially The New York Times and The Washington Post, as well as other other media outlets.
Second, anyone paying attention would have anticipated Trump's actions. What made me want to vomit after finishing this book was the realization that the Republican party doesn't care and will continue to support Trump, regardless of the evidence that he is not fit to serve and the author despite issuing this "warning", doesn't have the guts or the patriotism to come out of the shadows.
I also take issue with the author's portrayal of "never Trumpers" as crazed haters. That's the farthest from the truth. Many of us recognized early on that Trump is agrifter and a liar and an unscrupulous opportunist. We are not crazed; we are sounding the alarm! We are sensible patriots who love our country and our Constitution, who do not want to see our discourse redown into tribal factions and, possibly, into civil war (hopefully, if such does occur it will be cyber rather than armed conflict).
Every single day we are asked to ignore what our eyes can clearly see and what our ears can clearly hear and our brains can easily deduce in order to allow Trump's reality to proceed unquestioned. He doesn't understand he is not a monarch and his children are not heirs to the throne. The lies are non-stop and getting worse and the people surrounding him, including the author, are doing NOTHING to reign him in.
Last, we are in the midst of an impeachment inquiry. I've read every deposition that has been released and watched every minute of direct testimony during the hearings. It is without contest that Trump attempted to extort and bribe Ukraine in order to have the newly inaugurated president of Ukraine announce an investigation of Joe and Hunter Biden's involvement with Burisma. Sondland made it abundantly clear that no such actual investigation would be necessary, just the announcement of an investigation to tarnish Joe Biden's reputation and electoral standing. Trump's act was sleazy and wrong and illegal (check the statute about soliciting foreign involvement in domestic elections).
I'm infuriated by the author's insinuation that we who oppose such actions by any president are somehow deranged. The writer seems to think that impeachment and removal from office for such dirty tricks involving a foreign government should be somehow, beyond the pale for a civilized society. NO! Trump has obviously abused his office and put an ally in danger by withholding funding HE WAS NOT AUTHORIZED TO WITHHOLD, according to our Constitution. The author seems to think we should just cover our eyes to these transgressions and wait until the next election to vote Trump out.
What about all of the damage Trump can perpetrate on our democracy and on our foreign policy. He has done so much damage alrready, how can we allow him another year and keep our fingers crossed that it doesn't get worse? Also, since Trump was obviously trying to influence our upcoming elections with his dirty dealings, how can we allow him to remain in office knowing that he will do anything to cheat to win?
We anti-Trumpers (not never-Trumpers) are constantly accused of trying to perpetuate a "coup" by trying to remove Trump from office via either impeachment or through the 25th. That would only be true if Hilllary Clinton was installed in Trump's place. But If Trump leaves office before his first term is up, Mike Pence will assume the duties of president, not HRC. -- certainly not a "coup" to anyone who has half a brain and understands how our system works. It would still be a Republican administration and there would still be a Republican Senate. Certainly NOT a coup, just a Constitutional succession of the next in.line.
With regard to restoring a "climate of truth", that is impossible so long as alternative media (including FOX) exists. We Americans used to share a truth courtesy of the likes of Walter Cronkite and Huntley and Brinkley and others. Now, there's "left" media and a "right" media and they both exist in their own realities. We no longer share the same reality. If we no.longer share the same immutable facts and truths, then how can we work out our differences and our needs so we can all come to a consensus?
This book left me feeling angry and afraid for the future of my country, especially because people like the "anomynous" author doesn't take his citizenship and patriotism a step forward and tell what he knows on the record.
Don't waste your money. The author is a coward and should never profit from his lack of courage.
Should Have Remained an Op EdUh How How How , November 22, 2019This is not a very good book . I say this even though I was so looking forward to it , even buying it in pre-publication. On the publication date, I woke up early and started to read it, only to find it repetitious and general in nature.
Trump is described as amoral, indifferent, inattentive and impulsive – repeatedly. But with little background. The author is afraid of being identified as such so he deletes specific information that may later identify him. High ranking officials are identified as "high ranking officials". Important meetings are identified as "important meetings".
I did not read the original article that led to the book but It feels like the author took the article and padded it into a book. Disappointing: a waste of time; a waste of money.Self-aggrandizing, short on new info, long on whining written by a cowardI am a critic of this Administration.
First off, I really enjoyed the author's listing of every sleazy thing Trump has ever done (none of which are new or even greatly detailed), followed by snarky quips about Democrats taking power with too much zeal to investigate. That's the kind of 'logic' we are looking at here. The argument is that there is a lawless criminal in the White House but it's better to whine about him in print than do anything about it.
Secondly, there is no new information in this book. There is nothing here I have not heard before. There are no damning conversations or dramatic revelations. This book packages up the reporting of every news agency to date and just vomits it out at us. We've heard this all before. We had the author's level of indignation three years ago. We came to these conclusions three years ago. It is insulting that the author presents this material with a 'ta-daaa!' It's a scam.
Thirdly, Trump does what he does because weasels like the author of this 'book' let him. No matter what justifications this guy has for himself, he is still nothing but an enabler, and is complicit in the actions of this Administration. The author spends most of the book whining about the things Trump has done, takes no responsibility for anything, and does a LOT of "CYA." (cover your butt).
This is a 'nothing-burger.'
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Dec 04, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
ChrisPacific , December 3, 2019 at 3:57 pm
The poll graph without three day averaging is a great visual illustration of the margin of error concept. It's even clear in the averaged version. I guarantee people are NOT changing their minds that fast, and I'm sure all the issues Lambert highlighted are contributing to the inaccuracies.
That said, a few trends are clear. Biden is trending steadily (but very slowly) downward. Sanders and Buttigieg are trending up, Sanders slowly and Buttigieg somewhat faster, while Warren is settling back to her long term average after a bump in October. Harris' decision to withdraw looks like a good one. Undecided numbers are all over the place, and tend to spike up when other lines spike down, so I'm guessing that's down to differing polling methodologies and how hard people are pushed to make a call.
Mo's Bike Shop , December 3, 2019 at 9:04 pm
Are these pollsters reading all twenty names over the telephone? Or is the polled asked to name a candidate? I can't get my head around how to manage a list of this many candidates by voice without 'Name Recognition' being the first choice.
Lambert Strether Post author , December 4, 2019 at 7:17 am
> Are these pollsters reading all twenty names over the telephone?
That's a very good question. Is the list of names so long -- I don't think we've ever had one so long -- that it enables pollsters to game the polls in new ways? Could be such a simple and obvious mode of rigging that we did not see it.
Polling mavens?
dk , December 4, 2019 at 8:34 am
The short answer is yes, the full list of names is read at least once. But the number of candidates can vary between pollsters and polls.
For example in the Dec 1 polls:
HarrisX (C+)
Nov 30 – Dec 1
Sat – Sun
437 Reg'd
National
18 candidate names, plus "Other" and "Unsure" (not present in data source, derived in app)
Details here: https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/472629-bloomberg-overtakes-harris-in-new-pollMorning Consult (B/C)
Nov 25 – Dec 1
Mon – Sun
15,773 Likely
National
16 candidate names, plus "Someone else" (not present in data source, derived in app)
Details here: https://morningconsult.com/2020-democratic-primary/The differences are Joe Sestak and Steve Bullock in HarrisX but not MC, going to guess that MC decided not to list them because they dropped, and if they asked the names during the survey their report them in the conveniently names "Someone else" category.
Regarding ChrisPacific's point about Undecideds, yes, this is affected by methodology and whose polls came out on a particular day.
And more generally, we should expect to see noise in this data. These are minuscule samples compared to the actual voting universe of over 65 million. The "Margin of Error" / "Confidence Interval" claims are based on the assumption that all polls are distributed as a uniform bell curve. Arguably useful for getting the noise out of stats for physical observations of mechanical models, but absurd for human polling. Pollsters (who work mostly in marketing) use MoE/CI to convince clients spend money on small polls and then spin out reassuring MoE or CI (which scale to each other, bigger MoE = narrower CI). (Tangentially, on political campaigns, the tactical advantages to be found in population data come from looking into what's happening in the noise, not from smoothing it out and then assessing the distorted surface).
And as in most viscous media, quick changes tend to snap back to origin, slow ones push though. Consider also that a) these candidates are introducing themselves, impressions develop over time, and engagement is still low. Also, the context of US society may be gradually changing, but it would take a sudden shock (like 9/11 at the time) to change the background context and be reflected in a suddenly shift in Dem Primary polls.
anonymous , December 4, 2019 at 9:06 am
I participated in the last Des Moines Register/CNN Iowa poll. The pollster was required to read all of the names, even when I could name one immediately.
The call came on my cell phone from a restricted number. I asked for what company or candidate the poll was being conducted; the interviewer said that she was not given that information, but at the very end I was asked whether I would be willing to talk to a reporter from CNN or the DMR (I declined). She did tell me the research firm for which she worked, which I later saw was the name of the firm that had conducted the poll. When I saw the original release, I wondered whether I was correct that this was the poll, since I remembered a question about my preference for a health care system that wasn't in the original release. That result was released at a later date.
The M4A option for that question was simply M4A, without additional information or qualifiers. I, as is usual for me, couldn't simply answer a multiple choice question, but explained that I supported improved M4A, and that current Medicare is still expensive. The interviewer told me that she herself has trouble affording Medicare, and that she particularly has trouble paying for her medication. (We got a little chatty.)The research firm was also contacting Republicans. She said that I had been the first Democrat that she had reached that day, and that Republicans got different questions. She did not know whom she was calling and, at the end, asked my first name so that her company could verify that she had reached the right individual.
I'll check back here in case there are any other questions about the poll that I might be able to answer. If anyone is interested in the questions themselves, those are already available online.
Why did I agree to participate? To have my support for Bernie counted, of course!
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Dec 04, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com
aul MacDonald and Joseph Parent explain in detail that Trump hasn't reduced U.S. military commitments overseas:
But after nearly three years in office, Trump's promised retrenchment has yet to materialize. The president hasn't meaningfully altered the U.S. global military footprint he inherited from President Barack Obama. Nor has he shifted the costly burden of defending U.S. allies. To the contrary, he loaded even greater military responsibilities on the United States while either ramping up or maintaining U.S. involvement in the conflicts in Afghanistan, Syria, and elsewhere. On practically every other issue, Trump departed radically from the path of his predecessor. But when it came to troop deployments and other overseas defense commitments, he largely preserved the chessboard he inherited -- promises to the contrary be damned.
MacDonald and Parent's article complements my earlier post about U.S. "global commitments" very nicely. When we look at the specifics of Trump's record, we see that he isn't ending U.S. military involvement anywhere. He isn't bringing anyone home. On the contrary, he has been sending even more American troops to the Middle East just this year alone. While he is being excoriated for withdrawals that never happen, he is maintaining or steadily increasing the U.S. military presence in foreign countries. Many Trump detractors and supporters are so invested in the narrative that Trump is presiding over "withdrawal" that they are ignoring what the president has actually done. Trump's approach to U.S. military involvement might be described as "loudly declaring withdrawal while maintaining or increasing troop levels." Almost everyone pays attention only to his rhetoric about leaving this or that country and treats it as if it is really happening. Meanwhile, the number of military personnel deployed overseas never goes down.
The authors offer a possible explanation for why Trump has been able to get away with this:
A more compelling explanation for the persistence of a large global U.S. military footprint, and the concomitant creep of oversees commitments, is to be found in domestic politics. Trump's rhetoric can diverge sharply from reality without consequence because few in his party have an incentive to hold him accountable. In this hyper-polarized political moment, most voters will stick with their party regardless of how many campaign pledges are broken or foreign policy initiatives end in failure. With an all-volunteer military, flattening taxes, and deficit financing, the vast majority of Americans are insulated from the costs of American foreign policy. So long as most Americans want to look tough and influential without paying for it, politicians won't be punished for living in the same fantasy world as voters.
Trump is further insulated from scrutiny and criticism because he is frequently described as presiding over a "retreat" from the world. Most news reports and commentary pieces reinforce this false impression that Trump seeks to get the U.S. out of foreign entanglements. There are relatively few people pointing out the truth that MacDonald and Parent spell out in their article. The main reason why America's military commitments remain unchanged under Trump may simply be that the president doesn't really want to reduce them.
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Aug 05, 2018 | www.unz.com
I recently published a couple of long essays, and although they primarily focused on other matters, the subject of anti-Semitism was a strong secondary theme. In that regard, I mentioned my shock at discovering a dozen or more years ago that several of the most self-evidently absurd elements of anti-Semitic lunacy, which I had always dismissed without consideration, were probably correct. It does seem likely that a significant number of traditionally-religious Jews did indeed occasionally commit the ritual murder of Christian children in order to use their blood in certain religious ceremonies, and also that powerful Jewish international bankers did play a large role in financing the establishment of Bolshevik Russia .
When one discovers that matters of such enormous moment not only apparently occurred but that they had been successfully excluded from nearly all of our histories and media coverage for most of the last one hundred years, the implications take some time to properly digest. If the most extreme "anti-Semitic canards" were probably true, then surely the whole notion of anti-Semitism warrants a careful reexamination.
All of us obtain our knowledge of the world by two different channels. Some things we discover from our own personal experiences and the direct evidence of our senses, but most information comes to us via external sources such as books and the media, and a crisis may develop when we discover that these two pathways are in sharp conflict. The official media of the old USSR used to endlessly trumpet the tremendous achievements of its collectivized agricultural system, but when citizens noticed that there was never any meat in their shops, "Pravda" became a watchword for "Lies" rather than "Truth."
Now consider the notion of "anti-Semitism." Google searches for that word and its close variants reveal over 24 million hits, and over the years I'm sure I've seen that term tens of thousands of times in my books and newspapers, and heard it endlessly reported in my electronic media and entertainment. But thinking it over, I'm not sure that I can ever recall a single real-life instance I've personally encountered, nor have I heard of almost any such cases from my friends or acquaintances. Indeed, the only persons I've ever come across making such claims were individuals who bore unmistakable signs of serious psychological imbalance. When the daily newspapers are brimming with lurid tales of hideous demons walking among us and attacking people on every street corner, but you yourself have never actually seen one, you may gradually grow suspicious.
Indeed, over the years some of my own research has uncovered a sharp contrast between image and reality. As recently as the late 1990s, leading mainstream media outlets such as The New York Times were still denouncing a top Ivy League school such as Princeton for the supposed anti-Semitism of its college admissions policy, but a few years ago when I carefully investigated that issue in quantitative terms for my lengthy Meritocracy analysis I was very surprised to reach a polar-opposite conclusion. According to the best available evidence, white Gentiles were over 90% less likely to be enrolled at Harvard and the other Ivies than were Jews of similar academic performance, a truly remarkable finding. If the situation had been reversed and Jews were 90% less likely to be found at Harvard than seemed warranted by their test scores, surely that fact would be endlessly cited as the absolute smoking-gun proof of horrendous anti-Semitism in present-day America.
It has also become apparent that a considerable fraction of what passes for "anti-Semitism" these days seems to stretch that term beyond all recognition. A few weeks ago an unknown 28-year-old Democratic Socialist named Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez scored a stunning upset primary victory over a top House Democrat in New York City, and naturally received a blizzard of media coverage as a result. However, when it came out that she had denounced the Israeli government for its recent massacre of over 140 unarmed Palestinian protesters in Gaza, cries of "anti-Semite" soon appeared, and according to Google there are now over 180,000 such hits combining her name and that harsh accusatory term. Similarly, just a few days ago the New York Times ran a major story reporting that all of Britain's Jewish newspapers had issued an "unprecedented" denunciation of Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party, describing it as an "existential threat" to the Jewish community for the anti-Semitism it was fostering; but this apparently amounted to nothing more than its willingness to sharply criticize the Israeli government for its long mistreatment of the Palestinians.
One plausible explanation of the strange contrast between media coverage and reality might be that anti-Semitism once did loom very large in real life, but dissipated many decades ago, while the organizations and activists focused on detecting and combating that pernicious problem have remained in place, generating public attention based on smaller and smaller issues, with the zealous Jewish activists of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) representing a perfect example of this situation. As an even more striking illustration, the Second World War ended over seventy years ago, but what historian Norman Finkelstein has so aptly labeled "the Holocaust Industry" has grown ever larger and more entrenched in our academic and media worlds so that scarcely a day passes without one or more articles relating to that topic appearing in my major morning newspapers. Given this situation, a serious exploration of the true nature of anti-Semitism should probably avoid the mere media phantoms of today and focus on the past, when the condition might still have been widespread in daily life.
Many observers have pointed to the aftermath of the Second World War as marking a huge watershed in the public acceptability of anti-Semitism both in America and Europe, so perhaps a proper appraisal of that cultural phenomenon should focus on the years before that global conflict. However, the overwhelming role of Jews in the Bolshevik Revolution and other bloody Communist seizures of power quite naturally made them objects of considerable fear and hatred throughout the inter-war years, so the safest course might be to push that boundary back a little further and confine our attention to the period prior to the outbreak of the First World War. The pogroms in Czarist Russia, the Dreyfus Affair in France, and the lynching of Leo Frank in the American South come to mind as some of the most famous examples from that period.
Lindemann's discussion of the often difficult relations between Russia's restive Jewish minority and its huge Slavic majority is also quite interesting, and he provides numerous instances in which major incidents, supposedly demonstrating the enormously strong appeal of vicious anti-Semitism, were quite different than has been suggested by the legend. The famous Kishinev Pogrom of 1903 was obviously the result of severe ethnic tension in that city, but contrary to the regular accusations of later writers, there seems absolutely no evidence of high-level government involvement, and the widespread claims of 700 dead that so horrified the entire world were grossly exaggerated, with only 45 killed in the urban rioting. Chaim Weizmann, the future president of Israel, later promoted the story that he himself and some other brave Jewish souls had personally defended their people with revolvers in hand even as they saw the mutilated bodies of 80 Jewish victims. This account was totally fictional since Weizmann happened to have been be hundreds of miles away when the riots occurred.
Although a tendency to lie and exaggerate was hardly unique to the political partisans of Russian Jewry, the existence of a powerful international network of Jewish journalists and Jewish-influenced media outlets ensured that such concocted propaganda stories might receive enormous worldwide distribution, while the truth followed far behind, if at all.
For related reasons, international outrage was often focused on the legal confinement of most of Russia's Jews to the "Pale of Settlement," suggesting some sort of tight imprisonment; but that area was the traditional home of the Jewish population and encompassed a landmass almost as large as France and Spain combined. The growing impoverishment of Eastern European Jews during that era was often assumed to be a consequence of hostile government policy, but the obvious explanation was extraordinary Jewish fecundity, which far outstripped that of their Slavic fellow countrymen, and quickly led them to outgrow the available spots in any of their traditional "middleman" occupations, a situation worsened by their total disinclination to engage in agriculture or other primary-producer activities. Jewish communities expressed horror at the risk of losing their sons to the Czarist military draft, but this was simply the flip-side of the full Russian citizenship they had been granted, and no different from what was faced by their non-Jewish neighbors.
Certainly the Jews of Russia suffered greatly from widespread riots and mob attacks in the generation prior to World War I, and these did sometimes have substantial government encouragement, especially in the aftermath of the very heavy Jewish role in the 1905 Revolution. But we should keep in mind that a Jewish plotter had been implicated in the killing of Czar Alexander II, and Jewish assassins had also struck down several top Russian ministers and numerous other government officials. If the last decade or two had seen American Muslims assassinate a sitting U.S. President, various leading Cabinet members, and a host of our other elected and appointed officials, surely the position of Muslims in this country would have become a very uncomfortable one.
As Lindemann candidly describes the tension between Russia's very rapidly growing Jewish population and its governing authorities, he cannot avoid mentioning the notorious Jewish reputation for bribery, corruption, and general dishonesty, with numerous figures of all political backgrounds noting that the remarkable Jewish propensity to commit perjury in the courtroom led to severe problems in the effective administration of justice. The eminent American sociologist E.A. Ross, writing in 1913, characterized the regular behavior of Eastern European Jews in very similar terms .
Lindemann also allocates a short chapter to discussing the 1911 Beilis Affair, in which a Ukrainian Jew was accused of the ritual murder of a young Gentile boy, an incident that generated a great deal of international attention and controversy. Based on the evidence presented, the defendant seems likely to have been innocent, although the obvious lies he repeatedly told police interrogators hardly helped foster that impression, and "the system worked" in that he was ultimately found innocent by the jurors at his trial. However, a few pages are also given to a much less well-known ritual murder case in late 19th century Hungary, in which the evidence of Jewish guilt seemed far stronger, though the author hardly accepted the possible reality of such an outlandish crime. Such reticence was quite understandable since the publication of Ariel Toaff's remarkable volume on the subject was still a dozen years in the future.
Lindemann subsequently expanded his examination of historical anti-Semitism into a much broader treatment, Esau's Tears , which appeared in 1997. In this volume, he added comparative studies of the social landscape in Germany, Britain, Italy, and several other European countries, and demonstrated that the relationship between Jews and non-Jews varied greatly across different locations and time periods. But although I found his analysis quite useful and interesting, the extraordinarily harsh attacks his text provoked from some outraged Jewish academics seemed even more intriguing.
For example, Judith Laikin Elkin opened her discussion in The American Historical Review by describing the book as a "545-page polemic" a strange characterization of a book so remarkably even-handed and factually-based in its scholarship. Writing in Commentary , Robert Wistrich was even harsher, stating that merely reading the book had been a painful experience for him, and his review seemed filled with spittle-flecked rage. Unless these individuals had somehow gotten copies of a different book, I found their attitudes simply astonishing.
I was not alone in such a reaction. Richard S. Levy of the University of Illinois, a noted scholar of anti-Semitism, expressed amazement at Wistrich's seemingly irrational outburst, while Paul Gottfried, writing in Chronicles , mildly suggested that Lindemann had "touched raw nerves." Indeed, Gottfried's own evaluation quite reasonably criticized Lindemann for perhaps being a little too even-handed, sometimes presenting numerous conflicting analyzes without choosing between them. For those interested, a good discussion of the book by Alan Steinweis, a younger scholar specializing in the same topic, is conveniently available online .
The remarkable ferocity with which some Jewish writers attacked Lindemann's meticulous attempt to provide an accurate history of anti-Semitism may carry more significance than merely an exchange of angry words in low-circulation academic publications. If our mainstream media shapes our reality, scholarly books and articles based upon them tend to set the contours of that media coverage. And the ability of a relatively small number of agitated and energetic Jews to police the acceptable boundaries of historical narratives may have enormous consequences for our larger society, deterring scholars from objectively reporting historical facts and preventing students from discovering them.
The undeniable truth is that for many centuries Jews usually constituted a wealthy and privileged segment of the population in nearly all the European countries in which they resided, and quite frequently they based their livelihood upon the heavy exploitation of a downtrodden peasantry. Even without any differences in ethnicity, language, or religion, such conditions almost invariably provoke hostility. The victory of Mao's Communist forces in China was quickly followed by the brutal massacre of a million or more Han Chinese landlords by the Han Chinese poor peasants who regarded them as cruel oppressors, with William Hinton's classic Fanshen describing the unfortunate history that unfolded in one particular village. When similar circumstances led to violent clashes in Eastern Europe between Slavs and Jews, does it really make logical sense to employ a specialized term such as "anti-Semitism" to describe that situation?
Furthermore, some of the material presented in Lindemann's rather innocuous text might also lead to potentially threatening ideas. Consider, for example, the notorious Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion , almost certainly fictional, but hugely popular and influential during the years following World War I and the Bolshevik Revolution. The fall of so many longstanding Gentile dynasties and their replacement by new regimes such as Soviet Russia and Weimar Germany, which were heavily dominated by their tiny Jewish minorities, quite naturally fed suspicions of a worldwide Jewish plot, as did the widely discussed role of Jewish international bankers in producing those political outcomes.
Over the decades, there has been much speculation about the possible inspiration for the Protocols , but although Lindemann makes absolutely no reference to that document, he does provide a very intriguing possible candidate. Jewish-born British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli certainly ranked as one of the most influential figures of the late 19th century, and in his novel Coningsby , he has the character representing Lord Lionel Rothschild boast about the existence of a vast and secret network of powerful international Jews , who stand near the head of almost every major nation, quietly controlling their governments from behind the scenes. If one of the world's most politically well-connected Jews eagerly promoted such notions, was Henry Ford really so unreasonable in doing the same?
Lindemann also notes Disraeli's focus on the extreme importance of race and racial origins, a central aspect of traditional Jewish religious doctrine. He reasonably suggests that this must surely have had a huge influence upon the rise of those political ideas, given that Disraeli's public profile and stature were so much greater than the mere writers or activists whom our history books usually place at center stage. In fact, Houston Stewart Chamberlain, a leading racial theorist, actually cited Disraeli as a key source for his ideas. Jewish intellectuals such as Max Nordau and Cesare Lombroso are already widely recognized as leading figures in the rise of the racial science of that era, but Disraeli's under-appreciated role may have actually been far greater. The deep Jewish roots of European racialist movements are hardly something that many present-day Jews would want widely known.
One of the harsh Jewish critics of Esau's Tears denounced Cambridge University Press for even allowing the book to appear in print, and although that major work is easily available in English, there are numerous other cases where an important but discordant version of historical reality has been successfully blocked from publication. For decades most Americans would have ranked Nobel Laureate Alexander Solzhenitsyn as among the world's greatest literary figures, and his Gulag Archipelago alone sold over 10 million copies. But his last work was a massive two-volume account of the tragic 200 years of shared history between Russians and Jews, and despite its 2002 release in Russian and numerous other world languages, there has yet to be an authorized English translation, though various partial editions have circulated on the Internet in samizdat form.
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At one point, a full English version was briefly available for sale at Amazon.com and I purchased it. Glancing through a few sections, the work seemed quite even-handed and innocuous to me, but it seemed to provide a far more detailed and uncensored account than anything else previously available, which obviously was the problem. The Bolshevik Revolution resulted in the deaths of many tens of millions of people worldwide, and the overwhelming Jewish role in its leadership would become more difficult to erase from historical memory if Solzhenitsyn's work were easily available. Also, his candid discussion of the economic and political behavior of Russian Jewry in pre-revolutionary times directly conflicted with the hagiography widely promoted by Hollywood and the popular media. Historian Yuri Slezkine's award-winning 2004 book The Jewish Century provided many similar facts, but his treatment was far more cursory and his public stature not remotely the same.
Near the end of his life, Solzhenitsyn gave his political blessing to Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Russia's leaders honored him upon his death, while his Gulag volumes are now enshrined as mandatory reading in the standard high school curriculum of today's overwhelmingly Christian Russia. But even as his star rose again in his own homeland, it seems to have sharply fallen in our own country, and his trajectory may eventually relegate him to nearly un-person status.
A couple of years after the release of Solzhenitsyn's controversial final book, an American writer named Anne Applebaum published a thick history bearing the same title Gulag , and her work received enormously favorable media coverage and won her a Pulitzer Prize; I have even heard claims that her book has been steadily replacing that earlier Gulag on many college reading lists. But although Jews constituted a huge fraction of the top leadership of the Soviet Gulag system during its early decades, as well as that of the dreaded NKVD which supplied the inmates, nearly her entire focus on her own ethnic group during Soviet times is that of victims rather than victimizers. And by a remarkable irony of fate, she shares a last name with one of the top Bolshevik leaders, Hirsch Apfelbaum, who concealed his own ethnic identity by calling himself Grigory Zinoviev.
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The striking decline in Solzhenitsyn's literary status in the West came just a decade or two after an even more precipitous collapse in the reputation of David Irving , and for much the same reason. Irving probably ranked as the most internationally successful British historian of the last one hundred years and a renowned scholar of World War II, but his extensive reliance on primary source documentary evidence posed an obvious threat to the official narrative promoted by Hollywood and wartime propaganda. When he published his magisterial Hitler's War , this conflict between myth and reality came into the open, and an enormous wave of attacks and vilification was unleashed, gradually leading to his purge from respectability and eventually even his imprisonment.
These important examples may help to explain the puzzling contrast between the behavior of Jews in the aggregate and Jews as individuals. Observers have noticed that even fairly small Jewish minorities may often have a major impact upon the far larger societies that host them. But on the other hand, in my experience at least, a large majority of individual Jews do not seem all that different in their personalities or behavior than their non-Jewish counterparts. So how does a community whose individual mean is not so unusual generate what seems to be such a striking difference in collective behavior? I think the answer may involve the existence of information choke-points, and the ability of relatively small numbers of particularly zealous and agitated Jews in influencing and controlling these.
We live our lives constantly immersed in media narratives, and these allow us to decide the rights and wrongs of a situation. The vast majority of people, Jew and Gentile alike, are far more likely to take strong action if they are convinced that their cause is a just one. This is obviously the basis for war-time propaganda.
