It is impossible to understand the current wave of the US militarism without understanding neoliberalism
and, especially, Neoconservatism -- the dominant force in the US foreign policy since Reagan.
Militarismis the belief or the desire of a fascist government or a people that a country
should maintain a strong military
capability and be prepared to use it aggressively to defend or promote national interests; examples
of militarist states include North Korea, the United States of America, Nazi Germany, and the Soviet
Union, as well as most Imperial states, such as the Roman Empire.[1]
It may also imply the glorification of the military and of the ideals of a professional military
class and the "predominance of the
armed forces in the administration
or policy of the state"[2]
(see also: stratocracy
and military junta).
Militarism has been a significant element of the
imperialist or
expansionist ideologies
of several nations throughout history.
Jingoism is
nationalism in the form
of aggressiveforeign policy.[1]
Jingoism also refers to a country's
advocacy for the use of threats
or actual force, as opposed to peaceful relations, in efforts to safeguard what it perceives as
its national interests.
Colloquially, it refers to excessive
bias in judging one's own country
as superior to others—an extreme type of
nationalism.
The
vanquished know war. They see through the empty jingoism of those who use the abstract words of glory,
honor, and patriotism to mask the cries of the wounded, the senseless killing, war profiteering, and
chest-pounding grief. They know the lies the victors often do not acknowledge, the lies covered up in
stately war memorials and mythic war narratives, filled with words of courage and comradeship. They
know the lies that permeate the thick, self-important memoirs by amoral statesmen who make wars but
do not know war.
The vanquished know the essence of war—death. They grasp that war is necrophilia. They
see that war is a state of almost pure sin with its goals of hatred and destruction. They know how war
fosters alienation, leads inevitably to nihilism, and is a turning away from the sanctity and preservation
of life. All other narratives about war too easily fall prey to the allure and seductiveness of violence,
as well as the attraction of the godlike power that comes with the license to kill with impunity.
But the words of the vanquished come later, sometimes long after the war, when grown
men and women unpack the suffering they endured as children, what it was like to see their mother or
father killed or taken away, or what it was like to lose their homes, their community, their security,
and be discarded as human refuse. But by then few listen. The truth about war comes out, but usually
too late. We are assured by the war-makers that these stories have no bearing on the glorious
violent enterprise the nation is about to inaugurate. And, lapping up the myth of war and its sense
of empowerment, we prefer not to look.
We see the war in Iraq only through the distorted lens of the occupiers. The embedded
reporters, dependent on the military for food and transportation as well as security, have a natural
and understandable tendency, one I have myself felt, to protect those who are protecting them. They
are not allowed to report outside of the unit and are, in effect, captives. They have no relationships
with the occupied, essential to all balanced reporting of conflicts, but only with the Marines and soldiers
who drive through desolate mud-walled towns and pump grenades and machine-gun bullets into houses, leaving
scores of nameless dead and wounded in their wake. The reporters admire and laud these fighters for
their physical courage. They feel protected as well by the jet fighters and heavy artillery and throaty
rattle of machine guns. And the reporting, even among those who struggle to keep some distance, usually
descends into a shameful cheerleading.
There is no more candor in Iraq or Afghanistan than there was in Vietnam, but in the
age of live satellite feeds the military has perfected the appearance of candor. What we are fed is
the myth of war. For the myth of war, the myth of glory and honor sells newspapers and boosts ratings,
real war reporting does not. Ask the grieving parents of Pat Tillman. Nearly every embedded war correspondent
sees his or her mission as sustaining civilian and army morale. This is what passes for coverage on
FOX, MSNBC or CNN. In wartime, as Senator Hiram Johnson reminded us in 1917, "truth is the first casualty."
All our knowledge of the war in Iraq has to be viewed as lacking the sweep and depth
that will come one day, perhaps years from now, when a small Iraqi boy or girl reaches adulthood and
unfolds for us the sad and tragic story of the invasion and bloody occupation of their nation.
I have spent most of my adult life in war. I began two decades ago covering wars in
Central America, where I spent five years, then the Middle East, where I spent seven, and the Balkans
where I covered the wars in Bosnia and Kosovo. My life has been marred, let me say deformed, by the
organized industrial violence that year after year was an intimate part of my existence. I have watched
young men bleed to death on lonely Central American dirt roads and cobblestone squares in Sarajevo.
I have looked into the eyes of mothers, kneeling over the lifeless and mutilated bodies of their children.
I have stood in warehouses with rows of corpses, including children, and breathed death into my lungs.
I carry within me the ghosts of those I worked with, my comrades, now gone.
I have felt the attraction of violence. I know its seductiveness, excitement and the
powerful addictive narcotic it can become. The young soldiers, trained well enough to be disciplined
but encouraged to maintain their naive adolescent belief in invulnerability, have in wartime more power
at their fingertips than they will ever have again. They catapult from being minimum wage employees
at places like Burger King, facing a life of dead-end jobs with little hope of health insurance and
adequate benefits, to being part of, in the words of the Marines, "the greatest fighting force on the
face of the earth." The disparity between what they were and what they have become is breathtaking and
intoxicating. This intoxication is only heightened in wartime when all taboos are broken. Murder goes
unpunished and often rewarded. The thrill of destruction fills their days with wild adrenaline highs,
strange grotesque landscapes that are hallucinogenic, all accompanied by a sense of purpose and comradeship,
overpowers the alienation many left behind. They become accustomed to killing, carrying out acts of
slaughter with no more forethought than they take to relieve themselves. And the abuses committed against
the helpless prisoners in Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo are not aberrations but the real face of war. In
wartime all human beings become objects, objects either to gratify or destroy or both. And almost no
one is immune. The contagion of the crowd sees to that.
"Force," Simon Weil wrote, "is as pitiless to the man who possess it, or thinks
he does, as it is to his victim. The second it crushes; the first it intoxicates."
This myth, the lie, about war, about ourselves, is imploding our democracy. We shun
introspection and self-criticism. We ignore truth, to embrace the strange, disquieting certitude and
hubris offered by the radical Christian Right. These radical Christians draw almost exclusively from
the book of Revelation, the only time in the Gospels where Jesus sanctions violence, peddling a vision
of Christ as the head of a great and murderous army of heavenly avengers. They rarely speak about Christ's
message of love, forgiveness and compassion. They relish the cataclysmic destruction that will befall
unbelievers, including those such as myself, whom they dismiss as "nominal Christians." They divide
the world between good and evil, between those anointed to act as agents of God and those who act as
agents of Satan. The cult of masculinity and esthetic of violence pervades their ideology. Feminism
and homosexuality are forces, believers are told, that have rendered the American male physically and
spiritually impotent. Jesus, for the Christian Right, is a man of action, casting out demons, battling
the Anti-Christ, attacking hypocrites and castigating the corrupt. The language is one not only of exclusion,
hatred and fear, but a call for apocalyptic violence, in short the language of war.
As the war grinds forward, as we sink into a morass of our own creation, as our press
and political opposition, and yes even our great research universities, remain complacent and passive,
as we refuse to confront the forces that have crippled us outside our gates and are working to cripple
us within, the ideology of the Christian Right, so intertwined with intolerance and force, will become
the way we speak not only to others but among ourselves.
In war, we always deform ourselves, our essence. We give up individual conscience—maybe
even consciousness—for contagion of the crowd, the rush of patriotism, the belief that we must stand
together as nation in moments of extremity. To make a moral choice, to defy war's enticement, to find
moral courage, can be self-destructive.
The attacks on the World Trade Center illustrate that those who oppose us, rather than
coming from another moral universe, have been schooled well in modern warfare. The dramatic explosions,
the fireballs, the victims plummeting to their deaths, the collapse of the towers in Manhattan, were
straight out of Hollywood. Where else, but from the industrialized world, did the suicide bombers learn
that huge explosions and death above a city skyline are a peculiar and effective form of communication?
They have mastered the language we have taught them. They understand that the use of indiscriminate
violence against innocents is a way to make a statement. We leave the same calling cards. We delivered
such incendiary messages in Vietnam, Serbia, Afghanistan and Iraq. It was Secretary of Defense Robert
McNamara who in the summer of 1965 defined the bombing raids that would kill hundreds of thousands of
civilians north of Saigon as a means of communication to the Communist regime in Hanoi.
The most powerful anti-war testaments, of war and what war does to us, are those that
eschew images of combat. It is the suffering of the veteran whose body and mind are changed forever
because he or she served a nation that sacrificed them, the suffering of families and children caught
up in the unforgiving maw of war, which begin to tell the story of war. But we are not allowed to see
dead bodies, at least of our own soldiers, nor do we see the wounds that forever mark a life, the wounds
that leave faces and bodies horribly disfigured by burns or shrapnel. We never watch the agony of the
dying. War is made palatable. It is sanitized. We are allowed to taste war's perverse thrill, but spared
from seeing war's consequences. The wounded and the dead are swiftly carted offstage. And for this I
blame the press, which willingly hides from us the effects of bullets, roadside bombs and rocket-propelled
grenades, which sat at the feet of those who lied to make this war possible and dutifully reported these
lies and called it journalism.
War is always about this betrayal. It is about the betrayal
of the young by the old, idealists by cynics and finally soldiers by politicians. Those
who pay the price, those who are maimed forever by war, however, are crumpled up and thrown away. We
do not see them. We do not hear them. They are doomed, like wandering spirits, to float around the edges
of our consciousness, ignored, even reviled. The message they bring is too painful for us to hear. We
prefer the myth of war, the myth of glory, honor, patriotism and heroism, words that in the terror and
brutality of combat are empty, meaningless and obscene.
We are losing the war in Iraq. We are an isolated and reviled nation. We are pitiless
to others weaker than ourselves. We have lost sight of our democratic ideals. Thucydides wrote of Athens
expanding empire and how this empire led it to become a tyrant abroad and then a tyrant at home. The
tyranny Athens imposed on others it finally imposed on itself. If we do not confront the lies and hubris
told to justify the killing and mask the destruction carried out in our name in Iraq, if we do not grasp
the moral corrosiveness of empire and occupation, if we continue to allow force and violence to be our
primary form of communication, if we do not remove from power our flag-waving, cross-bearing versions
of the Taliban, we will not so much defeat dictators such as Saddam Hussein as become them.
"...These rules have pushed the United States to a state of perpetual war. With enemies
supposedly everywhere, the pursuit of security has become open-ended. "
"...One is reminded of
John Winthrop,
who, in 1630, told the future residents of Massachusetts Bay Colony: "We shall be as a City upon
a Hill, the eyes of all people are upon us." Over subsequent decades, Winthrop's sermon became
the American mission, fired by self-righteousness and fueled by self-confidence. From that mission
emerged the idea of Manifest Destiny -- American ideals should spread across the continent and
around the globe. Along the way, Americans lost sight of what Winthrop actually meant. His words
were both inspiration and warning: Aspire to greatness, but remain honorable. Power lies in virtue.
Winthrop envisaged a shining beacon, worthy of emulation. He saw no need to come down from the
hill and ram ideals down the throats of the recalcitrant. "
"...Back in 1963, the Kennedy administration was faced with a steadily disintegrating
situation in Vietnam. At a turbulent cabinet meeting, Attorney General Robert Kennedy asked: If
the situation is so dire, why not withdraw? Arthur Schlesinger, present at the meeting, noted
how "the question hovered for a moment, then died away." It was "a hopelessly alien thought in
a field of unexplored assumptions and entrenched convictions." The Washington rules kept the United
States on a steady course toward disaster. "
"...Barack Obama once promised that change was coming, but then quickly adhered to the old
rules by escalating an unwinnable and certainly unaffordable war in Afghanistan. Failures, as
Steffens hoped, have been illuminating, but after each flash of light, darkness has prevailed.
"
[Neocons] advocate permanent war for permanent peace
Professor Basevich
The foreign policy of the USA since the dissolution of the USSR was and is "open militarism". Recently
John Quiggin tried to define militarism is came to the following definition (crookedtimber.org):
100 years after the Battle of the Somme, it's hard to see that much has been learned from the
catastrophe of the Great War and the decades of slaughter that followed it. Rather than get bogged
down (yet again) in specifics that invariably decline into arguments about who know more of the historical
detail, I'm going to try a different approach, looking at the militarist ideology that gave us the
War, and trying to articulate an anti-militarist alternative.
Wikipedia offers a definition
of militarism which, with the deletion of a single weasel word, seems to be entirely satisfactory
and also seems to describe the dominant view of the political class, and much of the population
in nearly every country in the world.
Militarism is the belief or desire of a government or people that a country should maintain
a strong military capability and be prepared to use it
aggressively[^1] to defend or promote national
interests
Professor Bacevich shows that neocons dominate the US foreign
policy regardless of whether Republicans or Democrats are in power. They profess that the US in the
only country uniquely qualified to take on the worldwide foes of peace and democracy, forgetting, revising,
or ignoring the painful lessons of World War II, Vietnam, and beyond that might have taken the USA into
periods of unprecedented peace, instead of numerous conflicts.
Bacevich scores a direct hit on the foundations of the American national security state with this
scathing critique, and demolishes the unspoken assumptions that he believes have led the United States
into a senseless, wasteful, and counter-productive posture of nearly perpetual war. These assumptions
take the form of the "credo" -- which holds that the United States has the unique responsibility
to intervene wherever it wants, for whatever purpose it wants, by whatever means it wants --
and the supporting "trinity" of requirements for the U.S. to maintain a global military presence,
to configure its military forces for global power projection, and to counter threats by relying on
a policy of global interventionism.
In other words they advocate permanent war for permanent peace. Lessons that the author
shows President Obama is clearly in the midst of learning, using a modified sacred trinity. Written
in engaging prose, his book
Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War is an excellent peace of research with sections
that some may find very troubling. Here is the summary:
UFPPC (www.ufppc.org) Digging Deeper CXXXVII:
September 27, 2010, 7:00 p.m.
Andrew J. Bacevich, Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War (New York: Metropolitan
Books/Henry Holt and Company, August 2010).
Thesis
The Washington consensus on national security policy that constitutes convention wisdom in American
foreign policy began with the Cold War and survived, remarkably, the Vietnam War and the disintegration
of the Soviet Union, no longer serves American interests, but the failure of the Obama administration
to alter it shows that change can only come from the American people.
Introduction: Slow Learner
The author's faith in orthodoxy began to crumble when visiting the BrandenburgGate in Berlin in
the winter of 1990-1991(1-4). In October 1990 a visit to Jenarevealed the backwardness of EastGermany
(4-6). During his years in the Army, Bacevich had kept down doubts; after the end of the Cold War
he retired, and his loss of status freed him to educate himself (6-10).
"George W.Bush's decision to launch Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003 pushed me fully into opposition"
(10). "This book aims to take stock of conventional wisdom" (11). The past 60 years of American history
shows continuity: a symbiotic "credo" (formulated by Henry Luce in 1941 as the "American Century")
and a "sacred trinity" ("the minimum essentials of international peace and order require the United
States to maintain a global military presence, to configure its forces for global power projection,
and to counter existing or anticipated threats by relying on a policy of global interventionism")
together define "the rules to which Washington adheres" (11-15).
In this book, "Washington" refers to the upper echelons of the three branches of government, the
main agencies of the national security state, select think tanks and interest groups, "big banks
and other financial institutions, defense contractors and major corporations, television networks
and elite publications like the New York Times, even quasi-academic entities like the Council on
Foreign Relations and Harvard's Kennedy School of Government" (15).
This book aspires to
trace the history of the Washington rules;
show who wins, who loses, and who pays under them;
explain how itis perpetuated;
show that the rules have lost what utility they might once have had;
re-legitimate "disreputable (or 'radical') views to our national security debates" (16).
The American Century is ending, and it "has become essential" to devise an "alternative to the
reining national security paradigm" (16-18).
Ch. 1: The Advent of Semiwar.
As president, Barack Obama's efforts to change the U.S.'s exercise of power "have seldom risen
above the cosmetic"(20). He made clear he subscribes to the "catechism of American statecraft," viz.
that 1) the world must be organized, 2)only the U.S. can do it, 3) this includes dictating principles,
and 4) not to accept this is to be a rogue or a recalcitrant (20-21).
It follows that the U.S. need not conform to the norms it sets for others and that it should maintain
a worldwide network of bases (22-23).
Imagine if China acted in a comparable manner (23-25). The extraordinary American military posture
in the world (25-27). To call this into question puts one beyond the pale(27). James Forrestal called
this a permanent condition of semiwar, requiring high levels of military spending(27-28).
American citizens are not supposed to concern themselves with it (29-30). As to how this came
about, the "standard story line" presents as the result of the decisions of a "succession of presidential
administrations," though this conceals as much as it reveals (30-32).
Eisenhower's 1961 Farewell Address on the "military-industrial complex" was a rare exception (32-34).
More important than presidents were Allen Dulles [1893-1969] and Curtis Lemay [1906-1990] (34-36).
Bacevich attributes the vision for an American-dominated post-World War II world with the CIA
playing an active role to the patrician Dulles (36-43). The development of the U.S. military into
a force capable of dominating the world, especially in the area of strategic weapons, he attributes
to the hard-bitten Curtis LeMay, organizer of the StrategicAir Command (SAC) (43-52). Dulles and
LeMay shared devotion to country, ruthlessness, a certain recklessness (52-55). They exploited American
anxieties and insecurities in yin (Dulles's CIA) yang(LeMay's SAC) fashion, leaving the mainstay
of American military power, the U.S. Army, in a relatively weak position(55-58).
Ch. 2: Illusions of Flexibility and Control
Kennedy kept Dulles and LeMay to signal continuity, but there was a behind-the-scenes struggle
led by Gen. Maxwell Taylor to reassert the role of the U.S. Army by expanding and modernizing conventional
forces that was "simultaneously masked by, and captured in, the phrase flexible response " (60; 59-63).
This agenda purported to aim at "resisting aggression" but really created new options for limited
aggressive warfare by the U.S. (63-66).
McNamara engaged in a struggle with LeMay to control U.S. policy on nuclear weapons, but he embraced
the need for redundancy based on a land-sea-air attack "triad" and LeMay et al. "got most of what
they wanted" (66-72).
In the aftermath of the Bay of Pigs, Kennedy instituted the morally and legally "indefensible"
Operation Mongoose," in effect, a program of state-sponsored terrorism" against Cuba (80; 72-82 [but
Bacevich is silent on its wilder elements, like Operation Northwoods]).
U.S. recklessness caused the Cuban Missile Crisis, and to his credit Kennedy acknowledged this
(albeit privately) and "suspended the tradition" in defusing the crisis (82-87).
Bacevich rejects as a romantic delusion the view that in the aftermath of this crisis Kennedy
turned against the military-industrial complex and the incipient Vietnam war and shows no interest
in Kennedy's assassination itself (87-92).
He sees a parallel between escalation in Vietnam and post-9/11 aggression as "fought to sustain
the Washington consensus" (107; 92-107).
Ch. 3: The Credo Restored.
William Fulbright's The Arrogance of Power (1966) urged a rethinking of the Washington rules (109-15).
A radicalized David Shoup, a Medal of Honor winner and former commandant of the MarineCorps, argued
in "The New American Militarism" (Atlantic, April 1969) that the U.S. had become "a militaristic
and aggressive nation" (120; 115-21). The 1960s Zeitgeist shift made LeMay "an embarrassment, mocked
and vilified rather than venerated," which showed that the Washington rules had incurred serious
damage in Vietnam; the Army was in dire shape (122; 121-27).
Yet astonishingly, in the subsequent decade the "sacred trinity" (cf. 11-15) was "fully restored"
(127). As in post-1918 Germany, élites looked for scapegoats and worked to reverse "the war's apparent
verdict" (128). The Council on Foreign Relations 1976 volume entitled The Vietnam Legacy: The War,
American Society, and the Future of American Foreign Policy is an expression of élite consensus that
the Vietnam war was insignificant, an anomaly (129-34).
By 1980, Democrats and Republicans were again on the same page (134-36).Reagan's election "sealed
the triumph of Vietnam revisionism" (136; 136-38). Andthe end of the Cold War posed no challenge
to the Washington rules, as Madeleine Albright's pretentious arrogance exemplifies (138-45).
Ch. 4: Reconstituting the Trinity
The period from 1980 to 2000 saw "not retrenchment but reconfiguration" (147). The
Except from Macmillan
Introduction: Slow Learner Worldly ambition inhibits true learning. Ask me. I know. A young
man in a hurry is nearly uneducable: He knows what he wants and where he's headed; when it comes
to looking back or entertaining heretical thoughts, he has neither the time nor the inclination.
All that counts is that he is going somewhere. Only as ambition wanes does education become a possibility.
My own education did not commence until I had reached middle age. I can fix its start date with
precision: For me, education began in Berlin, on a winter's evening, at the Brandenburg Gate, not
long after the Berlin Wall had fallen. As an officer in the U.S. Army I had spent considerable time
in Germany. Until that moment, however, my family and I had never had occasion to visit this most
famous of German cities, still littered with artifacts of a deeply repellent history. At the end
of a long day of exploration, we found ourselves in what had, until just months before, been the
communist East. It was late and we were hungry, but I insisted on walking the length of the Unter
den Linden, from the River Spree to the gate itself. A cold rain was falling and the pavement glistened.
The buildings lining the avenue, dating from the era of Prussian kings, were dark, dirty, and pitted.
Few people were about. It was hardly a night for sightseeing. For as long as I could remember, the
Brandenburg Gate had been the preeminent symbol of the age and Berlin the epicenter of contemporary
history.
Yet by the time I made it to the once and future German capital, history was already moving on.
The Cold War had abruptly ended. A divided city and a divided nation had re united. For Americans
who had known Berlin only from a distance, the city existed primarily as a metaphor. Pick a date—
1933, 1942, 1945, 1948, 1961, 1989—and Berlin becomes an instructive symbol of power, depravity,
tragedy, defiance, endurance, or vindication. For those inclined to view the past as a chronicle
of parables, the modern history of Berlin offered an abundance of material. The greatest of those
parables emerged from the events of 1933 to 1945, an epic tale of evil ascendant, belatedly confronted,
then heroically overthrown.
A second narrative, woven from events during the intense period immediately following World War
II, saw hopes for peace dashed, yielding bitter antagonism but also great resolve. The ensuing stand-off—the
"long twilight struggle," in John Kennedy's memorable phrase— formed the centerpiece of the third
parable, its central theme stubborn courage in the face of looming peril. Finally came the exhilarating
events of 1989, with freedom ultimately prevailing, not only in Berlin, but throughout Eastern Europe.
.... ... ...
Although commonly depicted as the most advanced and successful component of the Soviet Empire,
East Germany more closely resembled part of the undeveloped world.
... ... ...
Briquettes of soft coal used for home heating made the air all but unbreathable and coated everything
with soot. In the German cities we knew, pastels predominated—houses and apartment blocks painted
pale green, muted salmon, and soft yellow. Here everything was brown and gray
... ... ...
Bit by bit, my worldview started to crumble. That worldview had derived from this conviction:
that American power manifested a commitment to global leadership, and that both together expressed
and affirmed the nation's enduring devotion to its founding ideals. That American power, policies,
and purpose were bound together in a neat, internally consistent package, each element drawing strength
from and reinforcing the others, was something I took as a given. That, during my adult life, a penchant
for interventionism had become a signature of U.S. policy did not—to me, at least—in any way contradict
America's aspirations for peace. Instead, a willingness to expend lives and treasure in distant places
testified to the seriousness of those aspirations. That, during this same period, the United States
had amassed an arsenal of over thirty-one thousand nuclear weapons, some small number of them assigned
to units in which I had served, was not at odds with our belief in the inalienable right to life
and liberty; rather, threats to life and liberty had compelled the United States to acquire such
an arsenal and maintain it in readiness for instant use.2 I was not so naive as to believe that the
American record had been without flaws. Yet I assured myself that any errors or misjudgments had
been committed in good faith. Furthermore, circumstances permitted little real choice. In Southeast
Asia as in Western Europe, in the Persian Gulf as in the Western Hemisphere, the United States had
simply done what needed doing. Viable alternatives did not exist. To consent to any dilution of American
power would be to forfeit global leadership, thereby putting at risk safety, prosperity, and freedom,
not only our own but also that of our friends and allies.
The choices seemed clear enough. On one side was the status quo: the commitments, customs, and
habits that defined American globalism, implemented by the national security apparatus within which
I functioned as a small cog. On the other side was the prospect of appeasement, isolationism, and
catastrophe. The only responsible course was the one to which every president since Harry Truman
had adhered. For me, the Cold War had played a crucial role in sustaining that worldview.
Given my age, upbringing, and professional background, it could hardly have been otherwise. Although
the great rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union had contained moments of considerable
anxiety — I remember my father, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, stocking our basement with water
and canned goods — it served primarily to clarify, not to frighten.
The Cold War provided a framework that organized and made sense of contemporary history. It offered
a lineup and a scorecard. That there existed bad Germans and good Germans, their Germans and our
Germans, totalitarian Germans and Germans who, like Americans, passionately loved freedom was, for
example, a proposition I accepted as dogma. Seeing the Cold War as a struggle between good and evil
answered many questions, consigned others to the periphery, and rendered still others irrelevant.
Back in the 1960s, during the Vietnam War, more than a few members of my generation had rejected
the conception of the Cold War as a Manichean struggle. Here too, I was admittedly a slow learner.
Yet having kept the faith long after others had lost theirs, the doubts that eventually assailed
me were all the more disorienting. Granted, occasional suspicions had appeared long before Jena and
Berlin
My own Vietnam experience had generated its share, which I had done my best to suppress. I was,
after all, a serving soldier. Except in the narrowest of terms, the military profession, in those
days at least, did not look kindly on nonconformity. Climbing the ladder of career success required
curbing maverick tendencies. To get ahead, you needed to be a team player. Later, when studying the
history of U.S. foreign relations in graduate school, I was pelted with challenges to orthodoxy,
which I vigorously deflected. When it came to education, graduate school proved a complete waste
of time — a period of intense study devoted to the further accumulation of facts, while I exerted
myself to ensuring that they remained inert.
Now, however, my personal circumstances were changing. Shortly after the passing of the Cold War,
my military career ended. Education thereby became not only a possibility, but also a necessity.
In measured doses, mortification cleanses the soul. It's the perfect antidote for excessive self-regard.
After twenty-three years spent inside the U.S. Army seemingly going somewhere, I now found myself
on the outside going nowhere in particular. In the self-contained and cloistered universe of regimental
life, I had briefly risen to the status of minor spear carrier. The instant I took off my uniform,
that status vanished. I soon came to a proper appreciation of my own insignificance, a salutary lesson
that I ought to have absorbed many years earlier. As I set out on what eventually became a crablike
journey toward a new calling as a teacher and writer—a pilgrimage of sorts—ambition in the commonly
accepted meaning of the term ebbed. This did not happen all at once. Yet gradually, trying to grab
one of life's shiny brass rings ceased being a major preoccupation.
Wealth, power, and celebrity became not aspirations but subjects for critical analysis.
History—especially the familiar narrative of the Cold War—no longer offered answers; instead,
it posed perplexing riddles. Easily the most nagging was this one: How could I have so profoundly
misjudged the reality of what lay on the far side of the Iron Curtain? Had I been insufficiently
attentive? Or was it possible that I had been snookered all along? Contemplating such questions,
while simultaneously witnessing the unfolding of the "long 1990s"— the period bookended by two wars
with Iraq when American vainglory reached impressive new heights—prompted the realization that I
had grossly misinterpreted the threat posed by America's adversaries. Yet that was the lesser half
of the problem. Far worse than misperceiving "them" was the fact that I had misperceived "us." What
I thought I knew best I actually understood least. Here, the need for education appeared especially
acute.
George W. Bush's decision to launch Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003 pushed me fully into opposition.
Claims that once seemed elementary—above all, claims relating to the essentially benign purposes
of American power— now appeared preposterous. The contradictions that found an ostensibly peace-loving
nation committing itself to a doctrine of preventive war became too great to ignore. The folly and
hubris of the policy makers who heedlessly thrust the nation into an ill-defined and open-ended "global
war on terror" without the foggiest notion of what victory would look like, how it would be won,
and what it might cost approached standards hitherto achieved only by slightly mad German warlords.
During the era of containment, the United States had at least maintained the pretense of a principled
strategy; now, the last vestiges of principle gave way to fantasy and opportunism. With that, the
worldview to which I had adhered as a young adult and carried into middle age dissolved completely.
*
What should stand in the place of such discarded convictions? Simply inverting the conventional
wisdom, substituting a new Manichean paradigm for the old discredited version—the United States taking
the place of the Soviet Union as the source of the world's evil—would not suffice. Yet arriving at
even an approximation of truth would entail subjecting conventional wisdom, both present and past,
to sustained and searching scrutiny. Cautiously at first but with growing confidence, this I vowed
to do. Doing so meant shedding habits of conformity acquired over decades. All of my adult life I
had been a company man, only dimly aware of the extent to which institutional loyalties induce myopia.
Asserting independence required first recognizing the extent to which I had been socialized to accept
certain things as unimpeachable. Here then were the preliminary steps essential to making education
accessible. Over a period of years, a considerable store of debris had piled up. Now, it all had
to go. Belatedly, I learned that more often than not what passes for conventional wisdom is simply
wrong. Adopting fashionable attitudes to demonstrate one's trustworthiness—the world of politics
is flush with such people hoping thereby to qualify for inclusion in some inner circle—is akin to
engaging in prostitution in exchange for promissory notes. It's not only demeaning but downright
foolhardy. This book aims to take stock of conventional wisdom in its most influential and enduring
form, namely the package of assumptions, habits, and precepts that have defined the tradition of
statecraft to which the United States has adhered since the end of World War II— the era of global
dominance now drawing to a close. This postwar tradition combines two components, each one so deeply
embedded in the American collective consciousness as to have all but disappeared from view.
The first component specifies norms according to which the international order ought to work and
charges the United States with responsibility for enforcing those norms. Call this the American credo.
In the simplest terms, the credo summons the United States—and the United States alone—to lead, save,
liberate, and ultimately transform the world. In a celebrated manifesto issued at the dawn of what
he termed "The American Century," Henry R. Luce made the case for this spacious conception of global
leadership. Writing in Life magazine in early 1941, the influential publisher exhorted his fellow
citizens to "accept wholeheartedly our duty to exert upon the world the full impact of our influence
for such purposes as we see fit and by such means as we see fit." Luce thereby captured what remains
even today the credo's essence.3 Luce's concept of an American Century, an age of unquestioned American
global primacy, resonated, especially in Washington. His evocative phrase found a permanent place
in the lexicon of national politics. (Recall that the neoconservatives who, in the 1990s, lobbied
for more militant U.S. policies named their enterprise the Project for a New American Century.) So,
too, did Luce's expansive claim of prerogatives to be exercised by the United States.
Even today, whenever public figures allude to America's responsibility to lead, they signal
their fidelity to this creed. Along with respectful allusions to God and "the troops," adherence
to Luce's credo has become a de facto prerequisite for high office. Question its claims and your
prospects of being heard in the hubbub of national politics become nil. Note, however, that the duty
Luce ascribed to Americans has two components. It is not only up to Americans, he wrote, to choose
the purposes for which they would bring their influence to bear, but to choose the means as well.
Here we confront the second component of the postwar tradition of American statecraft. With regard
to means, that tradition has emphasized activism over example, hard power over soft, and coercion
(often styled "negotiating from a position of strength") over suasion. Above all, the exercise of
global leadership as prescribed by the credo obliges the United States to maintain military capabilities
staggeringly in excess of those required for self-defense. Prior to World War II, Americans by and
large viewed military power and institutions with skepticism, if not outright hostility. In the wake
of World War II, that changed. An affinity for military might emerged as central to the American
identity. By the midpoint of the twentieth century, "the Pentagon" had ceased to be merely a gigantic
five-sided building.
Like "Wall Street" at the end of the nineteenth century, it had become Leviathan, its actions
veiled in secrecy, its reach extending around the world. Yet while the concentration of power in
Wall Street had once evoked deep fear and suspicion, Americans by and large saw the concentration
of power in the Pentagon as benign. Most found it reassuring. A people who had long seen standing
armies as a threat to liberty now came to believe that the preservation of liberty required them
to lavish resources on the armed forces. During the Cold War, Americans worried ceaselessly about
falling behind the Russians, even though the Pentagon consistently maintained a position of overall
primacy. Once the Soviet threat disappeared, mere primacy no longer sufficed. With barely a whisper
of national debate, unambiguous and perpetual global military supremacy emerged as an essential predicate
to global leadership. Every great military power has its distinctive signature. For Napoleonic France,
it was the levée en masse— the people in arms animated by the ideals of the Revolution. For Great
Britain in the heyday of empire, it was command of the seas, sustained by a dominant fleet and a
network of far-flung outposts from Gibraltar and the Cape of Good Hope to Singapore and Hong Kong.
Germany from the 1860s to the 1940s (and Israel from 1948 to 1973) took another approach, relying
on a potent blend of tactical flexibility and operational audacity to achieve battlefield superiority.
The abiding signature of American military power since World War II has been of a different order
altogether. The United States has not specialized in any particular type of war. It has not adhered
to a fixed tactical style. No single service or weapon has enjoyed consistent favor. At times, the
armed forces have relied on citizen-soldiers to fill their ranks; at other times, long-service professionals.
Yet an examination of the past sixty years of U.S. military policy and practice does reveal important
elements of continuity. Call them the sacred trinity: an abiding conviction that the minimum essentials
of international peace and order require the United States to maintain a global military presence,
to configure its forces for global power projection, and to counter existing or anticipated threats
by relying on a policy of global interventionism. Together, credo and trinity—the one defining purpose,
the other practice—constitute the essence of the way that Washington has attempted to govern and
police the American Century. The relationship between the two is symbiotic. The trinity lends plausibility
to the credo's vast claims. For its part, the credo justifies the trinity's vast requirements and
exertions.
Together they provide the basis for an enduring consensus that imparts a consistency to U.S. policy
regardless of which political party may hold the upper hand or who may be occupying the White House.
From the era of Harry Truman to the age of Barack Obama, that consensus has remained intact. It defines
the rules to which Washington adheres; it determines the precepts by which Washington rules. As used
here, Washington is less a geographic expression than a set of interlocking institutions headed by
people who, whether acting officially or unofficially, are able to put a thumb on the helm of state.
Washington, in this sense, includes the upper echelons of the executive, legislative, and judicial
branches of the federal government. It encompasses the principal components of the national security
state— the departments of Defense, State, and, more recently, Homeland Security, along with various
agencies comprising the intelligence and federal law enforcement communities. Its ranks extend to
select think tanks and interest groups. Lawyers, lobbyists, fixers, former officials, and retired
military officers who still enjoy access are members in good standing. Yet Washington also reaches
beyond the Beltway to include big banks and other financial institutions, defense contractors and
major corporations, television networks and elite publications like the New York Times, even quasi-academic
entities like the Council on Foreign Relations and Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.
With rare exceptions, acceptance of the Washington rules forms a prerequisite for entry into this
world. My purpose in writing this book is fivefold: first, to trace the origins and evolution of
the Washington rules—both the credo that inspires consensus and the trinity in which it finds expression;
second, to subject the resulting consensus to critical inspection, showing who wins and who loses
and also who foots the bill; third, to explain how the Washington rules are perpetuated, with certain
views privileged while others are declared disreputable; fourth, to demonstrate that the rules themselves
have lost whatever utility they may once have possessed, with their implications increasingly pernicious
and their costs increasingly unaffordable; and finally, to argue for readmitting disreputable (or
"radical") views to our national security debate, in effect legitimating alternatives to the status
quo. In effect, my aim is to invite readers to share in the process of education on which I embarked
two decades ago in Berlin. The Washington rules were forged at a moment when American influence and
power were approaching their acme. That moment has now passed. The United States has drawn down the
stores of authority and goodwill it had acquired by 1945. Words uttered in Washington command less
respect than once was the case. Americans can ill afford to indulge any longer in dreams of saving
the world, much less remaking it in our own image. The curtain is now falling on the American Century.
Similarly, the United States no longer possesses sufficient wherewithal to sustain a national security
strategy that relies on global military presence and global power projection to underwrite a policy
of global interventionism. Touted as essential to peace, adherence to that strategy has propelled
the United States into a condition approximating perpetual war, as the military misadventures of
the past decade have demonstrated.
To anyone with eyes to see, the shortcomings inherent in the Washington rules have become plainly
evident. Although those most deeply invested in perpetuating its conventions will insist otherwise,
the tradition to which Washington remains devoted has begun to unravel. Attempting to prolong
its existence might serve Washington's interests, but it will not serve the interests of the American
people.
Devising an alternative to the reigning national security paradigm will pose a daunting challenge—especially
if Americans look to "Washington" for fresh thinking. Yet doing so has become essential. In one sense,
the national security policies to which Washington so insistently adheres express what has long been
the preferred American approach to engaging the world beyond our borders. That approach plays to
America's presumed strong suit—since World War II, and especially since the end of the Cold War,
thought to be military power. In another sense, this reliance on military might creates excuses for
the United States to avoid serious engagement: Confidence in American arms has made it unnecessary
to attend to what others might think or to consider how their aspirations might differ from our own.
In this way, the Washington rules reinforce American provincialism—a national trait for which
the United States continues to pay dearly. The persistence of these rules has also provided
an excuse to avoid serious self-engagement. From this perspective, confidence that the credo and
the trinity will oblige others to accommodate themselves to America's needs or desires — whether
for cheap oil, cheap credit, or cheap consumer goods—has allowed Washington to postpone or ignore
problems demanding attention here at home.
Fixing Iraq or Afghanistan ends up taking precedence over fixing Cleveland and Detroit. Purporting
to support the troops in their crusade to free the world obviates any obligation to assess the implications
of how Americans themselves choose to exercise freedom. When Americans demonstrate a willingness
to engage seriously with others, combined with the courage to engage seriously with themselves, then
real education just might begin.
In their article ‘The American Century’ Has Plunged the World Into Crisis. What Happens Now?"
Conn Hallinan and
Leon Wofsy outlined important reasons
of the inevitability of the dominance of chicken hawks and jingoistic foreign policy in the USA political
establishment:
U.S. foreign policy is dangerous, undemocratic, and deeply out of sync with real global
challenges. Is continuous war inevitable, or can we change course?
There’s something fundamentally wrong with U.S. foreign policy.
Despite glimmers of hope — a tentative
nuclear agreement with Iran, for one, and a long-overdue thaw with Cuba — we’re locked into seemingly
irresolvable conflicts in most regions of the world. They range from tensions with nuclear-armed
powers like Russia and China to actual combat operations in the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa.
Why? Has a state of perpetual warfare and conflict become inescapable? Or are we in a self-replicating
cycle that reflects an inability — or unwillingness — to see the world as it actually is?
The United States is undergoing a historic transition in our relationship to the rest of the world,
but this is neither acknowledged nor reflected in U.S. foreign policy. We still act as if our enormous
military power, imperial alliances, and self-perceived moral superiority empower us to set the terms
of “world order.”
While this illusion goes back to the end of World War II, it was the end of the Cold War and collapse
of the Soviet Union that signaled the beginning of a self-proclaimed “American Century.” The idea
that the United States had “won” the Cold War and now — as the world’s lone superpower — had the
right or responsibility to order the world’s affairs led to a series of military adventures. It started
with President Bill Clinton’s intervention in the Yugoslav civil war, continued on with George W.
Bush’s disastrous invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and can still be seen in the Obama administration’s
own misadventures in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, and beyond.
In each case, Washington chose war as the answer to enormously complex issues, ignoring the profound
consequences for both foreign and domestic policy. Yet the world is very different from the assumptions
that drive this impulsive interventionism.
It’s this disconnect that defines the current crisis.
Acknowledging New Realities
So what is it about the world that requires a change in our outlook? A few observations come to
mind.
First, our preoccupation with conflicts in the Middle East — and to a significant extent, our
tensions with Russia in Eastern Europe and with China in East Asia — distract us from the most compelling
crises that threaten the future of humanity. Climate change and environmental perils have to be dealt
with now and demand an unprecedented level of international collective action. That also holds for
the resurgent danger of nuclear war.
Second, superpower military interventionism and far-flung acts of war have only intensified conflict,
terror, and human suffering. There’s no short-term solution — especially by force — to the deep-seated
problems that cause chaos, violence, and misery through much of the world.
Third, while any hope of curbing violence and mitigating the most urgent problems depends on international
cooperation, old and disastrous intrigues over spheres of influence dominate the behavior of the
major powers. Our own relentless pursuit of military advantage on every continent, including through
alliances and proxies like NATO, divides the world into “friend” and “foe” according to our perceived
interests. That inevitably inflames aggressive imperial rivalries and overrides common interests
in the 21st century.
Fourth, while the United States remains a great economic power, economic and political influence
is shifting and giving rise to national and regional centers no longer controlled by U.S.-dominated
global financial structures. Away from Washington, London, and Berlin,
alternative centers of economic
power are taking hold in Beijing, New Delhi, Cape Town, and Brasilia. Independent formations
and alliances are springing up: organizations like the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South
Africa); the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (representing 2.8 billion people); the Union of South
American Nations; the Latin American trade bloc, Mercosur; and others.
Beyond the problems our delusions of grandeur have caused in the wider world, there are enormous
domestic consequences of prolonged war and interventionism. We shell out
over $1 trillion a year in military-related expenses even as our social safety net frays and
our infrastructure crumbles.
Democracy itself has become virtually dysfunctional.
Short Memories and Persistent Delusions
But instead of letting these changing circumstances and our repeated military failures give us
pause, our government continues to act as if the United States has the power to dominate and dictate
to the rest of the world.
The responsibility of those who set us on this course fades into background. Indeed, in light
of the ongoing meltdown in the Middle East, leading presidential candidates are
tapping neoconservatives like
John Bolton
and Paul Wolfowitz
— who still think the answer to any foreign policy quandary is military power — for advice. Our leaders
seem to forget that following this lot’s advice was exactly what caused the meltdown in the first
place. War still excites them, risks and consequences be damned.
While the Obama administration has sought, with limited success, to end the major wars it inherited,
our government makes wide use of killer drones in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia, and has put troops
back into Iraq to confront the religious fanaticism and brutality of the so-called Islamic State
(ISIS) — itself a direct consequence of the last U.S. invasion of Iraq. Reluctant to find common
ground in the fight against ISIS with designated “foes” like Iran and Syria, Washington clings to
allies like Saudi Arabia, whose leaders are fueling the crisis of religious fanaticism and internecine
barbarity. Elsewhere, the U.S. also continues to give massive support to the Israeli government,
despite its expanding occupation of the West Bank and its horrific recurring assaults on Gaza.
A “war first” policy in places like Iran and Syria is being strongly pushed by neoconservatives
like former Vice President
Dick Cheney
and Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman
John McCain.
Though it’s attempted to distance itself from the neocons, the Obama administration adds to tensions
with planned military realignments like the “Asia
pivot” aimed at building up U.S. military forces in Asia to confront China. It’s also taken a
more aggressive position than even other NATO partners in fostering a new cold war with Russia.
We seem to have missed the point: There is no such thing as an “American Century.” International
order cannot be enforced by a superpower alone. But never mind centuries — if we don’t learn to take
our common interests more seriously than those that divide nations and breed the chronic danger of
war, there may well be no tomorrows.
Unexceptionalism
There’s a powerful ideological delusion that any movement seeking to change U.S. foreign policy
must confront: that U.S. culture is superior to anything else on the planet. Generally going by the
name of “American exceptionalism,” it’s the deeply held belief that American politics (and medicine,
technology, education, and so on) are better than those in other countries. Implicit in the belief
is an evangelical urge to impose American ways of doing things on the rest of the world.
Americans, for instance, believe they have the best education system in the world, when in fact
they’ve dropped from 1st place to 14th place in the number of college graduates.
We’ve made students of higher education the most indebted section of our population, while falling
to 17th place in international education ratings. According to the Organization for Economic
Cooperation, the average American pays more than twice as much for his or her education than those
in the rest of the world.
Health care is an equally compelling example. In the World Health Organization’s ranking of health
care systems in 2000, the United States was ranked 37th. In a more recent
Institute of Medicine report in 2013, the U.S. was ranked the lowest among 17 developed nations
studied.
The old anti-war slogan, “It will be a good day when schools get all the money they need and the
Navy has to hold a bake sale to buy an aircraft carrier” is as appropriate today as it was in the
1960s. We prioritize corporate subsidies, tax cuts for the wealthy, and massive military budgets
over education. The result is that Americans are no longer among the most educated in the world.
But challenging the “exceptionalism” myth courts the danger of being labeled “unpatriotic”
and “un-American,” two powerful ideological sanctions that can effectively silence critical or questioning
voices.
The fact that Americans consider their culture or ideology “superior” is hardly unique. But no
other country in the world has the same level of economic and military power to enforce its worldview
on others.
The United States did not simply support Kosovo’s independence, for example. It bombed Serbia
into de facto acceptance. When the U.S. decided to remove the Taliban, Saddam Hussein, and Muammar
Gaddafi from power, it just did so. No other country is capable of projecting that kind of force
in regions thousands of miles from its borders.
The U.S. currently accounts for anywhere from 45 to 50 percent of the world’s military spending.
It has hundreds of overseas bases, ranging from huge sprawling affairs like Camp Bond Steel in Kosovo
and unsinkable aircraft carriers around the islands of Okinawa, Wake, Diego Garcia, and Guam to tiny
bases called “lily
pads” of pre-positioned military supplies. The late political scientist Chalmers Johnson
estimated that the U.S. has some 800 bases worldwide, about the same as the British Empire had at
its height in 1895.
The United States has long relied on a military arrow in its diplomatic quiver, and Americans
have been at war almost continuously since the end of World War II. Some of these wars were
major undertakings: Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Kuwait, Afghanistan, Iraq (twice), Libya. Some
were quick “smash and grabs” like Panama and Grenada. Others are “shadow wars” waged by Special Forces,
armed drones, and local proxies. If one defines the term “war” as the application of organized
violence, the U.S. has engaged in close to 80 wars since 1945.
The Home Front
The coin of empire comes dear, as the old expression goes.
According Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, the final butcher bill for the Afghanistan
and Iraq wars — including the long-term health problems of veterans — will cost U.S. taxpayers around
$6 trillion. One can add to that the over $1 trillion the U.S. spends each year on defense-related
items. The “official” defense budget of some half a trillion dollars doesn’t include such items as
nuclear weapons, veterans’ benefits or retirement, the CIA and Homeland Security, nor the billions
a year in interest we’ll be paying on the debt from the Afghan-Iraq wars. By 2013 the U.S. had already
paid out $316 billion
in interest.
The domestic collateral damage from that set of priorities is numbing.
We spend more on our “official” military budget than we do on Medicare, Medicaid, Health and Human
Services, Education, and Housing and Urban Development combined. Since 9/11,
we’ve
spent $70 million an hour on “security” compared to $62 million an hour on all domestic programs.
As military expenditures dwarf funding for deteriorating social programs, they drive economic
inequality. The poor and working millions are left further and further behind. Meanwhile the chronic
problems highlighted at Ferguson, and reflected nationwide, are a horrific reminder of how deeply
racism — the unequal economic and social divide and systemic abuse of black and Latino youth —
continues to plague our homeland.
The state of ceaseless war has deeply damaged our democracy, bringing our surveillance and security
state to levels that many dictators would envy. The
Senate torture report, most
of it still classified, shatters the trust we are asked to place in the secret, unaccountable apparatus
that runs
the most extensive Big Brother spy system ever devised.
Bombs and Business
President Calvin Coolidge was said to have remarked that “the business of America is business.”
Unsurprisingly, U.S. corporate interests play a major role in American foreign policy.
Out of the top 10 international arms producers, eight are American. The arms industry spends millions
lobbying Congress and state legislatures, and it defends its turf with an efficiency and vigor that
its products don’t always emulate on the battlefield. The F-35 fighter-bomber, for example — the
most expensive weapons system in U.S. history — will cost $1.5 trillion and doesn’t work. It’s over
budget, dangerous to fly, and riddled with defects. And yet few lawmakers dare challenge the powerful
corporations who have shoved this lemon down our throats.
Corporate interests are woven into the fabric of long-term U.S. strategic interests and goals.
Both combine to try to control energy supplies, command strategic choke points through which oil
and gas supplies transit, and ensure access to markets.
Many of these goals can be achieved with standard diplomacy or economic pressure, but the
U.S. always reserves the right to use military force. The 1979 “Carter
Doctrine” — a document that mirrors the 1823 Monroe Doctrine about American interests in Latin
America — put that strategy in blunt terms vis-à-vis the Middle East:
“An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded
as an assault on the vital interests of the United States, and such an assault will be repelled
by any means necessary, including military force.”
It’s no less true in East Asia. The U.S. will certainly engage in peaceful economic competition
with China. But if push comes to shove, the Third, Fifth, and Seventh fleets will back up the interests
of Washington and its allies — Japan, the Philippines, South Korea, and Australia.
Trying to change the course of American foreign policy is not only essential for reducing international
tensions. It’s critically important to shift the enormous wealth we expend in war and weapons toward
alleviating growing inequality and social crises at home.
As long as competition for markets and accumulation of capital characterize modern society, nations
will vie for spheres of influence, and antagonistic interests will be a fundamental feature of international
relations. Chauvinist reaction to incursions real or imagined — and the impulse to respond by military
means — is characteristic to some degree of every significant nation-state. Yet the more that some
governments, including our own, become subordinate to oligarchic control, the greater is the peril.
Finding the Common Interest
These, however, are not the only factors that will shape the future.
There is nothing inevitable that rules out a significant change of direction, even if the demise
or transformation of a capitalistic system of greed and exploitation is not at hand. The potential
for change, especially in U.S. foreign policy, resides in how social movements here and abroad respond
to the undeniable reality of: 1) the chronic failure, massive costs, and danger inherent in “American
Century” exceptionalism; and 2) the urgency of international efforts to respond to climate change.
There is, as well, the necessity to respond to health and natural disasters aggravated by poverty,
to rising messianic violence, and above all, to prevent a descent into war. This includes not only
the danger of a clash between the major nuclear powers, but between regional powers. A nuclear exchange
between Pakistan and India, for example, would affect the whole world.
Without underestimating the self-interest of forces that thrive on gambling with the future of
humanity, historic experience and current reality elevate a powerful common interest in peace and
survival. The need to change course is not something that can be recognized on only one side of an
ideological divide. Nor does that recognition depend on national, ethnic, or religious identity.
Rather, it demands acknowledging the enormous cost of plunging ahead as everything falls apart around
us.
After the latest U.S. midterm elections, the political outlook is certainly bleak. But experience
shows that elections, important as they are, are not necessarily indicators of when and how significant
change can come about in matters of policy. On issues of civil rights and social equality, advances
have occurred because a dedicated and persistent minority movement helped change public opinion in
a way the political establishment could not defy.
The Vietnam War, for example, came to an end, despite the stubbornness of Democratic and Republican
administrations, when a stalemate on the battlefield and growing international and domestic opposition
could no longer be denied. Significant changes can come about even as the basic character of society
is retained. Massive resistance and rejection of colonialism caused the British Empire and other
colonial powers to adjust to a new reality after World War II. McCarthyism was eventually defeated
in the United States. President Nixon was forced to resign. The use of landmines and cluster bombs
has been greatly restricted because of the opposition of a small band of activists whose initial
efforts were labeled “quixotic.”
There are diverse and growing political currents in our country that see the folly and danger
of the course we’re on. Many Republicans, Democrats, independents, and libertarians — and much of
the public — are beginning to say “enough” to war and military intervention all over the globe, and
the folly of basing foreign policy on dividing countries into “friend or foe.”
This is not to be Pollyannaish about anti-war sentiment, or how quickly people can be stampeded
into supporting the use of force. In early 2014, some 57 percent of Americans
agreed
that “over-reliance on military force creates more hatred leading to increased terrorism.” Only 37
percent believed military force was the way to go. But once the hysteria around the Islamic State
began, those
numbers shifted to pretty much an even split: 47 percent supported the use of military force,
46 percent opposed it.
It will always be necessary in each new crisis to counter those who mislead and browbeat the public
into acceptance of another military intervention. But in spite of the current hysterics about ISIS,
disillusionment in war as an answer is probably greater now among Americans and worldwide than it
has ever been. That sentiment may prove strong enough to produce a shift away from perpetual war,
a shift toward some modesty and common-sense realism in U.S. foreign policy.
Making Space for the Unexpected
Given that there is a need for a new approach, how can American foreign policy be changed?
Foremost, there is the need for a real debate on the thrust of a U.S. foreign policy that chooses
negotiation, diplomacy, and international cooperation over the use of force.
However, as we approach another presidential election, there is as yet no strong voice among the
candidates to challenge U.S. foreign policy. Fear and questionable political calculation keep even
most progressive politicians from daring to dissent as the crisis of foreign policy lurches further
into perpetual militarism and war. That silence of political acquiescence has to be broken.
Nor is it a matter of concern only on the left. There are many Americans — right, left, or neither
— who sense the futility of the course we’re on. These voices have to be represented or the election
process will be even more of a sham than we’ve recently experienced.
One can’t predict just what initiatives may take hold, but the recent U.S.-China climate agreement
suggests that necessity can override significant obstacles. That accord is an important step forward,
although a limited bilateral pact
cannot
substitute for an essential international climate treaty. There is a glimmer of hope also in
the U.S.-Russian joint action that
removed
chemical weapons from Syria, and in negotiations with Iran, which continue despite
fierce opposition
from U.S. hawks and the Israeli government. More recently, there is Obama’s bold move — long overdue
— to restore diplomatic
relations with Cuba. Despite shifts in political fortunes, the unexpected can happen if there
is a need and strong enough pressure to create an opportunity.
We do not claim to have ready-made solutions to the worsening crisis in international relations.
We are certain that there is much we’ve missed or underestimated. But if readers agree that U.S.
foreign policy has a national and global impact, and that it is not carried out in the interests
of the majority of the world’s people, including our own, then we ask you to join this conversation.
If we are to expand the ability of the people to influence foreign policy, we need to defend democracy,
and encourage dissent and alternative ideas. The threats to the world and to ourselves are so great
that finding common ground trumps any particular interest. We also know that we won’t all agree with
each other, and we believe that is as it should be. There are multiple paths to the future. No coalition
around changing foreign policy will be successful if it tells people to conform to any one pattern
of political action.
So how does the call for changing course translate to something politically viable, and how do
we consider the problem of power?
The power to make significant changes in policy ranges from the persistence of peace activists
to the potential influence of the general public. In some circumstances, it becomes possible — as
well as necessary — to make significant changes in the power structure itself.
Greece comes to mind. Greek left organizations came together to form Syriza, the political party
that was successfully elected to power
on a platform of ending austerity. Spain’s anti-austerity Podemos Party — now the number-two party
in the country — came out of massive demonstrations in 2011 and was organized from the grassroots
up. We do not argue one approach over the over, but the experiences in both countries demonstrate
that there are multiple paths to generating change.
Certainly progressives and leftists grapple with the problems of power. But progress on issues,
particularly in matters like war and peace and climate change, shouldn’t be conceived of as dependent
on first achieving general solutions to the problems of society, however desirable.
... ... ...
Conn Hallinan is a journalist and a columnist for Foreign Policy In Focus. His writings
appear online at Dispatches
From the Edge. Leon Wofsy is a retired biology professor and long-time political activist. His
comments on current affairs appear online at
Leon’s OpEd.
Henry Kissinger has said, not unreasonably, that we are in "the foothills" of a cold war
with China. And Vladimir Putin, who nurses an unassuageable grudge about the way the Cold
War ended, seems uninterested in Russia reconciling itself to a role as a normal nation
without gratuitous resorts to mendacity. It is, therefore, well to notice how, day by day,
in all of the globe's time zones, civilized nations are, in word and deed, taking small but
cumulatively consequential measures that serve deterrence.
If arrogance were a deadly disease, George Will would be dead.
George Will has been an
ass clown since I first had the displeasure of watching him in the 1970s. Age has not brought
an ounce of wisdom. Nevertheless, this total lack of self reflection and ability to project
American sins on others is unfortunately not unique to our man George. It seems a habit
throughout the entire US political spectrum. The ability to view, for example, the invasion
of Iraq as perfectly normal behavior, while viewing any resistance to US/Israeli dominance as
beyond the pale is the character of the decaying American superpower. George Will is but one
manifestation of it. It was once infuriating. But now it's simply like listening to the
ravings of a schizophrenic. More pathetic than anything else.
What do you expect from George Swill? He is a pathetic, disoriented refugee from his home in
Victorian England, when barbarism never set for a single instant on the British Empire.
There's a way to get the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth from the
mainstream news media. Just look at their propaganda and ask yourself, "Why do they want me
to believe this particular lie?" If you can figure that you, you will have the truth.
Well, you know, the white man's burden...
The funny thing is that they seriously consider themselves a "superior race", while behaving
like wild barbarians.
Such opinions/articles of "Western civilized people" cause only a condescending smile,
nothing more. So let's let George Will entertain us.
I find it pretty bizzarre how western media obsessively try to portray the Defender
incident as a some sort of "victory" for "civilized nations".
What exactly is the victory here? The fact that Russia only resorted to warning fire and
didn't blow up the ship?
Decades of propaganda masquerading as news has led most "educated" Americans into a Matrix
of false narratives. Should you dare mention election fraud or question the safety of COVID
vaccines in the presences of anyone who considers the NY Times and Wash Post as the "papers
of record", they will be happy to inform you that you are "captured" by false news. Dialogue
with these true believers has become almost impossible. We are the indispensable, civilized
nation, don't you understand basic facts?
My sister, who is truly a good-hearted person, unfortunately keeps CNN and MSNBC on most
of the day in her small apartment, and lives for The NY Times, which she pours over,
especially the weekend edition. She knows that Putin is evil and Russia is a bad place to
live, etc etc. I got rid of my TV ten years ago and started looking elsewhere for my
information. I live in a rural area of a Red state, she lives in Manhattan. We have to stick
to topics that revolve around museums, gardening, and food.
This is precisely the type of arrogance that has led to US leaving Afghanistan with their
pants down - having spent untold Trillions of dollars and having nothing to show for it. And
soon, leaving Iraq and Syria too. It reminds me of how the US left Vietnam and Cambodia.
The 'White' establishment in Washington and across the US military industrial complex, has
an air of superiority and always seem to feel that they can subjugate via throwing money at
people! This in effect turns everyone they deal with into Whores (yes, prostitutes). Its
fundamentally humiliating, and sews the seeds of corruption - both economic and moral. Then,
they are shocked that there's a back clash!
The Taliban succeeded not with arms - but by projecting a completely different narrative
of "Morality (i.e. non-corruption), honor, and even intermingled nationalism with their
narrative". They projected a story that suggested that new Afghan daughters would not turn
into Britney Spears or porn stars.
And, believe it or not, the Chinese see themselves as having been fundamentally humiliated
by the West and couch their efforts as a struggle for their civilization (its not ideological
or even economic) - they are fighting for honor and respect.
Western Civilization (and western elite) on the left and right are fundamentally
materialistic. They worship money, and simply don't understand it when others don't. When
they talk about superiority, they are basically saying the worship of money rules supreme.
You sort of become dignified in the west if you have a lot of wealth. They want to turn the
whole world into prostitutes. Policy and laws are driven by material considerations.
Now, I am not saying that spirituality or religion is good; and in fact, the Chinese are
not driven by religious zeal (they are, on the whole, non-religious). What I am saying is
that - no matter how its expressed - be it through religion, through culture, through
rhetoric, etc. - all this back clash is really a struggle for respect, 'honor' and thus a
push back to Western Arrogance, and the humiliation it has caused. The West simply doesn't
understand that there are societies - especially in the east, that value honor over other
things.
When Trump calls other people losers, he is basically saying he is richer, they are
poorer. In his mind, winning, is all about money. When people write articles about the
superiority of a civilization - they are implicitly putting other people down. That's not
just arrogant, its rude and disrespectful. Its basically like a teenager judging their
parents. How dare a newly formed nation (the US), judge or differentiate or even pretend to
be superior to the Chinese, Persians etc.?
Our foreign policy (and rhetoric) in the West has to completely change. We have to be
really careful, because, (honestly), it won't be very long before these other (inferior)
civilizations actually take over global leadership. Then how will we want to be treated?
Don't for a second think these folks can't build great gadgets that go to Mars! Oh, did China
just do that? Does Iran have a space program? Did they just make their own vaccines? Once
they start trading among themselves without using the USD greenback, we are finished.
Some notable recent achievements of 'civilised' nations include:
-Illegal invasion and bombing of multiple non-aggressor nations
-Overthrowing of democratically elected Governments
-Support of extremist and oppressive regimes
-Sponsoring of terrorism, including weapon sales to ISIS
-Corruption of once trusted institutions like the UN and OPCW
...when all she did was offer slight resistance to Western aggression? The key event was
the August 2013 false-flag
gas attack and massacre of hostages in Ghouta in Damascus.
What really angered the West was the Russian
fleet in the Mediterranean that prevented the NATO attack on Syria. (You will not find a
single word of this in Western media.) This is why Crimea needed to be captured by the West.
As revenge and deterrence against the Russian agression.
The standoff was first described by Israel Shamir in
October 2013:
"The most dramatic event of September 2013 was the high-noon stand-off near the Levantine
shore, with five US destroyers pointing their Tomahawks towards Damascus and facing them -
the Russian flotilla of eleven ships led by the carrier-killer Missile Cruiser Moskva and
supported by Chinese warships.
Apparently, two missiles were launched towards the Syrian coast, and both failed to
reach their destination."
A longer description was published by Australianvoice in
2015:
"So why didn't the US and France attack Syria? It seems obvious that the Russians and
Chinese simply explained that an attack on Syria by US and French forces would be met by a
Russian/Chinese attack on US and French warships. Obama wisely decided not to start WW III
in September 2013." Can Russia Block Regime Change In Syria Again?
In my own comments from 2013 I tried to understand the mission of the Russian fleet. This
is what I believed Putin's orders to the fleet were:
To sink any NATO ship involved in illegal aggression against Syria.
You have the authority to use tactical nuclear weapons in self-defense.
I am sure NATO admirals understood the situation the same way. I am not sure of the
American leadership in Washington.
Insulting language aside, the narrative they are trying to create is that there is an
anti-Russia, anti-China trend developing and that those sitting on the fence would be wise to
join the bandwagon.
This will be particularly effective on the majority of folks who barely scan headlines and
skim articles. Falun Gong/CIA mouthpiece Epoch Times is on board with this, based on recent
headlines.
Wikipedia has a list of reliable
and unreliable sources . "Reliable" are those sources that are under the direct control
of the US regime. Any degree of independence from the regime makes the source "unreliable."
WaPo and NYT are at the top of the list of reliable sources.
This is the diametric opposite of how Wikispooks defines reliability.
Reliability of sources is directly proportional to their distance *from* power.
At A Closer Look on Syria (ACLOS) we only trust primary sources.
Makes me remember the cornerstone work from former Argentine president DF Sarmiento, who
dealt with "Civilization or Barbarism" in his book "Facundo". Of course, his position was the
"civilized" one.
Those "civilized" succeeded in creating a country submitted to the British rule, selling
cheap crops and getting expensive manufactures, with a privileged minority living lavishly
and a great majority, in misery.
Also, their "civilized" methods to impose their project was the bloody "Police War"
This article is fundamentally about propaganda and "soft power".
Soft power in foreign policy is usually defined when other countries defer to your
judgement without threat of punishment or promise of gain.
In other words, if other countries support your country without a "carrot or stick"
approach, you have soft power.
For years, the US simply assumed other "civilized" of the western world would dutifully
follow along in US footsteps due to unshakeable trust in America's moral authority. The
western media played a crucial role by suppressing news regarding any atrocities the western
powers committed and amplifying any perceived threats or aggressions from "enemies".
Now, with the age of the internet, western audiences can read news from all over the world
and that has been a catastrophe for western powers. We can now see real-time debunking of
propaganda.
In the past, the British would have easily passed off the recent destroyer provocation as
pure Russian aggression and could expect outrage from all western aligned countries. The EU
and US populations could have easily been whipped into a frenzy and DEMANDED reprisals
against Russia if not outright war. Something similar to a "Gulf of Tonkin" moment.
But, that did not happen. People all over the world now know NOTHING from the US or
British press is to be trusted. People also now know NATO routinely try to stir up trouble
and provoke Russia.
So, Americans and even British citizens displayed no widespread outrage because they
simply did not believe their own government's and compliant media's side of the story.
US and British "soft power" are long gone. No one trusts them. No one wants to follow them
into anymore disastrous wars of aggression.
Western media still do not understand this and cannot figure out why so many refuse
western vaccines or support the newest color revolutions.
They cast Germany as a victim or potential victim of foreign aggressors, as a peace-loving
nation forced to take up arms to protect its populace or defend European civilization
against Communism.
I remember a tv history program that had interviews with German soldiers.
I recall one who had seen/participated in going from village to village in the USSR
hanging local communist leaders. He said they had been taught that by doing this
they were "protecting civilization".
Arrogance is not a deadly disease or even a hindrance for mainstream presstitutes; it is a
job qualification, making them all the more manipulable and manipulative. And so, as with
Michael Gordon, Judith Miller, Brett Stephens and David Sanger (essentially all of them
pulling double duty for the apartheid state), people will die from their propaganda, but they
will advance.
Name a leader with moral courage and integrity among suzerainties (private plantations).
Nations without integrity and filled with Orcs (individuals without conscience), can't be
civilized. They're EVIL vassals of Saruman & Sauron, manipulated by Wormtongue.
"The true equation is 'democracy' = government by world financiers."
– J.R.R. Tolkien
Henry Kissinger, in his interview with Chatham House stated, "the United States is in a
CRISIS of confidence... America has committed great moral wrongs." What are U$A's core
values?
According to a CFR member :
"How lucky I am that my mother studied with JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis and WH Auden and that
she passed on to me a command of language that permits me to "tell the story" of the world
economy in plain English. She would have been delighted that I managed to show that the evil
Gollum from Tolkien's tales lives above the doorway in the Oval Office, which he
certainly does. I saw him there myself. He may have found a new perch over at The Federal
Reserve Bank as well."
– Excerpt From, Signals: The Breakdown of the Social Contract and the Rise of
Geopolitics by Dr Philippa Malmgren
The Financial Empire has ran out of LUCK. "In God We Trust"
I thought moral superiority was the official position of NATO. The explicit intent is to
weaponize human rights and democracy . So it is not merely the mundane 'our group is better'
or the somewhat nostalgic western form of moral superiority, it's weaponized moral
superiority.
George Will looking good I tellya. Anybody know who does his embalming?
Doesn't Will's article reek of Nazi propaganda against the Russians as a mongrel Asiatic
uncivilized people? Of course to attack the Chinese as uncivilized? China uncivilized? 5,000
years of continuous culture? The Russians and Chinese must join up with civilization.
Unfortunately at least in the West race is only about skin color. It certainly wasn't the
case with the original Nazis. Will's piece is blatantly racist out of the tradition of
Nazism.
Oxford and the Ivy League. The training grounds for the Anglo American deep state and the
cheerleaders of the empire. Expect nothing more of these deeply under educated sudo
intellectuals.
Plenty of people who work for the MIC and in various policy circles/think tanks have
plenty "to show for it" where all these wars are concerned. Many billions of dollars were
siphoned upwards and outwards into the bank accounts and expensive homes of the managerial
and executive classes (even the hazard pay folks who actually went to the places "we" were
bombing) not just at Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Booz Allen, etc. but plenty of lesser known
"socioeconomically disadvantaged" Small Businesses (proper noun in this context) companies
who utilized the services of an army of consultants to glom onto the war machine. In most
cases of the larger firms, Wall Street handled the IPOs long ago, and these companies have
entire (much less profitable) divisions dedicated to state and local governments to
"diversify" their business portfolios in case the people finally get sick of war. But that
rarely happens in any real sense because the corporate establishment "legacy media" makes
sure that there's always an uncivilized country to bomb or threaten....and that means the
"defense" department needs loads of services, weapons, and process improvement consultants
all the time. War is a racket; always has been, always will be.
Unfortunately, it seems that truly large segments of the population in the developed
western countries and especially in the Anglo-sphere believe the propaganda emanating from
the imperial mouthpieces. The US citizenry is a case study in manipulating the public.
Indeed, the DNC liberals are effectively the vanguard of the pro-war movement, espouse
racist Rusophobia and conitnue Trump's hostility to China. The so-cslled conservatives follow
their own tradition of imperial mobilization behind the Washington regime: Chin,Latin
America, the very people who berated the 'Deep State' now paise its subversive activities
against the targeted left-wing governments.
As for the moribund left - it would be better described as leftovers - it is often taken
for a ride as long as the imperial messaging is promoted by the liberal media. The excuses
for imperialism are a constant for many of them (even as they call themselves
anti-imperialists) and the beleaguered voicesfor the truth are far and few. The latter often
face silencing campaigns not just from the establishment hacks, but from their own supposed
ideological comrades, who are, of course, in truth nothing of the sort.
All in all, despite the consistent record of manipulative propaganda and utter criminality
the imperial regime never loses the support of the critical masss of the citizenry.
All in all, despite the consistent record of manipulative propaganda and utter criminality
the imperial regime never loses the support of the critical masss of the citizenry.
Maybe 50% of the people here bother to vote, in IMPORTANT elections. Can be a lot less if
the election is not important. The only people still engaged politically here at all are the
people with good jobs. The American people have given up. And there are a lot of angry people
running around, with guns. Claiming the citizenry here support the government is imperial
propaganda. Why do you think they like mercenaries and proxies so much? And this is all in
great contrast to when I was young 50 years ago.
On June 6, 1968, Robert Kennedy had just won the California Democratic presidential primary,
when he was shot dead, five years after his brother. David Talbot has shown in his book
Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years , published in 2007 by Simon &
Schuster, that Robert had never believed in the conclusion of the Warren Commission Report, and
that, had he succeeded in becoming the next American president, he would have done his utmost
to set up a new investigation. Whether he would have been able to get to the bottom of it is
another matter. But it is a reasonable assumption that the forces that had killed John were the
same that killed Robert on his way to reclaim the White House. After all, as Laurence Leamer
writes in Sons of Camelot : "Bobby had been the president's alter ego and protector. . .
. He had loved his brother so intensely and served him so well that within the administration
it was hard to tell where one man ended and the other began."
[1] After 1963, Robert was still his brother's continuation. He was the heir and the
avenger.
That is why I have argued before -- and I repeat in
my new book -- that the ultimate key to the JFK whodunit is in RFK's assassination, which
has a very clear, unmistakable Israeli signature. RFK's assassination is a masterwork of false
flag operation, designed by a supremely intelligent, Machiavellian, and organized cabal, the
same that orchestrated one year earlier, with Johnson's complicity, the attempted false flag
attack on the USS Liberty (watch the new groundbreaking four-part documentary film
Sacrificing
Liberty ).
What is truly extraordinary, and demonstrates an unmatched expertise in the industry of
lies, is that the conspirators succeeded to get rid of Robert Kennedy while at the same time
blaming the assassination on their enemies -- the Palestinians -- and thereby giving themselves
both an alibi and a victim's role: through RFK, Israel was the target, they claim.
Sirhan Sirhan, the "virulent anti-Semite"
Just hours after Robert's assassination, the press informed the American people, not only of
the identity of the assassin, but also of his motive, and even of his detailed biography.
[2] Twenty-four-year-old Sirhan Bishara Sirhan was born in Jordan, and had moved to the
United States when his family was expelled from West Jerusalem in 1948. After the shooting, a
newspaper clipping was found in Sirhan's pocket, quoting Robert's following statement: "The
United States should without delay sell Israel the 50 Phantom jets she has so long been
promised." Handwritten notes by Sirhan found in a notebook at his home confirmed that his act
had been premeditated and motivated by his hatred of Israel.
That became the mainstream storyline from day one. Jerry Cohen of the Los Angeles
Times wrote a front page article, saying that Sirhan is "described by acquaintances as a
'virulent' anti-Israeli" (Cohen changed that into "virulent anti-Semite" in an article for the
Salt Lake Tribune ), and that: "Investigation and disclosures from persons who knew him
best revealed [him] as a young man with a supreme hatred for the state of Israel." Cohen infers
that "Senator Kennedy . . . became a personification of that hatred because of his recent
pro-Israeli statements." Cohen further revealed that, about three weeks before the shooting,
Sirhan wrote "a memo to himself" that said, "Kennedy must be assassinated before June 5, 1968,"
that is, Cohen notes, "the first anniversary of the six-day war in which Israel humiliated
three Arab neighbors, Egypt, Syria and Jordan."
[3]
After September 11, 2001, the tragedy of Robert's assassination was rewritten and installed
into the Neocon mythology of the "Clash of Civilizations" and the "War on Terror." A book
entitled The Forgotten Terrorist, by Mel Ayton (2007), purports to present "a wealth of
evidence about [Sirhan's] fanatical Palestinian nationalism," and to demonstrate that
"[Sirhan's] politically motivated act was a forerunner of present-day terrorism."
In 2008, on the occasion of the 40 th anniversary of Bobby's murder, Sasha
Issenberg of the Boston Globe recalled that the death of Robert Kennedy was "a first
taste of Mideast terror." He quotes Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz saying: "It was in some
ways the beginning of Islamic terrorism in America. It was the first shot. A lot of us didn't
recognize it at the time."
[4] That Sirhan was from a Christian family was lost on Dershowitz.
Rabbi Jeffrey Salkin took care to mention it
in TheForward , only to add that Islamic fanaticism ran in his veins anyway:
"But what he shared with his Muslim cousins -- the perpetrators of September 11 -- was a
visceral, irrational hatred of Israel. It drove him to murder a man whom some still believe
might have been the greatest hope of an earlier generation. . . . Sirhan hated Kennedy because
he had supported Israel."
And so, the Forward insists: "One cannot help but note the parallel between [Robert]
Kennedy's assassination and the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. In both tragic cases,
Arab fanaticism reared its ugly head on American soil, irrevocably changing the course of
events in this country."
[5] And the lesson: "In remembering Bobby Kennedy, let us remember not just what he lived
for, but also what he died for -- namely, the precious nature of the American-Israeli
relationship."
[6] In other words: let's propagate the narrative, for it is good for Israel.
On the fiftieth anniversary, the narrative was
well rehearsed : Robert got killed because he was "pro-Israel".
[7] Therefore his murder was a crime against Israel.
For anyone familiar with the history of the Kennedy clan, there is something odd in the
notion that the assassination of Robert Kennedy was a crime against Israel. Robert had not
been, in his brother's government, a pro-Israel Attorney General. He had infuriated Zionist
leaders by supporting an investigation led by Senator William Fulbright and the Committee on
Foreign Relations, aimed at registering the American Zionist Council as a "foreign agent",
which would had considerably hindered its efficiency.
[8]
In 1968, Robert Kennedy had not suddenly turned pro-Israel. He was simply trying to attract
Jewish votes, as everyone else. Robert's statement in an Oregon synagogue, mentioned in the May
27 Pasadena Independent Star-News article found in Sirhan's pocket, didn't exceed the
minimal requirements. Its author David Lawrence had, in another article entitled "Paradoxical
Bob," underlined how little credit should be given to such electoral promises: "Presidential
candidates are out to get votes and some of them do not realize their own inconsistencies."
[9] In fact, as Arthur Krock has noted, the supposed motive for RFK's murder is itself
paradoxical: "If this motive was his position that the United States was committed to preserve
Israel as a nation, his statement was made with more moderation than that of other important
political persons who said the same thing."
[10]
All things considered, there is no ground for believing that Robert Kennedy would have been,
as president of the U.S.A., particularly Israel-friendly.
Did Sirhan kill Robert Kennedy?
If we trust official statements and mainstream news, the assassination of Robert Kennedy is
an open-and-shut case. The identity of the killer suffers no discussion, since he was arrested
on the spot, with the smoking gun in his hand.
In reality, ballistic and forensic evidence shows that none of Sirhan's bullets hit Kennedy.
According to the autopsy report of Chief Medical Examiner-Coroner Thomas Noguchi, Robert
Kennedy was hit by three bullets, while a fourth went through his coat. All these bullets were
shot from behind Kennedy: two of them under his right armpit, following an upward angle, and
the third, the fatal bullet, behind his right ear, at point blank range. Dr. Noguchi reaffirms
his conclusion in his memoirs, Coroner (1983) . Yet the sworn testimonies of
twelve witnesses established that Robert had never turned his back on Sirhan and that Sirhan
was five to six feet away from his target when he fired. Moreover, Sirhan was physically
overpowered by Karl Uecker after his second shot, and, although he continued pressing the
trigger mechanically, his revolver was not directed towards Kennedy anymore.
By tallying all the bullet impacts in the pantry, and those that wounded five people around
Kennedy, it has been estimated that at least twelve bullets were fired, while Sirhan's gun
carried only eight. On April 23, 2011, attorneys William Pepper and Laurie Dusek gathered all
this evidence and more in a 58-page file submitted to the Court of California, with a request
that Sirhan's case be reopened. They pointed out major irregularities in the 1968 trial,
notably that the serial number of Sirhan's pistol did not match the serial number of the pistol
by which were test fired the bullets compared with those extracted from Robert's brain.
[11] Pepper also provided a computer analysis of audio recordings during the shooting, made
by engineer Philip Van Praag in 2008, which confirms that two guns are heard.
[12] Paul Schrade, a Kennedy confidant who was behind Robert during the shooting and
received one of Sirhan's bullets, has long believed there was a second shooter. He
testified at Sirhan's 2016 parole hearing, and told him: "the evidence clearly shows that
you were not the gunman who shot Robert Kennedy."
[13] Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his sister Kathleen have joined Schrade and
support the call for a reinvestigation of the assassination.
[14]
The presence of a second shooter was mentioned by several witnesses and reported on the same
day by a few news outlets. There are strong suspicions that Robert's real assassin was Thane
Eugene Cesar, a security guard hired by the Hotel Ambassador, property of Zionist businessman
Myer Schine. Cesar was stuck behind Kennedy at the moment of the shooting, and some people saw
him draw his pistol. One of them, Don Schulman, positively saw him fire.
[15] Incredibly, Cesar's weapon was never examined, and he was never interrogated, even
though he did not conceal his hatred for the Kennedys.
[16]
Even if we assumed that Sirhan did kill Robert Kennedy, a second aspect of the case raises
question: Sirhan seemed to be in a state of trance during the shooting, and of disorientation
just after. More importantly, Sirhan has always claimed that he has never had any recollection
of his act. Fifty years after the facts, he continues to declare: "I was told by my attorney
that I shot and killed Senator Robert F. Kennedy and that to deny this would be completely
futile, [but] I had and continue to have no memory of the shooting of Senator Kennedy." He also
claims to have no memory of "many things and incidents which took place in the weeks leading up
to the shooting."
[17] Some repetitive lines written of a notebook found in Sirhan's bedroom, which Sirhan
recognizes as his own handwriting but does not remember writing, are reminiscent of automatic
writing: there is a whole page of fifteen repetitions of "RFK must die, Robert F. Kennedy
must be assassinated, assassinated, assassinated, assassinated," suddenly turning to "I
have never heard please pay to the order of of of of of."
[18]
Psychiatric expertise, including lie-detector tests, has confirmed that Sirhan's amnesia is
not faked. Therefore, experts in hypnosis and mental manipulation believe that Sirhan has been
submitted to hypnotic programming. "It was obvious that he had been programmed to kill Robert
Kennedy and programmed to forget that he had been programmed," stated Dr. Robert Blair.
[19] In 2008, Harvard University professor Daniel Brown, a noted expert in hypnosis and
trauma memory loss, interviewed Sirhan for a total of 60 hours, and concluded that Sirhan, whom
he classified among "high hypnotizables," acted involuntarily under the effect of hypnotic
suggestion: "His firing of the gun was neither under his voluntary control, nor done with
conscious knowledge, but is likely a product of automatic hypnotic behavior and coercive
control." During his sessions with Dr. Brown, Sirhan could remember having been accompanied by
an attractive woman, before suddenly finding himself at a shooting range with a weapon he did
not know. According to Brown's report, "Mr. Sirhan did not go with the intent to shoot Senator
Kennedy, but did respond to a specific hypnotic cue given to him by that woman to enter 'range
mode,' during which Mr. Sirhan automatically and involuntarily responded with a 'flashback'
that he was shooting at a firing range at circle targets." Later, attorney William Pepper found
an entry in the police file that showed that, just days before the assassination, Sirhan had
visited a firing range, accompanied by an unknown instructor.
[20]
Mossad, Mental control, and false-flag terrorism
We know that in the 1960s, American military agencies were experimenting on mental control.
Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, son of Hungarian Jews, directed the infamous CIA MKUltra project, which,
among other things, were to answer questions such as: "Can a person under hypnosis be forced to
commit murder?" according to a declassified document dated May 1951.
[21] As Larry Romanoff has pointed out , MKUltra was an
overwhelmingly Jewish enterprise, with people like Dr. John Gittinger, Harris Isbell, James
Keehner, Lauretta Bender, Albert Kligman, Eugene Saenger, Chester Southam, Robert V. Lashbrook,
Harold Abramson, Charles Geschickter, and Ray Treichler.
[22]
In his book Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel's Targeted
Assassinations (2018), Israeli journalist Ronen Bergman has revealed that, in May 1968, the
month preceding Robert Kennedy's assassination, the Israeli Military Intelligence (AMAN) was
planning to assassinate Yasser Arafat by hypnotically programming a Palestinian. The idea was
proposed by a Navy psychologist named Binyamin Shalit, who claimed that, "if he was given a
Palestinian prisoner -- one of the thousands in Israeli jails -- with the right
characteristics, he could brainwash and hypnotize him into becoming a programmed killer. He
would then be sent across the Jordan, join the Fatah there, and, when the opportunity arose, do
away with Arafat." The proposal was approved. Shalit selected a 28-year-old Palestinian from
Bethlehem, whom he deemed easily suggestionnable. The operation failed, but it proves that, in
1968 precisely, Israel was practicing a method of assassination identical to the one used
against Robert Kennedy.
[23]
Moreover, manipulating Palestinians to make them commit crimes, or committing crimes and
blaming Palestinians for them, bears the signature of Israel. According to former Mossad agent,
Victor Ostrovsky, in 1991 elements of the Mossad were plotting an attempt on the life of
President George H. W. Bush. Bush had resisted an unprecedented pro-Israel lobbying campaign
that called for $10 billion to help Jews immigrate from the former Soviet Union to Israel,
complaining in a televised press conference on September 12 that "one thousand Jewish lobbyists
are on Capitol Hill against little old me."
[24] Worse, there was his policy of pressuring Israel to the negotiating table at the
Madrid Conference by freezing their loan guarantees. Israel had had enough of him. The plan was
to leak words to the Spanish police that terrorists were on their way, kill Bush and, in the
midst of the confusion, release three Palestinians captured earlier and kill them on the spot.
[25]
It is well known that Israel has a long history and a grand expertise in false flag
terrorism. A report of the U.S. Army School for Advanced Military Studies (SAMS), quoted by the
Washington
Times on September 10, 2001, described the Israeli Intelligence agency as: "Wildcard.
Ruthless and cunning. Has capability to target U.S. forces and make it look like a
Palestinian/Arab act."
[26] That statement was made public on the day before 9/11.
The pattern dates from before the creation of the Jewish State, with the bombing of the King
David Hotel, headquarter of the British authorities in Jerusalem, in the morning of July 22,
1946. Six terrorists of the Irgun dressed as Arabs brought 225 kg of explosives hidden in milk
churns into the building. When a British officer became suspicious and gunshot ensued, the
Irgun members fled after igniting the explosives. The explosion killed 91 people, mostly
British, but also 15 Jews.
The strategy was repeated in Egypt during the summer of 1954, with Operation Susannah. The
goal was to compromise the British's withdrawal from the Suez Canal, demanded by Colonel Abdul
Gamal Nasser with support from President Eisenhower. Egyptian Jews trained in Israel bombed
several British targets, then put the blame on the Muslim Brotherhood. The accidental
detonation of an explosive device allowed the exposure of the conspiracy, which led to the
"Lavon Affair", from the name of the Defense Minister who was held responsible.
There are more of the same stories in Gordon Thomas's Gideon's Spies: the Secret History
of the Mossad (2009).
[27] By definition, false-flagged Arab terrorism is only exposed when it fails, and we
cannot know how many such operations have been set up by the Mossad. But from the revelations
of Ronen Bergman in Rise and Kill First, Sirhan sure looks like a typical made-in-Mossad
Palestinian patsy.
There are still, of course, unanswered questions, such as: How did Sirhan find himself in
the kitchen pantry of the Ambassador Hotel at midnight on June 6, 1968, with a pistol in his
pocket? Sirhan himself declared it was by accident, or by mistake, but then he doesn't remember
much of that evening. Another question is: Why did Kennedy, after finishing his speech, exit
the ballroom through the kitchen pantry, instead of walking through the crowd of his
supporters, as he usually did? To this question, there is an answer: according to a campaign
volunteer present at the scene and interviewed by Michael Piper, it was Frank Mankiewicz who
insisted that Robert go this way.
[28] Now, isn't it awkward that Mankiewicz had started his career in public relations "as
civil rights director for the western branch of the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith," as
he mentions in his autobiography.
[29] (The ADL, remember, was founded in 1913 by the B'nai B'rith to defend the
convicted child rapist and murderer Leo Frank .)
[30] In 1991, Mankiewicz handled publicity for Oliver Stone's film JFK .
Bobby Kennedy was killed by a single shot to the back of his head. The shot was fired at a
range close enough to singe the hair on the back of his neck.
Sirhan was of course standing IN FRONT of Bobby, firing BLANKS. The reason for firing
those blanks was to cover up the sound of the OTHER gun.
The ONLY person who could have fired such a shot was one of the FBI "bodyguards".
Bobby was murdered because he had a good chance to be elected Prez o' US. And if Bobby
EVER became Prez, he would have re-opened the investigation of the murder of his brother,
JFK. So RFK was killed by the same people who killed JFK.
Although NO ONE talks about the "plane crash" that killed JFK, Jr., that was also an
assassination for the purpose of ensuring that NO ONE EVER made an honest investigation of
the murder of JFK, Sr.
My understanding is that Maheu was the conduit between the CIA and the Mafia
in at least the JFK assassination. Mafia includes both Italian and Jewish/Israeli groupings.
But the order and primary coverup was from the CIA (or acting former CIA). You don't usually
hear about military generals, but they had to be in on it too. LBJ was clearly not a
mastermind though must have been involved to a degree. Same with Hoover.
I was a college student in LA at the time of the RFK assassination,
not that it makes me an expert, but it made me aware then and concerned and
investigating ever since.
I have read all of Laurent Guyenot's works and most of it was powerfully eye opening,
especially about the history and "purpose" of the Old Testament Bible. I am grateful to him
for this work.
He seems to me on less solid ground when it comes to who can control things in the US.
m.k.ultra/cia/mossad cannot be separated. creating unwitting assassins is a major part of
why the program was created. sirhan sirhan's handler "the girl in the polka dot dress" was
seen by 25 witnesses but dismissed as a figment of the imagination of an overwrought campaign
worker who claimed she heard her say "we shot him, we shot him". the camel faced woman of the
joe/camel administration refused to allow sirhan sirhans parole even though bobby kennedy jr.
requested it. guess that handlers have to have to watch out for each other.
And he attacked the Israel A-bomb program and wanted to end the Federal Reserve, that
financial yeshiva. They were lining up to top him, then his brother.
I agree that it's a mystery he is still alive. Other than it would need someone in the DOJ
with the determination to see that he was carefully assassinated. You know there was a recent
attempt on his life, don't you? Right around the time Epstein died. As long as Barr was head
of DOJ I was extremely concerned about Sirhan.
Of course, originally they expected him to be executed and the California had the audacity
to eliminate the death penalty.
To understand Robert Kennedy's support for Israel, we have to enter the mental world of
post World War Two. Robert wanted Israel' s nuclear programme ended because the Cold War
required a bi polar between nuclear powers, US and USSR. A nuclear Israel would make Israel a
super power as has indeed happened. Otherwise Robert, a war vet, loved Israel as an epitome
of frontier America. Also Israel's social programme as contrasted with America's predatory
capitalism greatly appealed. Robert's visit to Israel and deprecation of the Arabs fitted
that era. The Arabs and Islam were not popular as backward peoples except for some Arabian
Nights nostalgia. I have read a book that Iranian agents were also involved in his
assassination. This was the era of the Shah who was covertly allied to Israel
I once read of a security expert who had been around during the 60's who believed RFK's
assassination was almost inevitable as RFK routinely disregarded security protocols regarding
his exposure to large crowds.
That others were involved is a given and the 'system' has protected them for decades,
just as it protected the assassins who killed JFK.
Since a president Robert would have been determined to get to who killed his brother, it
is practically a foregone conclusion they were both killed by the exact same crew.
Sirhan Sirhan wasn't a Muslim he was Christian Greek Orthodox variety. In 1948 When he was
4 years old armed Israeli troops cane to his family's 10 room house and gave them one hour to
pack up what they could carry and get out. His father was fired from his city of Jerusalem
water department job as soon as Zionists bribed blackmailed and threatened United Nations
delegates to declare Israel a nation.
The family went to live in a Greek Orthodox pilgrim hostel. 7 kids mostly boys youngest 4
how'd you like that. One of the boys was killed in a Zionist terrorist bombing at a crowded
rush hour intersection about a year before. The Church refugee program brought the Sirhan to
Pasadena Ca. They bought a house and settled in.
Having been kicked out of his home at age 4 by armed troops Sirhan was righteously
resentful of the Zionists. He grew more anti Zionist at Pasadena community college because of
pro Israel Jewish professors.
Kennedy ran in the California primary. He promised arms and support to Israel. So Sirhan
shot him.
Robert Kennedy was as anti White as his brothers. He lobbied for the 1965 and 1968
unlimited non White immigration and affirmative action bills. He marched at the head of MLK's
funeral, practically shoving the widow out of the way for photo opportunities. He also
massively supported the Hispanic cause and was one of the first anti White Democrats to lobby
for Hispanics to get affirmative action benefits. Although that didn't happen until 1970. By
the time JFK was elected, Robert was a hard core anti White.
He's dead. Sirhan Sirhan confessed to shooting Kennedy because of Kennedy's support for
Israel and the Israelis who stole his family's home.
If you're pro Israel and love the American politicians who give more to Israel than to the
American taxpayers, you would have lived Kennedy at the time.
If you're anti White and pro black and brown you should mourn Kennedy as an anti White,
pro black and brown pro black on White crime and pro affirmative action discrimination
against White Americans dead martyr.
If you are pro White and against affirmative action discrimination against White Americans
you are a misinformed ignoramus if you mourn Robert Kennedy.
If you are pro Palestinian and anti the Israeli property grabbers you are a misinformed
ignoramus if you mourn the pro Israel Kennedy.
All 3 Kennedy brothers were anti White. March 1961 less than 2 months after he became
President JFK issued executive order 10925 I believe it was mandating that all federal
agencies SHALL take affirmative action to hire blacks over Whites.
Ted lobbied for the 64 civil rights for all but Whites act, the 65 unlimited non White
immigration act. The 68 affirmative action act and every anti White law and judicial
appointment in his long career.
And Robert disdained Whites and slobbered over MLK Jesse Jackson Cesear Chavez and every
black and brown activist in existence. And he was a vociferous supporter of Israel and the
anti White Jewish organizations in America.
Someone shot him. Sirhan Sirhan claimed he shot Robert Kennedy. Robert was as much an
enemy of Whites and Palestinians as Johnson was.
Had Robert Kennedy become President he would have been as anti White as Nixon or
worse.
Sirhan Sirhan had an excellent motive; revenge. The Jews didn't. Robert Kennedy was a
puppet of jews both in domestic ( anti White) and foreign affairs.
Robert Kennedy was pro school de segregation and bussing , pro affirmative action, pro
Hispanic pro black soft on black crime and anti White.
Any White man who mourns the Kennedys is anti White negro lover and Zionist.
Israel does indeed have a history of unmasked false-flag operations: the Lavon Affair, the
attack on the Liberty, their proven awareness beforehand that the 9/11 attacks were going to
happen, where, and how.
So unless we're to assume they're invariably incompetent, it follows that there must also
have been false-flag operations that were never uncovered. Like, say, the assassination of
Robert Kennedy. But this is hardly proof that this was in fact what happened. It merely
demonstrates that it's not inconceivable.
Then there's Sirhan Sirhan himself. What was he like? Had he had similar episodes in the
past: committing violent acts and having no memory of them? Was he deranged in some way that
suggested such behavior was possible? We know, for example, that the young Adolf Hitler was
transported when he saw Wagner's Rienzi -- the story of a man who rises to become the
savior of his people. Obviously, this prefigured Hitler's later career. Was there anything in
Sirhan's life that prefigured an assassination attempt?
Was there other evidence that Sirhan was worked up about Kennedy and Israel? Surely there
should have been more than reading a clipping that Kennedy was for an arms sale. What was he
saying to people? What had he been reading? Was Sirhan even aware of who was running for
President?
If Israel was in fact behind the killing, how were they sure they would benefit? Was it,
in June, clear that if Kennedy lived, he would get the nomination and beat the Republican
nominee, and that if he did, that he would be dramatically worse for Israel than the apparent
alternatives at that point?
Sirhan doesn't remember anything (because of his hypnosis), therefore he is not
dangerous.
The Jews made a mistake by choosing a Christian Palestinian as their "typical
fanatical Muslim terrorist", but they hoped the gullible American public would not notice,
which of course was the case.
' On February 10, 2016, at his 15th parole hearing, he [Sirhan] was denied
parole again. One of Sirhan's shooting victims from that night, Paul Schrade, aged 91 at the
time of the hearing, testified in his support, stating his belief that a second shooter
killed Kennedy and that Sirhan was intended to be a distraction from the real gunman by an
unknown conspiracy '
Kennedy had been shot three times. One bullet was fired at a range of perhaps 1 inch (3
cm) and entered behind his right ear, dispersing fragments throughout his brain.[41] The
other two entered at the rear of his right armpit; one exited from his chest and the other
lodged in the back of his neck.[4
Wiki
Five other people were wounded by the "blanks" that SS fired after RFK had been shot.
Five other people were wounded: William Weisel of ABC News, Paul Schrade of the United
Automobile Workers union, Democratic Party activist Elizabeth Evans, Ira Goldstein of the
Continental News Service, and Kennedy campaign volunteer Irwin Stroll.[24]
@Triteleia Laxa g seems to point in a certain obvious direction, but Bergman's recent
book also includes a major new revelation. At exactly the same moment that Sirhan was being
wrestled to the floor of the Ambassador Hotel ballroom in Los Angeles, another young
Palestinian was undergoing intensive rounds of hypnotic conditioning at the hands of Mossad
in Israel, being programmed to assassinate PLO leader Yasir Arafat; and although that effort
ultimately failed, such a coincidence seems to stretch the bounds of plausibility.
Had a sinister grouping discovered how to create hypnotised assassins a half a century ago,
there is no interest of theirs that they would not be able to achieve by now.
Yet the group you accuse has not even been able to deal with the Palestinians. In the
meantime, countless peace settlements, successful ethnic cleansings, large scale massacres, and
more, have taken place around the world, ignored and/or forgiven.
My impression is that you paint the Israelis/"deep state neocons"/Jews as Saturday morning
cartoon villains. They are all powerful, utterly ruthless, constantly scheming, and yet somehow
never achieve more than the most ordinary of their aims. This is too funny.
And that made them bold enough to pin 9/11 on a bunch of Islamic terrorists. The system is
superb; when discussing 9/11 in 2011 with one of my American cousins, he looked at me like I
had come from Mars when I asked him about the the third building (7) falling down without being
hit. His answer was " what building you are talking about". That got me curious and I
researched to find out if my cousin's reaction was a rarity and to my big surprise it turned
out that up to that date only 25% of the American public were aware of the fall of three
buildings all in all. Free US media indeed!
@Godfree Roberts After all, whatever else you might say of him, long-reigning Erdogan, is
the poster boy for leader hubris yet he's still there.
Though if you make too many powerful enemies eventually someone is going to take a shot.
Think of it as the coalition of the willing.
We all crave and grow comfortable with the coutours of what did and didn't happen as if was
ordained. Thus Kerry made fun of W. Bush for sitting in that elementary school classroom on
live TV as if, regardless of what he (W) and those protecting him knew, he was safe as a
kitten.
I've mentioned the Vincennes/Lockerbie as elucidating in terms of the functionality of the
resolve. With the US and Iran, the two indisputable moving parties, conspiring to make Libya
the dirty dog.
Richard Nixon, via Henry Kissinger, was very good for the Israelis. Would mystery votes in
Illinois and Texas happen for Bobby like they did for John? We will never know. Joe Kennedy was
a ruthless, power driven man, which is why the Kennedy mystique has always been both amusing
and a mystery. Perhaps Joe could have pulled another presidential election off for another
son.
According to campaign workers at the scene, RFK wanted to exit the ballroom through the
crowd, but his press secretary, Frank Mankiewicz insisted that he leave through the pantry,
having arranged a midnight press briefing in a nearby room. Kennedy was told that he needed to
hold the briefing so that he could appear on the morning news the following day. Oddly,
Mankiewicz later denied having played this role, contradicting the accounts of Kennedy's staff.
As Guyenot points out, Mankiewicz was formerly a publicist for the Zionist ADL. Collins Piper,
by the way, goes off on a tangent suggesting that Iran somehow had a hand in the RFK
assassination.
Another loose end is of course the girl with the polka dot dress. Who was she? where did she
go? Here is one authors novel assessment: http://www.surfs-up.net/Downloads/RFK.pdf If
this writer is correct, the ADL also played a role in the silencing of the polka dot dress
girl.
@Triteleia Laxa ts. "Confused" was an oft repeated adjective to describe the victims state
of mind.
Vice made a documentary years ago that can easily be found on the internet, "worlds scariest
drug" was titled if memory serves me. Here's also some safety advice for travelers to Colombia,
proof of how common this is:
Now could someone be ordered to kill someone else while high on scopolamine? I have read of
no reports. But one thing is clear, a hypnotized like state – in which victims blindly
follow directions from strangers – can be induced chemically.
US Troops Die for World Domination, Not Freedom May 31, 2021 Save
On Memorial Day, Caitlin Johnstone says it's important to block the propaganda that helps
feed a steady supply of teenagers into the imperial war machine.
Airman placing U.S. flags at military graves, May 27. (Arlington National Cemetery,
Flickr)
V ice President Kamala Harris spent
the weekend under fire from Republicans, which of course means that Kamala Harris spent the
weekend being criticized for the most silly, vapid reason you could possibly criticize Kamala
Harris for.
Apparently the likely future president tweeted "Enjoy the long weekend,"
a reference to the Memorial Day holiday on Monday, instead of gushing about fallen troops and
sacrifice.
That's it, that's the whole entire story. That silly, irrelevant offense by one of the
sleaziest
people in the single most corrupt and murderous government on earth is the whole entire
basis for histrionic headlines from conservative media outlets like this :
Harris, the born politician, was quick to course correct.
"Throughout our history our service men and women have risked everything to defend our
freedoms and our country," the veep tweeted . "As we prepare to honor
them on Memorial Day, we remember their service and their sacrifice."
Which is of course complete bullshit. It has been generations since any member of the U.S.
military could be said to have served or sacrificed defending America or its freedoms, and that
has been the case throughout almost the entirety of its history. If you are reading this it is
statistically unlikely that you are of an age where any U.S. military personnel died for any
other reason than corporate profit and global domination, and if you are it's almost certain
you weren't old enough to have had mature thoughts about it at the time.
Whenever you criticize the U.S. war machine online within earshot of anyone who's
sufficiently propagandized, you will invariably be lectured about the second World War and how
we'd all be speaking German or Japanese without the brave men who died for our freedom. This
makes my point for me: the fact that apologists for U.S. imperialism always need to reach all
the way back through history to the cusp of living memory to find even one single example of
the American military being used for purposes that weren't evil proves that it most certainly
is evil.
But this is one of the main reasons there are so very many movies and history documentaries
made about World War II: it's an opportunity to portray U.S. servicemen bravely fighting and
dying for a noble cause without having to bend the truth beyond recognition. The other major
reason is that focusing on the second World War allows members of the U.S. empire to escape
into a time when the Big Bad Guy on the world stage was someone else.
From the end of World War II to the fall of the U.S.S.R., the U.S. military was used to
smash the spread of communism and secure geostrategic interests toward the ultimate end of
engineering the collapse of the Soviet Union. After this was accomplished in 1991, U.S. foreign
policy officially shifted to preserving a unipolar world order by preventing the rise of any
other superpower which could rival its might.
"In a broad new policy statement that is in its final drafting stage, the Defense
Department asserts that America's political and military mission in the post-cold-war era
will be to insure that no rival superpower is allowed to emerge in Western Europe, Asia or
the territory of the former Soviet Union.
A 46-page document that has been circulating at the highest levels of the Pentagon for
weeks, and which Defense Secretary Dick Cheney expects to release later this month, states
that part of the American mission will be 'convincing potential competitors that they need
not aspire to a greater role or pursue a more aggressive posture to protect their legitimate
interests.'
The classified document makes the case for a world dominated by one superpower whose
position can be perpetuated by constructive behavior and sufficient military might to deter
any nation or group of nations from challenging American primacy."
This is all U.S. troops have been fighting and dying for since the Berlin Wall came down.
Not "freedom", not "democracy" and certainly not the American people. Just continual
uncontested domination of this planet at all cost: domination of its resources, its trade
routes, its seas, its air, and its humans, no matter how many lives need to risked and snuffed
out in order to achieve it. The U.S. has
killed millions and
displaced tens of millions just since the turn of this century in the reckless pursuit of
that goal.
And, as Smedley Butler spelled out 86 years ago in his still-relevant book War is a Racket , U.S.
military personnel have been dying for profit.
Nothing gets the gears of industry turning like war, and nothing better creates chaotic Wild
West environments of shock and confusion during which more wealth
and power can be grabbed. War profiteers pour immense resources into lobbying ,
think tanks and campaign donations to manipulate and bribe policy makers into making decisions
which promote war and military expansionism,
with astounding success . This is all entirely legal.
It's important to spread awareness that this is all U.S. troops have been dying for, because
the fairy tale that they fight for freedom and for their countrymen is a major propaganda
narrative used in military recruitment. While poverty plays a
significant role in driving up enlistments as predatory recruiters target poor and middle
class youth promising them a future in the nation with the worst income
inequality in the industrialized world, the fact that the aggressively propagandized
glorification of military "service" makes it a more esteemed career path than working at a
restaurant or a grocery store means people are more likely to enlist.
Without all that propaganda deceiving people into believing that military work is something
virtuous, military service would be the most shameful job anyone could possibly have; other
stigmatized jobs like sex work would be regarded as far more noble. You'd be less reluctant to
tell your extended family over Christmas that you're a janitor at a seedy massage parlor than
that you've enlisted in the U.S. military, because instead of congratulating and praising you,
your Uncle Murray would look at you and say, "So you're gonna be killing kids for crude
oil?"
And that's exactly how it should be. Continuing to uphold the lie that U.S. troops fight and
die for a good cause is helping to ensure a steady supply of teenagers to feed into the gears
of the imperial war machine. Stop feeding into the lie that the war machine is worth killing
and being killed for. Not out of disrespect for the dead, but out of reverence for the
living.
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those
of Consortium News .
Em , June 1, 2021 at 09:52
Instead of annually memorializing those dead youth, who were, in one way or the other,
coerced to go off to foreign lands to kill or be killed, by other youth, in the name of a
piece of dead symbolic cloth, wouldn't it be a better idea to honor them, while alive in the
prime of living (the world over) by affording them the means to learn, leading by example, to
discover for themselves – how to think critically as to what the real options are,
collectively as well as individually, for survival and thriving.
CNfan , June 1, 2021 at 04:06
"Global domination" for the benefit of a predatory financial oligarchy.
Peter Loeb , June 1, 2021 at 09:11
Read William Hartung's "Prophets of War " to understand the dynamics.
Thank you all for speaking your truth in this dystopian human universe so apparently
lacking human reason and understanding. As is so wisely introduced and recognized herein, the
murderous depravity of the "Wolfwitz Doctrine" being and remaining the public policy
formulation of our national governance, both foreign and domestic, is a fact that every U.S.
citizen should consider and understand on this Memorial Day.
As Usual,
EA
Realist , May 31, 2021 at 17:27
Well stated, perfectly logical again on this subject as always, Caitlin. You out the
warmongers for their game to fleece the public and rape the world all so a handful of already
fat, lazyass but enormously wealthy and influential people can acquire, without the slightest
bit of shame, yet more, more and more of everything there is to be had. You and General
Butler.
Will this message get through, this time? Maybe the billionth time is the charm, eh? Can
the scales suddenly fall from the eyes of the 330 million Americans who will then demand an
immediate end to the madness? On the merits, it's the only conclusion that might realise any
actual justice for our country and the rest of the world upon whose throat it keeps a knee
firmly planted.
Sorry, nothing of the sort shall ever happen, not as long as the entire mercenary mass
media obeys its corporate ownership and speaks nothing but false narratives every minute of
every day. Not as long as the educational system is really nothing more than a propaganda
indoctrination experience for every child born in the glorious USA! Not as long as every
politician occupying any given office is just a bought and paid for tool of the Matrix with
great talents for convincing the masses that 2 + 2 = 3, or 5, or whatever is convenient at
the time to benefit the ledgers of their plutocrat masters.
What better illustrates the reality of my last assertion than the occupancy of the White
House by Sleepy/Creepy Joe Biden who, through age alone, has been reduced to nothing more
than a sack of unresponsive meat firmly trussed up with ropes and pulleys that his handlers
pull this way or that to create an animatronic effect apparently perfectly convincing to the
majority of the American public? Or so they say, based upon some putative election
results.
Truly, thanks for the effort, Caitlin. I do appreciate that some have a grasp on the
truth. I look forward to its recapitulation by yourself and many others to no effect on every
Memorial Day in the USA. It would be unrealistic of me to say otherwise.
Rael Nidess, M.D. , May 31, 2021 at 12:54
Kudos for being one of a very few to mention the central driving ethic behind U.S. foreign
policy since the demise of the USSR: The Wolfowitz Doctrine. As central today as it was when
first published.
Biden backed down on Nordstream 2 and, at The Davos Crowd's insistence, he will back down on
the JCPOA.
Davos needs cheap energy into Europe. That's ultimately what the JCPOA was all about. The
basic framework for the deal is still there. While the U.S. will kick and scream a bit about
sanctions relief, Iran will be back into the oil market and make it possible for Europe to once
again invest in oil/gas projects in Iran.
Now
that Benjamin Netanyahu is no longer going to be leading Israel, the probability of
breakthrough is much much higher than last week. The Likudniks in Congress and the Senate just
lost their raison d'etre. The loss of face for Israel in Bibi's latest attempt to bludgeon Gaza
to retain power backfired completely.
U.S. policy towards Israel is shifting rapidly as the younger generations, Gen-X and
Millennials, simply don't have the same allegiance to Israel that the Baby Boomers and Silent
generations did. It is part of a geopolitical ethos which is outdated.
So, with some deal over Iran's nuclear capability in the near future, Europe will then get
gas pipelines from Iran through Turkey as well as gain better access to the North South
Transport Corridor which is now unofficially part of China's Belt and Road Initiative.
Russia, now that Nordstream 2 is nearly done, will not balk at this. In fact, they'll
welcome it. It forms the basis for a broader, sustainable peace arrangement in the Middle East.
What's lost is the Zionist program for Greater Israel and continued sowing dissent between
exhausted participants.
But the big geopolitical win for Davos, they think, is that by returning Iran to the oil
markets it will cut down on Russia's dominance there. That the only reason Russia is the price
setter in oil today, as the producer of the marginal barrel, is because of Trump taking Iranian
and Venezuelan oil off the market.
With these negotiations ongoing and likely to conclude soon I'm sure the thinking is that
this will help save Iranian moderates in the upcoming elections. But with Iran's Guardian
Council paving the way for Ebrahim Raeisi to win the election that is also very unlikely(
H/T to Pepe
Escobar's latest on this ) :
So Raeisi now seems to be nearly a done deal: a relatively faceless bureaucrat without the
profile of an IRGC hardliner, well known for his anti-corruption fight and care about the
poor and downtrodden. On foreign policy, the crucial fact is that he will arguably follow
crucial IRGC dictates.
Raeisi is already spinning that he "negotiated quietly" to secure the qualification of
more candidates, "to make the election scene more competitive and participatory". The problem
is no candidate has the power to sway the opaque decisions of the 12-member Guardian Council,
composed exclusively by clerics: only Ayatollah Khamenei.
I have no doubt that Iran is, as Escobar suggests, in post-JCPOA mode now and will walk away
from Geneva without a deal if need be, but Davos will cut the deal it needs to bring the oil
and gas into Europe while still blaming the U.S. for Iran's nuclear ambitions because they've
gotten what they actually wanted, Netanyahu out of power.
Seeing the tenor of these negotiations and the return of Obama to the White House, the
Saudis saw the writing on the wall immediately and began peace talks with Iran in Baghdad put
off for a year because of Trump's killing Soleimani.
The Saudis are fighting for their lives now as the Shia Crescent forms and China holds the
House of Saud's future in its hands.
Syria will be restored to the Arab League and all that 'peace' work by Trump will be undone
quickly. Because none of it was actually peaceful in its implementation. Netanyahu is gone,
Israel just got
defeated by Hamas and now the rest of the story can unfold, put on hold by four years of
Jared Kushner's idiocy and U.S. neoconservatives feeding Trump bad information about the
situation.
The Saker put together two lists in his latest article (linked above) which puts the entire
situation into perspective:
The Goals:
Bring down a strong secular Arab state along with its political structure, armed forces,
and security services.
Create total chaos and horror in Syria justifying the creation of a "security zone" by
Israel not only in the Golan but further north.
Trigger a civil war in Lebanon by unleashing the Takfiri crazies against Hezbollah.
Let the Takfiris and Hezbollah bleed each other to death, then create a "security zone,"
but this time in Lebanon.
Prevent the creation of a Shia axis Iran-Iraq-Syria-Lebanon.
Break up Syria along ethnic and religious lines.
Create a Kurdistan which could then be used against Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran.
Make it possible for Israel to become the uncontested power broker in the Middle-East
and force the KSA, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, and all others to have to go to Israel for any gas
or oil pipeline project.
Gradually isolate, threaten, subvert, and eventually attack Iran with a broad regional
coalition of forces.
Eliminate all centers of Shia power in the Middle-East.
The Outcomes:
The Syrian state has survived, and its armed and security forces are now far more
capable than they were before the war started (remember how they almost lost the war
initially? The Syrians bounced back while learning some very hard lessons. By all reports,
they improved tremendously, while at critical moments Iran and Hezbollah were literally
"plugging holes" in the Syrian frontlines and "extinguishing fires" on local flashpoints.
Now the Syrians are doing a very good job of liberating large chunks of their country,
including every single city in Syria).
Not only is Syria stronger, but the Iranians and Hezbollah are all over the country now,
which is driving the Israelis into a state of panic and rage.
Lebanon is rock solid; even the latest Saudi attempt to kidnap Hariri is backfiring.
(2021 update: in spite of the explosion in Beirut, Hezbollah is still in charge)
Syria will remain unitary, and Kurdistan is not happening. Millions of displaced
refugees are returning home.
Israel and the US look like total idiots and, even worse, as losers with no credibility
left.
The net result is everyone in the region who were aggressors are now suing for peace. This
is why I expect some kind of deal that returns Iran to the global economy. There's no way for
Germany's shiny new trade deal with China to work without this.
Trump's hard line against Iran was always a mistake, even if Iran's nuclear ambitions are
real. But with the Open Skies treaty now a dead letter the U.S. has real logistical problems in
the region and they only multiply if Erdogan in Turkey finally chooses a side and gives up his
Neo-Ottoman ambitions, now very likely.
But when it comes to economics, as always, Davos has this all backwards vis a vis oil. They
still think they can use the JCPOA to drive a wedge between Iran and Russia over oil. They
still think Putin only cares about oil and gas sales abroad. It's clear they don't listen to
him because the policy never seems to change.
So, to Davos, if they bring 2.5 to 3 million barrels per day from Iran back online and oil
prices drop, this forces Russia to back down militarily and diplomatically in Eastern Europe.
With a free-floated ruble the Russians don't care now that they are mostly self-sufficient in
food and raw material production.
None of that will come to pass. Putin is shifting the Russian economy away from oil and gas
with an announced ambitious domestic spending plan ahead of this fall's State Duma elections.
Lower or even stable prices will accelerate those plans as capital no longer finds its best
return in that sector.
This carrot to Iran and stick to Russia approach of Brussels/Davos is childish and it will
only get worse when the Greens come to power in Germany at the end of the year. Unless the
German elections end in a stalemate which is unforeseen, the CDU will grand coalition as the
junior partner to the Greens, just as Davos wants it.
Don't miss the significance of the policy bifurcation either when it comes to oil. The Biden
administration is trying to make energy as expensive as possible in the U.S. -- no Keystone
Pipeline, Whitmer trying to close down Enbridges's Line 5 from Canada into Michigan, etc. --
while Europe gets Nordstream 2 from Russia and new, cheap supplies from Iran.
This is what had Trump so hopping mad when he was President. This is part of why he hated
the JCPOA. Israel and the EastMed pipeline was what should have been the U.S. policy in his
mind.
Now, those dreams are dead and the sell out of the U.S. to Davos is in full swing.
Seriously, Biden/Obama are going to continue on this path of undermining U.S. energy production
until they are thrown out of office, either by the overwhelming shame of the election fraud
lawsuits which recall Senators from Arizona, Georgia and Michigan, the mid-term elections which
brings a more pro-Trump GOP to power or by military force. That last bit I put a very low
probability on.
Bottom line, for now global oil prices have likely peaked no matter what drivel comes out of
John Kerry's mouth.
The Brent/WTI spread will likely collapse and go negative for the first time in years as
Iran's full oil production comes online over the next two years while U.S. production falls.
We'll see rising oil prices in the U.S. while global supply rises, some of which China is
getting at a steep discount from who? Iran.
Meanwhile Russia continues to hold the EU to account on everything while unmasking the not
just the latest Bellingcat/MI6/State Dept. nonsense in Belarus surrounding the arrest of Roman
Petrosovich, but also filling the void diplomatically left by a confused and incompetent U.S.
policy in the Middle East.
If I'm the Bennett in Israel, the first phone call I make after taking office is to no one
other than Putin, who now holds the reins over Iran, Hezbollah and a very battle-hardened and
angry Syria who just re-elected Assad because he navigated the assault on the country with no
lack of geopolitical skill.
Because it is clear that Biden/Obama, on behalf of Davos , have left Israel out to twist in
the wind surrounded by those who wish it gone. We'll see if they get their wish. I think the
win here is clear and the days of U.S. adventurism in the Middle East are numbered.
The oil wars aren't over, by any stretch of the imagination, but the outcome of the main
battles have decisively shifted who determines what battles are fought next.
About time that fcking Project for the New American Century(aka Greater Israel from the
Nile to the Euphates) got derailed .
Fcking useless neocon sh its gutted and bankrupted the U.S. for their fcked up ziosh it
garbage.
Sheldon Adelson belongs in the Aus witz Mengele suite in hell. He was the biggest
cheerleader for the last 20 years of this hell on earth that was created in the middle
east.
Woodenman 2 hours ago remove link
Trump got it *** backwards , he should have defunded Israel and fast tracked Iran to be
a nuclear power, Iran is an oil producer, what does Israel do for us?
Would I care that Israel cannot sleep at night knowing Iran has the bomb, not at
all.
AGuy 37 minutes ago
" what does Israel do for us? "
Keeps the ME unstable so the US has the excuse to keep a lot of military resources in
the ME, in the name of being the worlds policemen. Plus the US needs to protect the Petro
dollar, but at this point I don't think that will matter soon considering the amount of
money printing & spending the US is doing at the momement.
wellwaddyaknow 2 hours ago (Edited)
Soleimani was very good at destroying ISIS trash.
And which countries backed ISIS?
JR Wirth 2 hours ago
NeoCon tears as the world attempts to move on from deranged foreign policy. Will the US
throw a fit and drag the world into war? Let's call Tel Aviv and find out.
Der Steppenwolf 2 hours ago remove link
Iran already sells huge amounts of oil to China and likely many others, there just isn't
going to be a significant increase in Iranian oil hitting the market as a result of any
deal. Moreover, this relatively small increase will occur over time. Even if Iran
eventually increases production the 2.5-3 million bpd the author cites, world consumption
in 2021 is forecast to increase about 6 million bpd over 2020. Considering these facts any
changes in Iranian oil production should do little to affect the overall
price.
lay_arrow
AGuy 42 minutes ago
" Iran has huge potential to increase production "
I doubt that very much. Iran has very old oil fields which have been producing since the
1920s. Global Oil production peaked in 2018 & is now in permanent decline. Iran could
increase NatGas production, but Oil production is in permanent decline.
Apollo 32 minutes ago
God, I hope half of the above comes true. Bibi needs to be court martialed and Israel
needs to go back into smaller and more peaceful version of itself (if that is even
possible) . USA can just bugger off home, and try to deal with transgendered army,
president's dementia and critical race theory nonsense first.
What the world needs is less wars, less central bankers screwing the game and less
stealing of other people's natural resources. Instead it just more plain old hard work,
honest trading and no bs diplomacy.
dead hobo 1 hour ago (Edited) remove link
Amazingly perfect analysis.
Israel will survive. I wish them well.
So many US wars are oil based. Lies abound to cover this up. Neocon Economics turns
every war opportunity into a profit center. No Profit = No War potential. Whenever you see
a Neocon pumping a war somewhere, you need to look for who will make scads of money from
it.
Trump isn't an angel. He's the guy who destroyed Establishment Republicanism. That begat
populism. I detested him working his book when he pumped QE and ZIRP. I considered it a
temporary price to pay to remove Establishment Republicans from the world. Yes, the US also
needed a good Front Door with a lock. He also did good there. Trump playing the Imperialism
Game clumsily worked in the favor of Peaceful Coexistence. Probably by mistake. Ok by me if
everyone else declares peace anyway.
The US economy can still outpower anyone even if it is forced to play fair.
This brings us to the Deep State. Who exactly are they?
Are they Neocons who want war profits by making it look like others are the war mongers?
Are they anti-peace as long as it doesn't start a full blown war - providing a profit can
be made from it by their oligarch bosses?
Or is the Deep State the Davos oriented oligarchs who wants the 99% to whistle while
they work to support uncountable billions of dollars flowing into the asset piles of the
1%?
Why did the Deep State allow the BLM / Antifa / Democrat cabal take over? Are they
stupid? Or did they think Covid-19 along with these freaks would work in their favor
somehow?
Is the Deep State only common ordinary Imperialism? Is it only oil, and natural gas and
who gets to control the markets? Ukraine has a lot of natural resources. Is that a
coincidence?
What is it about Peaceful Coexistence that makes them go crazy?
What does The Deep State really want?
AGuy 49 minutes ago
" The only difference will be the wars will be fought for lithium and other rare metals.
"
Unlikely Oil will remain the King for causing wars. electricification of transportation
is doomed to fail. First average Americans cannot afford EV. heck they are struggling with
cheaper ICE vehicles. Auto loan duration have ballooned & most Americans are rolling
over debt from their older vehicle when they buy a new one. Second the grid is struggling.
Most of the older power plants are getting replaced by NatGas fired plants & at some
point we are going to see NatGas prices shoot up. Much of the US grid was built in the
1930s & 1940s and will need trillions just to maintain it and replace equipment &
power lines operating beyond their expected operating lifetime.
The US economy is slowly collapsing: Mountains of debt, demographics, dumbed down
education, and worthless degrees for Millennials, failing infrastructure (ie I-40 bridge).
We are on borrowed time.
AJAX-2 1 hour ago remove link
The fly in the ointment is that the banksters desperately need higher oil prices to prop
up their derivative portfolios. As a result, they are at odds with the Davos Crowd and
their desire for cheap/plentiful oil for Europe. We shall see who prevails.
AGuy 1 hour ago
" The fly in the ointment is that the banksters desperately need higher oil prices to
prop up their derivative portfolios. "
Nope:
Higher oil prices leads to higher defaults, which is likely to trigger derivative
losses. Banker shady deals come under congressional\agency scrutiny usually ending with
billion dollar fines, and bad press. A lot of banks probably will get nationalized when the
next banking crisis happens & all those bankers will lose out on the financial scams
they play.
European Monarchist 46 minutes ago remove link
Currently:
The Syrian state has survived, and its armed and security forces are now far more
capable than they were before the war started (remember how they almost lost the war
initially? The Syrians bounced back while learning some very hard lessons. By all
reports, they improved tremendously, while at critical moments Iran and Hezbollah
were literally "plugging holes" in the Syrian frontlines and "extinguishing fires" on
local flashpoints. Now the Syrians are doing a very good job of liberating large
chunks of their country, including every single city in Syria).
Not only is Syria stronger, but the Iranians and Hezbollah are all over the
country now, which is driving the Israelis into a state of panic and rage.
Lebanon is rock solid; even the latest Saudi attempt to kidnap Hariri is
backfiring. (2021 update: in spite of the explosion in Beirut, Hezbollah is still in
charge)
Syria will remain unitary, and Kurdistan is not happening. Millions of displaced
refugees are returning home.
Israel and the US look like total idiots and, even worse, as losers with no
credibility left.
The net result is everyone in the region who were aggressors are now suing for peace.
This is why I expect some kind of deal that returns Iran to the global economy. There's
no way for Germany's shiny new trade deal with China to work without this.
ut218 2 hours ago remove link
Solarcycle 25 had a bad start. By 2028 people will realize we are in a period of global
cooling. oil prices will soar
Itinerant 18 minutes ago
There won't be major investments of European majors in Iran's oil industry.
For Iran, Western partners have proved too fickle
For Western corporations, the risk is too great for long term investment.
China will be reaping most of the investement opportunities.
2 play_arrow
Marrubio 1 hour ago
.... the NWO & Davos idiotards ,they have been trying since March for oil not to
exceed the $ 70 barrier and they are not succeeding. Week after week they try to lower the
price, frightening with the covid, the production of Iran or whatever, and the following
week the oil rises again. The only thing left for them is mass slaughter ... but now people
know that what is going to kill them is in the "vaccine". Of course they will be stupid
enough to do it; if they have shown anything it is that they are profoundly idiots. They
will not be successful in getting cheap oil, simply because PeakOil is running since 2018
and since then oil production decreases at 5% per year: -5% per year, I am telling to the
NWO deep idiotards.
European Monarchist 55 minutes ago (Edited)
Interesting, but it remains to be seen where this is going, short term and long.
Now
that Benjamin Netanyahu is no longer going to be leading Israel, the probability of
breakthrough is much much higher than last week. The Likudniks in Congress and the Senate
just lost their raison d'etre. The loss of face for Israel in Bibi's latest attempt to
bludgeon Gaza to retain power backfired completely.
U.S. policy towards Israel is shifting rapidly as the younger generations, Gen-X and
Millennials, simply don't have the same allegiance to Israel that the Baby Boomers and
Silent generations did. It is part of a geopolitical ethos which is outdated.
So, with some deal over Iran's nuclear capability in the near future, Europe will then
get gas pipelines from Iran through Turkey as well as gain better access to the North
South Transport Corridor which is now unofficially part of China's Belt and Road
Initiative.
Russia, now that Nordstream 2 is nearly done, will not balk at this. In fact, they'll
welcome it. It forms the basis for a broader, sustainable peace arrangement in the Middle
East. What's lost is the Zionist program for Greater Israel and continued sowing dissent
between exhausted participants.
play_arrow
Einstein101 55 minutes ago remove link
Now the Syrians are doing a very good job of liberating large chunks of their
country, including every single city in Syria).
Really? Hell no! The Syrians and the mighty Russians and the Hezbollah for many months
now are not able to overcome lowly terrorists militia in northern Syria's Idlib. Plus,
the Israelis has been launching hundreds of airstrikes over Syria while the Russian made
Syrian anti air defense can do nothing about it.
The author is a very fuzzy way comes to the idea that neoliberalism is in essence a Trotskyism for the rich and that
neoliberals want to use strong state to enforce the type of markets they want from above. That included free movement of
capital goods and people across national borders. All this talk about "small government" is just a smoke screen for naive fools.
"... The second explanation was that neoliberal globalization made a small number of people very rich, and it was in the interest of those people to promote a self-serving ideology using their substantial means by funding think tanks and academic departments, lobbying congress, fighting what the Heritage Foundation calls "the war of ideas." Neoliberalism, then, was a restoration of class power after the odd, anomalous interval of the mid-century welfare state. ..."
"... Here one is free to choose but only within a limited range of options left after responding to the global forces of the market. ..."
"... Neoliberal globalism can be thought of in its own terms as a negative theology, contending that the world economy is sublime and ineffable with a small number of people having special insight and ability to craft institutions that will, as I put it, encase the sublime world economy. ..."
"... One of the big goals of my book is to show neoliberalism is one form of regulation among many rather than the big Other of regulation as such. ..."
"... I build here on the work of other historians and show how the demands in the United Nations by African, Asian, and Latin American nations for things like the Permanent Sovereignty over Natural Resources, i.e. the right to nationalize foreign-owned companies, often dismissed as merely rhetorical, were actually existentially frightening to global businesspeople. ..."
"... They drafted neoliberal intellectuals to do things like craft agreements that gave foreign corporations more rights than domestic actors and tried to figure out how to lock in what I call the "human right of capital flight" into binding international codes. I show how we can see the development of the WTO as largely a response to the fear of a planned -- and equal -- planet that many saw in the aspirations of the decolonizing world. ..."
"... The neoliberal insight of the 1930s was that the market would not take care of itself: what Wilhelm Röpke called a market police was an ongoing need in a world where people, whether out of atavistic drives or admirable humanitarian motives, kept trying to make the earth a more equal and just place. ..."
"... The culmination of these processes by the 1990s is a world economy that is less like a laissez-faire marketplace and more like a fortress, as ever more of the world's resources and ideas are regulated through transnational legal instruments. ..."
Hardcover: 400 pages
Publisher: Harvard University Press (March 16, 2018)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0674979524
ISBN-13: 978-0674979529
From introduction
...The second explanation was that neoliberal globalization made a small number of people very rich, and it was in the interest of
those people to promote a self-serving ideology using their substantial means by funding think tanks and academic departments, lobbying
congress, fighting what the Heritage Foundation calls "the war of ideas." Neoliberalism, then, was a restoration of class power after
the odd, anomalous interval of the mid-century welfare state.
There is truth to both of these explanations. Both presuppose a kind of materialist explanation of history with which I have no
problem. In my book, though, I take another approach. What I found is that we could not understand the inner logic of something like
the WTO without considering the whole history of the twentieth century. What I also discovered is that some of the members of the
neoliberal movement from the 1930s onward, including Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises, did not use either of the explanations
I just mentioned. They actually didn't say that economic growth excuses everything. One of the peculiar things about Hayek, in particular,
is that he didn't believe in using aggregates like GDP -- the very measurements that we need to even say what growth is.
What I found is that neoliberalism as a philosophy is less a doctrine of economics than a doctrine of ordering -- of creating
the institutions that provide for the reproduction of the totality [of financial elite control of the state]. At the core of the strain I describe is not the idea that we
can quantify, count, price, buy and sell every last aspect of human existence. Actually, here it gets quite mystical. The Austrian
and German School of neoliberals in particular believe in a kind of invisible world economy that cannot be captured in numbers
and figures but always escapes human comprehension.
After all, if you can see something, you can plan it. Because of the very limits to our knowledge, we have to default to ironclad
rules and not try to pursue something as radical as social justice, redistribution, or collective transformation. In a globalized
world, we must give ourselves over to the forces of the market, or the whole thing will stop working.
So this is quite a different version of neoliberal thought than the one we usually have, premised on the abstract of individual
liberty or the freedom to choose. Here one is free to choose but only within a limited range of options left after responding to
the global forces of the market.
One of the core arguments of my book is that we can only understand the internal coherence of neoliberalism if we see it as a
doctrine as concerned with the whole as the individual. Neoliberal globalism can be thought of in its own terms as a negative theology,
contending that the world economy is sublime and ineffable with a small number of people having special insight and ability to craft
institutions that will, as I put it, encase the sublime world economy.
To me, the metaphor of encasement makes much more sense than the usual idea of markets set free, liberated or unfettered. How
can it be that in an era of proliferating third party arbitration courts, international investment law, trade treaties and regulation
that we talk about "unfettered markets"? One of the big goals of my book is to show neoliberalism is one form of regulation among
many rather than the big Other of regulation as such.
What I explore in Globalists is how we can think of the WTO as the latest in a long series of institutional fixes proposed
for the problem of emergent nationalism and what neoliberals see as the confusion between sovereignty -- ruling a country -- and
ownership -- owning the property within it.
I build here on the work of other historians and show how the demands in the United Nations
by African, Asian, and Latin American nations for things like the Permanent Sovereignty over Natural Resources, i.e. the right to
nationalize foreign-owned companies, often dismissed as merely rhetorical, were actually existentially frightening to global businesspeople.
They drafted neoliberal intellectuals to do things like craft agreements that gave foreign corporations more rights than domestic
actors and tried to figure out how to lock in what I call the "human right of capital flight" into binding international codes. I
show how we can see the development of the WTO as largely a response to the fear of a planned -- and equal -- planet that many saw
in the aspirations of the decolonizing world.
Perhaps the lasting image of globalization that the book leaves is that world capitalism has produced a doubled world -- a world
of imperium (the world of states) and a world of dominium (the world of property). The best way to understand neoliberal globalism
as a project is that it sees its task as the never-ending maintenance of this division. The neoliberal insight of the 1930s was that
the market would not take care of itself: what Wilhelm Röpke called a market police was an ongoing need in a world where people,
whether out of atavistic drives or admirable humanitarian motives, kept trying to make the earth a more equal and just place.
The culmination of these processes by the 1990s is a world economy that is less like a laissez-faire marketplace and more like
a fortress, as ever more of the world's resources and ideas are regulated through transnational legal instruments. The book acts
as a kind of field guide to these institutions and, in the process, hopefully recasts the 20th century that produced them.
This is a rather
interesting look at the political and economic ideas of a circle of important economists, including Hayek and von Mises, over
the course of the last century. He shows rather convincingly that conventional narratives concerning their idea are wrong. That
they didn't believe in a weak state, didn't believe in the laissez-faire capitalism or believe in the power of the market. That
they saw mass democracy as a threat to vested economic interests.
The core beliefs of these people was in a world where money, labor and products could flow across borders without any limit.
Their vision was to remove these subjects (tariffs, immigration and controls on the movement of money) from the control of the
democracy-based nation-state and instead vesting them in international organizations. International organizations which were by
their nature undemocratic and beyond the influence of democracy. That rather than rejecting government power, what they rejected
was national government power. They wanted weak national governments but at the same time strong undemocratic international organizations
which would gain the powers taken from the state.
The other thing that characterized many of these people was a rather general rejection of economics. While some of them are
(at least in theory) economists, they rejected the basic ideas of economic analysis and economic policy. The economy, to them,
was a mystical thing beyond any human understanding or ability to influence in a positive way. Their only real belief was in "bigness".
The larger the market for labor and goods, the more economically prosperous everyone would become. A unregulated "global" market
with specialization across borders and free migration of labor being the ultimate system.
The author shows how, over a period extending from the 1920s to the 1990s, these ideas evolved from marginal academic ideas
to being dominant ideas internationally. Ideas that are reflected today in the structure of the European Union, the WTO (World
Trade Organization) and the policies of most national governments. These ideas, which the author calls "neoliberalism", have today
become almost assumptions beyond challenge. And even more strangely, the dominating ideas of the political left in most of the
west.
The author makes the point, though in a weak way, that the "fathers" of neoliberalism saw themselves as "restoring" a lost
golden age. That golden age being (roughly) the age of the original industrial revolution (the second half of the 1800s). And
to the extent that they have been successful they have done that. But at the same time, they have brought back all the political
and economic questions of that era as well.
In reading it, I started to wonder about the differences between modern neoliberalism and the liberal political movement during
the industrial revolution. I really began to wonder about the actual motives of "reform" liberals in that era. Were they genuinely
interested in reforms during that era or were all the reforms just cynical politics designed to enhance business power at the
expense of other vested interests. Was, in particular, the liberal interest in political reform and franchise expansion a genuine
move toward political democracy or simply a temporary ploy to increase their political power. If one assumes that the true principles
of classic liberalism were always free trade, free migration of labor and removing the power to governments to impact business,
perhaps its collapse around the time of the first world war is easier to understand.
He also makes a good point about the EEC and the organizations that came before the EU. Those organizations were as much about
protecting trade between Europe and former European colonial possessions as they were anything to do with trade within Europe.
To me at least, the analysis of the author was rather original. In particular, he did an excellent job of showing how the ideas
of Hayek and von Mises have been distorted and misunderstood in the mainstream. He was able to show what their ideas were and
how they relate to contemporary problems of government and democracy.
But there are some strong negatives in the book. The author offers up a complete virtue signaling chapter to prove how the
neoliberals are racists. He brings up things, like the John Birch Society, that have nothing to do with the book. He unleashes
a whole lot of venom directed at American conservatives and republicans mostly set against a 1960s backdrop. He does all this
in a bad purpose: to claim that the Kennedy Administration was somehow a continuation of the new deal rather than a step toward
neoliberalism. His blindness and modern political partisanship extended backward into history does substantial damage to his argument
in the book. He also spends an inordinate amount of time on the political issues of South Africa which also adds nothing to the
argument of the book. His whole chapter on racism is an elaborate strawman all held together by Ropke. He also spends a large
amount of time grinding some sort of Ax with regard to the National Review and William F. Buckley.
He keeps resorting to the simple formula of finding something racist said or written by Ropke....and then inferring that anyone
who quoted or had anything to do with Ropke shared his ideas and was also a racist. The whole point of the exercise seems to be
to avoid any analysis of how the democratic party (and the political left) drifted over the decades from the politics of the New
Deal to neoliberal Clintonism.
Then after that, he diverts further off the path by spending many pages on the greatness of the "global south", the G77 and
the New International Economic Order (NIEO) promoted by the UN in the 1970s. And whatever many faults of neoliberalism, Quinn
Slobodian ends up standing for a worse set of ideas: International Price controls, economic "reparations", nationalization, international
trade subsidies and a five-year plan for the world (socialist style economic planning at a global level). In attaching himself
to these particular ideas, he kills his own book. The premise of the book and his argument was very strong at first. But by around
p. 220, its become a throwback political tract in favor of the garbage economic and political ideas of the so-called third world
circa 1974 complete with 70's style extensive quotations from "Senegalese jurists"
Once the political agenda comes out, he just can't help himself. He opens the conclusion to the book taking another cheap shot
for no clear reason at William F. Buckley. He spends alot of time on the Seattle anti-WTO protests from the 1990s. But he has
NOTHING to say about BIll Clinton or Tony Blair or EU expansion or Obama or even the 2008 economic crisis for that matter. Inexplicably
for a book written in 2018, the content of the book seems to end in the year 2000.
I'm giving it three stars for the first 150 pages which was decent work. The second half rates zero stars. Though it could
have been far better if he had written his history of neoliberalism in the context of the counter-narrative of Keynesian economics
and its decline. It would have been better yet if the author had the courage to talk about the transformation of the parties of
the left and their complicity in the rise of neoliberalism. The author also tends to waste lots of pages repeating himself or
worse telling you what he is going to say next. One would have expected a better standard of editing by the Harvard Press.
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Anybody interested in global trade, business, human rights or democracy today
should read this book.
The book follow the Austrians from the beginning in the Habsburgischer empire to the beginning rebellion against the WTO. However,
most importantly it follows the thinking and the thoughts behind the building of a global empire of capitalism with free trade,
capital and rights. All the way to the new "human right" to trade. It narrows down what neoliberal thought really consist of and
indirectly make a differentiation to the neoclassical economic tradition.
What I found most interesting is the turn from economics to law - and the conceptual distinctions between the genes, tradition,
reason, which are translated into a quest for a rational and reason based protection of dominium (the rule of property) against
the overreach of imperium (the rule of states/people). This distinction speaks directly to the issues that EU is currently facing.
"... No other book out there has the level of breadth on the history of US imperialism that this work provides. Even though it packs 400 pages of text (which might seem like a turnoff for non-academic readers), "How to Hide an Empire" is highly readable given Immerwhar's skills as a writer. Also, its length is part of what makes it awesome because it gives it the right amount of detail and scope. ..."
"... Alleging that US imperialism in its long evolution (which this book deciphers with poignancy) has had no bearing on the destinies of its once conquered populations is as fallacious as saying that the US is to blame for every single thing that happens in Native American communities, or in the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, etc. Not everything that happens in these locations and among these populations is directly connected to US expansionism, but a great deal is. ..."
"... This is exactly the kind of book that drives the "My country, right or wrong" crowd crazy. Yes, slavery and genocide and ghastly scientific experiments existed before Europeans colonized the Americas, but it's also fair and accurate to say that Europeans made those forms of destruction into a bloody artform. Nobody did mass slaughter better. ..."
I'm a professor at the University of California San Diego and I'm assigning
this for a graduate class.
No other book out there has the level of breadth on the history of US imperialism that this work provides.
Even though it packs 400 pages of text (which might seem like a turnoff for non-academic readers), "How to Hide an Empire" is
highly readable given Immerwhar's skills as a writer. Also, its length is part of what makes it awesome because it gives it the
right amount of detail and scope.
I could not disagree more with the person who gave this book one star. Take it from me: I've taught hundreds of college students
who graduate among the best in their high school classes and they know close to nothing about the history of US settler colonialism,
overseas imperialism, or US interventionism around the world. If you give University of California college students a quiz on
where the US' overseas territories are, most who take it will fail (trust me, I've done it). And this is not their fault. Instead,
it's a product of the US education system that fails to give students a nuanced and geographically comprehensive understanding
of the oversized effect that their country has around our planet.
Alleging that US imperialism in its long evolution (which this book deciphers with poignancy) has had no bearing on the destinies
of its once conquered populations is as fallacious as saying that the US is to blame for every single thing that happens in Native
American communities, or in the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, etc. Not everything that happens in these locations
and among these populations is directly connected to US expansionism, but a great deal is.
A case in point is Puerto Rico's current fiscal and economic crisis. The island's political class share part of the blame for
Puerto Rico's present rut. A lot of it is also due to unnatural (i.e. "natural" but human-exacerbated) disasters such as Hurricane
María. However, there is no denying that the evolution of Puerto Rico's territorial status has generated a host of adverse economic
conditions that US states (including an island state such as Hawaii) do not have to contend with. An association with the US has
undoubtedly raised the floor of material conditions in these places, but it has also imposed an unjust glass ceiling that most
people around the US either do not know about or continue to ignore.
To add to those unfair economic limitations, there are political injustices regarding the lack of representation in Congress,
and in the case of Am. Samoa, their lack of US citizenship. The fact that the populations in the overseas territories can't make
up their mind about what status they prefer is: a) understandable given the way they have been mistreated by the US government,
and b) irrelevant because what really matters is what Congress decides to do with the US' far-flung colonies, and there is no
indication that Congress wants to either fully annex them or let them go because neither would be convenient to the 50 states
and the political parties that run them. Instead, the status quo of modern colonial indeterminacy is what works best for the most
potent political and economic groups in the US mainland. Would
This book is about much more than that though. It's also a history of how and why the United States got to control so much
of what happens around the world without creating additional formal colonies like the "territories" that exist in this legal limbo.
Part of its goal is to show how precisely how US imperialism has been made to be more cost-effective and also more invisible.
Read Immerwhar's book, and don't listen to the apologists of US imperialism which is still an active force that contradicts
the US' professed values and that needs to be actively dismantled. Their attempts at discrediting this important reflect a denialism
of the US' imperial realities that has endured throughout the history that this book summarizes.
"How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States" is a great starting point for making the US public aware of
the US' contradictions as an "empire of liberty" (a phrase once used by Thomas Jefferson to describe the US as it expanded westward
beyond the original 13 colonies). It is also a necessary update to other books on this topic that are already out there, and it
is likely to hold the reader's attention more given its crafty narrative prose and structure
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This is exactly the
kind of book that drives the "My country, right or wrong" crowd crazy. Yes, slavery and genocide and ghastly scientific experiments
existed before Europeans colonized the Americas, but it's also fair and accurate to say that Europeans made those forms of destruction
into a bloody artform. Nobody did mass slaughter better.
The author of this compelling book reveals a history unknown to many
readers, and does so with first-hand accounts and deep historical analyses. You might ask why we can't put such things behind
us. The simple answer: we've never fully grappled with these events before in an honest and open way. This book does the nation
a service by peering behind the curtain and facing the sobering truth of how we came to be what we are.
This is a stunning book, not to be missed. If you finished Sapiens with the feeling your world view had
greatly enlarged, you're likely to have the same experience of your view of the US from reading this engaging work. And like Sapiens,
it's an entirely enjoyable read, full of delightful surprises, future dinner party gems.
The further you get into the book the more interesting and unexpected it becomes. You'll look at the US in ways you likely
never considered before. This is not a 'political' book with an ax to grind or a single-party agenda. It's refreshingly insightful,
beautifully written, fun to read.
This is a gift I'll give to many a good friend, I've just started with my wife. I rarely write
reviews and have never met the author (now my only regret). 3 people found this helpful
This book is an absolutely powerhouse, a must-read, and should be a part of every student's curriculum in
this God forsaken country.
Strictly speaking, this brilliant read is focused on America's relationship with Empire. But like with nearly everything America,
one cannot discuss it without discussing race and injustice.
If you read this book, you will learn a lot of new things about subjects that you thought you knew everything about. You will
have your eyes opened. You will be exposed to the dark underbelly of racism, corruption, greed and exploitation that undergird
American ambition.
I don't know exactly what else to say other than to say you MUST READ THIS BOOK. This isn't a partisan statement -- it's not
like Democrats are any better than Republicans in this book.
This is one of the best books I've ever read, and I am a voracious reader. The content is A+. It never gets boring. It never
gets tedious. It never lingers on narratives. It's extremely well written. It is, in short, perfect. And as such, 10/10.
I heard an interview of Daniel Immerwahr on NPR news / WDET radio regarding this book.
I'm am quite conservative
and only listen to NPR news when it doesn't lean too far to the left.
However, the interview piqued my interest. I am so glad I
purchased this ebook. What a phenomenal and informative read!!! WOW!! It's a "I never knew that" kind of read. Certainly not anything
I was taught in school. This is thoughtful, well written and an easy read. Highly recommend!!
"She's done as a member of leadership. I don't understand what she's doing," one former
House GOP lawmaker told The Hill of Cheney's ongoing attacks on former President Trump. " It's
like political self-immolation. You can't cancel Trump from the Republican Party; all she's
done is cancel herself. "
Cheney has repeatedly attacked Trump for 'inciting' the Jan. 6 'insurrection' despite
telling supporters to protest peacefully and then go home following the breach of the
Capitol.
GOP leaders hope that purging Cheney from the leadership ranks will move Republicans
beyond their civil war over Trump" one that's raged publicly since the Jan. 6 attack on the
Capitol" and allow the party to unite behind a midterm campaign message that President Biden
and the Democrats are too liberal for the country. - The
Hill
"There are still a few members that are talking about things that happened in the past, not
really focused on what we need to do to move forward and win the majority back next year,"
according to Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA), the minority whip. "We're going to have to be unified
if we defeat the socialist agenda you're seeing in Washington."
A victory by Stefanik would mark a symbolic shift back towards Trump by leading Republicans
- as the former president remains highly engaged this election cycle and has threatened to
politically obliterate any remaining GOP opposition.
"By ousting her, what we're saying is: We are repudiating your repudiation of the Trump
policies and the Trump agenda and her attacks on the president," according to Rep. Andy Biggs
(R-AZ), adding " President Trump is the leader of the Republican Party. And when she's out
there attacking him, she's attacking the leader of the Republican Party ."
Cheney has already survived one challenge to her leadership post, in February, after she
infuriated conservatives by voting to impeach Trump for inciting the Capitol rampage on Jan.
6. With the backing of Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), she easily kept
her seat as conference chair, 145 to 61 by secret ballot.
With McCarthy and Scalise fed up with Cheney and now backing Stefanik, the 36-year-old New
Yorker is expected to prevail in Wednesday's contest" a would-be victory for leaders who have
failed to unite the conference behind a post-Trump strategy in the early months of the Biden
administration. - The
Hill
... ... ...
Cheney isn't the only House Republican facing backlash for taking on Trump. Earlier in the
week, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), one of seven Republican senators who voted this year to
convict Trump, was booed and called a traitor at the Utah GOP state convention, where he
narrowly beat back an effort to censure him.
On Friday, the Ohio Republican Party Central Committee voted to censure Rep. Anthony
Gonzalez (R-Ohio), Cheney and the eight other House Republicans who backed Trump's
impeachment in January. The Ohio GOP also formally called for Gonzalez's resignation.
... ... ...
Catullus 51 minutes ago
I don't care if Trump runs again just as long as these gross establishment Republicans
are thrown out on their asses
JoeyChernenko PREMIUM 39 minutes ago (Edited)
Romney is a real traitorous worm. Did you hear him say Biden is a good man with good
intentions when the Utah crowd was booing his worthless hide? And we need to make sure the
Bush dynasty remains out of power.
Anath 51 minutes ago remove link
the cheney family is pure evil. that is all.
chinese.sniffles 52 minutes ago
Why Would Wyoming choose Chenney, after all that evil that **** brought upon America. If
there was no ****, Obama would never get elected.
chunga 47 minutes ago remove link
Cynics suspect primaries are also rigged.
Basecamp3 PREMIUM 50 minutes ago
Comstock is a traitor that never read the Navarro Report which goes into detail of
how the election was stolen. Also, ousting Cheney has zero risk. She is stupid, weak, and
her own constituents hate her.
overbet 50 minutes ago
which has caused some GOP leaders to fear alienating female Republican voters,
particularly educated suburbanites who will be key votes in the 2022 elections.
The female republicans I know are smarter than that. All of them
Grave Dancer 22 38 minutes ago remove link
Liz's sociopath dad **** got hundreds of thousands killed based on a total fraud lie of
a war. And Liz has a problem with Trump because he tweets some unfiltered stuff once in a
while? Freaking kidding me? ay_arrow
GhostOLaz 37 minutes ago
Don't blame Liz, she has a legacy of treason to protect, Daddy removed the only secular
anti Communist govt in the middle East which protected Christains and religious
minorities...
gaaasp 20 minutes ago (Edited)
Women could wear pants and not be burkahed up in Syria and Libya and Iraq before
Bush/Clinton/Obama/Trump sent troops.
chunga 49 minutes ago
I don't want to give up on the process but the GOP has a lot of work to do.
nmewn 39 minutes ago
The thing about "us" is, when we find them we jettison them. Cantor was another one. She
voted to impeach an outgoing President who's trial she knew would be held AFTER he was out
of office and again just an average American citizen holding no federal office at all.
She is either incompetent, stupid (or both) or a cancer the GOP can live with excised
from the body.
Make_Mine_A_Double 40 minutes ago
Peggy Noonan really came out the closet in this weekend's WSJ with editorial of Liz
Chaney against the House of Cowards.
They are 2 of the same. We've had these demsheviks in the ranks for decades. Noonan
takes it in the anoose at dem cocktail parties and is Team Mascot for the RINOs.
Tucker finally exposed that filth Luntz. McCathry is actually living with him in one of
his apartments - I assume it's not platonic in nature.
This is why Trump could never even the bottom of the swamp....g.d. RINOs need to purged
with the extreme prejudice.
the Mysterians 40 minutes ago
War pig.
in deditionem acceptos 48 minutes ago
Liz will survive the vote. Too much graff from the MIC to get her out. McCarthey could
of got her out in Feb if he wanted. Wonder what honey pot he's dipping into?
A Girl In Flyover Country 43 minutes ago
She won't survive the Wyoming voters, though.
Cogito_ergosum 52 minutes ago (Edited)
She is protecting her dad who was part of the inside gang that carried out the...
demolition of the twin towers on 911...
Flying Monkees 37 minutes ago (Edited)
BS. The tribe's fingerprints were all over 9/11 as documented in extensive detail by
Christopher Bollyn.
JoeyChernenko PREMIUM 53 minutes ago
Don't any of these evil families ever just fade into oblivion? Bush, Cheney, Clinton,
Obama, etc.
beavertails 50 minutes ago
Extending and pretending there are choices when there aren't any. The MIC got this. The
"Prez" is just show to sell ads and steal, I mean raise fiat from the gullible.
Clearly there is no coherence or logic to US foreign policy even from its own warped
viewpoint. If they really regard China as the number one adversary then they should be
courting Russia, that is, doing what the Nixon administration did with China to help contain
the USSR.
One can only surmise that it's the Zionist faction that is pushing for hostility towards
Russia because of Russia interfering with Israel's Mid-East plans, so the Zionist faction
with its regional interests is undermining the efforts of the deep state elements more
interested in world hegemony.
"Then, we basically gave permission for Saddam Hussein to invade Kuwait as a ploy to send
in our advanced army to knock him out and demonstrate our superiority to the world in
weaponry, which very much demoralized the Russians and put the fear of God into Islamic oil.
Then we created the Star Wars fiction. Russia to our surprise lost their nerve and
collapsed."
Can't really buy this silly Deep State propaganda from Mr S. The Berlin Wall collapsed in
November 1989. After this the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Cold War was surely
inevitable. USMIC needed a new theatre of war in a hurry to keep itself in the style to which
it is accustomed. Gulf War I, beginning with the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq in August 1990,
was clearly planned in advance in order to install US bases in the Middle East as the
"˜pivot' to use the currently popular term to this new theatre. This long term planning
all bore juicy malevolent fruit not long after with 911, Gulf War 2 and the War on Terror.
It's only now, with the Middle East petering out as the preferred theatre of operations that
the new pivot is under way with the beatup for a new cold war with China.
"our values" is continually repeated by US politicians and the MSM like a mantra.
when the US has no values left but anarchy, looting, and burning down hundreds of
cities.
And also war, bombing, killing, assassination of the indocent leaders, impoverishment of
the others, overthrow of the insubordinate governments ("Color revolutions").
Every picture tells a story = USA & China (lol)
Could have added Old Masked Joe and the Camel for further effect "¦
Anyway"
I had trouble believing this account by the mysterious Mr S, though it does make good
copy, perhaps more as entertainment. So skimmed after the first few mentions of the Deep
State, Mr S's professed Christianity and his concern for Afghans.
The "Deep State" is a more or less meaningless buzzword on a par with Alex "Medicine Man"
Jones and his "Illuminati" and it's getting as dated as that imho.
WHO are these people, Mr S ? Names, please.
We are to believe that a long-serving high echelon member in USG professes Christianity in
a Gangster Cartel, which is what USG is and the source of the gross immorality, murder,
looting, permanent war, occupations which is poisoning the world and has been such for a long
time, well over a century "¦
Russia, by contrast, is a Christian country.
And you are fighting it, Mr S, as well as continuing to serve gangsters "¦
Basically this article is just bullshit, sorry to be blunt.
Worse, it doesn't say anything new except that the zio's have sacrificed their old man
Kissinger as this USG "christian" indicates.
Kissinger sprinkles his talk with preemptive catch words such as "free markets",
"democracy", and as noted here "principles"...
His greatest coup was was the petrodollar which reigned for decades; free markets huh? His
petrodollar scheme is crumbling and the age of missiles is neutering the US's imperial
ambitions. He is wallowing about in outdated imperial nostalgia.
Conspiracy theory drivel. So called "Deep State" are American elites, who are not
unanimous about most points; it was R.M. Nixon- not Kissinger, not some imaginary Deep State
segment which even does not exist- who decided to completely change policy towards Communist
China. And there, Nixon showed that he was, despite his failings, a remarkable statesman.
@alwayswrite ion. Just in the last few months the SpaceX Crew Dragon has finally come
online and that is an excellent achievement""although Nasa is still buying seats on Soyuz,
just in case.
The Boeing Starliner spacecraft is flying with the Russian engines, although not yet with
live crew. Good thing there's a Russian "˜superstore' for space tech where you can do
one-stop shopping, eh?
I'm not going to get into the Chinese program, which also bought its entire manned space
program lock, stock and barrel from Russia. They also bought advanced Russian engines, but
unlike the US, they have been able to knock off their own versions [YF100], which now power
their big Long March 5 rocket.
Oh, and the Russians landed their first rover on Mars back in 1971, the first spacecraft
to land successfully on another planet.
There's an inherent contradiction I've never been able to understand.
On the one hand the Deep State wants the United States to be and continue to be the world
hegemon. Ergo the playing off of China against Russia, as well as other ploys undercutting
potential challengers.
On the other hand the Deep State was all in on the deindustrialization of America, the
great offshoring of whole industries and the jobs they provided. Offshoring has clearly
weakened America's position as world hegemon.
@GMC xt generation gets better yet and so on. It is not an instant process, but China is
very systematic and determined and they will get there sooner than people may think.
And finally a word about why it is important to have numbers in terms of hard science
intellectuals. It is like society in general""the bottom slice is going to be barely
competent; the majority in the middle are going to be average"¦and the top ten percent
are going to be the ones that actually do all of the work, in terms of advancing of the state
of the art. And from that top group, only a few INDIVIDUALS are really going to be
visionaries that have a chance at transforming the technology and solving the really big
problems.
Obviously if you have a larger pool to start with, you will have more of those key
achievers at the top.
It may have been in the self-interest of people in the MIC to continue Cold War
conditions, but a patriot would put the good of the Republic over his own self-interest. The
late Lt. Gen. William Odom, former Director of the National Security Agency, was such a man.
He was as close to the center of the American Deep State as anyone could be.
I know from Odom's writings that he shared at least many of the views of Mr. S. Odom
himself may be gone, but his opinions may survive in his aides, friends, and associates.
The tragedy of the ZUS deep state department is , that is controlled and populated with
zionists, as is the entire ZUS government and the deep state chain dogs aka the CIA, the FBI,
the NSA, all of the 17 chain dog departments are under zionist control,
@alwayswrite tinued to circle Mars and transmit images back to Earth for another eight
months.
Mars 3 Spacecraft
The cause of the failure may have been related to the extremely powerful martian dust
storm taking place at the time which may have induced a coronal discharge, damaging the
communications system. The dust storm would also explain the poor image lighting.
@SafeNow
eing expressed now about the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. Although it has churned out
hundreds of papers, nothing groundbreaking has ever come of it.
Quantum computing is also turning out to be a nothingburger, as some of us had predicted
long ago. But if the point is to sell the sizzle and not the steak, then all of these
"˜great' projects have been a wonderful "˜marketing' success, with untold millions
of trees having given their life for the glossy magazines that breathlessly trumpeted all of
this hullabaloo. Only to end up in the landfill.
So to get back to your question about US pharma "˜scientists', I would place them just
slightly above the municipal sanitation worker that will be emptying my bin tomorrow, in the
overall scheme of things. Maybe a better person to ask would be Bill Gates?
. . . which has caused some GOP leaders to fear alienating female Republican voters, particularly educated suburbanites
who will be key votes in the 2022 elections.
When I first met my wife, she told me women shouldn't have the right to vote. It was instant love.
A Girl In Flyover Country 59 minutes ago
[in case of Cheney] The war monger doesn't fall far from the tree.
Rise21 42 minutes ago remove link
Amazing how the liberal news outlets are now supporting a Cheney. But they know more war equals more rating
yochananmichael 51 seconds ago
its time for the republicans to rid itself of chicken hawk warmongers like Cheney.
He father disbanded there Iraqi Army which was supposed to provide security, causing an insurgency and 5000 dead American boys
and countless maimed.
vic and blood PREMIUM 4 minutes ago
Cheney's benefactors have erected massive billboards all over the state, 'thanking her for defending the Constitution.'
She has an incredible war chest, and sadly, money and advertising decides a lot of elections.
Robert would have become president, and then reopen the investigation into his brother's
murder.
A generation later, JFK's son, John F. Kennedy, Jr, who was also undoubtedly heading
toward the presidency or at least high politics, died when his small plane suddenly
nose-dived into the ocean. The chain of potential justice has been successively cut off.
The Mossad fingerprints are all over Robert's death and also Oswald's. And the Israeli
connection is conspicuously absent from the decades of conspiracy investigations that seem to
have been deliberately led to the CIA - Michael Collins Piper being the notable exception who
linked to Israel.
Dimona was the principal reason, says Guyénot, and shows that Lyndon Johnson put
paid to all opposition to Dimona coming from the US.
~~
I am not a student of this affair, but I've never seen much made of the fact that JFK was
already embarked upon issuing US currency directly - the USA Note rather than the Federal
Reserve Note that we call dollars today. This was canceled under Johnson, of course.
Presidents don't get to issue greenbacks. We had already seen how that worked out for
Lincoln.
Not a student of this, as I say. But I tend to see the world's power pyramid with
debt-issuers at the top, and all the other factions on lower steps. So, Dimona, yes, the main
incentive for Israel, and all the lesser motivations that caused rejoicing in many other
groups - but the money control at the top, in my view, is the force that gives the nod to
these various factions and approves the hit.
No one has asked but the most fascinating suspect in Dealey Plaza that fateful day was
Lamar Hunt.
Yes, that Lamar Hunt. The Lamar Hunt Trophy is in honor of that very guy.
He was the son of H.L. Hunt the billionaire oilman who had his main offices in Dealey
Plaza. Lamar Hunt was in his thirties at the time (31) and flew to Mexico minutes after the
shooting (this is a matter of record).
Lamar was escorting two men around Dealey Plaza that day. One was arrested coming out of a
building, arrested because he was reported/fingered as suspicious, someone that didn't belong
there.
The guy said he was looking for a phone booth to call his mother. This was James Braden a
known mafia hit man (who, by the way, was in the vicinity of the hotel where RFK was
assassinated). Braden was detained and then released. The other person, that had arrived with
Braden, checked out of his hotel minutes after the assassination and was gone.
Skiming through the JFK chapter of Guyenot's book, 'From Yahweh to Zion' it is obviously a
number of compelling 'reasons' JFK and his brother were despised by the Zionists.
First was their father Joe Kennedy. Out with the Swiss Army Knife of words, again.
Dimona also figured large. This was also covered by Seymour Hirsh in, 'The Sampson
Option., Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy.' Note, Hersh writes in the
introduction, he refused to travel to the Bandit State because of the wall to wall censorship
imposed on ALL journalists.
Importantly, JFK visited a Palestinian refugee camp in 1956 and 'expressed sympathy' for
the Palestinians. The Zionists worst fears were his proposals to have them registered a
Foreign Agents.
KFK also advocated UN resolution 194, The Right of Return.
Posted by: Paul | May 24 2021 6:01 utc | 118 - and others on the JFK thing
I think it was the detente he intended to enter into with the USSR in addition to a few
other things.
For one, he wasn't murdered in Dallas, TX for no reason. That was the city where big oil
co-joined with the newly powerful "intelligence" community of the Dulles and Bush families.
The depletion allowance was a big deal and JFK was one of, if not the, first to suggest he
might end it.
Then there was the Cuba situation.
Finally there was the infamous quote about rendering the CIA into a thousand shards and it
blowing into the wind or something of that nature.
He managed to piss off and threaten all the main powers that be, including those with very
high level mafia connections.