Now suppose that a relatively small number of zealous Jewish partisans are known to always attack and denounce journalists or authors who accurately describe Jewish misbehavior. Over time, this ongoing campaign of intimidation may cause many important facts to be left on the cutting-room floor, or even gradually expel from mainstream respectability those writers who refuse to conform to such pressures. Meanwhile, similar small numbers of Jewish partisans frequently exaggerate the misdeeds committed against Jews, sometimes piling their exaggerations upon past exaggerations already produced by a previous round of such zealots.
Eventually, these two combined trends may take a complex and possibly very mixed historical record and transform it into a simple morality-play, with innocent Jews tremendously injured by vicious Jew-haters. And as this morality-play becomes established it deepens the subsequent intensity of other Jewish-activists, who redouble their demands that the media "stop vilifying Jews" and covering up the supposed evils inflicted upon them. An unfortunate circle of distortion following exaggeration following distortion can eventually produce a widely accepted historical account that bears little resemblance to the reality of what actually happened.
So as a result, the vast majority of quite ordinary Jews, who would normally behave in quite ordinary ways, are misled by this largely fictional history, and rather understandably become greatly outraged at all the horrible things that had been done to their suffering people, some of which are true and some of which are not, while remaining completely ignorant of the other side of the ledger.
Furthermore, this situation is exacerbated by the common tendency of Jews to "cluster" together, perhaps respresenting just one or two percent of the total population, but often constituting 20% or 40% or 60% of their immediate peer-group, especially in certain professions. Under such conditions, the ideas or emotional agitation of some Jews probably permeates others around them, often provoking additional waves of indignation.
As a rough analogy, a small quantity of uranium is relatively inert and harmless, and entirely so if distributed within low-density ore. But if a significant quantity of weapons-grade uranium is sufficiently compressed, then the neutrons released by fissioning atoms will quickly cause additional atoms to undergo fission, with the ultimate result of that critical chain-reaction being a nuclear explosion. In similar fashion, even a highly agitated Jew may have no negative impact, but if the collection of such agitated Jews becomes too numerous and clusters together too closely, they may work each other into a terrible frenzy, perhaps with disastrous consequences both for themselves and for their larger society. This is especially true if those agitated Jews begin to dominate certain key nodes of top-level control, such as the central political or media organs of a society.
Whereas most living organizations exist solely in physical reality, human beings also occupy an ideational space, with the interaction of human consciousness and perceived reality playing a major role in shaping behavior. Just as the pheromones released by mammals or insects can drastically affect the reactions of their family members or nest-mates, the ideas secreted by individuals or the media-emitters of a society can have an enormous impact upon their fellows.
A cohesive, organized group generally possesses huge advantages over a teeming mass of atomized individuals, just as a Macedonian Phalanx could easily defeat a vastly larger body of disorganized infantry. Many years ago, on some website somewhere I came across a very insightful comment regarding the obvious connection between "anti-Semitism" and "racism," which our mainstream media organs identify as two of the world's greatest evils. Under this analysis, "anti-Semitism" represents the tendency to criticize or resist Jewish social cohesion, while "racism" represents the attempt of white Gentiles to maintain a similar social cohesion of their own. To the extent that the ideological emanations from our centralized media organs serve to strengthen and protect Jewish cohesion while attacking and dissolving any similar cohesion on the part of their Gentile counterparts, the former will obviously gain enormous advantages in resource-competition against the latter.
Religion obviously constitutes an important unifying factor in human social groups and we cannot ignore the role of Judaism in this regard. Traditional Jewish religious doctrine seems to consider Jews as being in a state of permanent hostility with all non-Jews , and the use of dishonest propaganda is an almost inevitable aspect of such conflict. Furthermore, since Jews have invariably been a small political minority, maintaining such controversial tenets required the employment of a massive framework of subterfuge and dissimulation in order to conceal their nature from the larger society surrounding them. It has often been said that truth is the first casualty in war, and surely the cultural influences of over a thousand years of such intense religious hostility may continue to quietly influence the thinking of many modern Jews, even those who have largely abandoned their religious beliefs.
The notorious Jewish tendency to shamelessly lie or wildly exaggerate has sometimes had horrifying human consequences. I very recently discovered a fascinating passage in Peter Moreira's 2014 book The Jew Who Defeated Hitler: Henry Morgenthau Jr., FDR, and How We Won the War , focused on the important political role of that powerful Secretary of the Treasury.
A turning point in Henry Morgenthau Jr.'s relationship with the Jewish community came in November 1942, when Rabbi Stephen Wise came to the corner office to tell the secretary what was happening in Europe. Morgenthau knew of the millions of deaths and the lampshades made from victims' skin, and he asked Wise not to go into excessive details. But Wise went on to tell of the barbarity of the Nazis, how they were making soap out of Jewish flesh. Morgenthau, turning paler, implored him, "Please, Stephen, don't give me the gory details." Wise went on with his list of horrors and Morgenthau repeated his plea over and over again. Henrietta Klotz was afraid her boss would keel over. Morgenthau later said the meeting changed his life.
It is easy to imagine that Morgenthau's gullible acceptance of such obviously ridiculous war-time atrocity stories played a major role when he later lent his name and support to remarkably brutal American occupation policies that probably led to the postwar deaths of many millions of innocent German civilians .
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Dec 04, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com
Factotum , 20 November 2019 at 07:39 PM
Democrats painted themselves into a corner.turcopolier , 20 November 2019 at 09:36 PMOnly way out is to call for the impeachment, have a vote and either lick their wounds if they lose (mainly Schiff and Nadler get sacrificed - Fancy Nancy has been dancing on a tight rope so she gets a pass); or vote to pass articles of impeachment and finally send this turkey on to the senate.
Wild card, how many Democrats not engaged in this blatant publicity stunt also want no part in it. What will be the FBI investigation of Ciaramella - there are penalties for filing false complaints and it appears he was acting well out side the confines of the whistle-blower law.
factotumFactotum said in reply to turcopolier ... , 21 November 2019 at 12:18 AM
That is irrelevant. The complaint would have been invalid as outside the law even if it had been based on first hand knowledge.Ergo, the FBI is duty bound to hold Ciaramella accountable for filing a false complaint. Only if charges get filed can his action under this law be deemed irrelevant.turcopolier , 20 November 2019 at 09:40 PMOtherwise, all you have are the opening opinion statements in tonights DNC debate, sneered out by Rachael Maddow, picked up with even more sneers by Kamala Harris and echoed by every single DNC candidate as already a fait accompli.
The unocntested party line tonight is this "whistle blower" busted Trump wide open as a crook and a self-confessed crook at that.
That political message flowing from this "irrelevant complaint "is hard to overcome as the DNC debate crowd cheered, unless the perpetrator is brought to justice under the relevance of this law. We shall wait patiently for that moment. As the Democrats all stated tonight - 2020 election is all about JUSTICE AND NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW.
NOW can I be excused while I go throw up?
JJacksonJJackson said in reply to turcopolier ... , 21 November 2019 at 03:33 AMThe complaint was without the law, do you understand that?
I do, which is what I meant byturcopolier , 20 November 2019 at 09:46 PM
"In this case his/her gripe does not fall within the scope of the act."The point I was making is that, as drafted, there is in adequate redress/protection for those who witness acts which are clearly covered. This is not conducive to keeping government on the straight and narrow. The reliability of the Steele document seems to have been massively oversold to the FISA court. Had someone in the know acted as Whistle-blower and saved us all that has followed they should not get crucified for it, it is part of their job isn't it?
LA Sox FanFactotum said in reply to turcopolier ... , 21 November 2019 at 12:20 AMI will try again. The law has nothing to do with non-intelligence matters and there were no intelligence matters in the phone call.
The complaint was a vehicle to carry out the Democrats politics of personal destruction. While all on the DNC debate stage tonight, each candidate asked (without a hint of irony) to be the one candidate who can "bring the country together again" after Trump alone has torn it asunder.Rick Merlotti said in reply to Factotum... , 21 November 2019 at 10:05 AMYeah, well fortunately nobody watches those debates.LA Sox Fan -> turcopolier ... , 21 November 2019 at 10:37 AMExactly right. If I were Trump, I would have fired this guy for accepting a whistleblower complaint that was not allowed under the statute because it did not concern an intelligence activity or anything else supervised by the DNI as the statute requires.Will Smith , 21 November 2019 at 12:32 AMConceptually, it is the same as the Intelligence IG accepting and investigating complaints about slow mail service, mine safety, or TSA agents stealing when they inspect luggage at the airport. His jurisdiction is limited and he grossly exceeded it.
The Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) is Michael K Atkinson. ICIG Atkinson is the official who accepted the ridiculous premise of a hearsay 'whistle-blower' complaint; an intelligence whistleblower who was "blowing-the-whistle" based on second hand information of a phone call without any direct personal knowledge, ie 'hearsay'.The center of the Lawfare Alliance influence was/is the Department of Justice National Security Division, DOJ-NSD. It was the DOJ-NSD running the Main Justice side of the 2016 operations to support Operation Crossfire Hurricane and FBI agent Peter Strzok. It was also the DOJ-NSD where the sketchy legal theories around FARA violations (Sec. 901) originated.
Michael K Atkinson was previously the Senior Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General of the National Security Division of the Department of Justice (DOJ-NSD) in 2016. That makes Atkinson senior legal counsel to John Carlin and Mary McCord who were the former heads of the DOJ-NSD in 2016 when the stop Trump operation was underway.
Michael Atkinson was the lawyer for the same DOJ-NSD players who: (1) lied to the FISA court (Judge Rosemary Collyer) about the 80% non compliant NSA database abuse using FBI contractors; (2) filed the FISA application against Carter Page; and (3) used FARA violations as tools for political surveillance and political targeting.
Yes, that means Michael Atkinson was Senior Counsel for the DOJ-NSD, at the very epicenter of the political weaponization and FISA abuse.
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Dec 04, 2019 | www.wsws.org
On September 5, 2018, the New York Times published an op-ed by a "senior official" in the White House, entitled "I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration."
The anonymous author of the piece revealed that "many of the senior officials in [Trump's] own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations." The "adults in the room," he claimed, are leading a "two-track presidency."
In that op-ed, he revealed that "there were early whispers within the cabinet of invoking the 25th Amendment, which would start a complex process for removing the president."
In other words, members of the executive branch had discussed a coup to remove a sitting president, which they pulled back from only because "no one wanted" a "constitutional crisis."
One year later, the same unnamed official, whose identity is known to the Times , has published a book elaborating on themes elucidated in the editorial. A Warning is currently #1 on the New York Times ' nonfiction bestseller list.
The author, "Anonymous," has been publicly identified as Guy Snodgrass, the US Navy commander who served as the communications secretary for the Department of Defense under Gen. James Mattis. Posting a report of his alleged authorship on Twitter, Snodgrass cryptically mused, "the swirl continues."
If the allegation is true, it would have ominous implications. It would mean that the New York Times gave the military an opportunity to denounce a president as "amoral," "impetuous," "petty" and "ineffective," and to all but advocate his removal via unconstitutional means.
Notably, Snodgrass claims to be the author of perhaps the most important military document produced under the Trump administration, the unclassified summary of the 2018 National Defense Strategy, which declared that "Inter-state strategic competition, not terrorism, is now the primary concern in US national security."
We do not know whether Snodgrass is the author of A Warning , but the themes of the National Defense Strategy document are consistent with the emphasis of the book.
A Warning makes one thing abundantly clear: the "Resistance" to Trump's policies within the state, which is the basis of the Democrats' opposition to him, centers on claims that Trump is insufficiently aggressive in defending and expanding America's imperial interests against Russia and China.
Cmdr. Guy M. Snodgrass is shown in this Defense Department photograph in Japan in 2016. MATTHEW C. DUNCKER/U.S. NAVYA Warning argues that "America's dominant role on the international stage is at risk today," but Trump is "not positioning us to strengthen our empire of liberty." It continues: "Instead, he's left the empire's flank vulnerable to power-hungry competitors" with his "isolationist, what's-in-it-for-me attitude toward the world."
The allegations continue:
The president lacks a cogent agenda for dealing with these rivals because he doesn't recognize them as long-term threats. He only sees near-term deals. "Russia is a foe in certain respects. China is a foe economically But that doesn't mean they are bad," the president said in one interview
What he doesn't see, especially with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, is that their governments are programmed to oppose us
The United States is taking its eye off the ball with China, and our national response has been ad hoc and indecisive under President Trump. We have no serious plan to safeguard our "empire of liberty" against China's rise. There is only the ever-changing negotiating positions of a grifter in chief, which will not be enough to win what is fast becoming the next Cold War. President Trump is myopically focused on trade with China, which is only part of the picture
In a July 2018 interview, the president was asked to name America's biggest global adversary. He didn't lead the list with China, which is stealing American innovation at a scale never before seen in history, or Russia, which is working to tear our country apart.
And on and on.
In response to such concerns, the writer makes clear that sections of this staff were contemplating an extra-constitutional coup to replace Trump by declaring the American president mad and therefore "unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office," in the words of the 25th Amendment to the US Constitution, which outlines presidential succession in the case of a presidential disability.
A back-of-the-envelope "whip count" was conducted of officials who were most concerned about the deteriorating situation. Names of cabinet-level officials were placed on a mental list. These were folks who, in the worst case scenario, would be amenable to huddling discreetly in order to assess how bad the situation was getting I froze when I first heard someone suggest that we might be getting into "Twenty-fifth territory."
Among the figures noted in the press as possibly amenable to such an endeavor were former Defense Secretary Mattis, former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, former Chief of Staff Gen. John Kelly and former National Security Adviser Gen. H.R. McMaster.
The writer describes what the removal of the president via the 25th Amendment would look like:
Removal of the president by his own cabinet would be perceived as a coup. The end result would be unrest in the United States the likes of which we haven't seen since maybe the Civil War. Millions would not accept the outcome, perhaps including the president himself, and many would take to the streets on both sides. Violence would be almost inevitable.
If Trump is "removed from office and he refuses to go He will not exit quietly -- or easily It is why at many turns he suggests 'coups' are afoot and a 'civil war' is in the offing."
One does not know whether the author has really had a change of heart about overthrowing the American government in a coup, or, if he is a military person, he fears a court martial for treason. In any event, he concludes, "In a democracy we don't overthrow our leaders when they're underperforming. That's for third-rate banana republics and police states."
How reassuring
After only three paragraphs weighing in on the merits of the impeachment proceeding, the author concludes, "One option -- and one option only -- stands above the rest as the ultimate way to hold Trump accountable" -- to unseat him in the 2020 election.
Politically, the author appears to be an anti-Trump Republican. He urges his "fellow Republicans" to vote for a centrist Democrat if one is nominated--as long as the candidate is not a "socialist."
Two "warnings" are to be drawn from this book:
First is the enormous crisis of democracy in the United States, which has degenerated to the point where cabinet officials, most of whom are or were military officers, abetted by the media, discuss a coup as a legitimate means to resolve policy differences. The president, meanwhile, repeatedly threatens to say in office past the two-term constitutional limit, and effectively asserts unlimited and dictatorial executive powers.
While the threat posed by Trump to democratic rights is immense, no one who opposes war and attacks on democratic rights can have anything to do with the aims and intentions of the author of this book. Behind his pilfered, cobbled-together quotations -- he calls Plato an American historian -- and his ridiculous attempt at gravitas, he is a bloodthirsty advocate of imperialist war.
The Democrats, who have upheld this man and people like him as the "adults in the room" and the antipode to Trump, are infected with the same poison.
The struggle to remove Trump and to hold him to account for his real crimes will have nothing to do with people such as "Anonymous," or the Democratic impeachment campaign that is totally aligned with his pro-war agenda.
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Dec 04, 2019 | caucus99percent.com
'A Warning: A manifesto of the pro-war "Resistance" in the American state ' Andre Damon, 4 December 2019 , wsws.org
On September 5, 2018 , the New York Times published an op-ed by a "senior official" in the White House, entitled "I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration."
The anonymous author of the piece revealed that "many of the senior officials in [Trump's] own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations." The "adults in the room," he claimed, are leading a "two-track presidency."
In that op-ed, he revealed that "there were early whispers within the cabinet of invoking the 25th Amendment, which would start a complex process for removing the president."
..........................................
One year later , the same unnamed official, whose identity is known to the Times, has published a book elaborating on themes elucidated in the editorial. A Warning is currently #1 on the New York Times ' nonfiction bestseller list.
The author, "Anonymous," has been publicly identified as Guy Snodgrass, the US Navy commander who served as the communications secretary for the Department of Defense under Gen. James Mattis. Posting a report of his alleged authorship on Twitter, Snodgrass cryptically mused, "the swirl continues."
If the allegation is true, it would have ominous implications. It would mean that the New York Times gave the military an opportunity to denounce a president as "amoral," "impetuous," "petty" and "ineffective," and to all but advocate his removal via unconstitutional means.
Notably, Snodgrass claims to be the author of perhaps the most important military document produced under the Trump administration, the unclassified summary of the 2018 National Defense Strategy, which declared that "Inter-state strategic competition, not terrorism, is now the primary concern in US national security."We do not know whether Snodgrass is the author of A Warning, but the themes of the National Defense Strategy document are consistent with the emphasis of the book.
A Warning makes one thing abundantly clear: the "Resistance" to Trump's policies within the state, which is the basis of the Democrats' opposition to him, centers on claims that Trump is insufficiently aggressive in defending and expanding America's imperial interests against Russia and China."
.......................................................
The Democrats, who have upheld this man and people like him as the "adults in the room" and the antipode to Trump, are infected with the same poison.
The struggle to remove Trump and to hold him to account for his real crimes will have nothing to do with people such as "Anonymous," or the Democratic impeachment campaign that is totally aligned with his pro-war agenda."and another 20 inches of text. you'll also remember that the NYT published a whispered rumor last year that 'military insiders' were saying privately that DT really meant to leave NATO, which was nonsense. that rumor led to the infamous 'defense of NATO act', which every senator vote for, and almost all of the house (3 didn't vote, conveniently.)
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Jan 13, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Washington Post stating that he "has gone to extraordinary lengths to conceal details" of his discussions with Russian President Vladimir Putin - telling Fox News host Jeanine Pirro in a phone interview that he would be willing to release the details of a private conversation in Helsinki last summer."I would. I don't care," Trump told Pirro, adding: "I'm not keeping anything under wraps. I couldn't care less."
"I mean, it's so ridiculous, these people making up," Trump said of the WaPo report.
The president referred to his roughly two-hour dialogue with Putin in Helsinki -- at which only the leaders and their translators were present -- as "a great conversation" that included discussions about "securing Israel and lots of other things."
"I had a conversation like every president does," Trump said Saturday. "You sit with the president of various countries. I do it with all countries." - Politico
In July an attempt by House Democrats to subpoena Trump's Helsinki interpreter was quashed by Republicans. "The Washington Post is almost as bad, or probably as bad, as the New York Times," Trump said. When Pirro asked Trump about a Friday night New York Times report that the FBI had opened an inquiry into whether he was working for Putin, Pirro asked Trump "Are you now or have you ever worked for Russia, Mr. President?" "I think it's the most insulting thing I've ever been asked," Trump responded. "I think it's the most insulting article I've ever had written."
Trump went on an epic tweetstorm Saturday following the Times article, defending his 2017 firing of former FBI Director James Comey, and tweeting that he has been "FAR tougher on Russia than Obama, Bush or Clinton. Maybe tougher than any other President. At the same time, & as I have often said, getting along with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing. I fully expect that someday we will have good relations with Russia again!"
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www.theamericanconservative.com
Michael N. Moore , says: at 12:13 pm
In my opinion the most under-reported event of the Iraq war was the suicide of military Ethicist Colonel Ted Westhusing. It was reported at the end of a Frank Rich column that appeared in the NY Times of 10-21-2007:Michael N. Moore , says: February 13, 2013 at 2:46 pm"The cost cannot be measured only in lost opportunities, lives and money. There will be a long hangover of shame. Its essence was summed up by Col. Ted Westhusing, an Army scholar of military ethics who was an innocent witness to corruption, not a participant, when he died at age 44 of a gunshot wound to the head while working for Gen. David Petraeus training Iraqi security forces in Baghdad in 2005. He was at the time the highest-ranking officer to die in Iraq."
"Colonel Westhusing's death was ruled a suicide, though some believe he was murdered by contractors fearing a whistle-blower, according to T. Christian Miller, the Los Angeles Times reporter who documents the case in his book "Blood Money."
Either way, the angry four-page letter the officer left behind for General Petraeus and his other commander, Gen. Joseph Fil, is as much an epitaph for America's engagement in Iraq as a suicide note."
" 'I cannot support a msn that leads to corruption, human rights abuse and liars,' Colonel Westhusing wrote, abbreviating the word mission. 'I am sullied.' "
As per the request of James Canning for more information on Col. Ted Westhusing, please see:thefatefullightning , says: June 4, 2013 at 1:09 pmhttp://www.correntewire.com/a_disturbing_suicide_note_from_iraq
Or the book "Blood Money" by T. Christian Miller
"The tiny pink candies at the bottom of the urinals are reserved for Field Grade and Above." --sign over the urinals in the "O" Club at Tan Son Nhut Airbase, 1965.Terrence Zehrer , says: July 15, 2013 at 12:48 pmNow that sentiment, is Officer-on-Officer. The same dynamic tension exists throughout all Branches and ranks.
My background includes a Combat Infantry Badge and a record of having made Spec Four , two times. If you don't know what that means, stop reading here.
I feel that no one should be promoted E-5 or O-4, if they are to command men in battle, unless they have had that life experience themselves. It becomes virgins instructing on sexual etiquette.
Within the ranks, there exists a disdain for officers, in general. Some officers overcome this by their actions, but the vast majority cement that assessment the same way.
What makes the thing run is the few officers who are superior human beings, and the NCOs who are of that same tribe. And there is a love there, from top to bottom and bottom to top, a brotherhood of warriors which the civilian population will forever try to discern, parse and examine to their lasting frustration and ignorance.It is the spirit of this nation [Liberty, e pluribus unum and In God We Trust ] that is the binding filament of it all. The civilians responsible for the welfare of the armed services need to be more fully aware of that spirit and they need to bring it into the air-conditioned offices they inhabit when they make decisions about men who know sacrifice.
But the Pentagon is excellent at what it does – extort money from the US taxpayer. I call it treason."Massive military budgets erode the economic foundation on which true national security is dependent."
– Dwight Eisenhower
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Jul 01, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com
Stephen Kinzer comments on the creation of a new think tank, The Quincy Institute, committed to promoting a foreign policy of restraint and non-interventionism:
Since peaceful foreign policy was a founding principle of the United States, it's appropriate that the name of this think tank harken back to history. It will be called the Quincy Institute, an homage to John Quincy Adams, who in a seminal speech on Independence Day in 1821 declared that the United States "goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own." The Quincy Institute will promote a foreign policy based on that live-and-let-live principle.
The creation of a think tank dedicated to "an approach to the world based on diplomacy and restraint rather than threats, sanctions, and bombing" is very welcome news. Other than the Cato Institute, there has been nothing like this in Washington, and this tank's focus will be entirely on foreign policy. The lack of institutional support has put advocates of peace and restraint at a disadvantage for a very long time, so it is encouraging to see that there is an effort underway to change that. The Quincy Institute represents another example of how antiwar progressives and conservatives can and should work together to change U.S. foreign policy for the better. The coalition opposed to the war on Yemen showed what Americans opposed to illegal and unnecessary war can do when they work towards a shared goal of peace and non-intervention, and this institute promises to be an important part of such efforts in the future. Considering how long the U.S. has been waging war without end , there couldn't be a better time for this.
TAC readers and especially readers of this blog will be familiar with the people involved in creating the think tank:
The institute plans to open its doors in September and hold an official inauguration later in the autumn. Its founding donors -- Soros's Open Society Foundation and the Charles Koch Foundation -- have each contributed half a million dollars to fund its takeoff. A handful of individual donors have joined to add another $800,000. By next year the institute hopes to have a $3.5 million budget and a staff of policy experts who will churn out material for use in Congress and in public debates. Hiring is underway. Among Parsi's co-founders are several well-known critics of American foreign policy, including Suzanne DiMaggio, who has spent decades promoting negotiated alternatives to conflict with China, Iran and North Korea; the historian and essayist Stephen Wertheim; and the anti-militarist author and retired Army colonel Andrew Bacevich.
"The Quincy Institute will invite both progressives and anti-interventionist conservatives to consider a new, less militarized approach to policy," Bacevich said, when asked why he signed up. "We oppose endless, counterproductive war. We want to restore the pursuit of peace to the nation's foreign policy agenda."
Trita Parsi and Andrew Bacevich are both TAC contributors and have participated in our foreign policy conferences in recent years. Parsi and I were on the same panel last fall at our most recent conference. I have also cited and learned from arguments made by Suzanne DiMaggio and Stephen Wertheim in my posts here . Their involvement is a very good sign, and it shows both the political breadth and intellectual depth of this new institution. I look forward to seeing what they do, and I wish them luck.
chris chuba • 9 hours agoGood luck. I hope you will be invited on cable shows. I am tired of seeing the beard from the Foundation of the Defense of Democracies and his clones.Jonathan Dillard Lester • 17 hours agoOnce in a while the hosts mess up and they interview someone who doesn't give the correct answer about the M.E., or somewhere else and I see the blank look on their face as they thank the guess as since it is obvious they cannot process the information. I generally do not see those guests ever again.
The guidelines are, the world is divided into those who crave U.S. leadership and the evildoers who are constantly testing our leadership. We must always be vigilant against the latter. It is inconceivable that anyone merely act in their own interest. It is all about us.
Might be a few kindred souls put off by the Soros money, but nothing wrong with taking it!SFBay1949 • 20 hours agoI also am looking forward to reading their thoughts and ideas about a foreign policy that doesn't include the US invading yet another country under the ridiculous notion that we are somehow being threatened by them. We have the largest military on earth. It's also telling that we pick on and invade countries that can't actually hurt us. That makes us all the more the bully on the block. It's to our shame that we even consider these shameful actions.Paul • a day agoExciting news. An early endeavor , if not already accomplished, should be consideration of relevant theoretical models for understanding competition and cooperation. Since the Cold War and to the present day, variants of the Prisoners Dilemma serve this function. Prior to that, misconceptions of survival of the fittest led to the disasters of eugenics and WW2. Maybe the new think tank will outline or draw inspiration from a new theory.SteveM • a day agoRe: "I look forward to seeing what they do, and I wish them luck."Taras77 • a day agoSo do I. Very much so. However, the most prominent realist Washington Think Tank is the Cato Institute. It has well spoken advocates of realism and restraint including Christopher Preble, Doug Bandow and Ted Galen Carpenter. Unfortunately, the thoughtful Cato scribes get very little exposure on the MSM compared to the atrocious Heritage, AEI and Brookings nests of go along to get along Neocon / Neoliberal lackeys. It's not clear to me how and why the Quincy Institute will generate any more leverage.
I've argued many times before that the linchpin of the busted U.S. Global Cop foreign policy model is the Pentagon. As long as the Pentagon hacks are considered the paragons of Olympian insight and wisdom by the political class and the MSM, nothing will change.
Related to that though, there actually was a hopeful article in the Atlantic about the newest Pentagon Big Mouth, CENTCOM Commander General General Kenneth McKenzie:
Hopefully, that is a crack in the wall of Military Exceptionalism. The sooner others start taking a 2x4 to the sanctified occupants of the 5-Sided Pleasure Palace, knocking them off of their pedestals, the better.
BTW, the new Acting Defense Secretary and MIC Parasite Mark Esper is no friend of the taxpayers. Expect that failed Pentagon audit that was deep-sixed by Mad Dog Mattis to stay deep-sixed with Esper in the Big Seat.
I am quite amazed that Soros and Koch bro are involved. We will wait to see how this plays out.Jeez, who can believe this amongst the "think" tanks: "an approach to the world based on diplomacy and restraint rather than threats, sanctions, and bombing"
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Oct 28, 2016 | crookedtimber.org
Howard Frank in this blog provides a good example of Vichy left thinking...
Howard Frant 10.26.16 at 6:19 am 73
Stephen @58Howard Frant 10.26.16 at 6:19 am ( )
Stephen @58Yes, it was late and I was tired, or I wouldn't have said something so foolish. Still, the point is that after centuries of constant war, Europe went 70 years without territorial conquest. That strikes me as a significant achievement, and one whose breach should not be taken lightly.
phenomenal cat @64
So democratic structures have to be robust and transparent before we care about them? I'd give a pretty high value to an independent press and contested elections. Those have been slowly crushed in Russia. The results for transparency have not been great. Personally, I don't believe that Ukraine is governed by fascists, or that Ukraine shot down that jetliner, but I'm sure a lot of Russians do.