If anyone gets the chance to visit it, the museum in Dallas in the former book repository
on the fifth (?) floor of that building is quite worth a visit. I thought I'd be bored as
hell when my wife and her younger sister dragged me and the family there one Saturday
afternoon, but it ended up being fascinating. That said, if I were a left-leaning or
anti-corporate/oil president to this day I'd stay TF away from Dallas or Houston, TX save for
an airfield-only visit. Well, until Iran can create the capability to murder our
politicians/diplomats from the air with no repercussions (still, anyone heard from Ayatollah
Mike in the last 6 months? Asking for a friend).
Starter's reading list (a must list IMO for every American) for you in order to understand
the Kennedy assassination (no, Israel had nothing to do with it):
James W. Douglass - JFK and the Unspeakable
David Talbot - Devil's Chessboard
James DiEugenio - Destiny Betrayed/ The JFK Assassination
Mark Lane - Rush to Judgement
Peter Dale Scott - Deep Politics and the Death of JFK
For more literature go to Our
Hidden History which is a treasure trove of all things US Deep State politics from Heroin
Trade in the Golden Triangle to Vietnam to JFK, to Watergate, Iran-Contra etc...
These folks have had it with the constant stream of baseless propaganda U.S. intelligence is spilling over the world:
Dear Director of National Intelligence,
we, the the 4-star Generals leading U.S. regional commands all over the world, are increasingly concerned with about
the lack of evidence for claims you make about our opponents.
We, as true believers, do not doubt whatever judgment you make about the harmful activities of Russia, Iran and China.
However - our allies and partners do not yet subscribe to the bliss of ignorance. They keep asking us for facts that support
those judgments
Unfortunately, we have none that we could provide.
Media reports have appeared in which 'intelligence sources' claim that Russia, China and Iran are all paying bounties
to the Taliban for killing U.S. soldiers. Fortunately
no soldier got hurt
by those rumors.
Our allies and partners read those and other reports and ask us for evidence. They want to know how exactly Russia, Iran
and China are doing these things.
They, of course, hope to learn from our experience to protect their own countries.
Currently we are not able to provide them with such information. Your people keep telling our that all of it is SECRET.
We therefore ask you to declassify the facts that support your judgments. *
Sincerely
The Generals
---- PS: * Either that or shut the fuck up.
Look, The generals and the intelligence agencies haven't won a war for a long time. So now they will fight each other
. At least ONE of them will win this time ! Success.
While I agree with 99% of your post, there is one point that I think needs to be keeping
in mind. While the populace of this particular manure-hole certainly has its equal share of
dumb creatures, the people running things cannot be so easily dismissed. The problem as I see
it is they have a great deal of a certain kind of intelligence, as someone said "smart, but
not wise". They are educated, but insane. The cream of the crop that has gone sour. In my
travels I would often ask people what they actually thought of "Americans". An Indonesian man
responded " soft, but cunning. You have to be careful around them."
If these cunning, insane, power hungry creatures were simply dumb and not truly evil, we
might be in less of a shit show (nod to psychohistorian) than we are.
After 20 years of regular interaction with Amerikastanis online and in real life, I have
realised that they live in a parallel universe in which Hollywood is the arbiter of truth.
They genuinely believe that anything they choose to imagine is the truth just because they
imagine it.
A couple of days ago when the Imperialist States admitted its "Russia Bounty" story was
concocted, the people who had shrieked to the skies about it last year had a chance to
apologise. Did they? They ignored it. It did not happen because they chose to believe it
didn't.
To be fair, the neocon's feel that way about everyone - they embrace the role of paranoid
imperialist because that's a relatively accessible way to get funded in the DC policy world.
The striking thing is the hubris - they're just going to fight everyone all at the same time
and it will somehow be okay in the end, no cost to them.
"To be fair, the neocon's feel that way about everyone"
Did you consider the article linked to @59?
Michael Hudson quote from the article, for your consideration.
(take it or leave it)
The Americans want war. The people that Biden has appointed have an emotional hatred of
Russia. I've spoken to government people who are close to the Democratic Party, and they've
told me that there's a pathological emotional desire for war with Russia, largely stemming
from the fact that the Tzars were anti-Semitic and there's still the hatred about their
ancestors: "Look what they did to my great-grandfather." And so they're willing to back the
Nazis, back the anti-Semites in Ukraine. They're willing to back today's anti-Semites all
over the world as long as they're getting back at this emotional focus on a kind of post
19th-century economy.
"...And this is because Zbig [Brezinski] is a Polish aristocrat with lost family estate on
outskirts of Lvov. Any fool knows emigre info is useless and emigre aristocrat most useless
of all."
Brezinski's keyboard was hacked before age 3; its output foreordained by unknown sources
he mis-owned as "self". A well-oiled robot producing brilliant compositions of high-quality,
effective communication promoting madness and contagious ruin of non-aristos.
Ghost Ship: That same Nazi scum that the OSS/CIA brought into the US after WW2 was also
involved in the assassinations of JFK, MLK, RFK, and probably Malcolm X.
In the last several years the CIA and other intel agencies have cemented their control of
the US that is now a fascist rogue state that is marching the American people into a war with
peer powers. As usual the American people will believe US elites telling them the war is
started by a foreign power. Americans around me are blind as bats. And they think I'm dumb
for not taking experimental mRNA vaccines.
@ptb (63) "...they're just going to fight everyone all at the same time and it will
somehow be okay in the end, no cost to them."
Correct, there will be no personal physical cost to them, as in getting maimed or killed
in a war. But on the other side of the ledger, the profits that flow to the MIC are massive,
and many, if not most of the neocons are in some way connected to it, either by consultancy,
think-tank positions, corporate board positions, TV sinecures, etc. In other words, they are
cashing in big-time on their political views and policy recommendations.
@ptb (63) "...they're just going to fight everyone all at the same time and it will
somehow be okay in the end, no cost to them."
Correct, there will be no personal physical cost to them, as in getting maimed or killed
in a war. But on the other side of the ledger, the profits that flow to the MIC are massive,
and many, if not most of the neocons are in some way connected to it, either by consultancy,
think-tank positions, corporate board positions, TV sinecures, etc. In other words, they are
cashing in big-time on their political views and policy recommendations.
Actually, it is the ***American people*** who are fucked. The little people that is.
Fucked on behalf of Israel/Neocons, the MIC, the Neolibs, and the other "owners" of the
country.
The good news is that when the above have thoroughly looted the country, and the rest of
the world sheds the by then worthless US dollar, and the City on the Hill becomes the
Toothless Slum on the Hill,
"The alternative to a rules-based order is a world in which might makes right and winner
takes all and that would be a far more violent and unstable world," Blinken said.
Coming from the Empire this is not an explanation but rather a threat.
@ 139 william gruff... i never thought of it like that, but i think you are right to
characterize it that way... the language of a bully is on regular display thanks the
exceptional nation... i have gotten so used to it, i overlook this feature..
The madness of the Outlaw Empire is not about to shrink from bringing down the curtain on
the human race, if that's what it takes to see their power of command obeyed. The US, as it
is today, doesn't respect any nation's sovereignty and is mostly indifferent to allies and
foes alike. The regime considers itself the only sovereign worthy of such title on earth; and
expects to be allowed to run the table at its pleasure, or else it will supervise the burning
down of the house.
Biden meanders about, not even possessed of his right mind, holding on to the delusions
and lies of several presidents who lately came before him; and he is just the man to keep all
the fires of destruction burning, while the torture of innocence is unceasing, and as the
arrogant demands made against other countries become more absurd. What else is more obvious?
These are the things we have seen foreshadowed before and after 9/11.
As long ago as the 80s Reagan was told about the reality of nuclear winter. In A Man
Without a Country , Kurt Vonnegut described how scientists explained to G.W. Bush that a
nuclear exchange of even a moderate duration and size, could still depopulate the earth of
most of its people. The Bush Administration, toying with the idea of deploying baby nukes,
for strategic exigency, short of total war, went with "guesswork" rather than prudent
scientific advice. It was their best guess that the circumspect, abbreviated use of nukes
wouldn't destroy humanity itself, or cause ice age conditions, or bring about global
starvation.
At least in the conduct between civilized countries, a minimum level of protocol and respect
matters. It may make much of a difference especially when dealing with conflicts. And the conduct
of the US americans is worrying. They are behaving like rabid dogs.
Toothless sabre rattling is about all the USA has left. A bunch of old men with a world
view from the 1950s whose own virility is long gone is not going to come to an epiphany about
their encroaching impotence. The Establishment has no other choice, absent common sense and
critical thinking, but to double-down on arrogant self-righteousness bred by sophomoric
jingoism that defines 'shallow.'
Empire is crumbling before our eyes. The question is will it take the rest of the world
with it as it falls into its own footprint.
Perhaps one of the more predictable mistakes the US will commit next, is misinterpret the
stern warnings of the past few days by Russia, China and even NK, as evidence the new
Biden/Blinken regime is less feared or respected than the Trump/Pompeo one.
I suspect a more accurate interpretation would be, "ok, you had the crazy guy for 4 years
and we cut you some slack, hoping once the grown ups were back we could reason as adults, but
if you're gonna carry on with the same attitude, basically, Democrat or Republican, you can
all summarily go fxxx yourselves".
Particularly at the end of the term, the Obama regime was already being met by a very
hostile China and Russia, well before Trump took over with his less than diplomatic style (or
lack thereof). Anyone recall the airport security debacle with China during Obama's last
weeks?
How our interaction w/China was reported FOX did a full throated, fake narrative
just to suit their pro-Trump agenda. When they quoted, 'you cannot talk to us from a position
of strength' they made is sound like the Chinese were scoffing at Blinken's weakness rather
than his moral turpitude. They made it sound like Blinken surrendering to his Chinese
overlords, squandering the strong hand the Trump gave him.
In FOX land, all that matters is that you come up with a great sounding argument. The
truthfulness of that arguments is not relevant.
The USA's situation is very dire indeed. The Americans are resorting more and more to
"Hail Mary" moves to keep their hegemonic position.
And even then they're blundering. I would not be surprised at all if they start to
straight out have to falsify diplomatic transcripts in order to try to create something
favorable to them.
Related to US-China tensions, if anyone likes documentary shows, CNA (Channel News Asia, a
broadcaster out of Singapore) has a good four-part documentary released in January 2021
called "When Titans Clash", about the US-China trade/tech tensions, that I would recommend.
(I watched the first two yesterday and will watch the other two this weekend.)
Each of the 4 parts is about 48 minutes long and available for watching on YouTube and
CNA's website too.
Touches on some of the things ak74 mentioned in his
comment on the other thread: outsourcing, deindustrialization, the US dollar as reserve
currency, etc.
It's from Pearl Forss who was also involved in CNA's 2015-2019 series " The New Silk
Road ", about China's BRI, that I can recommend as well.
I'm in the middle of Armstrong's
essay and am at the first reference to Kagan's vision:
"What should that role be? Benevolent global hegemony. Having defeated the 'evil empire,'
the United States enjoys strategic and ideological predominance. The first objective of
U.S. foreign policy should be to preserve and enhance that predominance by strengthening
America's security, supporting its friends, advancing its interests, and standing up for its
principles around the world .'
It's absolutely clear that Kagan has no clue as to the reality of what is actually the
objective of the Neoliberal Parasites running the Outlaw US Empire; for aside from "advancing
its interests," the Parasites have zero motivation to do any of that as their sole
ambition/goal is to vacuum up all the wealth they can and leave a shell just as they planned
and failed with Russia, but have succeeded elsewhere. And as for principles, the reality is
it has none, nor does it have any friends, just vassals and victims. This analogy by
Armstrong's excellent:
"The U.S. is sitting on a dragon and it daren't get off or the dragon will kill it. But
because it can't kill the dragon, it must sit on it forever: no escape. And dragon's eggs are
hatching out all around: think how much bigger the Russian, Chinese and Iranian dragons are
today than they were a quarter-century ago when Kagan & Co so confidently started PNAC;
think how bigger they'll be in another....
"But the more sanctions, the stronger Russia gets: as an analogy, think of sanctions on
Russia as similar to the over-use of antibiotics – Russia is becoming immune."
And tying it all up is this excellent summation:
"Has there ever been a subject on which people have been so wrong for so long as Russia?
How many times have they said Putin's finished? Remember when cheese was going to bring him
down? Always a terminal economic crisis. A year ago they were sure COVID would do it. A U.S.
general is in Ukraine and Kiev's heavy weapons are moving east but, no, it's Putin who, for
ego reasons – and his "failing" economy – wants the war. Why do they keep doing
it? Well, it's easy money – Putin (did we tell you he was in the KGB?) wants to expand
Russia and rule forever; therefore, he's about to invade somebody. He doesn't, no problem,
our timely warning scared him off; we'll change the date and regurgitate it next year. In the
meantime his despotic rule trembles because of some-triviality-of-the-moment. These pieces
write themselves: the anti-Russia business is the easiest scam ever. And there's the
difficulty of admitting you're wrong: how can somebody like Kagan, such a triumphantasiser
back then, admit that it's all turned to dust and worse, turned to dust because they took his
advice? Much better to press on – it's not as if anybody in the lügenpresse will
call him out or deny him space. Finally, these people are locked in psychological projection:
because they can only envisage military expansion, they assume the other guy is equally
obsessed and so they must expand to counter his expansion. They suspect everybody of
suspecting them. Their hostility sees hostility everywhere. Their belligerence finds
belligerence. The hyperpower is forever compelled to respond to lesser powers. They look
outside, see themselves and fear; in their mental universe the USA is arrogantly strong and
fearfully weak at the same time."
The Walking Dead is finally becoming a metaphor for the Outlaw US Empire, its
policies, and what it terms values--which aren't values but vices. But TWD was fiction and
was thus capable of reforming itself. The Empire's goals and polices are essentially the same
as in 1940 and even further back to 1913, and haven't changed very much, being just as
illegal and immoral then as now. What's different are the "Dragons" which didn't exist in
1918 or 1944, and the Parasites have almost total control that's finally seeing domestic
pushback.
It's absolutely clear that Kagan has no clue as to the reality of what is actually the
objective of the Neoliberal Parasites running the Outlaw US Empire.
Why do you give him the benefit of the doubt?
Are we really to believe that Kagan, and others like him, talk of these things for DECADES
and yet aren't aware of the ramifications?
IMO it is absolutely clear that he knows the neoliberal reality as well as the neocon and
neocolonial realities.
But we are supposed to avoid cynicism and be polite so as to not be thought a
malcontent?
=
@karlof1 The need for more cynicism is a theme of mine (which I've written about at moa
many times) so please don't respond in a knee-jerk way.
Many great observations tonight, but all, beg the question; How do we change a nation
state that has so thoroughly morphed into an advertising and marketing phony, aided and
abetted by so many deluded morons?
This is interesting. Apparently both the Russians and the Chinese have concluded that
Biden intends to use "CornPop" faux-macho posturing as his foreign policy, and they have both
decided that "f**k that, let's nip this in the bud".
Because it looks like they have decided they have had a gut-full of US "exceptionalism"
and are quite determined to say so. To anyone, but especially to the Americans.
Going to be a lot of very confused people at Foggy Bottom. They may never have experienced
this degree of contempt before.
I about fell on the floor when I read Blinken's words, my first thought being "this klutz
has zero knowledge of history since 1588 and just admitted as much. In China, Blinken would
never achieve any position of power.
The decadence of the Outlaw US Empire's government is like so many prions turning brain
tissue into a swiss-cheese-like mass and then boasting about how finely tuned are its
cognitive abilities. And when Harris is installed, we'll have a genuine novice in charge--The
Blind leading the Blind.
It's no wonder the Chinese sought an audience with Lavrov ASAP.
The Americans have completely lost the culture of negotiation. If there are no elementary
human manners, then what kind of agreements can we talk about? A sad picture. And
dangerous. A madman with nuclear weapons (and chemical weapons, by the way) is not the best
option for a reliable negotiating partner.
Because the $31Bn (which is probably understated) would primarily have gone to the lower
classes in which the U.S. caused humanitarian disaster is most prevalent. Rich, formerly
colonial Venezuelan families don't give a shit. The and their ex-pat kids live most of the
year in Miami or Vancouver or Madrid. The white upper class in Venezuela is the exact group
from which Mr. Random Guy-do emanates and who he represent. They live in gated communities
including in the hills around Caracas and their stores are likely fully stocked (as reported
by Max Blumenthal last year). However, they are a small minority compared to the indigenous
peoples who these sanctions are DESIGNED to hurt. The bank accounts of the colonials are safe
while a small number, relatively speaking, of pro-Chavista/Maduro operatives are completely
cut off by the Empire.
Same thing in ANY country that the USA is sanctioning. Have a look at Biden's Iran envoy's
statements about everyday Iranian people.
In response to online criticism, Nephew has claimed that "the main target" of the sanctions
regime he designed was "the oligarchs." But his book on "The Art of Sanctions" tells
another story.
Nephew fondly recalls how he structured sanctions to sabotage Iranian economic reforms
that would have improved the purchasing power of average people. The Obama administration
destroyed the economic prospects of Iran's working-class majority while ensuring that "only
the wealthy or those in positions of power could take advantage of Iran's continued
connectedness," he wrote. As "stories began to emerge from Iran of intensified income
inequality and inflation," Nephew pronounced another success.
As he made clear, the rising inequality "was a choice" that Washington "made on the
basis of helping to drive up the pressure on the Iranian economy from internal sources."
Nephew went on to claim credit for October 2012 protests brought on by the devaluation of
Iran's currency.
So these sanctions and the loss in $31Bn for Venezuela was designed to and in fact did
hurt the poorest of the poor and the working 'middle' class in that country.
here's a snippet, about Venezuela and the US supported/directed economic terrorism, which
has obviously caused much economic mayhem and dislocation, humanitarian disaster, and a large
number of deaths (I have seen figures up to hundred thousand or more, from the food and
medicine sanctions etc. Not to mention England stealing Venezuela's gold. I would imagine the
real death toll is quite a bit larger)
"......Subversion in Venezuela, by contrast, might not require as much 'engagement'. In
Cuba the government is stable and the opposition isolated. In Venezuela, by contrast, the
Maduro government faces a deep economic crisis (dramatically and intentionally exacerbated by
US sanctions) and major public discontent. Betting on Maduro's vulnerability, Biden continues
to recognize the self-appointed 'president' Juan Guaidó. Under Obama, Biden courted
Guaidó ally Leopoldo López – a so-called political prisoner arrested for
inciting violent protests that killed dozens of people – who is now calling for Biden
to lead a renewed international effort to topple Maduro. US support for the far-right forces
of Guaidó and López is intended to prevent a deal between Maduro and the more
pragmatic elements of the opposition. Such a deal might alleviate Venezuela's economic
crisis, but it could leave Maduro in power and thus derail the US's regime change agenda.
In late 2018 Biden complained that Trump's 'intensified sanctions on Venezuela have been
clouded by sabre-rattling' and 'clunky sloganeering'. At that time, those intensified
sanctions had already killed an estimated 40,000 civilians, with an unknown number of
additional deaths after Trump imposed harsher measures in 2019. But the goal of regime change
had not succeeded. Trump's crime in Venezuela was not his lethal denial of food and medicine
to the population, but rather his 'faulty execution' of the policy. This critique informs
Biden's current roadmap for Venezuela, which hinges on refining the sanctions to inflict
maximum political damage. Secretary Blinken argues that sanctions must be honed 'so that
regime enablers really feel the pain', while González favours a 'smart' use of
'multilateral sanctions' over Trump's go-it-alone programme...."
Are you gonna believe what I tell you or are you gonna believe what you see, comes to mind.
I believe what I see and I don't see the USA doing any bridge building, even in its own
country where bridge infrastructure is in serious decay.
I repeat: These are not normal people in charge. They have lost their minds.
Maybe once a long time ago the USA diplomatic corp was supported by elected officials that
set out to make allies based on mutual respect. But those days are long gone. The only
bridges the USA builds is munition supply channels, be it by air or by sea. They destroy
physical and metaphorical bridges in every nation they occupy.
The USA builds walls and barriers and obstruction: at home at the Mexican border, in the
capital state, by economic sanctions illegally applied throughout the world, by destroying
its home regulatory system to keep poisoned citizens from seeking judicial or regulatory
redress for pollution and human suffering.
I see a mendacious, failed state surrounding its elected officials and financial
institutions and even suburbs with walls and barriers. Then they attack people who criticise
them in moderately peaceful ways. That is who they are, that is what I see.
Escobar: The Art Of Being A Spectacularly Misguided Oracle
Peace is Forever War
Now let's move to another oracle, a self-described expert of what in the Beltway is
known as the "Greater Middle East": Robert Kagan, co-founder of PNAC, certified
warmongering neo-con, and one-half of the famous Kaganate of Nulands – as the joke
went across Eurasia – side by side with his wife, notorious Maidan cookie distributor
Victoria "F**k the EU" Nuland, who's about to re-enter government as part of the
Biden-Harris administration.
Kagan is back pontificating in – where else – Foreign Affairs, which
published his latest superpower manifesto. That's where we find this absolute
pearl:
That Americans refer to the relatively low-cost military involvements in Afghanistan and
Iraq as "forever wars" is just the latest example of their intolerance for the messy and
unending business of preserving a general peace and acting to forestall threats. In both
cases, Americans had one foot out the door the moment they entered, which hampered their
ability to gain control of difficult situations.
So let's get this straight. The multi-trillion dollar Forever Wars are "relatively
low-cost"; tell that to the multitudes suffering the Via Crucis of US crumbling
infrastructure and appalling standards in health and education. If you don't support the
Forever Wars – absolutely necessary to preserve the "liberal world order" – you
are "intolerant".
"Preserving a general peace" does not even qualify as a joke, coming from someone
absolutely clueless about realities on the ground. As for what the Beltway defines as
"vibrant civil society" in Afghanistan, that in reality revolves around millennia-old
tribal custom codes: it has nothing to do with some neocon/woke crossover. Moreover,
Afghanistan's GDP – after so much American "help" – remains even lower than
Saudi-bombed Yemen's.
The prize for the truly awful story of the week goes to the appointment of AIPAC monster
to head Pentagon planning for the Middle East.
The extension of the nuclear arms agreement between Russia and the United States and the
decision to stop directly supporting the war on Yemen may have been the only good news items to
come out of Washington last week. The really bad news came when President Joe Biden
warned Russia that "the days of the United States rolling over in the face of Russia's
aggressive actions, interfering with our elections, cyber-attacks, poisoning its citizens, are
over." It was an empty threat full of innuendo that virtually guarantees four more years of
Russiagate or something like it. It was an odd statement considering that it has been
Washington doing all of the provoking during the Donald Trump administration, much of it
instigated by Democrats who are still looking for a scapegoat for the defeat of Hillary in
2016.
The mainstream media hasn't been reporting many second-tier stories because of the still
playing out double impeachment saga combined with the lingering debate over who actually won
the election. Whether Trump personally incited a riot or something worse depends on one's point
of view, but what is really sad to watch is the efforts being made by a "woke" Democratic Party
leadership and a frenzied media to destroy Trump's life and businesses even though he is no
longer in office, a revenge scenario that goes well beyond previous political vendettas. Worse
still, the attempts being made to render White House employees and Trump supporters
unemployable or even try to send them to jail based on convoluted interpretations of
legislation reflects a level of vindictiveness not seen since the Catiline Conspiracy in
Republican Rome.
Well, the incident on January 6 th wasn't exactly a replay of the storming of the
Bastille, but as it is all we have it will have to make do. Were those folks wandering around
inside the Capitol Building tourists who had gotten separated from their tour guide or were
they confused citizens from the Dakotas who had a couple of stamps remaining on their hunting
licenses allowing them to bag a Democrat or two? They would have been better advised to set up
a couple of feeder bait sites under the Rotunda loaded with Benjamins and the Congress-critters
would have arrived in droves. And that guy who stole Nancy Pelosi's podium only had to announce
that he was holding a Black Lives Matter meeting and good old Nancy would have arrived tout
suite on her knees with an African kente cloth stole draped around her neck. Alas,
we may never know the truth about what actually happened on that fateful day, but the
speculation will keep us going for months more.
There is a definite paucity of actual fact-based news that might make sense to a third
grader, particularly given the decline in American public education, which now only teaches
about the holocaust and racism. Consequently, I have fallen into the habit of saving links to
stories during the week and then deciding on the weekend which are worthy of special
recognition for being particularly ridiculous.
There were some really absurd articles last week. A particularly fascinating story describes
what is going on at the Pentagon, which is frantically sneaking more soldiers into Syria and
canceling any reduction in force in Afghanistan until the situation stabilizes, a policy move
by Biden that reverses one of the few good things that Trump initiated. Unfortunately, the
withdrawal from Afghanistan should take another twenty years or so to finish.
But the
really interesting development is the new mission of the U.S. Army, which will soon be
halting training and other bellicose activity to ease the transition into a full-time military
force dedicated to making sure that everyone observes diversity. It is a long overdue move that
the entire nation can be proud of, plus the U.S. will as a result be made safer from the
Chinese, Iranian and Russian threats. The tricky part is identifying those soldiers who think
racist thoughts, even if they never perform a racist act, because they are guilty of not
conforming to "woke world." They will have to be identified by special trained psychologists
before being dishonorably discharged and made unemployable as they are not fit to mix with
decent people.
Paul Kersey reports some of the details,
how the "Pentagon [has ordered] a 'stand down' in [the] next 60 Days" to identify and
address the problem of extremists in the military. It should be observed that soldiers who kill
civilians are not the extremists in question because killing is what soldiers are supposed to
do. It is instead "white people in the U.S. Military who display an insufficient loyalty to
Diversity, Inclusion, Equity and Tolerance. [They] are [the] domestic enemy, and unworthy as
individual[s] of defending our nation against the only threat our elite have united to defeat:
that, of course, being whiteness."
And for those apostatizing white supremacist civilians who don't want to get left out when
the diversity train rolls into their town, the Democratic Party is
looking into setting up Truth Commissions to make sure that anyone who ever entertained a
racist thought or used the "N" word will not be missed.
Make no mistake, an army that really knows what is important is surely great news. It will
be an excellent return on the taxpayers' trillion dollars annual investment, particularly as
the Constitution was written by a bunch of slave holders and is no longer worth swearing an
oath of allegiance to. But perhaps of more interest to foreign policy wonks is what is going on
in some of the other Pentagon offices dedicated to finding new enemies so there will always be
a supply of wars to fight after everyone in Afghanistan and Syria is exterminated.
As telling other nations how to behave backed up by the 101 st Airborne division
has become a wonderful indoor board game in this age of Coronavirus-19, my favorite article for
the past week has to be the news that Honest Joe Biden has appointed yet another Zionist harpy
to his team of war planners in an apparent attempt to keep Nuland, Sherman, Haines, Rice, Power
and Neuberger company. Her name is Dana Stroul and she
will be running the Pentagon's Middle East Desk, making her the senior policy official
focused on that region. Indications are that her eagle eye will be fixed on those major
malefactors Iran and Syria.
Stroul has been whisked away from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP),
where she has been the Shelly and Michael Kassen Fellow in the Institute's Beth and David
Geduld Program on Arab Politics. WINEP is the think tank founded by the American Israel Public
Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in an attempt to demonstrate that hatred of all of Israel's enemies
in the Middle East is somehow an American vital interest, so it is perhaps odd to consider that
the organization would even allow Arabs to have politics. Stroul had worked at the Pentagon and
had also co-chaired the Syria Study Group set up by Congress prior to landing at WINEP.
Stroul,
who believes that there is a threat to the U.S. from "Iranian nuclear ambitions and support
for terrorist groups throughout the region," also has had some interesting ideas about what
should be done to Syria, some of which was laid out in a final report that was presented to
Congress in September 2019 by the Syria Study Group.
The report states that "From the conflict's beginning in 2011 as a peaceful domestic
uprising, experts warned that President Bashar al-Assad's brutal response was likely to have
serious, negative impacts on U.S. interests. Given Syria's central location in the Middle East,
its ruling regime's ties to terrorist groups and to Iran, and the incompatibility of Assad's
authoritarian rule with the aspirations of the Syrian people, many worried about the conflict
spilling over Syria's borders The threats the conflict in Syria poses -- of terrorism directed
against the United States and its allies and partners; of an empowered Iran; of an aggrandized
Russia; of large numbers of refugees, displaced persons, and other forms of humanitarian
catastrophe; and of the erosion of international norms of war and the Western commitment to
them -- are sufficiently serious to merit a determined response from the United States. The
United States and its allies retain tools to address those threats and the leverage to promote
outcomes that are better for American interests than those that would prevail in the absence of
U.S. engagement. The United States underestimated Russia's ability to use Syria as an arena for
regional influence. Russia's intervention, beginning in 2015, accomplished its proximate aim --
the preservation of the regime in defiance of U.S. calls for Assad to 'go' -- at a relatively
low cost. Russia has enhanced its profile and prestige more broadly in the Middle East."
One immediately notes the incoherence of the argument being made. To make U.S. presence in
Syria palpable to the long-suffering American public, it is necessary to attempt to establish a
threat against the United States even though in this case there is none. And the repeated
citation of "interests" without credibly explaining what interests might compel invading and
occupying a foreign country is completely lacking in any detail. Stroul also several times
cites the heavy terrorist threat, ignoring the fact that the existing terrorists are being
sustained by Israel and by the United States, while President Bashar al-Assad has the
overwhelming support of most of the Syrian people. Reports are that Syrians are returning home
after a refugee crisis caused by the United States and its allies. And we all know that the
last refuge of a scoundrel is to play the Russian card, which Stroul does, as well as surfacing
that perennial demon Iran. U.S. support of Israeli bombing attacks are also just fine in her
opinion, even though they are a clear violation of the "international norms of war" that she
pretends to defend.
Stroul inevitably supports U.S.
retention and what she curiously refers to as "ownership" of the one third of Syria that is
"resource rich." That includes the Syrian oil producing region now occupied by U.S. troops as
well as by what she euphemizes as "Syrian Democratic Forces." She observes that it also
includes the country's best agricultural land, which, if denied to the government in Damascus,
could be used as leverage to bring about regime change. Starving Syrians are not Stroul's
concern so she consequently opposes any form of international relief or reconstruction funding
for the Syrian people and supports U.S. pressure on international lenders through the worldwide
banking system to deny Damascus any money to rebuild.
So, the prize for the truly awful story of the week goes to the appointment of this monster
daughter of AIPAC to head Pentagon planning for the Middle East, joining a sterling cast of
characters at State Department and in the intelligence community. Also, if one includes the
account of a diversified U.S. Army where soldiers will now be encouraged to snitch on each
other over privately held views, one has to ask "Can it get any worse?" Judging from Joe
Biden's list of appointments so far, it will, yes it will.
Philip Giraldi, Ph.D. is Executive Director of the Council for the National
Interest.
As an ex-Vet and the son of a Korean War Vet let me boldly say that any White that enlists
in the military needs to have his or her head examined. I guess American Indian war hero Ira
Hayes HAD to serve back then with the draft and all, but no way should an American Indian
have been forced to fight for a nation that had treated him so badly. I would have sided with
Muhammad Ali in his refusal to fight for America back then. Ali grew up in a different era
and wasn't spoiled and catered to like all Blacks born in the mid 1950s to now. Right now,
the Whites in this country are being attacked in every way they turn just for having been
born with white skin. Whites are attacked daily in the streets by Blacks not to mention an
assortment of other "diversities." Maybe I am TRULY colorblind when it comes to right and
wrong which is totally opposite to the kind of thinking exhibited by our Jewish overlords and
Black racists. When it comes to RIGHT or WRONG, I, not (((them,))) see no color. With all the
Jewish and Black Privilege out there, I think it is high time they do the fighting. Of course
there are plenty of Blacks in the military because like poor Whites, it often comes down to
needing a job, nothing more or nothing less. I would always laugh when people would tell me,
"thank you for your service.?" What, I needed a job, man. Time for Shlomo to start moving up
the enlisted ranks since he likes fighting so much.
I would always laugh when people would tell me, "thank you for your service.?"
I myself cringe, but at least I like to think that I'm a bit less easily duped now.
Never again.
PS: Shlomo never was in the enlisted ranks in either the USSR or the USSA.
[In] an article written on
12th April, 1919, in a paper called The Communist, at Kharkov, by one M. Cohen :
"The great Russian revolution was indeed accomplished by the hands of Jews. There are
no Jews in the ranks of the Red Army as far as privates are concerned, but in the
Committees, and in the Soviet organization as Commissars, the Jews are [38] gallantly
leading the masses. The symbol of Jewry has become the symbol of the Russian
proletariat, which can be seen in the fact of the adoption of the five-pointed star, which
in former times was the symbol of Zionism and Jewry."
– Captain Achibald.H.Maule Ramsay, The Nameless War, p29.
Mr. Giraldi: At the risk of beating a dead horse, I think that it is vital that the truth
about 9-11 be brought to the forefront of the present discussion. While it is apparent, as
you have been noting so convincingly over recent times, that Israeli/Jewish interests have
been prevailing over what should be an independent US foreign policy that serves the United
States, we must, it seems to me, resurrect the pursuit of the truth about 9-11, which is that
it was a predominantly Israeli/Jewish operation, undertaken with absolutely no concern for
the fact that thousands of Americans would be killed thereby by their own government in order
to foster a narrative that the Arabs in the Middle East had to be subdued to save Western
civilization.
9-11 was characterized by all of the clever and malevolent false flag subterfuges that
also characterized the "coup plotting" that resulted in the fraudulent 2020 election, and all
of its horrible aftermath. It is, for example, quite clear from the evidence that has been
developed through the brave work of Architects and Engineers for 9-11 truth, so well
documented in the lengthy documentary by Massimo Mazzucco, entitled 9-11 The New Pearl
Harbor, and the writings of several French analysts detailed in Voltaire.net , that while Arab interests might well have had an
aspiration to do damage to the United States/Israel by attacking the World Trade Center, that
the plot was uncovered very early by American/Israeli authorities, who, instead of squelching
it, decided to piggyback on it as a perfect cover for "doing the attacks right" so that they
might elicit the sort of outrage that would put the United States in complete service
henceforth to the Israeli nation-wrecking project in the Middle East.
Among the things that seem apparent to any half way objective observer, are that the owner
of the buildings ( or the lease) on the World Trade Center was completely compliant with the
placement of explosives in the building via the so-called elevator repair project undertaken
by the fictitious front company called Urban Moving Systems out of New Jersey, with its
Israeli demolition experts; that the owner of the buildings insured them shortly before 9-11
against terrorist attack, and that he uncharacteristically stayed away from the buildings on
9-11, that he was Jewish (perhaps a merely coincidental attribute) , and that he cried
crocodile tears after the "murders" of 2000 people who were not in on the "fix" ("such a
shame," I believe he said, shortly before he collected his massive insurance settlement and
started planning for his replacement tower which would have "much better sight lines") .
There is obviously much more evidence than I can detail here, as to the utter fraudulence of
the entire official story. Suffice to say that the horrid and unjustifiable wars that were
unleashed in the Middle East subsequently by the United States were a direct result of the
9-11 fraud. The fact that the bastards got away with that one made it clear to them that
stealing a presidential election in plain sight would be child's play.
Also, if one includes the account of a diversified U.S. Army where soldiers will now be
encouraged to snitch on each other over privately held views, one has to ask "Can it get
any worse?" Judging from Joe Biden's list of appointments so far, it will, yes it will.
Both Trump and Biden are minions of the Deep State both totally support the Deep
State.
@Ugetit n in life
back then was my sex life and clubbing. I NEVER watched (((news))) and my world was very
small. I read the sports pages and drank beer. I enjoyed my youth to the fullest and I slept
like a baby. IF someone would have shown me a book about Hitler or the holocaust, or told me
about how we must stand with muh Israel, I would have given the same old indoctrinated
Pavlovian response that some moronic Whites still have in 2021. I WOULD have said that Hitler
was the most evilest evil man that ever ever walked the earth and that America must stand
with muh Israel no matter what. Oh well, that is life in the fast lane. haha.
Jewish dominance is everywhere. Are they truly qualified? Biden should be ashamed of
himself for his appointments by overlooking more qualified Americans and for selecting Kamala
Harris as his VP. There were many women far more qualified and far more tolerant than Ms.
Harris. 2022 will probably see the Democrats losing both houses. JFK wanted to issue Treasury
currency, stop Israel from getting nuclear weapons, and pulling out of Vietnam. His
assassination caused America's loss of American independence. In June 1967 when Israel
attacked an unarmed American ship of the line, USS Liberty (in international waters), Johnson
refused to allow U.S. carrier planes to splash attacking IDD planes (using napalm) and sink
their torpedo boats from firing torpedos into the USS Libert – adding to the death and
carnage already be inflicted on the defenseless U.S. ships and its sailors. LBJ was worried
about his Jewish constituency and how they might react. Israeli influence took a quantum leap
then and it keeps increasing. Trump was guilty but Biden will be more giving to this small
foreign and theocratic nation. Buchanan's Whose war? in the American Conservative was an
honest eye-opener. Since the Democrats like impeaching out of office president – why
not Johnson RIP?
The tricky part is identifying those soldiers who think racist thoughts, even if they
never perform a racist act, because they are guilty of not conforming to "woke world." They
will have to be identified by special trained psychologists before being dishonorably
discharged and made unemployable as they are not fit to mix with decent people.
The sick irony here is that Judaism can be described as a canon of "racist thought." So it
is racist Jews, crypto Jews and their lickspittle (the Chosen-Elect) who are enforcing this
"anti-racism" social-engineering program on the American people, but doing so to hide their
own racist Zionism and the quest to set up Israel as the moral authority of the planet;
indeed, the moral authority of the universe.
I guess the best defense is a good offense. I guess all people were created equal, but
some people are more equal than others.
Orwell was absolutely dead-on about the sick, warped, totalitarian character of the
Jewish-infiltrated Anglo elite. The Zionism at the center if it all didn't come into fruition
in his day, but he nailed it nonetheless.
Possibly the real motive is to get an army that will be willing to point guns at the
American population should things ever get to that point. They'll psychologically screen them
to make sure they won't identify too closely with the mass of Americans but will follow
orders. Their war fighting capabilities take a secondary consideration to that of shielding
an illegitimate regime. They may have big plans ahead in Syria and Iran and are getting ready
to make sure things don't come apart at home as in the Vietnam war. They're probably getting
the VA hospitals ready for a new influx down the road. Looks like we're on a crash course
with Syria, Iran and Russia. One incident, one false flag coming out of nowhere and here we
go.
Come on, DIET is a clever move for the army. They have a little problem with war crimes.
The ICC began an inquiry into Afghanistan war crimes years ago. There's no statute of
limitations on such universal jurisdiction crimes. Any UN member nation can prosecute or
extradite suspects. And treaty bodies of multiple binding treaties have adjured the USG to
impose command responsibility. It puts a crimp in AFRICOM, IMET, all sorts of army gravy
trains, not just on Blowing Shit Up.
The traditional US way of maintaining impunity for grave crimes is CIA's bad-apples
canard. Lock up a couple hillbillies. With DIET, Army has institutionalized CIA's bad-apples
ploy as a vague ideological taint. If they can tie war crimes to doctrinal impurity, then
they can call inveterate war criminals bad apples instead of special forces. It's not going
to work in the civilized world, but it will probably protect BMD commanders here at home.
Now then. DO killed inter lotsa alia a judge, an ex-attorney general, a Prime Minister of
Congo, a UN Secretary-General, a Prime Minister of Sweden, a legally sacrosanct diplomatic
envoy of Iran, numerous Russia diplomats, more than 3,000 workers in a New York skyscraper, a
US president, and 475,000 Americans (with banned biological weapons!) And you got away with
it all. If you guys really minded, you would take care of this Izzie fifth column toot sweet.
That you do not shows that it works for you.
"Diversifying" the military has a very clear advantage in terms of domestic control. A
Black lesbian will have little compunction in firing upon a group of white people that she is
told are "insurrectionists".
However, what is puzzling is how much less effective these "diversified" forces will be in
future wars on behalf of Israel. You would think that the oligarchs would want to keep the US
military as lethal as possible in support of their future global conquests. Perhaps they plan
two forces, one to battle white supremacists and "misinformation" domestically, and another
less diverse segment to wage war externally.
The head of US Strategic Command (STRATCOM)
warned that a nuclear war with Russia or China is a "real possibility" and is calling for a
change in US policy that reflects this threat .
"There is a real possibility that a regional crisis with Russia or China could escalate
quickly to a conflict involving nuclear weapons, if they perceived a conventional loss would
threaten the regime or state," Vice Adm. Charles Richard wrote in the February edition of the
US Naval Institute's monthly magazine .
Richard said the US military must "shift its principal assumption from 'nuclear employment
is not possible' to 'nuclear employment is a very real possibility,' and act to meet and deter
that reality."
The STRATCOM chief said Russia and China "have begun to aggressively challenge international
norms and global peace using instruments of power and threats of force in ways not seen since
the height of the Cold War."
Richard hyped up Russia and China's nuclear modernization, calling for the US to compete
with the two nations. When it comes to China's nuclear weapons, the US and Russia have vastly
larger arsenals. Current estimates put
Beijing's nuclear arsenal at about 320 warheads, while Washington and Moscow have about 6,000
warheads each .
Even if Beijing doubles its arsenal over the next decade, as the China hawks are predicting,
it will still be small compared to Washington's. The US would have to eliminate a good amount
of its arsenal to convince Beijing to participate in arms control agreements.
Since STRATCOM is the command post that oversees Washington's nuclear arsenal, its
commanders are always overplaying the risk of nuclear war and asking for more money to
modernize the stockpile. But with the US prioritizing so-called "great power competition" with
China and Russia and an increased US military presence in places like
the South China Sea ,
the Arctic , and
the Black Sea , the threat of nuclear war is rising.
The story I heard here in Australia was that George W Bush nearly met his maker courtesy
of a pretzel stuck in his craw early in his 8-year Presidency.
John
F Kennedy had Addison's disease and various other health issues: spinal problems and back
pain caused by college football injuries, compounded by osteoporosis caused by drugs to treat
his other afflictions; symptoms suggestive of irritable bowel syndrome or spastic colitis;
urinary tract infections; and a stomach ulcer. He contracted malaria
while serving during WWII.
T here's a
news story about a U.S. military convoy entering Syria being shared around social media
with captions claiming that President Joe Biden is already "invading" Syria which is getting
tons of shares in both right-wing and left anti-imperialist circles.
But if you read the original report everyone jumped on, accurately titled "U.S. military
convoy enters northeast Syria: report," you don't have to read too far to get to this line :
"Other local media report that such maneuvers are not unusual as the U.S. often moves
transfers equipment between Iraq and Syria."
So, while this is a movement of troops between illegitimate military occupations which have
no business existing in either country, it is nothing new and would have been happening
regardless of which candidate had won the last U.S. presidential election.
Another inaccurate narrative that's gone completely viral is the claim that Biden is sending
more troops to Iraq. This one traces back to a single Twitter post by some Trumpy
account with the handle "@amuse" who shared a Jerusalem Post article with the caption
"BREAKING: President Biden is considering reversing Trump's drawdown in Iraq by adding
thousands of troops to combat growing terror threats in the region as evidenced by Thursday's
attack near the U.S. embassy."
If you read the actual JPost article titled "
Baghdad bombing could be the Biden admin's first challenge " you will see that it contains
no such claim, and if you were to search a bit you would find @amuse claiming that they
were sharing something they'd learned from "sources" in D.C. instead of accurately summarizing
the contents of the article.
Unless you know this person and know them to be consistently trustworthy, there is no valid
reason to believe claims allegedly said by alleged anonymous sources to some openly partisan
anonymous account on Twitter.
But the bogus tweet was amplified by many influential accounts, most notably by Donald Trump
Jr with the caption "Getting back into wars on the first full day. The Swamp/War Inc. is
thrilled right now."
Its virality then caused it to work its way outward to dupe many well-meaning
anti-imperialists (myself included until I looked into it) who are vigilant against
Biden's notorious warmongering , and now there's a widespread narrative throughout every
part of the ideological spectrum that Biden is escalating warmongering in both Syria and
Iraq.
It is entirely possible – probable even – that reliable warmonger
Joe Biden will end up sending more U.S. troops to Iraq and Syria at some point during his
administration. But if the antiwar community keeps staring at the movement of ground troops
with hypervigilant intensity, they won't be paying enough attention to the areas where the more
deadly aspects of Biden's hawkishness are likely to manifest.
Jan. 28, 2019: The Trump administration's U.S. National Security Advisor John R. Bolton,
left, and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announce sanctions of the Venezuela oil company
PDVSA. (The White House, Wikimedia Commons)
Trump may not have started any "new wars," but he kept the old ones going and inflamed
some of them. Just because you don't start any new wars doesn't mean you're not a
warmonger.
Rather than a throwback to "new wars" and the old-school ground invasions of the Bush era,
the warmongering we'll be seeing from the Biden administration is more likely to look like
this. More starvation sanctions. More proxy conflicts. More cold war. More coups. More special
ops. More drone strikes. More slow motion strangulation, less ham-fisted overt warfare.
It is certainly possible that Biden could launch a new full-scale war; the empire is in
desperate straits right now, and it could turn out that a very desperate maneuver is needed to
maintain global domination. But that isn't the method that it has favored lately.
The U.S. empire
much prefers nowadays to pour its resources into less visible acts of violence like
economic siege warfare and arming proxy militias; the Iraq invasion left Americans so bitter
toward conventional war that any more of it would increase the risk of an actual antiwar
movement in the United States, which would be disastrous for the empire.
So rather than tempt fate with the bad publicity of flag-draped coffins flying home by the
thousands again imperialism is now served up with a bit more subtlety, with the military
playing more of a backup role to guard the infrastructure of this new approach.
It appears clear that this would be the Biden administration's preferred method of
warmongering if given the choice.
The incoming Secretary of State Tony Blinken now advocates replacing the
old Bush model of full-scale war with "discreet, small-scale sustainable operations, maybe led
by special forces, to support local actors." Biden's nominee for CIA Director William Burns
urged caution in the lead-up to the Iraq
invasion and later expressed regret that he didn't push
back against it.
Antiwar protest in San Francisco, Aug. 29, 2013. (Steve Rhodes, Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Too much of the antiwar community is still stuck in the early 2000s. The Western war machine
just doesn't generally kill that way anymore, and we need to adjust our perspectives if we want
to address the actual murderousness as it is actually showing up. If you keep looking out for
obsolete ground invasions, you're going to miss the new form of warmongering completely.
Trump supporters who claim to oppose war missed this completely throughout the entirety of
his presidency, confining the concept of "war" solely to its most blatant iterations in order
to feel like their president was a peacemaker instead of a warmonger.
One of the few positive developments that could potentially arise from the Biden
administration is helping such people to recognize acts of violence like starvation sanctions
as war, since they will be opposing Biden and that is how this new administration will be
manifesting much of its murderousness.
The political/media class likes to keep everyone focused on the differences between each
president and his immediate predecessor, but we can learn a whole lot more by looking at their
similarities. Biden's warmongering is going to look a lot like Trump's -- just directed in some
different directions and expressing in slightly different ways -- despite all the energy that
has been poured into painting them as two wildly different individuals.
Once you see beyond the partisan puppet show, you see a single oligarchic empire continuing
the same murderous agendas from one sock puppet administration to the next.
"Blinken has said that America's foreign policy must be conducted with 'humility and
confidence', which may sound refreshingly modest. But it's not. Underlying this 'quiet
American' is the same old arrogance about U.S. imperial might-is-right and Washington's
presumed privilege of appointing itself as the 'world's policeman'.
"If Blinken's record is anything to go on, his future role as America's top diplomat is
foreboding.
"Previously, he was a senior member in the Obama administrations serving as national
security advisor to both the president and Joe Biden who was then vice-president. Blinken
rose to become deputy Secretary of State in the final years of the second Obama
administration. In those roles he was a key player in a series of foreign interventions which
turned out to be utterly disastrous."
The once upon a time manufactured aura of Virtue projected by the Outlaw US Empire that
was swallowed by so many naïve nations has vanished with nothing other than its stark
ugliness as a replacement. Refusal to see that reality is what Xi just referred to again as
"arrogance" which puts Blinken into the same ideological camp as Pompeo. As Global Times notes
, if the Outlaw US Empire's attitude's not going to change, than why should China's as
Pompeo's constant lying is replaced by Psaki's:
"When White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki responded to a question Monday about US-China
relations, she said that 'China is growing more authoritarian at home and more assertive
abroad,' adding that China 'is engaged in conduct that hurts American workers, blunts [US]
technological edge, and threatens [US] alliances and [US] influence in international
organizations.' She also noted that Washington is 'starting from an approach of patience as
it relates to [its] relationship with China.'"
The editor's response to such inanity:
"Psaki's statement shows that the Biden administration's view and characterization of
China is virtually identical to those of the Trump administration. Psaki stressed that 'We're
in a serious competition with China. Strategic competition with China is a defining feature
of the 21st century,' reflecting that the Biden administration only cares about a "new
approach" to holding China accountable."
And Psaki's words are the same as Blinken's, which were the same as Pompeo's and Trump's.
In other words, the hole digging by the Outlaw US Empire in its relations with the rest of
the world will continue, which will cause further deterioration of its domestic Great
Depression 2.0. Yesterday I posted a comment that highlighted Putin's expounding on the
further enhancement of the educational component of Russia's Social Contract that is
impossible for Navalny's backers to match. On the previous thread, a good comparison was made
between the Yeltsin years and the ongoing drowning of the Outlaw US Empire. The Reset that's
in the works isn't the one envisioned by Global Neoliberals like Klaus Schwab of the
WEF/Davos crew. It's what Xi spoke of yesterday that I commented upon and Escobar reported on
today. The Winds of Change are blowing again, but there's a gaping hole in the USA's wind
sock so it can't see in which direction it's blowing.
blinken is bad news.. i think that is very obvious from a superficial read on him.. the usa
can't get out of the ditch it has made for itself.. nothing is gonna change...
'liberal interventionism' has always been the hallmark of the US Liberal Class and its
foreign policy Establishment, especially since at least Wilson's jumping into WWI.
Has the US ever not intervened in Latin America whenever it felt like it or thought its
"interests" were at stake?
I think Caitlan J. has a good grasp on what to expect from the Biden war mongering crowd
that has recently moved into DC once again:
"....Trump's base has been forcefully pushing the narrative that the previous president
didn't start any new wars, which while technically true ignores his murderous actions like
vetoing the bill to save Yemen from U.S.-backed genocide and actively blocking aid to its
people, murdering untold tens of thousands of Venezuelans with starvation sanctions, rolling
out many world-threatening Cold War escalations against Russia, engaging in insane
brinkmanship with Iran, greatly increasing the number of bombs dropped per day from the
previous administration, killing record numbers of civilians, and reducing military
accountability for those airstrikes....
....Rather than a throwback to "new wars" and the old-school ground invasions of the Bush
era, the warmongering we'll be seeing from the Biden administration is more likely to look
like this. More starvation sanctions. More proxy conflicts. More cold war. More coups. More
special ops. More drone strikes. More slow motion strangulation, less ham-fisted overt
warfare...."
---
Simply put, more small scale wars/ops mostly by proxy, more support for local wankers
(like Guaido in Venezuela, who has incredibly little popular support), and more of these
killing sanctions, which are especially pernicious to the civilian populations in vulnerable
countries like Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Nicaragua and Venezuela, etc.
"... Almost immediately after taking command at CENTCOM in March 2019, McKenzie launched his campaign of political manipulation. By requesting additional forces to contain a supposedly urgent Iranian threat, McKenzie triggered the dispatch of an aircraft carrier strike group and a bomber task force to the Middle East. A month later, he told reporters he believed the deployments were "having a very good stabilizing effect," and that he was in the process of negotiating on a larger, long-term U.S. military presence. ..."
A four-star general who previously served as director of the Joint Staff at the Pentagon,
McKenzie is regarded as the most politically astute commander ever to lead Middle East
Command, according to journalist Mark Perry. He has also shown himself to be exceptionally
brazen in scheming to defend his interests.
Almost immediately after taking command at CENTCOM in March 2019, McKenzie launched his
campaign of political manipulation. By requesting additional forces to contain a supposedly
urgent Iranian threat, McKenzie triggered the dispatch of an aircraft carrier strike group
and a bomber task force to the Middle East. A month later, he told reporters he believed
the deployments were "having a very good stabilizing effect," and that he was in the
process of negotiating on a larger, long-term U.S. military presence.
As a result of his maneuvering, McKenzie succeeded in acquiring 10,000 to 15,000 more
military personnel, bringing the total in his CENTCOM realm to more than 90,000. The rapid
increase in assets under his command was revealed in a Senate hearing in March 2020.
Now, flipping through printout cards of his speech in Paris, McChrystal wonders aloud
what Biden question he might get today, and how he should respond. "I never know what's
going to pop out until I'm up there, that's the problem," he says. Then, unable to help
themselves, he and his staff imagine the general dismissing the vice president with a good
one-liner.
"Are you asking about Vice President Biden?" McChrystal says with a laugh. "Who's
that?"
"Biden?" suggests a top adviser. "Did you say: Bite Me?"
From the start, McChrystal was determined to place his personal stamp on Afghanistan, to
use it as a laboratory for a controversial military strategy known as counterinsurgency.
COIN, as the theory is known, is the new gospel of the Pentagon brass, a doctrine that
attempts to square the military's preference for high-tech violence with the demands of
fighting protracted wars in failed states. COIN calls for sending huge numbers of ground
troops to not only destroy the enemy, but to live among the civilian population and slowly
rebuild, or build from scratch, another nation's government – a process that even its
staunchest advocates admit requires years, if not decades, to achieve. The theory
essentially rebrands the military, expanding its authority (and its funding) to encompass
the diplomatic and political sides of warfare: Think the Green Berets as an armed Peace
Corps. In 2006, after Gen. David Petraeus beta-tested the theory during his "surge" in
Iraq, it quickly gained a hardcore following of think-tankers, journalists, military
officers and civilian officials. Nicknamed "COINdinistas" for their cultish zeal, this
influential cadre believed the doctrine would be the perfect solution for Afghanistan. All
they needed was a general with enough charisma and political savvy to implement it.
Now Trump has shafted DR Congo because the money was well appreciated by Dan Gertler as
documented by Dershowitz.– "Letting Dan Gertler off the hook sends a message to the world's
most corrupt businesspeople that the U.S. will let them walk free after a bit of
lobbying,"-NYTimes
Notable quotes:
"... Trump's most pervasive foreign policy initiatives have involved Israel, encouraging the Jewish state's attacks on Palestinian, Iranian, Lebanese and Syrian targets with impunity, killing thousands of civilians on his watch. Trump has given Israel everything it could possibly ask for, with no consideration for what the U.S. interests might actually be. The only thing he did not do for the Jewish state was to attack and destroy Iran, and even there, reports suggest that he sought to do just that in the waning days of his administration but was talked out of it by his cabinet. ..."
"... But even given all that, Trump the panderer clearly wanted to give one last gift to Israel, and he saved it for his last day in office, when he issued more than 140 pardons and commutations. Though other presidents have issued controversial pardons, no other head of state has so abused the clemency authority to benefit not only friends and acquaintances but also celebrity defendants including rappers, some advocated by the likes of the Kardashians, and also those promoted by monied interests. Most of the pardons went to cronies and to supplicants who were willing to pay in cash or in kind to be set free. It was suggested that Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner was engaged in the selection process and money was often a key element. Some might describe that as corruption. ..."
"... Elliott Broidy, former finance chair of the Republican National Committee, had no less than five Rabbis vouching for him. Last year Broidy had pleaded guilty to acting as an "unregistered foreign agent," part of a larger investigation into the Malaysian "1MDB Scandal" in which Prime Minister Najib Razak stole more than $700 million dollars from his country's state-run 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB). Broidy worked on behalf of Razak and was offered $75 million if he could get the U.S. Justice Department to drop its own investigation into the scandal. ..."
"... Another clemency beneficiary who exploited his Jewish links was Philip Esformes, a former nursing home executive who executed one of the biggest Medicare frauds in U.S. history. Just days after being released after serving four years of his 20-year sentence, Esformes celebrated his daughter's wedding in a lavish party held at his multi-million dollar Florida home. He benefited from a lobbying campaign by the Hasidic Chabad-Lubavitch Aleph Institute, a group advised by the ubiquitous former Trump lawyer Alan Dershowitz. The movement reportedly has connections to Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner. ..."
"... Another person pardoned by Trump was Sholam Weiss, a Hasidic businessman from New York who was sentenced to more than 800 years in prison in 2000 for racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering connected to a huge fraud scheme that stole $125 million from the National Heritage Life Insurance Company, leading to its bankruptcy. He fled the country but was subsequently arrested in Austria and extradited to the United States. Weiss had reportedly received the endorsement of from Dershowitz, who also recently has been involved in the Jeffrey Epstein/Ghislaine Maxwell espionage case. ..."
"... Trump gave a full pardon to Aviem Sella, a seventy-five year old former Israeli Air Force officer, who was indicted in the U.S. in 1987 for espionage in relation to the Jonathan Pollard spy case. Sella fled to Israel days before Pollard was arrested outside the Israeli embassy in Washington D.C. and the Israeli government refused to extradite him. Sella, at the time doing a degree course at New York University, was Pollard's initial contact. He had started working part-time for the Mossad intelligence agency in the early 1980s and received some of the classified top-secret documents provided by Pollard in exchange for money and jewelry. ..."
One keeps hearing that former President Donald Trump will be judged well by the history
books because he was the only American head of state in recent memory who did not start any new
wars. Well, the claim is itself questionable as Jimmy Carter, for all his faults, managed to
avoid entering into any new armed conflict, and Trump can hardly be described as a president
who eschewed throwing his weight around, both literally and figuratively. He attacked Syria on
two occasions based on fabricated intelligence, assassinated an Iranian general, withdrew from
several arms and proliferation agreements, and has been waging economic warfare against Iran,
Syria, Venezuela and Iraq. He has sanctioned individuals and organizations in both China and
Russia and has declared Iranian government components and Yemeni Houthi rebels to be
terrorists. He has occupied Syria's oil producing region to "protect it from terrorists" and
has generally exerted "maximum pressure" against his "enemies" in the Middle East.
So no, Donald Trump is no antiwar activist. But Trump's most pervasive foreign policy
initiatives have involved Israel, encouraging the Jewish state's attacks on Palestinian,
Iranian, Lebanese and Syrian targets with impunity, killing thousands of civilians on his
watch. Trump has given Israel everything it could possibly ask for, with no consideration for
what the U.S. interests might actually be. The only thing he did not do for the Jewish state
was to attack and destroy Iran, and even there, reports suggest that he sought to do just that
in the waning days of his administration but was talked out of it by his cabinet.
Trump's pander to Israel started out with withdrawing from the nuclear monitoring agreement
with Iran, followed by his shutting down the Palestinian offices in the United States, halting
U.S. contributions for Palestinian humanitarian relief, moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem,
recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Syrian Golan Heights, giving a green light for Israel
to do whatever it wishes on the formerly Palestinian West Bank, and, finally permitting paroled
former Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard to go "home" to Israel where he received a hero's welcome.
Trump, to be sure, was aided in his disloyalty to his own country by former bankruptcy lawyer
Ambassador David Friedman in place in Israel, an ardent Zionist and a cheerleader for whatever
atrocities Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decided to commit. Couple that with a Congress
that gives billions of dollars to Israel annually while bleating that the Jewish state has a
"right to defend itself" and a media that self-censors all the human rights violations and war
crimes that Netanyahu unleashes, and you have a perfect love fest for Israel expressed daily
throughout the United States.
But even given all that, Trump the panderer clearly wanted to give one last gift to Israel,
and he saved it for his last day in office, when he issued more than 140 pardons and
commutations. Though other presidents have issued controversial pardons, no other head of state
has so abused the clemency authority to benefit not only friends and acquaintances but also
celebrity defendants including rappers, some advocated by the likes of the Kardashians, and
also those promoted by monied interests. Most of the pardons went to cronies and to supplicants
who were willing to pay in cash or in kind to be set free. It was suggested that Trump
son-in-law Jared Kushner was engaged in the selection process and money was often a key
element. Some might describe that as corruption.
Those of us in the actual antiwar plus anti-surveillance-state movement had been hoping that
Trump would actually do something good at no cost to himself, pardoning whistleblowers Edward
Snowden, John Kiriakou, Reality Winner, and Chelsea Manning as well as journalist Julian
Assange. Kiriakou
has reported that when he petitioned for a pardon through one of Trump lawyer Rudi
Giuliani's aides, he was told that such an arrangement would cost $2 million.
Bribes for pardons aside, it would have cost Trump nothing to pardon the whistleblowers and
it would be a vindication of those who had put themselves at risk to attack the machinations of
the Deep State, which Trump had blamed for the coordinated attacks against himself. This was
his relatively cost-free chance to get revenge. Admittedly,
there is speculation that Senator Mitch McConnell may have warned Trump against pardoning
Julian Assange in particular, threatening to come up with enough GOP votes to convict him in
his upcoming impeachment trial if he were to do so. Be that as it may, not a single
whistleblower was pardoned though there was room on the ship for plenty of heinous white collar
criminals. Former Dr. Salomon Melgen, for example, had his sentence commuted. Melgen, a close
friend of the seriously corrupt Senator from New Jersey Robert Menendez got into
trouble in 2009 when the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) discovered that
he had overbilled Medicare for $8.9 million for a drug called Lucentis. Two years later
Melgen's business was hit with a $11 million lien from
the IRS and four years after that he was charged and convicted over more than 76 counts of
health care fraud and making false statements.
Some of those pardoned had Jewish organizations going to bat for them. Elliott Broidy,
former finance chair of the Republican National Committee, had
no less than five Rabbis vouching for him. Last year Broidy had pleaded guilty to acting as
an "unregistered foreign agent," part of a larger investigation into the Malaysian "1MDB
Scandal" in which Prime Minister Najib Razak stole more than $700 million dollars from his
country's state-run 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB). Broidy worked on behalf of Razak and
was offered $75 million if he could get the U.S. Justice Department to drop its own
investigation into the scandal.
Another clemency
beneficiary who exploited his Jewish links was Philip Esformes, a former nursing home
executive who executed one of the biggest Medicare frauds in U.S. history. Just days after
being released after serving four years of his 20-year sentence, Esformes celebrated his
daughter's wedding in a lavish party held at his multi-million dollar Florida home. He
benefited from a lobbying campaign by the Hasidic Chabad-Lubavitch Aleph Institute, a group
advised by the ubiquitous former Trump lawyer Alan Dershowitz. The movement reportedly has
connections to Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner.
Another person pardoned by Trump was Sholam Weiss, a Hasidic businessman from New York who
was
sentenced to more than 800 years in prison in 2000 for racketeering, wire fraud and money
laundering connected to a huge fraud scheme that stole $125 million from the National Heritage
Life Insurance Company, leading to its bankruptcy. He fled the country but was subsequently
arrested in Austria and extradited to the United States. Weiss had reportedly received the
endorsement of from Dershowitz, who also recently has been involved in the Jeffrey
Epstein/Ghislaine Maxwell espionage case.
And, of course, there was also the Israel factor. For no plausible reason whatsoever and
contrary to actual American interests, Trump
gave a full pardon to Aviem Sella, a seventy-five year old former Israeli Air Force
officer, who was indicted in the U.S. in 1987 for espionage in relation to the Jonathan Pollard
spy case. Sella fled to Israel days before Pollard was arrested outside the Israeli embassy in
Washington D.C. and the Israeli government refused to extradite him. Sella, at the time doing a
degree course at New York University, was Pollard's initial contact. He had started working
part-time for the Mossad intelligence agency in the early 1980s and received some of the
classified top-secret documents provided by Pollard in exchange for money and jewelry.
Sella had passed on the Pollard contact to Mossad's agent handler Rafi Eitan, who continued
to "run" Pollard until he was arrested. Sella's indictment was essentially meaningless theater,
as is generally true of nearly all Israeli spy cases in the U.S., as Tel Aviv refused to
extradite him to the United States and the Justice Department made no attempt to arrest him
when he was traveling outside Israel. Trump's pardon for Sella as a favor to Netanyahu sends
yet another signal that Israel can spy against the U.S. with impunity. The request to Trump for
clemency came from the Israeli government itself and was reportedly endorsed by Netanyahu,
Israeli Ambassador to the United States Ron Dermer, the United States Ambassador to Israel
David Friedman, and Miriam Adelson. According to the White House statement on the pardon, "The
state of Israel has issued what a full and unequivocal apology, and has requested the pardon in
order to close this unfortunate chapter in U.S.-Israel relations."
Was it a gift or merely a pander? Note particularly the inclusion of David Friedman, who as
U.S. Ambassador to Israel is supposed to defend the interests of the United States but never
does so. Once upon a time it was considered a potential conflict of interest to send a Jewish
Ambassador to Israel. Now it seems to be a requirement and the Ambassador is apparently
supposed to be an advocate for Israel as part of his or her mission. Friedman will no doubt be
replaced by a Democratic version to deliver more of the same. And then there is Miriam Adelson.
Good old Sheldon is hardly cold on the ground and his wife has taken up the mantle of
manipulating players in Washington on behalf of the Jewish state.
Money talks and so the drama in Washington continues to play out. Trump manages to make
himself look even worse with his last round of pardons and commutations on his ultimate day in
office. No one who deserved clemency got it and a lot of well-connected rogues who were willing
to fork over money in exchange for mercy benefited. Business as usual delivered by the
so-called Leader of the Free World.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest,
a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a
more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is https://councilforthenationalinterest.org
address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is[email protected]
While I whole heartily agree with Dr Giraldi, I strongly believe that Trump was a hostage
of wealthy Jews and Zionists. It is most likely that he has committed misdemeanour while he
was involved (friendship) with Jeffrey Epstein/Ghislaine who operated an elitist paedophilia
criminal enterprise. The criminal enterprise was to advance the interests of Israel and Jews.
It was used as a honey trap. Remember, Trump was under constant threat by wealthy Jews and by
right-wing Zionists like Senators Mitch McConnell, Robert Menendez, etc. Trump was not a
smart president. He committed heinous crimes on behalf of Israel and wealthy Jews.
All Shabbos goys. Our nation is truly Zionist occupied territory. It has been for a long
time, but under trump it became overt, and will continue to be under Biden.
Our whole reality, in a sense, has become a Talmudic dialectic. The rabbinate's
mouthpiece, our media, disseminates the two sides of that demonic dialectic. The education
system and academia train and mold Shabbos goys and Noahides. We work for them and they see
us as beasts of burden.
Our citizenry likes the slavery they have been placed in. They are content.
So, the Populist is a shill for Israel and Qanon is probably a psy-op run from Tel Aviv. I
wanted to believe there was hope for the USA. I really did. Now we have Biden "I am a
Zionist" with an Israeli cabinet. Was there really election fraud? Will we ever know?
What's next?
I pity those people, probably otherwise good folks, that were conned by this character.
Was a blanket pardon for all Jews and BLACKS just not possible? I'm confident Alan Dershowitz
could have worked through the complex legalities of such a "comprehensive" pardon.
What are a few yid pardons when, unbelievably, Americans routinely mutilate the sex organs
of their male offspring at birth to demonstrate total fealty to the vile Cock Cutter Cult
that rules them ..a practice so bizarre even an equatorial pygmy would laugh at the
practitioners. Of course, the practitioners claim hygienic as well as spiritual benefits look
ma, no dick cheese!
Trump is a crypto Jew. Well at least all his grandkids are ..real Jews. So is Hillary's
grandkid. So corrupted on both side. What's new? Nothing. The only thing remarkable is that
red necks still believe in Trump, hence the white race is doomed.
Agree with most of the article, but calling Jimmy Carter a recent president is more than
just a bit of a stretch.
Carter exited office 40 years ago. The current median age in the US is about 38.4
(2019).
So in the lifetime of a very large portion of Americans there has not been a president that
hasn't started a new war.
Frankly, I don't see why presidents should have the power to pardon. It has been abused so
much that perhaps it's time to strip presidents of that power, or at least there should be an
appeals process or some sort of oversight when that abuse becomes so egregious. Aside from
all the financial criminals, he pardoned actual war criminals, men who murdered innocent
civilians in Iraq. Pardons weren't meant for this.
Of course, leave it to Trump to take it to new levels of corruption as well as abuse. If
John Kyriakou's allegation of Trump's directly selling pardons is true, that should be a
first.
Carter kickstarted funding the Taliban 6 months before the Russians intervened.
I'm nor surprised by Trump's graft, but the whole system of making laws in Congress
includes bribery so nothing new here to see.
Aside from being a bad manager, he is no strategist it seems. Not pardoning Assange means
the GOP are going to vote not to impeach you? How gullible is he? He is getting impeached
whatever he does, he could jump on a literal sword and they'd still impeach him because they
are so offended by the prols.
The sight of Dersh rubbing his hands in the pic is nearly enough to induce this commenter
to say good riddance despite the obviously stolen election and the incoming disaster. I got
the Apolitical Blues.
It would not have mattered whether Donald Trump had pardoned any whistleblowers.
As we can see, the Harris administration is dismantling as much of his legacy as they can,
as fast as they can.
The parts that offend, that is.
It only matters if the CIA pardon Snowden or Assange, else they will forever be looking
over their shoulders, wondering when something will be slipped into their tea, or over their
doorknob..
@Z-man ing
back.
Therefore: stop bad-speak. Stop unauthorized thinking. For the love of God: eradicate
anti-Semitism!
Has Israeli dominance of Zio-Washington and US 'news' ever been greater? Nah. And it may
even be growing. OK, Trump blew the whistle on 'fake news'. But that teaser was pretty much
far as it went.
For all his boldness, Trump realized that–when it came to Israel and the deep
state– he met is match. Time to retreat.
Meanwhile, Israel and Zionist America have basically merged. In the dark of night, no
less.
This article is a full on demolition of the idea that Trumpstein is any sort of patriot. I
can not imagine any patriotic figure in all of human history doing a tenth of what this
shabas goy has done for another country – and one so universally despised as Israel
– and not only getting away with it, but still being praised in certain circles for
standing up for his "motherland". Bonkers.
Go back to the preposterously optimistic article and comments under "A Pardoning Time of
Year," December 29, 2020.
Will his supporters who thought that Mr. Trump would do right, even if only on his way out
the door, now admit that they were duped?
A few, maybe. But there will still be plenty like them for the next Most Important
Election Ever, their dissent channeled into naive, participatory assent to more
Red+Blue governance from Washington.
Amerimutts are either kikes or kike slaves. There is no other places on earth (except
semitic hell, of course), where "huwhites" cut children's foreskin against their will, as
good "Christians".
Disgusting nation of heretics, quadroons, subhumans, kike lovers and yids.
No surprise here, coming from "the best president Israel ever had". Expect more of the
same from the new administration of Israeli stooges. I was hopeful the orange bastard would
pardon Snowden and Assange, oh well.
Pedo Joe is wasting no time showing Jews & Israel he can pander and grovel to Israel
and Jew Inc better than Zion Don.
Look at 10 of his high-level Cabinet appointments..ALL Jews. If they had been all Muslims
or all Chinese, it would've hit the fan and by now, most would have dropped out from that
spot.
But since their Jews, well look the other way you Silly Goyim.
I thought Diversity was our strength?
All 10 of Biden's High Profile Appointees Are Jews
Anthony Blinken, Secretary of State
David Cohen, CIA Deputy Director
Merrick Garland, Attorney General
Avril Haines, Director of National Intelligence
Ronald Klain, Chief of Staff
Eric Lander, Office of Science and Technology Policy director
Rachel Levine, deputy health secretary
Alejandro Mayorkas, Secretary of Homeland Security
Anne Neuberger, National Security Agency cybersecurity director
Idiocracy, the director's cut. Trump grabs himself by the pussy in a surprise ending!
Remember, the Phoenix cannot rise from the fire, it has to rise from the ashes. Only then
can the real MAGA begin. See if its true that Bismarck (allegedly) stated that " there is a
special providence for drunkards, fools and the United States of America".
It's pretty fascinating for anyone who knows what's happening to see Jews utterly destroy
and evacuate yet another great civilization by using the same corrupting forces and patterns
used in their clearly deliberate rotting out of Rome, the destruction of the Holy Roman
Empire, then Russia, and now the USA. It's like Jews are a kind of human parasitoid that will
always kill its host as part of its lifecycle after it has drained all energy and resources
from within.
Remember that movie Alien, there the larva like offspring attaches to inject its seed into
humans and then clearly affects the human's nervous system to make them kind of forget that
ever happened as they carry the parasitoid in them that develops and feeds on their body
until the day it bursts from their chest in the form of the beast we know as the alien.
As stated about our in the movie, something along the lines of "pure survival instinct
burned by the limitations of delusions of morality"; pretty much describes how Jews operate
and act, and how they keep infecting and then destroying the very societies and civilizations
they feed on until they burst from their victims' chest.
I wish China all the luck it needs to see this threat from this parasitoid and freed
themselves of it before it infiltrates and infests and feeds on their society out too. By all
indications it is already too late for them too and they just don't realize it yet. The
recent video of the Chinese academic bragging about the control of American officials would
indicate as much, judging by the section of the video that was totally ignored, about the
Jewish woman executive of an American bank who is thick as thieves with the Chinese communist
party who manipulated things for the Chinese in America.
Jimmy Carter, for all his faults, managed to avoid entering into any new armed
conflict
What about Iran. Carter must take responsibility for the mishandling of Iran by letting
the Shah into the US, and failing to withdraw the embassy when it became obvious Iranian
internal politics meant US diplomats were becoming targets.
He attacked Syria on two occasions based on fabricated intelligence.
Russian forces fought a whole war in Syria on a correct appreciation of what could be
gained for Russia.
Trump, to be sure, was aided in his disloyalty to his own country by
America has to come to the aid of its allies, right or wrong, otherwise it will have no
allies.
[J]ournalist Julian Assange
Assange didn't describe himself as simply such until after his legal troubles started.
As for Snowden he wasn't drafted but rather was sought the job. He knew it was was not in
a boy scout group, and the secrets he was swearing an oath to keep were not going to be about
thoroughly wholesome activities such as training guide dogs for the blind. No more than
someone who becomes a made member of the mafia could Snowden be shocked at what the
organization he was associated with was doing.
Business as usual delivered by the so-called Leader of the Free World.
He never claimed to be a global Santa for those who brought nothing to the table.
Trump is pathetic. Anyone still making excuses for him is a battered wife and a sycophant.
I hope they continue to humiliate him now that he's out of office, because it's exactly what
he deserves.
Trump, just like his Republican counterparts, are more despicable than shitlibs and the
radical left, because they lie and stab you in the back every single time. At least the
shitlibs and radical leftists don't pretend they don't absolutely hate us.
If bribe money was paid, how was it spread around, and what besides money can be extracted
in return? A "no" vote on inpeachment? Pardons to Mossad/Israeli connected cases in return
for their pressure on certain politicians on whom they have compromising photos, etc?
A pardon for Assange and Kiriakou takes the pressure off Biden to do so, and these are
Obama political persecutions. And Winner was arrested in what, June 2017, by the FBI for
leaking classified info feeding the feeble Russian election interference narrative? She
posted numerous anti-Trump diatribes.
Sure, they and Snowden deserve pardons, but now the Dems will face dissension, criticism,
and sniping within their own ranks on these matters.
Trump might as well be more corrupted than Joe Biden at this point.
I'm convinced the American deep state removes him because he's actually an Israeli agent
which would make the Zionist scene in USA look bad, like holy hell, is there any zionist jew
he doesn't suck off? That's disgusting.
The hierarchy that controls our government and moral/social values, in order, goes as
follows:
Yids
Nigs
Spics
Trump, loved with under-educated and redneck whites, was an all-out Shabbos goy, not to
mention he was greedy, egotistical/egoistical and a self-serving liar.
In many ways Trump has been like a Terminator sent by the Jewish Establishment to
completely derail, discredit and destroy the Patriot movement in America. Now any American
Patriot who is against the U.S. Establishment and says CNN is fake news is automatically
associated with Trump and deemed an enemy of America. Can you say Mission Accomplished? The
Jewish Snake must be patting itself on the back for its brilliant move to hurt the greatest
threat to it in a long time.
Unfortunately there are many people who still believe that Trump was a great President
sent by God to save America. It makes me sad to see so many people so clueless. I wish that
all those still supporting Trump will wake up and recognize as so many others have that the
man is nothing but a Snake who knows how to speak your language while totally betraying your
cause. How can you support a two faced man like this who has hurt your cause more than anyone
else possibly could?
EDIT TO ADD: Trump left office in disgrace just as was intended but the real disgrace is
not on Trump but on the American Patriot movement. Now the American Patriot movement is in a
far worse position than it was in 2016 before it accepted Trump as its leader. We were
greatly deceived but in 2020 there is no excuse for anyone to still be deceived about Trump.
He completely betrayed our cause and it was all by design. His entire purpose for becoming
POTUS was, outside of giving Jerusalem and the Golan Heights to Israel (his true loyalty), to
turn our cause into something that the American public would perceive as ugly and to be
shunned when in reality our cause is very noble. We were played by Trump and his Jewish
backers but that is now in the past. Let us stop talking about this man once and for all. He
is nothing but a distraction away from what it is important to us. I consider anyone still
supporting Trump at this point or in the future to be an enemy. http://www.chuckmaultsby.net/id55.html
Providing mucho fertilizer for excellent articles like this which expose the hideous and
disgusting perfidy of the Zionist sewer and its catamites is only worth of the Chrumpster and
his time as Netanyahu's orifice.
@Ron G , just
get me into the WH.
Which will happen, we'll have a power-mad prez that has never won any primaries doing
Israel's blood work.
THERE'S A WAR GOING ON OVER KAMALA HARRIS'S WIKIPEDIA PAGE, WITH UNFLATTERING
ELEMENTS VANISHING
A line about Harris traveling to Israel and the West Bank in November 2017, where she
met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was removed altogether.
My comment a few days ago on transgenerational hate got a lot of negative feed back. You
are correct though, boomers and church goers worship the yids, despite what Jesus said about
them and later Martin Luther.
"I've never seen a President -- I don't care who he is -- stand up to them. It just
boggles the mind. They always get what they want. The Israelis know what is going on all the
time. I got to the point where I wasn't writing anything down. If the American people
understood what a grip these people have on our government, they would rise up in arms. Our
citizens certainly don't have any idea what goes on." – Admiral Thomas Moorer, head of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, interview, 24 Aug. 1983
Now that "Zion Don" appears to be out of the way, we can get back to encouraging illegals,
giving them their rights, setting our sights on the another Hitler in Syria, globalizing
what's left of the industrial base, getting trannies more judgeships, queering history, and
on and on cuz all dem ideas are homegrown and strictly non-kosher.
I thought the pardons were great. Who knew there were so many criminal Jews who have been
actually convicted? Its almost like the Jewish stereotypes are really true. Does that mean no
one can be anti Semitic? Also the way black rappers get killed off, supply and demand
dictates jailed ones need to be free. Very Reaganesque.
Sarcasm aside I think Jews tended to hate Trump because in sucking up to them, The Donald
wound up revealing many ugly truths. Outside of Trump's energy and environmental policies,
its a good riddance from me. Unfortunately the looming costs related to energy and taxes,
I'll eventually and unfortunately will wind up missing the weak and Ivanka sniffing SOB.
Run for president in 2024. Ya' got one vote here. You can use the catchphrase, "Make
America Independent Again". Red, White, and Blue hats, etc. Your campaign rally speeches
would be epically entertaining in the gnashing of establishment journo's teeth as they
described them.
Drumpf the rancid orange golem played you all to the very last coda, pissing in your eyes
as he pardoned a most rancorous group of bent buddies and chosen criminal diversities . maga
men hung to dry, swinging in the wind.
Half of america shafted and stockholm syndromed, as the fake fat narcissist waltzes of to
play golf and hide the ginger squirrel with the reanimated frank-epstein and his
transhumanised teenage sorority clones in tel-aviv.
by the way see where this link leads: antifa.com .
hint: the whitehouse.
@LarryS nd
its American friends get what they want, no matter what.
Trump was terrible and I'm glad to see him gone. Problem is Biden & Co. will probably
be worse, letting in countless third worlders and pandering to BLM, trannies and countless
other perverts and sexual curiosities.
Neither party represents the interests of the American people. Did we really want 14
million illegals here and $6 trillion spent on failed adventures in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan,
etc.?
I harken back to H L Mencken who said both parties spend their time proving the other is
unfit to govern and are both right.
The pardoning of the Blackwater scum has fascinating implications for any country with a
Status of Forces Agreement /Visiting Forces Agreement, which is what, 80% of the world?
A host country might want to revisit these terms if it means that their women &
children could be raped, killed, mutilated whilst the perpetrators walk free.
This is beyond belief. Are Americans blind? Is there something in the water they
drink?
A whole population bent over with their posteriors pointed at the sky, willingly accepting
the abuse by the zionists.
Love them or hate them, these jews dream big. Bravo
Another on target Giraldi article. The ultimate blame for our being occupied and used
without a shot being fired is with American gullibility and blindness. How does a global
power, in almost every way, become the lap dog, errand boy, bully and financier for such an
ungrateful, blood sucking little country? We have created a Frankenstein Monster for the
world.
@SolontoCroesus
ight Palestinians were there even if there was strong Israel Lobby domestic pressure. But in
1979 Carter–distracted by the fall of the Shah–merely brokered a Egyptian-Israeli
peace treaty deal that eliminated Egypt from the conflict, and the lack of the deterrent they
represented meant meant hat Israel was free to do what it liked in the West Bank and attack
Lebanon. The Palestinians will never get another US president like Carter. Israel does not
want an agreement, the current situation suits them very well. So Iran is not deterring
Israel from doing anything it wants to do. Moreover, Israel likes having a pseudo threat like
Iran.
Well I have to say this comes as a surprise. To think that American politicians take
bribes, favour one particular group etc etc is news to me. However, Trump catering to the
foreskin modifiers and the dick cheese eliminators is the good news.
The bad news is the new team is already in bed not only with the foreskin challenged
sticks, but with the chopsticks and every other stick with a dollar bill wrapped around the
head. When the 25th collides with Joe's worn out pecker and Kamala takes over that will be
the sign that circumcised or not we are all fucked.
As some readers commented on UR, honesty is the best policy, turn the other cheek and love
conquers hate. All good advice I am sure but redundant and inapplicable in the world we live
in.
The ruled live by these rules but the rulers live by their own !
McFaul cautions against what he refers to as "Putin's ideological project" as a
threat to the neoliberal international order. Yet he is reluctant to recognize that the
neoliberal international order is an American ideological project for the post-Cold War
era.
After the Cold War, neoliberal ideologues advanced what was seemingly a benign proposition
– suggesting that neoliberal democracy should be at the center of security strategies.
However, by linking neoliberal norms to US leadership, neoliberalism became both a
constitutional principle and an international hegemonic norm.
NATO is presented as a community of neoliberal values – without mentioning that its
second largest member, Turkey, is more conservative and authoritarian than Russia – and
Moscow does not, therefore, have any legitimate reasons to oppose expansionism unless it fears
democracy. If Russia reacts negatively to military encirclement, it is condemned as an enemy of
democracy, and NATO has a moral responsibility to revert to its original mission as a military
bloc containing Russia.
Case in point: there was nobody in Moscow advocating for the reunification with Crimea until
the West supported the coup in Ukraine. Yet, as Western "fact checkers" and McFaul
inform us, there was a "democratic revolution" and not a coup. Committed to his
ideological prism, McFaul suggests that Russia acted out of a fear of having a democracy on its
borders, as it would give hope to Russians and thus threaten the Kremlin. McFaul's ideological
lens masks conflicting national security interests, and it fails to explain why Russia does not
mind democratic neighbors in the east, such as South Korea and Japan, with whom it enjoys good
relations.
Defending the peoples
States aspiring for global hegemony have systemic incentives to embrace ideologies that
endow them with the right to defend other peoples. The French National Convention declared in
1792 that France would "come to the aid of all peoples who are seeking to recover their
liberty," and the Bolsheviks proclaimed in 1917 "the duty to render assistance, armed,
if necessary, to the fighting proletariat of the other countries."
The American neoliberal international order similarly aims to liberate the people of the
world with "democracy promotion" and "humanitarian interventionism" when it
conveniently advances US primacy. The American ideological project infers that democracy is
advanced by US interference in the domestic affairs of Russia, while democracy is under attack
if Russia interferes in the domestic affairs of US. The neoliberal international system is one
of sovereign inequality to advance global primacy.
McFaul does not consider himself a Russophobe, as believes his attacks against Russia are
merely motivated by the objective of liberating Russians from their government, which is why he
advocates that Biden "distinguish between Russia and Russians – between Putin and the
Russian people." This has been the modus operandi for regime change since the end of the
Cold War – the US supposedly does not attack countries to advance its interests, it only
altruistically assists foreign peoples in rival states against their leaders such as Slobodan
Milosevic, Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi, Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin etc.
McFaul and other neoliberal ideologues still refer to NATO as a "defensive alliance,"
which does not make much sense after the attacks on Yugoslavia in 1999 or Libya in 2011.
However, under the auspices of neoliberal internationalism, NATO is defensive, as it defends
the people of the world. Russia, therefore, doesn't have rational reasons for opposing the
neoliberal international order.
McFaul condemns alleged efforts by Russia to interfere in the domestic affairs of the US,
before outlining his strategies for interfering in the domestic affairs of Russia. McFaul
blames Russian paranoia for shutting down American "non-governmental organizations" that
are funded by the US government and staffed by people linked to the US security apparatus. He
goes on to explain that the US government must counter this by establishing new
"non-government organizations" to educate the Russian public about the evils of their
government.
The dangerous appeal of ideologues
Ideologues have always been dangerous to international security. Ideologies of human freedom
tend to promise perpetual peace. Yet, instead of transcending power politics, the ideals of
human freedom are linked directly to hegemonic power by the self-proclaimed defender of the
ideology. When ideologues firmly believe that the difference between the current volatile world
and utopia can be bridged by defeating its opponents, it legitimizes radical power
politics.
Consequently, there is no sense of irony among the McFauls of the world as US security
strategy is committed to global dominance, while berating Russia for "revisionism."
Raymond Aaron once wrote: "Idealistic diplomacy slips too often into fanaticism; it divides
states into good and evil, into peace-loving and bellicose. It envisions a permanent peace by
the punishment of the latter and the triumph of the former. The idealist, believing he has
broken with power politics, exaggerates its crimes."
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The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the
author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
Ghanima223 2 days ago 22 Jan, 2021 09:36 AM
In short, the tables have turned since the end of the Cold War. It is no longer communist
ideologues that try to export revolution and chaos while the western world would promote
stability and free markets. Now it's western ideologues that are trying to export revolutions
and chaos while clamping down on free markets with Russia, as ironically as it sounds, being
a force for stability and a strong proponent for the free exchange of goods and services
around the world. The west will lose just as the USSR has lost.
US_did_911 Ghanima223 1 day ago 23 Jan, 2021 01:01 AM
The Dollar is the only fake reason that still keeps US afloat. The moment that goes, it loss
will be a lot worse then of USSR.
US_did_911 Ghanima223 1 day ago 23 Jan, 2021 12:58 AM
That happened not exactly after the end of the cold war. It was about even for a decade after
that. The real u-turn happened after the 9/11 false flag disaster.
Amvet 2 days ago 22 Jan, 2021 10:00 AM
Foreign dangers are necessary to keep the attention of the American people away from the 20
ton elephant in the room--the fact that 9/11 was not a foreign attack. Should any of the main
stream media suddenly turn honest and report this in detail, things will get interesting.
King_Penda 2 days ago 22 Jan, 2021 09:11 AM
I wouldn't worry too much. At the same time Biden will be purging the US military of any men
of capability and replacing them trans and political appointments. The traditional areas
where the military recruited it's grunts are falling as they are waking up to the hostility
of the state to their culture and way of life. The US military will end up a rump of queerss,
off work due to stress or perceived persecution and fat doughballs sat in warehouses
performing drone strikes on goats.
Fjack1415 King_Penda 1 day ago 23 Jan, 2021 01:20 PM
Yes, you point to a paradox. While the globalists are using the US as their military arm for
global domination, they are at the same time destroying the country that supports that
military. Perhaps the US military will be maintained by dint of its being the only employer
for millions of unemployed young men in the American heartland, doughballs or not.
Ghanima223 King_Penda 2 days ago 22 Jan, 2021 09:39 AM
Ideologues will always be more concerned with having political reliable military leadership
as opposed to actually qualified leaders. It took the Russians 2 decades to purge their own
military of this filth of incompetent 'yes' men within their military.
UKCitizen 2 days ago 22 Jan, 2021 09:09 AM
'The Liberal International Order' - yes, that seems a fair description. Led by what might be
termed 'liberal fundamentalists'.
far_cough 1 day ago 23 Jan, 2021 07:01 AM
the military industrial complex and the various deep state agencies along with the major
corporations need russia as an adversary so that they can milk the american people and the
people of the western world of their money, rights, freedoms, etc etc...
roby007 2 days ago 22 Jan, 2021 09:54 AM
I'm sure Biden will pursue "peaceful, productive coexistence" just as his friend Obama did,
with drones and bombs.
Paul Citro 2 days ago 22 Jan, 2021 09:16 AM
I hope that Russian leaders fully realize that they are dealing with a country that is the
equivalent of psychotic.
Fjack1415 Paul Citro 1 day ago 23 Jan, 2021 01:26 PM
True, the ruling party and MSM mouthpieces and their readers and followers are now truly
INSANE. Beyond redemption. Staggering in the depth and power of the subversion of so many
people, including many with high IQs (like my ex girlfriend and housemate in the US).
Anastasia Deko 2 days ago 22 Jan, 2021 10:57 AM
US security strategy is committed to global dominance
Absolutely. Biden has filled up his admin with "progressive realists," which
when it comes to foreign policy, is just a euphuism for neocons and their lust for world
empire. So expect an unleashing of forces in the coming two years that will finally humble
America's war machine.
tyke2939 Anastasia Deko 2 days ago 22 Jan, 2021 01:07 PM
They are desperate for a war with someone but it must be someone they can beat convincingly.
It certainly will not be Russia or China and I suspect Iran will be a huge battle even with
Israel s backing. More than likely they will invade some country like Venezuela as Syria has
Russia covering its back. What a dilemma who to fight.
9/11 Truther Anastasia Deko 2 days ago 22 Jan, 2021 11:24 AM
The "American war machine" has been humbled from Saigon, Vietnam 1975 to Kabul, Afghanistan.
Salmigoni 2 days ago 22 Jan, 2021 09:25 AM
They are not really liberals. They are blood thirsty parasitic neoconservative fascist war
mongers working for the Pentagon contractors. General Eisenhower warned us about these evil
people. A lot of Americans still do not get it.
H ard as it is to believe in this time of
record pandemic deaths, insurrection, and an unprecedented
encore impeachment, Joe Biden is now officially at the helm of the U.S. war machine. He is,
in other words, the fourth president to oversee America's unending and unsuccessful post-9/11
military campaigns.
In terms of active U.S. combat, that's only happened once before, in the , America's
second-longest (if often forgotten) overseas combat campaign.
Yet that conflict was limited to a single Pacific archipelago. Biden inherits a global war
-- and burgeoning new Cold War -- spanning
four continents and a military
mired in active operations in dozens of countries, combat in some 14 of them, and bombing
in at least seven.
That sort of scope has been standard fare for American presidents for almost two decades
now. Still, while this country's post-9/11 war presidents have more in common than their
partisan divisions might suggest, distinctions do matter, especially at a time when the White
House almost unilaterally drives foreign policy.
So, what can we expect from Commander-in-Chief Biden? In other words, what's the forecast
for U.S. service-members who have invested their lives and limbs in future conflict, as well as
for the speculators in the military-industrial complex and anxious foreigners in the countries
still engulfed in America's war on terror who usually stand to lose it all?
Many Trumpsters, and some libertarians, foresee
disaster : that the man who, as a leading senator facilitated and cheered on
the disastrous Iraq War, will surely escalate American adventurism abroad. On the other hand,
establishment Democrats and most liberals, who are desperately (and understandably) relieved to
see Donald Trump go, find that prediction preposterous.
Clearly, Biden must have learned from past mistakes, changed his tune, and should
responsibly bring U.S. wars to a close, even if at a time still to be determined.
In a sense, both may prove right -- and in another sense, both wrong. The guess of this
long-time war-watcher (and one-time war fighter) reading the tea leaves: expect Biden to both
eschew big new wars and avoid fully ending existing ones.
At the margins (think Iran), he may improve matters some; in certain rather risky areas
(Russian relations, for instance), he could worsen them; but in most cases (the rest of the
Greater Middle East, Africa, and China), he's likely to remain squarely on the status-quo
spectrum. And mind you, there's nothing reassuring about that.
Sgt. John Hoxie watches 82nd Airborne Division's All American Week celebration May 18, 2009.
Hoxie returned to Fort Bragg for the first time since he was injured during a 2007 deployment
to Iraq. (U.S. Army/Flickr)
It hardly requires clairvoyance to offer such guesswork. That's because Biden basically is
who he says he is and who he's
always been , and the man's simply never been transformational. One need look no further
than his long and generally interventionist
past record or the nature of his current national-security picks to know that the safe
money is on more of the same.
Whether the issues are war,
race , crime , or economics ,
Uncle Joe has made a career of bending with the prevailing political winds and it's unlikely
this old dog can truly learn any new tricks.
Furthermore, he's filled his foreign policy squad with Obama-Clinton retreads, a number of
whom were
architects of -- if not the initial Iraq and Afghan debacles -- then disasters in Libya,
Syria, West Africa, Yemen, and the Afghan surge of 2009. In other words, Biden is putting the
former arsonists in charge of the forever-war fire brigade.
There's further reason to fear that he may even reject Trump's "If Obama was for it, I'm
against it" brand
of war-on-terror policy-making and thereby reverse The Donald's very late, very modest troop
withdrawals in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Somalia.
Yet even if this new old hand of a president evades potentially existential escalation with
nuclear Russia or China and offers only an Obama
reboot when it comes to persistent low-intensity warfare, what he does will still matter --
most of all to the global citizens who are too
often its victims.
So, here's a brief region-by-region flyover tour of what Joe's squad may have in store for
both the world and the American military sent to police that world.
The Middle East: Old Prescriptions for Old Business
It's increasingly clear that Washington's legacy wars in the Greater Middle East -- Iraq and
Afghanistan, in particular -- are generally no longer on the public's radar. Enter an elected
old man who's charged with handling old business that, at least to most civilians, is old
news.
Odds are that Biden's ancient tricks will amount to safe bets in a region that past U.S.
policies essentially destroyed. Joe is likely to take a middle path in the region between
large-scale military intervention of the Bush or Obama kind and more prudent full-scale
withdrawal.
As a result, such wars will probably drag on just below the threshold of American public
awareness, while avoiding Pentagon or partisan charges that his version of cutting-and-running
endangered U.S. security. The prospect of "victory" won't even factor into the equation (after
all, Biden's squad members aren't stupid), but political survival certainly will.
Here's what such a Biden-era future might then look like in a few such sub-theaters.
"Wars will probably drag on just below the threshold of American public awareness."
The war in Afghanistan is hopeless and has long been failing by every one of the U.S.
military's own measurable metrics, so much so that the Pentagon and the Kabul government
classified them all as secret information a few years back.
Actually dealing with the Taliban and swiftly exiting a disastrous war likely to lead to a
disastrous future with Washington's tail between its legs is, in fact, the only remaining
option. The question is when and how many more Americans will kill or be killed in that
"graveyard of empires" before the U.S. accepts the inevitable.
U.S. Army helicopter pilots fly near Jalalabad, Afghanistan, April 5, 2017. (U.S. Army,
Brian Harris, Wikimedia Commons)
Toward the end of his tenure, Trump signaled a serious, if cynical, intent to so. And since
Trump was by definition a monster and the other team's monsters can't even occasionally be
right, a coalition of establishment Democrats and Lincoln-esque Republicans (and Pentagon
officials) decided that the war must indeed go on. That culminated in last July's obscenity in
which Congress officially
withheld the funds necessary to end it.
As vice president, Biden was better than most in his Afghan War
skepticism , but his incoming advisers weren't
, and Joe's nothing if not politically malleable. Besides, since Trump didn't pull enough
troops out faintly fast enough or render the withdrawal irreversible over Pentagon objections,
expect a trademark Biden hedge here.
Syria has always been a
boondoggle , with the justifications for America's peculiar military presence there
constantly shifting from pressuring the regime of Bashar al-Assad, to fighting the Islamic
State, to backing the Kurds, to balancing Iran and Russia in the region, to (in Trump's case)
securing that country's meager oil supplies.
As with so much else, there's a troubling possibility that, in the Biden years, personnel
once again may become destiny. Many of the new president's advisers were bullish
on Syrian intervention in the Obama years, even wanting to take it further and topple
Assad.
Furthermore, when it comes time for them to convince Biden to agree to stay put in Syria,
there's a dangerous existing mix of motives to do just that: the emotive sympathy for the Kurds
of known gut-player Joe; his susceptibility to revived Islamic State (ISIS) fear-mongering; and
perceptions of a toughness-testing proxy contest with Russia.
When it comes to Iran, expect Biden to be better than the Iran-phobic Trump administration,
but to stay shackled "inside the box."
First of all, despite Joe's long-expressed desire to reenter the Obama-era nuclear deal with
Iran that Trump so disastrously pulled out of, doing so may prove harder than
he thinks. After all, why should Tehran trust a political basket case of a negotiating partner
prone to significant partisan policy-pendulum swings, especially given the way Washington has
waged nearly 70 years of interventions against
Iran's politicians and people?
In addition, Trump left Biden the Trojan horse of Tehran's hardliners, empowered by dint of
The Donald's pugnacious policies. If the new president wishes to really undercut Iranian
intransigence and fortify the moderates there, he should go big and be transformational -- in
other words, see Obama's tension-thawing nuclear deal and raise it with the carrot of
full-blown diplomatic and economic normalization. Unfortunately, status-quo Joe has never been
a transformational type.
Though it garners far less public interest than the U.S. military's long-favored Middle
Eastern playground, Africa figures significantly
in the minds of those at the Pentagon, in the Capitol, and in Washington's influential
think-tanks.
For interventionist hawks, including liberal ones, that continent has been both a petri dish
and a proving ground for the development of a limited power-projection paradigm of drones,
Special Operations forces, military advisers, local proxies, and clandestine intelligence
missions.
It mattered little that over eight years of the Obama administration -- from Libya to the
West African Sahel to the Horn of East Africa -- the war on terror proved, at best, problematic
indeed, and even worse in the Trump years.
There remains a worrisome possibility that the Biden posse might prove amenable yet again to
the alarmism of U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) about the rebirth of ISIS and the spread of other
al-Qaeda-linked groups there, bolstered by fear-mongering
nonsense masquerading as sophisticated scholarship from West Point's Combating Terrorism
Center, and the Pentagon's perennial promises of low-investment, low-risk, and high-reward
opportunities on the continent.
So, a savvy betting man might place chips on a Biden escalation in West Africa's Sahel and
the Horn of East Africa, even if for different reasons.
American Special Forces and military advisers have been in and out of the remote borderlands
between Mali and Niger since at least 2004 and these
days seem there to stay. The French seized and suppressed sections of the Sahel region
beginning in 1892, and, despite granting nominal independence to those countries in 1960, were
back by 2013 and have been stuck in their own forever
wars there ever since.
American war-on-terror(izing) and French neo-colonizing have only inflamed regional
resistance movements, increased violence, and lent local grievances an Islamist resonance.
Recently, France's lead role there has truly begun to
disintegrate -- with five of its troops killed in just the first few days of 2021 and
allegations that it had bombed another wedding party. (Already such a war-on-terror cliché
.)
Don't be surprised if French President Emmanuel Macron asks for help and Biden agrees to
bail him out. Despite their obvious age gap, Joe and Emmanuel could prove the newest and best
of chums. (What's a few hundred extra troops between friends?)
Especially since Obama-era Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her then-favored errand
boy, inbound national security adviser Jake Sullivan, could be said to have founded the current
coalition of jihadis in Mali and Niger.
That's because when the two of them championed a heavy-handed regime-change intervention
against Libyan autocrat Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, thousands of his Tuareg fighters
blew back into that region in a big way with more than just the clothes on their backs.
They streamed from post-Gaddafi Libya into their Sahel homelands loaded with arms and
anger.
It's no accident, in other words, that Mali's latest round of insurgency kicked off in 2012.
Now, Sullivan might push new boss Biden to attempt to clean up his old mess.
Jake Sullivan, second from left, as deputy chief of staff to the secretary of state, with
his boss Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama, Nov. 20, 2012. (White House, Pete
Souza)
On the other side of the continent, in Somalia, where Trump began an 11th-hour withdrawal
of a long-failing and aimless U.S. troop presence (sending most of those soldiers to
neighboring countries), there's a real risk that Biden could double-down in the region, adding
soldiers, special operators, and drones.
After all, if Trump was against it, even after exponentially increasing bombing in the area, then any
good Democrat should be for it, especially since the Pentagon has, for some time now, been
banging the drum about Somalia's al-Shabaab Islamist outfit being the biggest
threat to the homeland.
However, the real selling point for Biden might be the fantasy that Russia and China are
flooding into the region. Ever since the 2018 National
Defense Strategy decisively shifted the Pentagon's focus from counterterror wars to "great
power competition," or GPC, AFRICOM has opportunistically
altered its own campaign plan to align with the new threat of the moment, homing in on
Russian and Chinese influence in the Horn region.
As a result, AFRICOM'S come-back-to-the-Horn pitch could prove a relatively easy Biden
sell.
Russian Bears & Chinese (Sea) Dragons
Chinese President Xi Jinping, left, with Russian President Vladimir Putin during visit to
Moscow for state visit, Xi Jinping. (Kremlin)
With that new GPC national security obsession likely to be one Trump-era policy that remains
firmly in place, however ill-advised it may be, perhaps the biggest Biden risk is the
possibility of stoking up a "new," two-theater, twenty-first-century version of the Cold War
(with the possibility that, at any moment, it could turn into a hot one).
After making everything all about Russia in the Trump years, the ascendant Democrats might
just feel obliged to follow through and escalate tensions with Moscow that Trump himself
already brought
to the brink (of nuclear catastrophe). Here, too, personnel may prove a key policy-driver.
Biden's nominee for secretary of state, Anthony Blinken, is a resident
Russia hawk and was an early " arm-Ukraine "
enthusiast. Jake Sullivan already has a tendency to make mountains out of molehills on the
subject, as when he
described a minor road-rage incident as constituting "a Russian force in Syria aggressively
attack[ing] an American force and actually injur[ing] American service members."
Then there's the troubling signal of Victoria Nuland, the recent
nominee for undersecretary of state for political affairs, a pick that itself should be
considered a road-rage-style provocation. Nuland has a history of hawkish antagonism toward
Moscow and is reportedly despised
by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Her confirmation will surely serve as a conflict
accelerant.
Nevertheless, China may be the lead antagonist in the Biden crew's race to risk a foolhardy
cataclysm. Throughout the election campaign, the new president seemed set on out-hawking Trump
in the Western Pacific, explicitly writing about "getting tough" on China in a March 2020 piece
he penned
in Foreign Affairs .
Joe had also previously called Chinese President Xi Jinping " a thug ." And while Michèle Flournoy
may (mercifully) have been passed over for secretary of defense, her aggressive posture toward
Beijing still infuses the thinking of her fellow Obama alums on Biden's team.
As TomDispatch regular Andrew Bacevich pointed out last
September, a Flournoy Foreign Affairsarticle
illuminated the sort of absurdity she (and assumedly various Biden appointees) think necessary
to effectively deter China.
She called for "enhancing U.S. military capabilities so that the United States can credibly
threaten to sink all of China's military vessels, submarines, and merchant ships in the South
China Sea within 72 hours." Consider that Dr. Strangelove -style strategizing retooled
for an inbound urbane imperial presidency.
Endgame: War as Abstraction
Historically, foreign-policy paradigm shifts are exceedingly rare, especially when they tack
toward peace. Such pivots appear almost impossible once the immense power of America's
military-industrial complex, invested in every way in endless war, as well as endless
preparations for future Cold Wars, has reached today's grotesque level.
This is especially so when each and every one of Biden's archetypal national security
nominees has, metaphorically speaking, had his or her mortgage paid by some offshoot of that
war industry. In other words, as the muckraking novelist Upton Sinclair used to say : "It is difficult to
get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!"
Count on tactics including drones, commandos, CIA spooks, and a mostly amenable media to
help the Biden administration make war yet more invisible -- at least to Americans. Most
Trump-detesting, and domestically focused citizens will find that just dandy, even if exhausted
troopers, military families, and bombed or blockaded foreigners won't.
More than anything, Biden wishes to avoid overseas embarrassments like unexpected American
casualties or scandalous volumes of foreign civilian deaths -- anything, that is, that might
derail his domestic agenda or hoped-for restorative leadership legacy.
That, unfortunately, may prove to be a pipe dream and leads me to two final predictions:
formulaic forever war will never cease boomeranging back home to rot our
republican institutions, and neither a celestial God nor secular History will judge
Biden-the-war-president kindly.
Danny Sjursen is a retired U.S. Army officer and contributing editor at antiwar.com . His work has appeared in the LA Times ,
The Nation , Huff Post , T he Hill , Salon , Truthdig ,
Tom Dispatch , among other publications. He served combat tours with reconnaissance
units in Iraq and Afghanistan and later taught history at his alma mater, West Point. He is the
author of a memoir and critical analysis of the Iraq War, Ghostriders
of Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge . His latest book is
Patriotic Dissent: America in the Age of Endless War. Follow him on Twitter at
@SkepticalVet . Check out his
professional website for contact info,
scheduling speeches, and/or access to the full corpus of his writing and media appearances.
"... "We will never give up. We will never concede, it doesn't happen. You don't concede when there's theft involved", ..."
"... "We will never give up. We will never concede, it just doesn't happen." ..."
"... " Biden's America Would Be A Dystopian Hellhole ", ..."
"... Trump has not signed the Insurrection Act. ..."
"... 'trust the plan' is a never ending story psyop ..."
"... 'best is yet to come' .. ..."
"... to beam back to the mothership. ..."
"... the humans are out to get them ..."
"... it happening you watch just donate ..."
"... without symptoms. ..."
"... Amnesty run by US State Department representatives, funded by convicted financial criminals, and threatens real human rights advocacy worldwide. ..."
"... Yes yes yes – as if we didn't fucking know! ..."
"... YOU MEAN TO DESTROY THE NHS AND YOU WILL REPEAT THIS OVER AND OVER AND OVER UNTIL IT IS DONE! ..."
The Trump Era is over after the incumbent announced in the day after
Wednesday's storming of the US Capitol that "My focus now turns to ensuring a smooth, orderly
and seamless transition of power", which was widely interpreted by friends and foes alike as
the tacit concession that he previously promised never to provide a little more than 24 hours
prior during his speech at the
Save America Rally .
At that event, he literally said that "We will never give up. We will never concede, it
doesn't happen. You don't concede when there's theft involved", yet completely changed his
tune following the day's tumultuous events and after mysteriously "going dark" for over 24
hours, during which time some speculate that he was forced by his enemies in the permanent
military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies (" deep state ") to give
up the fight.
BETRAYING HIS BASE
This totally devastated his supporters who elected him primarily
for the purpose of executing his chief promise to "drain the swamp" that all of them so
deeply despise. They truly believed that he could irreversibly effect significant long-term
change to the way that America is run, something which Trump himself also sincerely thought he
could do as well, but he ultimately lacked the strength time and again to take the decisive
steps that were necessary in order to do so.
Thus, he ended up getting swallowed by the same "swamp" that he attempted to drain, which is
licking its lips after feasting on the political carcass that he's since become as a result of
his capitulation. For as much hope as he inspired in his supporters and the respect that many
of them still have for him, most of them are profoundly disappointed that he gave up and didn't
go down fighting.
That's not to say that the vast majority of them expected him to forcefully resist Biden's
impending inauguration, but just that they never thought they'd see the day where he publicly
capitulated after carefully cultivating such a convincing reputation among them as a fighter
who literally said a little more than 24 hours prior that "We will never give up. We will
never concede, it just doesn't happen."
This prompted an ongoing soul-searching process among the most sober-minded of them who
aren't indoctrinated with the cultish Q-Anon claims that Trump still has a so-called "master
plan" that he's preparing to implement after this latest "5D chess" move. It's over, the Trump
Era has ended, and the "Make America Great Again" (MAGA) movement that he inspired is now at
risk of being declared a "
domestic terrorist " organization in the coming future.
TRUMP'S MOST FATAL POLITICAL
MISCALCULATION
" Biden's America Would Be A
Dystopian Hellhole ", like the author predicted a few months ago, and all of Trump's
supporters know that. Some had already resigned themselves to its seeming inevitability after
his efforts to legally reverse the contested results of the latest elections failed for a
variety of reasons that most of them attribute to the "swamp's" corruption, but they
nevertheless remained as positive as possible after having believed that their hero would go
down with them to the end.
None ever thought twice about his promise to "never give up, never concede", and they even
expected him to have to be escorted from the White House on 20 January, yet his tacit
concession is forcing many of them to re-evaluate their views about him in hindsight. Not only
is he going out with a whimper on the "deep state's" terms, but he never fully "drained the
swamp".
Trump's most fatal political miscalculation is that he thought that he could change the
system from the "inside-out" after symbolically -- yet importantly, not substantively -- taking
control of it as America's first modern-day "outsider" President. He immediately switched from
an "outsider" to an "insider" shortly after his inauguration by capitulating to the "deep
state's" demands that he fire former National Security Advisor Flynn, which was his "original
sin" that paved the way for all that would later follow.
Trump the self-professed "deal-maker" thought that he could strike a "compromise" with his
enemies through these means, but all that he did was embolden them to intensify their fake
news-driven efforts to oust him and continue sabotaging him from within through many of the
same "swamp" creatures that he naively continued to surround himself with.
RINOS + MSM =
TRUMP'S DEFEAT
The most reviled among them in the eyes of his base is "Javanka", the popular portmanteau of
Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner and his daughter Ivanka. He continued listening to these
"Republicans In Name Only", or RINOs as many MAGA members describe them, as well as many others
such as those who still sit in Congress but pretended to be his friend just to win
re-election.
Furthermore, the influence that his former reality TV career had on him resulted in Trump
remaining obsessed with how his enemies might malign him in the Mainstream Media (MSM) for any
decisive moves that he took to smash the "deep state". This weakness of character proved to be
his greatest personal flaw since he should have followed his instincts instead of submitting to
the egoistic desire to be "liked" by his foes.
So influenced was he by the MSM that his enemies were able to employ the most basic
"reverse-psychology" tricks to manipulate him into "playing it safe" in his struggle against
the "deep state". They fearmongered since even before he entered office that he'd turn into a
so-called "dictator", yet he never seriously contemplated any such authoritarian moves in that
direction despite always having the possibility of utilizing the immense powers vested in him
by the Constitution to do so if he sincerely wanted.
His MAGA supporters passionately pleaded that he should have turned into his enemies' worst
nightmare by declaring at least limited martial law in response to the decades-long Hybrid War
of Terror on America finally going kinetic last summer after Antifa and "Black Lives
Matter" (BLM) orchestrated nationwide riots to oust him.
TRUMP'S THREE GREATEST
FAILURES
Bewildering his base, Trump also failed to revoke Article 230 despite now-proven fears that
it would empower Big Tech to censor him and
his supporters , nor did he thwart the Democrats' mail-in ballot and Dominion voting system
schemes which they argue ultimately led to them stealing the election.
Just as concerning was his decision to not stop the Democrat Governors from locking down
their populations for political reasons under the convenient pretext of COVID-19. The author
addressed all of these issues in his analysis published shortly after the election about why "
The Anti-Trump Regime
Change Sequence Is Worthwhile Studying ". Trump could have legally exercised
near-"dictatorial" powers to avert all of this and thus save America as his supporters see it,
yet time and again he failed to gather the strength needed to do so due to his deep personal
flaws.
THE HYBRID WAR ON AMERICA IS OVER
While Trump was unquestionably victimized by the "deep state" during his entire time in
office, he's no longer as much of a martyr as he used to be after suddenly giving up the fight
following Wednesday's storming of the US Capitol. He surrendered to the shock of his base, was
subsequently swallowed by the "swamp", and is now being mercilessly destroyed in an ominous
sign of what awaits the rest of the MAGA movement in the Biden-Kamala era.
Had he gone down fighting to the end and "never gave up" like he promised, then it would be
an altogether different story, but instead his over-hyped "deal-making" instincts got the best
of him at the very last minute and he foolishly thought that he could save himself by
capitulating to their demands. The "deep state" is now showing their "thanks" by censoring him
from social media and pushing for his impeachment.
The MAGA movement always believed that the country has already been at "war" for years even
though most couldn't articulate the hybrid nature of it like the author did in his piece last
summer about how " The Hybrid War Of Terror
On America Was Decades In The Making ".
They truly felt that Trump shared their threat assessment after he was viciously attacked by
the "deep state" from the second that he stepped onto the campaign trail, but it turned out
that he underestimated the threat even though his enemies never did. To the "deep state" and
their public Democrat proxies, this was always a "war" in its own way, which they never shied
away from expressing.
The supreme irony is that while Trump lambasted the "weak Republicans" in his Save America
Rally speech, he himself ultimately epitomized that very same weakness by later
surrendering.
THE "DEEP STATE" WON
His opponents know no limits and believe in classic Machiavellian fashion that "the ends
justify the means", whereas he thought that he could play by the rules -- and not even all of
them as was early explained by pointing out his refusal to employ the near-"dictatorial" powers
vested in him by the Constitution -- and still come out on top.
His naïveté will go down in history since it's what's most directly responsible
for him failing to fully recognize the seriousness of the "deep state's" no-holds-barred war on
him and the rest of America.
As a born-and-raised New Yorker, Trump perfected the art of slick talking, so much so that
he even managed to dupe his base into believing that he shared their threat assessment about
the decades-long Hybrid War of Terror on America. They fell for this charade since they
desperately wanted to believe that there was still some hope left.
There isn't, though, since the war is over and the "deep state" won once and for all. The "
Great Reset "/"
Fourth Industrial Revolution " brought about by
World War C is
barreling forward at full speed ahead, and practically every domestic accomplishment that Trump
has to his name will likely be reversed by Biden-Kamala during their first year in office,
especially since the "deep state's" Democrat proxies control all branches of government now
(remembering that the Supreme Court's supposed "conservative supermajority" really just
consists of RINOs as was proven by their refusal to hear his team's convincing election fraud
cases).
In fact, the only real "master plan" was that of the "deep state", which effectively
thwarted every one of Trump's moves and ultimately turned his supporters' "last hurrah" of a
mostly peaceful rally into the nail that'll now be hammered into the MAGA movement's
coffin.
It's extremely suspicious that the US Capitol was so poorly defended despite there being an
ongoing session of Congress on such an historic day and after weeks of preparation to ensure
the site's safety ahead of Trump's long-planned Save America March.
It's even more baffling that some of the police officers removed
the barricades and even
opened the doors to some of the protesters, which in hindsight suggests that the "deep
state" wanted to tempt the most "overly passionate" among them (to say nothing of suspected
provocateurs) into storming the site as the pretext for what followed.
The whole point in passively facilitating this scenario through the masterful exploitation
of crowd psychology was to lay the basis for a comprehensive nationwide crackdown against the
MAGA movement on the grounds that it's now "proven" to be a "domestic terrorist" group.
That explains the push behind impeaching Trump less than two weeks before he himself
acknowledged just the other day that he'll be leaving office after ensuring the "transition of
power".
Had he not surrendered, then he probably would still be a martyr to most of the MAGA
movement, but now he's just a palace hostage awaiting his highly publicized political execution
as the opening salvo of the "deep state's" Democrat-driven reprisals against his supporters in
the name of "defending against domestic terrorism". That, not whatever Q-Anon imagines, is the
real "master plan", and it succeeded.
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
Trump was swallowed by the "swamp" because he lacked the strength to drain it. Every MAGA
member needs to accept this harsh truth no matter how painful it might be. Time and again, he
failed to muster up the strength needed to meaningfully fulfill what many sincerely believed to
be his destiny.
This was due to his fatal political miscalculation of transforming from an "outsider" into
an "insider" in a doomed-to-fail attempt to change the system from within. He continued relying
on RINOs despite their proven unreliability. Trump's obsession with how his foes portrayed him
in the MSM also led to him never seriously countenancing the use of the near-"dictatorial"
powers vested in him by the Constitution to save America.
He pathetically surrendered after the "deep state's" "master plan" succeeded, and now he
can't even go down in history as a martyr.
Originally published on One World Press Jan
20, 2021 2:08 PM
Trump was part of the show nothing more nothing less. They had the goods on him for decades.
He made Izzrail grate again. That was about it. Notice Jizzlaid Maxwell, the Mossad kiddy
victim procurer watching her mark in the background of the video below from 92 as the king of
bankruptcy eyes the broads and "struts" his stuff.
Meanwhile Kill Bill Gates gets to poison Planet Sheeple and nobody ever questions his
association with Mossad kiddy porn snuff director, Epstein or Kill Bill's sojourns on Pedovore
Island. Anyone remember the CIA Operation Brownstone"? It's global and it's Satanic.
How could Trum 'drain the swamp' when he lives in the swamp. contributes to the swamp and
essentially is part of the swamp.
This story is sh!te. Trump is a swamp dweller.
Trump is just the same as all the other oligarchs and would be oligarchs. He is a rich,
privileged, white entrepreneur. His propaganda campaign in which he claimed to be on the side
of the poor and unemployed whites is just about the biggest lie which has been swallowed
wholesale since Goebbles was whitewashing the Nazi regime.
How you fools here can fall for this tripe has me absolutely beat.
Aethelred , Jan 13, 2021 10:17 AM
Trump in his political ineptitude resembles Jimmy Carter, an idealist incapable of
wielding power. Neither man had the gumption, nor the charisma (much the same thing) to win
over the apparatchiki. Both vain and selfish men (like all politicians), neither inspired
sufficient love nor fear to gather support, unlike Reagan or Clinton, both of whom exuded
calm confidence. Trump differs from Carter in that Trump's social incapacity manifests in
bombast, and Carter's in staged humility. Neither could convince the ruling classes, and so
were ushered away.
The elevation of Biden, an aged hack, is a signal the republic is finally overturned. The
feds not only can convict but now can elect and govern through a ham sandwich.
Blather , Jan 13, 2021 8:21 AM
Does the author know how to read Trump's speech or is he so BIAS as not to see?
Trump DID NOT capitulate. Read careFOOLY. It can go both waze.
ZenPriest , Jan 12, 2021 8:50 PM
Trump was never going to drain the swamp. He was a clown put in place by America's
masters, to keep an endless supply of material for their media and to stir up hatred among
citizens.
It's funny because citizens should be uniting against the puppeteers. Or they would be if
they knew they even existed, or knew they were being played.
S Cooper , Jan 13, 2021 2:47 AM Reply to
ZenPriest
"Quite a number already know this. That number keeps growing with each passing day. Got
Debs?"
"The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and
I'm here to help." Remember that line? That was Ronnie Raygun back in 1986, with one of his
(or his ghost writers') versions for 'draining the swamp' then, getting government off our
backs, and blah, blah, blah. Agitprop thrown the masses so the corporate state could get down
to bizzness as usual in dispossessing 'we the people' by rolling back government programs for
social welfare and building up wealth and power for elites via the MIC and Wall Street
(complementary to Iron Bitch Thatcher's neoliberal programs for a greater fascism in
Britain).
Hardly anything original, such marketing ads. Politricking fronts of the ruling class have
been campaigning before and after getting into office with noble lies of populism covering
for their brands of treachery as long as the fraudulence of capitalist democracy and
representative government have been around. In the post-WWII era of Pox Americana, the U$
CEOs for the Fortune 500 routinely have disguised their institutional role in managing the
empire under cover of brands of reform that keep promising power to the people with one hand
while taking it away with the other.
But when it comes to the greatest show on earth, it's the words attributed to P.T. Barnum
that there's a sucker born every minute (or at least every election season) which ring
truest. So now we've got the ringmasters retiring the Donald and installing good ole Creepy
Joe to 'build back better' on behalf of the Great Reset. That's after Swamp Thang has played
his part as dictator of distraction overseeing such achievements as the greatest robbery of
the commons in human history and launch of technofascism under Operation Warp(ed) Speed, all
thanks to a global coup with which he's been entirely complicit. And his manufactured base of
true believers still carry on with the covidiocy as much as the controlled opposition of the
faux left.
The more things change, the more they stay the same (only worse!).
Chris , Jan 12, 2021 5:14 PM
The Q group are patriots with access to a quantum computer able to untangle timelines from
a possibility/probability vortex.
Their movement was designed to awaken many individuals with key roles to play in the real
Operation Warpspeed.
The majority of these folks had some connection to the military or other branches of
government including the police.
In 2012 nearly all technology, ancient or more modern, was suddenly rendered non
functional.
The Mayans were obviously dead right with their calender.
The race was on to gain absolute supremacy in the prediction game.
All major stakeholders have access to quantum computing, but the US has the upper hand.
The true value of quantum computers lies not in the task of pure number crunching, but in its
ability to predict probabilities of complex situations.
The quantum computer exposes the most probable timelines and delivers the results in
numerical form that correspond to actual events and dates/times .
Igby MacDavitt , Jan 12, 2021 3:43 PM
"The only kinds of fights worth fighting are those you're going to lose, because somebody
has to fight them and lose and lose and lose until someday, somebody who believes as you do
wins."
― I.F. Stone
Laurence Howell , Jan 12, 2021 12:42 PM
President Trump has declared a State of Emergency in the District of Columbia.
White House
OW look the fruitcakes and cult follower spent another new moon being juiced , Trump
has not signed the Insurrection Act. BUT BUT BUT
Cult of BIG disclosure keep watching.donate huge Arrests and stay tuned keep watching
it happening – keep watching- it happening soon, BIG disclosure huge Arrests . it
Happening soon psyop AND distraction
Simple simon and Q nonsense told another lie to the sheep
Laurence Howell , Jan 12, 2021 12:16 PM
President Trump has signed the Insurrection Act.
YouDontCareAboutGrandma , Jan 12, 2021 12:47 PM Reply to
Laurence Howell
Proof? And don't link to Simon Parkes' YouTube channel. He's provided no evidence
whatsoever for his claims. He says he talks to aliens and "Q" on the telephone.
Gosh, evrn more baffling and scarey and reminescent of 1963, never seen footage of the
murder of Ms. BABBIT showing collusion between police and antifa agitators, taken by an
independent Japanese reporter!
Great article but consider how many thousands of people the Islamist extremist, Erdogan of
Turkey, had to fire and imprison, to dismantle the positive Deep State structure Attaturk put
in place to keep that country secular? Functioned admirably for many years.
DimlyGlimpsed , Jan 12, 2021 1:06 AM
Dems enthusiatically voted from Bill Clinton, Obama, Hillary and Biden. All corrupt and
compromised. Repubs voted for Bush Jr., Romney, and Trump. All corrupt and compromised. Both
accuse the other of corruption, dishonesty and hypocrisy. Both are right, of course.
Reality, though, is not possible to perceive when limited to a diet of mainstream news.
Neither is it a trivial task to navigate the rough seas online disinformation.'
Unless one is privy to big-picture high-level (and secret) information, one is left to
attempt to identify and assemble a complex jigsaw puzzle using one's own sleuthing and
intuition skills.
Common people without inside knowledge can still interpret the world, however. War is evil,
and those who advocate war have been seduced by evil. Kindness and generosity are among the
highest values. On the other hand, those who are selish and cruel pollute our world. Etc,,
etc.
Let us keep in mind that the most evil cloak themselves in the garb of peace, kindness and
generosity, in order to dine on sheep who wishfully and willfully refused to judge behavior
rather than be seduced with addictive slogans. Let us also keep in mind that no leaders can
remain in power without the compliance of the rest of us.
Any of should be able to recognize Joe Biden as evil. His "track record" is one of
corruption, budget cutting, war and authoritarian legislation. And Trump? One of the great
mysteries of human civilization is that Trump, the ultimate swap creature, was elected by
promising to "clean the swamp".
That is fairly accurate but Trump did push back against America's China Class and the CCP
-- more than you can say for commies like the Bidens, Obamas, Clintons, Bushes, etc.
Trump's America First Hoax: Trump is an Israeli agent. He put #Mossad asset #JaredKushner
in charge of infiltration of US Intelligence and Defense. Bidens are Chinese agents? Charles
Kushner (Jared's father), is an agent of #AnbangInsurance, a Chinese Communist front
group.
Jams O'Donnell , Jan 13, 2021 6:54 PM Reply to
REvail
All US presidents, vice-presidents, chiefs of staff, etc are Israeli agents, or more
accurately, are in effect the same thing.
Jams O'Donnell , Jan 13, 2021 6:53 PM Reply to
Sgt_doom
"commies like the Bidens, Obamas, Clintons, Bushes, etc."
If you think that the above mentioned capitalist clowns are "commies", then you really,
REALLY, need to get an education, because clearly you don't know your arse from your
elbow.
Igby MacDavitt , Jan 12, 2021 3:46 PM Reply to
DimlyGlimpsed
"Trump, the ultimate swap creature " I do not think you have any idea what the 'swamp' is
to make such a claim.
Otherwise, a great post.
Lost in a dark wood , Jan 12, 2021 12:40 AM
Note: I drafted this as a response, but the person is not worthy of a reply, so I'll post
it here instead.
--
I've always said that Q is a deep-state operation. It's the NSA, military intelligence,
etc. It's just a different deep state to the CIA/MI6 deep state. And I've always said that
people should at least know what "the plan" is. They should know what it is because it's by
far the most coherent explanation for what is happening now, and for what has happened over
the last four years.
A couple of years ago I thought a deal had been struck between the opposing factions, and
it was all going to be wound down. But I changed that view after the Covid911, attempted
colour revolution. The overwhelming view on this site, from contributors and posters, was
that Trump would fall in June 2020. I was one of only a handful of people saying Trump would
survive.
I can't predict the details of what's happening now, but I think Trump will survive this
because:
a) he has the ammunition
b) it would make no sense to go this far and not see it through
c) even though it seems to be going to the precipice, it still fits a coherent plan
I've only recently started following Simon Parkes, but in his latest update he claims to
have spoken to the real Q. Of course, as anybody who's been following Q posts would know,
this would breach the "no outside comms" principle.
I'm not at all impressed. Appeared on the scene coincidental with Gen McInerney and all
the misinformation about "hammer and scorecard" which was a blatant distraction from clear
and convincing evidence of election fraud.
Parkes does far too much, "I could have told you beforehand but then I'd have had to kill
you."
Your on the ball wow from 1 psyop to another Now your following simon charlatan
parkes.
HE gets excepted into the Q nonsense and trump Savior psyop and becames one of there star
leaders over night.
Do you not do basic checks on who you start to worship?? or do they have to say code words
like Q and trump maga and its like there chosen to lead you.
Negative, far too silly and cartoonish and tracks back to a Filipino Maoist group directed
by the CCP!
Asylum , Jan 11, 2021 7:34 PM
We've been manipulated into fighting against each other over trivial differences to divert
us from the fact that we're all in the same boat.
Lost in a dark wood , Jan 11, 2021 6:33 PM
Andrew Korybko: "That, not whatever Q-Anon imagines, is the real "master plan", and it
succeeded."
Okay, I'm trying to figure this out. With regard specifically to this thread, are we
allowed to post direct links to Q posts? For instance, Q has stated explicitly that there is
no "Qanon" (#4881). Instead, there is Q and there are anons. I personally think this is
debatable, and that Qanon is a collective name for a highly amorphous movement and method of
enquiry. Furthermore, that movement and method predates Q and was to some extent co-opted by
Q. The movement will also outlive Q, though it may retain the name. As a movement, Qanon
stands in opposition to the hierarchical, hive-mind vacuity of the Rationalists and
Neo-Platonists. In short, Qanon is Blakean. Welcome to Jerusalem!
We do not want either Greek or Roman models if we are but just & true to our own
imaginations, those Worlds of Eternity in which we shall live forever; in Jesus our Lord.
– William Blake https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Milton_(excerpts)/Preface
Q Alerts is back up so I'll try again. The following is a critical part of "the plan".
--
Q (Oct 17, 2020):
I'm going to bring the whole diseased, corrupt temple down on your head. It's gonna be
Biblical.
Enjoy the show! https://qalerts.app/?n=4884
Please – can we have more of Andrew Karybko. I've seen him on Peter Lavelle. For
such an acutely well informed young chap about international politics, he demonstrates an
equally rigorous understanding about Trumps psyche.
Andrew Korybko is probably one of the best geo-political analysts I've come across and his
depth of knowledge across all continents shines through. A very warm and engaging person.
He runs a site called OneWorld Press. Recently accused by mainstream media and The Daily
Beast of being GRU agents. Well if it is, they are most measured and balanced in the history
of intelligence services.
Your be saying that on the way to the concentration camps!!! 'trust the plan' is a never ending story psyop
Similar to the 'best is yet to come' ..
you trumpsters have your own Down Syndrome language.
WWG1WGA, another bunch of devotees similar to a cult who will not except there guru is a
oppressor
mikael , Jan 11, 2021 1:09 PM
Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the
things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."Reinhold Niebuhr
Pardon moi for the lenght.
I dont know whats with people this days, the shere avalange of bollocks is baffling, the
inability to conect the dots to what was, the past, to the present is making me think there
must be something, hehe, with the narrative, or should we say in this uh . conpiracy tinfoil
hat wearing days, in the tap water, and the rethotic, about Trump, I have my issues, and I
have never been quiet about them, but then to whine about things when most of it have been
inplace before Trump came into the WH, incl children in gages to wars, Obamalama started more
wars than any other American president ever, with Hitlary the Beast from Little Rock beside,
after Her husband stole Social sec and now, witch could be massive, is completely eradicated
out of existence, and the sactions, etc, most of them are just continuations of existing
systems, we can always blame Trump for something, but please, do know the difference and dont
just throw bollocks because of the people whom wanted change, when Obamalama said it, you
belived, and what happened, again, he pissed upon you all, and have since laughed all the way
to the bank, the economic crashes, the insane austeritys, the bailins and outs, you name it
to color revolutions.
This isnt to defend Trump, for me, He was more an castrat, singing but otherwise balless, but
also tied, unable to move, and been relentlessly attacked by those that defenses the past
witch in no way was better.
Then we have the eh .. storming?, and if you look at videos, what sticks out is, what
storming, some gass clouds, yea, means what, an Cop throving an gass can, but take an look
for your self, it was never in any way what the MSM wants you to belive, and the army of
people crawling all over the sites wants you to persive, along with profanitys about people
whom did suported Trump, because they hoped for change, you cant attack them, maybe for been
a bit naive, but one thing shal be the thing Trump did, exposed them all, in an way witch is
unpresedented despite His flaws, nobody have done that in this level, He exposed them all,
and if you havent gotten it yet, you have an problem, nobody else, incl the people whom did
their duty as free citizens of the USA, did the protesting.
Rioting, again, what riot, the worst thing I can come up with, after watching some videos, is
minore, a window, probably by the AntiFags/BLMs/eh leftards?, and one man whom ran off with
an piece of the furiture, nothing else, and if I drag that further, maybe the stormers should
have wiped their shoos off before entering the Hill, stepping on the fine carpets on the
floor in the hallway, what an horrible crime, right.
What storming, do you see anything, do enlighten us.
So, I know I am pushing the attention span to the limit.
BUT, I have thru the years found out that Americans, not that I want to call em stupid, but
regarding world poltics, more infantile, naive, brainwashed to such an extent thru the
decades/centurys of propaganda, where the various Gov always have had an enemy, it have
variated, from muslims etc to what it have become to day, domestic terrorism aka
conservatives whatever that means, and not only in the MSM but also thru an army of so called
Alternative MSM, witch have feed upon this narratives and played upon this, but overall, gone
the same erant as the Gov wanted them to go, and witch have resulted in wars upon wars, and
stil some want more wars, like the broad attack line on Iran, just to give you one ex to the
strangling of others, like western sahara to the Palestinians.
Then we have the new enemy, in mainly the so called alternative ugh .. rightwinged? whatever
whom sommehow manages to blame everything on socialism, yea, apart from the weather because
thats Putins fault, despite that, I found Putin to be an scoundrel, the Russian Gov rotten to
its core, that dont mean I hate Russians but there will always be those that cant
differentiate at all.
Whom is the "enemy" Americans, socialism, China, Russia, Iran, huh.
I have saxed this from P. L. Gonzalez.
Social media networks, payment processors, airlines, hotels, streaming services, and online
vendors are strangling people based on ideology but TPUSA is still complaining about
"socialism." Burn your money or donate it to TPUSA, it's the same thing.
Yup, briliantly summarised everything in some few lines, and why, do you refuse to see
them when they are right infront of your very own eyes, and yet, you blame some imaginary
enemy witch have nothing to do with this coup, its an class war, its the oligarcs, the robber
barons, witch have an army of buttspreaders in the capitol Hill to their abuse, and this
bitches do whatever they are told, do notice how the RepubliCONs threw you under the buss, is
that to the Chines fault.
So, I hope the Americans whom stil have some parts of their bran fuctional, can notice the
difference, in Norway we have the same problem, but we are an so called socialistic nation,
but we are held hostages by the same pack of scums that is plundering your nation and
resources, and have nothing but contempt for everyone of us, and an Gov that do whatever they
want and whom are we then to blame, the Hottentots, Maoris, communism is an tool for social
unrest, and when they have done their job, thrown under the buss, because the PTB wants us to
fight each others, as long we do, they will win.
Unite and you have an chanse, if not, well, I am old, and my life span expectanse isnt that
long anymore and I will not have to live in the totalistaian regime that comes, but the sole
reason for me to even bother, is for our children, and their children.
And to all of you whom went to the protest, you have my deepest respect.
It truly is an war, against the dark forces.
You all need to take an stand.
Be the light.
peace
Igby MacDavitt , Jan 12, 2021 3:53 PM Reply to
mikael
We have the same problem worldwide. Singling out and scorning the Americans is simply
divisive. It has always been the People against the Oppressors. The Americans are people and
have Oppressors bearing down on them like the rest of us. There is a cancer that needs to be
removed lest it devour us all.
Chris , Jan 11, 2021 10:57 AM
The overtone of Korybko's writing is excessively defeatist. When the "Deep State" applies
such overt tools to steal the U.S. election, imposes censorship, labels millions of American
citizens as potential "domestic terrorists", silences the still incumbent U.S. President,
resorts to provocation, deprives Americans of essential liberties through Covid, curfews or
other bogus emergencies, then it means that the establishment behind the "Deep State" is
scared. Scared not as much of Donald Trump as scared of You – the People. I know it
since I live in a central European country with a very bitter experiences with dicatorship.
When the power starts to resort to an open forgery and uses coercion or force it reveals its
weakness, not strength. Its power derives only from the passive attitude of majority of
population, nothing more. What this so called 'liberal elite' in America hopes for is to
return to the good old days, when the whole Middle America remained voiceless, silent,
isolated, without any leadership or political representation. Now it is their objective to
'legally' separate the 'progressive America' from the 'populist' one and they might even
inspire separation, violence or secessionist moves to achieve it. But MAGA movement must not
play this delusional vision of retreat to entrench in false sense of local security. That's
what the 'Deep State' wants to achieve – to herd the popular opposition into their home
arrests and their privacy soon to be possibly separated by walls, sanitary wards, wired
fences or a new Indian reservation. Americans would never win their Independence by acting in
defense only, by retreating to 'wait and see' tactics as Korybko suggests. What must be done
is to recapture Your state institutions that have been stolen and turned into a travesty of
American political tradition. Before that happens a common awareness is needed that those who
appear to rule as a new 'government' are just a tiny bunch of criminals who try to impress
the whole world that their power has no limits, that they monopolised the mass media and
economy, that they are invincible. Do not let this delusion of 'Deep State' victory to
dominate Your outlook. Yes, I agree that Trump failed as a leader in a time of crisis but
MAGA (or however we call it) but all the people who really care for America need to maintain
representation, authority and leadership. They shouldn't accept a comfortable fantasy that
sooner or later the 'Deep State' would crumble under its own weight and then by some miracle
a new movement would be born. If Trump indicates that 'its only the beginning' then his
supporters should join him in any action he offers. All Republican politicians, conservative
or libertarian societies, local communities, state legislatures or any other active group
must be engaged in this action. Struggle for political freedom always involves risk and
mistakes. Trump certainly made a lot of them. But it is the People who are sovereign, not any
office, institution or technological dicatorship. When the Constitution, the congressional
debate and civil liberties are ruined by 'elite' it is the responsibility of the People to
act in emergency to restore law, order and liberty. The 'Deep State' perfectly understands
that after the four years of Trump and the emergence of trumpism as a social-political fact
there can not be any turning back to the business as usual. Not under normal and peaceful
circumstances. That's why they are so frightened and act in panic. That's why they impose
health and security 'emergencies' to incapacitate the population, to make it superfluous and
useless. We saw it in totalitarian regimes.
The world needs the U.S. not as an imperial power but as an example of well established
social contract, human liberty and hope for a better future. The European 'elites' are in
revolt against their people too but here we won't have a chance for any anti-establishment
president to support us. That's why in Europe we still believe that not all has been lost in
America.
Laurence Howell , Jan 11, 2021 12:17 PM Reply to
Chris
Lt. General Thomas Mcinerney,
"special forces imbedded in Antifa rioters have Nancy Pelosi's laptop"
laptop always the laptop it on the laptop he/she left the laptop at
it etc etc et was found there# etc etc etc bullshit
laptop psyop used as much as the immaculate passport psyop found at the scene of crime in a
burning inferno it aimed at idiots
Laurence Howell , Jan 12, 2021 10:37 AM Reply to
Asylum
Are you saying that Hunter Biden's laptop and the released information that it contains is
of no value?
Conflating 911 with the current conspiracies is not helpful. This would need an article of
longer length and written by an unbiased observer which you are not.
Instead of saying etc. etc. bullshit, why not explain why this is your position?
Or does this not fit in with your soundbite posting?
Jacques , Jan 11, 2021 9:41 AM
Historically speaking, the problem with the "deep state" is essentially that the current
system has corrupted itself to a point where it is so far from what is claimed, or perhaps
appears to be, that there is no way to fix it from within by rebuilding it, by "draining the
swamp".
Klaus "Cockroach" Schwab et al understand this, hence the Great Reset, a new vision for
the future. Of course, they want a future for themselves, but that's another story.
Even if Trump were entirely sincere in his effort to "drain the swamp", he had nothing to
offer apart from some vague anachronistic concept of Making America Great Again. What the
fuck is that supposed to mean anyway, eh? The only thing he had behind him was populism which
in itself is an empty concept.
Like it or not, a change will only come if people formulate a new philosophy, ideology,
and if the new ideology is proposed and embraced on a broad scale. Ideally in a non-violent
fashion.
Right now, there is fuck all, people are still stuck on all sorts of left-right bullshit
dichotomies, (fake) democracy, the games that have been played for decades if not hundreds of
years.
If you ask me, it would be nice if the ideology of the future was loosely based on Hayek's
spontaneous order.
If Trump can pull something off this week or early next, the new plan is already waiting
in the wings. It's called Nesara/Gesara. It's a new economic system not based on a debt based
system.
rechenmacher , Jan 12, 2021 3:45 PM Reply to
Thom1111
Heard that one before. Fraud.
Thom1111 , Jan 12, 2021 7:09 PM Reply to
rechenmacher
It's a real framework plan, it's just whether it can be implemented is the question.
Igby MacDavitt , Jan 12, 2021 3:57 PM Reply to
Jacques
"Like it or not, a change will only come if people formulate a new philosophy, ideology,
and if the new ideology is proposed and embraced on a broad scale. Ideally in a non-violent
fashion."
Sure. So we the people have had centuries or more to figure the answer out. Repeating the
dilemma is not enlightening. Idealism has no voice with tyrants.
ZenPriest , Jan 11, 2021 8:53 AM
All this talk of the 'deep state' yet no one can name them. Lol.
Thom1111 , Jan 11, 2021 3:04 PM Reply to
ZenPriest
you must have been born yesterday. In America it's the alphabet agencies but obviously all
runs back to Rothschild and the Vatican.
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𝚠𝚠𝚠.𝚓𝚘𝚋𝚜𝟷𝟼.𝚝𝚔
The 6 January protest march clearly shows that the majority of Trump voters had already
given up on Trump so did not join the protest. There was originally talk of a possible one
million people attending, it didn't get anywhere close. If half the nation was still behind
Trump, this was a very puzzling showing.
Trump just did not have what it takes, or was not really trying, to ruthlessly cut out the
cancer of corruption in government. History will show that he was a weak leader who allowed
the deep state to distract him to the extent that he never did anything of note other than to
reveal, through no action of his own, how extreme is the corruption that he had promised to
drain.
The Democrat distractions, paid for by their oligarch owners, showed the world that
extreme corruption is running the USA. Even the most loyal Democrats must be puzzled by the
current purges and threats of extreme centralised thought control, the arrogance of the swamp
now that it has gotten rid of the peoples' man.
To his credit, I am still willing to believe that Trump tried to do the right thing.
Although the author is trying to place Trump as a coward who resigned, going back on his
word, I think this is not how his original supporters see him. From what I can see, the
majority of his original supporters still support him and see him as a figurehead, but they
recognise that he doesn't have the skills to do the job. He is not a coward, he did not cave
in, he recognised, probably because of the low protest numbers, that he did not have what is
takes to continue the fight, he could see that his base had already given up on him. He is
still a figurehead in the patriot movement. He may have lost the far right, but he still has
a lot of centre-ground supporters.
I disagree with your claim that the majority of supporters had already given up on him. It
was the middle of the week. People have jobs. It was a significant turn out. People
understand what is at stake. I would not place the blame for failure on Trump. He is amazing
in so many ways.
I just don't understand here how anybody can believe Trump was sincere in wanting to
change anything: he's a narcissistic bully in it for his own benefit and that of his
offspring. Fighting corruption??? Come on!
Igby MacDavitt , Jan 12, 2021 4:06 PM Reply to
Carmpat
The mere fact that hundreds and hundreds of treasonous actors throughout government and
business have been clearly and openly revealed through the process started by Trump is a damn
good start.
"What is going in DC right now is like what went on at Jonestown after Jim Jones went
crackers. Except instead of cyanide laced Kool-Aid they are going to use 'Doc' Billy Eugenics
EUTHANASIA DEATH SHOT to off the 'faithful'. If only Billy and they would just off themselves
and leave the rest of the World out of it."
" EUTHANIZE the World! Corporate Fascism and Eugenics forever."
"Time now for Na n zi Pelosi, Chuckie 'Upchuck' Schumer and all the rest of the war
criminal gang of CORPORATE FASCIST FABIAN EUGENICISTS to beam back to the
mothership. They see insurrections, rebellions and conspiracies everywhere. They believe
the humans are out to get them . They are going full Jim Jones. "
"Also Nasty Na n zi should lay off the hooch. It is beginning to have a deleterious and
harmful effect upon the sad thing's cognitive faculties and behavior."
Sgt Oddball , Jan 10, 2021 10:35 PM
I *Hope* they name the next Carrier after him – USS Donald J. Trump – CVN
83
😉
Sgt Oddball , Jan 10, 2021 10:38 PM Reply to
Sgt Oddball
- Nickname: – 'Big Don'
Voxi Pop , Jan 10, 2021 9:57 PM
https://worldchangebrief.webnode.com INSURRECTION
ACT "PROBABLY" SIGNED –
Military In Control of the US, Under Commander In Chief Trump/
Updates Will Follow Throughout The Day
Cal , Jan 10, 2021 9:56 PM
.
Sgt Oddball , Jan 10, 2021 9:26 PM
"Captain America's been torn apart,
Now he's a court jester with a broken heart,
He said, "Turn me around and take me back to the start",
"I must be losing my mind!" Are you blind?!
– I've seen it all a *Million Times* "
You are going to be very surprised. See what happens.
David Meredith , Jan 10, 2021 9:08 PM Reply to
Sukma Dyk
I was just about to post a comment saying: It's not over yet, but you beat me to it! Well
done.
John Smith , Jan 11, 2021 6:17 PM Reply to
Sukma Dyk
Why the secrecy? If you know summit then spill.
Jacques , Jan 10, 2021 8:49 PM
I don't know what Trump's intentions were, and I couldn't care less.
From where I'm standing, it appears that he was elected on a wave of populism, which
seemed to be an alternative to the "liberal democracy" fakery, the swamp. An interesting
presentation of that was here ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qA50BE7d1X8
). IMHO, Bannon kicked Frum's butt in that debate.
It would appear that populism was a big enough threat for the "swamp" to unleash four
years of a hate campaign against Trump, possibly, probably culminating with COVID. Hard to
believe that it was a coincidence.
Be it as it may, and allowing for the possibility that this or that or the other thing has
been staged this way or that way, Trump's presidency has certainly set things in motion,
woken up people. Had somebody more slick been elected, the transition to the dystopia that
seems to be in the pipeline would probably have been less noticeable, perhaps not noticeable
at all. With the shitshow that has been going down since last February, all of a sudden there
is a public debate. Perhaps misinformed, perhaps mislead, but there is a debate nevertheless.
Will it result in something positive? Hard to say, hopefully.
Bottom line, Trump's presidency has been historically a good thing.
YouTube_censors_unfortuna , Jan 11, 2021 10:05 AM Reply to
Jacques
Covid 19 was DECIDED? But of course, yes, it's just a detail .. lol
Researcher , Jan 10, 2021 8:45 PM
Turns out the Viking Guy aka QAnon Shaman aka Jake Angeli aka Jacob Anthony Chansley aka
Actor and self proclaimed "Super Soldier" pals around with Bernard Kerik and Rudy Giuliani
when he takes time off from memorizing the latest NSA script:
Lost in a dark wood , Jan 10, 2021 9:42 PM Reply to
Researcher
Oh look, a photo at some sort of book-signing type event. I'll file it alongside the one
of Oswald and Mother Teresa.
Lost in a dark wood , Jan 11, 2021 4:37 PM Reply to
Researcher
BTW: if that's what Bernard Kerik looks like when he's "palling around", you definitely
wouldn't want to fall out with him!
James Meeks , Jan 10, 2021 10:10 PM Reply to
Researcher
Haven't you figured out yet that QAnon is an intelligence agency psyop based in the type
of magical thinking that will get you killed and lose the nation? If not, you really aren't
qualified to participate in what is currently hitting us. The enemy has your number. This is
obviously a photo op staged by the security state to feed the false narrative created around
QAnon.
Researcher , Jan 10, 2021 11:23 PM Reply to
James Meeks
Can you read? Read what I wrote again. Read it enough times until you understand.
QAnon = Q Group NSA
Nothing is hitting you except the Democrats and Republicans together against the citizens.
That's not new.
"If there was a non WAR RACKETEER CORPORATE FASCIST in SHAM DEMOCRACY USA for whom to vote
and the REPUBLICRATS did not FAKE the counts and rig the SHAM elections WE THE PEOPLE might.
Where is a Eugene Victor Debs when the world needs one?"
"Soon that is not going to be an issue, however. There will be no need for SHAM ELECTIONS
after Billy EugenIcs and the CORPORATE FASCIST FABIAN EUGENICISTS cull all the untermenschen
and useless eaters with their EUTHANASIA DEATH SHOT."
"Just can not give up the opportunity for a good lead up (segue'). In good faith and in
all seriousness, thanks for providing it."
Cmiller , Jan 12, 2021 5:27 AM Reply to
Researcher
Masonic handshake
Dayne , Jan 10, 2021 8:40 PM
Peasants in 19th-century Russia clung to a notion of the Czar as a benevolent, fatherly
figure. Even when he rained misery and oppression down on them, it was only because he was
"misinformed", "surrounded by bad guys", etc.
It makes sense: Those were desperate, illiterate people living in misery. Hoping against
hope was all they had. But why would anyone in 2021 think of Trump in essentially the same
way is beyond me. An entrenched military-industrial-media-psychiatric-intelligence system,
hundreds of years in the making and with untold trillions in funding, just stood by as a
Robin-Hood-type hero and people's champion rose to take the Oval Office? Sorry. Trump might
as well sprout wings and fly.
Sgt Oddball , Jan 10, 2021 10:10 PM Reply to
Dayne
Thanx for your comment, Dayne – I've been trying to put this into words, and as I'm
autistic, I could frankly, literally *Sperg'-out* over this, right now
- TL:DR version is this, tho': – Ever wonder why 'Populism' is such a dirty word for
the establishment and their MSM bullhorn? – The argument I've heard thus far generally
goes like the South Park underpants gnome's plan for world domination: – Phase 1:
Popular Uprising (aka: 'Civil Unrest') Phase 2: ? . Phase 3: Fascist 'Strongman' Dictatorship
– Why is that?
- Also that we're *Too Stoopid*(/ie: Self-Absorbed) – Like the Mud-Pickin' peasants
in Monty Python' Holy Grail
- I would suggest 2 reasons for this:
- 1.) The Davostanis (Global Banksters/Oligarchs) never *merely* back the *winning horse*
in the race, – In fact they back *every* horse that they *allow* to run (ergo: Trump
was an Establishment-groomed *Stalking Horse* )
- 2.) The Davostanis (again), have *long since* seen to it that *most everyone*, from
birth onwards, is psychologically conditioned, first with childhood myths and fairy-tales
about Charming Princes and Fair Princesses, then with religio-spiritual 'adult' myths and
fairy-tales about (In Judeo-Christian terms) Messianic, White-Knight champion/rescuer types
who, if *we would only* put our lives and our *Utmost Faith* in their holy, heaven-sent
hands, would *Save Us All* from all the terrible, terrible *Mess We've All Made* for
ourselves down here on Earth, by collectively *Shitting The Bed*
*Obviously*, this is *All* just so much *Childish Nonsense*, and, more to the point, a
*Writ-Large Con-Job*
- Cutting to the chase: – The 'Great-Man' theory of history is *Bunk* – Always
*Has Been*, always *Will Be*
If you're still "Holding Out For A Hero", I invite you to stare *Long And Hard* into the
nearest available mirror, *Take A DEEP Breath*, and then go out and *Elect Yourself* to the
office – *Better Yet*, elect your family, elect your friends, elect your neighbors,
elect *Everyone*
- And then let's *Do This Shit* – *Together*!
James Meeks , Jan 10, 2021 10:23 PM Reply to
Dayne
It could have something to do with the fact that Biden is backed by every billionaire
member of the Davos gang of criminals getting ready to use this event, coupled with medical
martial law, to stage the "great reset" scheme. A wet dream of Malthusian eugenecists like
Faucci & Gates, since it includes a drastic reduction in world population aka genocide of
the elderly, vulnerable, poor and non compliant. This Globalist Technocracy will be led by
un-elected bankers and corporate CEO's effectively ending any form of Democracy planet wide.
MSM mockingbirds are completing the programming of the public to make Casey's statement to
Reagan ring true" We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the
American public believes is wrong."
Ow look Simon one trick pony parkes been laughed at and ridiculed and busted for his many
many many many lies and it happening you watch just donate psyop
gets excepted into the Q nonsense and trump Savior psyop and became s one of there
leaders!!!
doesn't anyone go back 5 years and do basic check on thsoes they watch and then make idols
of them.
fools follow fools
Mike , Jan 10, 2021 8:15 PM
Trump was never going to be Ameica's hero. He was played to depict America as a fascist,
racist, neo-nazi country that needs to be saved by the Left aka Joe Biden/Kamala Harris. The
Left can now "save us all" from the "damage" caused by the MAGA movement and Trump. They can
do this through heavily increased mass surveillance and what is essentially imprisonment, to
make sure that we don't fall victim to the "domestic terrorism" that is represented by Trump
and his fan base.
David Meredith , Jan 10, 2021 9:10 PM Reply to
Mike
saved by the left? The left has been selling out the US to the globalist agenda for the
last 20 years (in power or out). Trump is not finished restoring America to a country that
doesn't sell out to China.
"Left-Center-Right" seems that paradigm is a tad askew. It is more like a top to bottom
pyramid [scheme/racket]. The CORPORATE FASCIST OLIGARCH MOBSTER PSYCHOPATH SLAVE MASTERS
sitting on their gold platinum thrones at the very top of the tower/pyramid and all their
prole slave victims, WE THE PEOPLE (HUMANITY) in the mud at the base. The PSYCHOS will say or
do anything to get the prole slaves at each others throats. IF WE ARE FIGHTING AMONG
OURSELVES WE ARE NOT FIGHTING THEM."
Well, being saved by the left was a sarcastic comment. And Trump is clearly done with
"restoring America" because it was never his to restore, let alone him conceding to the left
after the Capitol "riots".
falcemartello , Jan 11, 2021 3:53 AM Reply to
David Meredith
@ David
The left is as left as my right GONAD
Martin Usher , Jan 10, 2021 10:12 PM Reply to
Mike
Biden/Harris "the left"? Surely you're joking? These two are conservatives, in another
timeline they'd be Republicans. What they have going for them is they, like many Americans,
believe in the Constitution of the United States, about what the country is and what its
trying to acheve. It strives to build "a more perfect union".
This the fundamenal error many people made about the Deep State. I've no doubt that
there's a fom of Deep State out there, an ingrained conservative streak in the bureaucracy,
because there is in all bureaucracies. But the real Deep State is all of us, its every last
person who believes in the system, in the American form of democracy and the principles upon
which the nation was founded. There are innumerable personal interpretations of exactly what
this means but the sum total is the United States.
Trump, MAGA and the modern GoP represent 'capture', the idea that the capture of the state
can be turned to personal profit. In doing so Trump and his enablers degraded the notion of
what the US is and why it exists. This is what's caused the backlash, its not 'the left' or
'socialism'.
Sgt Oddball , Jan 10, 2021 10:54 PM Reply to
Martin Usher
"Biden/Harris "the left"? Surely you're joking?"
- The proverbial 'Overton Window' has, at this point, collapsed to a quantum singularity,
about a nothingth of a planck length wide
- Prepare for *Teh Great Suck*!
Peanut butter wolf , Jan 10, 2021 8:11 PM
You seriously think Trump was genuinly elected? All the points you make show obviously he
was a puppet and psy-op of the deepstate from the very beginning.
The deepstate won because they never had an enemy, they created him from the start, with or
without him knowing we dont know, but anyone on that level is on a need to know basis anyway.
It's clear that his every move is steered with the goal to bring down rogue antiestablishment
sentiments.
And it worked very well. Radical left antiestablishment is suddenly prodemocrats and
radical right antiestablishment is totally disillusioned and just became domestic
terrorists.
Trump wasn't supposed to win in 2016. The deep state probably wanted liberal Jeb Bush or
Rubio or Cruz in there. Trump destroyed all the competition in the GOP primaries. Remember,
Trump wasn't picked by the deep state to be their guy. He financed his own campaign. He was a
major burr in their saddle. The Trump phenomenon is real and he proved it with a landslide
victory that was stolen.
Martin Usher , Jan 12, 2021 6:16 PM Reply to
Thom1111
What 'landslide'? The numbers tell a very different story. Trump should have won a second
term but he didn't because of two things, one being the grass roots efforts of Democrats to
motivate voter groups despite systematic road blocks being placed in those groups' path and
the other -- a important one -- being that there's quite a lot of life long Republicans out
there that cannot stand Trump.
Trumpism is like a cult in many ways. One feature is that those who 'believe' find it
difficult to come to grips with the fact that they might hold a minority view. They're used
to being embattled, that's a signature feature of such groups (they're always fighting for
something against an implacable enemy, preferably an unseen one) but its just inconceivable
that they're really a fringe group. The events of last Wednesday have probably done more to
promote Democrat candidates than anything else this cycle; fortunately for the most part the
election was over so all they lost were the two Senate seats.
PS -- May I draw your attention to an old Beatles song -- "Revolution"? (I'd also suggest
an even old song "Trouble Coming" from the Mothers of Invention.)
Voz 0db , Jan 10, 2021 7:58 PM
Under the CURRENT MAIN SYSTEM – The Monetary System – there is no "drain the
swamp"!
James Meeks , Jan 10, 2021 10:29 PM Reply to
Voz 0db
Then you're going to love the technocrats "social credits" scheme such as China currently
imposes on it's population.
Voz 0db , Jan 11, 2021 10:43 AM Reply to
James Meeks
China developed that system with the HELP of the Western Corporations, so that in a near
future the tech will be deployed in the western Plantations. OPERATION COVIDIUS is just the
1st of many operations that will create the FEAR & PANIC conditions among the herds of
modern western moron slaves, that will make it really easy for THEM to deploy that tech.
Why do you think China was the chosen one to practice a "city lockdown" during EVENT 201
planning?
Why do you think China was on the news of western countries while they were executing the
lockdown and then no more China news?
China is also under the Shadow of the SRF & Billionaires at least for now. The only
thing China is trying to achieve is to shift the POWER of the SRF into Chinese Families,
nothing more.
maxine , Jan 10, 2021 7:48 PM
What has Off-G come to? .One must be truly mad to imagine that D. tHRUMP
"SINCERELY" thought ANYTHING EVER, let alone "changing the way America is run" .He's
incapable of comprehending what the word "SINCERITY" means .Sorry the author has lost his
hero.
OffG publishes articles and anybody who wants to can comment on them.
It does not push, or imagine, any group philosophy other than to support us all in a deep
distrust of what the mainstream media ram down our throats every day, and to give us space to
express our personal disgust in our own way.
We are not going to imagine what you would like us to imagine merely on your say-so
either, although you are quite free to tell us what your personal recommendations are.
OffG has never been pro-Trump, and we are all aware that the alternative is far from being
any better.
Perhaps you would like to tell us what is really bugging you, given that you have
never been under any pressure even to show up here At the very least, you could stay on
topic:
So, what about the swamp, and who you think is most likely to succeed in draining it ?
Carol Jones , Jan 10, 2021 8:53 PM Reply to
wardropper
Hear Hear!
Gezzah Potts , Jan 10, 2021 10:26 PM Reply to
wardropper
Spot on W👍
YouTube_censors_unfortuna , Jan 10, 2021 7:40 PM
Trump's racist fan base supported America's bogus War of Terrorism against blameless
Muslim countries, did they not? What goes around, comes around.
I think you are getting fan bases mixed up. Trump inherited these conflicts from Bush,
Iraq 2002 invasion & Obama's 2015 invasion of Syria and it was Trump that threatened to
end the propping up of the endless war industry. In fact that played the major role in why
Trump had to be removed at all costs including selling treason and vote rigging as Democracy
to be defended against "domestic terrorists".
YouTube_censors_unfortuna , Jan 11, 2021 9:45 AM Reply to
James Meeks
Did America's white patriots oppose the demonisation of Muslims as being terrorists who
did 9/11 or did they participate in this US government fiction?
No, at least half of the patriots are and were aware that 9/11 was an inside job.
Geoffrey Skoll , Jan 10, 2021 7:25 PM
Right! The Donald was too weak and too stupid. A smarter president got shot for his
troubles, but the rulers knew they didn't have to resort to that against the Donald. He was
obsessed with his mirror. All those meeting between Ike and JFK, what do you think they were
talking about?
Sounds like you came to Off Guardian thinking it was the Guardian and expected to find a
group of like minded consumers of security state propaganda in a Trump bashing fest.