Russian leaders have always complained about "encirclement," but we don't have to believe them. Do you really believe Russia's afraid of an attack from Estonia? Clearly what Putin wants is to restore as much of the old Soviet empire as possible. Do you think the independence of the Baltic states would be more secure or less secure if they weren't members of NATO? (Hint: compare to Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova.)
phenomenal cat 10.26.16 at 6:55 pm 84
"So democratic structures have to be robust and transparent before we care about them?"
No. My point was it's very misleading. Misleading to set the parameters of discussion on U.S. posture toward Russia in such a way as to assume that Putin's actions against a purported Russian "democracy" have anything at all to do with USian antagonism of Russia. I'm sure you'll note current U.S. military cooperation with that boisterous hotbed of democratic activity, Saudi Arabia, in Yemen. Our allies in the house of Saud require help in defending their democratic way of life against the totalitarianism of Yemeni tribes, you see. The U.S. opposes anti-democratic forces whenever and where ever it can, especially in the Middle East. I guess that explains USian antipathy to Russia.
"I'd give a pretty high value to an independent press and contested elections."
Yeah, it'd be interesting to see what the U.S. looked like with those dynamics in place.
"Those have been slowly crushed in Russia. The results for transparency have not been great."
If you say so. For now I'll leave any decisions or actions taken on these outcomes to Russian citizens. I would, however, kindly tell Victoria Nuland and her ilk to fuck off with their senile Cold War fantasies, morally bankrupt, third-rate Great Game machinations, and total spectrum dominance sociopathy.
"Personally, I don't believe that Ukraine is governed by fascists, or that Ukraine shot down that jetliner, but I'm sure a lot of Russians do."
There's definitely some of 'em hanging about, but yeah it mostly seems to be a motley assortment of oligarchs, gangsters, and grifters tied into international neoliberal capital and money flows. No doubt Russian believe a lot things. I find Americans tend to believe a lot things as well.
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Oct 24, 2016 | economistsview.typepad.com
Sanjait -> Sandwichman ... October 24, 2016 at 10:35 AM
Some paranoid claptrap to go along with your usual anti intellectualism.Interestingly, with your completely unrelated non sequitur, you've actually illustrated something that does relate to Krugmans post. Namely that there are wingnuts among us. They've taken over the Republican Party, but the left has some too. Fortunately though the Democratic Party hasn't been taken over by them yet, and is still mostly run by grown ups.
Sandwichman -> Sanjait... , October 24, 2016 at 10:42 AM
I am confident that what you say here is consistent with your methods and motivations.likbez -> Sandwichman ..."I am confident that what you say here is consistent with your methods and motivations."Pretty consistent, I agree. IMHO Sanjait might belong to the category that some people call the "Vichy left" – essentially people who are ready to sacrifice all principles to ensure their 'own' prosperity and support the candidate who intends to protect it, everybody else be damned.
Very neoliberal approach if you ask me. Ann Rand would probably be proud for this representative of "creative class".
Essentially the behavior that we've had for the last 8 years with the king of "bait and switch".
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Dec 02, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com
Jen December 1, 2019 at 3:38 am
Looks like Brown Noser Eliot Higgins and his Bellingcrap organisation may have finally met their match in a real investigative journalist, Dilyana Gaytandzhieva, who (some of us may recall) has done sterling work in tracing movements of weapons from the Balkan countries to Turkey and Azerbaijan with their ultimate destination being Syria to be used by ISIS jihadis, and for which she was sacked by her newspaper employer in Bulgaria."Exposed: Bellingcat fabricate evidence, deliberately hide documents in new 'Russian spy plot'"
https://armswatch.com/exposed-bellingcat-fabricate-evidence-deliberately-hide-documents-in-new-russian-spy-plot/Does anyone imagine that the Brown Noser will have the courage and fortitude to respond to legal action brought against him and Bellingcrap? Will his Atlantic Council employers support him or has he passed his use-by date and become a liability?
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Nov 12, 2016 | www.zerohedge.com
Submitted by Wayne Madsen via Strategic-Culture.org,Defeated Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton is not about to "go quietly into that good night". On the morning after her surprising and unanticipated defeat at the hands of Republican Party upstart Donald Trump, Mrs. Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, entered the ball room of the art-deco New Yorker hotel in midtown Manhattan and were both adorned in purple attire. The press immediately noticed the color and asked what it represented. Clinton spokespeople claimed it was to represent the coming together of Democratic "Blue America" and Republican "Red America" into a united purple blend. This statement was a complete ruse as is known by citizens of countries targeted in the past by the vile political operations of international hedge fund tycoon George Soros.
The Clintons, who both have received millions of dollars in campaign contributions and Clinton Foundation donations from Soros, were, in fact, helping to launch Soros's "Purple Revolution" in America. The Purple Revolution will resist all efforts by the Trump administration to push back against the globalist policies of the Clintons and soon-to-be ex-President Barack Obama. The Purple Revolution will also seek to make the Trump administration a short one through Soros-style street protests and political disruption.
It is doubtful that President Trump's aides will advise the new president to carry out a diversionary criminal investigation of Mrs. Clinton's private email servers and other issues related to the activities of the Clinton Foundation, especially when the nation faces so many other pressing issues, including jobs, immigration, and health care. However, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz said he will continue hearings in the Republican-controlled Congress on Hillary Clinton, the Clinton Foundation, and Mrs. Clinton's aide Huma Abedin . President Trump should not allow himself to be distracted by these efforts. Chaffetz was not one of Trump's most loyal supporters.
America's globalists and interventionists are already pushing the meme that because so many establishment and entrenched national security and military "experts" opposed Trump's candidacy, Trump is "required" to call on them to join his administration because there are not enough such "experts" among Trump's inner circle of advisers.
Discredited neo-conservatives from George W. Bush's White House, such as Iraq war co-conspirator Stephen Hadley, are being mentioned as someone Trump should have join his National Security Council and other senior positions. George H. W. Bush's Secretary of State James Baker, a die-hard Bush loyalist, is also being proffered as a member of Trump's White House team.
There is absolutely no reason for Trump to seek the advice from old Republican fossils like Baker, Hadley, former Secretaries of State Rice and Powell, the lunatic former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, and others. There are plenty of Trump supporters who have a wealth of experience in foreign and national security matters, including those of African, Haitian, Hispanic, and Arab descent and who are not neocons, who can fill Trump's senior- and middle-level positions.
Trump must distance himself from sudden well-wishing neocons, adventurists, militarists, and interventionists and not permit them to infest his administration. If Mrs. Clinton had won the presidency, an article on the incoming administration would have read as follows:
"Based on the militarism and foreign adventurism of her term as Secretary of State and her husband Bill Clinton's two terms as president, the world is in store for major American military aggression on multiple fronts around the world. President-elect Hillary Clinton has made no secret of her desire to confront Russia militarily, diplomatically, and economically in the Middle East, on Russia's very doorstep in eastern Europe, and even within the borders of the Russian Federation. Mrs. Clinton has dusted off the long-discredited 'containment' policy ushered into effect by Professor George F. Kennan in the aftermath of World War. Mrs. Clinton's administration will likely promote the most strident neo-Cold Warriors of the Barack Obama administration, including Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland, a personal favorite of Clinton".
President-elect Trump cannot afford to permit those who are in the same web as Nuland, Hadley, Bolton, and others to join his administration where they would metastasize like an aggressive form of cancer. These individuals would not carry out Trump's policies but seek to continue to damage America's relations with Russia, China, Iran, Cuba, and other nations.
Not only must Trump have to deal with Republican neocons trying to worm their way into his administration, but he must deal with the attempt by Soros to disrupt his presidency and the United States with a Purple Revolution
No sooner had Trump been declared the 45th president of the United States, Soros-funded political operations launched their activities to disrupt Trump during Obama's lame-duck period and thereafter. The swiftness of the Purple Revolution is reminiscent of the speed at which protesters hit the streets of Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, in two Orange Revolutions sponsored by Soros, one in 2004 and the other, ten years later, in 2014.
As the Clintons were embracing purple in New York, street demonstrations, some violent, all coordinated by the Soros-funded Moveon.org and "Black Lives Matter", broke out in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Oakland, Nashville, Cleveland, Washington, Austin, Seattle, Philadelphia, Richmond, St. Paul, Kansas City, Omaha, San Francisco, and some 200 other cities across the United States.
The Soros-financed Russian singing group "Pussy Riot" released on YouTube an anti-Trump music video titled "Make America Great Again". The video went "viral" on the Internet. The video, which is profane and filled with violent acts, portrays a dystopian Trump presidency. Following the George Soros/Gene Sharp script to a tee, Pussy Riot member Nadya Tolokonnikova called for anti-Trump Americans to turn their anger into art, particularly music and visual art. The use of political graffiti is a popular Sharp tactic. The street protests and anti-Trump music and art were the first phase of Soros's Purple Revolution in America.
President-elect Trump is facing a two-pronged attack by his opponents. One, led by entrenched neo-con bureaucrats, including former Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency director Michael Hayden, former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, and Bush family loyalists are seeking to call the shots on who Trump appoints to senior national security, intelligence, foreign policy, and defense positions in his administration. These neo-Cold Warriors are trying to convince Trump that he must maintain the Obama aggressiveness and militancy toward Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, and other countries. The second front arrayed against Trump is from Soros-funded political groups and media. This second line of attack is a propaganda war, utilizing hundreds of anti-Trump newspapers, web sites, and broadcasters, that will seek to undermine public confidence in the Trump administration from its outset.
One of Trump's political advertisements, released just prior to Election Day, stated that George Soros, Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen, and Goldman Sachs chief executive officer Lloyd Blankfein, are all part of "a global power structure that is responsible for the economic decisions that have robbed our working class, stripped our country of its wealth and put that money into the pockets of a handful of large corporations and political entities". Soros and his minions immediately and ridiculously attacked the ad as "anti-Semitic". President Trump should be on guard against those who his campaign called out in the ad and their colleagues. Soros's son, Alexander Soros, called on Trump's daughter, Ivanka, and her husband Jared Kushner, to publicly disavow Trump. Soros's tactics not only seek to split apart nations but also families. Trump must be on guard against the current and future machinations of George Soros, including his Purple Revolution.
Pinto Currency nmb Nov 11, 2016 8:37 PM ,
Purple must be the color of pedophiles.MalteseFalcon Pinto Currency Nov 11, 2016 8:39 PM ,Soros, Clintons, Podestas, amd apparently Obama are all into it as we are learning from Comet Ping Pong scandal:
https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/5b1qtf/comet_ping_pong_pizz...
https://dcpizzagate.wordpress.com/
https://i.redd.it/3l20mhvrxtvx.png
http://investmentwatchblog.com/breaking-from-the-anon-who-brought-you-th...
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=a1c_1478546206
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2016/04/the-strange-case-of-gord...
http://www.newsdailystudio.com/2016/11/05/bill-clinton-wasnt-the-only-on...
Keep your eye on Jared Kushner, who is Trump's son-in-law. He refused to have his newspaper the NY Observer endorse Trump. That is not a good sign.
"It is doubtful that President Trump's aides will advise the new president to carry out a diversionary criminal investigation of Mrs. Clinton's private email servers and other issues related to the activities of the Clinton Foundation, especially when the nation faces so many other pressing issues, including jobs, immigration, and health care."letsit Occident Mortal Nov 11, 2016 8:45 PM ,None of those "pressing issues" involve the DOJ or the FBI.
Investigate, prosecute and jail Hillary Clinton and her crew.
Trump is going to need a hostage or two to deal with these fucks.
If he doesn't, they will deal with him.
Netanyahu, the greatest neocon of all, endorsed Trump. All TRUE neocons love Trump.Husk-Erzulie nmewn Nov 12, 2016 9:48 AM ,https://biblicisminstitute.wordpress.com/views-of-news/#trumpmeans
Big series of protests being planned. Recruiting ads in Craigslist nationwide. Purple ties and dresses all over MSM this morning.any_mouse californiagirl Nov 12, 2016 2:54 AM ,This is when the Purple Hats, Flags, Balloons start coming out.
Kill it before it grows.
Purple and royalty? Purple in Rome?Erek any_mouse Nov 12, 2016 7:47 AM ,News for the Clintons, The R's and D's already united to vote against Hillary.
I do not understand why they think street protests will bring down a POTUS? And that would be acceptable in a major nation.
Why isn't the government cracking down the separatists in Oregon, California, and elsewhere? They are not accepting the legal outcome of an election. They are calling for illegal secession. (Funny in 1861 this was a cause for the federal government to attack the joint and seveal states of the union.) If a group of whites had protested Obama's election in 2008?
The people living in Kalispell are reviled and ridiculed for their separatist views. Randy Weaver and family for not accepting politically correct views. And so on.
This is getting out of hand. There will be no walking this back.
Purple is the color of royalty!X_in_Sweden Grimaldus Nov 12, 2016 10:58 AM ,Are these fuckers proclaiming themselves as King and Queen of America?
If so, get the executioner and give them a "French Haircut"!
You sayGrimaldus ,"Yes. And who are the neocons really? Progressives. Neocon is a label successfully used by criminal progressives to shield their brand."
Well let's go a little bit deeper in examing the 'who' thing:
"The neoconservative movement, which is generally perceived as a radical (rather than "conservative") Republican right, is, in reality, an intellectual movement born in the late 1960s in the pages of the monthly magazine Commentary , a media arm of the American Jewish Committee , which had replaced the Contemporary Jewish Record in 1945. The Forward , the oldest American Jewish weekly, wrote in a January 6th, 2006 article signed Gal Beckerman: " If there is an intellectual movement in America to whose invention Jews can lay sole claim, neoconservatism is it.... "
From the article By Laurent Guyénot ,
*Who Are The Neoconservatives?*
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article35106.htm
Are you connecting the dots.......folks......?
. . . _ _ _ . . . Bendromeda Strain Nov 11, 2016 11:04 PM ,
Great avatar!Lavada Chupacabra-322 Nov 12, 2016 10:41 AM ,GROWTH IS THE ULTIMATE PONZI SCHEME
The idea of arresting the Clinton Crime, Fraud and Crime Family would be welcomed. BUT, who is going to arrest them? Loretta Lynch, James Comey, WHO? The problem here is that our so called "authorities" are all in the same bed. The tentacles of the Eastern Elite Establishment are everywhere in high office, academia, the media, Big Business, etc. The swamp is thoroughly infested with this elite scum of those in the Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission, Bilderberg Group, Chatham House, Club of Rome, Committee of 300, Jason Society and numerous other private clubs of the rich, powerful and influential. The Illuminati has been exposed, however they aren't going down lightly. They still have massive amounts of money, they own the media and the banking houses. Some have described it as MIMAC, the Military Industrial Media Academic Complex. A few months ago here at Zero Hedge, there was an article which showed a massive flow chart of the elites and their organizationGrimaldus ShortCommonSense Nov 12, 2016 9:12 AM ,They could IF and WHEN Trump gets to Washington after 20 Jan 2017, simply implode the economy and blame t it on Trump. Sort of what happened to Herbert Hoover in the late 1920's. Unfortunately the situation in the US will continue to deteriorate. George Soros, a major financial backer of Hillary will see to that. Soros is a Globalist and advocate of one world government. People comment that Soros should be arrested. I agree, BUT who is going to do that?
Agree. I think Trump will yank all the "aid" to Israel as well as "aid" to the Islamic murderers of the Palitrashian human garbage infesting the area. This "aid" money is simply a bribe to keep both from killing each other. F**k all of them. None of our business what they do.Wile-E-Coyote Bastiat Nov 12, 2016 5:35 AM ,We got progressives ( lots and lots of Jews in that group) who are the enemy of mankind and then we got Islam who are also the enemy of mankind. Why help either of them? Makes no sense.
How come Soros never got picked up by Mossad for war crimes against his own people?Martian Moon Wile-E-Coyote Nov 12, 2016 8:13 AM ,And if he is such a subversive shit why hasn't a government given him a Polonium 210 enema.
Always wondered about thatChupacabra-322 RopeADope Nov 11, 2016 9:03 PM ,Soros is hated in Israel and has never set foot there but his foundations have done such harm that a bill was recently passed to ban foreign funding of non profit political organizations
The fact that we all have to worry about the CIA killing a President Elect simply because the man puts America first, really says it all.King Tut Chupacabra-322 Nov 11, 2016 9:11 PM ,The Agency is Cancer. Why are we even waiting for them to kill another one of our people to act? There should be no question about the CIA's future in the US.
Dissolved & dishonored. Its members locked away or punished for Treason. Their reputation is so bad and has been for so long, that the fact that you joined them should be enough to justify arrest and Execution for Treason, Crimes Against Humanity & Crimes Against The American People.
JFK made the mistake of publicly stating his intention of smashing the CIA instead of just doing it quickly and quietlyChupacabra-322 King Tut Nov 11, 2016 9:30 PM ,There are entirely way too many Intelligence Agencies. Plus the Contractors, some of who shouldn't have high level clearance to begin with which the US sub contracts the Intel / work out to.HowdyDoody Chupacabra-322 Nov 11, 2016 10:59 PM ,For Fucks sake, Government is so incompetent it can't even handle it own Intel.
Something along the lines of Eurpoe's Five Eyes would be highly effective.
Fuck those Pure Evil Psychopaths at the CIA They're nothing more than a bunch of Scum Fuck murdering, drug running, money laundering Global Crime Syndicate.
Five Eyes isn't European, it is US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Israel. If you note carefully, the NSA etc think we can't count.chubbar Pinto Currency Nov 11, 2016 8:46 PM ,The FBI is still investigating the Clinton Foundation, Trump needs to encourage that through backdoor channels. Soro's needs to be investigated, he has been tied to a conspiracy to incite violence, this needs to be documented and dealt with. Trump can not ignore this guy. If any of these investigations come back with a recommendation to indict then that process needs to be started. Take the fight to them, they are vulnerable!Chupacabra-322 chubbar Nov 11, 2016 9:12 PM ,Make a National APB Warrent for the apprehension & arrest of George Sooros for inciting violence, endsrgerimg the public & calling for the murder of our Nations Police through funding of the BLM Group.kwc chubbar Nov 12, 2016 4:50 AM ,Have every Law Informent Agency in the Nation on alert. Also, issue a Bounty in the Sum of $5,000,000 for his immediate apprehension.
Trump needs to replace FBI chickenshits & sellouts with loyal people then get the FBI counter-terrorism to investigate and shut down Soros & the various agencies instigating the riots. It's really simple when you quit over-thinking a problem. It's domestic terrorism. It's the FBI's job to stop it.Laddie nmb Nov 11, 2016 8:43 PM ,I read what Paul said this morning and thought, despite Paul's hostility to Trump during the primaries most likely due to his son, Rand's loss, that Paul gave good advice to Trump.King Tut Laddie Nov 11, 2016 8:49 PM ,
Let's face it Donald Trump is a STOP GAP measure. And demographic change over the next 4 years makes his re-election very, very UNLIKELY. If he keeps his campaign promises he will be a GREAT president. However as ZH reported earlier he appears to be balking from repealing Obamacare, I stress the word APPEARS.Let us give him a chance. This is all speculation. His enemies are DEADLY as they were once they got total control in Russia, they killed according to Solzhenitsyn SIXTY-SIX MILLION Russian Christians. The descendants of those Bolsheviks are VERY powerful in the USSA. They control the Fed, Hollyweird, Wall Street, the universities...
Professor Kevin MacDonald's 'The Culture of Critique' Reviewed
Like the South Africans the Tribe TALKED us out of our nation.
Mechanisms for Cuckservatives and Other Misguided White People by Dr. Kevin MacDonald September 22, 2016
Much of the media and advertising exist by pushing buttons that trigger appropriate financially lucrative reflexes in their audiences, from pornography to romantic movies to team sports. Media profits are driven by competition over how best to push those buttons. But the effort to produce politically and racially cuckolded Whites adds a layer of complexity: What buttons do you push to make Whites complicit in their own racial and cultural demise?
Actually, there are a whole lot of them, which shouldn't be surprising. This is a very sophisticated onslaught, enabled by control over all the moral, intellectual, and political high ground by the left. With all that high ground, there are a lot of buttons you can push.
Our enemies see this as a pathetic last gasp of a moribund civilization and it is quite true for our civilization is dying. Identity Christians describe this phase as Jacob's Troubles and what the secular Guillaume Faye would, I think, describe as the catastrophe required to get people motivated. The future has yet to be written, however I cannot help but think that God's people, the White people, are stirring from their slumber.
See: The Wrath of the Awakened Saxon- Rudyard KiplingPaul Kersey -> Paul Kersey Nov 11, 2016 8:20 PM ,"PNAC: Project for New American Century. The main neocon lobby, it focused first on invading Iraq. Founded 1997, by William Kristol & Robert Kagan. First action: open letter to Clinton advocating Iraq war. Members in the Iraq-War clique: Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Feith, BOLTON, Libby, Abrams, Wurmser, Perle.Mini-Me Nov 11, 2016 8:18 PM ,JINSA, The Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs. "explaining the link between U.S. national security and Israel's security" Served on JINSA's Advisory Board: Cheney, Wolfowitz, Feith, BOLTON, Perle."
If Trump has probable cause on the Soros crimes, have his DoJ request a warrant for all of Soros's communications via the NSA, empanel a grand jury, indict the bastard, and throw his raggedy ass in prison. It would be hard for him to run his retarded purple revolution when he's getting ass-raped by his cell mate.Hurricane Baby -> Mini-Me Nov 11, 2016 8:41 PM ,I agree. Thing is, I think as president he can simply order the NSA to cough up whatever they have, just like Obama could have done at any point. The NSA is part of the Defense Department, right? What am I missing here?Dilluminati Nov 11, 2016 8:26 PM ,Funny: Clinton swears Comey did her in and the DNC blames arrogant Hillary.Skiprrrdog Nov 11, 2016 8:57 PM ,http://www.usnews.com/news/the-run-2016/articles/2016-11-11/dnc-staff-ar...
But in respect to Soro's money and the Dalas shooting or other incited events, there should be a grand jury empanelled and then charges brought against him. I think nothing short of him hiding in an embassy with all his money blocked by Swift is justice for the violence that he funded.
... ... ...
johnwburns Nov 11, 2016 9:10 PM ,It is doubtful that President Trump's aides will advise the new president to carry out a diversionary criminal investigation of Mrs. Clinton's private email servers and other issues related to the activities of the Clinton Foundation, especially when the nation faces so many other pressing issues, including jobs, immigration, and health care. However, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz said he will continue hearings in the Republican-controlled Congress on Hillary Clinton, the Clinton Foundation, and Mrs. Clinton's aide Huma Abedin. President Trump should not allow himself to be distracted by these efforts. Chaffetz was not one of Trump's most loyal supporters.And so it begins; I really hope that this is just some misinformation/disinformation, because HE PROMISED he would appoint a special prosecutor, PROMISED...
The likes of Bill Kristol, Ben Shapiro and Jonah Goldberg get to catch up on their Torah for the forseeable future but the likes of Lloyd Blankfein will probably get to entertain the court since they have probably crossed paths doing business in NYC. The "real conservative" deeply introspective, examine-my-conscience crowd screwed themselves to the wall, god love them.Ms No Nov 11, 2016 9:05 PM ,Trump should reverse the McCain Feingold bill. That would take some wind out of Soros' sails, at least temporarily because that was Soros' bill. He wanted campaign finance reform which actually meant that he wanted to control campaign finance through 501C3 groups, or foundations such as Open Society, Moveon.org, Ella Baker society, Center for American progress, etc. He has a massive web of these organizations and they fund smaller ones and all kinds of evil.Rebel yell Nov 11, 2016 9:36 PM ,Tyler, please rerun this! How George Sorros destroys countries, profits from currency trading, convinces the countries to privatize its assets, buys them and then sells them for yet another profit: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-07-08/how-george-soros-singlehandedly...Posa Nov 12, 2016 10:25 AM ,We know so little about Trump ... he's neoCon friendly to start with (remember he hired neoCon Grandee James Woolsey as an advisor)... and remember too Trump is promising his own war against Iran ... (just in case you confused him with Mother Theresa).. But then again JFK took office with a set of initiatives that were far more bellicose and provocative (like putting huge Jupiter missile launchers on the USSR border in Turkey)... once he saw he light and fired the pro Nazi Dulles Gang , JFK was gunned down in front of the whole world.rocknrollinhone... Nov 11, 2016 9:59 PM ,If Trump really is a nationalist patriot he'll need to innoculate the Population about the Deep State... they in turn will unleash financial disintegration and chaos, a Purple Revolution and then assassinate Trump (or have his own party impeach him)
I'm guessing though that deep down Trump is quite comfortable with a neoCon cabinet... hell he already offered Jamie Diamon the office of Treasry Secretary... no doubt a calculated gesture to signal compliance with the Deep State.
Soros is heavily invested in the globalist agenda. Wouldn't be surprised if they don't take a shot at assassinating Trump.bsdetector Nov 11, 2016 11:10 PM ,The Clintons do not do things by accident. Coordination of colors at the concession speech was meant for something. Perhaps the purple revolution or maybe they want to be seen as royals. It doesn't really matter why they did it; the fact is they are up to something. They will not agree to go away and even if they offered to just disappear with their wealth we know they are dishonest. They will come back... that is what they do.bsdetector Nov 12, 2016 12:06 AM ,They must be stripped of power and wealth. This act must be performed publicly.
In order to succeed Mr. Trump I suggest you task a group to accomplish this result. Your efforts to make America great again may disintegrate just like Obamacare if you allow the Clintons and Co. to languish in the background.
The protestors are groups of individuals who may seek association for any number of reasons. One major reason might be the loss of hope for a meaningful and prosperous life. We should seek out and listen to the individuals within these groups. If they are truly desirous of being heard they will communicate what they want without use of violence. Perhaps individuals join these protest groups because they do not have a voice.Batman11 -> Batman11 Nov 12, 2016 3:09 AM ,Organizing a means to receive the protestors' complaints may co-opt any organized effort to disrupt good political interaction and it will also separate out the bad elements cited by Madsen.
The articles reporting that Mr. Trump has changed his response to the protestors is a good effort to discover the protestors' complaints and channel their energy into beneficial political activity. Something must be done quickly though, before the protests get out of hand, for if that happens the protestors will be criminals and no one will want to work with them.
In order to make America great again we need input from all of America. Mr. Trump you can harness the energy of these protestors and let them know they are a part of your movement.
Classical economists are experts on today's capitalism, it is 18th and 19th Century capitalism, it's how it all started.dogismycopilot Nov 12, 2016 5:39 AM ,Adam Smith would think we are on the road to ruin.
"But the rate of profit does not, like rent and wages, rise with the prosperity and fall with the declension of the society. On the contrary, it is naturally low in rich and high in poor countries, and it is always highest in the countries which are going fastest to ruin."
Exactly the opposite of today's thinking, what does he mean?
When rates of profit are high, capitalism is cannibalizing itself by:
1) Not engaging in long term investment for the future
2) Paying insufficient wages to maintain demand for its products and services.
Got that wrong as well.
Adam Smith wouldn't like today's lobbyists.
"The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it."
OH NO, It's ALL WRONG
First five minutes of Alex Jones' video today is clips of people saying "Donald Trump will never be president". Full Show - Soros-Funded Goons Deployed to Overthrow America - 11/11/2016CoCosAB Nov 12, 2016 7:04 AM ,AMERICAN SPRING: She practiced overseas in Tunisia, Algeria, Oman, Jordan, Libya, Egypt... Now it's time to apply the knowledge in her own country!lakecity55 -> CoCosAB •Nov 12, 2016 7:53 AM
Really good chance these subversive operations will continue. Soros has plenty of money. Trump will have to do some rough stuff, but he needs to, it's what we hired him for.
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Dec 02, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Authored by Peter Hitchens via The Mail On Sunday blog,
I stood outside the safe house, in a road I cannot name, in a major European city I cannot identify, not sure what I might find inside. I had no way of being sure.
I had travelled a long distance by train to an address I had been given over an encrypted email.
I was nervous that the meeting might be some sort of trap. Leaks from inside arms verification organisations are very sensitive matters. Powerful people mind about them.
I wasn't sure whether to be afraid of being followed, or to be worried about who might be waiting behind the anonymous door on a dark afternoon, far from home. I took all the amateurish precautions that I could think of.
As it happened, it was not a trap. Now, on carefully selected neutral ground, I was to meet a person who would confirm suspicions that had been growing in my mind over several years – that there is something rotten in the way that chemical weapons inspections are being conducted and reported. And that the world could be hurried into war on the basis of such inspections.
Inside the safe house, I was greeted by a serious, patient expert, a non-political scientist whose priority had until now always been to do the hard, gritty work of verification – travelling to the scenes of alleged horrors, sifting and searching for hard evidence of what had really happened. But this entirely honourable occupation had slowly turned sour.
The whiff of political interference had begun as a faint unpleasant smell in the air and grown until it was an intolerable stench. Formerly easy-going superiors had turned into tricky bureaucrats.