Do u relly guys think Trump was a hope for all pf us? I am still amazed that
people(including off-guard) still thinks in terms of left vs right, good vs bad, and all that
narrative. I am afraid that nnarrativ has never been true. It is part of the game of "the
matrix" to keep us entertained in shows programmed for tth masses, division, polarizaiomn,
saviours and "heros". In my opinion it is time for a deep shift. Continuing to hope that some
guy will save us all, it is just seeing a tree but not being able to see the woods. While
some keep waiting for somebody to save us, they are moving forward with their plans really
fast. But no problem guys. Sooner or later the rrality will knock on you door, and you will
have to decide if you are going to be a slave or a free human. And it will be all about what
you decide. No american hero or any messiah will do it for you.
Sophie - Admin1 , Jan 10, 2021 9:50 PM Reply to
MANUEL
We have warned against accepting the Left/Right paradigm many times. This is NOT an
editorial and therefore is not 'the voice of OffG'.
Some visitors here need to up their sophistication level to the point they understand we
publish a SPECTRUM of dissident opinion that we consider merits discussion or a wider
audience, without necessarily agreeing with all of it.
"Some visitors here need to up their sophistication level to the point they understand
we publish a SPECTRUM of dissident opinion "
- Yep, well that's as may be, but Andrew Korybko's position is *Lame As All Hell* –
Every establishment talking point *Covered* – just from the 'Contrarian' side
- Trump was an 'Outsider' who 'Became' an 'Insider'?! – Aww Puh-lease! – He
was a *Stalking Horse
- "He didn't have the *'Strength'* to 'Drain The Swamp'(tm)"??!?! – *No-One*
*Indivudal* in all Creation could've
- Do you think we're *Children*?!
Asylum , Jan 11, 2021 3:26 PM Reply to
Sgt Oddball
been on this site a whole while now not seen any articles discussing trump failures
James Meeks , Jan 10, 2021 11:06 PM Reply to
MANUEL
We are all aware that we are the playthings of the rich and powerful but all you're doing
is stating what most of us already know. What is your solution? So tell us please what you
are doing to that makes you feel free and not a slave? Are you living off the grid? Not using
currency? What is it you're doing that makes you different from those of us you claim are not
facing reality? I think many people, myself included, who have no love for Trump see that he
is being denounced by every billionaire member of the Davos gang of criminals as a threat to
world order and the economy while they shut down the planet with medical martial law and
create an authoritarian Globalist Technocratic dictatorship ending Democracies worldwide and
targeting "domestic terrorists" who oppose them.
George Mc , Jan 10, 2021 6:35 PM
The steps on how to destroy all of the services, public and private though
focussing on the NHS:
Seize on a moderate flu variant. Build it up to be the blackest
death since the black death. Seize on all the old people who die anyway and claim their
numbers as an indication of the carnage. For anyone still hesitant, introduce hypocritical
emotional blackmail about "the most vulnerable" in our society to shame everyone into the
game On the basis of those appropriated death figures, endlessly circulate fear porn –
enhanced by the fact that the symptoms of this apocalyptic virus are indistinguishable from
the regular flu or even the common cold. Get everyone to steer clear of everyone else. Close
down all "inessential" work plus communal gathering places to ensure everyone is isolated
before the droning monolithic message you are pumping out. Introduce even more draconian
measures for anyone who "has" the bug – effectively barring them even (especially) from
care work. Prioritise the new bug cases so that they have access to hospital facilities
– while anyone with other (real) illnesses are barred to "protect" them! This fills up
the hospitals with hypochondriacs with the common cold. Introduce the notion that some may
carry the bug without symptoms. Introduce a new test which can determine who has the
symptomless bug. On the basis of those magical symptomless bug test kits, bar the
essential workers from supporting the vulnerable – in order to "protect the
vulnerable"! Constantly report on how the NHS is collapsing – which it is, being filled
up with folks with the cold and turning everyone else away, and also being deprived of
essential workers who tested positive for the symptomless bug. Just stand back and watch it
all collapse whilst continuing to report on it with increasing horror!
George Mc , Jan 10, 2021 6:41 PM Reply to
George Mc
PS the list is not exhaustive. I didn't even touch on the phony Left/Right divide.
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL , Jan 10, 2021 7:18 PM Reply to
George Mc
EXCERPTS FROM THE AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL REPORTS INTO COVID-19 AND CARE HOMES.
A must read.
The Department of Health and Social Care . adopted a policy, that led to 25,000 patients,
including those (known to be) infected (with Covid-19, and also those who were) possibly
infected with Covid-19 (but) had not been tested, being discharged from hospital into care
homes between 17 March and 15 April -- exponentially increasing the risk of transmission to
the very population most at risk of severe illness and death from the disease. (This, while
being denied) access to testing, (being denied) personal protective equipment, (while having)
insufficient staff, and limited (and confusing) guidance.
What a lie. The bombs being dropped from the U.S. made jets the Saudi pilots fly over Yemen
killing civilians leaves blood all over his hands not to mention shaking the hand of the
Saudi that murdered a journalist before selling him weapons to kill Yemen's civilians.
Waryaa Moxamad 48 minutes ago 19 Jan, 2021 05:36 PM
1) False flag chemical attack on Syria. 2) killing Soleimani in a sovereign country he was
invited to 3) Guaido 4) Bolivia. 5) continuing the wars predecessors started.
Who is being fooled that U.S. presidency has any say in America's imperialism?
Who really pushed for General Soleimani to be killed and has the most personal and intense
vendetta against Soleimani? Mike Pompeo. Trump did not give the Pentagon and CIA all the wars
they wanted, especially in Syria. Now the Pentagon and the CIA have their puppet, Corrupt
Biden, who will do what they command him to do. I would expect in one year to see another
massive war. Where? Syria. The US mothers will cry when their sons come home in coffins. The
Hez in Lebanon will not back down, and they will enter Syria again. Trump did not want young
American boys coming back in coffins!!!!!!!
By 2016 the concept of "liberal democracy," once bright with promise, had dulled into a
neoliberal politics that was neither liberal nor democratic. The Democratic Party's turn toward
market-driven policies, the bipartisan dismantling of the public sphere, the inflight marriage
of Wall Street and Silicon Valley in the cockpit of globalization -- these interventions
constituted the long con of neoliberal governance, which enriched a small minority of Americans
while ravaging most of the rest.
Jackson Lears is Board of Governors Distinguished Professor of History at Rutgers,
Editor in Chief of Raritan, and the author of Rebirth of a Nation: The Making of Modern
America, 1877–1920, among other books. (January 2021)
>>Today, the Trump administration filed an appeal against the UK decision not to
extradite Assange. I must imagine that means that Trump has no intention of pardoning
Assange.
Trump was a desperate "Murica must have the biggest dick" imperialist massively triggered
by the US decline and trying to save the US Empire. Like a rabid dog that is wounded, he
attacked anything that moves, including those who helped him get into power.
Anyone who thought that he will help the likes of Russia or Assange does not understand
the psychology of elite US WASPs.
These people thought that they and the US should rule the world and that they are the
cream of the cream. Anything denying them that would lead to crazed reactions, hysteria,
rabid animalistic behavior, and snarling and gnashing of teeth at anything that moves.
Simply put, their decline caused them to go rabid. A rabid dog attacks anything that
moves, whether friendly or not. Unfortunately for the likes of Russia and Assange.
Casino magnate and Israeli patriot multi-billionaire Sheldon Adelson, one of the world's
richest men, died in Las Vegas on January 11 th at age 87. He had been suffering
from cancer and has been buried at the
Mount of Olives Cemetery in Israel . When his body arrived in Israel it was met by Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as well as Jonathan Pollard, the most damaging spy in United States
history. Tributes to the fallen "hero" poured in from the political class in both the United
States and Israel and it has even been reported that President Donald Trump was intending to
hoist the American flag at half mast over federal buildings to honor the "great humanitarian
philanthropist." Unfortunately, the flag was already at half mast honoring the death of Capitol
Police Force officer Brian Sicknick, who was murdered in the Capitol building last
Wednesday.
Trump has not mentioned the service unto death of Sicknick and the flag lowering itself was
apparently a bit of an afterthought on behalf of the White House, but he had plenty to say
about his good buddy Adelson, who has been the principal funder of the Republican Party over
the past five years. As he can no longer use Twitter, the president's
condolences were posted on the White House site: "Melania and I mourn the passing of
Sheldon Adelson, and send our heartfelt condolences to his wife Miriam, his children and
grandchildren. Sheldon lived the true American dream. His ingenuity, genius, and creativity
earned him immense wealth, but his character and philanthropic generosity his great name.
Sheldon was also a staunch supporter of our great ally the State of Israel. He tirelessly
advocated for the relocation of the United States embassy to Jerusalem, the recognition of
Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, and the pursuit of peace between Israel and its
neighbors. Sheldon was true to his family, his country, and all those that knew him. The world
has lost a great man. He will be missed."
Missing from the Trump eulogy is any mention of what Adelson did for the United States,
which is his country of birth and where he made his fortune engaging in activity that many
would consider to be a vice. In fact, Adelson was all about the Jewish state, positioning
himself as the principal funder of the Republican Party under Donald Trump and receiving in
return as a quid pro quo the U.S. withdrawal from the Iran nuclear agreement (JCPOA),
the move of the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, the recognition of Israeli annexation of
the Syrian Golan Heights, and a virtual concession that the Jewish state could do whatever it
wants vis-à-vis the Palestinians, to include expelling them from Palestine. Adelson once
commented that Israel does not have to pretend to be a democracy but it must be Jewish,
presumably to help the process of Arab genocide move along.
Adelson's mechanism, initiated under George W. Bush, is familiar to how the Israel Lobby
operates more generally. It consisted of the exploitation of the incessant need of campaign
money by the GOP, which Adelson provided with strings attached. He worked with the Republicans
to completely derail the admittedly faux peace process begun under Bill Clinton, which
depended on a two-state solution, and instead give the Jewish state a free hand to implement
its own unilateral Greater Israel Project extending from "the Jordan River to the
Mediterranean." As part of that expansion, Israel has been building illegal settlements while
also bombing and killing Lebanese, Syrians, and Iranians and assassinating scientists and
technicians throughout the region.
All of the interventions against Israel's neighbors took place even though the Jewish state
was not technically at war with anyone. The U.S. meanwhile funded Israeli aggression and
watched the spectacle without any complaint, providing political cover as necessary, while also
maintaining a major military presence in the Middle East to "protect Israel," as Trump recently
admitted.
In short, Sheldon Adelson committed as much as half a billion dollars from his vast fortune
to buy control over a major element of U.S. foreign policy and subordinated American interests
to those of Israel. In addition to direct donations to both major political parties, he also
paid for Congressional "fact finding" trips to Israel and funded a number of pro-Israel
lobbies, so-called charities and other related Jewish projects. It is indisputable that he
wielded an incredible degree of power to shape Washington's actions in the Middle East. In
her own tribute to her dead husband, Miriam Adelson, an Israeli, described how he "crafted
the course of nations."
Adelson was actively engaged on Israel's behalf until the week before his death. He provided
his casino's private 737 luxury executive jet to transport Jonathan Pollard "home" to Israel.
Pollard has served 30 years in prison after being convicted of espionage and was on parole,
which restricted his travel. As yet another a gift to Israel, Donald Trump lifted that
restriction, allowing him to fly to Israel where he received a hero's welcome. It is generally
agreed that Pollard was the most damaging spy in American history, having stolen the keys to
accessing U.S. communications and information gathering systems. A month after Pollard's arrest
in 1985, C.I.A director William Casey stated: "The Israelis used Pollard to obtain our war
plans against the USSR – all of it: the co-ordinates, the firing locations, the
sequences, and Israel sold that information to Moscow for more exit visas for Soviet Jews."
Sheldon Adelson used his wealth and political connections to shield himself from any
criticism due to his openly expressed preference for Israel over the land of his birth. He
famously publicly
stated that he wished he had worn the Israeli Army uniform instead of that of the U.S.
Army, where he served briefly as a draftee. He also expressed his desire that his son would
serve as an Israeli army sniper, presumably allowing him to blow the heads off of Palestinians.
In 2013
Adelson advocated ending nuclear negotiations with Iran and instead detonating a nuclear weapon
in "the middle of the [Iranian] desert," followed by a threat to annihilate the capital city
Tehran, home to 8.6 million, to force Iran to surrender its essentially non-existent nuclear
program.
Other acknowledgements of the impact of Adelson came from officials in
the Trump Administration. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo commented how his "efforts to
strengthen the alliance between Israel and the United States the world, Israel and the United
States are safer because of his work." Yeah, right Mike.
So, the world is definitely a better place due to the passing of Sheldon Adelson. Or is it?
His Israeli wife Miriam owns more than 40% of Las Vegas Sands Corp Casinos Inc.,
estimated to be worth in excess of $17 billion. She has proposed that a new chapter be
included in the Jewish bible, the Book of Trump, and has pledged herself to continue her
husband's work. Trump had previously given her the highest award that a president can bestow,
the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Freedom, of course, does not apply to Palestinians. And if
one is concerned that the Democrats will not be cooperative, they too have their own major
donor similar to Adelson. He is an Israeli film producer named Haim Saban, who, echoing a
similar statement by Adelson, said that he is a one issue guy and that issue is Israel.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest,
a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a
more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website ishttps://councilforthenationalinterest.orgaddress is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected]
46 Follow RT on Outgoing US
President Donald Trump has delivered his "parting gift" to the Moscow-led Nord Stream 2 gas
pipeline, with newly announced sanctions targeting a pipe-laying vessel and companies involved
in the multinational project.
The specialist ship concerned, named, 'Fortuna,' and oil tanker 'Maksim Gorky', as well as
two Russian firms, KVT-Rus and Rustanker, were blacklisted on Tuesday under CAATSA (Countering
America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act) as part of Washington's economic war on Moscow.
The same legislation had been previously used by the US to target numerous Russian officials
and enterprises.
Russian energy giant Gazprom warned its investors earlier on Tuesday that Nord Stream 2
could be suspended or even canceled if more US restrictions are introduced.
However, Moscow has assured its partners that it intends to complete the project despite
"harsh pressure on the part of Washington," according to Kremlin press secretary Dmitry
Peskov. Reacting to the new package of sanctions on Tuesday, Peskov called them
"unlawful."
Meanwhile, the EU said it is in no rush to join the Washington-led sanction war on Nord
Stream 2. EU foreign affairs chief, Josep Borrell, said that the bloc is not going to resist
the construction of the project.
"Because we're talking about a private project, we can't hamper the operations of those
companies if the German government agrees to it," Borrell said Tuesday.
Nord Stream 2 is an offshore gas pipeline, linking Russia and Germany with aim of providing
cheaper energy to Central European customers. Under the agreement between Moscow and Berlin, it
was to be launched in mid-2020, but the construction has been delayed due to strong opposition
from Washington.
The US, which is hoping to sell its Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) to Europe, has hit the
project with several rounds of sanctions over scarcely credible claims that it could undermine
European energy security. Critics say the real intent is to force EU members to buy from
American companies.
Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!
46 Follow RT on
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Fatback33 4 hours ago 19 Jan, 2021 11:20 AM
The group that owns Washington makes the foreign policy. That policy is not for the benefit
of the people.
DukeLeo Fatback33 1 hour ago 19 Jan, 2021 02:06 PM
That is correct. The private banks and corporations in the US are very upset about Nord
Stream - 2, as they want Europe to buy US gas at double price. Washington thus introduces
additional political gangsterism in the shape of new unilateral sanctions which have no merit
in international law.
noremedy 4 hours ago 19 Jan, 2021 11:22 AM
Is the U.S. so stupid that they do not realize that they are isolating themselves? Russia has
developed SPFS, China CIPS, together with Iran, China and Russia are further developing a
payment transfer system. Once in place and functioning this system will replace the western
SWIFT system for international payment transfers. It will be the death knell for the US
dollar. 327 million Americans are no match for the rest of the billions of the world's
population. The next decade will see the total debasement of the US monetary system and the
fall from power of the decaying and crumbling in every way U.S.A.
Hanonymouse noremedy 2 hours ago 19 Jan, 2021 01:37 PM
They don't care. They have the most advanced military in the world. Might makes right, even
today.
Shelbouy 3 hours ago 19 Jan, 2021 12:25 PM
Russia currently supplies over 50% of the natural gas consumed by The EU. Germany and Italy
are the largest importers of Russian natural gas. What is the issue of sanctions stemming
from and why are the Americans doing this? A no brainer question I suppose. It's to make more
money than the other supplier, and exert political pressure and demand obedience from its
lackey. Germany.
David R. Evans Shelbouy 2 hours ago 19 Jan, 2021 01:58 PM
Russia and Iran challenge perpetual US wars for Israel's Oded Yinon Plan. Washington is
Israel-controlled territory.
Jewel Gyn 4 hours ago 19 Jan, 2021 11:34 AM
Sanctions work both ways. With the outgoing Trump administration desperately laying mines for
Biden, we await how sleepy Joe is going to mend strayed ties with EU.
Count_Cash 4 hours ago 19 Jan, 2021 11:20 AM
The US mafia state continues with the same practices. The dog is barking but the caravan is
going. The counter productiveness of sanctions always shows through in the end! I am sure
with active efforts of Germany and Russia against US mafia oppression that a blowback will be
felt by the US over time!
Dachaguy 4 hours ago 19 Jan, 2021 11:24 AM
This is an act of war against Germany. NATO should respond and act against the aggressor,
America.
xyz47 Dachaguy 42 minutes ago 19 Jan, 2021 03:20 PM
NATO is run by the US...
lovethy Dachaguy 2 hours ago 19 Jan, 2021 01:04 PM
NATO has no separate existence. It's the USA's arm of aggression, suppression and domination.
Germany after WWII is an occupied country of USA. Thousand of armed personnel stationed in
Germany enforcing that occupation.
Chaz Dadkhah 3 hours ago 19 Jan, 2021 12:19 PM
Further proof that Trump is no friend of Russia and is in a rush to punish them while he
still has power. If it was the swamp telling him to do that, like his supporters suggest,
then they would have waited till their man Biden came in to power in less than 24 hours to do
it. Wake up!
Mac Kio 3 hours ago 19 Jan, 2021 12:34 PM
USA hates fair competition. USA ignores all WTO rules.
Russkiy09 2 hours ago 19 Jan, 2021 01:33 PM
By whining and not completing in the face of US, Russia is losing credibility. They should
not have delayed to mobilize the pipe laying vessel and other equipment for one whole year.
They should have mobilized in three months and finished by now. Same happens when Jewtin does
not shoot down Zio air force bombing Syria everyday. But best option should have been to tell
European vassals that "if you can, take our gas. But we will charge the highest amount and
sell as much as we want, exclude Russophobic Baltic countries and Poland and neo-vassal
Ukraine. Pay us not in your ponzi paper money but real goods and services or precious metals
or other commodities or our own currency Ruble." I so wish I could be the President of
Russia. Russians deserve to be as wealthy as the Swiss or SIngapore etc., not what they are
getting. Their leaders should stand up for their interest. And stop empowering the greedy
merchantalist Chinese and brotherhood Erdogan.
BlackIntel 1 hour ago 19 Jan, 2021 02:27 PM
America i captured by private interest; this project threatens American private companies
hence the government is forced to protect capitalism. This is illegal
Ohhho 3 hours ago 19 Jan, 2021 12:15 PM
That project was a mistake from the start: Russia should distance itself from the Evil
empire, EU included! Stop wasting time and resources on trying to please the haters and
keeping them more competitive with cheaper Russian natural gas: focus on real partners and
potential allies elsewhere!
butterfly123 2 hours ago 19 Jan, 2021 01:58 PM
I have said it before that part of the problem is at the door of the policy-makers and
politicians in Russia. Pipeline project didn't spring up in the minds of politicians in
Russia one morning, presumably. There should have been foresight, detailed planning, and
opportunity creation for firms in Russia to acquire the skill-set and resources to advance
this project. Not doing so has come to bite Russia hard and painful. Lessons learnt I hope Mr
President!
jakro 4 hours ago 19 Jan, 2021 11:37 AM
Good news. The swamp is getting deeper and bigger.
hermaflorissen 4 hours ago 19 Jan, 2021 11:49 AM
Trump finally severed my expectations for the past 4 years. He should indeed perish.
ariadnatheo 1 hour ago 19 Jan, 2021 03:06 PM
That is one Trump measure that will not be overturned by the Senile One. They will need to
amplify the RussiaRussiaRussia barking and scratching to divert attention from their dealings
with China
Neville52 2 hours ago 19 Jan, 2021 02:01 PM
Its time the other nations of the world turned their backs on the US. Its too risky if you
are an international corporation to suddenly have large portions of your income cancelled due
to some crazy politician in the US
5th Eye 2 hours ago 19 Jan, 2021 02:03 PM
From empire to the collapse of empire, US follows UK to the letters. Soon it will be
irrelevant. The only thing that remains for UK is the language. Probably hotdog for the US.
VonnDuff1 1 hour ago 19 Jan, 2021 02:10 PM
The USA Congress and its corrupt foreign policy dictates work to the detriment of Europe and
Russia, while providing no tangible benefits to US states or citizens. So globalist demands
wrapped in the stars & stripes, should be laughed at, by all freedom loving nations.
Below is a list of which House Republicans voted to impeach Trump on Wednesday.
Rep. John Katko
(N.Y.) : "To allow the President of the United States to incite this attack without
consequence is a direct threat to the future of our democracy. For that reason, I cannot
sit by without taking action. I will vote to impeach this President."
Rep. Liz
Cheney (Wyo.) : " There has never been a greater betrayal by a President of the United
States of his office and his oath to the Constitution. I will vote to impeach the
President. "
Rep. Adam
Kinzinger (Ill.) : "There is no doubt in my mind that the President of the United
States broke his oath of office and incited this insurrection I will vote in favor of
impeachment."
Rep. Fred Upton
(Mich.) : "Enough is enough. The Congress must hold President Trump to account and send
a clear message that our country cannot and will not tolerate any effort by any President
to impede the peaceful transfer of power from one President to the next. Thus, I will vote
to impeach."
Rep. Dan Newhouse
(Wash.) : "A vote against this impeachment is a vote to validate the unacceptable
violence we witnessed in our nation's capital. ... I will vote yes on the articles of
impeachment."
Rep.
Peter Meijer (Mich.) : "With the facts at hand, I believe the article of impeachment to
be accurate. The President betrayed his oath of office by seeking to undermine our
constitutional process, and he bears responsibility for inciting the violent acts of
insurrection last week."
Rep. Anthony Gonzalez
(Ohio) : "When I consider the full scope of events leading up to January 6th including
the President's lack of response as the United States Capitol was under attack, I am
compelled to support impeachment."
Rep. Tom Rice (S.C.) : "I
have backed this President through thick and thin for four years. I campaigned for him and
voted for him twice. But, this utter failure is inexcusable."
Rep. David Valadao
(Calif.) : "Based on the facts before me, I have to go with my gut and vote my
conscience. I voted to impeach President Trump. His inciting rhetoric was un-American,
abhorrent, and absolutely an impeachable offense. It's time to put country over
politics."
Victoria Nuland, former foreign policy adviser to vice president Dick Cheney, should not be
nominated for undersecretary of state [for political affairs], and if nominated should be
rejected by the Senate.
Nuland played a key role in facilitating a coup in Ukraine that created a civil war costing
10,000 lives and displacing over a million people. She played a key role in arming Ukraine as
well. She advocates radically increased military spending, NATO expansion, hostility toward
Russia, and efforts to overthrow the Russian government.
The United States invested $5 billion in shaping Ukrainian politics, including overthrowing
a democratically elected president who had refused to join NATO. Then-Assistant Secretary of
State Nuland is on
video talking about the U.S. investment and on
audiotape planning to install Ukraine's next leader, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who was
subsequently installed.
The Maidan protests, at which Nuland handed out cookies to protesters, were violently
escalated by neo-Nazis and by snipers who opened fire on police. When Poland, Germany, and
France negotiated a deal for the Maidan demands and an early election, neo-Nazis instead
attacked the government and took over. The U.S. State Department immediately recognized the
coup government, and Arseniy Yatsenyuk was installed as Prime Minister.
Nuland has
worked with the openly pro-Nazi Svoboda Party in Ukraine. She was long a leading
proponent of arming Ukraine. She was also an advocate for removing from office the
prosecutor general of Ukraine, whom then-Vice President Joe Biden pushed the president to
remove.
Nuland
wrote this past year that "The challenge for the United States in 2021 will be to lead the
democracies of the world in crafting a more effective approach to Russia - one that builds on
their strengths and puts stress on Putin where he is vulnerable, including among his own
citizens."
She added:
" Moscow should also see that Washington and its allies are taking concrete steps to shore
up their security and raise the cost of Russian confrontation and militarization. That
includes maintaining robust defense budgets, continuing to modernize U.S. and allied nuclear
weapons systems, and deploying new conventional missiles and missile defenses, . . .
establish permanent bases along NATO's eastern border, and increase the pace and visibility
of joint training exercises."
The United States walked out of the ABM Treaty and later the INF Treaty, began putting
missiles into Romania and Poland, expanded NATO to Russia's border, facilitated a coup in
Ukraine, began arming Ukraine, and started holding massive war rehearsal exercises in Eastern
Europe. But to read Victoria Nuland's account, Russia is simply an irrationally evil and
aggressive force that must be countered by yet more military spending, bases, and hostility.
Some U.S.
military officials say this demonizing of Russia is all about weapons profits and
bureaucratic power, no more fact-based than the Steele Dossier that was
given to the FBI by Victoria Nuland.
SIGNED BY:
Alaska Peace Center
Center for Encounter and Active Non-Violence
CODEPINK
Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
Greater Brunswick PeaceWorks
Jemez Peacemakers
Knowdrones.com
Maine Voices for Palestinian Rights
Nuclear Age Peace Foundation
Nukewatch
Peace Action Maine
PEACEWORKERS
Physicians for Social Responsibility – Kansas City
Progressive Democrats of America
Peace Fresno
Peace, Justice, Sustainability NOW!
The Resistance Center for Peace and Justice
RootsAction.org
Veterans For Peace Chapter 001
Veterans For Peace Chapter 63
Veterans For Peace Chapter 113
Veterans For Peace Chapter 115
Veterans For Peace Chapter 132
Wage Peace
World BEYOND War
TimeTraveller 36 minutes ago (Edited)
The funny thing about appointment of Nuland, is that basically every European government
hates her.
Those idiots in the EU complained about Trump. Well the American Empire war machine is
about to ratchet up a notch or three, btches.
Max21c 50 minutes ago
The U.S. State Department immediately recognized the coup government, and Arseniy
Yatsenyuk was installed as Prime Minister.
The Washington establishment immediately recognized the coup government, and Joe Schmoe
Biden was installed as ruler.
replaceme 52 minutes ago
Why wouldn't they appoint a murderer?
TimeTraveller 50 minutes ago (Edited)
It is funny that they oppose that. After all, every single person in the Democrat party
was in agreement with those foreign coup and wars. If we're going to all of a sudden start
pointing the finger, then there would be no Democrats left in congress
aspnaz again 38 minutes ago
Nationalist, extremist, exceptionalist, white supremicists are okay if they are
democrats.
eatapeach 13 minutes ago
She's an Israel-firster, thus has a pass?
TimeTraveller 51 minutes ago
Those 25 organizations are about to be cancelled. Social Media thought police will be
working overtime tonight.
You_Cant_Quit_Me 52 minutes ago
So we go around the world interfering with every country's internal affairs but when they
do it to the US is meddling in US elections.
does nooner know how hypocritical Washington sounds?
Ms No PREMIUM 36 minutes ago
"pro-Nazi Svoboda party"
That is a headfake there. They are definitely tyrannical and Bolshevik, but not targeting
Jewish people.
As a matter of fact Nuland's Council on Foreign Relations huband-brother (whatever they
really are) is a Kagan, like Kagan-ovich, and that ain't a coincidence.
So you can see what the mob did there. It helps with plausible deniability down the road
when they get charged with war crimes, crimes against humanity, terrorism, aggression,
etc
xious 37 minutes ago
They don't care what you think. You will watch child molesters on TV and like it.
TryingSomethingNew 38 minutes ago
But she's Jewish and a woman, right? Those 25 organizations are clearly Anti-Semitic and
sexist.
Ms No PREMIUM 35 minutes ago
Why would a Jewish Mobster set up a Nazi like color revolutionary group and coup the
Ukraine with it?
Already looking at plausible deniability down the road. Nobody's *** is covered anywhere
but theirs. Their apparatchiks should ponder that.
Pliskin 43 minutes ago
Amurikans should keep the fcuk out of other countries affairs...!
Sad-sacks!
Dzerzhhinsky 48 minutes ago
People think Zionists are anti Nazi, but Zionism is the non Christian version of Nazism.
Herzl the founder of the Zionist party was enamoured with the Nazis, but they rejected him on
religious grounds.
It's natural for Nuland and the other Kaganites to be in bed with Ukrainian Nazis.
Ms No PREMIUM 22 minutes ago remove link
I remember Lavrov getting grilled by angry journalists about why Russia wasn't bombing the
**** out of the color revolutionaries that took the Ukraine with US money.
He basically said, What would you have us do, cause countless deaths of our own Russian
speaking people? They don't care about their deaths but we have to.
Then the first thing the US did was put in illegal bioweapons labs in the Ukraine. There
was a super weird outbreak prior to the color revolution takeover too..Then Russians were
really pissed off. So Putin drew red line in Syria
Russia will get the Ukraine back someday. They have to. It was their bread basket during
last grand minimum.
bluskyes 14 minutes ago
perhaps, when the western threat become stronger than ethnic bias. Though it will probably
split first.
Anthraxed 38 minutes ago
Victoria Noodlebrain should be on Interpol's top 10 most wanted list.
Cautiously Pessimistic 49 minutes ago
Man....I had all but forgotten about many of these scumbags that are resurfacing now in
the Biden administration. This woman should be waterboarded until deceased.
Dzerzhhinsky 46 minutes ago
It's always the same people, the front men change, but behind the scenes it's always the
same people.
RKKA 6 minutes ago
Again, all these demons of the Obama era are striving for power. During the Trump
presidency, we have already forgotten about these devils.
Victoria Nuland, her real Jewish surname is Nudelman, her parents are Moldovan ****. The
parents of the former Ukrainian President Poroshenko, who seized power as a result of the
Maidan and the coup d'etat, are also Moldovan **** by the name of Valtsman. Already in
adulthood, Petr Valtsman took the name of his wife and became - Poroshenko. They are the
father and mother of the war in Ukraine, and Joe Biden blessed them for this.
Another Ukrainian oligarch, also a ***, Igor Kolomoisky, financed the Ukrainian
nationalist battalions of Azov, Dnepr and Aydar. Tell me, what are these Nazis who are
financed and serve the ****? Adolf spins tirelessly in his coffin!
And you probably thought that the **** are such poor and offended children of the
Holocaust and the Nazis are their enemies? No, **** and Nazis merged in violent ecstasy and
it is time to introduce the term - Jewish Nazism into the lexicon!
de tocqueville's ghost 28 minutes ago
that was a good four years...no new wars. Good going liberals, you voted for a war
monger.
Lt. Shicekopf 14 minutes ago
Yes! Maybe we can do to all kinds of countries what we did to Libya. The continuing
calamity that has been going on in Libya since Obama and Hillary got done with them has been
studiously ignored by all the Western media. Anarchy, chaos, death, an open slave market in
which black Africans are bought and sold by Arab traders. All good stuff to the American
left.
David Q. Little 45 minutes ago
Joe and Hunter owe her a favor.
Musum 19 minutes ago
Neocons are returning with a vengeance.
Death2Fiat 28 minutes ago
Her job is to destroy the US and do the bidding of the Globalists.
tbone654 28 minutes ago
none of it matters... with the dems controlling everything the [M]ilitary [I]ndustrial
[I]ntelligence [C]omplex is gonna ramp up and spend a crap-ton on wars all over the globe...
it's how it works when they have the throttle... everyone was worried about Trump, but he
de-escalated everywhere...
The people have spoken (I mean cheated) and now they must be punished... Ed Koch
Lyman54 34 minutes ago
Yatsenyuk, Nulands pick, was given a Canadian passport. Likely hiding in Manitoba.
ThomasEdmonds 36 minutes ago
Some things in this life don't matter and Biden cares squat. Perhaps these groups can
express their contempt for Samantha Power as well. Let's extend that to his foreign policy
team.
WTFUD 13 minutes ago remove link
Joseph Biden reminds me of Hedley Lamar in Blazing Saddles, forming a posse of the biggest
wackjobs available.
As long as he doesn't put Hunter in charge of the Afghani Poppy Crop Investment Fund then
his Middle-East and Central Asian policy could prove fruitful.
"... The military would support whomever pays their salary and their pensions, i.e. the Establishment. However, as Iraq and Afghanistan has shown, the U.S. military, while possessing remarkable firepower when taken on directly and openly, is quite vulnerable. The U.S. military is essentially mercenaries. Mercenaries work for pay. Mercenaries are not willing to die for a cause. You can't spend money if you're dead. ..."
As a person who grew up in the glorious aftermath of World War II, it never occurred to me
that in my later years I would be pondering whether the United States would end in civil war or
a police state. In the aftermath of the stolen presidential election, it seems a 50-50 toss
up.
There is abundant evidence of a police state. One feature of a police state is controlled
explanations and the suppression of dissent. We certainly have that in abundance.
Experts are not permitted forums in which to challenge the official position on Covid.
Teachers are suspended for giving offense by using gender pronouns.
Recording stars are dropped by their recording studios for attending the Trump rally.
Parents ratted on by their own children are fired from their jobs for attending the Trump
rally. https://www.rt.com/usa/512048-capitol-riot-employees-fired/
Antifa is free to riot, loot, intimidate and hassle, but Trump supporters are
insurrectionists.
White people are racists who use hateful words and concepts, but those who demonize whites
are righting wrongs.
Suppression of dissent and controlling behavior are police state characteristics. It might
be less clear to some why dictating permissible use of language is police state control. Think
about it this way. If your use of pronouns can be controlled, so can your use of all other
words. As concepts involve words, they also can be controlled. In this way inconvenient
thoughts and expressions along with accurate descriptions find their way into the Memory
Hole.
With the First Amendment gone, or restricted to the demonization of targeted persons, such
as "the Trump Deplorables," "white supremacists," "Southern racists," the Second Amendment
can't have much life left. As guns are associated with red states, that is, with Trump
supporters, outlawing guns is a way to criminalize the red half of the American population that
the Establishment considers "deplorable." Those who stand on their Constitutional right will be
imprisoned and become cheap prison labor for America's global corporations.
Could all this lead to a civil war or are Americans too beat down to effectively resist?
That we won't know until it is put to the test.
Are there clear frontlines? Identity Politics has divided the people across the entire
country. The red states are only majority red. It is tempting to see the frontiers as the red
center against the blue Northeast and West coasts, but that is misleading. Georgia is a red
state with a red governor and legislature, but there were enough Democrats in power locally to
steal the presidential and US senate elections.
Another problem for reds is that large cities -- the distribution centers -- such as
Atlanta, Detroit, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los
Angeles -- are in blue hands as are ports and international airports. Effectively, this cuts
reds off from outside resources.
What would the US military do? Clearly, the Joint Chiefs and the military/security complex
are establishment and not anti-establishment Trumpers. With the soldiers themselves now a
racial and gender mix, the soldiers would be as divided as the country. Those not with the
Establishment would lack upper level support.
Where are the youth and younger adults? They are in both camps depending on their education.
Many of the whites who went to university have been brainwashed against themselves, and regard
white Americans as "systemic racists" or "white supremacists" and feel guilt. Those who did not
go to university for the most part have experienced to their disadvantage the favoritism given
to people of color and have resentment.
What about weapons? How can the reds lose when guns are a household item and blues would
never dirty themselves by owning one? The answer is that unlike the War of Northern Aggression
in the 1860s, today the weapons in the hands of the military are devastating compared to those
in the hands of the public. Unlike in the past, it is impossible for a citizens' militia to
stand against the weapons and body armor that the military has. So, unless the military splits,
the reds are outgunned. Never believe that the Establishment would not release chemical and
biological agents against red forces. Or for that matter nuclear weapons.
What about communications? We know for an absolute fact that the tech monopolies are aligned
with the Establishment against the people. So much so that President Trump, in the process of
being set-up for prosecution, has been cut off from communicating with his supporters both in
social media and email.
The American Establishment is doing to President Trump exactly what it did to Ukrainian
President Yanukovych in Washington's orchestrated "Maidan Revolution," called "the Revolution
of Dignity" by the liars at Wikipedia, and precisely what it did to Chavez, Maduro, and would
like to do to Putin.
Suppose an American civil war occurs. How is it likely to play out? Before investigating
this, first consider how the Establishment could prevent it by bringing the red states to its
defense. The Trump supporters are the only patriots in the American population. They tend to
wear the flag on their sleeve. In contrast, blue state denizens define patriotism as
acknowledging America's evils and taking retribution on those white racists/imperialists who
committed the evils. In blue states, riots against the "racist system" result in defunding the
police. If the Antifa and Black Lives Matter militias were sicced on the Biden regime, red
state patriots might see "their country" under attack. It is possible that the "Proud Boys"
would come to Biden's defense, not because they believe in Biden but because America is under
attack and he is "our president." Alternatively, an Antifa attack on the Biden regime could be
portrayed as an unpatriotic attack on America and be used to discourage red state opposition to
the police state, just as "Insurrection" has resulted in many Trump supporters declaring their
opposition to violence. In other words, it is entirely possible that the patriotism of the
"Trump Deplorables" would split the red state opposition and lead to defeat.
Assuming that the Establishment is too arrogant and sure of itself or too stupid to think of
this ploy, how would a civil war play out? The Establishment would do everything possible to
discredit the case of the "rebels." The true rebels, of course, would be the Establishment
which has overthrown the Constitutional order, but no media would make that point. Controlling
the media, the Establishment, knowing of the patriotism of its opponents, would portray the
"rebels" as foreign agents seeking to overthrow American Democracy.
The "foreign threat" always captures the patriot's attention. We see it right now with Trump
supporters falling for the disinformation that Switzerland and Italy are behind the stolen
election. Previously, it was Dominion servers in Germany and Serbia that did the deed.
On whose head will the Establishment place the blame for "the War Against America"? There
are three candidates: Iran, China, and Russia. Which will the Establishment choose?
To give Iran credit conveys too much power to a relatively small country over America. To
blame Iran for our civil war would be belittling.
To blame China won't work, because Trump blamed China for economically undermining America
and Trump supporters are generally anti-China. So accusing the red opposition with being China
agents would not work.
The blame will be placed on Russia.
This is the easy one. Russia has been the black hat ever since Churchill's Iron Curtain
speech in 1946. Americans are accustomed to this enemy. The Cold War reigned from the end of
World War II until the Soviet Collapse in 1991. Many, including retired American generals,
maintain that the Soviet collapse was faked to put us off guard for conquest.
When the Establishment decided to frame President Trump, the Establishment chose Russia as
Trump's co-conspirator against American Democracy. Russiagate, orchestrated by the CIA and FBI,
ensured for three years that Trump was accused in the Western media of being in cahoots with
Russia. Despite the lack of any evidence, a large percentage of the American and world
population was convinced that Trump was put into office by Putin somehow manipulating the
vote.
The brainwashing was so successful that three years of Trump sanctions against Russia could
not shake the Western peoples back into factual reality.
With Russia as the historic and orchestrated enemy, whatever happens in the United States
that can be blamed elsewhere will be blamed on Russia. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, former US
Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, and former Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes
have already associated "Trump's insurrection" with Russia. https://www.rt.com/russia/512071-capitol-violence-consequences-fear/
Suppose that an American civil war becomes intense. Suppose that the Establishment's
propaganda against Russia becomes the reigning belief as propaganda almost always becomes, how
can the Establishment not finish the insurrection threat by attacking the country responsible?
The Establishment would be trapped in its own propaganda. Emotions would run away. Russia would
hear threats that would have to be taken seriously.
You can bet that Biden's neocon government will be egging this on. American exceptionalism.
American hegemony. Russia's fifth column, the Atlanticist Integrationists, who wish absorption
into the degenerate and failing Western World, will echo the charges against Russia. This would
make the situation a serious international incident with Russia as the threatened villain.
What would the Kremlin do? Would Russia's leaders accept yet another humiliation and false
accusation? Or will the anger of the Russian people forever accused and never stood up for by
their own government force the Kremlin into awareness that Russia could be attacked at any
moment.
Even if the Kremlin is reluctant to acknowledge the threat of war, what if another of the
numerous false warnings of incoming ICBMs is received. Unlike the past, is it believed this
time?
The stolen election in America, the emerging American Police State, more vicious and better
armed than any in the past, could result in American chaos that could be a dire threat to the
Russian Federation.
What Trump and his supporters, and perhaps the Kremlin, do not understand is that real
evidence no longer counts . The Establishment makes up the evidence that it needs for its
agendas. Consider how easy it was for the Capitol Police to remove barriers and allow some
Antifa mixed in with Trump supporters into the Capitol. This was all that was required to
create a "Trump led insurrection" that terminated the presentation of evidence of electoral
fraud and turned the massive rally of support for Trump into a liability. Trump now leaves the
presidency as an "insurrectionist" and is set up for continued harassment and prosecution.
As I previously wrote, the stolen election and its acceptance abroad signifies the failure
of Western democracy. The collapse of the Western world and its values will affect the entire
world.
No member of the State wants to be picked off one by one, be it military, cops, leadership
or functionaries.
What has been overlooked in the debate over the combat potential of violent extremists
is the diffusion of something much more rudimentary and potentially more lethal: basic
infantry skills. These include coordinated small-team tactical maneuvers supported by
elementary marksmanship. The diffusion of such tactics seems to be underway, and it may
generate serious concerns for U.S. security policy in the future if ignored.
Imagine if fuel pipe lines to urban areas were hit, railroad tracks hit, water processing
facilities hit; the vision of an easy victory over Red America would quickly come home to the
city dwellers.
Elections in the US are not about picking winners. They are about making voters complicit
in governance by their having voted. The most recent election failed to make the Red voters
"complict" because there was no transparency and everyone believes there was fraud. No
election with mail in voting in the US will every work because everyone will assume
fraud.
In a nation as large as the US with as much concentrated city living, logistics are a
nightmare. The next time the lights go out, you may wonder. When your grocery chain runs out
of meat, you may wonder. When sewers in your city keep breaking, you may wonder. Thus truly
scares me.
today the weapons in the hands of the military are devastating compared to those in the
hands of the public
True enough. However, the weapons and the ammunition don't magically appear; they need to
be manufactured somewhere, and those places (and/or their suppliers) can be destroyed.
I must disagree. There will be no "civil war" in the United States. The establishment
controls the levers of power and all communications and all organized structures. There may
be a bunch of disaffected citizens, but they will remain a disorganized mob. Any apparent
emergent rival for power will be ruthlessly suppressed, deplatformed, villified, or co-opted.
The working class has been effectively divided and will waste its energy fighting itself over
crumbs ('diversity').
Disorganized mobs do not fight civil wars.
No, the fate of the United States will be the sort of chaotic autocracy we see in places
like Mexico and Brazil. Verging on being a failed state, the rich will nonetheless live lives
of great luxury secure in their walled estates. Meanwhile the average person will be crushed
into poverty, criminal gangs will flourish, and there will be a tension between the central
police and local gangs, but gangs are rarely organized enough to truly challenge centralized
states, and life will muddle on. There will be little social cohesion and no real trust of
central authorities, but that only matters if you want a strong and unified society. The rich
will do fine.
On the other hand, the overall national power will decline, and other powers like China
(which for all its flaws has not declared war on the working class, nor does it routinely
excuse or celebrate incompetence in leadership) will rise and take its place both on the
world stage and as the cutting edge of science and culture.
to me the biggest outcome of this faux coup/insurrection is the splintering of the
republican party. with this schism the trump "populists" have been cleanly pared off of the
party and thrown overboard and the remaining party will meekly do the bidding of the neocon
deep state that now totally controls both of these sock puppet parties. we will now see both
parties calling for a unification of our "indispensable nation". more than likely some false
flag will provide the necessary impetus to bury the hatchet and focus us all on our new/old
enemy. the only hope i see is an outside chance that so many republicans have been redpilled
that the party becomes the new whigs and fades into obscurity, leaving room for new parties
to rise from the ash. the dems are ripe for a schism themselves with aoc champing at the bit
to kick the boomers to the curb and the bernie bros finally realizing that three card monty
is a rigged game. i would love to see the destruction of both of these hopelessly corrupt
parties but the deep state cthulhu has its tentacles thoroughly wrapped around our poor
planet and anything emerging out of this toxic mess would most likely be even worse. the
situation reminds me of voltaire's candide and his sage advice to cultivate your garden.
I'd advise the young to develop a "plan B". Pick another country you find bearable amd
study it. Find out what jobs are in demand there. Develop those skills in your spare time
(computers, electricians, mechanics, etc.). Practice their language an hour or two per week
with online resources/dvd's/books. Research their immigration laws and perhaps contact their
embassy.
If it gets really awful for whites here, you may be able to take your family some place
more hospitable. Hopefully none of this will be neccessary and the rhetoric will tone down.
Trump personally really got under the left's skin. Don't umderestimate Hillary's supporters
influence here. They were ticked off. The Obama's too. Perhaps they will calm down a notch
now. Have a plan B though young whites.
Another insightful article by PCR. However, I must somewhat disagree on some points.
What would the US military do?
The military would support whomever pays their salary and their pensions, i.e. the
Establishment. However, as Iraq and Afghanistan has shown, the U.S. military, while
possessing remarkable firepower when taken on directly and openly, is quite vulnerable. The
U.S. military is essentially mercenaries. Mercenaries work for pay. Mercenaries are not
willing to die for a cause. You can't spend money if you're dead.
Think of the Troubles in Ireland.
The Establishment absolutely can deliver a punch to an identifiable opponent, but it can't
take a punch. Low level violence directed at officers and politicians would bring them to
their knees.
Controlling the media, the Establishment, knowing of the patriotism of its opponents,
would portray the "rebels" as foreign agents seeking to overthrow American Democracy.
I agree that they will try. However, I suspect that PCR is underestimating how little
faith many whites have in the media.
The Establishment will never be more powerful than it is today. They have inherited
institutions, the people to man those institutions and a generally functioning economy.
Basically, they stole the keys to car that they didn't create. But the Establishment run
those institutions and economy into ground. They will slowly start to show cracks.
Whites need to stay low, start forming small groups and begin preparing for the openings
that will come.
The racial right has been fantasizing about a civil war since forever, but I can't see it.
Too many people have too much to lose, there's no real desire for blood, and the people are
anyway too soft to initiate or withstand the violence real war would unleash upon them.
Further, and in stark contrast to the SJWs and antifa, the few racially conscious whites who
fantasize about this are mostly too old to make good soldiers. Also, just like the "God
emperor" himself, Trumpers are some of the stupidest people on the face of the earth, largely
down with their own enslavement, nauseatingly fond of "law and order", sporting "Blue Lives
Matter" badges, etc. Despite being preyed upon by blacks and browns for decades now, they
still refuse to become racist. Most of them are Bible thumpers who really believe that race
is just skin color, that all are equal before their imaginary friend called God, and that
Israel is America's greatest ally. Then too, vast numbers of whites work for the government
or its many offshoots such as education, law enforcement, the military, and the defense
industry. Civil war would mean they'd be revolting against themselves.
Will America become a police state? In case you haven't noticed, Americans already
live in a police state, and have for decades. PCR should know this as well as anyone, as he
was part of it during the Reagan years. America is an open-air prison Americans built
themselves, and they rat each other out and betray each other to keep themselves
ideologically in line. When someone white is doxxed and fired for having bad thoughts, who do
you think does the enforcing? For the most part, it's other white people. Fake president and
China asset Biden is just the new warden.
As a person who grew up in the glorious aftermath of World War II, it never occurred to
me that in my later years I would be pondering whether the United States would end in civil
war or a police state. In the aftermath of the stolen presidential election, it seems a
50-50 toss up.
In a very meaningful sense we already have a "police state." Why do we have a police
state? Because our masters realize that they can't run the whole world from anything
resembling a constitutional republic (as the Founders and Framers envisioned it). It's the
agenda for complete world domination and control that's driving the domestic oppression. As
they continue to squander everything of value on the agenda and take more risks, etc., while
the corruption and rot continue to take a toll and the country crumbles, the boot will need
to come down ever harder on the neck.
And please stop kidding yourself about Trump. It wasn't for the benefit of Joe and Jill
Sixpack that he seized Syrian oilfields, tried to start a war with Iran, tried to overthrow
the Maduro government in Venezuela, tried to stop Nord Stream 2, started a trade war with
China, pulled out of all the nuclear treaties, etc. Trump wasn't just fully onboard with the
agenda, he pursued it enthusiastically.
If Trump's nuclear brinkmanship and aggressive foreign policies aren't promptly reversed,
the U.S. may end as a pile of nuclear ash. Comments coming out of Moscow recently seem to
suggest that Russia is finally losing its patience with interminable U.S. hostility and may
soon start responding more forcefully to U.S./NATO provocations (and Biden's tough talk on
Russia isn't helping matters any).
Neither Russia, China nor Iran are going to surrender to the USraeli empire and start
taking orders, so either the U.S. "government" must back off and accept a multipolar world or
WW3 is still on the table, even by accident.
From Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War.
The Civil War in Corcyra
"So savage was the progress of this revolution, and it seemed all the more so because it
was one of the first which had broken out. Later, of course, practically the whole of the
Hellenic world was convulsed, with rival parties in every state – democratic leaders
trying to bring in the Athenians, and oligarchs trying to bring in the Spartans. In peacetime
there would have been no excuse and no desire for calling them in, but in time of war, when
each party could always count upon an alliance which would do harm to its opponents and at
the same time strengthen its own position, it became a natural thing for anyone who wanted a
change of government to call in help from outside.
So revolutions broke out in city after city, and in places where the revolutions occurred
late the knowledge of what had happened previously in other places caused still new
extravagances of revolutionary zeal, expressed by an elaboration in the methods of seizing
power and by unheard-of atrocities in revenge. To fit in with the change of events, words,
too, had to change their usual meanings . What used to be described as a thoughtless act
of aggression was now regarded as the courage one would expect to find in a party member; to
think of the future and wait was merely another way of saying one was a coward; any idea
of moderation was just an attempt to disguise one's unmanly character ; ability to
understand a question from all sides meant that one was totally unfitted for action.
Fanatical enthusiasm was the mark of a real man, and to plot against an enemy behind his back
was perfectly legitimate self-defence. Anyone who held violent opinions could always be
trusted, and anyone who objected to them became a suspect. To plot successfully was a sign of
intelligence, but it was still cleverer to see that a plot was hatching. If one attempted to
provide against having to do either, one was disrupting the unity of the party and acting out
of fear of the opposition. In short, it was equally praiseworthy to get one's blow in first
against someone who was going to do wrong, and to denounce someone who had no intention of
doing any wrong at all. Family relations were a weaker tie than party membership ,
since party members were more ready to go to any extreme for any reason whatever. These
parties were not formed to enjoy the benefits of the established laws, but to acquire power
by overthrowing the existing regime ; and the members of these parties felt confidence in
each other not because of any fellowship in a religious communion, but because they were
partners in crime. If an opponent made a reasonable speech, the party in power, so far from
giving it a generous reception, took every precaution to see that it had no practical
effect.
As the result of these revolutions, there was a general deterioration of character
throughout the Greek world . The simple way of looking at things, which is so much the
mark of a noble nature, was regarded as a ridiculous quality and soon ceased to exist.
Society had become divided into two ideologically hostile camps , and each side viewed
the other with suspicion. As for ending this state of affairs, no guarantee could be given
that would be trusted, no oath sworn that people would fear to break; everyone had come to
the conclusion that it was hopeless to expect a permanent settlement and so, instead
of being able to feel confident in others, they devoted their energies to providing against
being injured themselves."
Whether civil war as we may imagine it, or something equally unappealing to our every day
lives, something bad is about to happen.
I'm curious though, regarding what I do believe was unprecedented election fraud. How is
it possible, after watching the Georgia State Farm arena video, that the President of the
United States, with all the power that office should hold, could not force the woman
identified in that video, one Ruby Freeman, to answer questions about what we saw? Ruby
Freeman was never questioned as far as I can find. How is this possible? Nothing makes sense.
Before we begin killing one another, can we do two things; 1. Interrogate Ruby Freeman and 2.
Interrogate the killer of Ashli Babbit?
Little bit feverish article. And I do have to say no.
Civil war can happen only after hyperinflation accompanied with lawlessness.
And that will happen only if US looses its international position.
Everything depend now on Germany.
If Germany joins China Russia camp than US as a world leader will not mean anything
anymore.
China now is courting Europe intensively. Particularly is courting Germany.
Nothing is set yet.
So everybody can relax.
.
Biden is out of his mind. In his speech he said that he wants to increase minimum wage and
reestablish unions. That could be a little help also.
People living in the core areas of Ziocorporate globalism, like the US/EU, remain mostly
oblivious about the nature of their ruling regime than those living in the direct periphery
of globalist power. Take Colombia for an example, like Mexico's, all its presidents are
subservient to US Ziocorporate power. Last one, a Nobel peace prize winner under whose
pre-presidential stint as "Defense" minister oversaw the US-serving Colombian military's
systematic massacre of tens of thousands of lower class Colombian youths who were then
disguised as guerrillas to cash in rewards paid US Plan Colombia dollars, proceeded, now as
president, to negotiate the disarmament of the actual guerrillas under the Obama/Biden
regime's orders. Massmurder and massacres maintained an average level.
Then, in 2018, right after the Trumpet, a shamelessly pro-US regime, even for Colombian
standards, took over and massacres and massmurder picked right up again, to an average of 2
or 3 per week, with exploding cocaine production even for Colombia standards as well, and
extreme political polarisation, and all the while the Ziocorporate mother ship in Washington,
with its Qtard and MAGA bullshit, looked the other way except to accuse Venezuela of being
undemocratic and of human rights violations.
If Americans weren't so stupid and daydreaming like fucktards that they live in "muh
democracy/republic" instead of the Ziocorporate conglomerate regime that rules over them,
they could take a clue or two from their own regime's foreign policy, not only did Trumpet do
things like transferring $400 billion in weapons to ISIS/al-Qaeda royal Salafi patrons in
Ziodi Wahhabia, he doubled-down on the Obama/Biden policy of Venezuela "is a national
security threat to muh democracy and freedom"; to start pondering about the kind of
manipulation and radicalisation Ziocorporate agents Trump/Republicans and Biden/Democrats
have in store for them. Cointelpro certainly mutates far faster than Covid-1984.
What do Qtarts and the like need to realise this simple, evident facts? That the Trumpet
himself comes on national TV telling you all "I and the Democrats have been playing divide
and conquer with you dumbfucks for 4 years"?
The American Establishment is doing to President Trump exactly what it did to Ukrainian
President Yanukovych in Washington's orchestrated "Maidan Revolution," called "the
Revolution of Dignity" by the liars at Wikipedia, and precisely what it did to Chavez,
Maduro, and would like to do to Putin.
What Trump and his supporters, and perhaps the Kremlin, do not understand is that
real evidence no longer counts . The Establishment makes up the evidence that it
needs for its agendas.
Their playbook "Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals" by Saul D.
Alinsky, makes it clear that it's necessary to play dirty. This covers all aspects of their
Regime Change projects and the current US project surely isn't any different.
It's a cocktail of lies, fabrications, subversion, threats, blackmail, false friendships
– in fact any means to advance themselves.
For example: From Alinsky – "Means and Ends" His take on morality:
Rule 10) You do what you can with what you have and clothe it with moral garments.
Rule 11) Goals must be phrased in general terms like "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity", "Of
the Common Welfare, "Pursuit of Happiness" or "Bread and Peace".
So yes, this is why the most unpatriotic Patriot Act is called the Patriot Act and they
operate from patriotic sounding places like the American Enterprise Institute.
If traditional America is going to get anywhere in the upcoming conflict they have to get
used to playing by the same rules – difficult for them – but they have to do it.
It's inevitably going to be a dirty war.
Point of order- Russia is not the historic enemy, but the orchestrated one, rather it was
the Soviet Union which is the historic enemy, as the sponsors of the destruction of Russia
are behind the destruction of America.
We are already in a police state and you can kiss goodbye to the 1st and 2nd amendment
soon as free speech becomes hate speech just like they did in Europe.
So this site and many others in the alt news universe will soon be gone.
There's not going to be a civil war as the current generation of young people are too weak
and distracted and have been brainwashed into hating themselves.
There's a big elephant in the room and wild card that's been missed too and that's the new
covid vaccines who's long term effects on health are unknown.
Vaccines need to be studied for about 10 years before their safety can be guaranteed.
If tens / hundreds of millions are willing to be injected with a new untested genetic
engineered substance that could make them disabled or kill them in 5 years to save them
against something with a 99% survival rate what does that tell you about the mental state of
the Population?
The US as you once knew it is finished it's just that many are still in denial or haven't
realized it yet.
I see no civil war in the USA. I see no organisation amongst the people in order to carry
it out. They have no leader, they have no Hannibal, Boadicea or Adolf to rally them together
for a major insurrection against The Beast Empire. Unless of course something is brewing
secretly.
A French style form of resistance, as previously mentioned in these comments, also takes a
lot of planning and organisational skills, and I see no inkling of that taking place amongst
American patriots.
I also believe many do not realise how serious the matter is, they still, being bogged
down in irrelevant party politics.
If however a large swathe of the police and US Military including officers were to desert
their corrupt masters, things would look very different and a civil war could happen.
The civil was has been on since Crossfire Hurricane, the usurpers of the constitution
simply kept it cold because they thought they could enforce their tyranny silently.
And if Trump surrenders then they would have been proven right, at least for the
leadership fight.
Biden will likely launch a war because he already has his bay of pigs with his graft, and
will need a moonshot for the misdirection.
I don't think they can fight half the nation (and the military will split), and Russia at
the same time, so the only question is on whom the war will be launched. I still think the
odds are higher that it will be a civil war, but the Russia option looms strong for sure.
The US military is the most "woke" diverse incompetent organization in America.
Remember- contractors do all the heavy lifting "in theater"- from cooking to plumbing to
firefighting to IT to combat.
This knowledge is hidden from view- kept on the down low.I only know because my brother
has worked in Iraq and Afghanistan for KBR for the past 15 years. I have seen him accumulate
well over Half a million in cash. What does he do? He makes sure the troops have water and
food. He is in logistics. For the past decade I have heard hundreds if not thousands of
stories of the jaw dropping incompetence, insouciance and laziness of the American
military.
Rank-and-file Americans, indeed no one, talks about this very real infrastructure that
props up every dumb, overweight enlisted. About 4 contractors to every enlisted.
Most of the contractors in theater are from Eastern Europe and sub Sahara Africa. If they
were given orders to release biological or chemical weapons on the American populace, as long
as the huge checks were hitting their account they would do it in a heartbeat
More than the military- fear the shadow military that knows the systems, does the work ..
And will do whatever it is asked as long as they are paid.
Their mother doesn't live here.
Everywhere we turn, diversity and hiring people from the "other" never works out.
*** Side note: My brother revealed that when blacks came back from their R&R after the
George Floyd insanity, most of them became more aggressive and entitled. Unable to do their
work because they could not stop going to report others for incidence of racism.
This includes the American black contractors and enlisted.
These are dumb young black men and women who are making $92,000 a year to move pallets
around. If they were asked to stop calling in sick every day, they would run to report their
supervisor for-
Racism.
Many whites have lost their lucrative positions or been subject to discipline for having
the audacity to ask blacks to come to work.
@84:
As sometimes said: don't sweat the small stuff.
This "We are all Taiwanese now" stunt is Pompeo's act of petty spite for getting outfoxed in
the Hong Kong colour revolution play.
Empire's useful idiots were let loose to trash the hapless city, fired up by the Western
propaganda machinery.
Now Beijing is putting the stock on those pompous minions with the National Security Law, and
their foreign masters can't do nuffin' except squeal human rights and apply some nuisance
sanctions.
The West fails because it looks at China through ideological lenses and sees Communists, who
can fall back on 5000 years of statecraft to push back at interlopers.
Beijing's moves can be likened to two classic strategies.
1. Zhuge Liang fools the enemy to fire all their arrows at straw men, which become ammunition
against them.
2. The Empty City strategy. Invaders take over an ostensibly abandoned city, only to be
trapped inside.
Global Times is cantankerous and sometimes risible, but even a broken clock is right, twice a
day.
So when it says that crossing Beijing's red line on the Taiwan issue is not in the island's
best interests, the incoming BiMala administration should take note.
Trump obviously wants better diplomatic relations with Russia. He is reluctant to
counter its military might. He is doing his best to make it richer. Just consider the
headlines below. With all those good things Trump did for Putin, intense suspicions of
Russian influence over him is surely justified.
There followed 34 headlines and links to stories about Trump actions, from closing Russian
consulates to U.S. attacks on Russian troops, that were hostile to Russia.
In fact no other U.S. administration since the cold war has been more aggressive towards
Russia than Trump's.
But some U.S. media continue to claim that Trump's behavior towards Russia has not been
hostile at all. Consider this line
in Politico about anti-Russian hawks in the incoming Biden administration:
Nuland and Sherman, who entered academia and the think tank world after leaving the Obama
administration, have been outspoken critics of President Donald Trump's foreign policy --
particularly his appeasement of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Where please has Trump 'appeased' Vladimir Putin?
Here are a number of headlines which appeared in U.S. media since we published our first
list two years ago. Which of the described actions were designed to 'appease' Putin or
Russia?
When one adds up all those actions one can only find that Trump cares more about Russia,
than about the U.S. and its NATO allies. Only with Trump being under Putin's influence,
knowingly or unwittingly, could he end up doing Russia so many favors.
Why, you certainly could view most (if not all) of those actions as favors.
People feel attacked, unite, rally around the flag. Internal problems are blamed on the
external enemy. The sanctions, the sort the West likes to impose, help develop domestic
industries. Etc. Yeah, favors.
Point on! Trump was never 'the Russians' bitch'. He was the whore of the Russian
émigré mafia that had relocated to the US in south Queens in New York City. A
major difference!
Well, the logic is to destroy or ad least severely weaken Russia. Yet damn Russia is
getting stronger and stronger, hence what ever happened under Trump's watch must have been a
favor to Russia.
Competent government would look itself in the mirror and admit it is their own fault and
stupidity, but that ship sailed long time ago for US.
Point on! Trump was never 'the Russians' bitch'. He was the whore of the Russian
émigrés mafia that had relocated to the US in south Queens in New York City. A
major difference!
Of course the whole point of US and Western MSM obsession with demonising Russia and
China, and castigating those like Trump (for not going far enough to oppose either one or the
other nation, or both), is to divert public attention away from govt failings at home and to
push the public into supporting regime change against both Russia and China.
B's post should be read as a companion piece to his previous post on China as an
existential threat to the US, as an example of a nation that achieved stability, peace and
enough prosperity for most of its people by pursuing an alternate political and economic
ideology in the space of 40 years. An ideology that moreover challenges the ideology that the
West has followed for the past 500 years, and the assumptions on which that ideology is
based. Despite Western attempts to destabilise, break up and impoverish Russia in the 1990s,
in order to steal its energy and mineral resources, that nation managed to bounce back to
some level of stability and economic security. In addition Russia and China signed a
friendship treaty in 2001 and are committing to a closer political ans economic
relationship.
All this serves to marginalise the Anglosphere nations and to deny the US, the UK and
their elites the opportunity to plunder these nations and their allies for their natural
resources.
Point on! Trump was never 'the Russians' bitch'. He was the whore of the russian
emigrée mafia that had relocatet to the US in south Quens in New York City. A maijor
difference!
Exactly that, thank you. The mafia that manages the D party are of Mediterranean roots and
are totally pi$$ed of with the Russians.
Enough of this polite avoidance of the reality of the USAi gangland - it is a mafia state.
The D 'reformist' squad just blew their best chance to start the reformation. They will be
neutered well before another chance arises.
AFAICT Russiagate's neo-McCarthyism and Trump's supposed friendliness toward Putin was a
set up prior to Trump negotiations with Putin at Helsinki.
"I'm your only friend ... and your last best hope ..." is a powerful pitch -
especially when it is accompanied by generous offers of aid and support. And perhaps it
would've worked if it had come years before.
So now we have a new Cold War - with both Russia and China.
rump the New Yorker was a stranger in a strange land, having nothing of the sensibility of
the insular, self-serving swamp-dwellers in Washington and no grasp whatsoever of the power of
the Deep State, whose ire he quickly aroused. Trump was a terrible statesman, too
seat-of-the-pants, but what was to him dealmaking was at bottom diplomacy, an activity
Washington has little time for.
Why did Trump surround himself with people who opposed him and not infrequently sabotaged
those few foreign policy ideas one can approve of -- constructive ties with Russia, an end to
wasteful wars, peace in Northeast Asia, sending "obsolete" NATO into the history books? What
were H.R. McMaster, John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, and numerous others like them but of lesser
visibility doing in his administration?
I am asked this not infrequently. My reply is simple: It is not at all clear Trump appointed
these people and at least as likely they were imposed upon him by the Deep State, the permanent
state, the administrative state -- whatever term makes one comfortable. Let us not forget,
Trump knew nobody in Washington and had a lot of swivel chairs to fill.
We must add to this Trump's personal shortcomings. He is by all appearances shallow of mind,
poorly read (to put it generously), of weak moral and ethical character, and overly concerned
with appearances.
Put these various factors together and you get none other than the Trump administration's
nearly illegible record on the foreign policy side.
Trump is to be credited with sticking to his guns on the big stuff: He held out for a
new-détente with Russia, getting the troops out of the Middle East and Afghanistan,
making a banner-headline deal with the North Koreans. He was scuttled in all cases.
Complicating the tableau, the prideful Trump time and again covered his impotence by
publicly approving of what those around him did to subvert his purposes. A year ago, the record
shows, Pompeo and Mark Esper (then the defense secretary) concocted plans to assassinate Qasem
Soleimani, the Iranian military leader, flew to Mar –a –Lago, and presented
Trump with a fait accompli -- whereupon Trump acquiesced as the administration and the
press pretended it was White House policy all along.
Now We Come to Iran
Hassan Rouhani, President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, addresses the 74th session of the
United Nations General Assembly's General Debate, Sept. 25, 2019. (UN Photo/Cia Pak)
Pulling out of the Iran nuclear accord a year into his administration was among the most
destructive moves Trump made during his four years in office. It was afterward that the
shamefully inhumane "maximum pressure" campaign against Iranians was set in motion.
Trump's intention, however miscalculated, was the dealmaker's: He expected to force Tehran
back to the mahogany table to get a new nuclear deal. As secretary of state, Pompeo's was to
cultivate a coup or provoke a war. It was cross-purposes from then on, notably since Pompeo
sabotaged the proposed encounter between Trump and Rouhani on the sidelines of the UN GA.
Now we have some context for the recent spate of Iranophobic posturing and the new military
deployments in the Persian Gulf. We have just been treated to four years of a recklessly
chaotic foreign policy, outcome of a war the Deep State waged against a pitifully weak
president who threatened it: This is the truth of what we witness as Trump and his people fold
their tents.
Trump the dealmaker a year ago now contemplates an attack on Natanz on the pretext Iran is
not holding to the terms of an accord he abandoned two years ago? The only way to make sense of
this is to conclude that there is no sense to be made of it.
Who ordered the B–52 sorties and the Nimitz patrols? This question promises a
revealing answer. It is very highly doubtful Trump had anything to do with this, very highly
likely Pompeo and his allies in hawkery got it done and told the president about it
afterward.
Trump is out in a few weeks. The self-perpetuating bureaucracy that made a mess of his
administration -- or a bigger mess than it may have been anyway -- will remain. It will now
serve a president who is consonant with its purposes. And the eyes of most people who support
him will remain wide shut.
Patrick Lawrence, a correspondent abroad for many years, chiefly for the International
Herald Tribune , is a columnist, essayist, author and lecturer. His most recent book is
Time No Longer: Americans After the American Century . Follow him on Twitter
@thefloutist . His web site is
Patrick Lawrence . Support his
work via his Patreon site
.
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of
Consortium News.
Ed Rickert , December 31, 2020 at 10:06
A first rate analysis of the inconsistent and inchoate policies of Trump as well as an
acute assessment of his psychology, notably his weakness when challenged. Equal cogent is
Lawrence's trepidation and concern over the policies and potential actions of the
administration that is to replacement Trump. Thank you for your thoughtful work.
Pierre Guerlain , December 31, 2020 at 06:51
I would just like to have a linkto the sources for Pompeo hoodwinking Trump for the
assassination of Soleimani.
Linda , December 30, 2020 at 18:42
Thank you, Patrick, for this very clear article summarizing Trump's clumsy attempts at
making peace with other countries (a campaign offering to voters) and the Deep State's
thwarting of those attempts. My friends and I intuitively knew the people taking roles around
the Trump presidency were put there by the "system". Trump had been made into a pariah by the
Press, his own Republican Party, and shrieks for 'Resistance' by Hillary Democrats in the
millions across the country even before he was inaugurated. There was no 'respectable' person
in Washington DC who would dare help Trump make his way in that new, strange land. Remember
one of the Resistanace calls to the front? . "Become ungovernable!!!!" Tantrums, not
negotiations, have become the norm
So long, any semblance of Washington DC respectability. It was nice to think you were
there at one time.
Dear readers and supporters of Consortium News around the Earth,
Please pass the following important message along to the genuine war criminals United
States President Donald Trump and United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson:
"Do the right & moral thing for once in your hideous, miserable & pathetic lives,
– and free genuine peacemaker Julian Assange."
***
Please consider making the (1st ever in history) establishment of genuine Peace on Earth
the absolute overwhelming #1 New Year's Resolution worldwide for 2021. The quality of life
for future generations depends on the good actions of this generation.. Thank you.
I thank these commentators, a couple of whom read these pieces regularly, and all others
who've taken the time this year gone by to put down their thoughts. I read them always and
almost always learn things from them. Blessings to all and wishes for a superb new year! --
Patrick.
Lee C Ng , December 30, 2020 at 14:02
I agree 100% with the writer. Example; if Bolton, probably pushed into the administration
by the Deep State, didn't sabotage Trump's talks with the N. Koreans in Vietnam, we might've
had a peaceful settlement on the Korean peninsular by now. And it's no surprise that Trump on
several occasions prevented the success of US-China trade talks – it was more than
likely he was forced to do so. Trump wasn't a politician, much less a statesman. But he
wasn't an orgre either, despite the hostility of the corporate press towards him (and I'm no
fan of Trump).
Biden will represent better the real forces behind all US administrations – the
forces responsible for the over 200 wars/military interventions in its 242 years of
Independence.
Jeff Harrison , December 30, 2020 at 00:19
Thank you, Patrick, you have made some sense out of a nonsensical situation. "We have just
been treated to four years of a recklessly chaotic foreign policy, outcome of a war the Deep
State waged against a pitifully weak president who threatened it: This is the truth of what
we witness as Trump and his people fold their tents." What is it that the Brits call their
Deep State? It's something like the civil service but it's actually called something
else.
You called Donnie Murdo a deal maker. Donnie Murdo is a New York hustler. His
"negotiation" style only works when his interlocutor must make a deal with him. If his
interlocutor can walk away, he will and Donnie Murdo will go bankrupt. The real problem is
that the US doesn't need a deal maker – we have people for that. The Prezzy & CEO
is frequently called that, the chief executive officer. But that's an administrative title.
He is also frequently called the commander in chief but that really only applies if we are at
war which we should be at as little as possible. What the prezzy really is supposed to be is
a leader. If Donnie Murdo were, in fact, a leader, John Bolton would have been taking a
commercial flight back to the US after his little stunt in Vietnam. But he didn't. So the
question isn't what could Donnie Murdo do in the next three weeks, it's what can Donnie
Murdo's henchmen do in the next three weeks?
Casper , December 29, 2020 at 18:19
One of the other personal things about Donald Trump, was that he had no skill nor
experience in leading and manipulating a bureaucracy. He had basically directed a family
business and his personal publicity machine. To the extent that Trump hotels had thousands of
employees, Trump hired managers to do that. It would appear that the Trump family business
largely concentrated on making of new deals for new hotels.
Thus, Donald Trump arrived in Washington completely unprepared to be the leader of a
bureaucracy and completely unskilled at being able to get it to do what he wanted it do
do.
I'm not a Joe Biden fan, but he's been in Washington since the 1970's. He's seen the
bureaucracy from the Senate point of view for 40 years, then got at least a view of what it
was like to try to direct it from watching as Veep. I still suspect the real power lies with
the military command, and has since the 1950's, but this administration is going to come in
with at least some skills in terms of trying to get a government to do what it wants.
PEG , December 29, 2020 at 17:46
Perfect article – and epitaph on Trump's foreign policy record.
Anne , December 29, 2020 at 14:00
Indeed, Patrick, they (the eyes of most of the electorate) will remain shut, eyelids
deftly closed Only other peoples commit barbaric, heinous war crimes, invade other cultures
completely without cause, bomb other peoples to death, devastation, loss of livelihood, home
water supply We, the perfecto (along with one other group now ensconced – illegally,
but apparently western acceptably – in the ME) people do what we do because, well, we
are perfecto and thus when we commit these barbarisms, they aren't such. And are, it would
seem, totally ignorable. Wake me in the morning style .
Truly, the vast majority of those – whatever their skin hue, ethnic background
– who voted for the B-H duo are comfortably off, consider themselves oh so bloody
"liberal" (do they really know what that means, in fact? Or don't they care?), so to the left
of Attila the Hun (which obviously doesn't mean much, Left wise) .and what the MICMATT does
to other people in other societies matters not flying F .After all, aren't they usually of
"swarthy" skin hue and likely not western and of that offshoot religion of the one gawd, the
third go around?
The west (US, UK, FR, GY etc ) really and truly need to develop a Conscience, a real
morality, humanity but I fear that that is all too late
"... Then the exceptionalist-triumphalist power inevitably runs off-the-rails, and -- especially when it feels threatened or insecure -- lashes out in fits of aggressive military, economic, religious, or racial chauvinism. This cycle tends to replay again and again until the empire collapses, usually through some combination of external power displacement and internal exhaustion or collapse. ..."
Exceptionalism, triumphalism, chauvinism. These characteristics define most empires, including, like it or not, these
United
States . The sequence matters. A people and national government that fancies itself exceptional -- an example for the rest of
the world -- is apt to assert itself militarily, economically, and culturally around the globe. If that self-righteous state happens
to possess prodigious power, as the U.S. has since the Second World War, then any perceived success will lead to a sense of triumphalism,
and thus put into motion a feedback loop whereby national "achievement" justifies and validates that conception of exceptionalism.
Then the exceptionalist-triumphalist power inevitably runs off-the-rails, and -- especially when it feels threatened or insecure
-- lashes out in fits of aggressive military, economic, religious, or racial chauvinism. This cycle tends to replay again and again
until the empire collapses, usually through some combination of external power
displacement and internal exhaustion or collapse.
Such imperial hyper-powers, particularly in their late-stages, often employ foot soldiers across vast swathes of the planet, and
eventually either lose control of their actions or aren't concerned with their resultant atrocities in the first place. On that,
the jury is perhaps still out. Regardless, the discomfiting fact is that by nearly any measure, the United States today coheres,
to a remarkable degree, with each and every one of these tenets of empire evolution. This includes, despite the hysterical denials
of sitting political and Pentagon leaders, the troubling truth that American soldiers and intelligence agents have committed war
crimes across the Greater Middle East since 9/11 on a not so trivial number of occasions. These law of war violations also occurred
during the Cold War generation -- notably in Korea and Vietnam -- and the one consistent strain has been the almost complete inability
or unwillingness of the U.S. Government to hold perpetrators, and their enabling commanders, accountable.
Enter the International Criminal Court (ICC). First
proposed , conceptually, in 1919 (and again in 1937, 1948, and 1971), in response to massive war crimes and human rights violations
of the two world wars, the Hague-headquartered court finally opened for business in 2002. With more than 120 signatory member states
(though not, any longer, the U.S.) the ICC has the jurisdiction to prosecute international violations including "genocide, crimes
against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression." A compliment, rather than a replacement, to sovereign national justice
systems, the ICC is designed to be the "court of
last resort," obliged to exercise jurisdiction only when a nation's courts prove unwilling or unable to prosecute such crimes.
All of which sounds both admirable and unthreatening (at least to reasonably well-behaved states with accountable, responsive
justice systems), but to the contemporary American imperial hyper-power, the very existence of the ICC is viewed as a mortal threat.
Matters demonstrably came to a head this past week when an ICC appeals court
reversed a lower-level decision and allowed its special prosecutor -- whose visa Washington has already revoked -- to simply
open an official investigation into alleged war crimes committed in Afghanistan by all three major parties to the conflict:
the Taliban, U.S., and U.S.-backed Kabul-based Afghan government. This decidedly mild decision, which only allows a multi-directional
inquiry , unleashed an immediate firestorm in Washington.
The reflexive reactions and responses of current and former Trump officials was both instructive and totally in line with decades
worth of bipartisan U.S. disavowal of the very notion of international norms and standards. Trump's recent hawkish national security
adviser, John Bolton -- now an MSNBC-DNC
darling for his apparent critique
of the president in a new memoir -- has spearheaded opposition to the ICC since its inception, has
asserted that the ICC is "illegitimate," and that the U.S. Government "will not sit quietly," if "the court comes after us."
After the most recent ruling, Secretary of State (and former director of the very CIA that is likely to be implicated in said war
crimes investigation) Mike Pompeo
declared the ruling a "truly breathtaking action by an unaccountable, political institution masquerading as a legal body," adding,
threateningly, that "we will take all necessary measures to protect our citizens from this renegade, unlawful, so-called court."
On that latter point, Pompeo is neither wrong, nor espousing a policy -- no matter how aggressive or rejectionist -- unique to
Donald Trump's administration. Here, a brief bit of all but forgotten history is in order. In 1998, the UN General Assembly
voted 120-7 to establish the
ICC. The United States, in good company with a gaggle of criminally compromised states -- China, Iraq, Israel, Libya, Yemen, and
Qatar -- voted against the measure. Two years later, however, President Bill Clinton unenthusiastically
signed onto this foundational
Rome
Statute , but with some dubiousness and the requisite American exceptionalist caveat that he "will not, and do not recommend
that my successor, submit the treaty to the Senate for advice and consent until our fundamental concerns are satisfied."
Then came the 9/11 terrorist attacks. This tragedy turned (for then ascendant neoconservatives)
opportunity for expanded U.S. military global
assertiveness, ensured that Clinton's successor -- one George W. Bush -- wouldn't even consider ICC treaty submission to the Senate.
Rather, in May 2002, Bush
sent a note to the UN Secretary General informing him that the most powerful and influential country in the world no longer intended
to ratify the Rome Statute or recognize any obligations to the ICC (which officially
opened for business only two months later
). Never simply a morality tale of Republican villainy, Bush's disavowal didn't explain the half of it.
Far more disturbingly, a stunningly euphemistic
American Service-members' Protection Act
of 2001 amendment, first introduced just 15 days after the
9/11 attacks, to the Supplemental Appropriations Act for Further Recovery From and Response to Terrorist Attacks on the United States,
was already under consideration in Congress. With broad bipartisan majorities, that legislation -- which authorized the U.S. president
to use "all means necessary and appropriate to bring about the release of any U.S. or allied personnel being detained or imprisoned
by, on behalf of, or at the request of the International Criminal Court" -- passed in the
House a couple weeks after Bush sent his note
to the UN, and the Senate just two weeks later.
President Bush then signed this authorization for, up to and including military, force into law on August 2, 2002. Much of the world
was appalled and international human rights organizations took to – quite appropriately – calling it the "
Hague Invasion Act ." It remains
in force today.
The timeline is instructive and itself tells a vital part of the story. Democrats and Republicans alike had chosen to "preempt"
-- an internationally prohibited precedent that Bush would
later invoke to invade Iraq -- the not yet in force ICC with this bill. They did so, I'd assert, because they knew a salient dirty
secret: the U.S. was about to unleash martial fury across the Greater Middle East. In the process, inevitably, American troopers
and intelligence spooks would push the limits of acceptable wartime behavior, and thus be vulnerable to international prosecution
by the soon effective ICC.
This was unacceptable for an exceptionalist, triumphalist nation, about to undertake chauvinist actions the world over. That unilateral,
world-order-be-damned national position held, and still holds, sway in the intervening 18 years. So, for all the Trump administration's
coarse obtuseness in response to the opening of the latest ICC Afghan investigation, this is, at root, not (as the mainstream media
will inevitably now claim) a Donald phenomenon.Three administrations, and multiple guard-changing Congresses, chose to not to touch
the infamous Hague Invasion Act or realign the U.S. with the ICC or the spirit (or even the pretense) of international law.
The cast of elite characters, many still politically influential, who voted for the Hague Invasion Act is nothing short of astounding.
The bill passed the House by a margin of 280-138, and counted
such "yea" votes as House Intelligence Committee Chair -- top Trump opponent and Russiagate investigator -- Democrat Adam Schiff.
Notably, especially in this ongoing electoral cycle, then Vermont Representative Bernie Sanders opposed the measure.In the
Senate , an even larger portion of Democrats joined current Speaker Mitch McConnell (and most of his Republican caucus), to vote
for the Act. These included such past and present notables as former Secretaries of State John Kerry and Hillary Clinton, current
Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, and, then Foreign Relations Committee Chair, and now Democratic presidential frontrunner, Joe Biden.
His vote, naturally, should come as scant surprise since even in early Senate committee
hearings four years
earlier, ranking minority member Biden was at best tepid, and at worst quite skeptical of the ICC – even finding unlikely points
of agreement with the later Hague Invasion Bill's sponsor, and longtime unilateralist hawk, Republican Senator Jesse Helms.
Still, the swift, frenetic response of senior Trump officials to ICC decision is telling. I suspect that Pompeo and Bolton know
the inconvenient truth – that U.S. national security forces have committed crimes in Afghanistan (and elsewhere) and that
the U.S. Government hasn't ever truly held these select perpetrators sufficiently accountable. Contra Pompeo, Bolton, and other Trump
officials' ardent public assertions, the U.S. military and intelligence community are, in fact – due to being demonstrably "unwilling
or unable to prosecute such [war] crimes" – the perfect candidates for ICC investigation, and if evidentiary appropriate,
prosecution. The U.S. has a historically abysmal
record either of
restraining or punishing wartime violations.
The rarely recounted
record is an extensive as it is appalling:
After U.S. Air Force pilots and U.S. Army soldiers strafed and gunned down some 400 Korean refugees (most women, children,
and old men) hiding under a bridge at No
Gun Ri over the course of four days in 1950, there was no criminal investigation when the military determined the killings
represented naught but an "unfortunate tragedy inherent to war."
When, after a two-year coverup, the journalist Seymour Hersh brought to light the blatant execution of at least 504 civilians
in the hamlet of My Lai , South Vietnam, just six
soldiers were charged, and only one – Lieutenant William Calley – convicted. Though countless victims were beheaded, scalped,
or had their throats slit in an orgy of violence, even Calley's original life sentence was repeatedly reduced by senior generals
until he was ultimately granted clemency by President Richard Nixon. Convicted by jury of military officer peers of personally
killing at least 22 civilians, Calley served only five months in detention and some three years under house arrest.
Later in the Vietnam War, when Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Herbert
blew the whistle on
endemic torture among some U.S. troops, and a subsequent investigation uncovered 141 confirmed incidents of prisoner abuse, not
a single criminal charge was filed and only three soldiers were administratively fined or reduced in rank. The only significant
punishment meted out was leveled at Herbert -- recipient of four Silver Stars and three Bronze Stars, who was also shot 10 ten
times and bayonet thrice -- when his reputation and career were ruined in retaliation.
When allegations of systemic prisoner abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib Prison were reported by Major General Antonio Taguba, and
simultaneously uncovered by the very same Seymour Hersh, not a single soldier above the rank of staff sergeant faced charges.
Taguba, incidentally, did suffer
-- his career unceremoniously curtailed in the wake of threats, intimidation, and harassment by the senior army commander
in Iraq (General John Abizaid) and the then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
Finally, and perhaps most relevant to the current ICC investigatory backlash, after an American AC-130 gunship unloaded on
a civilian hospital (by definition, a war crime) repeatedly for 30-60 minutes and killed 42 doctors, patients, and staff members,
the top theater commander, General John Campbell, and then Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter
changed
their stories four times in four days without ever fully explicating what exactly caused the massacre. An official military
probe – instructively, the generals always investigate themselves in these matters – found no criminal culpability, and, while
Campbell's nominal boss, General Joseph Votel, claimed to have administratively disciplined sixteen soldiers and officers, the
names of those personnel – and he details of their punishment – were never released.
Add to that the disconcerting fact that the U.S. crossed a rather macabre
tipping
point in 2019, whereby, for the first time, the American military and its Afghan allies killed more civilians than the Taliban,
and this brings us full circle to an alarming present reality. The very figures who championed and supported the wildly chauvinistic
"Hague Invasion" Act seem set to hold sway over, and in Biden's case serve as candidate for, the Democratic Party.In November, that
faction will likely, then face off against a Trump team that vehemently opposes even a basic investigation into alleged American
criminal misbehavior in the Afghan theater of its ongoing forever wars.
All of which demonstrates, once and for all, that human rights, and international law or norms were never of genuine interest
to the United States. None of this will play well on the "Arab," or even broader global, "Street," and will – just like U.S. abuses
at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo – actually
increase worldwide "terrorism"
and anti-Americanism. None of which matters to, or greatly concerns, a Washington elite lacking even a modicum of self-awareness.
Because empires, like the United States, which peddle in exceptionalism, triumphalism, and chauvinism are, historically, the world's
true rogue states
.
Danny Sjursen is a retired U.S. Army officer and a contributing editor at antiwar.com
. His work has appeared in the LA Times, The Nation, Huff Post, The Hill, Salon, Truthdig, Tom Dispatch, among other publications.
He served combat tours with reconnaissance units in Iraq and Afghanistan and later taught history at his alma mater, West Point.
He is the author of a memoir and critical analysis of the Iraq War, Ghostriders of Baghdad: Soldiers,
Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge . His forthcoming book, Patriotic Dissent: America in the Age of Endless War is
now available for
pre-order . Follow him on Twitter at @SkepticalVet . Check out
his professional website for contact info, scheduling speeches, and/or access
to the full corpus of his writing and media appearances.
"... The most overrepresented group in Washington, the "hard power primacists," is also the one with the most destructive track record. This is the group that cheers on John Bolton and Mike Pompeo as they trash America's reputation while putting us at greater risk of pointless wars. Only 10% of the respondents belonged to this group, and even among Republicans they make up less than 25%. There is remarkably little popular support for the position that has become the default Republican Party agenda. ..."
"... The EGF survey likewise asked a question about American exceptionalism, but phrased it a bit differently. They asked if America was exceptional for what it had done in the world (20% agreed), exceptional because of what it represented (40%), or not exceptional (38%). While most of these respondents still affirmed some support for the idea, support is declining with each generation. While the president proposes "teaching American exceptionalism" in schools (whatever that might mean in practice), such lessons seem likely to fall on deaf ears. ..."
"... It becomes increasingly difficult to maintain a myth of exceptionalism when our institutions are so faulty, our infrastructure so derelict, and our political leaders so inept. If each new generation is more disillusioned than the last with this myth, it is because they have seen how false it is in real life and they have seen how it has been used to rationalize some of the worst policies imaginable. ..."
The American public is increasingly supportive of a foreign policy that is more engaged diplomatically and more restrained in
its use of force. Large majorities want the U.S. to rejoin agreements and institutions that the U.S. has left over the last four
years, but there is also substantial support for reducing America's military footprint in many other parts of the world. Most Americans
don't care for the wrecking of successful agreements, including the nuclear deal with Iran, but many would welcome troop withdrawals
from deployments overseas.
Those are some of the findings from the Eurasia Group Foundation's annual
survey of what Americans think
about U.S. foreign policy and our country's role in the world. There is a major constituency in both parties for a foreign policy
that is less militarized and more involved in constructive international cooperation. This could be the foundation for a broad coalition
in favor of greater restraint, and it shows that most of the public is not interested in maintaining the status quo of militarized
hegemony.
The survey divides the respondents into four groupings based on their answers.
There are the "traditional internationalists" that don't want to reduce U.S. forces overseas and want to remain in international
institutions,
And then there are the "hard power primacists" that have no use for institutions and treaties but want to dominate militarily.
There are the "global ambassadors" that want deeper diplomatic engagement, but also want to reduce military forces overseas
and move away from a militarized U.S. foreign policy.
Finally, there are the respondents that the survey classified as so-called "genuine isolationists." The choice of isolationist
here was unfortunate because even among these respondents the preference is for reduced engagement of all kinds, but not necessarily
the separation from the world that the isolationist label implies. When push comes to shove, almost no one is a "genuine isolationist"
in this country or anywhere else, and a more extensive survey might be able to tease out how these "isolationists" really think
the U.S. should act in the world.
Out of these four, the "global ambassadors" made up the largest contingent: "The most popular position was that of the Global
Ambassadors, who support active diplomacy and participation in international institutions, trade and treaties but oppose global military
primacy." It would be fair to say that this position is closest to the views held by advocates of restraint. According to the survey,
38% of respondents fit this description, and they were pretty evenly distributed between different political affiliations. 40% of
Democrats gave answers that put them in this group, and the same was true for 32% of Republicans.
There is a clear majority that doesn't support a strategy of primacy. As the report notes, "When "engagement" is split into military
and non-military components, only three in ten Americans favor liberal hegemony." Between the "global ambassadors" and so-called
"genuine isolationists," those opposed to primacy to one degree or another made up almost 60% of the total. These are potentially
huge blocs of voters that prefer a more peaceful, less interventionist foreign policy, and they are woefully underrepresented in
Washington today. This is a large audience that would seem to be receptive to what advocates of restraint have to say, and so we
need to find more ways to reach them.
The most overrepresented group in Washington, the "hard power primacists," is also the one with the most destructive track
record. This is the group that cheers on John Bolton and Mike Pompeo as they trash America's reputation while putting us at greater
risk of pointless wars. Only 10% of the respondents belonged to this group, and even among Republicans they make up less than 25%.
There is remarkably little popular support for the position that has become the default Republican Party agenda.
There is more popular support for bringing U.S. forces home from all over than there is for keeping them there. 44% say that the
U.S. should decrease the number of troops it has in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, and they also say that the U.S. should reduce
its commitments to other countries in these regions. Only 31% were in favor of the status quo or an increase in troop levels. This
is consistent with the findings of other surveys, including the new
poll from the
Chicago Council on Global Affairs, which found that 57% approved of the announced troop withdrawal from Germany, and another 16%
wanted full withdrawal of all of the remaining troops.
One of the other interesting results that the Chicago Council
survey found is the growing partisan
gap over the question of "American exceptionalism." 80% Republicans are in agreement with the definition of exceptionalism the survey
provided (the U.S. has a "unique character that makes it the greatest country in the world"), and only 35% of Democrats held the
same view. It is possible that this gap is exaggerated by the fact that Democrats seem to have soured on the idea during Trump's
presidency, and the numbers may go up again in the future, but there seems to be something more significant going on. Insofar as
"American exceptionalism" has been turned into a motto for excusing U.S. rogue behavior in the world, it has become an increasingly
loaded phrase that provokes strong reactions in both directions. The experience of the last twenty years would also give many people
good reasons to doubt that the U.S. deserves to be called the greatest country.
The EGF survey likewise asked a question about American exceptionalism, but phrased it a bit differently. They asked if America
was exceptional for what it had done in the world (20% agreed), exceptional because of what it represented (40%), or not exceptional
(38%). While most of these respondents still affirmed some support for the idea, support is declining with each generation. While
the president proposes "teaching American exceptionalism" in schools (whatever that might mean in practice), such lessons seem likely
to fall on deaf ears.
It becomes increasingly difficult to maintain a myth of exceptionalism when our institutions are so faulty, our infrastructure
so derelict, and our political leaders so inept. If each new generation is more disillusioned than the last with this myth, it is
because they have seen how false it is in real life and they have seen how it has been used to rationalize some of the worst policies
imaginable.
Probably the most discouraging result in the EGF survey came in response to a question about war powers. There is a large majority
that thinks that Congress has to authorize the use of force first, and that is something that advocates of restraint can build on,
but it is disturbing that so many would support presidential overreach in matters of war. When asked if the president needed Congressional
authorization before ordering military action abroad, 26% said that he didn't. While this is a distinctly minority view, it was supported
by half of the Republican respondents, and it shows that roughly a quarter of the public holds an important part of the Constitution
in contempt. When such a large group endorses illegal presidential warmaking, it is another sign that our political culture has been
badly corrupted by decades of war and arbitrary presidential power grabs. The failure to prevent previous illegal wars and the failure
to hold presidents accountable for trampling on the Constitution have paved the way for this.
Foreign policy tends to be a low priority for most voters, and few use these issues to determine their voting decisions, but public
opinion still has to be kept in mind in any foreign policy debate. Most Americans are not paying close attention to what the government
is doing in the world, but there are limits to what they will tolerate. The public also has fairly clear preferences for greater
international cooperation without the unnecessary burdens of endless wars and excessive military commitments around the world. There
is an opening here for a prudential and restrained internationalism that draws support from across the political spectrum, but to
take advantage of that will require organizing these disparate groups of Americans to achieve greater influence in both parties.
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 .
Foreign policy tends to be a low priority for most voters, and few use these issues to determine their voting decisions
Unfortunately, I think this is the most important sentence in the article. The fact of the matter is FP stuff is a very low
priority for most Americans and "supporting the troops" is often conflated with money for the pentagon.
Worst of all, Americans will oppose attacking Country X until the president says "We need to attack Country X" and then they
are all for it. I mean, during all of 2017 half the country suddenly knew we absolutely needed to attack North Korea.
I agree with Tom. These polls rarely mean much on any topic, and when it's as low priority as foreign affairs, there's even
less significance. There is some brave talk among Democrats about cutting defense spending, but in the past both parties have
been happy to give the Pentagon as much, and frequently more, than it wants. And the military is devoted above all else to maintaining
its global presence, so that all its toys can be given at least a veneer of purpose. Trump, with all his disgusting bluster, is
clearly more risk averse than Obama, who stupidly cost his party the presidency by trying to play the hero in Libya. I'm am (pretty)
sure that Biden will continue this restraint, but on the other hand his administration will almost surely be stocked with Wilsonian
interventionists, who have learned nothing and forgot plenty.
The polls have been consistent for a long time now. But this is America - what the elites want, the elites get and since when
did the voters start to matter?
Agreed. But to be precise, the "elites" in this particular case are nothing other than the military brass, the military contractors,
and the senators/reps they've purchased. Well funded and unbelievably well-placed to influence/leverage/etc. whoever is the President.
And what powerful/wealthy interests are lobbying on the other side? Few, if any.
The building block is the UN Charter and agreed upon International Law. but while Russia 7 China & others would love to have
those treaties respected, the US Gob wants to follow the "rules based order". Moon of Alabama and others talk about these very
fundamental issues, and how the West in fact has lost all its legal and moral ground and became in fact Mordor ru by Sauron:
The best thing that could happen to tilt American foreign policy more in the direction of restraint would be a consistently
populist, in the true sense, political force. Interventionist foreign policy is a dream world and plaything of elites, for elite
gain.
Right now you have way too many peace-inclined left wing people fighting peace-inclined right wing people, in a clear divide
and conquer setup. Left and right identity politics are being used to preserve a decadent status quo a bit longer, including in
foreign policy.
"... Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is ..."
The upcoming year should be interesting. The Establishment "Deep State" has won a major
victory in the United States with the election of Joe Biden as president. What remains to be
seen is whether or not there will be significant bloodletting as a consequence, revenge for the
presumed misdeeds that constituted the core legacy of four years of Donald J. Trump as chief
executive. Many in the Democratic Party harbor deep resentments that go back to the election of
2016, which spawned the myth that foreign interference by the Russians was responsible for the
upset victory by the GOP candidate. Even at this distance, few if any Democrats are willing to
admit that Hillary Clinton was a deeply flawed candidate whose condescension towards whole
categories of voters ultimately inspired many "undecideds" to vote against her.
Indeed, Trump came closer to repeating his improbable victory in 2020 than anyone would have
predicted and the stench of possible widespread fraud continues to hang over the result. Donald
Trump entered office with a pledge to "drain the swamp," something that he found more difficult
to actually do rather than just talk about doing. The Democrats will surely now work hard to
methodically eliminate all political appointees in the vast bureaucracy guilty of Trumpism.
That replacement of bureaucrats is referred to as the "spoils systems" and it is to be
expected, but there is something more sinister in the works with leading Democrats and some
journalists calling for heads to roll, metaphorically to be sure but with real impact on the
lives of those who supported the losing side. The Washington Post 's resident
Trump-hating Zionist Jennifer Rubin summed it up nicely in a tweet three days after the
election, posting "Any R now promoting rejection of an election or calling to not to follow the
will of voters or making baseless allegations of fraud should never serve in office, join a
corporate board, find a faculty position or be accepted into 'polite' society. We have a
list."
And Bill Clinton's former Labor Secretary Robert Reich has been even more explicit,
tweeting a demand to create a "Truth and Reconciliation Commission." The commission borrows
the name and would be modeled on the organization set up in South Africa after the fall of the
apartheid government and the establishment of majority black rule, an exercise in attempted
democratization that has nevertheless failed to put an end to extremely high levels of
corruption and communal violence in the country.
Reich's objective is not limited to punishing the Trump White House's top officials who may
have promoted policies considered anathema by the incoming Democratic administration. He has
also tweeted "When this nightmare is over, we need a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. It
would erase Trump's lies, comfort those who have been harmed by his hatefulness, and name every
official, politician, executive, and media mogul whose greed and cowardice enabled this
catastrophe." The Reich proposal would potentially mean punishing thousands of otherwise
innocent individuals who had little influence over what happened during the past four years.
"Enabled" covers a lot of ground, and is prone to devolve into something like a witch hunt.
One Reich supporter wrote
in defense of the proposal "As long as unresolved historic injustices continue to fester in
the world, there will be a demand for truth commissions" and there have been numerous comments
on social media sites like Facebook insisting that "something be done" about the "deplorables"
who voted for and supported Trump. Interestingly, even though the comments constitute actual
threats, Facebook has not deleted them, unlike the elimination of posts that run afoul of the
censors by questioning the validity of the election or challenging conventional wisdom on
COVID-19.
Another commenter on twitter agreed with Reich, though complaining "But it doesn't go far
enough, clearly. Trump's assets and those of his voters should be seized by the state through
legislation and distributed to those he's harmed as reparations. Surely that's the only way to
heal our nation. Land of the free!" And finally, still another cheerleader enthused "Robert
you're right. And after we win we'll come for you all we're pretty much over trying to share a
country with you anyway. Four years ago I thought you were people with bad ideas. I was wrong:
YOU'RE BAD PEOPLE."
To be sure, Trump invited much of the hostile response to what he represents when he held
rallies where supporters called out Hillary Clinton with chants of "Lock her up!" So the anger
is there on both sides and momentum is building not just to replace or ignore Trump's
associates and his supporters, but to punish them for their alleged inability to comprehend the
many benefits derived from Democratic Party rule. As no mechanism actually exists to enable the
new regime to punish supporters of the previous administration, unless they have actually
committed a crime, one suspects the process of purging the bureaucracy and voters rolls will
pretty much be improvised while Biden and Harris get settled in.
Donald Trump also does not help either himself or the cause he represents. His insults and
abusive language invite hostility, having his tweets turn allies into enemies and making
friends of the "revolution" that he represents wish that he would just shut up. Current media
reports suggesting that he might not
vacate the White House on January 20 th as he continues to be convinced that he
won invite a nasty response from the Democrats. Ex-president Barack Obama
has warned , possibly in jest, that Trump might need to be removed forcibly by Navy
SEALS.
And, of course, violence could beget violence. If denigration of Trump supporters followed
by a real purge does take place it will impact on the tens of millions of voters who still
believe President Trump should have won re-election but for fraud. They are ready for a fight,
and not necessarily limited to the metaphoric. As I said in the beginning, it could be an
interesting year here in America.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National
Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that
seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website ishttps://councilforthenationalinterest.orgaddress is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is[email protected]
To be sure, Trump invited much of the hostile response to what he represents when he
held rallies where supporters called out Hillary Clinton with chants of "Lock her
up!"
So it's Trump's fault – not for anything he has said or done, but for what his
supporters have said.
Indeed, Trump came closer to repeating his improbable victory in 2020 than anyone would
have predicted and the stench of possible widespread fraud continues to hang over the
result.
I could continue, but won't. Even when criticising the Democrats, his hostility towards
Trump and his supporters never lets up. Any dispassionate observer can see that widespread
electoral fraud was actual and likely swung the election Biden's way. Even honest leftist
observers agree. Giraldi should have mentioned this, but didn't. Having perpetrated it once,
the Democrats will do it again. The likelihood is that there will be no fair elections in
future. So the Democrats will have the time to enforce their revenge agenda in perpetuity.
Again Giraldi fails to mention this.
Donald Trump entered office with a pledge to "drain the swamp," something that he found
more difficult to actually do rather than just talk about doing.
Especially when Trump himself hired nothing but nevertrumpers and swamp rats and
listened to his know-nothing rat-in-law.
(Didn't this guy have a tv show for 13 years about hiring the best people?)
It's secession time, has been for years before Orange Golfbag. Don't worry about whether
the federal mafia approves of the parting of ways, their new scamulus includes $300,000,000
to bring in more rapefugees aka your replacements.
When hawks in the U.S. and Israeli governments talk about "restoring deterrence," what
they really mean is that they want to commit acts of aggression but present them as defensive
actions.
The president made more reckless threats against Iran today:
When the president illegally ordered the assassination of Soleimani in January of this year,
administration officials eventually lined up behind the excuse that it was intended to "restore
deterrence" against rocket attacks from Iranian-backed Iraqi militias. Even though these
attacks have continued throughout the year much the same as before, we are back to the same old
tired issuing of threats of military action in response to attacks that would not be happening
if it were not for the president's own reckless actions. As the anniversary of the Soleimani
assassination approaches, we are once again drifting towards an avoidable and unnecessary
conflict.
Were it not for the president's "maximum pressure" campaign, U.S. forces in Iraq would face
far fewer risks than they do today, and conflict between our governments would be much less
likely. Had it not been for the president's decision to order the illegal and provocative
attack that killed Soleimani and an Iraqi militia leader, tensions between the U.S. and Iran
would not be as great as they are now. Trump's approach to Iran for the last two and a half
years has been to pick a fight and then blame the other side for responding to his
provocations. Far from deterring attacks from Iranian-backed militias and the Iranian military
itself, the Trump administration has been provoking and inviting them. It is mostly a matter of
luck that this has not yet triggered a larger conflict.
For its part, the Israeli government is also raising the temperature by
sending one of its submarines through the Suez Canal to signal its readiness to respond to
retaliation for its murder of Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh:
An Israeli submarine has embarked for the Persian Gulf in possible preparation for any
Iranian retaliation over the November assassination of a senior Iranian nuclear scientist,
Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, Israeli media reported.
The above-water, fully visible Israeli deployment into the Suez Canal and then the Red Sea
was a rare move that was reportedly carried out with the acquiescence of Egyptian authorities
and was seen as a clear warning to Iran that Israel was preparing for battle as hostilities
continue to rise.
The deployment of the Israeli submarine is described as a "message of deterrence," but it is
in fact the result of an ill-advised and illegal attack inside Iran. Had the Israelis not
carried out a terrorist attack on Iranian soil, they would not now be worried about possible
retaliation. This gets at a basic problem with the hawkish framing of our news coverage related
to Iran and the constant misuse of the concept of deterrence by both the U.S. and Israeli
governments.
First Panel, TAC's 7th Annual Foreign Policy Conference What Does 2020 Mean For
Foreign Policy 00:07 / 01:00 3
When hawks in the U.S. and Israeli governments talk about "restoring deterrence," what they
really mean is that they want to commit acts of aggression but present them as defensive
actions. Blowing up Soleimani had nothing to do with deterring future attacks, and we can see
that it has failed to deter them. Murdering Fakhrizadeh definitely had nothing to do with
deterring anything. It was just a gratuitous killing that the Israel government did because
they could. Now both the U.S. and Israel find that they have to make additional shows of force
and issue new threats to ward off possible responses to these earlier aggressive acts. Instead
of making them more secure, these aggressive acts have exposed Americans and Israelis to
greater risks than they faced earlier on.
In light of reports that the president has asked for military options for attacking Iran and
reports that Israel has been preparing for such an eventuality, we have to take the possibility
of a U.S. or joint U.S.-Israel attack on Iran seriously. There is absolutely no justification
for such an attack, but that is no guarantee that it won't happen. It needs to be emphasized
that none of this would be happening if the Trump administration had not taken the reckless and
destructive step of reneging on the JCPOA and launching an economic war on Iran. Whatever
happens in the next few weeks can be traced back to that, and the president is responsible for
the consequences.
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 .
he Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) recently released a lengthy report that
predictably advocates for an aggressive and activist foreign policy that they euphemistically
dub "defending forward." Like the British imperial "Forward Policy" that it calls to mind and
resembles, so-called forward defense seeks to justify interventionism and open-ended warfare in
far-flung parts of the world in the name of national security. The essays included in the
report warn against "retrenchment" and repeatedly attack advocates of foreign policy restraint
in dishonest and misleading ways, and they sound all the usual alarms about the supposed perils
of extricating the U.S. from its many unnecessary foreign wars. These arguments are neither new
nor particularly interesting, but they can't be ignored because of the significant influence
that their purveyors continue to have in Washington and in the Republican Party in particular.
If we are going to build a foreign policy of peace and restraint, these arguments have to be
answered and discredited.
Panetta sets the tone for the document right away: "More than ever, Americans must go abroad
to remain secure at home." This is the interventionists' axiom from which everything else
follows, so it is important to start by explaining how wrong it is. To the extent that American
security is threatened by other states and terrorist organizations, a forward policy invites
more attacks and challenges and exacerbates the dangers it is supposedly combating. Our
militarized engagement in many parts of the world is simultaneously destabilizing and
provocative, and it makes us far more enemies than we would have otherwise.
Forward deployments make U.S. troops targets, and those deployments then become ends in
themselves. Putting these troops in harm's way for decades isn't making Americans any safer,
and the "war on terror" has led to the metastasization of terrorist groups on two continents.
The forward "defense" that interventionists believe is so critical to our security is at best a
redundant waste of lives and resources. At worst, it is sowing seeds for future attacks on
Americans and our allies, and it is doing so at enormous expense. Sending troops to the other
side of the world is not necessary to keep Americans safe at home. "Defending forward" has
nothing to do with defense and everything to do with power projection and domination.
H.R. McMaster joined FDD shortly after being fired from his position as National Security
Advisor, and in the last two years he has been attacking restrainers and promoting aggressive
policies in a number of prominent articles. His contribution to the FDD report is a previously
published Foreign Affairs article called "The Retrenchment Syndrome." As the title
suggests, McMaster sees advocates of restraint (or "retrenchment hard-liners" as he calls them)
as suffering from a dangerous malady, and his only prescription is more foreign entanglements.
I have previously answered McMaster's arguments here
, but I will add a few more remarks. McMaster wrongly accuses restrainers of "national
narcissism," but he demonstrates no ability to understand the views of his domestic opponents
or the thinking of the foreign adversaries whose motives he claims to know. He supports U.S.
dominance and power projection in the world, and so he assumes that other major powers must
have the same goal, but this is just an alibi for pursuing the aggressive policies that he
already favors.
Misunderstanding and misrepresenting the views of restrainers is a running theme in the
report. Mark Dubowitz and Jonathan Schanzer are some of the worst offenders. They can't stop
themselves from dubbing Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer "realists-cum-isolationists," which
is as insulting to them as it is wildly inaccurate. Both of those scholars favor a strategy
involving offshore balancing, and Mearsheimer is rather hawkish on China, but they want to
reduce the U.S. military footprint in the Middle East and that is unacceptable to FDD. That is
why they are branded with the i-word. Dubowitz and Schanzer also mock the Quincy Institute for
Responsible Statecraft for supposedly not understanding the foreign policy views of John Quincy
Adams, but this just shows how eager they are to distort the views of non-interventionists both
past and present. Their contribution is long on accusations of isolationism without offering
any evidence, but then this is the point of the isolationist smear. It is never meant to
describe, only to distort and vilify, and they resort to this because they are afraid to engage
restrainer arguments on the merits.
Like some melodramatic villain from a superhero movie, they declare, "History,
unfortunately, is a forever war." One gets the impression that they do not really regard this
as misfortune, but rather see it as an opportunity. Yes, history is full of conflicts, but
there is far more to our history than warfare, and one thing we should have learned from all
those conflicts is how pointless and unnecessary most of them have been. At the very least, we
should know to steer clear from aggressive policies that make such conflicts more likely. The
Trump administration Iran policy that FDD has championed for years has done just that, and that
is one of many reasons why we should regard their recommendations with suspicion.
First
Panel, TAC's 7th Annual Foreign Policy Conference What Does 2020 Mean For Foreign Policy 00:06
/ 01:00 1
Their account of the recent past is no better than their tedious comparisons with the 1930s.
They write, "Al-Qaeda launched the 9/11 attacks despite America's best efforts to steer clear
of Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, where al-Qaeda was and is based." This is mind-boggling
revisionism, conveniently ignoring that the attacks were carried out in large part in response
to the continued U.S. military presence in Saudi Arabia and U.S. support for the despotic
government there. Dubowitz and Schanzer point to the clearest example of disastrous blowback in
modern U.S. history and then have the gall to say that this example supports their argument for
keeping U.S. forces permanently deployed in other countries where they aren't wanted.
Not surprisingly, the consistent misreadings and distortions of history are some of the
biggest flaws in the report. Bradley Bowman and Clifford May rattle off historical "facts"
about wars throughout history that elide far more than they reveal. For instance, they speak of
"Persian-Roman wars" running from the battle of Carrhae between the Roman Republic and the
Parthians to the battle of Nineveh in the seventh century between the Byzantines and the
Sasanians. That lumps together many different regimes and dynasties in very crude fashion, and
it also misleads the reader into thinking that conflict was incessant when it was not.
While there were many wars between these two powers over the course of seven hundred years,
these two states were at peace with each other for the vast majority of that period of time.
Indeed, for most of Byzantine history, the emperors in Constantinople were wary of engaging in
open warfare and sought to avoid it as much as possible because of the cost and the potential
for disaster. This strategy did not invite aggression, and it succeeded in allowing the empire
to husband its resources and preserve its strength. One could say that the Byzantines usually
practiced responsible statecraft. That is one reason why their empire managed to endure for as
long as it did.
Treating war as being essentially unavoidable, Bowman and May belittle restrainers for
"stunning ignorance" in calling to end U.S. involvement in its foreign wars today. This amounts
to little more than mindless fatalism in accepting that the U.S. is bound to be at war much
more often than not. But constant warfare and the strategy that undergirds it are both choices.
Vietnam was completely avoidable for the U.S. and also entirely unnecessary for U.S. security,
just as our current wars are all wars of choice. Conflict may be an ineradicable part of the
human condition, but it doesn't follow that any particular conflict has to happen or that we
are fated to participate in it when it does.
There may always be some conflict somewhere (though there has been much less of it in recent
decades), but nowhere is it written that a major power has to be at war all of the time, much
less in multiple places around the globe. The empires that have engaged in constant warfare
have tended to suffer bankruptcy and ruin. Many of these states were governed by men who also
believed that peripheral interests were worth fighting over, and they ultimately exhausted
themselves in fruitless conflicts.
The U.S. is unusual among great powers in history in that it is relatively separated from
its rivals by great distance, but it still chooses to entangle itself in the affairs of distant
regions instead of taking advantage of our favorable geography. While modern technologies have
reduced the importance of that advantage, they have not eliminated it. America is, in fact,
extraordinarily secure from foreign threats, and so it becomes necessary to inflate these
threats and overstate the capabilities of other states to make the case for a "forward"
policy.
Writing for The New Republic , Jacob Silverman sums
up the report very well:
That is the purpose of "Defending Forward": to contort the English language to convince a
war-weary public that there is no alternative but to continue the status quo of "forward
defense-in-depth military deployments," as Leon Panetta, the former CIA director and defense
secretary, euphemistically calls them. But the FDD publication succeeds only in reminding us
that, after 19 years of a catastrophic, immoral, illegal war on terror, America's hawks are
simply out of answers.
The U.S. has been following something like a "forward defense" strategy for decades. The
results have been almost twenty years of expensive failed wars that have caused the deaths of
hundreds of thousands of people. The U.S. desperately needs to change its strategy and practice
restraint in its use of force and the deployment of its armed forces. America does not need to
police and dominate the world to be secure, and the sooner we all realize that the better it
will be for our country and for the rest of the world. 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 .
No, hehe, all Powers are not all in the end economic. We can be good at economicing life some
of us, but Most have no clue about all the real Powers.
KlausR922 Ghanima223 18 December, 2020 18 Dec, 2020 09:43 AM
Russia and China do not have enough fleet to populate the oceans around the US but have more
immigrants in the US. Instead, attracting foreign funds or investors (even through mixed
marriages) destabilizes their own economies. This suggests, however, that the 'balance of
power' remains to the advantage of the US. In fact, if we are all capitalists, what is the
significance of this balance?
Jewel Gyn 18 December, 2020 18 Dec, 2020 03:21 AM
"the two most significant threats to this era of global peace and prosperity," Look at
yourself in the mirror. US is without doubt the biggest threat to global peace and
prosperity. The only reason countries are silent is because of your military and economic
might. But it won't be for long...
USA is building useless junk more fitting to the times of Neanderthals and definitely
obsolete in the 21st century with borrowed money. Nothing mighty about that.
USA no longer has a mighty economy. Has the world's biggest debt mountain instead along with
a permanently concussed military by Iran!! Clown.
Iwanasay 18 December, 2020 18 Dec, 2020 04:07 AM
This report says it all, the US objective is to dominate the world, not be a part of it, it
also proves that the US is military dictatorship where politicians are only elected to
channel huge sums of taxpayers money into the Pentagon and military industry purse. Hurry up
China and Russia, form a military alliance and bankrupt the US as it wastes more & more
against non-existent enemies
Fjack1415 Iwanasay 1 day ago 21 Dec, 2020 01:25 PM
Yeah, the Star Wars strategy supposedly used by Pres. Reagan to bankrupt Soviet Russia, now
can be used against the US. The US needs to spend about ten times what Russia or China spend
in order to achieve the same result (if that) and what is more, it is borrowed money.
GorillaBalls Iwanasay 18 December, 2020 18 Dec, 2020 09:27 AM
Joetex America is obsolete already.
Dachaguy 18 December, 2020 18 Dec, 2020 03:13 AM
Balance? The US has no interest at all in balance. The US focus is domination. It's what the
Project for a New American Century was all about.
Except, China and Russia and the rest of the real free world has their own plans for the
future without the US!!!!
shadow1369 18 December, 2020 18 Dec, 2020 05:55 AM
Us regime calls its own relentless aggression 'assertive policy', and accuses anybody who
resists their global tyranny a 'threat to peace'. Nothing new.
GorillaBalls 18 December, 2020 18 Dec, 2020 05:37 AM
USA has been saying the same thing and has been spending the most money on its military but
the reality is it has never won a war with a major military beyond own shore.
Joetex GorillaBalls 18 December, 2020 18 Dec, 2020 07:04 AM
All wars the US has fought have been beyond its own Shores including WWI and WWII, which by
the way were victorious.
GreenPizza804 18 December, 2020 18 Dec, 2020 05:03 AM
"Our actions in this decade will shape the maritime balance of power for the rest of this
century." they think Russia and China don't have any plan to this ?
Joetex GreenPizza804 18 December, 2020 18 Dec, 2020 06:56 AM
It's to late Trumps Trillion Dollar Plan in 2018 went to Mostly Navy and Space Force. And
Already is more Advanced than China and Russia Combined.
shadow1369 GreenPizza804 18 December, 2020 18 Dec, 2020 06:02 AM
In the Project for a New American Century, the US version of Mein Kampf, the warmongers
preached 'full spectrum dominance'. They remind me of the last days of the nazis, deploying
non existant armies to fend off the fast approaching allied powers. Any pretence of US global
hegemony was destroyed in Syria.
wawya 18 December, 2020 18 Dec, 2020 05:36 AM
The USA is the greatest threat to all countries yet masquerades as a friend to many. Make no
mistake, it is an ally only when it suits. China has asperations on having a blue water navy
but is a fair way off. Russia, apart from its SSN & SSBN boats is very much a green water
navy. The Americans are kidding themselves.
Mickey Mic 18 December, 2020 18 Dec, 2020 05:30 AM
Let's not forget, the central banks can't operate with the current market status, hence, the
delay in Nancy's relief tactics. War is imminent for the survival of banking cartels, Trump
denied the banks wars, so cheat Trump out of office was is the highest demand for the Federal
Reserve banking system. They needed a compromised President to bend to their will, Joe was
picked for the Job due to his corrupt career and dysfunctional mentality . Bernie was cheated
(No charges) Trump has been surrounded by disloyal shape-shifting swamp monsters, his proof
of voter Fraud is meaningless in the land of oil & vinegar. Biden was illegally installed
to launch wars & secure the final stages of the Wuhan virus (Forced Vaccinations). Let's
face it, Biden's choices for Cabinet positions line directly with Hillary Clinton's friends,
he is not in charge to make any choices on his own. He is supplying an empty shell to fill
the oval office for the shadow Gov. The majority of US leadership thinks they'll be safe
inside Cheyenne Mountain to protect their own sacred seed from destruction. PS: From the
counterfeit Supreme Court, to the Masonic lodges better known as the "House of senators &
Congressman"...Lurks a perpetual centrifugal motion to consume their greedy desolation.
Galaxy31 18 December, 2020 18 Dec, 2020 03:32 AM
As US looses global dominance, the more desperate it becomes. This time though, it doesn't
look it will work, but unfortunately because of this desperation, it may end up tragically
for all of us human beings.
GorillaBalls Galaxy31 18 December, 2020 18 Dec, 2020 05:27 AM
"The US Navy will adopt a more 'assertive' approach to China and Russia, according to the
country's new maritime strategy, which says that actions taken in the next decade will
determine power dynamics for the rest of the century." Making big talk about the future with
20th century and OBSOLETE aircraft carries that can be quickly sent to the bottom with a few
comparatively much cheaper hypersonic carrier killer missiles those tubs are DEFENCELESS
against.
straightasarrow69 Galaxy31 18 December, 2020 18 Dec, 2020 05:15 AM
America spends more on their military than the next 10 nations combined. More engineers
graduate in China every year than exist in the whole of America. America believes it needs to
manufacture enemies to prop up its main export, death and destruction. This further explains
why some American politicians have stated, "if an Israel did not exist we would have to
invent one." Birds of a feather. Time to diversify Americas economy. China, Russia, and
America are brothers.
it seems the purpose of the usa media is in large part to keep the masses riled up over
cheering or booing for team red or team blue... speaking of which, i haven't seen one of the
cheerleaders here lately...
Yes, this RussiaGate story will flame out, just like all the rest, but ultimately these
stories aren't about Trump, but about setting the stage for the Biden Administration to
attack Russia. It doesn't matter that they are all lies, what matters is that the big pile of
lies as a whole creates a false reality in which anti-Russian propaganda is so overwhelming
that nobody in the west can see outside of the delusion.
The neocon criminals have managed to take over foreign policy in the U.S., leveraging
money power from their bankster backers. The latter is a tiny group of oligarchs and
their network of highly-paid promoters that are motivated to force U.S. hegemony onto the
world. They now have control over the U.S. Congress, Intelligence Agencies, and the MSM, and
are increasingly exerting censorship over social media.
Their latest gambit is the Coronavirus putsch using bio-warfare agents to
undermine small-scale economies and autonomy, while imposing vast corporate ownership of
property.
Worldwide compliance is the goal using a wide range of military, financial, and media
control measures to crush dissent. The pharma-promoted vaccinations that are questionable at
best reinforce those controls and are part of the plot. We are witnessing a worldwide COUPS
ATTEMPT, UBER-Fascism that exceeds all historical examples. Will it succeed?
"Yes, he killed foreigners. But no U.S. president will ever be indicted for that. It is
seen as a part of the job."
Yes, committing war crimes and "crimes against peace"--the supreme international crime as
asserted by the Nuremberg Tribunal--is fundamental to the job description of being America's
War-Criminal-in-Chief.
The fact that Americans and citizens in other self-styled "democracies" deny this
uncomfortable reality, or support these war crimes, says a lot about their own
criminality.
""Lock him up!" It's amazing how often the two political camps in the USA are mirror
images of each other."
Sure the scumbag politicians shout "Lock 'em up" at their opponents but that is just the
usual divisive partisan nonsense, they spout knowing that they have no intention of locking
anyone up. Why? because they know better than anyone that they have pulled exactly the same
illegal immorality as the other 'side' and the last thing needed is any such precedent.
By spreading that unfulfilled tosh they hope to negate the popular movement which needs to
happen if amerikans are ever going to extricate themselves from the fate of all empires that
once were, a millenia of misery e.g watch what is currently happening in england.
If actual ordinary amerikans have a chance of saving what can be preserved it is on to them
as citizens to hold the entire ruling elite to account. this must be done regardless of any
claimed political affiliation or claimed 'neutrality'.
Anyone who spends more than about 30 minutes objectively assessing the stunts amerika has
been pulling since 1945 (much before really, but let's just use 1945 as a cutoff) sees that
it is amerika which has been the force for just about all the evil in our world. A handful of
sops to the faint-hearted bourgeoisie, eg. finally acknowledging the evil of apartheid South
Africa right as the racist's downfall becomes inevitable doesn't excuse a thing. All such
stunts demonstrate is the greed driven amorality of amerika's elite.
If they spouted in the 60's, 70's & 80's that allowing the apartheid government of
South Africa to continue was a pragmatic call to prevent a bloodbath, yet a much needed
change did occur in the early 90's with no bloodbath, blind Freddie can see they got it wrong
then just as they are getting it wrong now about apartheid Occupied Palestine.
Yet they still continue, Why? The only conclusion can be that both gangs the dims &
the rethugs are going where there is a dollar to be made, just as happened with South
Africa.
Insisting that all 3 arms of amerikan government be taken out of the picture regardless of
whatever gang the claim allegiance to is not 'more of the same'.
If it occurred it would be an indication that all non-elite amerikans have lost faith in the
farcical, allegedly loyal, but in fact only to themselves, congress people, senators, prezes
& vice prezes and judges that regularly behave towards 99% of amerikans so contemptuously
that the corporate owned media have to expend so much resources distracting Jo/Joe Citizen
from.
It won't make much difference to me in my lifetime but it will to my offspring. If
amerikans don't sort this out for themselves, my kids or more likely my grankids will have to
do the job.
History teaches us that no matter how bloody things can get when a population stands up to
its masters, just going with the flow until the boil comes to a head and is then 'lanced' by
outside forces, is much worse for everyone. The hardest hit being the citizens of the once
domineering nation.
Amerikans have the best knowledge of who the crooks are, if they won't sort the problem
because they have been distracted into more partisan tosh such as "they all cry lock 'em up"
; it is they ordinary amerikans, who will finish up paying the piper.
"The march of freedom of the past one hundred and fifty years has been a long-drawn-out
people's revolution. In this Great Revolution of the people, there were the American Revolution
of 1775, The French Revolution of 1792, The Latin-American revolutions of the Bolivarian era,
The German Revolution of 1848, and the Russian Revolution of 1917. Each spoke for the common
man in terms of blood on the battlefield. Some went to excess. But the significant thing is
that the people groped their way to the light. More of them learned to think and work
together....
"The people are on the march toward even fuller freedom than the most fortunate peoples of
the earth have hitherto enjoyed. No Nazi counter-revolution will stop it. The common man will
smoke the Hitler stooges out into the open in the United States, in Latin America, and in
India. He will destroy their influence. No Lavals, no Mussolinis will be tolerated in a Free
World.
"The people, in their millennial and revolutionary march toward manifesting here on earth
the dignity that is in every human soul, hold as their credo the Four Freedoms enunciated by
President Roosevelt in his message to Congress on January 6, 1941. These four freedoms are the
very core of the revolution for which the United Nations have taken their stand. We who live in
the United States may think there is nothing very revolutionary about freedom of religion,
freedom of expression, and freedom from the fear of secret police. But when we begin to
think about the significance of freedom from want for the average man, then we know that the
revolution of the past one hundred and fifty years has not been completed, either here in the
United States or in any other nation in the world. We know that this revolution can not stop
until freedom from want has actually been attained .
"And now, as we move forward toward realizing the Four Freedoms of this people's revolution,
I would like to speak about four duties. It is my belief that every freedom, every right, every
privilege has its price, its corresponding duty without which it can not be enjoyed. The four
duties of the people's revolution, as I see them today, are these:
1. The duty to produce the limit.
2. The duty to transport as rapidly as possible to the field of battle.
3. The duty to fight with all that is in us.
4. The duty to build a peace -- just, charitable and enduring.
"The fourth duty is that which inspires the other three ."
Wallace laments about the failure after WW1; but when he spoke, few knew the actual reasons
for the war, although Wallace was correct that it wasn't to serve the Common Man's interest. To
solve the basic problem that in reality goes back 4-5,000 years. Wallace then drives the nail
home:
"We did not build a peace treaty on the fundamental doctrine of the people's revolution.
We did not strive whole-heartedly to create a world where there could be freedom from want
for all peoples . But by our very errors we learned much, and after this war we shall be in
position to utilize our knowledge in building a world which is economically, politically and, I
hope, spiritually sound."
The United Nations contained within it the above vision that it could become the vehicle for
attaining the goals enunciated in that last sentence. It's now 75 years later, and it appears
we might have an opportunity to attain Wallace's, FDR's, and numerous others dream goal of an
unfettered people living in harmony while enjoying those four basic freedoms, but most
importantly, the freedom from want and the chains of debt that attends it always .
Wallace knew about banks and finance from the farmer's POV for he was a member of a
longstanding Iowa farming family--the Iowa Asgards. And he knew about the Devilish threats
within the USA to the Four Freedoms as he noted in his speech. Although the focus was on
Germany, Wallace knew the Nazi Devil lived in many places:
"Through the leaders of the Nazi revolution, Satan now is trying to lead the common man of
the whole world back into slavery and darkness. For the stark truth is that the violence
preached by the Nazis is the devil's own religion of darkness. So also is the doctrine that
one race or one class is by heredity superior and that all other races or classes are supposed
to be slaves . THE belief in one Satan-inspired Fuhrer, with his Quislings, his Lavals, and
his Mussolinis -- his "gauleiters" in every nation in the world -- is the last and ultimate
darkness. Is there any hell hotter than that of being a Quisling, unless it is that of being a
Laval or a Mussolini?" (Quisling was a Norwegian Fascist executed in 1945 for treason.) [My
Emphasis]
Wallace knew and he displayed his knowledge in a very famous op/ed written at the request of
the NY Times and vetted by FDR, "The Dangers of American
Fascism," published 9 April 1944. Besides that message, Wallace's most powerful message was
spoken toward the conclusion of his speech which provides an excellent benchmark to measure
just how far we've come and how much farther we need to go:
"Some [Henry Luce] have spoken of the 'American Century.' I say that the century on which we
are entering -- The century which will come out of this war -- can be and must be the century
of the common man. Perhaps it will be America's opportunity to suggest that Freedoms and duties
by which the common man must live. Everywhere the common man must learn to build his own
industries with his own hands is a practical fashion. Everywhere the common man must learn to
increase his productivity so that he and his children can eventually pay to the world community
all that they have received. No nation will have the God-given right to exploit other
nations. Older nations will have the privilege to help younger nations get started on the path
to industrialization, but there must be neither military nor economic imperialism . The
methods of the nineteenth century will not work in the people's century which is now about to
begin. India, China, and Latin America have a tremendous stake in the people's century. As
their masses learn to read and write, and as they become productive mechanics, their standard
of living will double and treble. Modern science, when devoted whole-heartedly to the general
welfare, has in it potentialities of which we do not yet dream.
"And modern science must be released from German slavery. International cartels that serve
American greed and the German will to power must go. Cartels in the peace to come must be
subjected to international control for the common man, as well as being under adequate control
by the respective home governments . In this way, we can prevent the Germans from again
building a war machine while we sleep. With international monopoly pools under control, it will
be possible for inventions to serve all the people instead of only a few.
"Yes, and when the time of peace comes, The citizen will again have a duty, The supreme
duty of sacrificing the lesser interest for the greater interest of the general welfare. Those
who write the peace must think of the whole world. There can be no privileged peoples. We
ourselves in the United States are no more a master race than the Nazis. And we can not
perpetuate economic warfare without planting the seeds of military warfare. We must use our
power at the peace table to build an economic peace that is just, charitable and enduring
.
"If we really believe that we are fighting for a people's peace, all the rest becomes easy."
[All Emphasis Mine]
Reading between the lines, we can sense Wallace's apprehensions about what the USA will
become; and as we've witnessed, he was quite correct in his suspicions. But the people were
quickly duped and he didn't have any chance of besting Truman in 1948 being attacked in media
by those who supported him and FDR during the Depression and war--very much like the attacks on
Sanders during the last two election cycles. As Wallace feared, something very similar to
Nazism took hold within the USA quickly after the war. Behind it then as now stood Private
Finance and the Neoliberals went to work, their goal to privatize everything and ensure the
Common Folk owned nothing but the debt that enslaved him/her. No other political-economic
example was to be allowed to exist; their one greatest failure and the only reason we're now on
the path to the better world we should have already attained if the sort of Christian
Commonwealth vision Wallace had and many shared could have arisen instead of the latent fascism
within the USA gaining control.
We often discuss media coverage and accuracy on developing legal and political
controversies. Much of this discussion recently has focused on the bias shown by the media in
the last four years. I have worked for the media as a legal analyst and columnist for years,
but I have never before seen this raw and open bias in major media. At the same time,
academics are rejecting the very concept of objectivity in journalism in favor of open
advocacy.
This morning, Fox News called out all of the networks for zero coverage of the bombshell
story from Axios that Rep. Eric Swalwell may have had a close relationship with a suspected
Chinese spy who fled to China a few years ago. Many of us were struck by the lack of coverage,
particularly given the position of Swalwell on the House Intelligence Committee and his former
bid for the presidency. It was particularly striking when the media is now reluctantly covering
the Hunter Biden story after a long blackout before the election. Yet, the most stark
comparison is with the exhaustive coverage given the highly analogous story involving an
alleged spy, Maria Butina, who had an affair with a high-ranking figure in the National Rifle
Association.
Swalwell is alleged to have had a close relationship with Chinese national, Fang Fang or
Christine Fang, who not only raised money for him but placed at least one intern in Swalwell's
congressional office, according to
Axios . Bizarrely, Swalwell has refused to confirm or deny that he had an intimate
relationship with his office claiming that such an answer could compromise classified
information. Even that ridiculous comment did not prompt ABC, NBC, or CBS to cover the story.
Obviously, Fang and the Chinese already know if she had a sexual relationship with Swalwell.
The only people in the dark are the voters.
Swalwell himself explained why this is news.
The congressman was one of the most vocal voices calling out a June 2016 meeting that
President Trump's son, Donald Trump Jr., with Natalia Veselnitskaya, who was accused of being
an asset for the Russian government.
" Stated plainly, the President's son met with a Russian spy. We now have the best
evidence of that in our minority report the Democrats put out that Ms. Veselnitskaya was
going all over the world and bumping into Dana Rohrabacher, which is a sign of a spy, someone
who tries to create a coincidence encounter, and now we know that she was working at the
behest of the Russian government. "
Not even the utter hypocrisy of Swalwell's position or the lunacy of his classification
claim was enough to generate minimal coverage. There is also no interest in Swalwell remaining
on the intelligence committee given his ill-considered relationship.
Swalwell says that he cooperated with the FBI and cut off ties with Fang, who fled to China
years ago. There is no indication that he compromised classified information, but such assets
are used to often influence powerful leaders or acquire useful background information on other
leaders.
MSNBC and other news outlets could not get enough of that story about Trump Jr. but has an
effective blackout on the same allegation of Swalwell not just "bumping" into a spy but
carrying on a long relationship and even allowing her to raise money for him and help put an
intern in his congressional office.
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Yet, the greatest contrast is with the NRA story which was endlessly covered. Even when NRA
moved to address the relationship between Butina and 57-year-old Republican activist named Paul
Erickson. Hundreds of stories ran on every deal and media explored
whether a Russian activist influenced powerful figures or shared information .
The FBI Director just gave a public speech on the extensive and growing espionage efforts of
China. Yet, the success of planting an agent with Swalwell and a couple of other politicians
has been given virtual Hunter Biden treatment. Where a host of legal expert called for charges
for treason and other crimes against Trump Jr., there is nothing but crickets when a liberal
Democrats members is accused of far more extensive contacts with a Chinese spy. Why?
PrintCash 6 hours ago (Edited)
Does a bear poop in the woods?
Its the sole purpose and desire of the ultra partisan types in the media to control the
narrative, control the messaging, control your life. It's what they LIVE for.
Hikikomori 6 hours ago
Swalwell was accusing Trump of colluding with Putin while at the same time Swalwell was
screwing a ChiCom spy - you couldn'tmake this up.
Floki_Ragnarsson 6 hours ago
Right out of a Tom Clancy novel.
Lord Raglan 5 hours ago remove link
Swalwell was boinking the Chi-Com Honey Pot in 2015 and maybe earlier, before Trump even
announced his run and yet it is all Trump's fault.
There is no lie that is too malignantly preposterous for people on the Left.
Flankspeed60 4 hours ago
The Chinese are not actually our enemy here. When you go to Yellowstone, you're warned not
to feed the bears. Same for dragons. Hang raw meat on a clothesline, and expect all the
downwind carnivores and blowflies to show up. In our case, corrupt politicians made
themselves readily accessible to any and every gomer with large bundles of cash. Even
real-life whores are more discerning in their choice of johns than the low-life bacterium we
elected to congress-it is THEY AND THEY ALONE who are to blame for selling this country out.
The Chinese have nothing but contempt for these dregs, and no one should blame them for
paying relative pennies for solid gold bars in return. In fact, our government does exactly
the same to countless other countries, so the stampeding hypocrisy of our government in
crying 'foul' simply reeks. The Chicoms would most likely shoot, and have shot their own
corrupt sell-outs for far less than the crimes committed by our treasonous scumbags. And,
until we adopt similar measures against our worthless SOB's, our Swamp will simply continue
to get deeper and slimier............
precarryus 4 hours ago
Yet Swill-well says Adam Schiff and Pelosi were aware of his activities, implying ...
...(Surprised?
American2 5 hours ago remove link
Perhaps Peter Strozk can be the defense's rock-solid moral character witness at Eric
Swalwell's federal trial.
surf@jm 5 hours ago
The Chinese own Hollywood and the media.....
The Chinese were the main force for the Russia collusion horsehockey through their
political whores in congress....
Schroedingers Cat 5 hours ago
Hillary, Brennan, Obama, Chris Hayes, Maddow, Comey, Zucker and many other swamp state
freaks are responsible for Russiagate.
The CHinese CCP are definitely up to no good but let's not excuse traitors and chalk it up
to Chinese spies. Swalwell is 100% responsible for his own behavior. They ALL ARE. Chinese
spies can't corrupt real American Patriots.
Son of Captain Nemo 5 hours ago
Last I checked so was Joe and Hunter Biden along with China?...
And Hunter is doing great things with his money buying under age prostitutes in Ukraine
and China making vids of it while sucking on a crack pipe... While the young ladies "suck"
something else "off"!!!
Willie the Pimp 6 hours ago remove link
The media? No such thing. CIA propaganda.
John Couger 3 hours ago
This slimy piece of excrement attacked our president for 4 years over the Russia hoax all
while being compromised by the communist Chinese
BinAnunnaki 4 hours ago
The Presstitute media is an extension of the Democratic Party.
Cobra Commander 4 hours ago remove link
Precisely. Why pay money to be misinformed? Biden up by 17 in Wisconsin, Hunter laptop
media blackout, panning away from ANY mention of voter and election fraud.
OCnStiggs 6 hours ago
"Swallowell" is a lying, prevaricating, stupid POS.
The very first thing they do to you when you get a high security clearance is brief you on
people and techniques used to compromise you. Period. Dot. This ****** either skipped the
brief or ignored it. Simply associating with people who might be a compromise threat is
unlawful. Ignorance is no excuse.
Just sayin'.
Cobra Commander 4 hours ago
Penalties for Inaccurate or False Statements (security clearance)
United States Criminal Code (title 18, section 1001) provides that knowingly falsifying or
concealing a material fact is a felony which may result in fines of up to $10,000, and/or 5
years imprisonment, or both.
If you have a security clearance, you agree to report all foreign contacts and
relationships. When you submit your clearance request, you attest that all is true, correct,
and complete to the best of your knowledge.
Intentionally submitting false information on a clearance request or renewal is subject to
criminal prosecution.
When I finally got to read Michael Collins Piper book Final Judgment: The
Missing Link in the JFK Assassination Conspiracy (first edition 1993), I had already
understood that 9/11 was not an Inside Job, but a Mossad Job. Based on recent
revelations on Kennedy's uncompromizing opposition to Israel's secret nuclear ambitions
(starting with The Samson Option by Seymour Hersh, 1991), Piper could identify the main
motive of Israel. He made many disciples. One of them was Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, who
once declared publicly (the sequence is in the film
):
"Kennedy decided to monitor the Dimona nuclear plant. He insisted on doing so, in order to
determine whether or not it produces nuclear weapons. The Israelis refused, but he insisted.
This crisis was resolved with the resignation of Ben-Gurion. He resigned so he would not have
to agree to the monitoring of the Dimona plant, and he gave the green light for the killing
of Kennedy. Kennedy was killed because he insisted on the monitoring of the Dimona
plant."
On September 23, 2009, Gaddafi had the guts to demand a new investigation on Kennedy in
front of the UN General Assemby. [4] Two years later, he was
killed (and his killing filmed, a signature of Israel) and his country destroyed.
Dimona was not the only motive. The Kennedys were also determined to stop the
euphemistically called "Israel Lobby" before it became too powerful to be stopped. In 1960, as
a candidate, John Kennedy was visited by Abraham Feinberg, who was both the sponsor of Johnson
and the financial godfather of Dimona. Here is how Kennedy summed up Feinberg's request, to his
friend Charles Bartlett: "We know your campaign is in trouble. We're willing to pay your bills
if you'll let us have control of your Middle East policy." Bartlett recalls that Kennedy was
deeply upset and decided that, "if he ever did get to be President, he was going to do
something about it." [5] He did. With Senator
William Fulbright of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, the Kennedys were
forcing the American Zionist Council (and its lobbying division AIPAC) to register as a
"foreign agent," which would have considerably reduced its efficiency. After John's
assassination, the procedure was dropped by Bobby's successor Nicholas Katzenbach, and AIPAC
became the most corruptive force in the United States.
A letter by Congressman Donald
Rumsfeld to Attorney General Robert Kennedy, dated June 15, 1963
Jewish supremacists had seen the Kennedys coming a long way. In Jack and Bobby, they saw
their father. Joe Kennedy had been notoriously critical of Jewish influence during the Second
World War.
The Kennedy assassination is similar to 9/11 since there is debate about whether "Israel"
or the "Deep State" is guilty of the crime. It is disingenuous to discuss these conspiracies
without reference to Israel, but it is also wrong to let the CIA off the hook. The truth is
that Israel and the U.S. deep state are symbiotically connected. The deep state is typified
by the influence of the Bush family, and indeed it was Prescott Bush who pressured Kennedy
into making LBJ his Vice President in the first place. Bush family friend Allen Dulles was in
charge of the CIA; JFK fired Dulles and threatened to dissolve the organization. Instead it
was JFK who was scattered to the wind and the CIA left trying to cover up the crime with
labels of "conspiracy theory". Prescott Bush's son would later direct the CIA and found a
presidential dynasty that led directly to 9/11. It is not sufficient to blame Israel; we must
blame Zionist Nazis wherever they may be, including the U.S. deep state.
Think of what the cult of the Romanovs does for Russia today: they are now canonized as
"Holy Imperial Martyrs," with their own church built on the site of their slaughter by
Jewish Bolsheviks. That's how important the truth about the Kennedy is for America
.
Excellent comparison: Americans are such tedious nit-pickers that the only break the
bottleneck might be to turn it into a sacred myth.
To make my point clear: Having read several histories and three biographies of Nicholas
II, the only conclusion possible was that he was a weak czar and a lousy ruler. But Nick, as
Jack, is not the point. The point is some men are more valuable to national mythology than
what history makes of them
My pappy was not a New Dealer but he came from Democrat roots. He thought JFK was a
traitor, like so many men in that era who thought Kennedy was soft on communism whether
foreign or domestic.
"But I wanted to see him beat by voters, not shot by a nut," he added, not illogically. He
felt Kennedy deserved the humiliation of being voted out. JFK's assassination robbed his
enemies of seeing him sent packing.
From this remove, we can see JFK as what his daddy was: An unvarnished America-Firster.
None of the people who moved in John T. Flynn's America First circle before Pearl Harbor was
not "punished". From Lillian Gish to Gore Vidal to Ayn Rand and many politicians beside,
whatever could be used against them was. No matter how high they seemed to climb they faced
harassment and ugly rumors. And sometimes death...
Why doesn't Mark Glenn speak for himself? In any case there is no great gulf between
Michael Collins Piper's conclusion that Kennedy was killed by Israelis and that LBJ did it.
The link is given by 'Salvador Astucia' in his book Opium Lords. Astucia fills out Piper's
thesis with his discovery of LBJ's Jewish identity. It's a good read. Amazon pretends it
doesn't exist and leads you to the perfume. It's available for free download at Z-Library (
http://b-ok.cc ).
Just the fact that 3 Kennedy-s got murdered by them, proves how dangerous they were to
them. They also blackmailed Ted into compliance. Now RFK Jr. is the only one still carrying
on some anti Big Pharma heroism. Pray for his safety!
@gay troll for every
conspiracy, while the Zionist lobby is never even mentioned.
9/11 was extremely revealing in that respect, with the CIA becoming the central public
object of criticism, its director George Tenet barely keeping his job, while Zionist Donald
Rumsfeld ignoring their intelligence on imminent "attacks" got completely off the hook.
Furthermore, the 9/11 Truth movement is itself an astonishing example of superior Zionist
power, with almost no Truther daring to point the finger at Israel while the evidence of
Zionist masterminding is overwhelming.
Who even dares saying God's honest truth: Israel did 9/11 ?
The assassination of several of Iran's leading scientists in recent years -- including
Prof. Fakhrizadeh less than two weeks ago -- is further evidence that assassination is
something to which zionists readily turn when faced with what they consider a 'problem'. The
rest of the Western world shies away from this sort of 'gangsterism' -- as Patrick Cockburn
rightly calls it. Exposure of Israel's role in the murder of the Kennedy's could give the US
the 'reset' that it needs. Thank you for your efforts, Mr. Guyenot.
"Sure, the Kennedys were not perfect. They were no White nationalists." – Do
you really believe that being white nationalist is an indication of perfection. I haven't met
white nationalist yet who did not have serious character or cognitive flaws.
@Laurent
Guyénot ted LBJ, but the man in operational control was the CIA man Cord Meyer.
JFK was having an affair with Meyer's wife Mary, who was herself killed in 1964.
One of the most intriguing theories is that the CIA planned an incident in Dallas, perhaps
a fake assassination attempt, that would be blamed on the Cubans and halt JFK's drift towards
peace. Another group heard of the plan and arranged the real assassination, knowing that the
CIA would have no choice but to cover up both plots. This theory offers the possibility that,
despite the evidence pointing to the CIA, somebody else shot JFK. It means that there is no
need to dismiss the evidence against the CIA.
I really enjoyed Mr Guyenot's film and his wonderful narration (I assume it is he).
Although I don't think the film really makes the case that Israel was the culprit, it makes
clear that its desire for nukes and greater integration with the US security state must be
added to the many factions that wanted Kennedy dead and out of the way.
Are not the US Deep State and Jews inextricably intermingled? Does Mossad do all the
shooting and run the coverup itself or do American Zionist Jews do their bit to move the plot
along under orders or when they see it necessary? Mr Guyenot does not make this clear. He
seems to be saying that Israel concocted the plot by itself and used Jews in America (such as
LBJ, a crypto-Jew) to influence government agencies and media to perform the assassination
and then cover it up. He seems to be saying on one hand that the CIA had nothing to do with
it, on the other hand he hints that James Jesus Angleton, chief of CIA Counterintelligence
and a sure friend of Israel, was the mastermind. I would say that Israel's interests were
just another motive that happily coincided with the rest of the toxic brew, and Mr Guyenot
does not prove otherwise.
At 45.07 mins, the following is stated:
"In fact the CIA conspiracy theory suffers from a crippling contradiction. According to
it, the purpose of killing Kennedy was to create a pretext for invading Cuba, something that
Kennedy had always refused to do. With Oswald groomed as a pro-Castro communist the Dallas
shooting was staged as a false-flag attack to be blamed on Cuba according to the CIA theory.
But then why did no invasion of Cuba follow Kennedy's assassination? It is because Johnson,
we are told, thwarted the plot's ultimate aim to start WW3."
This seems to be a very confused interpretation of the 'CIA conspiracy theory'. As I
understand it, the pseudo-communist elements of the plot, ie Oswald's apparent pro-Castro
communism and his alleged attempt to obtain a visa to escape to Russia via Cuba after
shooting Kennedy, were pro-actively set up by the CIA in to order to dupe LBJ into forcing
the Warren Commission into pursuing the 'lone nut' conclusion to the exclusion of all others.
If the Commission did not do this, the alternative, according to the CIA and its dupe LBJ,
was that the assassination of Kennedy would be exposed as a Russian plot, thereby fomenting
the American public into a devastating war with Russia. This had to be prevented at all
costs, LBJ told Warren, so his commission had to come up with a politically acceptable
conclusion regardless of the actual truth.
At 13.5 mins, it is stated:
"Garrison was allowed to view Abraham Zapruder's 8mm film, confiscated by the FBI on the
day of the assassination"
This is not correct. Zapruder, a cunning Jew who knew what his film was worth, refused
attempts at confiscation by the Dallas police. Since Zapruder was a well known local
businessman, with, as M Guyenot notes, strong connections to the Dallas Citizens Council, a
Jewish enclave, the police did not press the issue. The film was sold to Life magazine the
next day for $150,000 and subsequently suppressed by them for several years until the
Garrison investigation subpoenaed it.
@dimples operated,
but there is no evidence. There is no evidence, for example, against Richard Helms, who, when
asked in 1975 about Oswald's CIA links, correctly answered: ask rather the ONI! Oswald was a
marine, remember!
On the Zapruder film, I believe the FBI did confiscate the film, and gave it back to Zapruder
after a few day, only it was not the same film anymore, and Life magazine was prohibitded to
show more than a few slides. I would have to check the details. In any case, you have to
understand that to make a 90-minute films, you have to take a few shortcuts and focus on
connecting the main dots. I am fully aware that of lot of details are missing.
I admit it: I like the Kennedys. Actually, I love the Kennedys.
That's a stupid position to hold. The verbal tongue bath you give ignores a couple of
issues:
-Kennedy increased the build-up to the Vietnam War as part of his failure to show strength
when confronting the Soviets politically.
-He sought to federalize the mental health hospitals because his father was an impertinent
shithead who lobotomized his daughter out of convenience. Reagan completed the gutting of
mental health 20 years later.
-He picked that disgusting pig LBJ as his running mate to secure votes and JFK getting
"BOOM, HEADSHOT'ed" put that ugly bastard in charge of everything, including being besties
with Israel and having mood swings that left him incapable of executing the Vietnam War.
-Totally failing to commit either for or against the Bay of Pigs Invasion. The Vienna
Summit was quickly convened in part to deal with his ambivalent decision.
-By his own admission, he was grossly unprepared for his confrontation with Nikita
Khrushchev in Vienna and that in turn emboldened the Soviets to put missiles in Cuba.
You know who didn't roll over like a bitch when confronting lil' Niki? Richard Milhous
Nixon. Motherfucker stuck his finger right in Khrushchev's chest and gave that commie turd
the what for. I imagine the guy who was captured on tape as saying "the jews are born spies"
probably would have seen right through the attack on the USS Liberty and not immediately
folded like an Irishman's skull. Had he been president instead of your vaunted JFK, we
wouldn't have gotten LBJ. Neither Kennedys got AIPAC registered with FARA and neither stymied
Israel. Neither was useful and in fact they made everything worse.
Mr. Frog, I would caution you to show a little more diligence when advocating for cultish
worship of someone as flawed and incapable as JFK. The man was an incompetent philanderer who
only got into the position he did by hook and crook and daddy's bootlegger money. Had Joe not
been killed, I imagine he would been a far superior president. His early life indicates he
had good observational skills and a keen take on the world, particularly in the 1930s.
There is precisely one excellent Kennedy and his name is Leon Scott. He was a terrible
cop, but an excellent federal employee. Hell of a lot less damaging to the United States of
America than the rest of the Kennedy family was.
@Laurent
Guyénot dy's personal secretary, told Summers in an interview that she was
convinced in mid-1960 that J. Edgar Hoover and Johnson had conspired.
Then there is the fact that Allen Dulles had a seat on the Warren Commission, which
published an ham fisted cover up of the assassination.
Scapegoating Israel for all this is a psyop intended the absolve the CIA of guilt. As I said
before, the Zionist connection is paramount. But it is not Israel doing these things to the
U.S., it is the U.S. government doing these things for Israel (or at the very least, enabling
and ignoring Israeli crimes, which would make them no less guilty).
The U.S. government has no right to the presumption of innocence since they have CLASSIFIED
tons of information surrounding the assassination. You suggest the CIA concealed things because
they were "forced" to because they had "enough" to hide. That smacks of sophistry. Were they
also forced to popularize the term "conspiracy theorist" in 1967 and coach the media on how to
wield it against Warren Commission critics? If these Nazi fucks are innocent then let them
declassify their secrets.
Has anyone here other than me actually read Ron Unz's full bibliography concerning the
Israel angle on the JFK assassination?
The bibliography is based on Ron's "American Pravda" articles "The JFK Assassination, Part 1
– What Happened?" and "The JFK Assassination, Part 2 – Who Did it?" as well as
"Mossad Assassinations."
_______
A Citizen's Dissent: Mark Lane Replies to the Defenders of the Warren Report – Mark
Lane (1968)
The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence – Victor Marchetti & John Marks (1974)
Assault on the Liberty: The True Story of the Israeli Attack on an American Intelligence
Ship – James Ennes (1979)
Taking Sides: America's Secret Relations with Militant Israel – Michael Green
(1984)
By Way of Deception: The Making and Unmaking of a Mossad Officer – Victor Ostrovsky
& Claire Hoy (1990)
Plausible Denial: Was the CIA Involved in the Assassination of JFK? – Mark Lane
(1991)
The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy – Seymour
Hersh (1991)
The Other Side of Deception: A Rogue Agent Exposes the Mossad's Secret Agenda –
Victor Ostrovsky (1994)
The Dark Side of Camelot – Seymour Hersh (1997)
Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years – David Talbot (2007)
JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters – James Douglass (2008)
Conspiracy Theory in America – Lance deHaven-Smith (2013)
The Man Who Killed Kennedy: The Masse Against LBJ – Roger Stone (2014)
The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government
– David Talbot (2015)
Final Judgment – The Missing Link in the JFK Assassination Conspiracy –
Michael Collins Piper (2017)
Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel's Targeted Assassinations – Ronen
Bergman (2018) *
* The last time I read Unz's article, he claimed he had not yet actually read "Rise
and Kill First."
_______
Other than Piper's book, which is a mess, none of these books come close to supporting the
contention that Israel was willing and capable of killing JFK. In fact, I came away from the
Bergman and Ostrovsky books convinced the Israelis did not have the capability or the will to
project their killing power into the U.S., let alone pull off a sophisticated conspiracy on
American soil.
According to Frank Sheeran, the famous mob hitman, the mob was deep in the hit. Said mob was
on a job, an assignment. The mob had families. The was a Jewish mob, an Italian mob, and so on,
and they coordinated fairly well with FBI and CIA in "various matters". Many people say that
Bobby and Jack double crossed the mob – thus providing motivation. CIA/FBI and Lyndon's
gang did the coverup and so sloppy that that hit would be seen by adults as a warning to others
It seems to have worked. Sheeran seemed to say that the actual hit was done by the Italian mob
out of the Big Easy.
Of course zionists had motivation too – the ability to blackmail LBJ over his
involvement (remember the Liberty attack in '67 – LBJ helped cover that up why?) and of
course blackmail everybody once they had bombs
@Laurent
Guyénot the producer/director, so to speak, but not the screenwriter -- with two
capos under him, one of whom took charge of the technology (arranging the route; making
arrangements to get control of the body and the autopsy; that kind of thing) and the other of
whom made the contacts to bring in the required shooters. It may be worthwhile to analyze the
event in terms of making a film, because surely the aim was to create a convincing alternative
reality, as like an action film. In such a scenario Johnson would be the guy who controls the
local ground forces.
It was a complex operation. There have to have been chains of command.
The problems with the Israel-as-sole/ prime-instigators angle are (i) the extent of the
cover up, and (ii) the number of leads pointing at CIA involvement.
I wonder how much of a dichotomy this really is though?
Bridging the worlds of, on the one hand, Jewish Zionism and that of the elitist WASPs on the
other are groups like the Freemasonic lodges. Perpetrators trying to recruit conspirators from
within the intelligence ciricles by trying to portray Kennedy as 'a commie stooge' would have
faced a hard sell. Alternatively to draw attention to his family's implicit appeasement for
National Socialism (which of course shut down the lodges) might have worked better, especially
with a few exaggerated rumours thrown into the mix.
If I remember rightly from Piper's book, Angleton met regularly with a shaddowy figure (an
orchid grower ?). Would be interesting to know who he was and what the true nature of their
relationship was. What motivates a gentile like Angleton toward such loyalty to a foreign
government and a particularist religious group to which he is ultimately excluded? Is it just
bribery and blackmail or is there something deeper? Perhaps if we can answer that, then me
might understand if/how others like him could have participated in killing their own
leader.
At an elite New England university in 1968, I became an RFK supporter in the midst of the
powerful enthusiasm for Eugene McCarthy's candidacy. What was that like? Cliff Robertson's line
to Robert Redford, who is opposing the CIA, in the great movie "Three Days of the Condor":
"You're about to become a very lonely man."
@James N. Kennett
officer holding Oswald and wearing a white suit, in the middle of a national mourning, in place
of a high-visibility jacket.
Rubinstein making the deliberate sacrifice of his life was unlikely to be for the money.
When asked by his Rabbi, once in prison why he'd killed Oswald, Rubinstein replied:" I did
it for the Jewish people ".
@Skeptikal
Do you see that little big before the big Vietnam bump in the late 1960s? That's the Kennedy
bump. And it was done in peacetime.
JFK was a moderate politician who entered office as an enthusiastic Cold Warrior. There's
plenty of evidence that as the responsibilities of office weighed upon him that he began to
moderate his stance toward the Soviet Union, but there is no credible evidence that he had
turned 180 degrees and was embarked upon ending the Cold War.
But that is what Douglass would have us believe was the motive for killing him.
"With Senator William Fulbright of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, the Kennedys
were forcing the American Zionist Council (and its lobbying division AIPAC) to register as a
"foreign agent," which would have considerably reduced its efficiency."
Btw: consider what has happened to Senator Fulbright's "Fulbright Foundation," one of the
very few, very worthy American foreign policy initiatives. If resurrected today, Senator
Fulbright would promptly die again in despair over what the Deep State has done to his
international peace program.
@Pincher Martin "I'm
just a patsy.." ( pre Ruby Comment by the alleged perp himself).
8) Instant identification as the murderer much like Bin laden again.
And so on. I am not a JFK expert but over the years I have read over 20 books on the topic
which were mostly bogus but did contribute fodder for critical thinking.
And so if someone can tie in just the few disparate points I made (there are many more), not
to conclude who did it but that shows that it could only be Oswald killing JFK on his own I
have yet to see it.
@Pincher Martin d very
strong Texas connections to Texas just like LBJ. In 1988, The Nation published an
article alleging that H.W. Bush worked for the CIA in the 1960's. This is before he became a
congressman from Texas in 1967, later the director of the CIA, later vice President, later
President, and finally father of another President. Of course, JFK was assassinated in Texas,
the backyard of LBJ and H.W. And the Bush family has been the single biggest political
beneficiary of his death, along with their bosom buddies in the CIA, and Israel itself.
Mr. Guyenot, how do you defend the innocence of LBJ against this:
By law, the autopsy of President Kennedy should have been performed by Dallas medical
examiners, because legally, the crime was a murder under Texas law (it was not a federal
crime in 1963 to assassinate a president). While Kennedy's body was still at Parkland
Hospital, local officials informed the federal officials who were present that the latter
could not take possession of Kennedy's body until the autopsy had been completed by a Dallas
medical examiner who was already at the hospital. Nevertheless, at the vice president's
instruction, Secret Service agents had a casket delivered, took control of Kennedy's body
(some reports say at gunpoint) as Parkland Hospital doctors and staff tried to block their
way, put the body inside the casket, placed it in an ambulance, and had the ambulance taken
to the airport. [ ] At approximately 2:15 PM, less than two hours after the shooting, the
casket was lugged up the stairs of Air Force One, squeezed through the narrow airplane door,
and set down in the rear of the presidential plane, where seats had to be removed to make
room. Vice President Johnson boarded immediately afterward, but, even though Jacqueline
Kennedy was on board, he delayed the plane's departure for almost an hour, until a federal
judge could get there whom he had selected to administer the oath of office. He then insisted
that Mrs. Kennedy come out of the plane's bedroom and stand beside him as he was sworn in and
photos were taken."
-Lance deHaven-Smith, Conspiracy Theory in America , University of Texas Press
There is also the fact that LBJ's federal entourage "destroyed critically important evidence
by having the President's limousine washed, all the blood cleaned from the limo's seats and
carpet, all the bullet-pocked windshield and interior chrome replaced. [ ] The washing started
in public and in broad daylight while the limo was still at Parkland Hospital. At 8:00 PM on
the evening of the assassination, the limo was flown by cargo plane to Washington, DC."
deHaven Smith concludes: "Johnson's involvement could be construed as circumstantial
evidence of guilt since it suggested knowledge of a frontal shooting; it also amounted to
obstruction of justice and destruction of evidence in a capital crime."
@Pincher Martin
According to the latest figures from the National Archives, a total of 15,834 JFK files remain
fully or partially classified, most of them held by the CIA and FBI. Thanks to an October 2017
order from President Trump, these documents will not be made public until October 2021, at the
earliest.
@Pincher Martin nd
continuing to this day, especially after the breakup of the USSR). The Right of Return is an
easy way to avoid the law, whether you're a mafioso or a child predator. Look it up.
I don't believe Israel ever considered just flying in some guys to kill JFK. But what Ron
was pointing out was the suspicious overlap of interests between key figures at the CIA, the
(((organized crime world))), and the State of Israel, who almost assuredly had many hooks into
the two aforementioned groups, as explained earlier.
Pincher Martin is here to carry out CIA memo 1035-960 to the letter and save the day for
Gina's saggy ass! Note his invocation of nuts, pathologizing dissent per CIA instructions.