The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) had become so important that it could no longer be allowed to do its job properly.
Too many of the big powers that sponsor and finance it were breathing down its neck, wanting certain results, whether the facts justified them or not.
My source calmly showed me various pieces of evidence that they were who they said they were, and knew what they claimed to know, making it clear that they worked for the OPCW and knew its inner workings. They then revealed a document to me.
This was the email of protest, sent to senior OPCW officials, saying that a report on the alleged Syrian poison gas attack in Douma, in April 2018, had been savagely censored so as to alter its meaning.
In decades of journalism I have received quite a few leaks : leaks over luxurious, expensive lunches with Cabinet Ministers, anonymous leaks that just turned up in envelopes, leaks from union officials and employers, diplomats and academics.
NEVER MISS THE NEWS THAT MATTERS MOSTZEROHEDGE DIRECTLY TO YOUR INBOX
Receive a daily recap featuring a curated list of must-read stories.
Please enter a valid email Thank you for subscribing! Something went wrong. Please refresh and try again.But I've never seen one like this. It scared me. If it was true, then something hugely dishonest and dangerous was going on, in a place where absolute integrity was vital.
If bodies such as the OPCW cannot be trusted, then World War Three could one day be started by a falsehood.
Last week I reported on the first episode in this story. Within days the OPCW had confirmed that the email I leaked was authentic.
Nobody followed me home or threatened me. A few silly people on social media told blatant lies about me, insinuating that I was somehow a Russian patsy or a defender of the disgusting Syrian regime that I have been attacking in print for nearly 20 years. That was what I had expected.
But there is much more to come. And, as it grows harder for everyone to ignore this enormous, dangerous story, I suspect I shall be looking over my shoulder rather more than usual.
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Dec 02, 2019 | bracingviews.com
Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard is a compelling choice for president in 2020. She's principled, she's against America's disastrous regimen of regime-change wars, and she's got the guts to criticize her own party for being too closely aligned with rich and powerful interests. She's also a military veteran who enlisted in the Army National Guard in Hawaii after the 9/11 attacks (she currently serves as a major and deployed overseas to Iraq during that war).
What's not to like about a female veteran who oozes intelligence and independence, a woman who represents diversity (she's a practicing Hindu and a Samoan-American), an early supporter of Bernie Sanders who called out the DNC for its favoritism toward Hillary Clinton
Aha! There you have it. Back in February 2016, Gabbard resigned her position as vice-chair of the DNC to endorse Sanders, and the DNC, controlled by establishment centrists like the Clintons as well as Barack Obama, have never forgiven her. Recently, Hillary Clinton smeared her (as well as Jill Stein, Green Party candidate from 2016) as a Russian asset, and various mainstream networks and news shows, such as "The View" and NBC, have suggested (with no evidence) she's the favored candidate of Russia and Vladimir Putin.
Think about that. Hillary Clinton and much of the mainstream media are accusing a serving major in the U.S. military of being an asset to a foreign power. It's an accusation bordering on a charge of treason -- a charge that is libelous and recklessly irresponsible.
A reminder: Tulsi Gabbard enlisted in the military to serve her country in the aftermath of 9/11. What did Hillary Clinton do? Can you imagine Hillary going through basic training as a private, or serving in the military in a war zone? (Hillary did falsely claim that she came under sniper fire in Bosnia , but that's a story for another day.)
Tulsi Gabbard is her own person. She's willing to buck the system and has shown compassion and commitment on the campaign trail. She may be a long shot, but she deserves a long look for the presidency, especially when you consider the (low) quality of the enemies she's made. Reply
wjastore November 26, 2019 at 1:10 PM
Whenever I post anything remotely positive about Tulsi Gabbard on Facebook, the same few people come out to denounce her. My response is below, though I know you can't reason with haters:rs November 26, 2019 at 1:52 PMThat Tulsi has been on Fox News is an argument in her favor, i.e. her crossover appeal and her willingness to engage with the "other side." That Tulsi met with Assad is, in my view, reasonable; true leaders are always willing to meet with "bad" people, even ruthless dictators, in the cause of averting war. My main point is how she's being smeared as some kind of traitor, or at least a useful idiot. She's neither. Also, I've read the piece on Tulsi in Jacobin, and I've heard about alleged cults. Is this really the best the media can do? Guilt by association?
Some of our readers may have concerns about Tulsi, e.g. alleged Islamophobia, alleged cults, etc. The main point is this: Does she deserve to be smeared as a Putin puppet? What does this say about our media? And why are they doing this? I can tell you why. Trillions of dollars are spent on wars and weapons, and Tulsi is calling for an end to regime-change wars and a return to diplomacy. She also, like Bernie, is willing to call out the DNC as being against the interests of ordinary Americans -- and she's right about this. She has a lot in her favor. I'm a Bernie fan myself, but I'll take Tulsi over all those phony "centrists" like Buttigieg, Klobuchar, Harris, and Biden.
This was published when she was accused of being a Russian asset! https://www.thenation.com/article/tulsi-russia-clinton/wjastore November 26, 2019 at 2:09 PMOn the other hand, her connection to extreme right RSS and BJP ( of India ) though diaspora are troubling .. https://www.alternet.org/2019/10/russia-accusations-a-distraction-from-tulsi-gabbards-actual-troubling-ties/
I can't speak to the RSS/BJP connection; I've read about it, but I admit to ignorance on the matter. Of course, every candidate has multiple connections, positions, donors, etc. All politicians carry baggage. So far, from what I've read, Tulsi is more principled and more courageous than most of her peers.Joseph Mirzoeff November 26, 2019 at 3:24 PMI'm still a Bernie fan -- his long record of helping the poor and vulnerable speaks for itself. Of course, he once went to Moscow oh no! Run away! 🙂
Tulsi has now done four courageous, unusual, and very positive things while merely a candidate:Michael Murry November 26, 2019 at 4:46 PM
1) Tulsi effectively took down a leading contender and DNC favorite, by demonstrating that Senator Harris had been a corrupt prosecutor.
2) Tulsi defended democracy as she sued Google for at least $50 million, for playing favorites in search-routing of candidates.
3) Tulsi called out Hillary Clinton for the monster she is.
4) Tulsi supported a process toward 911 truth by supporting 911-victims' families' right to see FBI documents that have been denied to them.Tulsi is the anti-war candidate. Tulsi Gabbard should be Commander-in-Chief. Yang should be VP and in charge of the economy. Read his book. UBI is the way to go. Tulsi needs someone she can trust as VP.
To your list of courageous Tulsi Gabbard positions, I would add the following, Joseph:Michael Murry November 26, 2019 at 4:59 PMTulsi Gabbard Says She Would Drop Julian Assange Charges and Pardon Edward Snowden , by Jason Murdock, Newsweek (5/15/19 at 5:22 AM EDT).
I consider the vicious persecution of Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning -- both languishing in prison for having committed no crime whatsoever -- along with the exile of Edward Snowden, among the greatest travesties of justice ever committed by the U.S. and U.K. (dishonorable mention goes to Sweden and the latest Ecuadorian government, as well). I had hoped for this subject to come up in the "debates," giving Tulsi yet another opportunity to shine relative to her competitors, most of whom would soil their undergarments in panic at the thought of "crossing" the absurdly named "intelligence community" and its entirely co-opted corporate media outlets.
If Tulsi Gabbard had done no other principled thing than this, I would have considered her heads and shoulders above anyone else campaigning for a position in the U.S. government today.
I ought to dedicate this one to Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard for her principled defense of Julian Assange and Edward Snowden (and no-doubt Chelsea Manning, as well):Joseph Mirzoeff November 26, 2019 at 4:20 PMStar Chamber, Incorporated
Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning
Jailed as twin examples for the proles:
"Look what happens if you publish secrets:
More totalitarian controls."In Chinese: "Kill the Chicken scare the Monkey."
Rat-out your colleagues. Do not Power tempt.
Or otherwise the judges and grand juries
Will hold you in what lawyers call "contempt."A strange word-choice, indeed, by Power's minions
Who spend careers perfecting rank abuse.
For them I'd have to feel respect much greater
Before that is the word that I would use.I've nothing good to say for prosecutors.
Some say I wish to "damn them with faint praise."
But I reply: "You praise with faint damnation.
So which of us has coined the the better phrase?"Despicable, the treatment of these heroes.
The US and UK have sunk so low.
Still, Julian and Chelsea have together
More balls than these two governments can grow.No matter, they have passed into the ages.
Already they have earned a fair renown.
Each day they live defiant, undefeated,
They rise as jailers try to put them down.As JFK once said of his elite class:
"The ship of state leaks mainly from the top."
But if some lowly, powerless, poor person
Tries that, they'll feel the lash. No truth. Now stop!To scare a monkey, kill another monkey.
If not, the monkeys learn impunity.
While eating KFC they ask, obtusely:
"What has a chicken got to do with me?"And so the Corporation-State must silence
Reports of its incompetence and crime.
If citizens knew what it did they'd order
Its dissolution. Now. And just in time.Historically, they called it the Star Chamber
A secret court designed to thwart the king.
But power then perverted it to serve him.
Grand juries in the US, same damn thing.They now indict ham sandwiches routinely
With no protection for the innocents.
Presumed as guilty, evidence not needed.
Conviction guaranteed. No court repents.A judge may do whatever he determines
He can. So levy fines. Coerce. Demand
On penalty of prison, testimony
Against oneself, alone upon the stand."Democracy" is just a euphemism
If citizens allow this to proceed.
Orwellian: first Hate then Fear of Goldstein.
Two Minutes, daily. Really, all you need.Michael Murry, "The Misfortune Teller," Copyright © 2019
Please don't fall for Bernie. He is neither Presidential nor trustworthy. Consider this: https://www.sentinelsource.com/opinion/letters_to_the_editor/what-did-bernie-know-about-these-conspiracies-by-joseph-mirzoeff/article_f7b43e69-6639-526a-823d-c4ca3778b5a1.htmlFelix_47 November 27, 2019 at 12:21 PMThis is a good commentary. military experience is a good thing especially when we are dealing with the fact that over half of the national budget is devoted to the military.wjastore November 27, 2019 at 5:19 PMA good short clip on Tulsi Gabbard and smears against herL https://www.youtube.com/embed/OcCOtOCZ_qY?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparentrs November 29, 2019 at 9:34 AMTulsi Gabbard KNOWS it i. e. Cost of Wars!Monotonous Languor November 29, 2019 at 10:03 AM
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/why-is-tulsi-the-only-democrat-who-cares-about-our-wars/Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has a thoughtful article on playing it safe, running out the clock, prevent defense, etc., on your opponent as it would apply to politics.bmcks November 29, 2019 at 4:21 PMJabbar writes: Almost every poll showed her with a respectable lead over Trump just days before the election. So, the Clinton campaign tried to run out the clock by not campaigning much in Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Indiana, Missouri, North Dakota, and South Dakota, all of which turned much redder than in the previous presidential election.
The tactic of trying to pick a "safe" candidate who can beat Trump by appealing to their ideas about Middle America sends the wrong message to all of America. No team devise a game strategy based on fear: they emphasize their strengths and exploit their opponents' weaknesses. The Democratic candidate shouldn't be the least objectionable, but the one who boldly forges ahead with clear and detailed plans for Making America America Again.
Democrats can't pander to voters by denigrating Trump but then promising them Trump-lite with a wink. Promote progressive policies and plans worthy of a party that wants to lead this country without fear of being called "socialists" or "the radical left" or whatever else your opposing team chants.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/oct/15/how-sports-tactics-can-help-the-democrats-beat-donald-trump-in-2020
===================================
Jabbar is correct. The Corporate Democrats among them Biden, Buttigieg and Bloomberg are fighting desperately to preserve a perceived lead aided and abetted by the McMega-Media.Chicago Alderman, Paddy Bauler (1890-1977) said in 1955 on the election of Daley the Elder, "Chicago ain't ready for reform yet", or "Chicago ain't ready for a reform mayor".
Today, the pundits employed by Corporate America, along with various Democratic Party stooges for Wall Street tell us America ain't ready for Reform.
Yes, ML, so goes American 'Exceptionalism', after WW2 Victory. Today, so goes a Great American City in violence, all so shortsighted. I'm still confused with our never-ending wars overseas, as our cities rot in crime & violence, my main concern. I didn't grow up – or party! -later on in today's disaster areas of Baltimore or Philadelphia, etc.It was GREAT!wjastore November 29, 2019 at 5:32 PMBut somethings going on I don't know about, when the WORST cities have black Congresspeople (Maxime Waters?) living in 6.5$Mil mansions as their "districts" die.
I have NO PROBLEM with black people! Such a smear an insult. But it's worth investigating why these characters who have ruined their cities are supporters of Dems, & Billary! Oh! They spend & vote lavishly on more money for our wars, but nothing for their own cities!Finally starting to figure it out: They're traitors to their own race, for their personal benefit. They make Dems "look proud", vs "REP's!" Yes, they too re dreadful maybe that's why I feel: TULCI GO! She's neither dreadful party!
A long but interesting podcast with Tulsi Gabbard on the Joe Rogan showEddie S November 29, 2019 at 7:05 PMML: Good citation of KA-J -- - although I've seen the same-sort of criticism of the Dems elsewhere, Kareem's sports analogy is very helpful in understanding the concept.Michael Murry November 29, 2019 at 7:46 PM(I have to say that I got sick of the Dems milquetoast approach to politics. Maybe it was an understandable response to a frustrating right-wing zeitgeist, but DAMN, did they have to be SO passive against the Reps?? Even when they briefly held majorities in Congress under Obama, the wouldn't introduce/push bills that weren't 'filibuster-proof'!?!? I for one might still be voting Dem POTUS IF they had pushed those progressive bills., then let the Reps filibuster for weeks or months, meantime the Dems & Obama could've gone in front of the public daily and said something like "We're trying to help you by passing Bill X, but the Reps are filibustering and stopping Congress from getting any work done!" Let the government shut-down for a few weeks because of it and keep hammering away at the Reps for being the BLOCKERS, etc. Call their bluff, and use it against them during elections. Instead they tried to be overly accommodating & conciliatory BEFORE debate had even begun!)
Yes. Eddie. The Democratic Party not only gets its ass kicked for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, but it seems to have developed something of a masochistic taste for the Republican abuse. Hence two of my verse compositions essentially agreeing with your observations:wjastore November 30, 2019 at 9:06 AM(1) From eight years ago. From "Hope" and "Change" to despair and the status quo. And with a Nobel Peace Prize for Endless War, too.
Congenital Stockholm Syndrome
He started by giving up quickly,
Surrendering early his case.
He offered to kiss their asses.
Replying, they pissed in his face.Their urine, he thought, tasted strangely;
Yet not at all bad to his taste.
He'd gotten so used to it, plainly.
Why let such a drink go to waste?The people who voted in favor
Of him and his promise of "change"
Now see in his many betrayals
A poodle afflicted with mange.Each time that the surly and crazy
Republicans out for his skin
Condemn him for living and breathing,
He graciously helps them to win.He'll turn on his base in an instant
With threats and disdain and neglect
While bombing some Muslims so Cheney
Might thrill to the lives that he's wrecked.A black man in love with apartheid
He offers his stalwart support
To Zionists and their extortion
With "More, please!" his only retort.A masochist begging for beatings
Obama takes joy in abuse
Receiving just what he has asked for
Which makes him of no earthly useThe little brown men that he's murdered
In homes far away from our land
Bring profits obscene to his backers
Who give him the back of their hand.Obama seeks praise from the vicious
Republicans, no matter what.
He suffers, apparently, nothing
So much as his need to kiss butt.Michael Murry, "The Misfortune Teller," Copyright 2011
(2) From twelve years ago and on the Congressional side of the Surrender Monkey Syndrome:
Nancy the Negotiator
Nancy the Negotiator
Gives up first; surrenders later;
Takes her cards from off the table,
Then recites her loser fable:"We don't have the votes we need,"
Nancy says, in tones that bleed:
"Mean Republicans will whine
If we do not toe their line."Nancy bows to George and Dick
While her skinny ass they kick;
Writes them checks both blank and rubber,
Then proceeds to lamely blubber:"We don't like what Dubya's doing.
Still, we quite enjoy the screwing.
Masochism's what we offer,
Helping crooks to loot the coffer""Sure, the squandered blood and treasure
Goes to those we will not measure.
Still, we promise you'll adore us
If you mark your ballot for us.""Choices you don't have assail you,
Leaving only us who fail you.
Nonetheless, we've gotten fatter.
Why, then, should we think you matter?"Michael Murry, "The Misfortune Teller," Copyright © 2007
After six years in Uncle Sam's Canoe Club (the last eighteen months of that in the now-defunct Republic of South Vietnam) it didn't take me long to realize that the Republicans get paid a lavish salary to do what the fabulously wealthy demand, while the Democrats get a comparatively meager allowance to do what the Republicans tell them to do, also on behalf of the fabulously wealthy: namely, betray their own working-class anti-war base so that the Republicans will not have anything even remotely "leftist" to worry about. In truth, the Democratic party crawled up its own ass and died so many years ago that I think I've lost count.
Like Like
Just what we don't need: two bought-and-paid-for political parties in the service of the wealthiest and the corporations. But at least the Republicans are (mostly) honest about their priorities
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Dec 01, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
karlof1 , Dec 1 2019 22:45 utc | 20
Eric Zuesse's "Why a Second American Revolution Is Necessary for the Entire World" cites b's "Lessons To Learn From The Coup In Bolivia," which he describes as "very disturbing but clearly true." He then follows with what I thought was a jaw dropper:" That anonymous author (a German intelligence analyst) documented the evilness of the overthrow of Evo Morales in Bolivia, and the threat now clearly posed to the world by the US regime -- a spreading cancer of expansionist fascism, led from Washington. But, even more than this, he indicated that unless the individuals who are responsible for the advancing fascism are executed, there won't be any real hope for democracy anywhere in the world. Either this impunity will stop, or else the spread of the US international dictatorship -- not only by CIA coups such as this, but by illegal international invasions such as of Iraq 2003, Libya 2011, Syria 2012-, and Yemen 2015-, -- will continue and will engulf in misery ultimately the entire world . He makes clear the complicity of US 'news'-media in the lies that 'justify' this coup (and 'justified' those invasions)." [My Emphasis]
IMO, that's a very broad interpretation of b's summation, but I cannot argue against the section I bolded--as some may have noticed, my appellation for the USA has evolved to better reflect its nature: the Evil Outlaw US Empire. There are numerous reasons that prompted me to do so, one I mentioned in my reply @14 to S--tact is no longer employed in diplomacy by the Evil Outlaw US Empire, and that's a very bad sign, IMO. Zuesse continues on calling out the crimes of BigLie Media, echoing my accusation that the writers and editors are all committing the crimes of Goebbels and ought to mimic his actions when his end was nigh.
Zueese ends his very authentic rant with the following prescription which was clearly needed prior to 911:
"Unfortunately, the only global solution would be a second American Revolution, but, this time, the news-media are far less honest, and so almost no support exists amongst the US population for doing that. Consequently, the outlook for the future, worldwide, is grim. If the warning (hidden by the media as it is), this time from Bolivia, is not heeded, how can this cancer ever be stopped from engulfing the entire world?"
It's curious that an impending Civil War within the Evil Outlaw US Empire is posited but seldom a 2nd Revolution, although the latter's been discussed at the bar by myself and others off and on over the past several years. I wrote the following in a reply to psychohistorian on the previous open thread:
"I appears that the prerequisite to obtaining freedom and democracy is public ownership of the vast majority of financial levers. Without public capture of that essential domain, only some form of penury is possible for the vast majority of commonfolk, leaving only a select hierarchy free, democracy reserved only for their use. Pretty well sums up the current situation within the Evil Outlaw US Empire I'd say."
Sasha , Dec 1 2019 22:56 utc | 22
The Civil Arm of the coup: one of the best-funded NGOs in Bolivia during 2017 and 2018 was the International Republican Institute (IRI). http://bit.ly/37HYnitThe destabilization of Ukraine and Tunisia are the main achievements of this American organization.
https://twitter.com/Mision_Verdad/status/1200929250762788865
NGO networks: the "civil" arm of the US Empire that defined the coup in Bolivia
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Dec 01, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Hoax-Watch Prof Charged With Sending Threats To Herself Over Cancellation Of Course Zero Hedge by Tyler Durden Sun, 12/01/2019 - 14:30 0 SHARES
An Australian professor has been charged with implementing a bogus harassment campaign against herself following the controversial cancellation of a degree program.
Dianne Jolley, a professor of environmental chemistry and toxicology at the University of Technology Sydney, allegedly sent threatening letters to herself between May and September as a protest against abolition of the degree in traditional Chinese medicine, university officials believe.
According to Stuff.com, Jolley, who's also the school's Dean of Science, claimed that in addition to the letters, various articles of clothing had been sent to her ... had clothes stolen from her backyard.
As a result, "significant security measures" were put in place to protect the professor. But after an investigation by Sydney Police, officials ended up charging Jolley with "obtaining a financial advantage by deception, giving false information about a person or property in danger, and making false representations resulting in a police investigation."
Jolley attorney Aaron Kerneghan said his client would plead "not guilty" to all charges.
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Dec 01, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com
Moscow Exile November 30, 2019 at 9:09 am
Is this what could be described as "playing silly buggers"?Mark Chapman November 30, 2019 at 5:32 pm30 NOV, 00:54
Naftogaz can consider waiving $12.2 bln claims against Gazprom
Ukraine is ready to do so on condition of compensationLike Like
The Ukies imagine they are so clever! They will waive a claim they have pretty much no chance of ever being awarded, in return for a lesser amount of guaranteed cold, hard cash plus a transit deal which will commit Russia to giving them at least another $20 Billion in transit fees over 10 years. Russia should pretend to consider it, just to wind them up, and run out the clock on the signing of a new contract. Then say, "I've decided not to after all, old chap".
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Nov 30, 2019 | www.infowars.com
During her testimony in the impeachment hearings this week, Fiona Hill dismissed charges she was a "globalist" by referring to the term as an "anti-Semitic" conspiracy theory, despite the fact that she writes for a publication literally called 'The Globalist'.
Hill was responding to a question by Democratic Representative for Illinois Raja Krishnamoorthi, who quoted Hill's earlier deposition in which she complained about Roger Stone labeling her "the globalist leftist [George] Soros insider."
Hill claimed that "a conspiracy" had been launched against her and that 'globalist' was an anti-Semitic trope, while admitting that she was a "leftist maybe," but implying she was not a globalist.
"This is the longest-running anti-Semitic trope that we have in history, and a trope against Mr. Soros was also created for political purposes, and this is the new Protocols of The Elders of Zion," Hill said.
This statement is somewhat at odds with Hill literally being a contributing writer for a publication called 'The Globalist'.
Stone also previously asserted that Hill was serving as George Soros' "mole" under the supervision of former NSA adviser H.R. McMaster.
Hill is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, which is considered to be one of the pre-eminent globalist institutions in the United States.
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Nov 30, 2019 | www.infowars.com
During her testimony in the impeachment hearings this week, Fiona Hill dismissed charges she was a "globalist" by referring to the term as an "anti-Semitic" conspiracy theory, despite the fact that she writes for a publication literally called 'The Globalist'.
Hill was responding to a question by Democratic Representative for Illinois Raja Krishnamoorthi, who quoted Hill's earlier deposition in which she complained about Roger Stone labeling her "the globalist leftist [George] Soros insider."
Hill claimed that "a conspiracy" had been launched against her and that 'globalist' was an anti-Semitic trope, while admitting that she was a "leftist maybe," but implying she was not a globalist.
"This is the longest-running anti-Semitic trope that we have in history, and a trope against Mr. Soros was also created for political purposes, and this is the new Protocols of The Elders of Zion," Hill said.
This statement is somewhat at odds with Hill literally being a contributing writer for a publication called 'The Globalist'.
Stone also previously asserted that Hill was serving as George Soros' "mole" under the supervision of former NSA adviser H.R. McMaster.
Hill is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, which is considered to be one of the pre-eminent globalist institutions in the United States.
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Nov 29, 2019 | www.strategic-culture.org
Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger made prudent remarks recently when he said the United States is no longer a uni-power and that it must recognize the reality of China as an equal rival. The furor over a new law passed by the US this week regarding Hong Kong and undermining Beijing's authority underlines Kissinger's warning.If the US cannot find some modus vivendi with China, then the outcome could be a catastrophic conflict worst than any previous world war, he admonished.
Speaking publicly in New York on November 14, the veteran diplomat urged the US and China to resolve their ongoing economic tensions cooperatively and mutually, adding: "It is no longer possible to think that one side can dominate the other."
A key remark made by Kissinger was the following: "So those countries that used to be exceptional and used to be unique, have to get used to the fact that they have a rival."
In other words, he is negating the erroneous consensus held in Washington which asserts that the US is somehow "exceptional", a "uni-power" and the "indispensable nation". This consensus has grown since the early 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union, when the US viewed itself as the sole super-power. That morphed into a more virulent ideology of "full-spectrum dominance". Thence, the past three decades of unrelenting US criminal wars and regime-change operations across the planet, throwing the whole world into chaos.
Kissinger's frank assessment is a breath of fresh air amid the stale and impossibly arrogant self-regard held by too many American politicians who view their nation as an unparalleled power which brooks no other.
The seasoned statesman, who is 96-years-old and retains an admirable acumen for international politics, ended his remarks on an optimistic note by saying: "I am confident the leaders on both sides [US and China] will realize the future of the world depends on the two sides working out solutions and managing the inevitable difficulties."
Aptly, Kissinger's caution about danger of conflict was reiterated separately by veteran journalist John Pilger, who warned in an exclusive interview for Strategic Culture Foundation this week that, presumed "American exceptionalism is driving the world to war."
Henry Kissinger is indeed a controversial figure. Many US scholars regard him as one of the most outstanding Secretaries of State during the post-Second World War period. He served in the Nixon and Ford administrations during the 1970s and went on to write tomes about geopolitics and international relations. Against that, his reputation was badly tarnished by the US war in Vietnam and the horrendous civilian death toll from relentless aerial bombing across Indochina, believed to have been countenanced by Kissinger.
Kissinger has also been accused of supporting the military coup in Chile in 1973 against elected President Allende, and for backing the dirty war by Argentina's fascist generals during the 1970s against workers and leftists.
... ... ...
At times, President Donald Trump appears to subscribe to realpolitik pragmatism. At other times, he swings to the hyper-ideological mentality as expressed by his Vice President Mike Pence, as well as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Secretary of Defense Mike Esper. The latter has labeled China as the US's "greatest long-term threat".
This week President Trump signed into law "The Human Rights and Democracy Bill", which will impose sanctions on China over alleged repression in its Hong Kong territory. Beijing has reacted furiously to the legislation, condemning it as a violation of its sovereignty.
This is exactly the kind of baleful move that Kissinger warned against in order to avoid a further poisoning in bilateral relations already tense from the past 16 months of US-China trade war.
One discerns the difference between Kissinger and more recent US politicians: the former has copious historical knowledge and appreciation of other cultures. His shrewd, wily, maybe even Machiavellian streak, informs Kissinger to acknowledge and respect other powers in a complex world. That is contrasted with the puritanical banality and ignorance manifest in Trump's administration and in the Congress.
Greeting Kissinger last Friday, November 22, during a visit to Beijing, President Xi Jinping thanked him for his historic contribution in normalizing US-China relations during 1970s.
"At present, Sino-US relations are at a critical juncture facing some difficulties and challenges," said Xi, calling on the two countries to deepen communication on strategic issues. It was an echo of the realpolitik views Kissinger had enunciated the week before.
While sharing a public stage with Kissinger, the Chinese leader added: "The two sides should proceed from the fundamental interests of the two peoples and the people of the world, respect each other, seek common ground while reserving differences, pursue win-win results in cooperation, and promote bilateral ties to develop in the right direction."
Likewise, China and Russia have continually urged for a multipolar world order for cooperation and partnership in development. But the present and recent US governments refuse to contemplate any other order other than a presumed unipolar dominance. Hence the ongoing US trade strife with China and Washington's relentless demonization of Russia.
This "exceptional" ideological mantra of the US is leading to more tensions, and ultimately is a path to the abyss. Henry Kissinger gets it. It's a pity America's present crop of politicians and thinkers are so impoverished in their intellect.