Conspiracy odds 3-5 per cent, that's ¶ 4(c)! Cottage industry producing lots of theories,
that's ¶ 3(b/5)! Genuflect to the risible Warren Commission, that's ¶ 4(a)! It's all
done as unsupported slogans for dimbulbs, good enough for government work as always.
CIA's core competence is routinizing crime so even ASVAB waivers like Pincher Martin can
help secrete the family jewels. Sadly for junior spy cadet Pincher and his merit badge in
wanking, actual competent security services have CIA's comprehensive bill of indictment up to
date and ready to go. Russia. China. Iran. Malaysia. Cuba. Turkey. South Africa. Pakistan. And
now they all have CTOC to prosecute it. They have the SCO with a real missile gap to enforce
it.
CIA is going to be a smoldering sinkhole of molten rock. And America will be free.
@Gulnare ames,
thousands of killed, defamed, ruined people all over the world. And this is an inherent problem
with a Jewish state: it can't be different. "The Jewish tradition is rampantly ethnocentric and
dehumanises outsiders with a gusto that could hardly be exceeded", – wrote Ed
Herman in his Triumph of the Market."
Well, everybody knows that the deliberate destruction of evidence in a murder is a felony
itself, accessory after the fact. Evidence of LBJ knowing in advance
There were also regulatory and bureaucratic ways the Israelis could evade Kennedy's will.
JFK was constantly surprised by his own bureaucracy. His purposes were often thwarted. Why
assume that couldn't happen again?
And as long as Israel kept quiet about their pursuit of nuclear weapons, what was Kennedy
going to do? The US at the time provided very little in the way of military aid to Israel.
@Pincher Martin really
wanted to put an end to a lot of conspiracy theories they could simply declassify. But then, of
course, we might be left with a conspiracy truth.
I don't "believe stupid stuff", I endeavor to understand things that MY GOVERNMENT FORBIDS
ME FROM UNDERSTANDING. That is an entirely rational thing to do.
Now like I said, fuck off, you pathetic spook apologist.
Mr. Guyenot's From Yahweh to Zion is the work of a great historian. But his book on JFK and
9/11 is not in the same class. I own both, I've read both and am in fact reading the former
again. I had hoped that the author would draw some parallels between JFK and Trump, but I found
nothing of that sort. Why are so many responsible people in both parties ignoring the obvious
fraud of the election? My guess is that Trump knows too much, but he can't be killed because
the ramifications would be too great. Perhaps he knows so much that he could wreck the duopoly
if he doesn't keep quiet. Maybe, for example, he knows how Jeffrey Epstein died and who might
be responsible .say, Bill Clinton. I'm just speculating, but there's a lot going on that isn't
being told. Naturally.
Flynn was the embodiment of an actual American patriot, as the Reverend Sloan Coffin and
other rational and respectable opponents of the Vietnam War were a generation later. It's sad
so few remember the names of the good guys.
Professor Charles' book came out in 2007. Well worth reading.
I am tired of hearing the JFK discussion going in circles where seemingly the same actors
are through the same arguments and red herrings whenever JFK and Israel hypothesis is brought
up. In my opinion the hypothesis that JFK was assassinated by and/or on the behalf of Israel is
the strongest hypothesis there is. This is what I wrote two year ago under Ron Unz's
article:
[T]he future of the Israel lobby in the US was decided on November 22, 1963. RFK's
attempts to force the lobby to register as a foreign agent were permanently derailed on this
day. JFK's attempts to stop Israel from acquiring the nuclear weapons were permanently
derailed. The Israel lobby is what it is now because of assassinations of JFK and RFK. Israel
could acquire nuclear weapons because of assassination of JFK. Israel was the greatest
beneficiary of JFK's assassination. It was not Cuba's communists, it was not Cuba's
anticommunist, it was not USSR, it was not Mafia, it was not CIA, it was not MIC, it was not
Federal Reserve, it was not Aristotle Onassis but it was Israel and the Zionist lobby that
achieved the most tangible benefits from JFK's assassination.
Anybody who questions and have doubts about the seriousness of situation of Israel vis a vis
the US in 1963 should read all letters between JFK and Ben-Gurion and his succesor and follow
RFK correspondence about the foreign agent status of the Jewish/Israel lobby. There are more
documents available now than when Michael Collins Piper was doing his research. Few year ago I
asked Laurent Guyenot if he was familiar with the documentation but he did not to answer.
Somebody should write a book solely based on the documentation so we no longer have to hear
ignorant skeptics like the Bardon Kaldian character.
I am convinced that the fact that Ben-Gurion ordered the assassination of Kennedy is an open
secret in well-informed Jewish circles, and a strong suspicion among most educated Israelis. I
take Andrew Adler's famous editorial (The Atlanta Jewish Times, January 13, 2012) calling the
Mossad to assassinate the president to replace him by his Israel-friendly vice-president
(below) to be a clear sign of this. As Israelis and American Jews now brag openly about their
influence over the world and their right to eliminate those who get in the way of Israel's
grandiose destiny, I wouldn't be surprised if one day an Israeli journalist publicly credits
Ben-Gurion for ridding Israel of that "dangerous Kennedy anti-Semite."
For the sake of contributing to the debate on the CIA(DeepState) vs Israel issue, and to
clarify what I mentionned in an earlier commen (46), here is an excerpt from my chapter on
Kennedy in From Yahweh to Zion :
One solution to the problem has been provided by the already-mentioned Gary Wean in his
book There's a Fish in the Courthouse (1987), quoted by Michael Piper in his groundbreaking
Final Judgment. Relying on a well-informed source in Dallas (identified as Republican Senator
John Tower in his 1996 second edition), Wean raises the possibility that the Dallas coup was
"a double-cross of fantastic dimensions," in which a failed assassination attempt staged by
the CIA was hijacked by what he names the Mishpucka (Hebrew for "the Family"), the Russian
Jewish Mafia, whose evil power reaching into the highest spheres Wean has been investigating
for years in California. The Mishpucka wanted Kennedy dead and turned the operation into a
successful assassination, then escaped investigation by hiding behind the CIA's scheme. JFK
researcher Dick Russell has independently added weight to that theory by interviewing Cuban
exiles who believe they were manipulated (The Man Who Knew Too Much, 1992).
The assumption is that the CIA and their Cuban exile associates intended to spare Kennedy's
life but force him to retaliate against Castro. It was a false flag operation: Oswald, the
patsy, had been groomed with the "legend" of a pro-Castro communist activist, to be sold to
the public by news media on the day of the assassination. According to what Tower told Wean,
"There was to be an attempt on the life of President Kennedy so 'realistic' that its failure
would be looked upon as nothing less than a miracle. Footprints would lead right to Castro's
doorstep, a trail that the rankest amateur could not lose."
Israel had no interest in Cuba but wanted Kennedy dead. So did Johnson. So they hijacked the
operation, probably by providing the real snipers on the grassy knoll. The national security
state was too deeply involved to be able to protest, and had to go along with its original
plan to blame Oswald, knowing that if they tried to expose Israel's coup, they would be the
first to be exposed.
Several researchers have independently reached the same conclusion that a fake assassination
attempt by CIA-led Cuban exiles was turned into a real assassination by a third party, but
few succeeded -- or, more probably, dared -- to name that third party. They are mentioned by
the late Michael Collins Piper. One of them was former CIA contract agent Robert Morrow in
his 1976 novelized version of events, Betrayal. Another was longtime independent investigator
Scott Thompson, who alleged that Howard Hunt was coordinating the fraudulent assassination
attempt, but notes that "it remains unclear to this day who intervened into the dummy
assassination set-up and turned it into the real thing." Veteran JFK investigator Dick
Russell, in The Man Who Knew Too Much, has also pondered the possibility that the CIA's
relationship with Oswald was "usurped by another group," and noted: "Many people in the CIA
had reasons to cover up their own relationship to Oswald, even if this had nothing to do with
an assassination conspiracy. [ ] what cannot be overlooked is that a third force was aware of
the counterspy web [surrounding Oswald] and seized on it to their own advantage."
Whether or not the CIA was implicated in a fake assassination attempt on Kennedy is, after
all, secondary -- for a person's or an organization's vulnerability to blackmail is
proportional to the number of illegal activities he or it wants to keep secret, and no
organization has more dirty secrets to hide than the CIA. By its privileged access to the
media, the Zionist network had plenty of means of keeping the agency on the defensive.
The reason why President Kennedy was killed by Israel requires a quick digression
about how nuclear weapons were made in the 1960's.
1-What are nuclear weapons made of:
A nuclear reactor is built to burn a natural radioactive fuel (uranium), a process that takes
months. Then, nuclear reprocessing is carried on the spent nuclear fuel to separate
un-burnt uranium and plutonium from other fission products. Finally, plutonium can be used to
make nuclear weapons.
So, the energization of a reactor, then of a reprocessing facility, are two critical
milestones for the manufacturing of nuclear weapons.
Finally, to verify its real purposes, civil or military, a reactor must be inspected
before going critical, as afterwards certain parts become inaccessible.
2-A brief timeline of the run-up to the JFK assassination:
– From January to March 1963, JFK receives alarming US intelligence reports that,
contrary to promises made, the Israelis were building military nuclear capacities.
– From March to June 1963, heated exchange of communication between JFK and
Ben-Gurion with JFK putting pressure for a bi-annual inspection of Israeli nuclear facilities
by the US. Ben-Gurion uses on-going ME events (creation of a "threatening Arab Federation")
as a pretext to dodge JFK's demands.
– On 15 June 63, JFK issues a blunt ultimatum letter to Ben-Gurion, requiring US
Dimona inspection starting from the summer of 1963 and stating that " commitment to
and support of Israel could be seriously jeopardised " if refused.
– On 16 June 63, Ben-Gurion stuns Israel and the world by suddenly and
unexpectedly resigning for " personal reasons ".
– On 4 July 63, only 10 days after his appointment, new Israeli PM Eshkol receives a
JFK letter on the same intransigent terms as used with Ben-Gurion.
– Eshkol tries to gain time and makes unsatisfactory proposals of one-yearly visit,
which is not sufficient to verify the reactor's real purposes .
– On 19 August, Eshkol comes up with a vague response agreeing to a first visit
at the end of 1963.
3-What happened after the JFK assassination:
– On 18 January 1964, the US Atomic Energy Agency representatives visit Dimona for the
first time since the fall 1962.
– The US delegations finds that, according to their hosts, a key milestone was
crossed a few weeks earlier with the Dimona reactor (allegedly) going live on 26 Dec
1963 .
– The Israeli Atomic Energy commission, however, celebrates as July 1963 the date
the Dimona reactor went live.
– The US delegation mildly notes " the impression of the team that the Dimona
site and the equipment located there represented an ambitious project for a country of
Israel's capabilities ". And adds: " The Israelis are building [ ] facilities well
beyond those needed for normal research reactor".
– The US delegation simply accepted the Israeli claim that "the reprocessing
facility had been delayed" i.e. simply take their word they allegedly cannot extract
plutonium for weapons yet.
4-Conclusion:
– At the time (15 Jun 1963) JFK demanded the Dimona reactor to undergo US inspection,
this reactor was actually only a few days from going live. Should it have been inspected
before as planned by JFK in the summer 63, it would have become immediately obvious from its
viewable features that it was intended for military purposes.
An urgent diversion was required from the imminent inspection peril: Ben-Gurion resigned
to give time to the Isrealis, who went ahead and secretly energised the Dimona
reactor.
– JFK did not let go and Eshkol had to agree to a postponed Dec 63 inspection. But
this was just delaying the reckoning. Should this inspection have happened under JFK's watch,
Kennedy would have immediately found out that the reactor was already live, and that he had
been fooled by the Israelis for obvious reasons.
– So, in summary, the Israeli government needed JFK gone or dead before December
1963 and the planned inspection of the Dimona reactor, to hide its military nature and
already progressed operation.
– How incredibly convenient and indeed, miraculous, that he got killed ((( by a lone
gunman))) just one month before this dreaded deadline that would have brought American
hellfire on the Zionist state.. A miracle delivered straight from Yahweh's rifle, again
God bless heroic JFK's eternal soul, who died so we don't have to live in the dystopian
hell we are in today.
December 8, 2020 at 2:45
pm GMT • 2.1 hours ago 100 Words ↑ @Laurent Guyénot
former detective sergeant for the Los Angeles Police Department. (Incidentally, Wean claims
that Cohen, who specialized in sexually compromising Hollywood stars for the purpose of
blackmail, was responsible for pushing Marilyn Monroe into Kennedy's bed.)
@Laurent
Guyénot CIA was involved in the fake assassination, it was compromised. Perhaps a
tactic of the Mossad is to compromise agencies such as the CIA that could thwart and/or
expose Mossad machinations.
December 8, 2020 at 3:10
pm GMT • 1.7 hours ago 200 Words ↑ @Iris ad swindled bigger
mobsters than himself and they made him an offer he could not refuse – to shoot Oswald
– and he told the rabbi a comforting lie. We just do not know.
"... I don't disagree with the idea that Trump should go (he is clearly incompetent for this position), but to think that Biden (personally also completely incompetent due to his health condition, and even before that; can you imagine this second rate politician summit with Macron, Merkel, or Putin even if we ignore his current health problems ), in some ways, will be an improvement is pretty optimistic. ..."
"... Biden administration will be especially dangerous in foreign policy where Russiagaters mafia clearly returned to power, (and chickenhawks like Nuland are in demand again; as well several other flavors of "national security parasites".) ..."
"... Both are puppets of approximately the same social force -- the union on neoliberal oligarchy and MIC (aka Uniparty.) Biden mafia simply will be slightly more polished, and less "in your face." But both are brutal gangsters, both domestically and on foreign arena. And that's pretty depressing. And one great service of Trump administration was that it exposed what is behind the fake facade. Biden will try to rebuild this fake facade, this Potemkin village again. that's all the difference. ..."
When left becomes right, progressive become regressive, and fascist becomes anti-fascist,
then we have to invent whole new vocabularies just to discuss the problems that humanity is
facing. What is worse though is that upending the language of political society in this
manner makes the amassed knowledge from the past less accessible to the present. I suppose
that is the point though.
This is pretty interesting thought, thank you very much. Kind of Orwellian ""War
is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength," on a new, more sinister level as in
"this manner makes the amassed knowledge from the past less accessible to the present."
But is reality Henry Ford quote "Any customer can have a car painted any color that he
wants so long as it is black." is perfectly applicable to any US elections and political life
in general.
Some commentators here for some reason think that Biden (yes, this semi-senile Biden, a
marionette from the very beginning; senator from credit card companies; the worst enemy of
working class in Congress ) is somehow preferable to Trump (yes, this Trump, a marionette of
Zionists, the President who completely betrayed his electorate, best friend of billionaires
and Pentagon; kind of Bush III replicating both intellectual level of Bush II and his
policies, including a tax cut for the rich).
I don't disagree with the idea that Trump should go (he is clearly incompetent for
this position), but to think that Biden (personally also completely incompetent due to his
health condition, and even before that; can you imagine this second rate politician summit
with Macron, Merkel, or Putin even if we ignore his current health problems ), in some ways,
will be an improvement is pretty optimistic.
Biden administration will be especially dangerous in foreign policy where Russiagaters
mafia clearly returned to power, (and chickenhawks like Nuland are in demand again; as well
several other flavors of "national security parasites".)
Both are puppets of approximately the same social force -- the union on neoliberal
oligarchy and MIC (aka Uniparty.) Biden mafia simply will be slightly more polished, and less
"in your face." But both are brutal gangsters, both domestically and on foreign arena. And
that's pretty depressing. And one great service of Trump administration was that it exposed
what is behind the fake facade. Biden will try to rebuild this fake facade, this Potemkin
village again. that's all the difference.
"When left becomes right, progressive become regressive, and fascist becomes
anti-fascist, then we have to invent whole new vocabularies just to discuss the problems that
humanity is facing. What is worse though is that upending the language of political society
in this manner makes the amassed knowledge from the past less accessible to the present. I
suppose that is the point though."
Yes, that's what the gaslighing is all about, but the problem - as our self-designated
betters are finding out now - is that you cannot run a sucessful competitive modern society
that way, banana republics do not get to rule the world.
Even ... Henry Ford understood he had to take good care of his employees.
Biden is going to have his hands full without looking for any more trouble.
P resident-elect Joe Biden's pick to run the Office of Management and Budget has a history
of defending British ex-spy Christopher Steele's
discredited anti-Trump dossier.
Years of controversial claims about the Trump-Russia controversy, particularly about the
dossier funded in part by Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign, presents one of several obstacles
for Neera Tanden, a longtime Democratic operative, to achieve Senate confirmation next
year.
A significant question that remains is how the two Senate runoff races in Georgia shake out
in January, with control of the upper chamber hanging in the balance. Tanden is sure to meet
stiff opposition from Republicans, who will be led by Sen. Mitch McConnell, whom Tanden
derisively tweeted in August 2019,
"Stacey Abrams just called McConnell 'Moscow Mitch.' Love it."
In selecting Tanden on
Monday, Biden described the president
of the left-wing Center for American Progress as "a leading architect and advocate of policies
designed to support working families." Tanden worked on Bill Clinton's successful run in 1992
and Barack Obama's successful presidential run in 2008. She was also an adviser on Hillary
Clinton's successful Democratic primary effort in 2016 and the failed general election run that
November.
Not mentioned in her Biden transition team biography was the role Tanden played in promoting
unsubstantiated claims throughout the Trump-Russia controversy.
Tanden launched the
"Moscow Project" in 2017, and after Buzzfeed published Steele's dossier in January 2017,
Tanden's think tank released a
statement saying, "The intelligence dossier presents profoundly disturbing allegations;
ones that should shake every American to the core." Tanden went on to defend the Steele dossier
repeatedly on Twitter, attacking those who critiqued the FBI for relying on its claims to
obtain Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act authority against former Trump campaign associate
Carter Page and implying that critics of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation were doing
Russia's bidding.
"Make Chris Steele the next James Bond," Tanden tweeted in January
2017.
In a tweet about Rep. Devin Nunes's FISA memo in February 2018, which criticized the FBI's
surveillance of Page and its use of the dossier, the Washington Examiner's Byron York
noted that "no FISA warrant would have been sought from the FISA Court without the Steele
dossier information." Tanden responded by saying, "Even
if this is true, hasn't the dossier been mostly proven to be true? It's amazing how comfortable
the likes of Byron York are happy to run interference for Russians intervening in our
elections." Tanden followed up with another tweet claiming that the
"dossier has been mostly established as right."
Tanden's "Moscow Project" also
released a flawed critique of the Republican FISA memo, with Tanden defending the FBI's
surveillance. In addition, Tanden tweeted in April 2018 that
the dossier was "started with funding by a GOP megadonor."
Although the conservative Free Beacon had hired the
opposition research firm Fusion GPS, it said in October 2017 that it "had no knowledge of or
connection to the Steele dossier." It later emerged that Steele was not commissioned by Fusion
GPS (and did not begin compiling his dossier) until Clinton campaign lawyer
Marc Elias hired Fusion.
"What parts of the dossier have been disproven?" Tanden tweeted in January 2019.
"I will wait."
DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz's December 2019 report and subsequent
declassifications undermined Steele's claims in the dossier. Horowitz said the Trump-Russia
investigation concealed exculpatory information from the FISA court, and he
criticized the Justice Department and FBI for at least 17 "significant errors and
omissions"
related to the FISA warrants against Page and for the bureau's reliance on Steele.
Declassified footnotes show the FBI knew Steele's dossier may have been compromised by
Russian disinformation . Horowitz said FBI interviews with Steele's main source, U.S.-based
and Russian-trained lawyer Igor Danchenko, "raised significant questions about the reliability
of the Steele election reporting."
FBI Director Christopher Wray called the FISA findings "utterly unacceptable" this
year and concurred with the DOJ's conclusions that at least two of the four FISA warrants
against Page amounted to illegal surveillance.
Nearly all the FISA signatories -- Deputy Attorney General
Sally Yates , Deputy Attorney General
Rod Rosenstein , fired FBI Director
James Comey , and fired FBI Deputy Director
Andrew McCabe -- indicated under oath they wouldn't have signed off on the surveillance if
they knew then what they know now, and a declassified FBI spreadsheet showed the
lack of corroboration for Steele's claims.
Other Russia-related claims Tanden has made could present sticking points during her
confirmation process.
She tweeted on Oct. 31, 2016,
that President Trump was a Russian "puppet" in part because there was a "Trump server connected
to Russian bank" and tweeted again in December
2016 that Trump may have gotten "talking points from the server at Trump Tower connected to
Russia."
The
claim that a Russian Alfa Bank server was secretly communicating with a server at Trump
Tower, also pushed by Steele, emerged in 2016, but Horowitz noted the FBI "concluded by early
February 2017 that there were no such links," and the Senate Intelligence Committee's August
report
did not find "covert communications between Alfa Bank and Trump Organization personnel." Jake
Sullivan, Biden's pick for national security adviser, also pushed the refuted Alfa
Bank claim in 2016.
The week after Trump's victory, following reports that Russian cyberactors had targeted a
number of state election systems, Tanden mused, "Why would hackers hack in unless they could
change results?" The next day, she pushed back against
criticism she received, tweeting, "Funny, I don't remember saying Russian hackers stole
Hillary's victory." There is
no evidence that Russian hackers changed any votes in 2016.
"Mueller found Russian interference in the election. He also found Trump coordinated with
Russia. These are facts," Tanden tweeted in October.
Although Mueller's investigation concluded in 2019 that the Russian government
interfered in a "sweeping and systematic fashion," the report "did not establish that
members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its
election interference activities."
After the report's release, Tanden tweeted that
"Mueller has failed the country" and "Adam Schiff > Robert Mueller." Earlier this year,
Schiff released dozens of House Intelligence Committee witness interviews that showed Obama's
top national security officials
testified they hadn't seen direct evidence of Trump-Russia collusion.
I for one am getting really excited by the staff that Honest Joe Biden is pulling together
for the White House. When I first heard the name Tony Blinken during the Obama kleptocracy I
assumed that he was one of those Ivy League lawyer types that proliferate in Washington, likely
affiliated with the firm of Winken, Blinken and Nod, which we all know to be in partnership
with Dewey, Cheatem and Howe. But I was wrong. He actually was affiliated to a much bigger
fraternity, which one might call Zionists in government. You know, those nice well educated,
always polite Jewish boys and sometimes girls who have self-designated as foreign policy
experts and who work their way up through the various levels of power that might lead to the
most coveted positions at the top in the state department and national security apparatus.
Blinken was one such striver, and I began to feel the pricking in my thumbs that was telling me
that something evil this way was coming when he was mentioned now and again as a former close
adviser to the already beatified Barack Obama. And some in the media had observed with approval
that he had more recently been briefing Joe Biden, particularly about Israel and the Middle
East.
In an interview in
the Times of Israel Blinken confirmed Biden's position on possibly reducing aid to
Israel if the Jewish state were to do things that damaged U.S. interests. Blinken " reiterated
Biden's position that he would not condition aid to Israel. He [Biden] is resolutely opposed to
it. He would not tie military assistance to Israel to any political decisions it makes, full
stop."
The question of withholding aid is itself moot as Israel does nothing but "do things" that
damage U.S. interests, knowing that no president or the Congress would dare to turn off the
money tap, but it is an interesting unambiguous admission from Blinken that both he and Joe
Biden put Israeli interests ahead of those of the United States.
Blinken's personal view of unfettered support for Israel allegedly derives from his
stepfather having claimed to be a survivor of the so-called holocaust, a tale that
he invoked several times during his acceptance speech on November 24 th . The
Times interview
concludes with Blinken asserting that "One of the things that's really shaped the vice
president's career-long support for Israel and its security is the lesson of the Holocaust. He
believes strongly that a secure Jewish homeland in Israel is the single best guarantee to
ensure that never again will the Jewish people be threatened with destruction."
The indefatigable Israel-firster Tony Blinken has also served
as a "conduit" to those in government for Israel advocacy groups like the American Israel
Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). And now that we have Tony Blinken as Secretary of State
Designate the door will soon be wide open to the Israel Lobby.
If you need to know more about what Tony Blinken is all about you only have to look at his
friends and his track record. Israel was inevitably quick off the mark in saluting the
appointment, both in its media and through its mouthpieces in the United States. Stalwart
Canadian Zionist Mark Dubowitz, who heads the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD),
tweeted
that Blinken would be part of a " superb national security team. The country will be very
fortunate to have them in public service."
The signal from FDD is particularly important as the organization is directed by the Israeli
Embassy in Washington. FDD is the leading neoconservative bastion seeking a war with Iran,
Israel's bête noir . Its Leadership Council has featured former CIA Director James
Woolsey, Senator Joe Lieberman, and Bill Kristol. Its advisors and experts are mostly Jewish
and most of its funding comes from Jewish oligarchs.
A recent
expose by al-Jazeera exposed how FDD and other Lobby groups work directly with the Israeli
government, collecting information on U.S. citizens, spying on legal organizations, and both
planning and executing disinformation at Israeli direction, making it an Israeli agent by the
definition of the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938 (FARA). Unfortunately, the Department
of Justice has never sought to compel FDD to register under FARA. In fact, the U.S. government
has never compelled any part of the vast and powerful Israel Lobby to register.
Tony, inevitably a Harvard graduate plus a JD from Columbia who has never served in the U.S.
military, is inevitably a chicken-hawk because that is what America's Zionists and their
political neocon wing are made of. It is a phenomenon that has often been noted. In 2017,
Israel's Deputy Prime Minister Tzipi Hotovely
called out American Jews as "people that never send their children to fight for their
country, most of the Jews don't have children serving as soldiers, going to the Marines, going
to Afghanistan, or to Iraq. Most of them are having quite convenient lives " Of 1,300,000
active duty personnel in the U.S. armed forces, only 4,515 are Jewish.
This is how it works: instead of actually fighting in the wars you are promoting, you have
your tax-exempt "educational foundations" pour tons of money into a project to go to war and
corrupt the politicians to issue the necessary orders so unemployed kids from Arkansas and
North Dakota can go off and die for Israel. You yourself remain safe at home, free to deliver
bellicose speeches about how Iran threatens the world through its "meddling" in the Middle
East. And, of course, about how the dumbass Palestinians have failed to accept the hand of
Israel offered in peace.
That is what Tony's record demonstrates. Blinken has come a long way with Biden, all the way
back to the Clinton Administration. And he
he has always been there for the Jewish state. During the Obama Administration when
relations with Israel were often strained, Blinken was the contact point for "Jewish leaders
[differentiating] him from others in the White House at the time who weren't as sympathetic to
Israel's position." Dennis Ross, often described as Israel's lawyer, praises him for having "
an instinctive emotional attachment to Israel," referring to Blinken's frequently cited Jewish
and refugee roots.
Other media reporting
indicates that "Blinken was a top aide to Biden when the then-Senator voted
to authorize the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and Blinken helped Biden develop a
proposal to partition
Iraq into three separate regions based on ethnic and sectarian
identity. As deputy national security adviser, Blinken supported
the disastrous military intervention in Libya in 2011, and in
2018 he helped launch WestExec Advisors, a 'strategic
advisory firm' that is secretive about its clients, along with other
Obama administration alumni like Michèle Flournoy. Jonathan
Guyer writes
in The American Prospect , 'I learned that Blinken and Flournoy used
their networks to build a large client base at the intersection of tech and
defense. An Israeli surveillance startup turned to them. So did a major U.S.
defense company."
Beyond the intersection of government policy and personal profit exhibited by Blinken, the
Washington Post in 2013 described Blinken as "[o]ne of the government's key players in
drafting Syria policy" and he recalled that "This is a little bit personal to me, and any of us
-- and I start with myself -- who had any responsibility for our Syria policy in the last
administration has to acknowledge that we failed. Not for want of trying, but we failed." What
Tony failed at was overthrowing Syria's legitimate government and turning the country over to
the terrorist linked groups that he and Hillary and Obama were supporting.
The Democrats are particularly good at coming up with secretaries of state that one would
like to forget, and that is saying quite a lot given the recent appointees by the Republicans.
One recalls immediately the big-hearted Madeleine Albright, who found the killing of 500,000
Iraqi children by sanctions "worth it," or Hillary Clinton, who laughed out loud as she
recalled the death of Libya ruler Muammar Ghaddafi by having a bayonet inserted up his anus.
Clinton, who more than anyone launched the war against Africa's most developed nation,
paraphrased Julius Caesar, who, upon returning from a rapid victory in Asia during the Rome's
Second Civil war, described the event as "Veni, vidi, vici," in English "I came, I saw, I
conquered." For the laughing Hillary it was "I came, I saw, he died!" The anarchy in Libya
persists to this day and it included the payback killing of four U.S. Embassy employees in
Benghazi in 2012, with Hillary and Susan Rice at the helm. It is generally believed that both
Clinton and Rice might well have senior positions in the incoming Biden Administration.
But back to Blinken. Israel loved the way the Trump Administration showered favors upon it,
nearly always without any quid pro quo . But for all his Dispensationalist fervor,
salesmen like Secretary of State Mike Pompeo were little more than goys who had been seduced by
the myth of Israel. They were, as Lenin would have described it, little more than "useful
idiots," which is allegedly an expression that certain Israeli politicians have used to
describe their passionate Christian Zionist supporters in the U.S. Now, with Blinken, the
Israeli hard liners will have the "real thing," a convincing Jewish boy who fatuously
describes an apartheid Israel as "the anchor and foundation for democracy in the region."
Tony believes in the Zionist cause and will do the Jewish state's bidding with a malleable Joe
Biden. And if Joe should go, there is always Kamala Harris, who is married to a Jewish lawyer
lobbyist. Win-win either way.
Even though it's early days, Blinken joins a number of other American Jews already tagged
for senior positions, including Alejandro Mayorkas, the nominee for Secretary of Homeland
Security who is a Latino Jew. Ron Klain, Biden's Chief of Staff and Janet Yellen, his pick for
Treasury Secretary, are also Jewish. The liberal Israeli newspaper Haaretz
reports how "Having Jewish men and women in prominent government positions is so standard
that it's barely even a talking point " before observing that "The fact that some of
President-elect Joe Biden's top cabinet picks are Jewish should be a source of pride for the
community 'These people are being chosen because they're incredibly competent, because they're
incredibly talented, because they're incredibly experienced,' Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan
Greenblatt told Haaretz in a phone interview." Indeed, if one believes Greenblatt
pressure from the Israel Lobby, the media and billionaire donors as well as networking by the
Jewish mafia inside the government itself have nothing to do with it.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest,
a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a
more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is https://councilforthenationalinterest.org,
address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is[email protected] .
Only good thing that could come out of this development, should the Harris-Biden selectees
actually come into power is that this massive infusion of rabid Zionists into high levels in
the Demo administration is so blatant that the awakeners will increase in numbers and in
determination.
17/ (watching for the "ear-reddening move") Quote Tweet Techno Fog @Techno_Fog · Nov
25 Weissmann protests b/c the Flynn case implicates the corrupt Special Counsel. They didn't
prosecute Flynn b/c they thought he was guilty (FBI agents didn't think Flynn lied).
Team Mueller went after Flynn so they could build an obstruction case against Trump. Corrupt
motive. twitter.com/AWeissmann_/st
Trump did pull out of the TPP trade agreement, stopped the caravans from the south, and
pushed back on climate change (which is an effort to triple energy prices for consumers). He
did not start new wars but did not pull out of any. Its difficult to tell if he's a con man
or just unable to lead, like appointing the worst deep staters to key positions who stabbed
him in the back. But he did do everything Israel ordered, except attack Syria and Iran. So
far as fighting the deep state, he wouldn't even declassify JFK stuff. From my blog:
Apr 30, 2018 – The Deep State Wins!
G2mil is right again! First, a repost for background:
Dec 18, 2017 – Another JFK Coup Fact Revealed
Congress created the five-member Assassination Records Review Board in 1992 as part of a
law requiring the release of all Kennedy assassination documents within 25 years. The law
authorized the president in office in 2017 to block releases if he deems it would harm US
intelligence, law enforcement, military, or diplomatic interests. President Trump had no
plans to block anything and the Deep State threw a fit and refused to obey the law. To avoid
a confrontation, Trump allowed a few more months to "review" most files. Just under a third
of the materials were released on December 15th, an estimated 85,000 pages worth, which had
long been categorized as irrelevant to the JFK assassination.
Among these "irrelevant" documents is a July 1978 memo to an attorney on the staff of the
House Select Committee on Assassinations. It stated that the FBI was unable to locate the
original fingerprints lifted from the rifle found at the sixth floor of the Texas School Book
Depository. Dallas Police turned those over a few days after the assassination and never got
them back. Top FBI officials told House investigators that finding the prints would be a
"mammoth research effort" and refused. So either the FBI bungled its most important case by
losing key evidence or someone intentionally destroyed that evidence because the fingerprints
on the rifle didn't match Oswald's.
Last October, President Donald Trump gave agencies six more months to finish this 25+ year
review of material that might damage national security. Upcoming deadlines:
March 12: FBI, CIA and other agencies must report to the archives any material they want
withheld
March 26: National Archives makes its recommendations to the president on what material
warrants further withholding
April 26: The president's deadline for release of all remaining records.
The best stuff will never be released because the truth about the JFK coup will never be
revealed, unless Trump sends General Kelly and US Marines to these federal offices to rough
up some people.
As the deadline approached last week, the major media mostly ignored this news:
"Trump announced on Thursday that the public must wait another three years or more before
seeing material that must remain classified for national security reasons -- more than five
decades after Kennedy was killed Nov. 22, 1963 in Dallas, Texas. The National Archives
released its last batch of more than 19,000 records on Thursday. But an undisclosed amount of
material remains under wraps because Trump said the potential harm to U.S. national security,
law enforcement or foreign affairs is "of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest
in immediate disclosure."
Seemingly, for publicly threatening dismemberment of both the US intelligence apparatus
and the banking cartel. Neither of those entities are going to have that!
Trump did pull out of the TPP trade agreement, stopped the caravans from the south, and
pushed back on climate change (which is an effort to triple energy prices for consumers). He
did not start new wars but did not pull out of any. Its difficult to tell if he's a con man
or just unable to lead, like appointing the worst deep staters to key positions who stabbed
him in the back. But he did do everything Israel ordered, except attack Syria and Iran. So
far as fighting the deep state, he wouldn't even declassify JFK stuff. From my blog:
Apr 30, 2018 – The Deep State Wins!
G2mil is right again! First, a repost for background:
Dec 18, 2017 – Another JFK Coup Fact Revealed
Congress created the five-member Assassination Records Review Board in 1992 as part of a
law requiring the release of all Kennedy assassination documents within 25 years. The law
authorized the president in office in 2017 to block releases if he deems it would harm US
intelligence, law enforcement, military, or diplomatic interests. President Trump had no
plans to block anything and the Deep State threw a fit and refused to obey the law. To avoid
a confrontation, Trump allowed a few more months to "review" most files. Just under a third
of the materials were released on December 15th, an estimated 85,000 pages worth, which had
long been categorized as irrelevant to the JFK assassination.
Among these "irrelevant" documents is a July 1978 memo to an attorney on the staff of the
House Select Committee on Assassinations. It stated that the FBI was unable to locate the
original fingerprints lifted from the rifle found at the sixth floor of the Texas School Book
Depository. Dallas Police turned those over a few days after the assassination and never got
them back. Top FBI officials told House investigators that finding the prints would be a
"mammoth research effort" and refused. So either the FBI bungled its most important case by
losing key evidence or someone intentionally destroyed that evidence because the fingerprints
on the rifle didn't match Oswald's.
Last October, President Donald Trump gave agencies six more months to finish this 25+ year
review of material that might damage national security. Upcoming deadlines:
March 12: FBI, CIA and other agencies must report to the archives any material they want
withheld
March 26: National Archives makes its recommendations to the president on what material
warrants further withholding
April 26: The president's deadline for release of all remaining records.
The best stuff will never be released because the truth about the JFK coup will never be
revealed, unless Trump sends General Kelly and US Marines to these federal offices to rough
up some people.
As the deadline approached last week, the major media mostly ignored this news:
"Trump announced on Thursday that the public must wait another three years or more before
seeing material that must remain classified for national security reasons -- more than five
decades after Kennedy was killed Nov. 22, 1963 in Dallas, Texas. The National Archives
released its last batch of more than 19,000 records on Thursday. But an undisclosed amount of
material remains under wraps because Trump said the potential harm to U.S. national security,
law enforcement or foreign affairs is "of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest
in immediate disclosure."
The historic Trump presidency emasculated globalism Pat Buchanan notes how the elite
Bush-type Republicans have been silenced Patrick J. Buchanan By Patrick J. Buchanan Published
November 26, 2020 at 6:39pm Share on Facebook Tweet P Share Email Print In the first two
decades of the century, President-elect Joe Biden's choice for secretary of state supported
U.S. wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen. He was an ever-reliable liberal
interventionist.
This same Antony Blinken could spend the first years of a Biden presidency helping extricate
our country from the misbegotten wars he championed. What establishment Democrats like Biden
and Blinken helped to do in previous administrations, they will likely now have to undo.
Who effected this sea change in national thinking?
Donald Trump. Much that was said and believed before he came down the escalator in 2015 is
no longer said or believed by the majority of Americans.
And no institution has been more altered than the Republican Party.
How I beat election fraud in America's most corrupt state TRENDING: Employees melt down
after learning company is publishing prominent conservative Jordan Peterson's book: Report
George H.W. Bush's vision of a "New World Order," launched at the after-party of his Gulf
War victory, died with his presidency.
George W. Bush's crusade for global democracy to "end tyranny in our world" has been
forgotten. Bush Republicans no longer speak for the party on foreign policy, trade or
immigration.
NATO will never be the same again after Trump rudely demanded that freeloading nations pay
their fair share of the collective defense or the Americans would pack up and come home from
Europe.
Former Defense Secretary Gen. James Mattis may call for the ash-canning of the phrase
"America First." He will fail. For, as both national motto and national policy, the slogan has
put down roots in American soil because it comports with the will of the silent majority.
Whatever the establishment believes, in the clash between nationalism and globalism,
globalism has lost America.
Moreover, the world is going this way.
Does not Xi Jinping put his own country first as he claims for China all the waters and
islands for hundreds of miles into the East and South China seas? Does not Vladimir Putin put
his own country first as he seeks to bring back under Moscow's wing the former republics of the
Russian federation?
Does not President Erdogan put Turkey first as he sends arms and troops to pursue his
country's interests in Libya, Syria, Cyprus, the South Caucasus and the Eastern Mediterranean
in clashes with Greece?
What does Bibi Netanyahu put first, if not his own country, Israel?
If country and nation are not first in the hearts and minds of Americans, what should
replace them? Some nonexistent New World Order? The U.N.? NATO? A multilateral caucus of global
institutions?
Under Trump, economic nationalism has displaced free trade globalism as the trade policy of
the party and government.
The GOP elite that backed Bill Clinton on NAFTA, supported a new transnational World Trade
Organization, invited China to join the club and accorded Beijing most-favored-nation trade
status is now silent.
Tariffs to force open foreign markets and punish predator-traders who take advantage of
American workers have replaced the free trade fundamentalism that had been dogma since Dwight
Eisenhower's days.
Nor is the Republican Party likely to return to free trade, as long as "China First" is the
undeclared policy pursued by the nation that has now displaced us as the world's leading
manufacturing power.
The George Bush-John McCain Republican Party was for amnesty for illegals and open borders
for new migrants. Today's GOP supports the deportation of illegals and the 30-foot Trump Wall
on the Mexican border.
President Trump gave to Israel all she could wish for; he hoped that in return, the Jews
would give him America to rule another term. A simple give-and-take, but it didn't work out as
intended. If he were to run for the presidency of Israel, he would have it. If Brooklyn were to
decide who'd inhabit the White House, he would be the Chosen one. But Trump's plan to bribe US
Jews by bearing gifts to Israel failed completely.
East Europeans define the difference between Jews and Hungarians (or Poles) as follows. All
of these would sell their grandmother for a fistful of coins; but only a Jew would deliver.
This non-delivery of America will be remembered by future US presidents. Perhaps we witness a
defining moment for the downturn in American support of Israel, in direct contradiction to the
main thesis of our colleague Philip Giraldi who said this week that "Israel's Power Is
Unlimited". Why did it happen? The US Jews didn't take the bait. And now for details.
"Zionist" is a euphemism for "Jew", isn't it? Up to a point. Zionists, that is Jews (and
others) who care and work for Israel, are strongly supportive of the US President, but Jews
that matter, that is elite liberal progressive US Jews, won't support Trump even if he were to
pave Tel Aviv with golden bricks. Three out of
four US Jews voted for Joe Biden , about the same proportion of Jews who voted for Barack
Obama, though Obama was quite critical towards Israel, while Trump did all the Israelis could
wish for.
The Jews that cared more about Israel voted for Trump, but they are powerless. They have
money, they have good positions in society, but they aren't top dogs. The Orthodox Jews are for
Trump; not so much for the sake of Israel but rather for his conservative agenda. They do not
like gay parades, do not care for transgenderism, and for them, Black Lives do not matter much.
Social justice is not their credo.They have little influence outside their own milieu. They
voted 77 to 23 for Trump. Right-wing Jews are strongly Zionist and support Trump. Their
publication FrontPage Magazine is all out for Trump. But they would be for Trump even if he
hadn't left Iran agreement.
Polls of Jewish voters show that they do not care much about the steps taken by Trump in
order to please Israel. They are worried about Covid pandemics, about medical care, while
economics occupies fifth place in their concerns, and Israeli-related acts are at the very
bottom. The only place where one can notice some positive change is Florida, where
Jews actually shifted in noticeable numbers to Republicans. But even there it seems to be a
part of a
Latino shift rather than a separate phenomenon.
Elite Jews voted for Biden and for Dems as advised by the NY Times. For them, Trump's
friendship with PM Netanyahu was a drawback rather than an advantage. If they care for Israel,
they would prefer a quieter approach as usual, within the Two States paradigm. None of what
Trump did for Israel found a response in their hearts.
According to the AJC (American Jewish Committee) Biden bested Trump on every issue including
handling the coronavirus pandemic, 78%-19%; combatting terrorism, 71%-26%; dealing with Iran,
71%-27%; handling crime, 72%-24%, and strengthening U.S.-Israel relations, 54%-42%. (The
Republican Jewish Coalition has slightly better numbers, as they polled older Jews.) Trump has
expressed frustration that his Israel decisions have not garnered greater support in the Jewish
community, and many activists have spoken of "treason".
If Trump had known in advance that courting Jews would bring neither votes nor political
profit, probably he would have wasted less time in the Zionist cul-de-sac. Jews are connected
with the Dem Party, remember! All Jewish congressmen but two are Democrats; strongly pro-Israel
Senator Chuck Schumer, the Dem leader in the Senate, is as hostile to Trump as any man. Only
those Jews really matter; only those Jews have their unique access to media, movies, art,
politics, and universities. Perhaps they would act differently if Israel were in danger; but
thanks to the generous politics of Donald Trump they didn't need to worry about Israel.
(Preceding American presidents were aware of this catch, and were careful not to give too much
to Israel. This was also the view of Dr Kissinger).
Israeli Jews are much more pro-Trump than their American cousins. If Israel were a US state,
it would be deep red. They feel gratitude to the man who moved the US Embassy to Jerusalem and
recognised Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. They appreciate his drive for normalisation with
the Arab states; his non-interference in the Palestinian issue; his recognition of the Golan
Heights. Being more conservative, they are on the same page as Trump on many issues. However,
even before Trump, the majority of Israeli Likud-voters are and have been for the Republicans
for many years. They did not like Obama and Clinton, and they do not care for Biden. A
prominent high tech Israeli personality prophesied that Biden would bring disaster for
Israel.
However, in Israel, too, there is a sharp division between elites and Deplorable masses. The
Deplorables support Netanyahu and Trump, vote domestically for Likud or religious parties. The
Deplorables rule Israel for over twenty years; Netanyahu is the Israeli Trump who succeeded to
keep power.
The Israeli elites support Biden. For them Trump is a mirror image of their own PM
Netanyahu, the man they hate with gusto. The problem with Israeli elites is that they have lost
their ability to govern. Their parties disintegrate; their causes are lost. If there is a
common cause for Israeli elites it is rejection of PM Netanyahu mirroring the NeverTrump
spirit of American elites, and their belief that they are elites and destined to govern.
They want to get rid of Netanyahu, like the US elites wanted to get rid of Trump. This
desire caused three rounds of national elections in the last year, but despite trying hard,
they could not vote him out. Now they hope he will be removed by the Supreme Court, and by
massive demonstrations near the PM's residence. They say he is corrupt, that he takes bribes,
that he didn't save Israel from Coronavirus – just like the Dems had tried to impeach
Trump for ridiculous reasons. They want Netanyahu to die in jail, just like the Dems hope to
see Trump rotting in Guantanamo. (There are hundreds of women ready to swear Trump almost-raped
them fifty years ago when they were underage.)
The case against Netanyahu is feeble at best. He received a pack of cigars and a box of
champagne from an American film producer; he promised to help a newspaper publisher if he would
stop attacking him. A murky case connects him to a German submarine sale, but it is too opaque
even for Netanyahu haters.The PM had been indicted by the state attorney, but by Israeli law,
he does not have to resign unless found guilty. Israel is experiencing huge and violent demos
against Netanyahu almost daily. But the deplorables still support their Bibi, and vote for him.
As opposed to Trump, Netanyahu has a newspaper, and it makes a lot of difference.
It would be nice if there were some positive differences between the Israeli Left and Right
on important issues. No such luck. There is practically no difference between Likud and the
liberal parties regarding the really important Palestinian question. The Left-wing and
Right-wing Jews are on the same page: they do not want to grant equality to non-Jews. They
treat Palestinians much worse than the Blacks were treated in Alabama a hundred years ago. They
aren't even interested in Palestinians.
The Israeli liberal left is interested in Lesbians and Gays; the main point of the election
campaign of the once-radical-left Meretz (I was their spokesman 40 years ago) was gay adoption
and access to surrogate mothers. And that in a society where workers earn less and less every
year, while houses cost more and more; where regular employment is a dream for workers; where
trade unions collapsed, and instead of employment, workers are offered a contract with
unlimited working hours, no holidays and no security at all. All in a country where
Palestinians are not allowed even to bathe in the sea a few miles from their besieged
villages.
Another topic of the liberal elite is their fight against religion.They are equal haters,
hating religious Jews as well as Christians and Muslims. The outbreak of Covid provided them
with a new reason to hate the believing Jews: they go to synagogues instead of staying at home
or going to demos against Netanyahu. I do not know any redeeming feature of this group, but
they are quite similar to liberal elites elsewhere.
In France, too, the ruling elite hates Islam and promotes Charlie Hebdo; but they hate
Christianity, too. The first thing Macron did in the present lockdown was to ban the Mass. And
his support groups, the elite liberals, were mighty pleased. In this video , you can see young
liberals asking police to disperse Catholics praying outside of Church. The same happens in
Israel, and in New York, where police have interfered with praying Jews.
The main difference between the populists of Netanyahu and the elitists is in their attitude
to ordinary people. The populists exude empathy while elitists just deplore. At the practical
level, they do not differ. Both are equally bad for workers, for ordinary Jews and
Palestinians. Populists waste public money on Jewish settlements in the occupied territories,
while elitists offer free Nepalese surrogate mothers for every gay.
As for Covid lockdowns, the elitists approve of them, just like Biden and his Dems do. The
deplorables dislike them greatly, for they lose their jobs, and they can't afford it, but they
still do not rebel.
In the US, the populists of Trump did not get much from his first cadence. A possible
solution would be the integration of left populists and right populists, of Trump taking Tulsi
Gabbard as his VP or at least as Secretary of State, of Trump giving every American citizen
medical care as in Europe, of him providing quality education free, of him taxing billionaires
and supporting workers. Such a ticket would be unbeatable. And stop bothering with the Jews and
Israel; they have nuisance value, but nothing more.
Now we can explain why the Trump Zionist Offensive didn't help him. The US (as well as US
Jews and Israel) is split into incompetent but cocksure elites and gullible but angry
Deplorables. The vote in the recent elections was a test of loyalty: are you with the elites or
with the Deplorables (in Hebrew, עמך)? In the US, where many Jews actually
belong to elites, even those outside accept elite values and narratives and still hope to get
invited in. A US Jew has to despair to join Trump and his counter-élites, and they are
still hopeful.
The Jewish newspaper Forward
tells of "two young Jewish political activists who formed the Jewish Unity PAC and raised all
of $31,000, and every cent of it was spent supporting Joe Biden and Kamala Harris." It's not
that they care for Biden, but these young people know where their bright future may lie.
In Israel, the elites are against Netanyahu, but the majority of Israelis, Jews or non-Jews,
have already despaired of being invited into the traditional elites. So they have no problem
voting for Netanyahu or supporting Trump. However, the Israel of Netanyahu and his Deplorables
is much less attractive to US Jews than the old elitist Labour-ruled Ashkenazi Israel. They do
not admit it; certainly not in writing, but there is no social lift for a US Jew in going to
Israel or even in supporting Israel. Thus Zionism as a cause has lost its attraction for US
Jews. And probably this change is irreversible: the old Ashkenazi elite of Israel is gone, and
it won't come back. It has been supplanted by Oriental Jews, by religious folk, by the
Ashkenazi counter-elites of Likud. There is no profit in courting Israel as much as Trump
did.
If Trump does, despite enormous odds, gain his second term, perhaps he will learn the lesson
and treat Israel as Jewish Liberia. It would be a great relief for the US and for the people of
Israel. Being cut off from the US supply pipeline, Israel may yet make peace with Palestinians
and become a normal Middle Eastern state. The US won't be driven into far-away wars. It would
be better if Trump had understood earlier, but better late than never.
American support is as dangerous for Israel as Russian support is for Armenia. Armenians had
30 years to make peace with their neighbours but they didn't for they were sure of Russian
support. Israelis had 50 years, but they didn't because of the US support. Armenians already
came to grief, and for Israel it is coming, unless they will disengage from their protective
superpower. So the special relations between the US elites and Israel are fully exhausted for
both sides.
And meanwhile, Israel sits on the fence. "Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu chose not to
refer to Joe Biden as president-elect during a press conference Monday, saying instead that
Biden was "supposed to be appointed the next president", reported Haaretz .
But one must remember: both parties are completely totally pro-Israel. Meaning the there
is no reward for a politician in supporting Israel, only punishment for those that don't.
And while this might or might not completely apply to Trump, most modern American
politicians don't care all that much about winning elections. They care about doing the
bidding of their wealthy patrons, and getting rewarded on the side. It's about putting on a
show for the masses, and as in professional wrestling, both the 'winners' and the 'losers'
get paid. Sitting on corporate boards, distinguished positions in academia, cushy book
contracts, the press treating them like senior statesmen, awards and accolades, that sort of
thing.
Consider also: Trump presumably will continue to run businesses and will need contacts and
support etc from other wealthy people, many of whom of course will be Jewish. Not pissing off
the Jews might still be critical to him in the days to come
Jews were the prime movers in the effort to impeach Clinton as told by David Brock in
'Blinded by the Right', and Jews were the prime movers in the effort to impeach Trump as was
widely publicized, and yet the response of Clinton and Trump was to redouble their efforts to
please the Jews . probably to 'follow the money'.
The author concedes that there is no "Jewish Side" and in fact details how there are
significant numbers of Jews on opposing sides.
However, in Israel, too, there is a sharp division between elites and Deplorable masses.
The Deplorables support Netanyahu and Trump, vote domestically for Likud or religious
parties.
The Israeli elites support Biden. For them Trump is a mirror image of their own PM
Netanyahu, the man they hate with gusto. The problem with Israeli elites is that they have
lost their ability to govern
The virulent Anti-Semitism of Islam is aggressively trying to contaminate certain western
parties such as Labour and the DNC. However, movements like Muslim BLM are generating so much
backlash that they are already losing traction. In the U.S.:
-- Conservatives are likely to join the Orthodox, majority voting for GOP Populism and
workers.
-- Reform and Reconstructionist are likely to stay aligned against workers with the Blue SJW
Elites of the Globalist DNC.
I find it baffling that Jews openly oppose Judeo-Christian values by staying with SJW
"woke" apostasy. However, it is a fact that huge numbers of Jews act against their own self
interest.
It is not unique to them. Huge numbers of Christians make the same mistake siding with SJW
deviancy.
You cannot be serious BuelahMan? Take your blinders off.
Those that you speak of are indeed many, but not so Mr. Shamir.
Great read Mr. Shamir. Thank you!
Republicans are not courting American Jews in order to win their votes. Republicans are
courting American Jews in order to win their wallets and positive press coverage. There are
not enough Rebublican Jews to sway an election, but there is enough Republican Jewish money
and Republican Jewish media for the Republican Party to pay attention to them.
@No Friend Of The
Devil Bingo. Plus, to fend of the inevitable, demagogic "anti-Semitism" accusations from
liberals, leftists and Democrats, and their stooges in MSM.
The "anti-Semitism" accusation has paid off well for Jews. It's kind of like the
"Holocaust" wail -- the gift that keeps on giving. Someday, all that Jewish dogma will be
recognized as the grift it's always been. Not today, but maybe tomorrow, or the day after
Then we can watch ALL the grifters scramble for cover. Maybe they'll hide in an attic.
Then they'll make up some story of epic persecution and start the cycle over again.
How many times will Charlie Brown fall for it? How many times will Charlie Chan fall for
it? We'll find out.
Jews dumped Trump for Biden because he didn't do enough. With Biden they get even more
support for Israel, including putting more troops in Syria to finally take out Assad, and
perhaps finally going to war with Iran, which Trump wouldn't do. Plus Biden will give them
billions of taxpayer money to run the Diversity Industrial Complex, with every government
agency now requiring diversity training, and lots more diversity and race initiatives
everywhere, all rackets run by Jews, with a few token blacks. And then there's media
censorship, which Trump won't give them but Biden/Harris are already putting on the
agenda.
"Biden bested Trump on every issue including strengthening U.S.-Israel relations,
54%-42%."
Biden puts a more "civilized" face on Israel's inhumane ethnic cleansing. Trump was so
obvious and garish about it. Trump ran the risk of calling too much attention to Israel's
crimes. But "both sides" were still willing to have Israel grab all that Trump was "giving"
(though illegal and not Trump's to give). As others have noted, Trump's payoff may come after
he is out of office. Much is theater.
Come to think about it Trump could make good money opening a TV station. all sane
Americans would watch it. The advertisement money would just be poring in. This would be
excellent thing.
Trump has many followers. Trump would give his followers some hope.
The purported failure of Jews to deliver presupposes Jews are under some sort of
obligation to deliver. Jews are in total control. They have the sworn, unsolicited and total
subservience of any American presidential candidate of substance. Quite the contrary, it is
the Jewish colony of America that must deliver to its colonial master.
A Jewish dialectic. By design and effort. That's what it always comes down to. That is the
vicious cycle that needs to broken. Jewish thesis, Jewish antithesis, Jewish synthesis, rinse
and repeat.
It is true that Democrats are bought and owned by Jews. But, I have to agree with Andre
Joyce. Jews are very unreliable people, possibly the most unreliable of backers. Trump
exhausted his usefulness to Jews and they threw him under the bus. Jews want someone as
racist Zionist as Biden.
In Biden Jews find a long time obedient Gentile servant. Biden will do what Obama and
Trump refused to do. He is a well-known war criminal and he will leash war on the Middle
East.
Great article. Did the Jews deliver ? The question should be did any one group deliver ?
Trump was way to erratic and made way to many enemies and always seemed to say the first
thing that popped into his head. A good example of one of the stranger incidents was in Oct.
2018 when Rap star and mental defective Kanye West sat in the Oval Office and went a
non-stop, rambling, incoherent tirade. The President of the United States sat there like a
moron nodding approvingly it made Trump look foolish and cheapened all Americans. He sunk
himself with his big mouth and his tantrums. As far as the voting went it brings to mind the
Joe Pesci character from Casino in the end they all had enough.
Yeah, liberal Jews profess universal values, they keep their fervent support for Israel
hidden, because that gives away the fact that they are hypocrits. It's like the whore that
they're banging at every opportunity. And now Trump comes out and admonishes them in the open
to vote for him because of the jewlery and boob job he's bought her – as much as they
like it, they are profoundly mortified by his crude appeal. . and of course they know that
she's being taken care through all the institutions they're supporting.
In some sense, Trump missing the boat on this issue is like Hillary selling herself as a
war hawk, when that didn't actually sell anymore; she had missed the boat by 40 years.
No, the Jews did not fail to deliver. Jews always support both sides in any conflict so
that whoever wins they can claim to have supported / made the winning side...
It would be nice if there were some positive differences between the Israeli Left and
Right on important issues. No such luck. There is practically no difference between Likud and
the liberal parties regarding the really important Palestinian question.
I don't find it all that different here.
Quite a few Jews on the American left expose their Zionist underbelly whenever the
question of Palestine arises...
American support is as dangerous for Israel as Russian support is for Armenia.
Armenians had 30 years to make peace with their neighbours but they didn't for they were
sure of Russian support. Israelis had 50 years, but they didn't because of the US support.
Armenians already came to grief, and for Israel it is coming, unless they will disengage
from their protective superpower. So the special relations between the US elites and Israel
are fully exhausted for both sides.
Excellent article, sticking more or less dispassionately to the facts. Also, it draws the
logical inference of these facts, as outlined above. The economic collapse of America is only
a matter of time, and with it the collapse of its subsidies to Israel. History is full of
instances of small states encouraged in their intransigence by their patrons, whether
intentionally or indirectly. With the loss of the patrons, their clients are then forced to
agree terms at very unfavourable conditions, compared to what they would have got, had they
negotiated previously.
Obama critical of Israel? Are you kidding or may be misleading? Ehud Barak is on record
(Charlie Rose Show now defunct) stating unequivocally that the other Barak had done more for
Israel than any other American president before him.
No matter how you cut it, Jews alone have a way too much power in the U. S Take for
example a mundane decision to cap number of people that should get together for the
Thanksgiving: not 9 or 11 but exactly 10, per Dr. Ranit Mishori (she is an Israeli woman) on
PBS Newshour last night. Her explanation was very disarming when asked about it. Oh, she
said, "they" decided that ten was the right number guess how many people does it take to form
a "community of Israel" or the so called Minyan?" TEN! It's all about Jews and Israel even at
the freaking NIH (the National Institute of Health).
Unquestioning and unequivocal support for Israel has become a part of the Republican
platform, mostly a result of Evangelical Christians, a large denomination of dupes who
believe that the modern state of Israel, established by European colonists in Palestine, is
somehow related to the biblical Israel and biblical prophecy.
Jews voted the same way the have for generations as they are assured that Biden is going
to provide unquestioning support to Israel too.
Their Jewish votes hardly matter as they are mostly concentrated in New York and
California, which are not swing states. It is Jewish power in media and campaign donations
that matter, which both candidates could not do without.
"If Trump does, despite enormous odds, gain his second term, perhaps he will learn the
lesson and treat Israel as Jewish Liberia. It would be a great relief for the US and for the
people of Israel. Being cut off from the US supply pipeline, Israel may yet make peace with
Palestinians and become a normal Middle Eastern state. The US won't be driven into far-away
wars. It would be better if Trump had understood earlier, but better late than never"
I doubt this. The irony is that the same deep state that pushed regime change hook or
crook in Bolivia, Iran, and Venezuela is the same deep state that pushed for regime change in
the USA against Trump in 2016 (Russia controls Trump bs) and again with the voting fraud of
2020. And yet Trump seems to like regime change when it benefits his Israeli and Saudi
patrons. You live by the sword; you die by the sword.
There is the well reasoned narrative that the last US president who took on the CIA with
vengeance had his head blown apart in Dallas. The real power in Washington is with the
merging of the military, intelligence, silicon valley tech community. The civilian leadership
from both parties in the US are mere order takers from this oligarchy.
Government is just a means for the elite to impoverish the public and strip every liberty
from them. They are not part of the answer. They are part of the problem.
Trump condemns globalism, touts nationalistic view of foreign affairs at U.N."The future
does not belong to globalists. The future belongs to patriots," Trump said. "The future
belongs to sovereign and independent nations who protect their citizens, respect their
neighbors and honor the differences that make each country special and unique."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-touts-nationalistic-view-of-foreign-affairs-at-un/2019/09/24/e4a8486a-ded2-11e9-8fd3-d943b4ed57e0_story.html
This is why Jews and pro globalists want Biden and Harris. Barbra Lerner Spectre speaks about
multiculti and Israel expels black Jews giving them the one way tickets, because "they do not
mix well with other Israelis' ' . Hypocrisy in full spectrum. They just want other countries
( not Israel) to lose their traditions, customs and values. When the society is divided and
broken it is easier to rule throwing various groups against each other's throats. While
groups fight with each other, they pursue their agendas unnoticed. Today Trump's lawyers were
talking about lawyers who wanted to represent Trump getting threats, even death treats. How
did this happen in the US? Who's "accomplishment" this is?
Obama did a lot .He tolerated Israeli attacks on Gaza. He offered 40 billions worth of new
dole to israel in exchange for Israel delaying the commission of the illegal activity (
postponing of the settlement for 3-4 month ).
He made sure Sisi was not opposed and Morsi was deposed . He got USA involved in Syria and
tolerated open advocacy for war by AIPAC against Syria . He tolerated the opposition to Park
51 construction mounted by Neocons . In his time Islamophobia introduced by the neocons
skyrocketed .
He campaigned for anti-American charlatan like Joe Liberman . Israel got him do a lot of
damages to Iran economically and physically
If anyone murders a federal official, you can be assured of one thing: the feds will do
everything they can to ensure that everyone involved in the crime is brought to justice. It's
like when someone kills a cop. The entire police force mobilizes to capture, arrest, and
prosecute everyone involved in killing the cop. The phenomenon is even more pronounced at the
federal level, especially given the overwhelming power of the federal government.
Yet, the exact opposite occurred in the Kennedy assassination. The entire effort immediately
became to pin the crime solely on a communist ex-U.S. Marine named Lee Harvey Oswald and to
shut down any aggressive investigation into whether others were involved in the crime.
What's up with that? That's not the way we would expect federal officials to handle the
assassination of any federal official, especially the president of the United States. We would
expect them to do everything -- even torture a suspect -- in order to capture and arrest
everyone who may have participated in the crime.
For example, just three days after the assassination and after Oswald himself had been
murdered, Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach sent out a memo stating,
"The public must be satisfied that Oswald was the assassin; that he did not have
confederates who are still at large; and that evidence was such that he would have been
convicted at trial."
How in the world could he be so certain that Oswald was the assassin and that he had no
confederates? Why would he want to shut down the investigation so soon? Does that sound like a
normal federal official who is confronted with the assassination of a president?
The answer to this riddle lies in the brilliantly cunning scheme of the U.S.
national-security establishment to ensure that the investigation into Kennedy's assassination
would be shut down immediately and, therefore, not lead to the U.S. national-security
establishment.
The assassination itself had all the earmarks of a classic military ambush, one in which
shooters were firing from both the front and back of the president. It is a virtual certainty
that responsibility for the ambush lay with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who had been waging a
vicious war against Kennedy practically since the time he assumed office. (See FFF's book
JFK's War with the National Security Establishment: Why Kennedy Was Assassinated by Douglas
Horne, who served on the staff of the Assassination Records Review Board in the 1990s.)
While the JCS were experts at preparing military-style ambushes, they lacked the
intellectual capability of devising the overall plot and cover-up, given its high level of
cunning and sophistication. That responsibility undoubtedly lay with the CIA, whose top
officials were brilliant graduates of Ivy League Schools. Moreover, practically from its
inception the CIA was specializing in the art of
state-sponsored assassinations and in how to conceal the CIA's role in them.
To ensure that the role of the Pentagon and the CIA in the Kennedy assassination would be
kept secret, they had to figure out a way to shut down the investigation from the start. Their
plan worked brilliantly. While the normal thing would have been all out investigations into the
murder, in this particular murder the state of Texas and U.S. officials did the exact opposite.
They settled for simply pinning the crime on Oswald, the purported lone nut communist ex-U.S.
Marine.
Here is how they pulled it off.
As the years have passed, it has become increasingly clear that Oswald was a government
operative, most likely for military intelligence or maybe the CIA and the FBI as well. His job
was to portray himself as a communist, which would enable him to infiltrate not only domestic
communist and socialist organizations but also communist countries, such as Cuba and the Soviet
Union.
After all, how many communist Marines have you ever heard of? The Marines would be a good
place to recruit people for intelligence roles. Oswald learned fluent Russian while in the
military. How does an enlisted man do that, without the assistance of the military's language
schools? When he returned from the Soviet Union after supposedly trying to defect and after
promising that he was going to give up secret information he had acquired in the military, no
federal grand jury or congressional investigation was launched into his conduct, even though
this was the height of the Cold War.
Thus, Oswald would make the perfect patsy. He could be stationed wherever his superiors
instructed. And he would have all the earmarks of a communist, which would immediately
prejudice Americans at the height of the Cold War.
But simply framing Oswald wouldn't have been enough to shut down the investigation. An
aggressive investigation would undoubtedly be able to pierce through the pat nature of the
frame-up. They needed something more.
If you're going to frame someone who is supposedly firing from the rear, then doesn't it
make sense that you would have shots being fired only from the rear? Why would they frame a guy
who is supposedly firing from the rear by having shots fired from the front?
That's where the sheer brilliance of this particular regime-change operation came into play.
The plan was much more cunning than even the successful regime-change operations and
assassinations that took place prior to the one against Kennedy -- i.e., Iran in 1953,
Guatemala in 1954, Cuba from 1959-1963, and the Congo in 1961.
There is now virtually no doubt that Kennedy was hit by two shots fired from the front.
Immediately after Kennedy was declared dead, the treating physicians at Parkland Hospital
described the neck wound as a wound of entry. They also said that Kennedy had a massive,
orange-sized wound in the back of his head. Nurses at Parkland said the same things. Two FBI
agents said they saw the big exit-sized wound. Secret Service agent Clint Hill saw it. Navy
photography expert Saundra Spencer told the ARRB in the 1990s that she developed the JFK
autopsy photos on a top-secret basis on the weekend of the assassination and that they depicted
a big exit-sized wound in the back of JFK's head. A bone fragment from the back of the
president's head was found in Dealey Plaza after the assassination. That is just part of the
overwhelming evidence that establishes beyond a reasonable doubt that the shot that hit Kennedy
in the head came from the front.
Okay, if you've got a shooter firing from the back and he's a communist, and if you have
other shooters firing from the front, then they have to be working together. So, who would the
shooters be who were firing from the front? The logical inference is that they had to be
communist cohorts of Oswald.
That's what Oswald's supposed visits to the Cuban and Soviet embassies in Mexico just before
the assassination were all about -- making it look like Oswald was acting in concert with the
Soviet and Cuban communists to kill Kennedy.
If the assassination was part of the Soviet Union's supposed quest to conquer the world,
retaliation would mean World War III, which almost surely would have meant nuclear war, which
was the biggest fear among the American people in 1963.
But why not retaliate in some way? Would U.S. officials at the height of the Cold War
hesitate to retaliate for the communist killing of a U.S. president, simply because they were
scared of nuclear war? Not a chance! In fact, throughout Kennedy's term in office the Pentagon
and the CIA were champing at the bit to attack Cuba and go to war with the Soviet Union.
But here's the catch: How do you take action that is going to destroy the world when it was
your side that started the assassination game in the first place? Remember: It was the CIA that
started the assassination game by partnering with the Mafia to assassinate Cuban leader Fidel
Castro.
Thus, Lyndon Johnson, the CIA, and the JCS had the perfect excuse to shut down the
investigation and pin the crime only on Oswald: If they instead retaliated, it would be all-out
nuclear war based on an assassination game that the U.S. had started.
In fact, when Dallas District Attorney Henry Wade alleged from the start that Oswald was
part of a communist conspiracy, Johnson told him to shut it down for fear that Wade might
inadvertently start World War III.
Moreover, when U.S. Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren initially declined Johnson's
invitation to serve on what ultimately became the Warren Commission, Johnson appealed to his
sense of patriotism by alluding to the importance of avoiding a nuclear war. Johnson used the
same argument on Senator Richard Russell Jr.
From the start, the Warren Commission proceedings were shrouded in "national-security" state
secrecy, including a top-secret meeting of the commissioners to discuss information they had
received that Oswald was an intelligence agent. When Warren was asked if the American people
would be able to see all the evidence, Warren responded yes, but not in your lifetime.
Does that make any sense? If the assassination was, in fact, committed by some lone nut,
then what would "national security" and state secrecy have to do with it?
That's undoubtedly how they induced the three military pathologists to conduct a fraudulent
autopsy -- by telling them that they had to hide the fact that shots had been fired from the
front in order to ensure that there was no all-out nuclear war. That's how we ended up with a
fraudulent autopsy. (See my books
The Kennedy Autopsy and
The Kennedy Autopsy 2 .)
Thus, the plan entailed operating at two levels: One level involved what some call the World
War III cover story. It entailed shutting down the investigation, as well as a fraudulent
autopsy, to prevent nuclear war. The other level involved showing the American people that
their president had been killed by only one person, a supposed lone nut communist former
Marine.
Obviously, secrecy and obedience to orders were essential for the plan to succeed. That was
why the autopsy was taken out of the hands of civilian officials and given to the military.
With the military, people could be ordered to participate in the fraudulent autopsy and could
be forced to keep everything they did and witnessed secret.
That's why Navy photography expert Saundra Spencer kept her secret for some 30 years. She
had been told that her development of the JFK autopsy photos was a classified operation.
Military people follow orders and keep classified information secret. Imagine if Spencer had
told her story suggesting a fraudulent autopsy in the week following the assassination.
Gradually, as the years have passed, the incriminating puzzle has come together. The big
avalanche of secret information came out in the 1990s as part of the work done by the
Assassination Records Review Board.
Of course, there are still missing pieces to the puzzle, many of which are undoubtedly among
the records that the CIA and national-security establishment are still keeping secret. But
enough circumstantial evidence has come to light to enable people to see the contours of one of
the most cunning and successful assassination plots in history.
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your
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Jacob G. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation. He was
born and raised in Laredo, Texas, and received his B.A. in economics from Virginia Military
Institute and his law degree from the University of Texas. He was a trial attorney for twelve
years in Texas. He also was an adjunct professor at the University of Dallas, where he taught
law and economics.
This is nothing new, the war machine keeps going and going. I actually found an individual
that has the same outlook on stopping the behavior of the United States as I do.
International lawyer Christopher Black in this interview had the following to say.
Question: What in your view needs to change in order to make U.S. foreign conduct abide by
international law and therefore enhance the prospects for world peace?
Christopher Black: It will require a revolution in the United States to do that, an
overthrow of the economic powers that control the machinery of the state, but there is no
prospect of that happening. There is really no effective opposition to these policies in
the U.S. The peace movement is weak and fragmented, dominated by the "cruise missile
liberals". The voices of reason have no power, no real influence among the masses of the
people which are dominated by a sophisticated propaganda machine known as the "media".
Censorship is increasing and the few critical voices that exist are being silenced.
It will take, in my view, a military defeat of the United States in order to bring
about the conditions necessary for the required changes. And, perhaps that will happen,
as China has stated time and again, that if Washington decides to take direct control of
their island of Taiwan and the Americans interfere or if they are attacked in the South
China Sea, they will defeat the U.S. But such a war would have world consequences and would
cause realignments of power not only in the USA, if we all survive it.
Biden is a tent revival for the aptly named "cruise missile liberals" and some of the more
shadowy neo-conservative forces in retreat and determined to bring democracy building home
after their colonial expeditions extinguished it at home, hastening the rise of America's own
Saddam in Trump. Biden's own instincts may be decisive, however, and he was against war in
Libya while also in favor of splitting Iraq. The dementia rumors are nonsense; Biden is a
canny and often mendacious operator, and while I think Trump is a fascist and quite possibly
a Russian mafia sub-boss, Biden may well be the restoration of more homegrown, American mafia
rule. An argument that Giuliani has made in so many words, standing as he does on the Russian
side and yelling into the shifting parapolitical winds.
It's not really that complicated for China. They have no interest in or need to strike the
American mainland. That would only be necessary if they were seeking global hegemony like the
US, which they are not. Their strategic nuclear capabilities are strictly deterrence. All
China has to do is survive the coming conflict arising from the Thucydides Trap that the US
and China are caught in with minimal damage to their industrial capacity, infrastructure, and
population.
That I specified "survive" and not "win" is not a mistake. The default
outcome if nothing is done is that China ascends to uncontested sole global economic
superpower status. That is not necessarily their intention but rather the natural outcome of
China continuing the development of their domestic human capital and quality of life for 1.4
billion people. China doesn't have to take the fight to the US to end up on top, and the US
has no choice but to somehow turn back the economic clock in China to keep its position as
global imperial hegemon. Color revolution attempts, trade war, and bioweapon attacks have all
failed the empire miserably, so all the US has left is to go kinetic.
The "US aircraft carrier force projection model" is effectively nullified by China,
but those assets are still protected by America's delusional reality exclusion zone:
"Destroying our carriers is unthinkable! No one would ever dare do that!" . That
defense will prove inadequate against China's variety of "carrier killer"
missiles.
As for America's stealth aircraft, China's defenses will likely be a surprise to many in
the American empire. Furthermore, America's only stealth aircraft with sufficient range to
reach China's mainland on anything other than a one way suicide mission would be the B-2
bomber, of which America only has 21. Those 21 will not last long in a kinetic conflict.
Quite a few will likely simply be destroyed on the runway in Diego Garcia while the survivors
will get to find out how well China's nifty new quantum radar works. The F-22 and F-35 would
require refueling to get from carrier stand-off distance to the mainland and refueling again
to get back, with America's aerial tankers needing to loiter within range of China's air
defenses... not a good battle plan for the empire. Those stealth aircraft will not shift the
advantage in the empire's favor, and attrition will be much higher than expected among
them.
It must be repeated that China doesn't need to destroy the United States. They are not
playing the board game "Risk" after all. China just needs to defeat the American
empire's military force projection capabilities in their own neighborhood, and China already
has that capacity right now. Every day that elapses shifts the advantage further into China's
favor, so the empire needs to act while they still have the ability to do so. Trump's
unwillingness to do more than bark loudly and his resistance to going kinetic is why the
imperial elites had to fraud the elections so openly to get a more compliant figurehead into
office ASAP. That the empire couldn't wait another four years means that we will see
"interesting times" (yeah, even more interesting than the preceding twelve months!)
real soon now.
"A cornered dog will bite, even if it is obvious that it cannot win."
So will I, so what?
"It was never China's nor Iran's intention to "corner" the empire. That is simply the
situation that America finds itself in now that its economy is in "late capitalism" decline.
It is really not even anyone's fault, not even Trump or Reagan or any of the other usual
suspects."
I agree, but again, so what? I'm not concerned with who is morally correct, I'm mainly
concerned with whether there is going to be a big war and what happens if there is, that's
not a moral question. I've been waiting around 40 years to watch our collapse, and I still
think there is enough that is/was good here to be worth hoping for a soft landing. That's
probably better for the rest of the planet too, but it's arguable.
Neither Iran of China is cornered, they are well-prepared, well-supported by "partners",
and on their home turf. WE are not ready. We are vunerable. But we are not cornered either,
nobody is going to come over here and interfere while we fight among ourselves.
Posted by: William Gruff | Nov 25 2020 13:10 utc | 109
What scares me about Blinken and Sullivan is the career trajectory. Both had completely
unearned and unreasonable success every step of their lives. There is never any explanation
for this manner of success but family connections. Neither has done anything of note other
than to occupy positions of power.
Sullivan is all of 43 years old, has been a mover and shaker since his twenties. Any who
have never read Halberstam's Best and Brightest might look at that now. We are in for a shit
show. Biden is not going to do anything but take his meds and take a lot of naps. Already he
is not to be seen. The crew named so far will steamroller Kamala, she is no more than a
figurehead.
Likely she won't even stay in the room when it gets serious. Best possible outcome is that
kids who have never done anything but suck up won't know what to do when they are left in
charge with no adult supervision. Or there will be shadowy figures in background who steady
the rudder.
Yes, it is not a moral question, it is an economic one. Wars have never been about
morality.
That said, China has for a number of years now been preparing for a minimally damaging
escape from the Thucydides Trap, and by "minimally damaging" I mean for the US as
well. As I said above the Chinese are not at all interested in hurting the US.
The plan is to "spring" the Thucydides Trap in the South China Sea and hopefully
confine most of the damage to that area. If successful then the empire gets its soft landing
(albeit with significant amounts of military materiel and personnel sacrificed) and humanity
moves beyond the Trap.
@ PB 75
visible costs of vassaldom . . costs of American presence....decreasing the national
security. . .participating in sanctions
Yes, plus a primary reason . . .Cost of buying US military junk like F-35. Foreign military
sales is a mainstay of the US economy.
Posted by: Don Bacon | Nov 25 2020 3:43 utc | 83
When you add the numbers, "military junk" has notable prestige -- with matching prices,
but the total loot of American companies is probably many times larger. For example, Trump
waged a series of trade wars to perpetuate negligible taxation of "technology giants" like
Google or Amazon. "Intellectual property" was a stumbling block in the trade war with China,
with dire consequences for soy growing farmers in USA (and a boon to their colleagues in
South America). Then there is pharma. It seems that the really big companies are comfortable
being in relative shadow behind arms makers, and discourse on security threats and needs
--because Russian use trolls to interfere with elections, we (all countries that cherish what
is good and precious) need new generations of nukes, planes, ships and toilet seats. However
illogical, it is more noble sounding than preventing the likes of Apple from more than
nominal taxation.
Vicky left fake democracy promotion was always about expanding and sustaining controlled
from Washinton global neoliberal empire. It is a part and parcel of Full Spectrum Dominance
doctrine implementation. So it will lean to further drop of the standard of living on the
majority of US people.
Biden is a tent revival for the aptly named "cruise missile liberals" and some of the more
shadowy neo-conservative forces are in retreat and determined to bring democracy building
home after their colonial expeditions extinguished it
"... Hate is the only thing that holds the American Empire together. Without its Two Minutes of Hate, America will break up apart into a million pieces. ..."
America desperately needs its Two Minutes of Hate against other countries like a meth
addict needs his next hit.
For Democrats and their ilk, Hate Russia was their unifying and
mobilizing ideology. For Republicans and their ilk, Hate China is their unifying and
mobilizing ideology.
Hate is the only thing that holds the American Empire together. Without its Two
Minutes of Hate, America will break up apart into a million pieces.
You can't find better smarter neocons to pursue the Full Spectrum Dominance Doctrine to the
total decimation of the standard of living of ordinary Americans ;-)
Since the 1990s, Flournoy and Blinken have steadily risen through the ranks of the
military-industrial complex, shuffling back and forth between the Pentagon and hawkish
think-tanks funded by the U.S. government, weapons companies, and oil giants.
Under Bill Clinton, Flournoy was the principal author of the 1996 Quadrinellial Defense
Review, the document that outlined the U.S. military's doctrine of permanent war – what
it called "full spectrum dominance."
Flournoy called for "unilateral use of military power" to ensure "uninhibited access to key
markets, energy supplies, and strategic resources."
... During the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, Biden declared, "In my judgment, President
Bush is right to be concerned about Saddam Hussein's relentless pursuit of weapons of mass
destruction"
As Iraq was plunged into chaos and bloodshed, Flournoy was among the authors of a paper
titled "Progressive Internationalism" that called for a "smarter and better" style of permanent
war. The paper chastised the anti-war left and stated that "Democrats will maintain the world's
most capable and technologically advanced military, and we will not flinch from using it to
defend our interests anywhere in the world."
... In 2005, Flournoy signed onto a letter
from the neoconservative think tank Project for a New American Century, asking Congress to
"increase substantially the size of the active duty Army and Marine Corps (by) at least 25,000
troops each year over the next several years."
So what Biden is trying to achieve is to stem the collapse of neoliberalism and with
it the global US-controlled neoliberal empire.