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Nov 30, 2019 | www.amazon.com
Although it is generally understood that American neoconservatives pushed hard for the war in Iraq, this book forcefully argues that the neocons' goal was not the spread of democracy, but the protection of Israel's interests in the Middle East. Showing that the neocon movement has always identified closely with the interests of Israel's Likudnik right wing, the discussion contends that neocon advice on Iraq was the exact opposite of conventional United States foreign policy, which has always sought to maintain stability in the region to promote the flow of oil. Various players in the rush to war are assessed according to their motives, including President Bush, Ariel Sharon, members of the foreign-policy establishment, and the American people, who are seen not as having been dragged into war against their will, but as ready after 9/11 for retaliation
Concerned Citizen , July 13, 2014
How and Why Israel Promoted the U.S. Invasion of IraqBaraniecki Mark Stuart , March 13, 2010Every American should read this superb book about the intimate connection between the state of Israel and the Americans who planned and promoted the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 (and who still influence U.S. policy in the Middle East). This very well-researched and well-argued book will enlighten Americans who want to understand how the Jewish State of Israel powerfully shapes U.S. Middle East policy.
Stephen Sniegowski provides a detailed look at the network of die-hard pro-Israel Neoconservatives who have worked in the U.S. government, in think tanks, and in the news media to shape American foreign policy to serve the needs of Israel at the expense of the U.S. From media baron Rupert Murdoch, whose 175 newspapers around the world ALL editorialized in favor of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, to deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, to Weekly Standard Editor William Kristol, to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, to Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and later Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton, to Vice President Dick Cheney, to the Chairman of the Defense Policy Board Richard Perle, the neoconservatives successfully persuaded President George W. Bush to invade Iraq to promote Israel's foreign policy interests.
Sniegowski describes how the Neocons promoted lies about Saddam Hussein's supposed Weapons of Mass Destruction and his supposed ties to al-Qaeda terrorists from a network of think tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), Middle East Media Research Institute, Hudson Institute, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Middle East Forum, Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), the Center for Security Policy, and the Project for a New American Century (PNAC).
He also traces the influence of Israeli Zionist Oded Yinon on the American Neoconservatives. Yinon wrote an article in 1982 entitled "A Strategy for Israel in the 1980s" that called for Israel to bring about the dissolution of many of the Arab states and their fragmentation into a mosaic of ethnic and sectarian groupings. This is basically what is happening to Iraq and Syria today. He also called for Israelis to accelerate the emigration of Palestinians from Israel, whose border he believed should extend to the Jordan River and beyond it.
Yinon's article influenced a paper written for the Israeli Likud government of Benjamin Netanyahu in 1996 by American neoconservatives Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, and David Wurmser entitled "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm". This paper stated that Netanyahu should "make a clean break" with the Oslo peace process and reassert Israel's claim to the West Bank and Gaza. Like Yinon's article, it also called for the removal of Saddam Hussein in Iraq and the weakening of Syria to promote Israel's interests. It was written five years BEFORE the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center. These same three men - Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, and David Wurmser - who advised Netanyahu's Israeli government on issues of national security would later advise President George W. Bush to pursue virtually the same policies regarding the Middle East.
If you want to understand how and why powerful pro-Israel neoconservatives in the U.S. misled Americans and convinced President George W. Bush to order the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, and how they persuaded the U.S. Congress to give Bush the authority to order the invasion, read this outstanding book.
The Failure of American GovernmentSevero , May 16, 2016Another episode in the sad story of recent American government. It starts with a 1996 paper entitled "A Clean Break, A New Strategy for Securing the Realm" published by an Israeli think tank, the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies. The principal idea was to foment war in the Middle East and consequently destabilize Israel's enemies.
The policy was adopted by the Israeli pro-settler right wing and Jewish activists in and around the Clinton and Bush administrations such as Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and David Wurmser (who all helped produce the original document). They identified as targets Iraq, Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia and were handed a golden opportunity after the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Centre. Iraq was falsely presented as an Al Qaeda base and the media planted with stories about an imminent attack on the United States using WMD. Despite the CIA knowing all along that the WMD didn't exist, the US still invaded Iraq and the story was quietly and unbelievably changed to "building democracy".
As Sniegoski points out, the war has exceeded the cost of Vietnam and the same activists, now working through Hillary Clinton are looking for "incidents" in Iraq to trigger the next phase of the plan which is a US attack on Iran.
UPDATE October 2014:
And it gets worse: The 911 story itself keeps morphing. Google "Building 7", YouTube "911 Missing Links" or check the article at http://911speakout.org/7TOCPJ.pdf. >
A cornerstone in the quest for understanding the current Middle East Crisis.Paul Sheldon Foote , January 26, 2010Important book for those trying understand the chaos that is currently reigning in the Middle East. From the lies based NEOCON attack on Iraq trumpeted by the mainstream USA media as a fight to save Western Civilization, to the rise of ISIL.
This books will make those connections clear. No informed American can afford to not know the names Oded Yinon, AIPAC, The Clean Break, The NEOCONS. Knowledge is indeed power. >
The Neoconservative Cult and the Fragility of American DemocracyNew Age of Barbarism , October 14, 2008On January 27, 2005, [...] posted the remarks of Seymour Hersh (The New Yorker contributor) at the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in New York that a neoconservative cult had taken over the American government.
Hersh hoped that future historians would document the fragility of American democracy by explaining how eight or nine neoconservatives were able to overcome easily the bureaucracy, the Congress, and the press. Stephen Sniegoski, in The Transparent Cabal, has provided a detailed history of how the neoconservative cult achieved the takeover.
Other books have stressed how the neoconservative ideology is contrary to traditional American values: Reclaiming the American Right (Justin Raimondo), America the Virtuous (Claes Ryn), Where the Right Went Wrong (Patrick Buchanan).
"Memoirs of a Trotskyist" in Neo-conservatism: The Autobiography of an Idea (Irving Kristol) provided a neoconservative account of the origins of neo-conservatism. Sniegoski noted correctly that the term neoconservative originated with leftists critical of their former comrades for attempting to infiltrate the Democratic and Republican parties. Thanks to leftists who call neoconservatives the ultra-right and to conservative dupes who think that anyone using a conservative label is a conservative, the neoconservative cancer has spread through the fragile American political body.
The neoconservatives do not represent the only case in American history of a small group attempting to take over America. The Plot to Seize the White House (Jules Archer) provided a detailed account of General Smedley Butler's testimony to Congress about a secret plot to overthrow President Franklin Roosevelt. Butler, a Republican, authored War is a Racket.
Unlike earlier secret plots to take over the American government, Sniegoski explained how it was possible for the neoconservatives to operate as a relatively transparent cabal. However, he observed that the neoconservatives used a Trojan horse technique to take over the American conservative movement. The goal of the neoconservatives is to promote endless wars regardless of whether the Democrats or the Republicans are in power.
The neoconservatives do not represent a popular mass movement in America. Instead, the neoconservatives rely upon the co-operation of other groups. Sniegoski provided extensive documentation of which groups enabled the neoconservatives. For example, the Christian Zionists duped their followers into sacrificing money and soldiers. Zionism originated with the writings of Moses Hess (who helped Karl Marx write The Communist Manifesto, was nicknamed the Communist Rabbi, and who is buried in Israel). In 1862, Moses Hess published Rome and Jerusalem. Moses Hess: Prophet of Communism and Zionism (Shlomo Avineri) provided a detailed explanation of the relationship between Communism and Zionism.
The reason for the fragility of American democracy is the failure of many Americans to understand the most basic aspects of the American political system and of their religions.
The Transparent Cabal is an important starting point for understanding how a neoconservative cult opposed to traditional American political and religious values is able to destroy America with endless wars.
A Brilliant Account of the Neoconservative War Agenda.Honest Observer , December 30, 2009_The Transparent Cabal: The Neoconservative Agenda, War in the Middle East, And the National Interest of Israel_, published in 2008 by Enigma Editions of IHS Press, by scholar Stephen J. Sniegoski is a thorough examination of the role of the neoconservatives in pushing for war in the Middle East (beginning with the war in Iraq and pushing onwards towards Iran) in order to protect the national interests of Israel. Sniegoski makes the claim that the neoconservatives have been the fundamental force behind the war efforts of the United States and have played a particularly prominent role in the Bush administration. While these claims have now become common knowledge, Sniegoski makes an important contribution by tracing the history of the neoconservative movement and its links to prominent pro-Jewish and pro-Israel groups. In particular, Sniegoski claims that neoconservativism is a tool of Zionism and the Likudniks of Israel. Sniegoski traces out how following the attacks of September 11, the neoconservative war hawks had a profound influence on the thinking of President Bush and offered him a ready made solution to his foreign policy agenda. In this book, Sniegoski also considers and refutes other theories as to the root causes behind America's intervention in Iraq (such as the role of oil and war profiteering) but explains how these theories lack the validity of that which lays the blame on the neoconservatives and their goals for Israeli dominance in the Middle East.
In a recently written best-seller two political scientists at the University of Chicago and Harvard (John Meirsheimer and Stephen J. Walt _The Israeli Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy_) broke a long-standing taboo in the United States and risked charges of anti-Semitism by exposing the role of the powerful Israeli Lobby (AIPAC) in the United States and its push for war against Iraq and with its future sights on Iran. This book echoes many of the claims made by Meirsheimer and Walt and further shows the agenda of the small circle of neoconservatives in directing American foreign policy. The author maintains that the neoconservatives are a "transparent cabal", in that they have operated as a tight-knit secret group but their actions remain transparent.
This book begins with a Foreword by Congressman Paul Findley (famous author of _They Dare to Speak Out_ and longtime opponent of the Israeli Lobby) in which he explains the importance of Sniegoski's book and deflects the spurious charge of anti-Semitism. Following this, appears an Introduction by noted paleoconservative Paul Gottfried who explains his admiration for Sniegoski's book, offers some comparisons between Sniegoski's claims and those of other individuals, and contrasts the old non-interventionist limited government form of conservativism with that of the neoconservatives.
The first chapter of Sniegoski's book is entitled "The Transparent Cabal" and notes the disastrous consequences that have followed upon the Iraq war spurred on by the neoconservatives. The author explains what he means in calling the neoconservatives a "transparent cabal" and notes the importance of their Middle East, pro-Israeli agenda. The author explains how following the events of September 11, they came to take on a prominent role in influencing the thinking of the president (who had previously shown little interest in the Middle East).
The second chapter is entitled "The "Neocon-Israel" Claim: Bits and Pieces" and exposes the role of Israel's Likudnik party behind the neoconservatives. The author deflects claims of "anti-Semitism" which are frequently hurled at those who make these charges by showing that even many prominent Jews agree with this. Following this appears a chapter entitled "Who are the Neocons?" which shows how the neocons emigrated from their original home in the Democratic party of the McGovernite left into the Republican party as the New Left began to voice criticisms of Israel. The author shows that many of the neocons are actually socialists and Trotskyites parading under the label of "conservative". Further, the author shows the role of various intellectuals centering around New York City in creating the neoconservative movement.
Next, appears a chapter entitled "The Israeli Origins of the Middle East War Agenda" which shows how the goal of Middle East war to further the interests of Israel has been supported extensively by hawkish groups in Israel. The author explains how these groups came to have such a prominent role in influencing the policy of the United States and in suppressing the native population of Palestinians in Israel. Following, appears a chapter entitled "Stability and the Gulf War of 1991: Prefigurement and Prelude to the 2003 Iraq War" in which the author explains the importance of the first Gulf War of Bush I in prefiguring the Iraq War of Bush II. After this, appears a chapter entitled "During the Clinton Years" in which the author shows the continuing role of the neocons during the Clinton years.
Following this, appears a chapter entitled "Serbian Interlude and the 2000 Elections" in which the author explains how the war in Yugoslavia paved the way for the coming Iraq War of President Bush. This also explains the split that occurred among conservatives between those traditional conservatives who opposed the war and the neocons who firmly supported it. Following this appears a chapter entitled "George W. Bush Administration: The Beginning" in which the author explains the role that the neocons came to take in the Bush administration mentioning in particular the role of such figures as Wolfowitz and Cheney and the role of the Project for a New American Century (PNAC). Following this appears a chapter entitled "September 11", showing how the events of Sept. 11 allowed the neocon agenda to gain prominence in the mind of President Bush.
Next, appears a chapter entitled "Move to War" explaining how the neocons pushed for war against Sadaam Hussein presenting their case to the American people by claiming that Hussein was in possession of WMDs which could be used against America. Following this appears a chapter entitled "World War IV" explaining how the conflict in the Middle East came to be dubbed World War IV by certain intellectuals among the neocons.
Next, appears a chapter entitled "Democracy for the Middle East" showing the role of the neocons in foisting "democracy" onto various nations and their goal of global democratic revolution. The author also explains the role of the thinking of political philosopher Leo Strauss behind many of the neocons and his profoundly anti-democratic philosophy. Following this, appears a chapter entitled "Neocons' Post-Invasion Difficulties" showing how the invasion of Iraq turned out to be more serious and difficult than originally anticipated by the neocons. Next, appears a chapter entitled "Beginning of the Second Administration" showing the continuing role of the neocons under the second Bush administration.
Then, appears a chapter entitled "Israel, Lebanon, and the 2006 Election" showing the role of Lebanon and Syria in relationship to Israel and that of the 2006 election.
Next, appears a chapter entitled "2007: On to Iran" showing how the neocons continued to press for further wars in particular against Iran by alleging among other things that Ahmedinejad was a mad man with possible access to nuclear weapons. Following, appears a chapter entitled "The Supporting Cast for War" noting the role of Christian Zionists (which includes the beliefs of President Bush, although not his father), former Cold Warriors, and even prominent establishment liberals in supporting the Iraq war. The author notes however that the traditional foreign policy establishment elites and many in the intelligence agencies did not support the war, but were disregarded to further the neocon agenda. The author also contrasts the difference between the liberal elites who frequently were pro-war and the popular anti-war movement which had very little power.
Following this, the author turns to a chapter entitled "Oil and Other Arguments" in which the author considers the claims that the war was fought to obtain access to oil or for the interests of war profiteers and shows that while both groups certainly benefited they are not the real reason for the war. The book ends with a "Conclusion" in which the author expounds upon the continuing role of the neocons in influencing American foreign policy and a "Postscript" in which the author notes that no matter who wins the 2008 election that the neocon agenda will likely continue and is not likely to go away anytime soon.
This book offers a fascinating history and account of the role of the neoconservatives in pushing the United States into war. The author makes clear the influence of the Israeli Likudnik party behind the neocons and their goal of strengthening the position of Israel in the Middle East. It is important to understand the fundamental nature of the foreign policy elites who have been pushing us into war against Iraq and now with eyes towards Iran.
CRITICISM OF ISRAEL IS NOT ANTI-SEMITISMDennis R. Jugan , August 28, 2008That old canard "anti-semitic" is heard again in one of the reviews of this book. Nonsense!!! If one is anti-semitic simply because he is critical of certain policies followed by Likud, then many Jews living in Israel are also Jew haters.
Let's put aside these negative and nasty characterizations and look at the facts.
Israeli politicians are, undertandably, looking out for the intestests of their nation state. However, many American pols are beholden to the Israeli lobby (of simply feaful of it) and often place American interests second to that of the lobby.
To suggest that there is such a lobby and that it is powerful is hardly anti-semitic. Nor is the author. He is simply stating verifible facts which any student of politics is free to do. He may be mistaken in his conclusions but that hardly makes him anti-semitic. And he may not be mistaken at all. He is not the first to suggest that our leaders are fearful of the Israeli lobby and do its bidding and often to the detriment of American interests .
History will always link the Iraq War with the term 'neoconservative'James B. Pate , June 12, 2019Stephen Sniegoski, a diplomatic historian, is uniquely qualified to write about the neoconservatives' involvement in the prolonged Iraq War originating in 2003. He accurately predicted their activities and allegiance in this entanglement in 1998, three years before the acts of 9-11 and two additional years before a traumatized nation yielded to a nescient, misdirected President, his Vice President/administration, and an ostensibly compliant bi-partisan House and Senate.
The author presents a tight outline which he cogently expands in intelligible detail, maintaining that the origins of the American war on Iraq revolve around the adoption of a war agenda whose basic structure was conceived in Israel to advance Israel's interests. The pro-Israel neoconservatives and a powerful Israel lobby in the United States fervently pushed its agenda. Ironically, he extracts his most persuasive evidence from an extensive neoconservative paper trail that's been clearly recognized by a discreet cadre of vigilant Americans for years. Thus the title, "The Transparent Cabal."
Dr. Sniegoski asks the appropriate question: "Who are the neoconservatives?" He provides insightful answers on their pertinent activities since 1972, those who shaped and mentored them, their immediate family/interconnected family networks, their prominent periodical publications, their past and present leadership, non-Jewish minority members, their persistent rise to positions of political influence and authority, their embrace of Christian Zionists, and their close ties to the extremely conservative Likud Party in Israel. He reveals their tactical affiliations with key, heavily endowed influential think tanks, and a vast number of powerful Israel-centric lobbying organizations that reactively finance and nurture their continued success.
Many readers will recognize his references to writers of previous books, articles and columns -- many of Jewish heritage -- who bravely fight against well financed, mainstream media-dominant opponents and their psychological surrogates active on the Internet. These opponents perniciously engage in personal attacks and retribution, indiscriminately applying irrelevant anti-semitic labels. They persist at attempting to sway public discourse by spreading misinformation, disinformation, and mostly NO RELEVANT INFORMATION to the public.
In various places throughout the book, the author notes curious relationships with current and former elected and appointed officials. He writes about the ongoing 2008 presidential campaign in a postscript, citing past and existing direct influences on specific candidates by the neoconservatives, the Israel Lobby and its supporters.
The book concludes with a summary of the paucity of benefits compared to the predictable losses of the American people over recent years. These are the real consequences of the Israel-inspired plan to "drain the swamp" (a euphemism for destabilizing perceived enemies then establishing precarious nominal democracies) that began with our misadventure in Iraq and was to proceed with subsequent U.S. military interventions in Iran and Syria. The few meager benefits and the enormous losses to the United States are compared to the strategic advantages that the State of Israel derives directly from our five-year induced military involvement in Iraq and our concomitant departure from past, longstanding policies of diplomacy and stability in the Middle East.
Sniegoski counsels, "it is hardly controversial to propose that elites, rather than the people as a whole, determine government policies, even in democracies."
Yet this war has a supporting cast of middle Americans. Many of them were traumatized by the events of 9-11 and reactively saw an act of patriotism in supporting retaliation against a falsely perceived enemy in Iraq. It's time to reconsider false arguments preceding the Iraq War that have only been cosmetically modified until the present day. It's time to dismiss incongruous ideas formed in the cauldron of confusion after 9-11.
Given today's realities, it DOES take patriotism and courage to insist on formally normalizing an entangled, unreciprocated military alliance with an Israeli government that burdens the taxpayers of the United States, promotes angst among its people, and imperils its military forces worldwide.
Know and embrace Thomas Jefferson's ideal of 'eternal vigilance' as citizens of the United States.
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Facts in this book are reinforced in adjacent paragraphs and referenced in nearly 50 pages of notes. Readers are encouraged to read:
- The Neoconservative Revolution: Jewish Intellectuals and the Shaping of Public Policy by Murray Friedman
- Spy Trade: How Israel's Lobby Undermines America's Economy by Grant F. Smith
- The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal & American Foreign Policy
- The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy by Mearsheimer and Walt
- World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability by Amy Chua -- "Israeli Surveillance of the Future Hijackers and FBI Suspects in the September 11 Attacks and Their Failure to Give Us Adequate Warning: The Need for a Public Inquiry" **a 166 PAGE LEAKED REPORT** documenting foreign espionage activities surrounding 9-11, available on the Internet (although rarely in COMPLETE UNEDITED FORM **WITH 5 EXHIBITS AND 4 MAPS**).
.The Transparent CabalPhilip Collier , September 10, 2014Stephen J. Sniegoski has a doctorate from the University of Maryland and studied American diplomatic history. My review here will refer to him as "S," for short.
This book is about the American neoconservative movement. S goes from its founding through its influential role in getting the U.S. into the Iraq War, then he discusses the War's aftermath. S's argument is that the neoconservative agenda regarding the Middle East is designed to serve the interests of the state of Israel, as those interests are articulated by the right-wing Likud party there. This agenda supports weakening Arab nations surrounding Israel so that they cannot pose a threat to her. According to S, the neoconservatives supported such an agenda since their beginning as a movement, but 9/11 created an opportunity for this agenda to become the foreign policy of the United States during much of the Presidency of George W. Bush.
Here are some thoughts:
A. Looking broadly at the book itself, it is a standard narration of the events surrounding and including the Iraq War. Like a lot of people, I lived through that, so the sweeping narrative of the book was not particularly new to me. The story is essentially that the U.S. went into Iraq expecting to find weapons of mass destruction after 9/11, bombed the country and found that were no WMDs, and traveled the difficult road of trying to rebuild the country, amidst ethnic division, turmoil, and opposition from Iraqis.
B. That said, there were some things that I learned from this book. First, while neoconservatism is said to believe in spreading democracy in the Middle East, it is not necessarily committed to democracy, per se. Initially, it supported a new government of Iraq that would be led by the traditional, pre-Saddam tribal authorities, who were not democratic. Second, S seems to imply that even the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan was unnecessary, since the Taliban initially appeared cooperative in offering to help the U.S. to bring al-Qaeda to justice. Third, there are neoconservatives who have supported undermining even America's allies in the Middle East, such as Saudi Arabia. The different groups in Saudi Arabia was also interesting, for, as S notes, Shiites hold a significant amount of control over Saudi oil, even though the political establishment is Sunni. Fourth, S argues rigorously against the idea that the U.S. launched the Iraq War to get more oil. Saddam was offering U.S. oil companies opportunities to drill in Iraq, plus oil companies did not want the oil infrastructure of the country to be disrupted or shattered by war.
C. There were also things in the book that I was interested to learn more about, even though I had a rudimentary understanding of them before. For one, S chronicles George W. Bush's changing views on foreign policy, as he went from rejecting nation-building, while retaining a tough stance, to embracing nation building. In the early days of the Bush II Administration, long before the Iraq War, Condi Rice even explained on news shows why regime change in Iraq would be a mistake at that point. Second, S discusses the coalition that emerged to support the war in Iraq. The neocons wanted to protect Israel, but Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld embraced the Iraq War as a way to showcase the effectiveness of a lean military. Meanwhile, many Americans, frightened after 9/11, supported the Iraq War as a way to keep the U.S. safe. And Christian conservatives embraced the good vs. evil, pro-Israel stance of neoconservative policy. Third, S strategically evaluates moves that the U.S. made; for S, for example, the surge did not actually work, but more stability emerged in Iraq as different ethnic factions became separated from each other.
D. According to S, the Iraq War was a disaster. It stretched America's military, taking away resources that could have been used to find Osama bin-Laden. Yet, Israel got something that it wanted as a result: disarray among her Arab neighbors. An argument that S did not really engage, as far as I can recall, is that the Iraq War placed Israel even more in peril, since it increased the power of Iran by allowing Iraq to serve as a proxy for Iranian interests.
E. For S, neoconservatism is concerned about the security of Israel. Even its staunch Cold War policy is rooted in that concern, since the U.S.S.R. tended to support Arabs over the Israelis. S acknowledges, though, that there is more to neoconservatism that that. Neoconservatives supported a strong U.S. military intervention in the former Yugoslavia during the Clinton Administration, and neoconservatism also maintains stances on domestic issues, such as welfare.
F. S is sensitive to any charges of anti-Semitism that may be launched against his book. He emphatically denies that he is saying there was a Jewish conspiracy to get the U.S. into Iraq, for he observes that many Jews opposed the Iraq War. Moreover, S does not exactly present the U.S. government as a Zionist Occupied Government (ZOG), for the neoconservatives were long on the margins prior to the Presidency of George W. Bush. Even under Bush II, the traditional national security and intelligence apparatus was critical of the Iraq War, preferring more multilateralism and a focus on stability in the Middle East. The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), long a bogeyman of right-wing conspiracy theorists, also had reservations about the Iraq War.
G. S largely depicts the Likud party in Israel, and neoconservatives, as supporting Israel's security as a nation, her protection, if you will. At the same time, S argues that Israel in 2006 was acting aggressively rather than defensively in its invasion of Lebanon, for Lebanon had coveted water-supplies.
H. Near the end of the Iraq War, S demonstrates, neoconservatives were calling on the U.S. to take an aggressive stance against Iran, going so far as to bomb the country. That, of course, is an issue that remains relevant today. S probably regards such a move as a mistake. At the same time, he can understand why Israel would be apprehensive about a nuclear-armed Iran. He thinks that Ahmadinejad has been incorrectly understood to say that Israel should be wiped off the map, but S still acknowledges that a powerful Iran could provide more support to the Palestinians, which would trouble Israel. Although S understands this, he seems to scorn the idea that Israel should get everything she wants and have hegemony.
I. S is open to the possibility that neoconservatives believe that their support for Israel is perfectly consistent with America's well-being. As S observes, the U.S. government since its founding has had people who believe that partisanship towards a certain nation -- -Britain or France -- -is not only good for its own sake but serves the interests of the United States. S disputes, however, that neoconservative policy is the only way to help the U.S. Could not one argue, after all, that the U.S. would want to be on the Arabs' good side, with all the oil the Arabs have? This analysis may be a little dated, since the U.S. now has some alternative sources of energy (fracking), but S makes this point in evaluating the historical stance of neoconservatism.
silence is deafening by Philip CollierT. Marsh , November 1, 2009I was interested to see the reviews of this book. Usually if any book suggests that Israel is less than perfect a group of Zionist fanatics surface with several reviews telling us that there nothing wrong Israel or American support of it.
Remarkably there is only one negative review of this book which has to be seen to be believed. This reviewer "yoda" from Israel charges in all seriousness that Sniegoski does not provide evidence that the neoconservatives are "predominantly Jewish " and are " strongly aligned with Israel". Asking the author to provide evidence for such
assertions is like asking him to give evidence that the sun will rise in the east tomorrow .This is I believe the real reason that that there are relatively few attacks on this book.The author does not engage in shrill denunciations of Israel or of the neoconservatives . What he does do is quote at length what neocoservstives say and provide careful documentation for any factual claims. For the most part the reader is allowed to draw his own conclusions. Should the US continue to finance Israeli repression of Palestinians and perhaps go to war against Iran or anyone else who might object to Israeli policie?
Instead of denouncing Sniegoski "Yoda" should consider the sane Israelis in his own country . For example former Mossad chief Meir Dagan who said that a war with Iran was the "stupidest idea he had ever heard of." Also moviemaker Emmanuel Dror who interviewed virtually all the former directors of the Shin Bett ( Israel's internal security service ) who all called for disengaging from the occupied territories .
perhaps we all would be better off listening to these Isaelis rather than follow the neoconservatives into another disastrous war on the other side of the world.
Fantastic Horror story, wait. This is realjunglejuice , July 17, 2017This is going to be a very strange review coming from me. You see, I wrote a novel called "Other Nations" and well, people that liked it a lot, liked it, but then those that really disliked it disliked it because my "aliens among humans" were nice people, likeable people, even charismatic people, everyday suburban types even, living that kind of life. Among us. Next door, in the next city over. They wanted instead to see the aliens among us portrayed as well, pick your favorite genocidal maniac or mind-controlling dictator or creature so dementedly alien that no sense can be made of it. Well!
There are many types of true horror. The kind that passes itself off as my aliens among us are portrayed, well, I guess some people GET IT - and they liked it.
But I'm not here to push my book. I'm here to push THIS BOOK - because my god, this is REAL, not fantasy, it's REAL, not science fiction. And yes, they are among us with well -
BUY THIS BOOK. If you are too broke to buy it, get it from the library - and by all means - READ IT.
Just hope to whatever god you choose that neocons are removed from governmental influence and that their Amen corner is ignored. Hope to god, because if they suceed in doing the INSANITY they want to do - America will be FINISHED - if it's not finished already due to what these Fifth Columnists have done during the 8 years of Twilight Zone (GWB Rule).
And for those Jewish critics on here that might want to compare these neocon FACTS and the other FACTS openly available to all (which is WHY the book is called the TRANSPARENT cabal) - compare it to the Protocols - they better think twice about that. Becauase, you see, what's in here is real, real facts, provably real facts - and if Jews themselves compare this to the Procols? Some folks might get the idea that maybe that is real too. Perhaps George Soros (who is Jewish) needs to speak LOUDER against the neocons. They are, indeed, crazies, as Colin Powell called them. Crazies.
Israel's interests revealedIf you want to have an eye opener then read and see who were those Jewish players working and influencing everything in the Bush Admin.promoting war with Iraq, then this is your book of truth. The cabal of Jewish players come out of the woodwork in Stephen Sniegoski's great work. When step by step the plan was a clear war map laid out for the U.S. in detail and after you realize just who was working for whom in this criminal cabal of the American government.
When you have Jewish control of the main stream media and Jewish control in Washington, D.C., don't wonder why the facts were omitted to make all the right connections for the public to see in this lead up to a war from lies.
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Nov 30, 2019 | www.youtube.com
James Kelman , 1 week agoi'm an old woman now and when i listen to the grayzone i feel encouraged that sanity will prevail. long life max. you're great.
b unangst , 1 week agoMax is one of the greatest journalists of our time ! Thank You , but take care because their are many that are threatened by truth and integrity ! RESPECT !
The msm is full of CIA swamp lobbyist liars. Max is just objectively reporting substantiated data points that counter lies that are meant to sell taxpayers war.
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Mar 09, 2018 | themarketswork.com
On February 4, 2018, Victoria Nuland, the Assistant Secretary of State in the Obama Administration went on Face the Nation and made the following comment :During the Ukraine crisis in 2014-15, Chris Steele had a number of commercial clients who were asking him for reports on what was going on in Russia, what was going on in Ukraine, what was going on between them. Chris had a friend [Jonathan Winer] at the State Department and he offered us that reporting free so that we could also benefit from it. It was one of, you know, hundreds of sources that we were using to try to understand what was going on.
Then, in the middle of July, when he was doing this other work and became concerned, he passed two to four pages of short points of what he was finding and our immediate reaction to that was, this is not in our purview. This needs to go to the FBI if there is any concern here that one candidate or the election as a whole might be influenced by the Russian Federation. That's something for the FBI to investigate.
Nuland said the State Department received the Dossier directly from Steele in mid-July 2016, whereupon the State Department turned it over to the FBI (segmented video here ).
Which is right around the time Susan Rice began showing increased interest in National Security Agency (NSA) intelligence material – including "unmasked" Americans' identities. From a Circa article :
Intelligence sources said the logs discovered by National Security Council staff suggested Rice's interest in the NSA materials, some of which included unmasked Americans' identities, appeared to begin last July around the time Trump secured the GOP nomination and accelerated after Trump's election in November launched a transition that continued through January.
Nuland's comment came in response to news that that there would be a second phase of House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes' investigation into Russian interference – this time focusing on the State Department. Nunes sent a questionnaire to about two dozen current and former intelligence, law enforcement and State Department officials. My guess is Nuland was one of them. Former Secretary of State John Kerry may have been another.
The New York Times had earlier reported that the FBI received the Steele Dossier directly from Christopher Steele on July 5, 2016 – the same day as Comey's infamous exoneration of Hillary Clinton during a news conference:
The reports came from a former British intelligence agent named Christopher Steele, who was working as a private investigator hired by a firm working for a Trump opponent. He provided the documents to an F.B.I. contact in Europe on the same day as Mr. Comey's news conference about Mrs. Clinton. It took weeks for this information to land with Mr. Strzok and his team.
This claim was recently repeated in a lengthy article in the New Yorker . In this version, the Steele Dossier was given to the FBI on July 5, 2016. By ~July 20, 2016, Comey had seen it and Strzok had the Dossier in his possession.
There is a third version of events, provided by Jonathan Winer in a Washington Post Op-Ed :
In 2009, I met and became friends with Steele, after he retired from British government service focusing on Russia. Steele was providing business intelligence on the same kinds of issues I worked on at the time. Over the years, Steele and I had discussed many matters relating to Russia. He asked me whether the State Department would like copies of new information as he developed it.
I contacted Victoria Nuland, a career diplomat who was then assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, and shared with her several of Steele's reports. She told me they were useful and asked me to continue to send them. Over the next two years, I shared more than 100 of Steele's reports with the Russia experts at the State Department, who continued to find them useful.
In the summer of 2016, Steele told me that he had learned of disturbing information regarding possible ties between Donald Trump, his campaign and senior Russian officials. He did not provide details but made clear the information involved "active measures," a Soviet intelligence term for propaganda and related activities to influence events in other countries.
In September 2016, Steele and I met in Washington and discussed the information now known as the "dossier." Steele's sources suggested that the Kremlin not only had been behind the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign but also had compromised Trump and developed ties with his associates and campaign.
I was allowed to review, but not to keep, a copy of these reports to enable me to alert the State Department. I prepared a two-page summary and shared it with Nuland, who indicated that, like me, she felt that the secretary of state [John Kerry] needed to be made aware of this material.
In this third version, Nuland and the State Department received the Dossier in September 2016.
Nuland made her comments on February 4, 2018. Winer wrote his Op-Ed on February 8, 2018.
Winer has known Steele since 2009. Nuland has known Steele since 2014 – during the Ukraine crisis.
Victoria Nuland is famous for an interesting conversation with the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt on or before February 4, 2014 (transcript here ):
During the call, which was intercepted and leaked, the two appear to be discussing replacing Ukrainian President Yanukovych with opposition leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk. Some excerpts:
PYATT: I think we're in play. The Klitschko [Vitaly Klitschko, one of three main opposition leaders] piece is obviously the complicated electron here.
NULAND: Good. I don't think Klitsch should go into the government. I don't think it's necessary, I don't think it's a good idea.
PYATT: Yeah. I guess in terms of him not going into the government, just let him stay out and do his political homework and stuff. I'm just thinking in terms of sort of the process moving ahead we want to keep the moderate democrats together.
NULAND: I think Yats [opposition leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk] is the guy who's got the economic experience, the governing experience. He's the what he needs is Klitsch and Tyahnybok on the outside.
PYATT: The other issue is some kind of outreach to Yanukovych but we probably regroup on that tomorrow as we see how things start to fall into place.
NULAND: Sullivan's come back to me VFR, saying you need [Vice President] Biden and I said probably tomorrow. So Biden's willing.
Here's what actually happened:
On or before February 4 2014 – Call between Pyatt and Nuland.
- February 22, 2014 – Yanukovych was removed as President of Ukraine.
- February 27 2014 – Yatsenyuk was installed as Prime Minister of Ukraine. Klitschko was left out. Yatsenyuk would resign in April 2016 amidst corruption accusations.
- April 18 2014 – Hunter Biden was appointed to the Board of Directors for Burisma – one of the largest natural gas companies in Ukraine.
- April 22 2014 – VP Biden travels to Ukraine and offers support and $50 million in aid for Yatsenyuk's shaky new government.
- On January 11, 2017, Politico published an investigative article, Ukrainian Efforts to Sabotage Trump Backfire :
Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump by publicly questioning his fitness for office. They also disseminated documents implicating a top Trump aide in corruption and suggested they were investigating the matter, only to back away after the election. And they helped Clinton's allies research damaging information on Trump and his advisers, a Politico investigation found.
A Ukrainian-American operative who was consulting for the Democratic National Committee met with top officials in the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington in an effort to expose ties between Trump, top campaign aide Paul Manafort and Russia, according to people with direct knowledge of the situation.
That Ukrainian-American was DNC operative Alexandra Chalupa.
Manafort's work for Yanukovych caught the attention of a veteran Democratic operative named Alexandra Chalupa, who had worked in the White House Office of Public Liaison during the Clinton administration. Chalupa went on to work as a staffer, then as a consultant, for Democratic National Committee.
The DNC paid her $412,000 from 2004 to June 2016, according to Federal Election Commission records, though she also was paid by other clients during that time, including Democratic campaigns and the DNC's arm for engaging expatriate Democrats around the world.
Some actions taken by Chalupa (sources from Politico article unless otherwise linked):
January 3 2014 – Leaders representing more than a dozen Ukrainian-American organizations, including the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation, met at the White House with President Obama's senior national security staff to discuss the crisis in Ukraine.
The non-partisan meeting held on January 3 was initiated by the co-chairs of Ukrainian-Americans for Obama, Julian Kulas, Andrew Fedynsky and Ulana Mazurkevich, as well Alexandra Chalupa , co-convener of the National Democratic Ethnic Coordinating Committee.
This was approximately one month prior to Nuland's call with Pyatt regarding the installation of Yatsenyuk as Prime Minister of Ukraine.
2014 (undetermined) -Chalupa begins to investigate Paul Manafort.
Chalupa, a lawyer by training, in 2014 was doing pro bono work for another client interested in the Ukrainian crisis and began researching Manafort's role in Yanukovych's rise, as well as his ties to the pro-Russian oligarchs who funded Yanukovych's political party.
Late 2015 – Chalupa expands her opposition research into Manafort to include Trump's ties to Russia.
Chalupa told Politico she had developed a network of sources in Kiev and Washington, including investigative journalists, government officials and private intelligence operatives. When Trump's unlikely presidential campaign began surging in late 2015, she began focusing more on the research, and expanded it to include Trump's ties to Russia, as well.
She occasionally shared her findings with officials from the DNC and Clinton's campaign
January 2016 – Chalupa informs a senior DNC official that she feels there is a Russia connection with the Trump Campaign.
Chalupa told a senior DNC official that, when it came to Trump's campaign, "I felt there was a Russia connection," Chalupa recalled. "And that, if there was, that we can expect Paul Manafort to be involved in this election," said Chalupa, who at the time also was warning leaders in the Ukrainian-American community that Manafort was "Putin's political brain for manipulating U.S. foreign policy and elections."
March 25 2016 – Chalupa shared her concerns with the Ukrainian Ambassador to the U.S.
She said she shared her concern with Ukraine's ambassador to the U.S., Valeriy Chaly, and one of his top aides, Oksana Shulyar, during a March 2016 meeting at the Ukrainian Embassy. According to someone briefed on the meeting, Chaly said that Manafort was very much on his radar, but that he wasn't particularly concerned about the operative's ties to Trump.
March 29 2016 – Chalupa briefs DNC Communication staff.
The day after Manafort's hiring was revealed, she briefed the DNC's communications staff on Manafort, Trump and their ties to Russia, according to an operative familiar with the situation.
A former DNC staffer and the operative familiar with the situation agreed that with the DNC's encouragement, Chalupa asked embassy staff to try to arrange an interview in which Poroshenko might discuss Manafort's ties to Yanukovych.
While the embassy declined that request, officials there became "helpful" in Chalupa's efforts, she said, explaining that she traded information and leads with them.
Chalupa said the embassy also worked directly with reporters researching Trump, Manafort and Russia to point them in the right directions.
April 4 – April 12 2016 – Ukrainian Parliamentarian Olga Bielkov has four meetings – with Samuel Charap (International Institute for Strategic Studies), Liz Zentos (National Security Council), Michael Kimmage (State Dept) and David Kramer (McCain Institute).
Doug Schoen files FARA documents that show he was paid $40,000 a month by Ukrainian Billionaire Victor Pinchuk (page 5) to arrange these meetings.
Schoen attempts to arrange another 72 meetings with Congressmen and media (page 10). It is unknown how many meetings took place.
April 6 2016 – Chalupa holds a meeting with an assistant of Representative Marcy Kaptur.
Chalupa confirmed that, a week after Manafort's hiring was announced, she discussed the possibility of a congressional investigation with a foreign policy legislative assistant in the office of Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), who co-chairs the Congressional Ukrainian Caucus.
April 26 2016 – Investigative reporter Michael Isikoff publishes story on Yahoo News about Paul Manafort's business dealings with Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska.
April 28 2016 – Chalupa appears on a panel to discuss her research on Manafort with a group of 68 Ukrainian investigative journalists gathered at the Library of Congress for a program sponsored by a U.S. congressional agency called the Open World Leadership Center.
From a Wikileaks email sent by Chalupa to Luis Miranda, Communications Director of the DNC:
I spoke to a delegation of 68 investigative journalists from Ukraine last Wednesday at the Library of Congress – the Open World Society's forum – they put me on the program to speak specifically about Paul Manafort and I invited Michael Isikoff whom I've been working with for the past few weeks and connected him to the Ukrainians.
Two points.
Open World is a supposedly non-partisan Congressional agency.
Michael Isikoff is the same journalist Christopher Steele leaked to in September 2016:
The Carter Page FISA application extensively cited a September 23, 2016, Yahoo News article by Michael Isikoff, which focused on Page's July 2016 trip to Moscow. This information was used to corroborate the Steele Dossier.
Steele leaked to Isikoff who wrote the article for Yahoo News. The Isikoff article was then used to help obtain a Title I FISA grant to gather information on Page. This search was then leaked by Steele to David Corn at Mother Jones.
Isikoff accompanied Chalupa to a reception at the Ukrainian Embassy immediately after the Library of Congress event.
May 3 2016 – Chalupa emails Luis Miranda, Communications Director of the DNC (same email referenced above).
A lot more coming down the pipe More offline tomorrow since there is a big Trump component you and Lauren need to be aware of that will hit in next few weeks and something I'm working on you should be aware of.
Late July 2016 – Chalupa leaves the DNC to work full-time on her research into Manafort.
Chalupa left the DNC after the Democratic convention in late July to focus full-time on her research into Manafort, Trump and Russia . She said she provided off-the-record information and guidance to "a lot of journalists" working on stories related to Manafort and Trump's Russia connections.
August 4 2016 – Ukrainian ambassador to U.S. writes op-ed against Trump.
August 15 2016 – CNN reports that Manafort is named in a Ukrainian probe over potentially illegal payments received from Ukraine's pro-Russian ruling party.
August 19 2016 – CNN reports the FBI is conducting an inquiry into Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort's payments from pro-Russia interests in Ukraine in 2007 and 2009.
August 19 2016 – Ukrainian parliament member Sergii Leshchenko holds news conference to draw attention to Paul Manafort and Trump's "pro-Russia" ties.
September 19 2016 – At UN General Assembly meeting in New York, Ukrainian President Poroshenko meets with Hillary Clinton.
November 28 2016 – McCain associate David Kramer flies to London to meet Christopher Steele for a briefing on the Dossier. Upon Kramer's return, Fusion GPS provided McCain with a copy of the Dossier.
July 24 2017 – Senator Charles Grassley sends a letter to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein regarding the actions taken by Chalupa.
According to news reports, during the 2016 presidential election, "Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump" and did so by "disseminat[ing] documents implicating a top Trump aide in corruption and suggested they were investigating the matter.
At the center of this plan was Alexandra Chalupa, described by reports as a Ukrainian-American operative "who was consulting for the Democratic National Committee" and reportedly met with Ukrainian officials during the presidential election for the express purpose of exposing alleged ties between then-candidate Donald Trump, Paul Manafort, and Russia.
Chalupa's actions appear to show that she was simultaneously working on behalf of a foreign government, Ukraine, and on behalf of the DNC and Clinton campaign, in an effort to influence not only the U.S voting population but U.S. government officials.
Aside from the apparent evidence of collusion between the DNC, Clinton campaign, and Ukrainian government, Chalupa's actions implicate the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).
Chalupa reportedly worked directly with Ukrainian government officials to benefit Ukraine, lobbying Congress on behalf of Ukraine, and worked to undermine the Trump campaign on behalf of Ukraine and the Clinton campaign.
The January 4, 2018 Grassley Memo – made public on February 6, 2018, made clear that both the State Department and the Clinton Campaign directly contributed information used by Steele in the formation of his Dossier.
I'm curious if Chalupa met directly with Christopher Steele. It's clear her research was funneled by the DNC to Steele's Dossier.
Former Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland must have known about all of this. People above her had to know as well.
On March 6, 2018, Sara Carter reported that the House Intelligence Committee is now investigating former Secretary of State John Kerry:
The House Select Committee on Intelligence is now investigating former Secretary of State John F. Kerry's possible role into the unverified dossier paid for by the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton Campaign.
The climb up the Obama Administration hierarchy appears to have finally begun.
newer post Victor Pinchuk, the Clintons & Endless Connections
older post Tariffs as a Tool Towards Broader Free Trade
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Dec 28, 2017 | www.youtube.com
Our Hidden History , 4 days ago (edited)
Elizabeth Ferrari , 4 days agoThat Harding tells Mate to meet Alexi Navalny, who is a far right nationalist and most certainly a tool of US intelligence (something like Russia's Richard Spencer) was all I needed to hear to understand where Luke is coming from.
He's little more than an intelligence asset himself if his idea of speaking to "Russians" is to go and speak to a bunch of people who most certainly have their own ties back to the western intelligence agencies. That's not how you're going to get the truth about Russia. He's all appeals to authority - Steele's most of all, even name dropping Kerry. To finally land on "oh well if you would read my whole book" is just getting to the silly season.
Also "well this is the kind of person Putin is" is a terrible argument. This isn't about either Putin or Trump really, its about the long history of US-Russia relations and all that has occurred. Also, the ubiquitous throwing around of accusations of the murder of journalists in Russia is a straw man argument, especially when it is just thrown in as some sort of moral shielding for a shabby argument.
Few in the US know about these cases or what occurred, or of the many forces inside of Russia that might be involved in murdering journalists just as in Mexico or Turkey. But these cases are not explained - blame is merely assigned to Putin himself. Of course if someone here discusses he death of Michael Hastings, they're a "conspiracy theorist", but if the crime involves a Russian were to assign the blame to Vladimir Putin and, no further explanation is required.
Esen B. , 3 days agoThis interview is a wonderful illustration of everything that is horribly wrong with corporate media. I hope it goes viral.
Lemmy Motorhead , 3 days agoHe is far right, he is calling "cockroaches" Central Asian/ex-USSR workers coming to Moscow and in general his tone is quite ultra-nationalistic.
Esen B. , 3 days agoVery well put! Everything that is labeled as "conspiracy theory" when aimed towards the West, is "respectable journalism" when aimed at Russia.
Esen B. , 3 days ago (edited)That is the video about fire arm legalization "cockroaches ", even if you are not Russian speaking it's pretty graphic to understand the idea https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8ILxqIEEMg
trdi , 3 days ago (edited)And FYI - Central Asian workers do the low-wage jobs in Moscow, pretty like Mexicans or Puerto Ricans in US. Yet, that "future president" is trying to gain some popularity by labeling and demonizing them. Sounds familiar a bit?
Sendan , 3 days ago"definitelly ddissagree with that assertation about Alexei he's had nationalist views but he's definitely not far right and calling him a tool of US intelligence is pretty bs this is the exact same assertation that the Russian state media says about him."
I disagree that there is any evidence of Navalny being tool of US intelligence, but you are wrong for not recognizing that Navalny is ultranationalist. His public statements are indefensible. He is a Russian ultra nationalist, far right and a racist. Statements about cockroaches, worse than rats, bullets being too good etc - there is no way to misunderstand that.
MrChibiluffy , 3 days agoNavalny is a corrupt ex-politician just like his mentor that was caught red-handed taking a bribe from a German businessman "all on camera" at a restaurant. Most of corrupt politicians and businessmen that get caught by the Russian government always cry that they are politically repressed and the government is evil.
Navalnys brother was the owner of a small transport company that Navalny helped secure contracts with government enterprises '' anywhere in the world that would be a conflict of interest" but that's not why he is in jail! His brother is in jail for swindling the postal service company for transportation costs.
Yarrski , 3 days agoI know he said that i agree he has those views but that was in 2010.
Mohamed Elmaazi , 2 days ago@trdi I am a Russian. And I remember the early Navalny who made me sick to my stomach with absolutely disgusting, RACIST, anti-immigration commentaries. The guy is basically a NEO-NAZI who has toned down his nationalist diatribes in the past 10 or so years. Has he really reformed? I doubt it.
Nikita Gusarov , 2 days agoThis is a solid comment mate. Well thought out, with solid reasoning. How refreshing.
MrChibiluffy , 2 days agoMrChibiluffy, Navalny became relatively popular in Russia precisely at that time, especially during the White Ribbon protests in 2011/2012. I remember it very well myself.
I am Russian and I lived in Moscow at that time and he was the darling of the Russian opposition. He publicly defined his views and established himself back then and hasn't altered his position to this day.
What's more important is that around 2015 or so he made an alliance with the far-right and specifically Diomushkin who is a neo-nazi activist. I understand that people change their views, it's just that he hasn't.
annalivia1308 , 1 day agoNikita Gusarov it still feels like the best chance for some form of populist opposition atm. Even though they just rejected him he has a movement. Would you rather vote for Sobchak?
Ind Aus , 1 day agoYes. The US are looking to repeat Ukraine's regime change.
artemis12061966 , 1 day agoLets not forget that one reason many voted for Trump was his rhetoric about improving the peace-threatening antagonism towards Russia, especially in order to help resolve the situation in Syria. It's not like it was secret he was trying to hide. He only moderated his views somewhat when the Democrat-engineered anti-Russian smear campaign took off and there was a concerted effort to tie him to Russia.
Is it crime surround yourself with people that will help you fullfill your pledges?
RipTheJackR , 9 hours agoOr the death of Gary Webb, prosecution of whistleblowers.....like Private Manning...
Gabriel Olsen , 3 hours agoOur Hidden History... beautiful. Very well put mate :)
Luca Clemente , 4 days ago (edited)Yep, when he talked about murdering journalists, I paused the video and told my girlfriend about the murder of Michael Hastings. Oh an PS the USA puts journalists in Guantanamo. We play real baseball.
TheJagjr4450 , 3 days agoAaron Mate is a brilliant interviewer. He keeps a calm demeanor, but does not let his guest get away with any untruths or non sequiturs. This one of the many reasons I love The Real News. I encourage anyone who appreciates solid journalism to donate to The Real News.
dzedo53 , 4 days agoGREAT follow up questions Aaron... Harding did not expect to get a real reporter... he obfuscates and diverts to other issues because he can not EVER provide any evidence... Going to Moscow will not tell you anything about whether or not the DNC server was hacked.
Noah , 14 hours agoPutin is a bad guy. Therefore he colluded with Trump back in 1987 to help Trump win the election in 2016. Why is that so hard to see?? LOL.
jodi houts , 4 days agoLuke Harding is a complete and total idiot. He kept qualifying his arguments with "I've been to Moscow... I don't know if you know this, but I've been to Moscow..." and even at one point, "Some of my friends have been murdered." LOL, sure, whatever you say, Luke! Like you're so big time and such an all star journalist who isn't just trying to capitalize on the wild goose chase that is psychologically trapping leftists into delusions and wishful thinking.
KAREN Nichols , 4 days agoThank you Aaron Matè for calling out the bullshit. The dem party is dead until they take care of their own espionage and corruption.
david ackerman , 4 days agoThank you for "holding his feet to the fire"...I wish more media was more skeptical as well. Good work!
shadex08 , 4 days agoNSA monitors every communication over the internet. if the Russians hacked the DNC, there would be proof, and it would not take years to uncover. Look at the numbers: Clinton spent 2 billion, Russian "agents" spent 200k to "influence" the election. Great job Aaron for holding this opportunist's feet to the fire. Oh he's a story teller all right. You know a synonym of storyteller? LIAR!!!!
95percent air , 4 days agoGreat job Aaron, your work here makes me feel even better about my contribution to the real news.
Mal c.H , 4 days agoWow Aaron Matte NICE JOB. I'm only half through, I hope you don't make him cry. Do u make him cry? Did I hear this guy say he's ultimately a storyteller? Lol.
jodi houts , 4 days agoIt may seem like Trump has an alarming amount of associations with Russia, because he does.. that's how rich oligarchs work. But it's all just SPECULATION still. Why publish a book on this without a smoking gun to prove anything? Collusion isn't even a legal term, it's vague enough for people to make it mean whatever they want it to mean. People investigating and reporting on this are operating under confirmation bias. Aaron, you're always appropriately critical and you're always asking the right questions. You seem to be one of the few sane people left in media. Trump is a disgrace but there still is no smoking gun.
Fixel Heimer , 4 days agoAs he gets deeper in the weeds of speculation he starts attacking Aaron's credibility.
Hugh Mungus , 4 days agoOmg a bunch of unproven conspiracy crap.. Hes making so many factual wrong statements I don't know where to start here.. How would anyone in the years before his candidacy have thought Trump would gain any political relevance. I mean even the pro Hillary media thought until the end, their massive trump coverage would only help to get him NOT elected, but the opposite was the case. This guy is a complete joke as are his theses. Actually reminding me of the guardian's so called report about Russian Hacking in the Brexit referendum. Look here if you want to have a laugh http://www.moonofalabama.org/2017/12/how-097-changed-the-fate-of-britain-not.html
Katie B , 4 days agoHis logic seems to be: Putin does things we don't like -> Trump getting elected is something we don't like -> Putin got Trump elected.
Antman4656 , 4 days agoCollusion Rejectionist! Ha Ha. Funniest interview ever. Well done Aaron. The Real News taking a stand for truth. So what's in the book if there's no evidence? Guardian journalism? Stop questioning the official narrative, oh and have you heard of Estonia. :)) ps that smiley face was not an admission of my working for the Kremlin.
maskedavenger777 , 4 days ago (edited)Best interview ever. Aaron held him to his theories and asked what evidence or proof he had and he didn't come up with one spec of evidence only hearsay and disputed theories. What a sad indictment this is on America. 1 year on a sensationalized story and still nothing concrete. What a joke and proof of gullibility to anyone who believes this corporate media Narritive. I guess at least they don't have to cover policies like the tax theft or net neutrality. This is why we need The Real news.
I'd rather have American business making business deals with Russia for things like hotels, rather than business deals with the Pentagon to aim more weapons at the Russians. When haven't we been doing business with Russians? We might as well investigate Cargill, Pepsi, McDonald's, John Deere, Ford, and most of our wheat farmers.
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Nov 29, 2019 | www.amazon.com
karenann , August 8, 2015
A deeply biased bookcorkpuller , July 22, 2018Hill and Gaddy are pretty good scholars. They do a good job of providing a psychological profile of Vladimir Putin and the way he operates in the Kremlin. But they have their limitations. One of the more annoying aspects of the book is that the authors return again and again both to Putin's graduate thesis on an American management book and his 1999 manifesto on his millennial goals for Russia. A better set of writers would have covered both subjects in one section and then moved on. But Hill and Gaddy sprinkle references to these documents about five times each throughout the book, which leads me to suspect that they are padding what would otherwise be a much shorter book.
As I was reading, I felt that there was a strong bias against Putin and Russia by the authors, but I couldn't quite pinpoint their slant until the last sentence, which is a doozy:
"The onus will now be on the West to shore up its own home defenses, reduce the economic and political vulnerabilities, and create its own contingency plans if it wants to counter Vladimir Putin's new twenty-first century warfare."
For anyone who is a Russian scholar, this is proof that the authors get Russia very wrong. They reveal themselves to be in the neocon camp of hawks who want to reactivate a new Cold War very badly. And in their analysis, they ignore the fact that Russia as a country is in fact deeply defensive country far more concerned with its internal boundaries and control than some aggressive Soviet power after World War II.
To be sure, Mr. Putin is no choir boy. Interestingly enough, the authors do not fully investigate the potentially criminal behavior that Putin performed with Russia's war on Chechnya. Hill and Gaddy could have strengthened their case if they had included some deeper analysis of Putin's behavior on this troublesome part of the Russian Empire. But instead they were intent on plowing their own rut, which while somewhat interesting -- ultimately becomes a little bit too pedantic.
I am reminded of some books in the 1950s that were secretly backed by the CIA, and this book certainly feels like it has the same flavor. Hill and Gaddy totally ignore Russian scholars like Stephen Cohen in his analysis of the Russian situation, which is totally the opposite of mainstream thinking unfortunately these days.
But in ignoring what Cohen has to say, the predominant attitude of the American and European foreign policy establishment is in lock step with Hill and Gaddy, which is why the book has been so heavily publicized.
The neocon vision of what's wrong with Russia is so biased that it also ignores the writings of such foreign policy figures as Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Briezinski, former US Secretarys of State, both of whom are much more closer in their visions of Russia to Cohen than they are to Hill and Gaddy.
Yes, this book is all about sticking to the Rooskies, unfortunately. And the hidden motivator are all of the defense contracts that NATO can suck up, as well as all the bankers' books in reaming the Ukrainian economy as badly as they've reamed Greece. But the authors never tell you that this is their motivation, until the last paragraph.
Ultimately, this is an unsatisfying work.
Unprofessional writing, a high school level polemic, sad to sayR. L. Huff , April 23, 2015Unprofessional writing, a profound disappointment. Reads like a high school essay - one that repeats a single thought over and over, even re-using the same phrases - than a proper biography. The content feels like it has been skimmed only from public sources. There is no sign of insight among the authors, nor even a curiosity as to what makes this important figure unique. One wonders where the interests lie in those who wrote laudative reviews. I am sad to say that this book is nothing more than a polemic, and moreover one that is repetitive and boring.
OK but blinkeredWooDog , November 22, 2019- look at Vladimir Putin and Mr. Putin's Russia. The book is based on intensive research and interviews with Putin, but I find it skewed by the Western biases it brings to the table. Yet it's not a demonization, as is so much of the Western Putin literature. It gives him credit for standing by the multi-racial and cultural realities of post-Soviet Russia. Compared to the real hardcore nationalists, Putin in fact has come across as a domestic liberal. The rising tide of Russian arch-nationalism, however, has taken its toll. Authors Hill and Gaddy correctly assess Putin's playing the nationalist card as a political manouver to keep one step ahead of his opponents - most of whom are not pro-Western liberal dissidents by any means. Courting the Russian Orthodox Church in recent years was one such strategy.
Yet the authors see only politics in Mr. Putin's tactics, and play down the West's own role in making him an antagonist. They take him to task for painting the Ukrainian insurrection of 2014 as a "fascist coup," and for denouncing Ukrainian nationalist partisan Stepan Bandera as a Nazi collaborator. Bandera and Hitler may have never met, but this was not necessary for the arming and use of Bandera's OUN to commit atrocities and war crimes on then-Soviet territory. Contrary to the authors' whitewash, Bandera's later persecution by Nazis consisted of special treatment in German camps, held on ice for postwar use. Of relevance is that the "regime change" of 2014 was largely the work of west Ukrainians - the backbone of the OUN movement and the very folks who today make Bandera a national hero. When he paints west Ukraine as again collaborating with Russia's enemy, Putin stands on solid historical ground. The West continues destabilizing actions all the while it blames Putin for the same.
The authors also lecture us on Putin's inability to grasp "Western values" as the root of his refusal to take the West on its own terms; on "how little Putin understands about us - our motives, our mentality, and, also, our values" (p.385) I rather think Putin grasps these "motives, mentality, and values" very well, as they seem inseparable from European economic hegemony and NATO expansion. His managed democracy comes off looking rather clean cut compared to US politics following the Citizens United ruling, where American oligarch David Koch engineered a fundamental change for the worse via the Supreme Court. In foreign policy, Putin has indeed been repeatedly "rebuffed" by the West for proposing anything that makes Russia a leading equal in its sphere. This shows not limited contacts with the West, but rather ongoing and painful ones.
The hypocrisy is breathtaking but tragically familiar. It's rather the West's (and the authors') failure to grasp regional history, and Putin's actions based on it, that fuel the "misunderstanding." Ukraine, for instance, had strong nationalist animosity toward the "Moskali" long before the 1930s holodomor/famine. Crimea was not transferred to Ukraine out of any degree of recognition of said suffering, as the authors allege on p. 367; but as part of a geo-political maneuver to Russify east Ukraine with more "loyal" ethnic Russians, exactly as in the Baltic states.
His aggressive handling of terrorists within Chechnya is "decried" by the West, the authors note. Yet within a decade the US and its NATO partners would be pursuing an aggressive course in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Yemen that make Russia look the provincial amateur. Putin in fact is *not* trying to recreate the USSR, as so often charged by Western pundits with an axe to grind, nor even the old Russian empire. His strategic thinking is dominated by security rationales. A wider invasive course would only threaten Russian security. At all times he sees his actions as defensive responses. If this is self-serving, it only puts him in good company: recall the American angst over the "dissident" Dixie Chicks; the livid anger over Edward Snowden.
In truth, Vladimir Putin is the Russian Ronald Reagan, bidding his citizens to "stand tall" against enemies from without and within working against the homeland. His stance on Ukraine, arming its "contras" in a border war against an enemy "satellite regime", may make him look the intolerant war jingo; but thus did Ronald Reagan appear outside the US. Ironically it's Reagan partisans who don't grasp
PROPOGANDA , CIA DRIVEL,Kindle Customer , April 28, 2017A poorly written smear that would make McCarthy blush. Recycled fear for the gullible citizens so desperately uneducated and unread. The Military Industrial Corporatists will pass it around as Bible
The motto of the respected authors is "Russia is devil, West are angels". Conclusions made in the book are easy to predict.Alexey Tuzikov , July 16, 2017The book gives advices what the US officials should say about Russia to advocate their (US's) dishonest and aggressive policy. See examples of such policy in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Lybia.
poorX. Z. , August 8, 2015The book has absolutely no connection to reality. The authors use their sick propaganda fantasies to maintain oppression of Russia.
"Putin is a thug and we are great! "More facts than your usual MSM, but along the same line: "Putin is a thug and we are great!"
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Nov 28, 2019 | original.antiwar.com
Posted on November 28, 2019 November 28, 2019 The ongoing impeachment inquiry of President Trump can certainly compete with Hollywood's most successful drama or comedy shows. However, when we deal with national security issues one expects the actors, in this case members of Congress and witnesses, to tell the truth. In this case, some do, but some regrettably do not. The whole picture, said House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, Louisiana Republican, looks like a "Soviet-style" event.
As someone who grew up in the Soviet Union, I tend to agree with Mr. Scalise. When I listen to Adam B. Schiff and Co. they indeed remind me of Soviet apparatchiks who knew they were telling lies, contemptuous of the fact that their hearers didn't believe a single word they said. These were the unspoken rules everyone had to accept – or else. But for God's sake, we are in America, aren't we?
When Ukraine and all other Soviet republics, including Russia, became independent states, I organized with the help of Paul Weyrich, the late leader of the Free Congress Foundation, a trilateral meeting on Capitol Hill of legislators from the U.S. Congress, Russia's Duma and Ukraine's Rada.
The goal was to discuss what the US was prepared to do to help Russia and Ukraine in their difficult transition from communism to democracy.
Rep. Tom Lantos of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, who chaired this meeting, said that had Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev told us in 1989 that he was prepared to dissolve the USSR and the Warsaw Pact – and requested $1 trillion to do it – Congress would most likely agree to authorize $100 billion annually for 10 years.
As it turned out, Gorby and his successor, Russian President Boris Yeltsin, did it by themselves. So why spend US taxpayers' money when the job is already being done? "You are on your own, guys," Mr. Lantos said.
If that message sounded cynical, well, politics always is. But it was also a bit misleading because the US did not leave Russia and Ukraine alone.
The story of how the Clinton administration helped destroy the Russian economy is described in some detail in a US congressional report titled "Russia's Road to Corruption: How the Clinton Administration Exported Government Instead of Free Enterprise and Failed the Russian People." The report outlines in detail why America, which was very popular in Russia in the late 1980s and early '90s, is now regarded by Russians as one of the most unfriendly countries.
As for Ukraine, billions of American tax dollars were and still are readily available, but for a different purpose. It was Victoria Nuland, assistant secretary of state for European affairs, who said: "The United States has supported Ukraine's European aspirations. We have invested over $5 billion to assist Ukraine in these and other goals that will ensure a secure and prosperous and democratic Ukraine."
Others say the purpose is to drive a wedge between Russia and Ukraine by breaking centuries-old family, religious and economic ties between the Slavic nations.
How all this corresponds to Western or in broader terms Judeo-Christian values is hard to explain.
Former senior CIA analyst Raymond McGovern, who was responsible for daily briefings on the USSR for President Reagan and knows the region well, reminds us that Mr. Putin made it immediately clear that Ms. Nuland's choice for Ukraine's post-coup d'etat pro-NATO government in 2014 and U.S.-NATO plans to deploy anti-ballistic missile systems around Russia's periphery and in the Black Sea were the prime motivating forces behind returning Crimea to Russia.
I'd like to remind that it was Soviet dictator Nikita Khrushchev who transferred Crimea from Russia to Ukraine in 1954, emulating 19th century monarchs who at their pleasure shifted real estate together with its people from one noble house to another, no questions asked.
Those familiar with the history of this region know that America was on the Russian side against the Ottoman, British and French empires during the 1853-1856 Crimean War.
Mr. McGovern is right when he says that no one with a rudimentary knowledge of Russian history should have been surprised that Moscow would take no chances of letting NATO grab Crimea and Russia's only warm-water naval base.
Space does not allow mentioning all of the inconsistencies and outright lies presented by impeachment witnesses, but the statement by Deputy Assistant Secretary of State George Kent deserves the top prize. Mr. Kent went so far as to draw analogies between the American Revolution and the 2014 coup d'etat in Ukraine. According to him, Ukrainian battalions are equivalent to American Minutemen in 1776 fighting for independence from the British Empire.
It looks like Mr. Kent missed the recent letter from 40 members of Congress, including Rep. Eliot L. Engel, New York Democrat and chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, to his boss, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, describing the neo-Nazi Ukrainian Azov Battalion as a terrorist organization.
Do not look for logic here because the hatred of Mr. Trump made his enemies' behavior irrational.Despite its pandemic corruption, Ukraine is now pronounced to be vital to the security of the United States and is being used as a pawn by Democrats and the swamp in attempts to orchestrate another coup – this time to overthrow the president of United States.
I and many other Americans believe that security of the US, and for that matter Ukraine or any other European country, would be much better served if we rethought American foreign policy and accepted the sad fact that under Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama it was a total disaster and imposed huge human and material costs on America and the world.
I agree with President Trump that "getting along with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing." Since 63 million Americans voted for him, I assume that many of them share his opinion.
In fact, polls show that close to 60% of Americans think the same way, which means that not only "deplorables" understand what is best for their country. This is despite 24/7 anti-Russia hysteria in the fake news media and Congress, whose approval ratings are below 20% versus 80% disapproval.
In this political atmosphere, anyone who calls for resumption of U.S.-Russian dialogue is labeled as Mr. Putin's bootlicker or useful idiot at best. It was French President Macron who pronounced NATO's brain to be dead and has come up with some ideas on how to avoid, in the words of former Sen. Sam Nunn and many other serious analysts, the process of "sleepwalking into nuclear catastrophe."
Will Washington listen? Chances are not good, but what is the alternative?
Edward Lozansky is president of the American University in Moscow. Reprinted from the Washington Times with permission from the author.
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Nov 21, 2019 | www.wgbh.org
Opening Statement of Dr. Fiona Hill to the House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence November 21, 2019
Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Nunes, and members of the Committee. Thank you for inviting me to testify before you today. I have a short opening statement.
I appreciate the importance of the Congress’s impeachment inquiry.
I am appearing today as a fact witness, as I did during my deposition on October 14 th , in order to answer your questions about what I saw, what I did, what I knew, and what I know with regard to the subjects of your inquiry. I believe that those who have information that the Congress deems relevant have a legal and moral obligation to provide it.
I take great pride in the fact that I am a nonpartisan foreign policy expert, who has served under three different Republican and Democratic presidents. I have no interest in advancing the outcome of your inquiry in any particular direction, except toward the truth.
I will not provide a long narrative statement, because I believe that the interest of Congress and the American people is best served by allowing you to ask me your questions. I am happy to expand upon my October 14 th deposition testimony in response to your questions today.
But before I do so, I would like to communicate two things.
First, I'd like to share a bit about who I am. I am an American by choice, having become a citizen in 2002. I was born in the northeast of England, in the same region George Washington's ancestors came from. Both the region and my family have deep ties to the United States.
My paternal grandfather fought through World War I in the Royal Field Artillery, surviving being shot, shelled, and gassed before American troops intervened to end the war in 1918.
During the Second World War, other members of my family fought to defend the free world fro m fascism alongside American soldiers, sailors, and airmen.
The men in my father's family were coalminers whose families always struggled with poverty.
When my father, Alfred, was 14, he joined his father, brother, uncles and cousins in the coal mines to help put food on the table.
When the last of the local mines closed in the 1960s, my father wanted to emigrate to the United States to work in the coal mines in West Virginia, or in Pennsylvania. But his mother, my grandmother, had been crippled from hard labor. My father couldn't leave, so he stayed in northern England until he died in 2012. My mother still lives in my hometown today.
While his dream of emigrating to America was thwarted, my father loved America, its culture, its history and its role as a beacon of hope in the world. He always wanted someone in the family to make it to the United States.
I began my University studies in 1984, and in 1987 I won a place on an academic exchange to the Soviet Union. I was there for the signing of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, and when President Ronald Reagan met Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in Moscow. This was a turning point for me. An American professor who I met there told me about graduate student scholarships to the United States, and the very next year, thanks to h is advice, I arrived in America to start my advanced studies at Harvard.
Years later, I can say with confidence that this country has offered for me opportunities I never would have had in England. I grew up poor with a very distinctive working-class accent. In England in the 1980s and 1990s, this would have impeded my professional advancement.
This background has never set me back in America. For the better part of three decades, I have built a career as a nonpartisan, nonpolitical national security professional focusing on Europe and Eurasia and especially the former Soviet Union. I have served our country under three presidents: in my most recent capacity under President Trump, as well as in my former position of National Intelligence Officer for Russia and Eurasia under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. In that role, I was the Intelligence Community's senior expert on Russia and the former Soviet republics, including Ukraine.
It was because of my background and experience that I was asked to join the National Security Council in 2017. At the NSC, Russia was a part of my por tfolio, but I was also responsible for coordinating U.S. policy for all of Western Europe, all of Eastern Europe (including Ukraine) and Turkey, along with NATO and the European Union. I was hired initially by General Michael 5 Flynn, K.T. McFarland, and General Keith Kellogg, but then started work in April 2017 when General McMaster was the National Security Advisor.
I -- and they -- thought I could help them with President Trump's stated goal of improving relations with Russia, while still implementing policies designed to deter Russian conduct that threatens the United States, including the unprecedented and successful Russian operation to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.
This relates to the second thing I want to communicate.
Based on questions and statements I have heard, some of you on this committee appear to believe that Russia and its security services did not conduct a campaign against our country -- and that perhaps, somehow, for some reason, Ukraine did. This is a fictional narrative that has been perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services themselves. The unfortunate truth is that Russia was the foreign power that systematically attacked our democratic institutions in 2016. This is the public conclusion of our intelligence agencies, confirmed in bipartisan Congressional reports. It is beyond dispute, even if some of the underlying details must remain classified.
The impact of the successful 2016 Russian campaign remains evident today. Our nation is being torn apart. Truth is questioned. Our highly professional and expert career foreign service is being undermined. U.S. support for Ukraine -- which continues to face armed Russian aggression -- has been politicized.
The Russian government's goal is to weaken our country -- to diminish America's global role and to neutralize a perceived U.S. threat to Russian interests. President Putin and the Russian security services aim to counter U.S. foreign policy objectives in Europe, including in Ukraine, where Moscow wishes to reassert political and economic dominance.
I say this not as an alarmist, but as a realist. I do not think long-term conflict with Russia is either desirable or inevitable. I continue to believe that we need to seek ways of stabilizing our relationship with Moscow even as we counter their efforts to harm us. Right now, Russia's security services and their proxies have geared up to repeat their interference in the 2020 election. We are running out of time to stop them. In the course of this investigation, I would ask that you please not promote politically driven false hoods that so clearly advance Russian interests.
As Republicans and Democrats have agreed for decades, Ukraine is a valued partner of the United States, and it plays an important role in our national security. And as I told this Committee last month, I refuse to be part of an effort to legitimize an alternate narrative that the Ukrainian government is a U.S. adversary, and that Ukraine -- not Russia -- attacked us in 2016.
These fictions are harmful even if they are deployed for purely domestic political purposes. President Putin and the Russian security services operate like a Super PAC. They deploy millions of dollars to weaponize our own political opposition research and false narratives. When we are consumed by partisan rancor, we cannot combat these external forces as they seek to divide us against each another, degrade our institutions, and destroy the faith of the American people in our democracy. I respect the work that this Congress does in carrying out its constitutional responsibilities, including in this inquiry, and I am here to help you to the best of my ability. If the President, or anyone else, impedes or subverts the national security of the United States in order to further domestic political or personal interests, that is more than worthy of your attention. But we must no t let domestic 8 politics stop us from defending ourselves against the foreign powers who truly wish us harm.
I am ready to answer your questions.
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Sep 05, 2018 | www.nytimes.com
I work for the president but like-minded colleagues and I have vowed to thwart parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.
The Times is taking the rare step of publishing an anonymous Op-Ed essay. We have done so at the request of the author, a senior official in the Trump administration whose identity is known to us and whose job would be jeopardized by its disclosure. We believe publishing this essay anonymously is the only way to deliver an important perspective to our readers. We invite you to submit a question about the essay or our vetting process here . [Update: Our answers to some of those questions are published here .]
President Trump is facing a test to his presidency unlike any faced by a modern American leader.
It's not just that the special counsel looms large. Or that the country is bitterly divided over Mr. Trump's leadership. Or even that his party might well lose the House to an opposition hellbent on his downfall.
[The author of this Op-Ed will publish a book in November 2019 titled "A Warning."]
The dilemma -- which he does not fully grasp -- is that many of the senior officials in his own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.
I would know. I am one of them.
To be clear, ours is not the popular "resistance" of the left. We want the administration to succeed and think that many of its policies have already made America safer and more prosperous.
But we believe our first duty is to this country, and the president continues to act in a manner that is detrimental to the health of our republic.
That is why many Trump appointees have vowed to do what we can to preserve our democratic institutions while thwarting Mr. Trump's more misguided impulses until he is out of office.
The root of the problem is the president's amorality. Anyone who works with him knows he is not moored to any discernible first principles that guide his decision making.
Although he was elected as a Republican, the president shows little affinity for ideals long espoused by conservatives: free minds, free markets and free people. At best, he has invoked these ideals in scripted settings. At worst, he has attacked them outright.
In addition to his mass-marketing of the notion that the press is the "enemy of the people," President Trump's impulses are generally anti-trade and anti-democratic.
Don't get me wrong. There are bright spots that the near-ceaseless negative coverage of the administration fails to capture: effective deregulation, historic tax reform, a more robust military and more.
But these successes have come despite -- not because of -- the president's leadership style, which is impetuous, adversarial, petty and ineffective.
From the White House to executive branch departments and agencies, senior officials will privately admit their daily disbelief at the commander in chief's comments and actions. Most are working to insulate their operations from his whims.
Meetings with him veer off topic and off the rails, he engages in repetitive rants, and his impulsiveness results in half-baked, ill-informed and occasionally reckless decisions that have to be walked back.
"There is literally no telling whether he might change his mind from one minute to the next," a top official complained to me recently, exasperated by an Oval Office meeting at which the president flip-flopped on a major policy decision he'd made only a week earlier.
The erratic behavior would be more concerning if it weren't for unsung heroes in and around the White House. Some of his aides have been cast as villains by the media. But in private, they have gone to great lengths to keep bad decisions contained to the West Wing, though they are clearly not always successful.
It may be cold comfort in this chaotic era, but Americans should know that there are adults in the room. We fully recognize what is happening. And we are trying to do what's right even when Donald Trump won't.
The result is a two-track presidency.
Take foreign policy: In public and in private, President Trump shows a preference for autocrats and dictators, such as President Vladimir Putin of Russia and North Korea's leader, Kim Jong-un, and displays little genuine appreciation for the ties that bind us to allied, like-minded nations.
Astute observers have noted, though, that the rest of the administration is operating on another track, one where countries like Russia are called out for meddling and punished accordingly, and where allies around the world are engaged as peers rather than ridiculed as rivals.
On Russia, for instance, the president was reluctant to expel so many of Mr. Putin's spies as punishment for the poisoning of a former Russian spy in Britain. He complained for weeks about senior staff members letting him get boxed into further confrontation with Russia, and he expressed frustration that the United States continued to impose sanctions on the country for its malign behavior. But his national security team knew better -- such actions had to be taken, to hold Moscow accountable.
This isn't the work of the so-called deep state. It's the work of the steady state.
Given the instability many witnessed, there were early whispers within the cabinet of invoking the 25th Amendment, which would start a complex process for removing the president. But no one wanted to precipitate a constitutional crisis. So we will do what we can to steer the administration in the right direction until -- one way or another -- it's over.
The bigger concern is not what Mr. Trump has done to the presidency but rather what we as a nation have allowed him to do to us. We have sunk low with him and allowed our discourse to be stripped of civility.
Senator John McCain put it best in his farewell letter . All Americans should heed his words and break free of the tribalism trap, with the high aim of uniting through our shared values and love of this great nation.
We may no longer have Senator McCain. But we will always have his example -- a lodestar for restoring honor to public life and our national dialogue. Mr. Trump may fear such honorable men, but we should revere them.
There is a quiet resistance within the administration of people choosing to put country first. But the real difference will be made by everyday citizens rising above politics, reaching across the aisle and resolving to shed the labels in favor of a single one: Americans.
The writer is a senior official in the Trump administration.
Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTopinion) .
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Nov 28, 2019 | original.antiwar.com
Posted on November 28, 2019 November 28, 2019 The ongoing impeachment inquiry of President Trump can certainly compete with Hollywood's most successful drama or comedy shows. However, when we deal with national security issues one expects the actors, in this case members of Congress and witnesses, to tell the truth. In this case, some do, but some regrettably do not. The whole picture, said House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, Louisiana Republican, looks like a "Soviet-style" event.
As someone who grew up in the Soviet Union, I tend to agree with Mr. Scalise. When I listen to Adam B. Schiff and Co. they indeed remind me of Soviet apparatchiks who knew they were telling lies, contemptuous of the fact that their hearers didn't believe a single word they said. These were the unspoken rules everyone had to accept – or else. But for God's sake, we are in America, aren't we?
When Ukraine and all other Soviet republics, including Russia, became independent states, I organized with the help of Paul Weyrich, the late leader of the Free Congress Foundation, a trilateral meeting on Capitol Hill of legislators from the U.S. Congress, Russia's Duma and Ukraine's Rada.
The goal was to discuss what the US was prepared to do to help Russia and Ukraine in their difficult transition from communism to democracy.
Rep. Tom Lantos of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, who chaired this meeting, said that had Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev told us in 1989 that he was prepared to dissolve the USSR and the Warsaw Pact – and requested $1 trillion to do it – Congress would most likely agree to authorize $100 billion annually for 10 years.
As it turned out, Gorby and his successor, Russian President Boris Yeltsin, did it by themselves. So why spend US taxpayers' money when the job is already being done? "You are on your own, guys," Mr. Lantos said.
If that message sounded cynical, well, politics always is. But it was also a bit misleading because the US did not leave Russia and Ukraine alone.
The story of how the Clinton administration helped destroy the Russian economy is described in some detail in a US congressional report titled "Russia's Road to Corruption: How the Clinton Administration Exported Government Instead of Free Enterprise and Failed the Russian People." The report outlines in detail why America, which was very popular in Russia in the late 1980s and early '90s, is now regarded by Russians as one of the most unfriendly countries.
As for Ukraine, billions of American tax dollars were and still are readily available, but for a different purpose. It was Victoria Nuland, assistant secretary of state for European affairs, who said: "The United States has supported Ukraine's European aspirations. We have invested over $5 billion to assist Ukraine in these and other goals that will ensure a secure and prosperous and democratic Ukraine."
Others say the purpose is to drive a wedge between Russia and Ukraine by breaking centuries-old family, religious and economic ties between the Slavic nations.
How all this corresponds to Western or in broader terms Judeo-Christian values is hard to explain.
Former senior CIA analyst Raymond McGovern, who was responsible for daily briefings on the USSR for President Reagan and knows the region well, reminds us that Mr. Putin made it immediately clear that Ms. Nuland's choice for Ukraine's post-coup d'etat pro-NATO government in 2014 and U.S.-NATO plans to deploy anti-ballistic missile systems around Russia's periphery and in the Black Sea were the prime motivating forces behind returning Crimea to Russia.
I'd like to remind that it was Soviet dictator Nikita Khrushchev who transferred Crimea from Russia to Ukraine in 1954, emulating 19th century monarchs who at their pleasure shifted real estate together with its people from one noble house to another, no questions asked.
Those familiar with the history of this region know that America was on the Russian side against the Ottoman, British and French empires during the 1853-1856 Crimean War.
Mr. McGovern is right when he says that no one with a rudimentary knowledge of Russian history should have been surprised that Moscow would take no chances of letting NATO grab Crimea and Russia's only warm-water naval base.
Space does not allow mentioning all of the inconsistencies and outright lies presented by impeachment witnesses, but the statement by Deputy Assistant Secretary of State George Kent deserves the top prize. Mr. Kent went so far as to draw analogies between the American Revolution and the 2014 coup d'etat in Ukraine. According to him, Ukrainian battalions are equivalent to American Minutemen in 1776 fighting for independence from the British Empire.
It looks like Mr. Kent missed the recent letter from 40 members of Congress, including Rep. Eliot L. Engel, New York Democrat and chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, to his boss, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, describing the neo-Nazi Ukrainian Azov Battalion as a terrorist organization.
Do not look for logic here because the hatred of Mr. Trump made his enemies' behavior irrational.Despite its pandemic corruption, Ukraine is now pronounced to be vital to the security of the United States and is being used as a pawn by Democrats and the swamp in attempts to orchestrate another coup – this time to overthrow the president of United States.
I and many other Americans believe that security of the US, and for that matter Ukraine or any other European country, would be much better served if we rethought American foreign policy and accepted the sad fact that under Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama it was a total disaster and imposed huge human and material costs on America and the world.
I agree with President Trump that "getting along with Russia is a good thing, not a bad thing." Since 63 million Americans voted for him, I assume that many of them share his opinion.
In fact, polls show that close to 60% of Americans think the same way, which means that not only "deplorables" understand what is best for their country. This is despite 24/7 anti-Russia hysteria in the fake news media and Congress, whose approval ratings are below 20% versus 80% disapproval.
In this political atmosphere, anyone who calls for resumption of U.S.-Russian dialogue is labeled as Mr. Putin's bootlicker or useful idiot at best. It was French President Macron who pronounced NATO's brain to be dead and has come up with some ideas on how to avoid, in the words of former Sen. Sam Nunn and many other serious analysts, the process of "sleepwalking into nuclear catastrophe."
Will Washington listen? Chances are not good, but what is the alternative?
Edward Lozansky is president of the American University in Moscow. Reprinted from the Washington Times with permission from the author.
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Nov 21, 2019 | www.wgbh.org
Opening Statement of Dr. Fiona Hill to the House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence November 21, 2019
Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Nunes, and members of the Committee. Thank you for inviting me to testify before you today. I have a short opening statement.
I appreciate the importance of the Congress’s impeachment inquiry.
I am appearing today as a fact witness, as I did during my deposition on October 14 th , in order to answer your questions about what I saw, what I did, what I knew, and what I know with regard to the subjects of your inquiry. I believe that those who have information that the Congress deems relevant have a legal and moral obligation to provide it.
I take great pride in the fact that I am a nonpartisan foreign policy expert, who has served under three different Republican and Democratic presidents. I have no interest in advancing the outcome of your inquiry in any particular direction, except toward the truth.
I will not provide a long narrative statement, because I believe that the interest of Congress and the American people is best served by allowing you to ask me your questions. I am happy to expand upon my October 14 th deposition testimony in response to your questions today.
But before I do so, I would like to communicate two things.
First, I'd like to share a bit about who I am. I am an American by choice, having become a citizen in 2002. I was born in the northeast of England, in the same region George Washington's ancestors came from. Both the region and my family have deep ties to the United States.
My paternal grandfather fought through World War I in the Royal Field Artillery, surviving being shot, shelled, and gassed before American troops intervened to end the war in 1918.
During the Second World War, other members of my family fought to defend the free world fro m fascism alongside American soldiers, sailors, and airmen.
The men in my father's family were coalminers whose families always struggled with poverty.
When my father, Alfred, was 14, he joined his father, brother, uncles and cousins in the coal mines to help put food on the table.
When the last of the local mines closed in the 1960s, my father wanted to emigrate to the United States to work in the coal mines in West Virginia, or in Pennsylvania. But his mother, my grandmother, had been crippled from hard labor. My father couldn't leave, so he stayed in northern England until he died in 2012. My mother still lives in my hometown today.
While his dream of emigrating to America was thwarted, my father loved America, its culture, its history and its role as a beacon of hope in the world. He always wanted someone in the family to make it to the United States.
I began my University studies in 1984, and in 1987 I won a place on an academic exchange to the Soviet Union. I was there for the signing of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, and when President Ronald Reagan met Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in Moscow. This was a turning point for me. An American professor who I met there told me about graduate student scholarships to the United States, and the very next year, thanks to h is advice, I arrived in America to start my advanced studies at Harvard.
Years later, I can say with confidence that this country has offered for me opportunities I never would have had in England. I grew up poor with a very distinctive working-class accent. In England in the 1980s and 1990s, this would have impeded my professional advancement.
This background has never set me back in America. For the better part of three decades, I have built a career as a nonpartisan, nonpolitical national security professional focusing on Europe and Eurasia and especially the former Soviet Union. I have served our country under three presidents: in my most recent capacity under President Trump, as well as in my former position of National Intelligence Officer for Russia and Eurasia under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. In that role, I was the Intelligence Community's senior expert on Russia and the former Soviet republics, including Ukraine.
It was because of my background and experience that I was asked to join the National Security Council in 2017. At the NSC, Russia was a part of my por tfolio, but I was also responsible for coordinating U.S. policy for all of Western Europe, all of Eastern Europe (including Ukraine) and Turkey, along with NATO and the European Union. I was hired initially by General Michael 5 Flynn, K.T. McFarland, and General Keith Kellogg, but then started work in April 2017 when General McMaster was the National Security Advisor.
I -- and they -- thought I could help them with President Trump's stated goal of improving relations with Russia, while still implementing policies designed to deter Russian conduct that threatens the United States, including the unprecedented and successful Russian operation to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.
This relates to the second thing I want to communicate.
Based on questions and statements I have heard, some of you on this committee appear to believe that Russia and its security services did not conduct a campaign against our country -- and that perhaps, somehow, for some reason, Ukraine did. This is a fictional narrative that has been perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services themselves. The unfortunate truth is that Russia was the foreign power that systematically attacked our democratic institutions in 2016. This is the public conclusion of our intelligence agencies, confirmed in bipartisan Congressional reports. It is beyond dispute, even if some of the underlying details must remain classified.
The impact of the successful 2016 Russian campaign remains evident today. Our nation is being torn apart. Truth is questioned. Our highly professional and expert career foreign service is being undermined. U.S. support for Ukraine -- which continues to face armed Russian aggression -- has been politicized.
The Russian government's goal is to weaken our country -- to diminish America's global role and to neutralize a perceived U.S. threat to Russian interests. President Putin and the Russian security services aim to counter U.S. foreign policy objectives in Europe, including in Ukraine, where Moscow wishes to reassert political and economic dominance.
I say this not as an alarmist, but as a realist. I do not think long-term conflict with Russia is either desirable or inevitable. I continue to believe that we need to seek ways of stabilizing our relationship with Moscow even as we counter their efforts to harm us. Right now, Russia's security services and their proxies have geared up to repeat their interference in the 2020 election. We are running out of time to stop them. In the course of this investigation, I would ask that you please not promote politically driven false hoods that so clearly advance Russian interests.
As Republicans and Democrats have agreed for decades, Ukraine is a valued partner of the United States, and it plays an important role in our national security. And as I told this Committee last month, I refuse to be part of an effort to legitimize an alternate narrative that the Ukrainian government is a U.S. adversary, and that Ukraine -- not Russia -- attacked us in 2016.
These fictions are harmful even if they are deployed for purely domestic political purposes. President Putin and the Russian security services operate like a Super PAC. They deploy millions of dollars to weaponize our own political opposition research and false narratives. When we are consumed by partisan rancor, we cannot combat these external forces as they seek to divide us against each another, degrade our institutions, and destroy the faith of the American people in our democracy. I respect the work that this Congress does in carrying out its constitutional responsibilities, including in this inquiry, and I am here to help you to the best of my ability. If the President, or anyone else, impedes or subverts the national security of the United States in order to further domestic political or personal interests, that is more than worthy of your attention. But we must no t let domestic 8 politics stop us from defending ourselves against the foreign powers who truly wish us harm.
I am ready to answer your questions.
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Nov 29, 2019 | www.amazon.com
karenann , August 8, 2015
A deeply biased bookcorkpuller , July 22, 2018Hill and Gaddy are pretty good scholars. They do a good job of providing a psychological profile of Vladimir Putin and the way he operates in the Kremlin. But they have their limitations. One of the more annoying aspects of the book is that the authors return again and again both to Putin's graduate thesis on an American management book and his 1999 manifesto on his millennial goals for Russia. A better set of writers would have covered both subjects in one section and then moved on. But Hill and Gaddy sprinkle references to these documents about five times each throughout the book, which leads me to suspect that they are padding what would otherwise be a much shorter book.
As I was reading, I felt that there was a strong bias against Putin and Russia by the authors, but I couldn't quite pinpoint their slant until the last sentence, which is a doozy:
"The onus will now be on the West to shore up its own home defenses, reduce the economic and political vulnerabilities, and create its own contingency plans if it wants to counter Vladimir Putin's new twenty-first century warfare."
For anyone who is a Russian scholar, this is proof that the authors get Russia very wrong. They reveal themselves to be in the neocon camp of hawks who want to reactivate a new Cold War very badly. And in their analysis, they ignore the fact that Russia as a country is in fact deeply defensive country far more concerned with its internal boundaries and control than some aggressive Soviet power after World War II.
To be sure, Mr. Putin is no choir boy. Interestingly enough, the authors do not fully investigate the potentially criminal behavior that Putin performed with Russia's war on Chechnya. Hill and Gaddy could have strengthened their case if they had included some deeper analysis of Putin's behavior on this troublesome part of the Russian Empire. But instead they were intent on plowing their own rut, which while somewhat interesting -- ultimately becomes a little bit too pedantic.
I am reminded of some books in the 1950s that were secretly backed by the CIA, and this book certainly feels like it has the same flavor. Hill and Gaddy totally ignore Russian scholars like Stephen Cohen in his analysis of the Russian situation, which is totally the opposite of mainstream thinking unfortunately these days.
But in ignoring what Cohen has to say, the predominant attitude of the American and European foreign policy establishment is in lock step with Hill and Gaddy, which is why the book has been so heavily publicized.
The neocon vision of what's wrong with Russia is so biased that it also ignores the writings of such foreign policy figures as Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Briezinski, former US Secretarys of State, both of whom are much more closer in their visions of Russia to Cohen than they are to Hill and Gaddy.
Yes, this book is all about sticking to the Rooskies, unfortunately. And the hidden motivator are all of the defense contracts that NATO can suck up, as well as all the bankers' books in reaming the Ukrainian economy as badly as they've reamed Greece. But the authors never tell you that this is their motivation, until the last paragraph.
Ultimately, this is an unsatisfying work.
Unprofessional writing, a high school level polemic, sad to sayR. L. Huff , April 23, 2015Unprofessional writing, a profound disappointment. Reads like a high school essay - one that repeats a single thought over and over, even re-using the same phrases - than a proper biography. The content feels like it has been skimmed only from public sources. There is no sign of insight among the authors, nor even a curiosity as to what makes this important figure unique. One wonders where the interests lie in those who wrote laudative reviews. I am sad to say that this book is nothing more than a polemic, and moreover one that is repetitive and boring.
OK but blinkeredWooDog , November 22, 2019- look at Vladimir Putin and Mr. Putin's Russia. The book is based on intensive research and interviews with Putin, but I find it skewed by the Western biases it brings to the table. Yet it's not a demonization, as is so much of the Western Putin literature. It gives him credit for standing by the multi-racial and cultural realities of post-Soviet Russia. Compared to the real hardcore nationalists, Putin in fact has come across as a domestic liberal. The rising tide of Russian arch-nationalism, however, has taken its toll. Authors Hill and Gaddy correctly assess Putin's playing the nationalist card as a political manouver to keep one step ahead of his opponents - most of whom are not pro-Western liberal dissidents by any means. Courting the Russian Orthodox Church in recent years was one such strategy.
Yet the authors see only politics in Mr. Putin's tactics, and play down the West's own role in making him an antagonist. They take him to task for painting the Ukrainian insurrection of 2014 as a "fascist coup," and for denouncing Ukrainian nationalist partisan Stepan Bandera as a Nazi collaborator. Bandera and Hitler may have never met, but this was not necessary for the arming and use of Bandera's OUN to commit atrocities and war crimes on then-Soviet territory. Contrary to the authors' whitewash, Bandera's later persecution by Nazis consisted of special treatment in German camps, held on ice for postwar use. Of relevance is that the "regime change" of 2014 was largely the work of west Ukrainians - the backbone of the OUN movement and the very folks who today make Bandera a national hero. When he paints west Ukraine as again collaborating with Russia's enemy, Putin stands on solid historical ground. The West continues destabilizing actions all the while it blames Putin for the same.
The authors also lecture us on Putin's inability to grasp "Western values" as the root of his refusal to take the West on its own terms; on "how little Putin understands about us - our motives, our mentality, and, also, our values" (p.385) I rather think Putin grasps these "motives, mentality, and values" very well, as they seem inseparable from European economic hegemony and NATO expansion. His managed democracy comes off looking rather clean cut compared to US politics following the Citizens United ruling, where American oligarch David Koch engineered a fundamental change for the worse via the Supreme Court. In foreign policy, Putin has indeed been repeatedly "rebuffed" by the West for proposing anything that makes Russia a leading equal in its sphere. This shows not limited contacts with the West, but rather ongoing and painful ones.
The hypocrisy is breathtaking but tragically familiar. It's rather the West's (and the authors') failure to grasp regional history, and Putin's actions based on it, that fuel the "misunderstanding." Ukraine, for instance, had strong nationalist animosity toward the "Moskali" long before the 1930s holodomor/famine. Crimea was not transferred to Ukraine out of any degree of recognition of said suffering, as the authors allege on p. 367; but as part of a geo-political maneuver to Russify east Ukraine with more "loyal" ethnic Russians, exactly as in the Baltic states.
His aggressive handling of terrorists within Chechnya is "decried" by the West, the authors note. Yet within a decade the US and its NATO partners would be pursuing an aggressive course in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Yemen that make Russia look the provincial amateur. Putin in fact is *not* trying to recreate the USSR, as so often charged by Western pundits with an axe to grind, nor even the old Russian empire. His strategic thinking is dominated by security rationales. A wider invasive course would only threaten Russian security. At all times he sees his actions as defensive responses. If this is self-serving, it only puts him in good company: recall the American angst over the "dissident" Dixie Chicks; the livid anger over Edward Snowden.
In truth, Vladimir Putin is the Russian Ronald Reagan, bidding his citizens to "stand tall" against enemies from without and within working against the homeland. His stance on Ukraine, arming its "contras" in a border war against an enemy "satellite regime", may make him look the intolerant war jingo; but thus did Ronald Reagan appear outside the US. Ironically it's Reagan partisans who don't grasp
PROPOGANDA , CIA DRIVEL,Kindle Customer , April 28, 2017A poorly written smear that would make McCarthy blush. Recycled fear for the gullible citizens so desperately uneducated and unread. The Military Industrial Corporatists will pass it around as Bible
The motto of the respected authors is "Russia is devil, West are angels". Conclusions made in the book are easy to predict.Alexey Tuzikov , July 16, 2017The book gives advices what the US officials should say about Russia to advocate their (US's) dishonest and aggressive policy. See examples of such policy in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Lybia.
poorX. Z. , August 8, 2015The book has absolutely no connection to reality. The authors use their sick propaganda fantasies to maintain oppression of Russia.
"Putin is a thug and we are great! "More facts than your usual MSM, but along the same line: "Putin is a thug and we are great!"
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Nov 29, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Petri Krohn , Nov 29 2019 23:16 utc | 21
TAKE THEM TO THE HAGUE!Manufacturing a pretext for the U.S. missile strike on Syria in April 2018 is nowhere near the biggest of OPCW's crimes. The OPCW is an accessory , both before and after the fact to the crime of mass murder.
It should now be clear to everyone that Syrian "rebels" gassed thousands of hostages in cellars, most likely with chlorine gas, and then paraded the victims in White Helmets snuff videos. OPCW conspired in this crime in both encouraging the terrorists to more murder and by protecting them afterward by assigning blame to Assad and the Syrian government.
The worst of these massacres happened in Ghouta in August 2013 when 2000 civilian hostages (rebel claim) were gassed to death by rebels and their pre-White Helmets "civil defence". The OPCW was there to cover up the crime and to fabricate evidence to assign blame to Syria.
We have been documenting these crimes and hoaxes at A Closer Look On Syria from December 2012. OPCW was used from the beginning to manufacture consent for war. See for example:
- Was the Syria Chemical Weapons Probe "Torpedoed" by the West? by Adam Larson. ( Global Research , May 2, 2013)
karlof1 , Nov 29 2019 23:52 utc | 24
Petri Krohn @21--Canthama , Nov 30 2019 0:21 utc | 26Of course, the OPCW is already there! I highly suggest Caitlin Johnstone's article b linked be read, which can be found here .
We should expand on Petri's number of people involved in this crime to include all the paid disinformation artists noted in Caitlin's essay at minimum. What becomes very clear in all this is the total collusion with OPCW upper level management--those whom the whistleblowers and their allies within OPCW petitioned--in these crimes as Petri contends. Until they are visibly replaced, nothing issued by OPCW has any credence.
OPCW has shown to be a pure political entity, used at will by few regimes in the UN to promote their agenda, b has done a tremendous job to humanity to bring the truth to the public worldwide. Syrians have paid the price for UN leaders support to global terrorism for too long. It must stop now.iv>
/div
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Nov 29, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
A mainstream media and academic expert this week issued a rare admission : that pretty much everything the establishment has fed the public on Syria is false or distorted; but it remains that after tragic eight-year long war is slowly coming to a close, new indisputable facts are coming to light. " Truth did not matter at all," he admits after years of providing commentary for mainstream publications.
In a lengthy thread on Twitter, counter-terrorism author and assistant professor of political science and public policy at Northeastern University Max Abrahms exposed how he saw the 'narrative managers' at work from the inside of the establishment think tank world and media. As his own research came to uncover and document the truth of what was happening in Syria, "the media would excise me and the research from their stories" he revealed. His work in the early years of the war appeared in The New York Times and other major outlets, however, he was increasingly censored and pushed out of a number of platforms for speaking inconvenient truths.
Below is his full commentary , written in the wake of the new OPCW leaks which the mainstream is still trying hard to ignore.
Dr. Max Abrahms, screengrab via The Center For Strategic & International Studies.Every day there are new revelations that the "rebels" were in cahoots not only with Al Qaeda but also ISIS and official reports of Assad using chemical weapons were doctored according to the reports' own authors.
Were you ever skeptical that Assad was authorizing chemical weapons attacks when they were the one thing that put his winning the war at risk?
Authors of the official reports linking him to chemical weapons usage have now supplied evidence that their own reports were doctored .
When I was interviewed about Syria's military using chemical weapons, I expressed skepticism as Assad bucked the political science literature by engaging in the one conduct that would reverse his hard-fought victory.
But the media would excise me and the research from their stories.
The #1 story should be that authors of the official reports linking Assad to WMD usage have supplied evidence that they were doctored in defiance of the scientific evidence and exploited to push regime change in Damascus, which risked creating the Islamic State war with Russia.
Until you get how you were duped into supporting regime change in Syria you'll get duped into supporting other costly ventures to the local population , international stability and our counterterrorism efforts.
Max Abrahms ✔ @MaxAbrahmsThe mainstream narrative of the Syria conflict has imploded.
Every day there are new revelations that the "rebels" were in cahoots not only with Al Qaeda but also ISIS & official reports of Assad using chemical weapons were doctored according to the reports' own authors.
The story of doctored WMD reports and Al Qaeda-led rebels must be told.
What happened in Syria is the American political establishment decided that the ends justify the means. Truth did not matter at all. We were told Assad must go based on WMD reports their own authors say were doctored to support "rebels" who were Al-Qaeda-led and helping ISIS.Watch this interview and determine yourself whether you find trustworthy the official report linking Assad to the chlorine attack which was sold in the
sold in the media as casus belli for toppling Assad and has now been exposed by the fact-finders themselves as doctored.https://www.youtube.com/embed/SMSyLg1E49M
If you think politicians, think tanks and media got a lot wrong in the Iraq war wait until you hear about the Syria war.
If you cheered for another regime change war then it doesn't matter whether the casus belli lacks evidence. The media is unmoved that multiple scientists who made up the official investigation doubt that the Syrian military was behind the attacks or the use of chlorine at all.
Bernard_2011 , 4 minutes ago link
Justapleb , 29 minutes ago linkApparently Trump is too dumb to question what the Deep State tells him on this matter. Assad did it. End of story.
uhland62 , 51 minutes ago linkThis is how they roll out new deep state Mockingbird Media clones.
The older completely discredited clones are replaced with new ones who pretend to have been right there with us all along.
Look at Obama. One solitary vote among so many regarding Iraq and he gained the anti-war vote and a Nobel Prize. Then he went about personally making the kill orders by drone, allowing the wicked witch to overthrow Syria and sodomize their leader with a bayonet. Then on to Syria, various African countries, etc.
I'm sure this *** has written lots on returning the Golan Heights to Syria, returning the West Bank to the Palestinians, renouncing foreign aid to Israel, etc. Right? Not.
truthseeker47 , 57 minutes ago linkThe mendacity of 'the system' can be infuriating when you and your work is targeted.
What I see today is not any different in any way from what my elders told me about the Third Reich and what I heard from East Berlin and the Soviet Union under Stalin and successors. I grew up in West Berlin and we did meet people, heard things.
Heil Hegemon - and Heil to all its lackeys! Heil!!!
MrBoompi , 1 hour ago linkRon Paul was trying to tell everyone right from the git-go that the Syrian gas attacks were a false flag, and the evidence and logic supported a false flag operation. Even more annoying, the 100 or so Tomahawk missiles cost US taxpayers about a $million each. But maybe the missiles were getting old, and the military needed some practice shots.
cwsuisse , 1 hour ago linkWe gassed some folks....
QABubba , 44 minutes ago linkSteele is credible. I believe that the OPCW doctored the reports upon instructions. The narrative management on Syria has totally destroyed the trust in the western governments and has demonstrated that the US, the UK and the EU are not behaving any better than China or Russia.
strannick , 2 hours ago linkSomeone needs to make an argument as to why we should believe any of these guys. I mean, after you have been proven liars so many times, should we not throw the rotten tomatoes?
mailll , 2 hours ago linkAmerica will tell any lie, commit any atrocity, on behalf of its military industrial complex, bankster, Zionist elite, while manufacturing consent for its evil by its corrupt complicit Mainstream Media. Is that even news?
White Nat , 2 hours ago linkIt doesn't matter Max, we already knew all this news about Syria was fake. When they were trying to fulfill an agenda, which was to overthrow Syria for the sake of Israel, since Syria is part of this fictitious promised land, their lies help support this agenda. Just like the Zionist attacks on the world trade center and the pentagon with remote controlled airplanes and pre-planted controlled demolition explosives. They were followed up with a bunch of lies to the entire world telling us it was a handful of Muslims who have never flown jumbo jets before. And they performed top gun maneuvers with these jumbo jets and breached perhaps the greatest air defense system in the world with only primitive box cutters. I totally believe the US and Israel covertly created ISIS. And the support funds came from the Zionist controlled printing presses, and from the pentagon budget that was unaccounted for. But unfortunately, most Americans still drink the Kool-aid. They continue to believe their lies. And because of this, they will keep doing what they are doing.
The Harlequin , 2 hours ago linkHere's Jeffrey Epstein's BFF and Mossad handler Ehud Barak pinning the israeli 9/11 false flag on the Osama bin Laden donkey within hours of the attack.
A chief architect of 9-11, Ehud Barak, interviewed on BBC an hour after attacks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAueLjdKh1s
Married Israeli politician Ehud Barak is seen hiding his face entering Jeffrey Epstein's NYC townhouse
JB Say , 2 hours ago link...more on AVAAZ and Syria from my own archives, probably already republished here at the time!
http://www.wrongkindofgreen.org/2014/09/17/syria-avaaz-purpose-the-art-of-selling-hate-for-empire/
https://www.globalresearch.ca/avaaz-the-lobbyist-that-masquerades-as-online-activism/5314829
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2012/03/avaaz-sponsoring-fake-reporting-from-syria.html
monty42 , 2 hours ago linkThat was a sloppy *** false flag too. The "agencies" are getting lazy because they own the press and Americans are incredibly dumbed down on foreign policy. The got away with 2 planes collapsing 3 WTC buildings so maybe they figure why bother even making it look convincing.
Soloamber , 2 hours ago linkSince it follows a pattern, it's not even just Syria. The US regime is a state sponsor of terrorism, by their own definition, and go into countries and create chaos and revolution, attempting regime change, creating a crisis they then use as "justification" for escalating into open conflict against the victim. Accuse the victim nation of crimes, blanketing the world in propaganda to delude the masses. Try to focus their attention on a single bad guy in their narrative, a "brutal dictator" or whatnot. Attack by proxy and directly, sanction, bomb, etc until the victim is left unable to produce for their own needs, making them dependent, and then going in to apply the chains of debt to the victim to pay the empire to rebuild what they destroyed. Everyone gets rich, increased resources from theft, testing of weapons systems, dominion over the new vassal nation, etc, while the victim is subjugated.
White Nat , 2 hours ago linkI would like to know who the "narrative managers " are because you know if they do it with Syria they are doing it on everything .
No wonder there is a growing contemptuous distrust of most of the MSM .
It is as if they act in concert and limit anything that doesn't support their agenda.
... ... ...
Fentonbr , 2 hours ago linkisrael and their US sayanim want all of their enemies destroyed using US blood and treasure aka balkanizing the middle east.
Speeches that still matter: Gen Wesley Clark on US going to war in 7 countries in 5 yrs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTbg11pCwOc
The "memo" Wesley Clark refers to came directly from zionist war criminal Paul Wolfowitz who was whispering in the ear of Donald Rumsfeld the whole way.
Wolfowitz is perhaps better known not for writing the Wolfowitz Doctrine but for co-authoring Rebuilding America's Defenses, a report released in September 2000 by Zionist neocon think tank PNAC (The Project for a New American Century). The PNAC membership list is a "Who's Who" of American Zionist New World Order conspirators – in addition to Wolfowitz the list includes **** Cheney Donald Rumsfeld, Robert Kagan, I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, Richard Perle, Doug Feith and many others.
https://thefreedomarticles.com/wolfowitz-doctrine-us-plan-global-supremacy/
PNAC. Greater Israel Project. Oded Yinon Plan.
Long-term the tribe plans to rule the earth from the third temple in Jerusalem.
That's why they are working so hard to shut the goyim up and flood all white countries with third world sewage.
E Michael Jones and Vincent James Discuss the ADL
White Nat , 2 hours ago linkEveryone now knows how corrupt it all is now, Thank God Clinton lost!
lwilland1012 , 2 hours ago linkHillary Clinton Email: 'Syria Must Be Destroyed For Israel'
https://neonnettle.com/features/1360-hillary-clinton-email-syria-must-be-destroyed-for-israel-
The Harlequin , 2 hours ago linkPuppets have Masters.
UBrexitUPay4it , 2 hours ago link"The mainstream narrative of the Syria conflict has imploded."
"Every day there are new revelations that the "rebels" were in cahoots not only with Al Qaeda but also ISIS & official reports of Assad using chemical weapons were doctored according to the reports' own authors."
IF YOU HAVE BEEN PAYING ATTENTION...
...you would know that the "narrative" imploded from the moment AVAAZ started handing out satellite phones to the "rebels" and "No-Fly Zone" became Clinton's cackling catch-cry ...in 2011!
HRH of Aquitaine 2.0 , 3 hours ago linkBless you for trying, but you would do less damage by quietly withdrawing. You just look silly. USA spent 4+ years fighting ISIS, during which time ISIS spread across the middle East. Russia stepped in with 40 aircraft, funded through their normal air force training program, and destroyed ISIS in 9 months.
Either Russians are superhuman warriors, or the west was lying when it claimed to be fighting ISIS. Which is it?
The MSM in the US is compromised and is fully state media, at this point. Deep state, straight from the ******* pond scum suckers in DC.
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Nov 28, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com
Mark Chapman November 23, 2019 at 11:44 pm
Fiona Hill continues to amaze and astound; one of her latest wheezes is that the Russians fed disinformation to a naive Christopher Steele so that they could frame themselves for interfering in the 2016 American presidential election.Moscow Exile November 24, 2019 at 1:21 amAs the subheading suggests: yeah – that makes sense.
Yeah, the Russian expert Fiona, daughter of a Durham coalfield miner, whose expertise here was acquired whilst studying in the USSR for 1 academic year in 1987 on a Russian studies degree course. And, curiously enough, as an undergraduate here, she interned for NBC News.Now how did she manage to do that, I wonder?
By a strange parallel, I too arrived in the USSR at the same time in order to study Russian, and furthermore, until 1985 I had been a Lancashire coal miner.
After having graduated, however, I came back here in 1993 and stayed; she, on the other hand, having graduated from St. Andrew's University, Scotland, on the advice of an American academic, applied for a postgraduate course of studies at Harvard, where, in 1991, she got a master's in Russian and history.
After that, it seems the world has been her lobster as regards getting paid for her expertise on matters Russian.
Now, where did I go wrong?
above: Hill, seated to the left of Scumbag Bolton at a meeting with "Vlad", Leader of the Orcs, June 27, 2018, Mordor..
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Nov 25, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com
Warren November 25, 2019 at 11:56 am
https://www.youtube.com/embed/Nqb7l2wICBE?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent
'Sherlock, super hearing' Holmes & 'Russia Did It' Hill testimony reveals deep state panic
24 Nov 2019The Duran
The Duran Quick Take: Episode 382.
The Duran's Alex Christoforou and Editor-in-Chief Alexander Mercouris discuss Adam Schiff's decision to call up a super hearing, lip-reading David Holmes and Russia hating bureaucrat Fiona Hill to close out the impeachment inquiry clown show.
While their testimony was unable to prove a quid pro quo or machiavellian Trump bribery, it did reveal the extent to which the Democrat party and the Deep State are in panic mode, as Obama White House corruption investigations into loans provided to Ukraine ramp up, and Ukraine election meddling in 2016 have now taken center stage.
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Nov 28, 2019 | 112.international
Trump's ex-Russia adviser received death threats after testifying in impeachment hearings, - The Guardian
Fiona Hill has been subjected to a campaign of harassment and intimidation 16:22, 9 November 2019 Open sourceThe former top Russia expert at the White House has said she has been subjected to a campaign of harassment and intimidation, including death threats, which reached a new peak after she agreed to testify in congressional impeachment hearings, The Guardian reports.
Fiona Hill, who was the senior director for Europe and Russia in the National Security Council (NSC) said other NSC staff had been "hounded out" by threats against them, including antisemitic smears linking them to the liberal financier and philanthropist, George Soros, a hate figure on the far right.
In her testimony to Congress, Hill described a climate of fear among administration staff.
The UK-born academic and biographer of Vladimir Putin said that the former ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, was the target of a hate campaign, with the aim of driving her from her post in Kyiv, where she was seen as an obstacle to some corrupt business interests.
Yovanovitch was recalled from Ukraine in May on Trump's orders. In a 25 July conversation with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Trump described Yovanovitch as "bad news" and predicted she was "going to go through some things". The former ambassador has testified she felt threatened by the remarks.
Trump's lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, led calls for Yovanovitch's dismissal, as did two of Giuliani business associates, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman. All three are under scrutiny in hearings being held by House committees looking at Trump's use of his office to put pressure on the Ukrainian government to investigate his political opponents.
"There was no basis for her removal," Hill testified. "The accusations against her had no merit whatsoever. This was a mishmash of conspiracy theories that I believe firmly to be baseless, an idea of an association between her and George Soros."
"I had had accusations similar to this being made against me as well," Hill testified. "My entire first year of my tenure at the National Security Council was filled with hateful calls, conspiracy theories, which has started again, frankly, as it's been announced that I've been giving this deposition, accusing me of being a Soros mole in the White House, of colluding with all kinds of enemies of the president, and of various improprieties."
She added that the former national security adviser, HR McMaster "and many other members of staff were targeted as well, and many people were hounded out of the National Security Council because they became frightened about their own security."
"I received, I just have to tell you, death threats, calls at my home. My neighbours reported somebody coming and hammering on my door," Hill said, adding that she had also been targeted by obscene phone calls. "Now, I'm not easily intimidated, but that made me mad."
"When I saw this happening to Ambassador Yovanovitch, I was furious," she said, pointing to "this whipping up of what is frankly an antisemitic conspiracy theory about George Soros to basically target nonpartisan career officials, and also some political appointees as well."
In Yovanovitch's case, Hill said: "the most obvious explanation [for the smear campaign] seemed to be business dealings of individuals who wanted to improve their investment positions inside of Ukraine itself, and also to deflect away from the findings of not just the Mueller report on Russian interference but what's also been confirmed by your own Senate report, and what I know myself to be true as a former intelligence analyst and somebody who has been working on Russia for more than 30 years."
Hill dismissed the suggestion that Ukraine meddled in the 2016 election was a "conspiracy theory" intended to distract attention from Russia's well-documented role.
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Nov 25, 2019 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com
Warren November 25, 2019 at 10:02 am
Mark Chapman November 25, 2019 at 4:23 pmInside Bolivia's murderous post-coup regime – with Wyatt Reed
25 Nov 2019Moderate Rebels
Max Blumenthal and Ben Norton speak with journalist Wyatt Reed, who is reporting on the ground in Bolivia after a US-backed far-right military coup against democratically elected leftist President Evo Morales. He describes the bloody repression of Indigenous protesters and the state of resistance.
The aim of Washington – and I am sure it has people on the ground in Bolivia to 'advise' the coup government – will be to stabilize the situation and keep things quiet while Anez gets settled in and selects a cabinet and forms her organization. After that, it'll just be the new reality, and everyone will have to get used to it.Frankly, it's almost a pity there wasn't a mercenary army for hire by victims of western-sponsored coups such as Ukraine and Bolivia. The military has remained mostly loyal to Maduro in Venezuela, so I did not include it.
This army could be used to fight the disloyal police and military and restore order. But that'd be the wrong way to go, because it would quickly escalate and you can be sure the hired peacekeepers would be referred to as invaders rather than 'moderate rebels', so Washington would consider itself invited in militarily to 'protect democracy'.
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