Notable quotes:
"... IMO, all three of the turn-of-the-century free-market-neolibral model, the hypothetical Trump(ish) nationalist model, and the revised technocratic-neoliberal schemes, are fatally flawed. Despite the political rhetoric of US Republicans, there's no real prospect of an even mildly leftist (i.e. inclusive, egalitarian, and internationalist) alternative anytime soon in the US. I suspect the same is true in most neoliberal countries. ..."
Blinken surprised some in the Situation Room by breaking with Biden to support military
action in Libya, administration officials said, and he advocated for American action in
Syria after Obama's reelection. These sources said that Blinken was less enthusiastic than
Biden about Obama's decision to seek congressional approval for a strike in Syria, but is
now -- perhaps out of necessity -- onboard and a backer of diplomatic negotiations with
Russia. While less of an ideologue than Samantha Power, the U.S. ambassador to the United
Nations (a job for which he was considered), he not surprisingly shares her belief that
global powers such as the United States have a "responsibility to protect" against
atrocities.
He has since shown
no remorse about those foreign policy failures:
Blinken maintains that the failure of U.S. policy in Syria was that our government did not
employ enough force. He stands by the false argument that Biden's vote to authorize the
invasion of Iraq was a "vote for tough diplomacy." He was reportedly in favor of the Libyan
intervention, which Biden opposed, and he was initially a defender and advocate for U.S.
support for the Saudi coalition war on Yemen. In short, Blinken has agreed with some of the
biggest foreign policy mistakes that Biden and Obama made, and he has tended to be more of
an interventionist than both of them.
If you can't quite place Jake Sullivan, he's was a long-serving aide to Hillary Clinton,
starting with her 2008 race against Barack Obama, then serving as her deputy chief of staff
and director of the State Department's Office of Policy Planning when Clinton was Obama's
secretary of state. (...) In 2016, during her failed presidential campaign, Sullivan once
again teamed up with Clinton, and he was widely expected to have been named to serve as her
national security adviser or even secretary of state had she won.
Since 2016, and since the creation of NSA, Sullivan has emerged as a kind of foreign
policy scold, gently -- and sometimes not so gently -- criticizing those who reflexively
oppose American intervention abroad and who disparage the idea of American
"exceptionalism." Indeed, in an article in the January-February issue of The Atlantic,
"What Donald Trump and Dick Cheney Got Wrong About America," Sullivan explicitly says that
he's intent on "rescuing the idea of American exceptionalism" and presents the "case for a
new American exceptionalism".
Sullivan
send classified documents to Hillary Clinton's private email server. He wrote to her that
Al Qaida is "on our side in Syria." He also hyped fake Trump-Russia collusion
allegations.
It is yet unknown who will become Secretary of Defense. Michèle Flournoy is the
most named option but there is
some opposition to her nomination :
[B]ackers of Michèle Flournoy, his likely pick for defense secretary, are trying to
head off a last-minute push by some left-leaning Democrats trying to derail her selection,
with many progressives seeing her nomination as a continuation of what critics refer to as
America's "forever wars."
I expect that the progressive will lose the fight and that either Flournoy or some other
hawkish figure will get that weapon lobbyist position.
Progressives also lost on the Treasury position. Biden's nomination for that is Janet
Yellen who is known to be an inflation hawk. She is unlikely to support large spending on
progressive priorities.
As usual with a Democratic election win the people who brought the decisive votes and
engagement, those who argue for more socialist and peaceful policies, will be cut off from
the levers of power.
In three years they will again be called upon to fall for another bait and switch.
As I said over at Ian Welsh's blog
"this is brought on by the "blue no matter who crowd" who can't understand that
guaranteeing their vote at the outset without extorting any firm quid pro quo a priori
guarantees that [working people] can be safely ignored. And yet, almost everybody here
[reminder, posted at Ian's] argued for just that and will the next time and the next.
Why will something like that happen
If the polls are to be believed, Biden is the most popular Democrat of all time and by a
large margin. If polls are to be believed, the DNC denying the Sanders wing was the smartest
thing the DNC has ever done. If polls are to be believed, Biden strode through battle
unscathed while lessor Democrats were squashed. The DNC was right, the Sanders people are
fools, if polls are to be believed. The immense Biden vote proves once and for all, that any
who diverge from DNC dictata should be ignored for all time.
That was the message sent in 2020"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Biden is to the extreme right of Trump on the issue of the US's endless neocolonial wars.
And Biden is already laying the groundwork for the deconstruction of Social Security, work he
began as VP to Obama. That makes Biden to the extreme right of Trump on foreign &
domestic issues...all thanks to the "blue no matter who" crowd. Meanwhile, the election "make
'em scream" ploy Pelosi employed will toss millions off federal extensions of unemployment
midnight 31 Dec 2020 until congress reconvenes.
And for all those who claimed Trump to be evil incarnate, worse than Hitler...in a few
weeks, facts will show those people to be clownish frauds.
yep. sad. Yellen for Treasury is interesting, and a crucial position to watch. Mnuchin
basically ran the Trump administration's economic policy, as far as there was one.
One of the watchwords of the coming era is the "Great Reset", i.e. a limited shift in the
direction of a technocratic planned economy. In a way, this began after 2008 when the FED
intervened in stock and bond markets to such a degree that its interventions became the
dominant driving force. With that, "market forces" couldn't plausibly remain a reflection of
free competition as the theory postulated. The fact that this measure had to be taken (i.e.
markets had to be overtly "fixed"), is an implicit admission that the thesis of the
free-market purists, the dream of the Reagan-Clinton era, has been falsified.
The proposed solution, at least the version coming from the high business class (and
exaggerated further still by right-wing critics of Great Reset) seems like a recipe to worsen
the problem of "regulatory capture" above all else. I.e. the agents and beneficiaries of the
neoliberal era making an effort to adapt, without giving up the benefits of the prior
economic regime. Likelyhood of fixing inequalities is nil. The emphasis is on reinforcing the
stability of the system, holding on to power, perhaps competing with threatening alternatives
from the "outside", although that would seem to be a second priority.
Trump did put up a facade of a nationalist alternative, which had the effect of
acknowledging the inequalities and failures of the neoliberal system, but offering an equally
harmful solution. Besides that, if you look at who was making economic policy in the past 4
years (Treasury Dept), the nationalist facade was false, as far as domestic economic matters
were concerned.
IMO, all three of the turn-of-the-century free-market-neolibral model, the
hypothetical Trump(ish) nationalist model, and the revised technocratic-neoliberal schemes,
are fatally flawed. Despite the political rhetoric of US Republicans, there's no real
prospect of an even mildly leftist (i.e. inclusive, egalitarian, and internationalist)
alternative anytime soon in the US. I suspect the same is true in most neoliberal
countries.
So Biden comes into this moment, with a clear mandate -- from the sponsors -- to reinforce
the status quo. He brings Yellen into this moment in a the crucial position.
Of course Biden's foreign policy team and the policy itself will be shit. As it was for
the trump admin, the Obama admin, the Bush II admin, the Clinton admin, the Bush I admin, the
fucking Reagan admin, then there's carter and Nixon. Look, I can take this back all the way
to Washington. Biden's not special. It's always been an empire; trump did nothing to
dismantle it; but now it's a failing empire.
And don't try the "Trump's instincts were dashed by the deep state". Dude constantly
bragged about how much he spent on the DoD. If he could find a way to personally profit from
the empire he would have.
Here's an interview given by acclaimed Canadian International Law lawyer Christopher
Black who is rather pessimistic given the team members and its chief. While I disagree on a
few minor points, I agree with his overall assessment:
"The Americans proclaim they are all for competition but we know that means only when it
puts them in the superior position; and to maintain their position they are willing to
threaten and attack the world if necessary; and there are a myriad of domestic problems in
the USA which they have no way out of, since the two ruling parties have no solutions to
offer, except war."
I would disagree with war being a solution; rather, it exacerbates many already existing
problems. However, war would make revolution more likely. Since it's highly unlikely the
Empire could make the "Moderate Rebel" ploy work again, to escalate in Syraq as Biden's
nominee wants would require a direct assault by Imperial Stormtroopers, and that would be a
huge domestic error during the continuing pandemic.
Your buddy was born in Havana and grew up in Miami's Cuban hole. And he's Jewish. I'll eat
my hat if the family was not personal friends/business partners with Meyer Lansky and Myer
Schine. Wonderful, Homeland Security has been given to the Mafia.
It reminds me very much Khrushchev's government. He went in guns blazing, accusing Stalin
as outdated and promising a whole new paradigm (economic and geopolitical). He failed
miserably in both. He was toppled in 1964 and substituted by a figure of the "establishment",
Leonid Brezhnev, who basically restored what existed during Stalin and effectively gave up
making the USSR better. The first proletarian State would disintegrate soon.
Not saying Yellen-Biden will be the American Brezhnev - they are much lesser historical
figures than he was - but pay attention to the pattern.
Should come as no surprise that where it matters, Biden is Trump wearing a smiley face,
just like Pelosi is Trump in a wig. Actually, considering actual body count and misery
inflicted on vast populations, Biden's record is WORSE than Trump.
Annoying Russians with a destroyer 10 miles or so from Vladivostok under good old Trump.
Apparently, after a series of moves that replaced some top figures in Pentagon. The
relationship with Russia, under Trump, is fully under control of Kaganate of Nulandia, or
whatever we see on the top of that iceberg -- and try to make a search what it would take to
change the course of an iceberg from Antarctics (people were investigating it as a way of
bringing fresh water to Arabian peninsula where money is plentiful but water is scarce).
There are two important aspects there. Local trade is more profitable than distant trade
when consider in totality, i.e. including the products that you would never make profit after
crossing oceans. Second aspect is that Far East is a cultural zone like Europe -- lots of
animosities collected over centuries, but even more commonalities in culture. As USA imposes
various types of tribute on allies/vassals, centripetal forces in various continents should
increase. Among visible costs of vassaldom:
1. paying costs of American presence
2. annoying China beyond the national needs, thus decreasing the national security
3. participating in sanctions imposed by USA, directly and indirectly (through resulting
conflicts) reducing profits in economies that are struggling
"... Greenwald earlier this week said NBC "has always existed to disseminate US government, CIA and corporate propaganda." ..."
"... NBC also helped the CIA sell the Iraq War on its Meet the Press program, and sister network MSNBC was "ground zero for mindless CIA stenography of the most unhinged Russiagate conspiracy theories," he said. ..."
"... The C.I.A. owns anyone of any significance in the media. -William Colby. Former Director of the CIA. In 1974, the Rockefeller Commission was established to investigate shennanigans carried out by the Agency. President Ford fired William Colby and replaced him with George Herbert Walker Bush. Why? Because Gerald Ford thought that Colby was being too honest with the Commission about CIA wrong doings. ..."
"... Interestingly, Gerald Ford was often referred to as "The CIA's Best Friend in The Senate", which would explain his old appointment to the Warren Commission. It was Ford who ordered JFK's bullet wound in the back to be raised six inches up to his neck, thus allowing Arlen Specter to float his "Magic bullet Theory" ..."
"... As is not generally known, Bush I was lifetime CIA and became I believe the first CIA President. There is a little known picture of a young Bush standing outside the Texas Book Depository on the day of the assassination. ..."
"... The CIA controls the media in subtle ways. Blacklists for instance. I have experience after one of my buddies fell for the spiel of an agent provocateur. Never trust anyone, always assume they could be CIA and assess what damage they can do to you (and your associates) before you interact with them. Misleading them would be best. ..."
"... As shocking as it may sound, Glenn is stating the obvious. Even AFP and Reuters are CIA mouthpieces. Look up Operation Mockingbird. Look up "propaganda multiplier" by the Swiss policy research. ..."
"... Interesting that nobody even tried to deny it, they just come up with the same line they used to attack Wikileaks for telling the truth: exposing this might put out operatives at risk. ..."
"... Perilous Environments because the CIA is probably manipulating another of its regimes change, to very undemocratically put someone they control into office. Surely you remember Poroshenko? ..."
"... Operation Mockingbird was a secret CIA effort to influence and control the American media. The first report of the program came in 1979 in the biography of Katharine Graham, the owner of the Washington Post, written by Deborah Davis. Davis wrote that the program was established by Frank Wisner, the director of the Office of Policy Coordination, a covert operations unit created under the National Security Council. ..."
"... Reporters who work for the CIA are not spies, because the CIA is a lying agency, not a spying agency. If a terrorist accuses you of being a CIA agent, you can honestly reply that the CIA is the terrorist's friend. ..."
"... The CIA wants the world to believe that China, Russia and Iran are the leading state sponsors of terrorism, and that those seeking the overthrow of Syria's Bashar al-Assad are freedom fighters, not terrorists... ..."
Independent journalist Glenn Greenwald torched accusations that he endangered reporters by
saying NBC News spouts CIA propaganda, saying he only spoke of a well-known fact, and the
effort to shame him was "manipulative bulls**t."
"Profoundly sorry for endangering the lives of NBC executives and TV personalities by
spilling the extremely well-kept secret of their close working relationship with the CIA,"
Greenwald tweeted sarcastically on Saturday. His message showed a picture of a headline about
NBC's 2018 hiring of ex-CIA chief John Brennan as an NBC and MSNBC contributor.
Greenwald's retort came in reply to reporter Sulome Anderson, who accused him of endangering
journalists who work in places where any CIA affiliation is "life-threatening."Greenwald earlier this week said NBC "has always existed to disseminate US government, CIA
and corporate propaganda."
"This crosses a line," Anderson said. "Like some of his proteges, Glenn is
endangering journalists working in perilous environments by telling his massive following that
they are mouthpieces for US intelligence."
Greenwald said on Saturday that NBC has a "long-standing role" in spouting CIA
propaganda, as evidenced by its hiring of Ken Dilanian, who was accused of sharing stories with the CIA press
office prior to publication while working as a Los Angeles Times reporter. NBC also helped the
CIA sell the Iraq War on its Meet the Press program, and sister network MSNBC was "ground
zero for mindless CIA stenography of the most unhinged Russiagate conspiracy theories," he
said.
"If you don't want to be known as a CIA outpost, then don't be one," Greenwald
tweeted. He added that NBC hired "John Brennan, Ken Dilanian and every other operative puked
up by the security state. People already know."
Anderson has written at least
two opinion
pieces on Lebanon for NBC in recent months. She has been critical of Hezbollah, designated
a terrorist group by the US government, but also has interviewed some of its fighters.
Anderson, who said she is "morally opposed" to journalists working as intelligence
agents, may have good reason for her sensitivity about alleged CIA ties. Her parents were both
journalists who covered Lebanon's 15-year civil war, and she said her father was kidnapped by
terrorists.
"They tortured him again and again for years, calling him CIA," she said
Saturday on Twitter. "'I am not a spy,' he would scream. 'I am a reporter.' It never stopped
them."
Anderson acknowledged journalists being used as intelligence-agency assets, but said such
cases are rare. "Time and again, American hostages – journalists and otherwise –
have been falsely called spies, tortured and killed," she said. "I have been in many
situations where I've had to convince the very dangerous men I am with that I am not a spy. My
saving grace has always been that I am not."
Greenwald came to international fame by breaking the Edward Snowden NSA whistleblower story
in 2013. He later co-founded the Intercept but quit the outlet last month after saying editors
there suppressed his coverage of Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden.
fezzie035fezzm 19 hours ago 21 Nov, 2020 11:52 PM
The C.I.A. owns anyone of any significance in the media. -William Colby. Former Director of
the CIA. In 1974, the Rockefeller Commission was established to investigate shennanigans
carried out by the Agency. President Ford fired William Colby and replaced him with George
Herbert Walker Bush. Why? Because Gerald Ford thought that Colby was being too honest with
the Commission about CIA wrong doings.
Bush, as the new Director, stonewalled the hearings
and put the lid on any information coming out, which would explain why CIA Headquarters in
Langley was named after Bush. Colby is no longer among the living. Let's just say that he
didn't die from "natural causes".
Interestingly, Gerald Ford was often referred to as "The
CIA's Best Friend in The Senate", which would explain his old appointment to the Warren
Commission. It was Ford who ordered JFK's bullet wound in the back to be raised six inches up
to his neck, thus allowing Arlen Specter to float his "Magic bullet Theory"
JOHNCHUCKMAN fezzie035fezzm 1 hour ago 22 Nov, 2020 05:48 PM
Yes, Colby was an unusually frank man at times. He also told us about the ghastly Operation
Phoenix in Vietnam, a CIA run assassination scheme of village leaders and prominent men. They
killed 30 or 40 thousand people by sending in belly-crawling special forces guys to enter
villages at night and cut throats.
As is not generally known, Bush I was lifetime CIA and
became I believe the first CIA President. There is a little known picture of a young Bush
standing outside the Texas Book Depository on the day of the assassination. You'll find it on
my site Chuckman's Words in Comments on Wordpress. Its title to search is: A REMARKABLE DULL
LITTLE PHOTOGRAPH OF GEORGE H W BUSH WITH EXPLOSIVE SUGGESTIONS. Sorry, but RT doesn't like
links.
Of course, Colby himself may have been assassinated. He had a very odd boating
accident.
Ally Hauptmann-Gurski 20 hours ago 21 Nov, 2020 11:14 PM
The CIA controls the media in subtle ways. Blacklists for instance. I have experience after
one of my buddies fell for the spiel of an agent provocateur. Never trust anyone, always
assume they could be CIA and assess what damage they can do to you (and your associates)
before you interact with them. Misleading them would be best.
Enorm 22 hours ago 21 Nov, 2020 09:01 PM
NBC operatives don't have an opinion. They follow da money,. I feel sorry for folks glued to
propaganda TV.
WikiLeaks and other investigative outfits have looked at the conglomerates over the years and
over half of them are CIA "assets"...
Chris Cottrell 22 hours ago 21 Nov, 2020 08:25 PM
Are they spies? Probably not. Are they tools of the CIA even if unwittingly, yes.
Oregon Observer Chris Cottrell 21 hours ago 21 Nov, 2020 09:43 PM
Most ARE spies in every sense of the term. They look for specific information that they
pass onto their handler(s). It bears noting that the FBI and the 10,000 or so outfits that
contract with them and NSA and DHS and the pentagon and the various state Fusion programs are
as bad or worse and every stinking one if those outfits recruits reporters.
fakiho2 21 hours ago 21 Nov, 2020 09:28 PM
As shocking as it may sound, Glenn is stating the obvious. Even AFP and Reuters are CIA
mouthpieces. Look up Operation Mockingbird. Look up "propaganda multiplier" by the Swiss
policy research.
shadow1369 fakiho2 6 hours ago 22 Nov, 2020 12:30 PM
Interesting that nobody even tried to deny it, they just come up with the same line they used
to attack Wikileaks for telling the truth: exposing this might put out operatives at risk. My
response to that is good, time to have these roaches taken out.
Edward698 18 hours ago 22 Nov, 2020 01:43 AM
You can bet on Glenn to tell you the truth unlike the main stream media which fed us with
lots of non sense on Syria. Read his interview with "Democracy now": .... Glenn Greenwald on
"Submissive" Media's Drumbeat for War and "Despicable" Anti-Muslim Scapegoating By Democracy
Now! ....
GLENN GREENWALD: Well, first of all, that clip is unbelievable. It is literally one
of the three most important military officials of the entire war on terror, General Flynn,
who was the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency. He's saying that the U.S. government
knew that by creating a vacuum in Syria and then flooding that region with arms and money,
that it was likely to result in the establishment of a caliphate by Islamic extremists in
eastern Syria -- which is, of course, exactly what happened.
They knew that that was going to
happen, and they proceeded to do it anyway. So when the U.S. government starts trying to
point the finger at other people for helping ISIS, they really need to have a mirror put in
front of them, because, by their own documents, as that extraordinary clip demonstrates, they
bear huge responsibility for that happening, to say nothing of the fact that, as I said,
their closest allies in the region actually fund it.
Debra Edward698 14 hours ago 22 Nov, 2020 05:37 AM
The US was not only counting on their ISIS creation to destabilize Syria in the hope of an
Assad exit but also to decimate the Hezbollah. I credit the Hezbollah for saving Lebanon,
Syria, and Iraq, but they suffered heavy, heavy losses. "So when the U.S. government starts
trying to point the finger at other people for helping ISIS, they really need to have a
mirror put in front of them, because, by their own documents, as that extraordinary clip
demonstrates, they bear huge responsibility for that happening, to say nothing of the fact
that, as I said, their closest allies in the region actually fund it."
frankfalseflag 19 hours ago 22 Nov, 2020 12:08 AM
** "Glenn is endangering journalists working in perilous environments by telling. . ." ** . .
Perilous Environments because the CIA is probably manipulating another of its regimes change,
to very undemocratically put someone they control into office. Surely you remember
Poroshenko? ...
pogohere 21 hours ago 21 Nov, 2020 10:16 PM
Operation Mockingbird was a secret CIA effort to influence and control the American media.
The first report of the program came in 1979 in the biography of Katharine Graham, the owner
of the Washington Post, written by Deborah Davis. Davis wrote that the program was
established by Frank Wisner, the director of the Office of Policy Coordination, a covert
operations unit created under the National Security Council.
According to Davis, Wisner
recruited Philip Graham of the Washington Post to head the project within the media industry.
Davis wrote that, "By the early 1950s, Wisner 'owned' respected members of The New York
Times, Newsweek, CBS and other communications vehicles."
Davis also writes that Allen Dulles
convinced Cord Meyer, who later became Mockingbird's "principal operative," to join the CIA
in 1951.
The Taliban Won the War 7 hours ago 22 Nov, 2020 12:28 PM
It is true and it is an undisputed fact that all Western governments use Journalists, aid
workers and so called human relief organisations as cover for espionage, undercover and dark
operations. Not just that, they also use exchange teachers and students, they use priests and
pastors. They use anything and anyone that can hid
Isiah Steele 8 hours ago 22 Nov, 2020 11:45 AM
The Motion Picture Industry of Hollywood, too are CIA! Propagates: war and constant US
Military dominated narratives.
Sergio Weigel 16 hours ago 22 Nov, 2020 03:31 AM
I'm pretty sure that most journalists don't know, or don't wanna know, the dirty open secret
that editorial lines of most outlets are indeed determined or influenced by the CIA. The
trouble is their working conditions. There are far more journalists than job openings, and
they already earn badly. In order to keep the job, they just play ball, and as humans are,
they make themselves believe that what they were doing was just right. Cognitive dissonance,
and the result is outrage and defensive anger when someone points out their hypocrisy. That
is also why they avoid to even read alternative media, they don't have their noses pointed to
it. In a way, we can pity them. Then again, why become a journalist these days?
I used to think maybe 'journalists' were simply misled, but the narrative on too many
stories, from 9/11 to Iraq, from Syria to the ukraine, from the Skripals to Navalny, was so
ludicrous that a five year old could see through the lies. Nope, they know full well that
they are lying, and do so regardless. A great example was when some bbc l!cksp!ttle was
interviewing a general about events in Syria. Somehow they got the wrong guy, or he had not
been properly briefed, because his responses were factual and balanced. After trying to
challenge him, the interviewer finally said 'Don't you realise this is an informatioon war'.
Debra 4 hours ago 22 Nov, 2020 03:11 PM
This is another warning for people: Over the last two years Facebook has been advertising for
viewers to join Facebook groups. Many political groups on Facebook are set up by CIA and FBI
agents. Facebook is full of agents, and that is why the ones in Michigan were caught in their
attempted coup against the Michigan governor...
Quick Draw 22 hours ago 21 Nov, 2020 09:46 PM
Just NBC?
imnotarobot22 16 hours ago 22 Nov, 2020 03:05 AM
google 'Udo Ulfkotte' ex editor of the Frankfurter Allgemeine - he'll tell you about it.
Richard Burden 2 hours ago 22 Nov, 2020 05:07 PM
Reporters who work for the CIA are not spies, because the CIA is a lying agency, not a spying
agency. If a terrorist accuses you of being a CIA agent, you can honestly reply that the CIA
is the terrorist's friend.
The CIA wants the world to believe that China, Russia and Iran are
the leading state sponsors of terrorism, and that those seeking the overthrow of Syria's Bashar al-Assad are freedom fighters, not terrorists...
Throughout his campaign, Joe Biden railed against Donald Trump's 'America First' foreign
policy, claiming it weakened the United States and left the world in disarray. "Donald Trump's
brand of America First has too often led to America alone," Biden proclaimed.
He pledged to reverse this decline and recover the damage Trump did to America's reputation.
While Donald Trump called for making America Great Again, Biden seeks to Make the American
Empire Great Again .
Joe Biden: "Tonight, the whole world is watching America. And I believe at our best, America
is a beacon for the globe. We will lead not only by the example of our power, but by the power
of our example."
Among the president-elect's pledges is to end the so-called forever wars – the
decades-long imperial projects in Afghanistan and Iraq that began under the Bush
administration.
"It's long past time we end the forever wars which have cost us untold blood and treasure,"
Biden has said.
Yet Biden – a fervent supporter of those wars – will delegate that duty to the
most neoconservative elements of the Democratic Party and ideologues of permanent war .
Michele Flournoy and Tony Blinken sit atop Biden's thousands-strong foreign policy brain
trust and have played central roles in every U.S. war dating back to the Bill Clinton
administration.
During the Trump era, they've cashed in through WestExec Advisors – a corporate
consulting firm that has become home for Obama administration officials awaiting a return to
government.
Flournoy is Biden's leading pick for Secretary of Defense and Blinken is expected to be the
president's National Security Advisor.
Biden's foxes guard the henhouse
Since the 1990s, Flournoy and Blinken have steadily risen through the ranks of the
military-industrial complex, shuffling back and forth between the Pentagon and hawkish
think-tanks funded by the U.S. government, weapons companies, and oil giants.
Under Bill Clinton, Flournoy was the principal author of the 1996 Quadrinellial Defense
Review, the document that outlined the U.S. military's doctrine of permanent war – what
it called "full spectrum dominance."
Flournoy called for "unilateral use of military power" to ensure "uninhibited access to key
markets, energy supplies, and strategic resources."
https://www.youtube.com/embed/ivFFZ95EQvY
This video report was originally published at Behind The Headlines .
Support the independent journalism initiative here .
As Bush administration officials lied to the world about Saddam Hussein's supposed WMD's,
Flournoy remarked that "In some cases, preemptive strikes against an adversary's [weapons of
mass destruction] capabilities may be the best or only option we have to avert a catastrophic
attack against the United States."
Tony Blinken was a top advisor to then-Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Joe Biden,
who played a key role in shoring up support among the Democrat-controlled Senate for Bush's
illegal invasion of Iraq.
During the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, Biden declared, "In my judgment, President Bush
is right to be concerned about Saddam Hussein's relentless pursuit of weapons of mass
destruction."
As Iraq was plunged into chaos and bloodshed, Flournoy was among the authors of a paper
titled "Progressive Internationalism" that called for a "smarter and better" style of permanent
war . The paper chastised the anti-war left and stated that "Democrats will maintain the
world's most capable and technologically advanced military, and we will not flinch from using
it to defend our interests anywhere in the world."
With Bush winning a second term, Flournoy advocated for more troop deployments from the
sidelines.
In 2005, Flournoy signed onto a letter
from the neoconservative think tank Project for a New American Century, asking Congress to
"increase substantially the size of the active duty Army and Marine Corps (by) at least 25,000
troops each year over the next several years."
In 2007, she leveraged her Pentagon experience and contacts to found what would become one
of the premier Washington think tanks advocating endless war across the globe: the Center for a
New American Security (CNAS). CNAS is funded by the U.S. government, arms
manufacturers, oil giants, Silicon Valley tech giants, billionaire-funded foundations, and big
banks.
Flournoy joined the Obama administration and was appointed as under secretary of defense for
policy, the position considered the "brains" of the Pentagon. She was keenly aware that the
public was wary of more quagmires. In the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review, she crafted a new
concept of warfare that would expand the permanent war state while giving the appearance of a
drawdown.
Flournoy wrote that "unmanned systems hold great promise" – a reference to the CIA's
drone assassination program. This was the Obama-era military doctrine of hybrid war. It called
for the U.S. to be able to simultaneously wage war on numerous fronts through secret warfare,
clandestine weapons transfers to proxies, drone strikes, and cyber-attacks – all
buttressed with propaganda campaigns targeting the American public through the internet and
corporate news media.
Architects of America's Hybrid wars
Flournoy continued to champion the endless wars that began in the Bush-era and was a key
architect of Obama's disastrous troop surge in Afghanistan. As U.S. soldiers returned in body
bags and insurgent attacks and suicide bombings increased some 65% from 2009 and 2010, she
deceived the Senate Armed Services Committee, claiming that the U.S. was beginning to turn the
tide against the Taliban: "We are beginning to regain the initiative and the insurgency is
beginning to lose momentum."
Even with her lie that the U.S. and Afghan government were starting to beat the Taliban
back, Flournoy assured the senate that the U.S. would have to remain in Afghanistan long into
the future: "We are not leaving any time soon even though the nature and the complexion of the
commitment may change over time."
Ten years later – as the Afghan death toll passed 150,000 – Flournoy continued
to argue against a U.S. withdrawal: "I would certainly not advocate a US or NATO departure
short of a political settlement being in place."
That's the person Joe Biden has tasked with ending the forever war in Afghanistan. But in
Biden's own words, he'll "bring the vast majority of our troops home from Afghanistan" implying
some number of American troops will remain, and the forever war will be just that. Michele
Flournoy explained that even if a political settlement were reached, the U.S. would maintain a
presence.
Michele Flournoy: "If we are fortunate enough to see a political settlement reached, it
doesn't mean that the US role or the international community is over. Afghanistan without
outside investment is not a society that is going to survive and thrive. In no case are we
going to be able to wash our hands of Afghanistan and walk away nor should we want to. This is
something where we're going to have to continue to be engaged, just the form of engagement may
change."
In 2011, the Obama-era doctrine of smart and sophisticated warfare was unveiled in the NATO
regime-change war on Libya.
Moammar Gaddafi – the former adversary who sought warm relations with the U.S. and had
given up his nuclear weapons program – was deposed and sodomized with a bayonet.
Flournoy, Hillary Clinton's State Department, and corporate media were in lockstep as they
waged an elaborate propaganda campaign to deceive the U.S. public that Gadaffi's soldiers were
on a Viagra-fueled rape and murder spree that demanded a U.S. intervention.
Fox News: "Susan Rice reportedly told a security council meeting that Libyan troops are
being given viagra and are engaging in sexual violence."
MSNBC jumped on the propaganda bandwagon, claiming: "New reports emerge that the LIbyan
dictator gave soldiers viagra-type pills to rape women who are opposed to the government."
So did CNN.
As the Libyan ambassador to the US alleged "raping, killing, mass graves," ICC Chief
Prosecutor Manuel Ocampo claimed: "It's like a machete. Viagra is a tool of massive rapes."
All of this was based on a report
from Al Jazeera – the media outlet owned by the Qatari monarchy that was arming
extremist militias in Libya to overthrow the government.
Yet an investigation by the United Nations called the rape claims "hysteria." Amnesty
International and Human Rights Watch found no credible evidence of even a single rape.
Even after Libya was descended into strife and the deception of Gadaffi's forces committing
rape was debunked, Michele Flournoy stood by her support for the war: "I supported the
intervention in Libya on humanitarian grounds. I think we were right to do it."
Tony Blinken, then Obama's deputy national security advisor, also pushed for regime change
in Libya. He became Obama's point man on Syria, pushed to arm the so-called "moderate rebels"
that fought alongside al-Qaeda and ISIS, and designed the red line strategy to trigger a
full-on U.S. intervention. Syria, he told the public, wasn't anything like the other wars the
U.S. had waging for more than a decade.
Tony Blinken: "We are doing this in a very different way than in the past. We're not sending
in hundreds of thousands of American troops. We're not spending trillions of American dollars.
We're being smart about this. This is a sustainable way to get at the terrorists and it's also
a more effective way."
Blinken added: "This is not open-ended, this is not boots on the ground, this is not Iraq,
it's not Afghanistan, it's not even Libya. The more people understand that, the more they'll
understand the need for us to take this limited but effective action ."
Despite Blinken's promises that it would be a short affair, the war on Syria is now in its
ninth year. An estimated half a million people have been killed as a result and the country is
facing famine.
Largely thanks to the policy of using "wheat to apply pressure" – a recommendation of
Flournoy and Blinken's CNAS think tank.
When the Trump administration launched airstrikes on Syria based on mere accusations of a
chemical attack, Tony Blinken praised the bombing, claiming Assad had used the weapon of mass
destruction sarin. Yet there was no evidence for this claim, something even then-secretary of
Defense James Mattis admitted: "So I can not tell you that we had evidence even though we had a
lot of media and social media indicators that either chlorine or sarin were used ."
While jihadist mercenaries armed with U..S-supplied weapons took over large swaths of Syria,
Tony Blinken played a central role in a coup d'etat in Ukraine that saw a pro-Russia government
overthrown in a U.S.-orchestrated color revolution with neo-fascist elements agitating on the
ground.
At the time, he was ambivalent about sending lethal weapons to Ukraine, instead opting for
economic pressure.
Tony Blinken: "We're working, as I said, to make sure that there's a cost exacted of Russia
and indeed that it feels the pressure. That's what we're working on. And when it comes to
military assistance, we're looking at it. The facts are these: Even if assistance were to go to
Ukraine that would be very unlikely to change Russia's calculus or prevent an invasion."
Since then, fascist militias have been incorporated into Ukraine's armed forces. And Tony
Blinken urged Trump to send them deadly weapons – something Obama had declined to do.
But Trump obliged.
The Third Offset
While the U.S. fueled wars in Syria and Ukraine, the Pentagon announced a major shift called
the Third Offset strategy – a reference to the cold war era strategies the U.S. used to
maintain its military supremacy over the Soviet Union.
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The Third Offset strategy
shifted the focus from counterinsurgency and the war on terror to great power competition
against China and Russia. It called for a technological revolution in warfighting capabilities,
development of futuristic and autonomous weapons, swarms of undersea and airborne drones,
hypersonic weapons, cyber warfare, machine-enhanced soldiers, and artificial intelligence
making unimaginably complex battlefield decisions at speeds incomprehensible to the human mind.
All of this would be predicated on the Pentagon deepening its relationship with Silicon Valley
giants that it birthed decades before: Google and Facebook.
The author of the Third Offset, former undersecretary of defense Robert Work, is a partner
of Flournoy and Blinken's at WestExec Advisors. And Flournoy has been a leading proponent of
this dangerous new escalation .
She warned that the United States is losing its military technological advantage and
reversing that must be the Pentagon's priority. Without it, Flournoy warned that the U.S. might
not be able to defeat China in Asia: "That technological investment is still very important for
the United States to be able to offset what will be quantitative advantages and home theater
advantages for a country like China if we ever had to deal with a conflict in Asia, in their
backyard."
While Flournoy has called for ramping up U.S. military presence and exercises with allied
forces in the region, she went so far as to call for the U.S. to increase its destructive
capabilities so much that it could launch a blitzkrieg style-attack that would wipe out the
entire Chinese navy and all civilian merchant ships in the South China Sea . Not only a blatant
war crime but a direct attack on a nuclear power that would spell the third world war.
At the same time, Biden has announced he'll take an even more aggressive and confrontational
stance against Russia , a position Flournoy shares: "We need to invest to ensure that we
maintain the military edge that we will need in certain critical areas like cyber and
electronic warfare and precision strike, to again underwrite deterrence, to make sure Vladimir
Putin does not miscalculate and think that he can cross a border into Europe or cross a border
and threaten us militarily."
As for ending the forever wars, Tony Blinken says not so fast: "Large scale, open-ended
deployment of large standing US forces in conflict zones with no clear strategy should end and
will end under his watch . But we also need to distinguish between, for example, these endless
wars with the large scale open ended deployment of US forces with, for example, discreet,
small-scale sustainable operations, maybe led by special forces, to support local actors In
ending the endless wars I think we have to be careful to not paint with too broad a brush
stroke."
The end of forever wars?
So Biden will end the forever wars, but not really end them. Secret wars that the public
doesn't even know the U.S. is involved in – those are here to stay.
In fact, leaving teams of special forces in place throughout the Middle East is part and
parcel of the Pentagon's shift away from counterinsurgency and towards great power
competition.
The 2018 National Defense Strategy explains that, "Long-term strategic competitions with
China and Russia are the principal priorities" and the U.S. will "consolidate gains in Iraq and
Afghanistan while moving to a more resource-sustainable approach."
As for the catastrophic war on Yemen, Biden has said he'll end U.S. support; but in 2019,
Michele Flournoy argued against ending arms sales to Saudi Arabia .
Biden pledged he will rejoin the Iran deal as a starting point for new negotiations.
However, Trump's withdrawal from the deal discredited the Iranian reformists who seek
engagement with the west and empowered the principlists who see the JCPOA as a deal with the
devil.
In Latin America, Biden will revive the so-called anti-corruption campaigns that were used
as a cover to oust the popular social democrat Brazilian president Lula da Silva.
In Central America, Biden
has presided over a four billion dollar package to support corrupt right-wing governments
and neoliberal privatization projects, fueling destabilization and sending vulnerable masses
fleeing north to the United States.
Behind their rhetoric, Biden, Flournoy, and Blinken will seek nothing less than global
supremacy , escalating a new and even more dangerous arms race that risks the destruction of
humanity. That's what Joe Biden calls "decency" and "normalcy."
naughty.boy , 14 hours ago
deep state will bankrupt the USA with forever wars.
Distant_Star , 14 hours ago
Yes. As a bonus neither of these Deep State wretches has even seen a shot fired in anger.
They are too "important" to be at risk.
Wonder how the various generations, generally speaking, view that event and it's
cause?
(perhaps)
Baby Boomers: I surmise we generally don't believe in the Lone Gunman Theory. Ironically,
those Baby Boomers that count themselves
as Democrats now support Trump's enemy the CIA.
Today of course is the sad anniversary of the assassination of the 35th American
President, JFK. Killed, history tells us, by a lone gunman, communist sympathizer, traitor,
and failure who wanted his 15 minutes of fame.
How 'Western' Media Select Their Foreign Correspondentsgottlieb , Nov 20 2020
19:21 utc |
1
Did you ever wonder why 'western' mainstream media get stories about Russia and other
foreign countries so wrong?
It is simple. They hire the most brainwashed, biased and cynic writers they can get for
the job. Those who are corrupt enough to tell any lie required to support the world view of
their editors and media owners.
They are quite upfront about it.
Here is evidence in form of a New York Times
job description for a foreign correspondent position in Moscow:
Russia Correspondent
Job Description
Vladimir Putin's Russia remains one of the biggest stories in the world.
It sends out hit squads armed with nerve agents against its enemies, most recently the
opposition leader Aleksei Navalny. It has its cyber agents sow chaos and disharmony in the
West to tarnish its democratic systems, while promoting its faux version of democracy. It
has deployed private military contractors around the globe to secretly spread its
influence. At home, its hospitals are filling up fast with Covid patients as its president
hides out in his villa.
If that sounds like a place you want to cover, then we have good news: We will have an
opening for a new correspondent as Andy Higgins takes over as our next Eastern Europe
Bureau Chief early next year.
To be allowed to write for the Times one must see the Russian Federation as a
country that is ruled by just one man.
One must be a fervent believer in MI6 produced Novichok hogwash. One must also believe in
Russiagate and in the multiple idiocies it produced even after all of them have been
debunked.
One must know that vote counts in Russia are always wrong while U.S. vote counting is the
most reliable ever. Russian private military contractors (which one must know to be evil men)
are 'secretly deployed' to wherever the editors claim them to be. Russia's hospitals are of
cause always much worse than ours.
Even when it is easy to check that Vladimir Putin (the most evil man ever) is at work in the
Kremlin the job will require one to claim that he is hiding in a villa.
Most people writing for the Times will actually not believe the above nonsense.
But the description is not for a position that requires one to weight and report the facts.
It is for a job that requires one to lie. That the Times lists all the recent
nonsense about Russia right at the top of the job description makes it clear that only people
who support those past lies will be considered adequate to tell future lies about Russia.
No honest unbiased person will want such a job. But as it comes with social prestige, a
good paycheck and a probably nice flat in Moscow the New York Times will surely find
a number of people who are willing to sell their souls to take it.
Interestingly the job advertisement does not list Russian language capabilities as a
requirement. It only says that 'Fluency in Russian is preferred'.
'Western' mainstream media are filled with such biased, cynic and self-censoring
correspondents who have little if any knowledge of the country they are reporting from. It is
therefore not astonishing that 'western' populations as well as their politicians have often
no knowledge of what is really happening in the world.
Hilarious. Don't need no stinking
Operation Mockingbird anymore. Just put out a want-ad and plenty of brainwashed folks will
come flocking. Propaganda works.
This is such an odd job description with very few specific requirements and none detailing
how much experience or what level of knowledge or skill is required (in the form of X number
of years worked in some area requiring Russian language skills or university qualifications
obtained) that I almost wonder if this advertisement is for real.
One notices also that "Vladimir Putin's Russia" is presented as a story. Everything else
that follows in the second paragraph of the advertisement is also a story. Indeed everything
in the news media industry is a "story" as if instead of employing investigative reporters on
the beat grimly searching for hard facts like old pulp fiction detectives, the media now only
wants Hollywood script writers or graduates straight out of creative writing courses.
But then I suppose whoever gets the job at the NYT can hardly do worse than what the hack
Luke Harding did as The Fraudian's Moscow correspondent nearly 15 years ago, so much so that
the Russian govt must have suspected that he was more than just a bad paranoid plagiarist ...
he must have been a spy as well, that it would initially refuse to renew his visa. One would
like to see the job specifications for the position of The Fraudian's Moscow reporter that
Harding held for a number of years.
Incredible. What the acronym 'SMH' (shake my head) was invented for.
It's no wonder I switched off CBC radio, our national broadcaster here in Canada. Their
music programs were okay, but every hour they had a news update, and those were
stomach-turning. Superficial, biased, Empire-friendly nonsense...
Norman Solomon wrote about this problem fifteen years ago in his book "War Made Easy, How
Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us To Death"
. . .from Amazon: In War Made Easy, nationally syndicated columnist, media critic, and author
Norman Solomon cuts through the dense web of spin to probe and scrutinize the key "perception
management" techniques that have played huge rolls in the promotion of American wars in
recent decades.
p.116
. . .The attitudes of reporters covering U.S. foreign policy officials are generally
similar to the attitudes of those officials. "Most journalists who get plum foreign
assignments already accept the assumptions of empire," according to longtime foreign
correspondent Reese Erlick. He added, "I didn't meet a single foreign reporter in Iraq who
disagreed with the notion that the U.S. and Britain have the right to overthrow the Iraq
government by force. They disagreed only about timing, whether the action should be
unilateral, and whether a long-term occupation is practical." After decades of freelancing
for major U.S. news organizations, Erlich offered this blunt conclusion: "Money, prestige,
career options, ideological predilections--combined with the down sides of filing stories
unpopular with the government--all cast their influence on foreign correspondents. You
don't win a Pulitzer prize for challenging the basic assumptions of empire."
> social prestige, a good paycheck and a probably nice flat
The term that Paul Craig Roberts often uses, " presstitute ", comes to mind.
Echoing JimmyG. @4 and spudski @7, in Canada, our taxpayer-funded state news agency's
flagship program "The National" gives us regular Two Minutes Hate pieces currently
being churned out every two weeks or so by Moscow correspondent Chris Brown who fits this
article's description to a T.
I've lost count of how many times he and CBC The National's editors have singled out
Russia's handling of COVID-19 for criticism, when so many other countries have far worse per
capita fatality numbers than Russia.
While decrying Russia's COVID-19 deaths, they, of course, never mention the fact that
Canada has had more COVID-19 deaths per capita than Russia ...
It's absolutely pathetic.
5 years ago the truly great journalist Robert Fisk made the following observations during an
interview with the journal.ie amongst others.
Back's up everything you have pointed out about the sheer disappearance of any impartial
reportage from the NYT and printed media in general.
"Most newspapers that have lost circulation, particularly in the States, it's not because
of the internet, it's because those newspapers were simply no good. When I go to San
Francisco the coverage of the Middle East in its papers is frightened, cowardly, pathetic,
there's no serious foreign coverage at all."
"Newspapers themselves are to blame for the deterioration in their readership. I read the
New York Times when its free, period, it doesn't deserve to be paid for. It's not worth
it.
It doesn't matter whether it's online or not. If a paper's not worth buying you'll read for
free online regardless"
"Most people writing for the Times will actually not believe the above
nonsense."
Our host is much too charitable to the presstitutes. Those in the "Mockingbird"
mass media eat their own effluent like a sort of group ouroboric scatophagia. To maintain
their perverse form of "mental hygiene" they studiously avoid information sources
outside of their own circular reprocessing of yesterday's delusions into fresh steaming piles
for today's consumption. They have become so accustomed to feeding off their own delusions
that if a hint of reality were to intrude into their looped intellectual food chain their
minds would reject it like poison. They would likely exhibit physical symptoms, which
doubtless would be attributed to evil Soviet mind rays from Havana.
Stengel stated clearly that a "news cartel" of mainstream corporate media outlets had
long dominated US society, but he bemoaned that those "cartels don't have hegemony like they
used to."
Stengel made it clear that his mission is to counter the alternative perspectives given
a voice by foreign media platforms that challenge the US-dominated media landscape.
"The bad actors use journalistic objectivity against us."
Wow ...
I clicked on the New York Times job link, and journalistic objectivity and integrity are
nowhere to be found in the job descripton. But I did notice these lines that add to the ones
that b brought to our attention:
We are looking for someone who will embrace the prospect of traversing 11 time zones to
track a populace that is growing increasingly frustrated with an economy dragged down by
corruption, cronyism and excessive reliance on natural resources. This posting offers the
chance to chronicle the continuing reign of one of the world's most charismatic leaders,
President Vladimir V. Putin.
Not to mention, Putin ushered in changes to the constitution, so he will likely stay in
power for many years to come.
And, of course, we are on the cusp of a new, less Putin-friendly president in the US,
which should only raise the temperature between Washington and Moscow.
It's not Russia it's "Vladimir Putin's Russia," so that's one mandatory term checked off,
i.e. personalizing the appointed enemy. But then we read "It sends out hit squads. . ."
instead of the usual obligatory: 'The regime' . . . . .but the Times can't get everything
right.
The amount of hourly propaganda directed at and leveled at American people is
unprecedented, I had not seen it this intense in past years it reminds me of my High school
days in Shah's Iran. This kind and this intense of control on news can only be due to
instability of the regime. IMO in coming Biden Adminstration regime will impose new rules for
control of internet and access to foreign news. Currently using my Mobil cellular I can't
access any Iranian news site.
Hawlwy
wrote to the acting Defense secretary, Christopher C. Miller. "The costs of the war in Afghanistan continue to mount, and they are
borne disproportionately by working Americans. For these reasons, majorities of Americans, including veterans of the war itself, have
long called for an end to the war in Afghanistan. Yet most of our nation's policymakers have ignored them."
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., allied himself with the White House and those calling for a swift exit from Afghanistan on Tuesday.
"I write to express my support for President Trump's plan for the prompt withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan," Hawley
wrote to the acting Defense secretary, Christopher C. Miller. "The costs of the war in Afghanistan continue to mount, and they
are borne disproportionately by working Americans. For these reasons, majorities of Americans, including veterans of the war itself,
have long called for an end to the war in Afghanistan. Yet most of our nation's policymakers have ignored them."
Hawley's signaling is significant because it runs counter to the political assault on the Hill by Republicans to stop President
Trump's plot to exit from the troubled theater in his administration's closing days. On Monday, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell expressed,
in no uncertain terms, his vociferous opposition to a further drawdown: "A rapid withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan now would
hurt our allies and delight the people who wish us harm."
McConnell was joined by Michael McCaul, the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, among others, in expressing
his displeasure with recent developments in President Trump's national security team. An embattled Trump has suddenly cleaned house
at the Pentagon , in a maneuver widely described as essentially outlaw.
Trump's moves at DoD are seen as part score-settling -- and part delivering on a major campaign promise. If he sticks the landing,
Trump's acolytes insist drawing down further in Afghanistan cracks the door open still wider for a potential 2024 repeat run.
"You wrote recently, 'All wars must end,'" Hawley wrote to Miller. "The time has come to end the war in Afghanistan. I urge you
to stand with President Trump and bring our troops home as expeditiously as possible."
Hawley has now staked out new territory, putting finishing touches on a Afghanistan policy he has been developing for some time.
In September, he
told
this magazine : "It's time for a strategic refocus. We have spent too much time on adventures in the Middle East and elsewhere
that do not serve our strategic aims and place enormous burdens on the class of working men and women who fight our wars."
Notably, Hawley's statements stand apart from other Republican senators, who are keen to enhance their bona fides to become the
leader of a future, "realigned" Republican Party.
Echoing McConnell, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida
told Politico
: "The concern would be it would turn into a Saigon-type of situation where it would fall very quickly and then our ability to conduct
operations against terrorist elements in the region could be compromised. That's my primary concern right now."
But the leadership class in Republican Washington continues to mostly diverge from those reading the tea leaves on the future
of the party. Rubio was not joined by Sen. Tom Cotton, who is traditionally seen as the most hawkish of the trio. Cotton has previously
noted that he
shares Trump's frustration with the war. And Ted Cruz, another 2024 contender, has so far been silent.
In any case, Hawley is the only GOP hopeful on the scene right now I could remotely contemplate voting for in 2024. Will continue
watching him with interest.
That's good to see. I like Hawley a lot on domestic policy, but he's stuck to a more or less pre-Trump GOP foreign policy up
till now. He needs to drop the deranged hostility to Iran to really win my support, but supporting a drawdown of our Middle Eastern
wars is better than the neocons banging the drums for indefinite occupations.
That's good to see. I like Hawley a lot on domestic policy, but he's stuck to a more or less pre-Trump GOP foreign policy up
till now. He needs to drop the deranged hostility to Iran to really win my support, but supporting a drawdown of our Middle Eastern
wars is better than the neocons banging the drums for indefinite occupations.
According to Reuters, citing Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller, U.S. troop numbers in Afghanistan will be reduced,
but not a full withdrawal.
Once again, a failed Trump pullout. Such a pathetic little cuck.
Removal of troops from Syria should be the first step, since the illegality of that occupation is the most obvious, and then
Iraq. Afghanistan is somewhat prioritize because it is less important strategically right now and more cumbersome to deal with...
But the US would rather have its diplomatic missions in every country replaced with military bases...Superpowers!
Israel needs the US troops there to facilitate the genocide of Syria's Christians, which General Soleimani and Hezbollah, along
with the Syrian Arab Army, were protecting.
The saddest thing about this whole affair is that it is a sham to make it look as if Trump has kept his promise to bring US
troops home and then blame Biden for supporting endless wars if he has to send US troops back in to protect the troops that were
left behind. As the graduate of an elite law school Hawley is bright enough to know that terrorism is not going to abate in Afghanistan
or the Middle East or in parts of Africa but he also realizes that the great grandparents of the people who voted for him were
skeptical about the US entering WWI, had grandparents who did not see any reason to enter WWII until Pearl Harbor, and parents
who did not think invading Afghanistan made sense until 9/11. If you are thinking of running for president in 2024 this may seem
like a reasonable political move but ultimately really shows how facile Hawley's understanding of international affairs really
is and a basic dishonesty about what is really involved in maintaining US global power.
"... There is some pushback in Washington to Israeli dominance, but not much. Recent senior Pentagon appointee Colonel Douglas Macgregor famously has pointed out that many American politicians get "very, very rich" through their support of Israel even though it means the United States being dragged into new wars. ..."
That Israel would blatantly and openly interfere in the deliberations of Congress raises
some serious questions which the mainstream media predictably is not addressing. Jewish power
in America is for real and it is something that some Jews
are not shy about discussing among themselves. Jewish power is unique in terms of how it
functions. If you're an American (
or British ) politician, you very quickly are made to appreciate that Israel owns you and
nearly all of your colleagues. Indeed, the process begins in the U.S. even before your election
when the little man from AIPAC shows up with the check list that he wants you to sign off on.
If you behave per instructions your career path will be smooth, and you will benefit from your
understanding that everything happening in Washington that is remotely connected to the
interests of the state of Israel is to be determined by the Jewish state alone, not by the U.S.
Congress or White House.
And, here is the tricky part, even while you are energetically kowtowing to Netanyahu, you
must strenuously deny that there is Jewish power at work if anyone ever asks you about it. You
behave in that fashion because you know that your pleasant life will be destroyed, painfully,
if you fail to deny the existence of an Israel Lobby or the Jewish power that supports it.
It is a bold assertion, but there is plenty of evidence to support how that power is exerted
and what the consequences are. Senators William Fulbright and Chuck Percy and Congressmen Paul
Findlay, Pete McCloskey and Cynthia McKinney have all experienced the wrath of the Lobby and
voted out of office. Currently Reverend Raphael Warnock, who is running against Georgia
Loeffler for a senate seat in Georgia demonstrates exactly how candidates are convinced to
stand on their heads by the Israel Lobby. Warnock was a strong supporter of Palestinian rights
and a critic of Israeli brutality.
He said as recently as 2018 that the Israelis were shooting civilians and condemned the
military occupation and settlement construction on the Palestinian West Bank, which he compared
to apartheid South Africa. Now that he is running for the Senate, he is saying that he is
opposed to the Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement due to what he calls the
movement's "anti-Semitic overtones." He also supports continued military assistance for Israel
and believes that Iran is in pursuit of a nuclear weapon, both of which are critical issues
being promoted by the Zionist lobby.
There is some pushback in Washington to Israeli dominance, but not much. Recent senior
Pentagon appointee Colonel Douglas Macgregor
famously has pointed out that many American politicians get "very, very rich" through their
support of Israel even though it means the United States being dragged into new wars. Just
how Israel gains control of the U.S. political process is illustrated by the devastating
insider tale of how the Obama Administration's feeble attempts to do the right thing in the
Middle East were derailed by American Jews in Congress, the media, party donors and from inside
the White House itself. The story is of particularly interest as the Biden Administration will
no doubt suffer the same fate if it seeks to reject or challenge Israel's ability to manipulate
and virtually control key aspects of U.S. foreign policy.
The account of Barack Obama's struggle with Israel and the Israeli Lobby comes from a
recently published memoir written by a former foreign policy adviser Ben Rhodes. It is
entitled
The World As It Is , and it is extremely candid about how Jewish power was able to
limit the foreign policy options of a popular sitting president. Rhodes recounts, for example,
how Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel once nicknamed him "Hamas" after he dared to speak up for
Palestinian human rights, angrily shouting at him "Hamas over here is going to make it
impossible for my kid to have his fucking bar mitzvah in Israel."
Rhodes cites numerous instances where Obama was forced to back down when confronted by
Israel and its supporters in the U.S. as well as within the Democratic Party. On several
occasions, Netanyahu lecture the U.S. president as if he were an errant schoolboy. And Obama
just had to take it. Rhodes sums up the situation as follows: "In Washington, where support for
Israel is an imperative for members of Congress, there was a natural deference to the views of
the Israeli government on issues related to Iran, and Netanyahu was unfailingly
confrontational, casting himself as an Israeli Churchill . AIPAC and other organizations exist
to make sure that the views of the Israeli government are effectively disseminated and opposing
views discredited in Washington, and this dynamic was a permanent part of the landscape of the
Obama presidency."
And, returning to the persistent denial of Jewish power even existing when it is running
full speed and relentlessly, Rhodes notes the essential dishonesty of the Israel Lobby as it
operates in Washington: "Even to acknowledge the fact that AIPAC was spending tens of millions
to defeat the Iran deal [JCPOA] was anti-Semitic. To observe that the same people who supported
the war in Iraq also opposed the Iran deal was similarly off limits. It was an offensive way
for people to avoid accountability for their own positions."
Many Americans long to live in a country that is at peace with the world and respectful of
the sovereignty of foreign nations. Alas, as long as Israeli interests driven by overwhelming
Jewish power in the United States continue to corrupt our institutions that just will not be
possible. It is time for all Americans, including Jews, to accept that Israel is a foreign
country that must make its own decisions and thereby suffer the consequences. The United States
does not exist to bail Israel out or to provide cover for its bad behavior. The so-called
"special relationship" must end and the U.S. must deal with the Israelis as they would with any
other country based on America's own self-interests. Those interests definitely do not include
funding the Israeli war machine, assassinating foreign leaders, or attacking a non-threatening
Iran while continuing an illegal occupation of Syria.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest,
a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a
more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is https://councilforthenationalinterest.org,
address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is[email protected] .
Threat inflation is like Apple pie among Washington swamp national security parasites
Notable quotes:
"... The US security state, with its huge military forces and techno-industrial base, and no diplomatic need nor capability, REQUIRES (fake) "security threats" in order to exist. ..."
"... Those appointed "threats" are currently, probably not changing soon, in some order of "threat-size" . . . ..."
Applying any logic to the "threats" against the US "national security" AKA world hegemony
becomes much simpler with recognizing two simple facts:
1. The US security state, with its huge military forces and techno-industrial base, and no
diplomatic need nor capability, REQUIRES (fake) "security threats" in order to exist.
2. Those appointed "threats" are currently, probably not changing soon, in some order of
"threat-size" . . .
China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, Afghanistan, Syria, Venezuela, & African
"terrorists" -- did I miss anyone?
Here's China's unofficial response via this Global Times editorial . I
wish I could reproduce the art at the editorial's header as it's very spot-on:
"There is no new wording in the report, which can be seen as a collection of malicious
remarks from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and other anti-China US politicians and senators.
Right now, only a little more than 60 days are left for the current US administration. An
official from the State Department explained that the report is not meant to constrain the
next US administration. But the fact is the Department of State fears that the Biden
administration will adjust US-China relations, and the release of the report is part of their
efforts to consolidate the current extreme anti-China path.
"But most Chinese scholars who have read the report believe it is an insult to Kennan by
labeling the report as Kennan-style. Kennan, then US charge d'affaires in Moscow, sent an
8,000-word telegram to the Department of State detailing his views on the Soviet Union. At
least, there was no special political motive in Kennan's report. But the latest report is
trying to leave a legacy for the extreme anti-China policy adopted by the Trump
administration and fawning on Pompeo, which is evil in essence .
"The impulsive and capricious governing style of Donald Trump leaves sufficient room for
politicians like Pompeo to give free play to their ambitions. The Department of State has
become the governmental organ that has the most serious clashes with China, outperforming the
CIA and the Department of Defense.
"Diplomats are supposed to be communicators, but Pompeo and his team have chilled the
communication atmosphere with China. In the China direction, today's US Department of State
can close its door.
"Surrounded by such deep hostility and prejudice toward China and the wild ambition of the
secretary of state, how could the Department of State's Office of Policy Planning make out
anything objective about China? Their observation ability, cautious attitude toward research,
and sense of responsibility for history have been severely squeezed. They are just currying
favor from their seniors and manipulating extreme paths, pretending to be
'thoughtful....'
"Chinese diplomatic and academic circles look down upon the Pompeo team, which lacks
professionalism, and acts like a group of gangsters suddenly taking official positions.
They not only have messed things up, but also hope to build their nonsense as legacy.
Pompeo's choice of opportunists like Miles Yu as advisor in particular has increased Chinese
people's doubts over the 'amateurism' and 'immorality' of the Pompeo team's China
policy....
"The US' China policy is very much like 'drunk driving' internally while on the
international stage it's like sailing against the current." [My Emphasis]
There's not much more to add aside for asking barflies to read the entire editorial.
"Although it is hardly atypical of the President Trump administration, the document is
significant because it represents yet another attempt by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to
immortalize his Cold War confrontation between the US and China, bind the succeeding
administration to it and most strikingly, institutionalize anti-Beijing ideas into American
bureaucracy.
"The push against China by the Trump White House is not designed to be a passing phase,
but a permanent and defining change of direction, for which this entire term in office has
sought to prepare. This document aims to be a blueprint for long-term ideological struggle
and a series of aspirations for maintaining hegemony, an affirmation of priority and a
statement that things cannot " go back to normal ". But it makes no guarantee that the
US can ever adequately understand China, or that it will succeed in its aims.
"The reference to George F. Kennan in pitching this document is appealing given the
historical parallels, but it is not an exact fit and this, in turn, helps shine a light on
Pompeo's own ignorance of China. It might be described in one simple sentence: China is not
the Soviet Union and the ideological stakes are not quite the same." [Emphasis Original]
While I'd agree that differences in ideology exist between China and the Outlaw US Empire,
it is the Empire that's constructed upon and is living the Big Lie inherent within
Neoliberalism, while China continues to perfect its already very efficient system of
Collective Libertarianism through its revamped Democratic Centralism. The really big
fundamental difference is that China has absolutely no need to lie to its people, whereas the
exact opposite's true within the Neoliberal West. After a lengthy period of public input, the
government meets and eventually publishes its 5-year plan of development, which is contained
within an even larger plan that's also been devised with public input and once put together
is also published for public consumption. And since 2010, all plans have existed within
China's UN 2030 Development plan, which is also available to the public. In a great many
respects. China is a more open society than the Outlaw US Empire. Why? Because it doesn't
need to lie to its citizens because it fights against the corruption that provides the reason
for such lies--China has no Financial Parasitism it must mask from its citizens whereas the
Outlaw US Empire is drowning in a massive sea of corruption that is killing it. Clearly,
Pompeo wants that to continue.
It has been fascinating to see both Republicans and Democrats denounce Trump on this. NPR
yesterday was in full-on war propagation mode, all of it's "experts" warning how dangerous a
withdrawal would be. Nary a mention anywhere that we have been there for 19 years, more
mocking Trump for "what he calls never-ending wars."
Like I told a liberal I know, recently. when he was complaining how Republicans were
destroying Democracy - why so sour? You won, remember? Now take heart, the Democratic Party,
major media and the Intelligence Community will be in sync restoring Democracy.
I wonder if we made it illegal for weapons/security contractors to trade their stock in
the markets, if most of this full throated support for war amongst our elite would
evaporate?
The interesting part is that the condemnation of Trump is coupled with "we're on the cusp
of victory" talk. America has been on the cusp of victory in Afghanistan multiple times, it
seems.
The Obama surge was prompted by General McChrystal's representations back in 2009 that the
war was winnable with more troops. In excess of 100,000 troops by 2011 was not sufficient to
achieve victory. The war then became an exercise in Afghan self-determination and honorable
withdrawal, reminiscent of "Vietnamization." This has been going on for nine years with, by
all accounts, the Taliban increasing its control of the country. There is no doubt that a
final withdrawal of U.S. troops would be a repeat of Saigon 1975.
Interestingly, the war morphed from removing Al Qaeda, propping up the Kabul government,
and defeating the Taliban, to being a protracted counter-narcotic operation. Given the
feudalistic realities of Afghan society, creating a Taliban-free, central government
controlled Afghanistan based upon western concepts is not a reality.
There is no doubt as to Afghanistan's strategic importance based upon its location and
resources. At the very least, those who condemn Trump for wanting to withdraw U.S. troops
from Afghanistan can be honest about why we are still there, although it's not a mystery in
geopolitical terms.
So, in Rubio's worldview Saigon would be better today if it were still occupied by
American soldiers. This imperialistic gene has to be eradicated from within these
Establishment armchair warriors. Our election of Donald Trump was a first raising of the hand
to say..stop. Stop it. Your time is through.
And now, since Democrats have flipped from freedom-loving liberals to authoritarian
leftists, they are united with the neo-con Republicans to keep imperialism alive and
prospering. America will soon come to understand that they've made a huge blunder in
replacing the one that has both the power and the will to turn us around. Only by electing
more Donald J. Trumps will the fever finally be broken.
"... There is some pushback in Washington to Israeli dominance, but not much. Recent senior Pentagon appointee Colonel Douglas Macgregor famously has pointed out that many American politicians get "very, very rich" through their support of Israel even though it means the United States being dragged into new wars. ..."
Even though there was virtually no debate on foreign policy during the recent presidential
campaign, there has been considerable discussion of what President Joe Biden's national
security team might look like. The general consensus is that the top levels of the government
will be largely drawn from officials who previously served in the Obama administration and who
are likely to be hawkish. There has also been, inevitably, some discussion of how the new
administration, if it is confirmed, will deal with Israel and the Middle East in general.
Israelis would have preferred a victory by Donald Trump as they clearly understand that he
was and still is willing to defer to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on nearly all issues.
Indeed, that process is ongoing even though Trump might only have about nine more weeks
remaining in office. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is reportedly
preparing to sanction several international human rights organizations as anti-Semitic due
to the fact that they criticize Israel's brutality on the West Bank and its illegal settlement
policies. The White House is also prepared to free convicted but paroled Israeli spy Jonathan
Pollard from travel restrictions so he can move to Israel, where he is regarded as a hero.
Pollard was the most damaging spy in U.S. history and any mitigation of his sentence has been
opposed by both the Pentagon, where he worked, and also by the intelligence community.
Finally, it is widely believed that before the end of the year Trump
will declare that the United States accepts the legitimacy of Israeli intentions to
declare annexation of nearly all the Palestinian West Bank. The White House will actually
encourage such an initiative reportedly "to sow hostility between Israel and the Biden
administration." One should note that none of the pro-Israeli measures that are likely to come
out of the White House enhance U.S. security in any way and they also do nothing particularly
to benefit Trump's campaign to be re-elected through legal challenges.
If Biden does succeed in becoming president, the special place that Israel occupies in the
centers of American power are
unlikely to be disturbed , which is why Netanyahu was quick off the mark in congratulating
the possible new chief executive. Biden has proudly declared himself
to be a "Zionist" and his running mate Kamala Harris has been a featured speaker at the
annual gatherings of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in Washington. Both
are strongly supportive of the "special relationship" with the Israel and will make no effort
to compromise America's apparent commitment to protect and nourish the Jewish state.
Though Israel is central to how the United States conducts its foreign policy, the country
was invisible in the debates and other discussions that took place among candidates during the
recent campaign. American voters were therefore given the choice of one government that panders
to Israel at the expense of U.S. security or another party that does exactly the same thing. To
be sure, Biden did state that he would work to reinstate the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action
(JCPOA) relating to Iran's nuclear program, which was canceled by Trump. But he also indicated
that it would require some amendment, meaning that the Iranians would have to include their
missile program in the monitoring while also abandoning their alleged propensity to "interfere"
in the Middle East region. The Iranian government has already indicated that additional
conditions are unacceptable, so the deal is dead in the water. Israel has also privately and
publicly
objected to any new arrangement and has already declared that it would "save the option" of
working through the Republican Senate to thwart any attempts by the Biden Administration to
change things.
That Israel would blatantly and openly interfere in the deliberations of Congress raises
some serious questions which the mainstream media predictably is not addressing. Jewish power
in America is for real and it is something that some Jews
are not shy about discussing among themselves. Jewish power is unique in terms of how it
functions. If you're an American (
or British ) politician, you very quickly are made to appreciate that Israel owns you and
nearly all of your colleagues. Indeed, the process begins in the U.S. even before your election
when the little man from AIPAC shows up with the check list that he wants you to sign off on.
If you behave per instructions your career path will be smooth, and you will benefit from your
understanding that everything happening in Washington that is remotely connected to the
interests of the state of Israel is to be determined by the Jewish state alone, not by the U.S.
Congress or White House.
And, here is the tricky part, even while you are energetically kowtowing to Netanyahu, you
must strenuously deny that there is Jewish power at work if anyone ever asks you about it. You
behave in that fashion because you know that your pleasant life will be destroyed, painfully,
if you fail to deny the existence of an Israel Lobby or the Jewish power that supports it.
It is a bold assertion, but there is plenty of evidence to support how that power is exerted
and what the consequences are. Senators William Fulbright and Chuck Percy and Congressmen Paul
Findlay, Pete McCloskey and Cynthia McKinney have all experienced the wrath of the Lobby and
voted out of office. Currently Reverend Raphael Warnock, who is running against Georgia
Loeffler for a senate seat in Georgia demonstrates exactly how candidates are convinced to
stand on their heads by the Israel Lobby. Warnock was a strong supporter of Palestinian rights
and a critic of Israeli brutality.
He said as recently as 2018 that the Israelis were shooting civilians and condemned the
military occupation and settlement construction on the Palestinian West Bank, which he compared
to apartheid South Africa. Now that he is running for the Senate, he is saying that he is
opposed to the Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement due to what he calls the
movement's "anti-Semitic overtones." He also supports continued military assistance for Israel
and believes that Iran is in pursuit of a nuclear weapon, both of which are critical issues
being promoted by the Zionist lobby.
There is some pushback in Washington to Israeli dominance, but not much. Recent senior
Pentagon appointee Colonel Douglas Macgregor
famously has pointed out that many American politicians get "very, very rich" through their
support of Israel even though it means the United States being dragged into new wars. Just how
Israel gains control of the U.S. political process is illustrated by the devastating insider
tale of how the Obama Administration's feeble attempts to do the right thing in the Middle East
were derailed by American Jews in Congress, the media, party donors and from inside the White
House itself. The story is of particularly interest as the Biden Administration will no doubt
suffer the same fate if it seeks to reject or challenge Israel's ability to manipulate and
virtually control key aspects of U.S. foreign policy.
The account of Barack Obama's struggle with Israel and the Israeli Lobby comes from a
recently published memoir written by a former foreign policy adviser Ben Rhodes. It is
entitled
The World As It Is , and it is extremely candid about how Jewish power was able to
limit the foreign policy options of a popular sitting president. Rhodes recounts, for example,
how Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel once nicknamed him "Hamas" after he dared to speak up for
Palestinian human rights, angrily shouting at him "Hamas over here is going to make it
impossible for my kid to have his fucking bar mitzvah in Israel."
Rhodes cites numerous instances where Obama was forced to back down when confronted by
Israel and its supporters in the U.S. as well as within the Democratic Party. On several
occasions, Netanyahu lecture the U.S. president as if he were an errant schoolboy. And Obama
just had to take it. Rhodes sums up the situation as follows: "In Washington, where support for
Israel is an imperative for members of Congress, there was a natural deference to the views of
the Israeli government on issues related to Iran, and Netanyahu was unfailingly
confrontational, casting himself as an Israeli Churchill . AIPAC and other organizations exist
to make sure that the views of the Israeli government are effectively disseminated and opposing
views discredited in Washington, and this dynamic was a permanent part of the landscape of the
Obama presidency."
And, returning to the persistent denial of Jewish power even existing when it is running
full speed and relentlessly, Rhodes notes the essential dishonesty of the Israel Lobby as it
operates in Washington: "Even to acknowledge the fact that AIPAC was spending tens of millions
to defeat the Iran deal [JCPOA] was anti-Semitic. To observe that the same people who supported
the war in Iraq also opposed the Iran deal was similarly off limits. It was an offensive way
for people to avoid accountability for their own positions."
Many Americans long to live in a country that is at peace with the world and respectful of
the sovereignty of foreign nations. Alas, as long as Israeli interests driven by overwhelming
Jewish power in the United States continue to corrupt our institutions that just will not be
possible. It is time for all Americans, including Jews, to accept that Israel is a foreign
country that must make its own decisions and thereby suffer the consequences. The United States
does not exist to bail Israel out or to provide cover for its bad behavior. The so-called
"special relationship" must end and the U.S. must deal with the Israelis as they would with any
other country based on America's own self-interests. Those interests definitely do not include
funding the Israeli war machine, assassinating foreign leaders, or attacking a non-threatening
Iran while continuing an illegal occupation of Syria.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest,
a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a
more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is https://councilforthenationalinterest.org,
address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is[email protected] .
USA is dead, long live USA. We now officially live in JUSA, the New Weimar Republic.
Actually we have been for almost 70 years, since the Cultural Revolution. America is no
longer a Christian nation but a Jew nation, with all that that entails – greed,
unscrupulousness, end justifies means, intolerance for dissent, mass deception, hypocrisy,
over sensitivity, pleasure seeking, sexual deviance, narcissism, vengeful and punitive.
Jews now basically control all institutions of import in this country, from Wall Street to
Hollywood, DC to Silicon Valley, and everywhere in between, the media, academia, judiciary,
deep state including all of DOJ and the State department. Using their control of Big Tech,
they can censor and suppress all dissent. Websites that try to go their own way like Alex
Jones or Gab.com have trouble monetizing
themselves and face constant media and left wing harrassment.
They control both msm and the
"conservative" media like WSJ, FoxNews, Breitbart, Zerohedge, National Review all are just
controlled opposition. No matter who is in the white house, we get the same things: Zionism,
globalism, corporatism, endless wars, endless immigration.
How did they do it? Not just by controlling banks and profiting off wars that they
instigated, but by selling sin. Jews own the entire sin industry. From the opium trade to the
slave trade, tobacco trade, Bootlegging, JUUL, Opiod, marijuana, alcohol, Victoria's Secret,
casinos and brothels in Vegas, HBO soft porn to hardcore porn, all are owned by Jews. Sin is
an industry where supply creates demand, not the other way around. Using their lawyers, they
first make it all legal, then make it fashionable. As Andrew Joyce so aptly put, "sordid
commercial exploitation of vice", that is what Jews excel in.
The sin industry is a trillion dollar industry, and many of those trillions have been
siphoned off to Israel, along with all the money from Wall Street swindling and the weapons
industry. We are witnessing the greatest transfer of wealth from the rest of the world to
Israel.
China-Russia-Iran may provide the world with an alternative for the future, if they can
hold off this Jewish scorch, but the West is done for. We have nothing but decline, which
will be hastened by Biden/Harris. Someone needs to keep reminding the Chinese it was a Jew
David Sassoon who ran the opium trade and forced the two opium wars on them. Never forget,
never surrender!
It's a sort of sexual charisma: all three of Joe's kids are married into the tribe, as is
the VP. Though the crackhead kid's tatted up wife Melissa Cohen definitely isn't orthodox,
though she's hot enough I'd forgive her!
"to accept that Israel is a foreign country"
Nah, it's like Canada, an America Jr. If the people disagreed, they'd have elected Ron
Paul, Cynthia McKinney, etc.
Aspies aren't good with contradictions and ambiguity. Israel is both ours and sovereign,
foreign and domestic. Most people get it though.
Yo, the Great US of A, how about just do this one thing – fixed your problem of
Israeli infestation in your institutions of power, instead of running around with a dynamite
up you behind looking to fix other people's hemorrhoids all over the world
Based on what you write, it seems that only a smart, independent minded black politician
as president would have any chance to stand up a bit to the Israeli lobby. The black
politician does not have white guilt and is less self conscious of accusations of
antisemitism. Obama was one of the few people who could fit the bill. Corey Booker is a
potential black president meeting the description who could give it the college try and 25%
stand up to the Israel lobby once in office. You should write more appreciatively of Barack
Obama. Yeah, more BLM is a bad trade off that comes with a black president but life is always
a package deal.
"Bibi the Backstabber" – Gee, I thought he and Trump were pals but he seemed pretty
quick to acknowledge a Biden win BEFORE it has even been officially on the record. Regardless
of who you want as figurehead of the USA, that seemed like a pretty crappy move but then
again, we're talking about a snake. If Trump did end up "winning" after all the recounts and
possible court rulings, do you think Trump would welcome "Bibi the Backstabber" back? "Fool
me once " What a total farce this election and our Jew infested country is. Sad.
OK move along nothing to see here, just another description of Jewish subversion 101 which
has been going on for time immemorial. I think by now we should all know who's been behind
every war, famine, economic collapse etc. The occidental countries have the remaining 11.5%
of Whites left on the planet, it appears we are going to lose, so please try and enjoy what
little time is left just don't forget to put your mask on.
Joe Biden, a mediocre intellect and a corrupt long time D.C. insider as president of the
U.S., running with a shrill shrew as vice president is supposed to be a positive development
for the citizens of the U.S.? It's too funny. She was the first democrat to pull out of the
running in the primaries and I believe Biden was second. Harris also suggested Biden is a
racist, lol. It's too surreal to believe that this has happened. Thinking of Biden in charge,
is like the feeling that the cave is going to collapse with you in it, vs. seeing the light
at the end of the tunnel with President Trump. Oh well, ces't la vie
Well said Anon. There is a lesson here. It is one which any dog or cat knows but Jewish
social science has denied us: Do not let the parasite into the nest. A couple of million
Ashkenazim were admitted to this country between 1880 and 1920. The rest is history – a
history increasingly determined by THEM.
How this happened is a story I wish our white internet historians would tell us before the
lights are shut off
Israel is a leech. Liberalism in all its aspects, including racial egalitarianism,
feminism, homosexualism, and democracy is a cancer that has spread from head to toe in the
body of the nation. A leech won't kill you, but widespread cancer certainly will. What folly
it is to focus so much attention on the little parasite outside while ignoring the massive
malignancy inside.
Regarding the photo accompanying this article: it is always beyond disconcerting to see
Israel's satanic pentagram parked next to the American flag, it evinces the kind of sickening
aplomb you would find in the image of a gorilla sodomizing a doe.
I appreciate Giraldi's incisive analysis. No one writes better about Israel's parasitic
destruction of the US.
Someone needs to keep reminding the Chinese it was a Jew David Sassoon who ran the opium
trade and forced the two opium wars on them
This, of course, is in the Chinese ledger, but offsetting it is the more recent massive
transfer of manufacturing jobs, technology, engineering services and other indirect benefits
that derived from the "great offshoring" that first occurred in the late 70s. The
apparatchiks of the CCP know who was responsible for arranging this unprecedented largesse
and will consequently be reluctant to bite the hand that feeds them.
One can only conclude that American Christians relish being Jews' bitch. And here's the
dumbest thing that the otherwise astute P. Giraldi has said: "Many Americans long to live in
a country that is at peace with the world and respectful of the sovereignty of foreign
nations." LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!
PS: Phil, it's over for American. All hail, China!
All foreign aid should be turned off. Disaster relief should be looked at on a case by
case basis, but that just allows the most corrupt countries to rely on it to come to the
rescue when disaster strikes. I'd even prevent that.
Is there a single member of Congress with the intestinal fortitude to propose this? I
doubt it. The selctions process has installed people so beholden to the current power
structure that no one would dare put up a bill to stop foreign aid.
Doesn't that show that the US doesn't have a Federal Government, but does have a Federal
Mafia?
The so-called "special relationship" must end and the U.S. must deal with the Israelis
as they would with any other country based on America's own self-interests.
But, falling back on realism, what is second best for Americans,and *much* more likely to
be achieved?
As a preliminary sketch it is probably wrong to blame much of the disapointments and
tribulations of the least prosperous 80 per cent of Americans on Israel, even if the cost of
the Iraq war is included. Such a small country can eat only so much of America's breakfast.
It is big business's complicity in the rise of China's economy at the expense of American
workers and the open borders to cheap labour that counts for much more damage (I believe,
though open to refutation).
So, what is a more likely acceptable outcome than your ideal prescription? I suggest that
more Balkanising of the ME to eliminate threats to Israel would be part of it.That is
happening already with the Saudis and Gulf States falling i to line. It seems hard to see why
Israel should be unhappy about Russia remaining in Syria giving security to the Assad
régime. How Iran can be dealt with isn't clear but it seems unlikely that Russia or
China would be interested in an expensive effort to prevent the overthrow of the Iranian
theocrats. It would suit both well enough that the ME was made up mostly of small countries
mostly with oil or gas to sell and without much of a US connection. China would I guess be
happy to regard Pakistan as the one Muslim country that deserved special attention.
What about the Palestinians? Oh yes, easily forgotten. Well, surely it isn't too difficult
to think up several ways of giving them a much better deal than they have now with the one
condition satisfied that Israeli Jews will not find themselves outbred and outvoted by Arab
Muslims within the state of Israel. Secular outbred by Haredim? Oh well.
"Even to acknowledge the fact that AIPAC was spending tens of millions to defeat the
Iran deal [JCPOA] was anti-Semitic. To observe that the same people who supported the war in
Iraq also opposed the Iran deal was similarly off limits. It was an offensive way for people
to avoid accountability for their own positions."
And this , ladies and gentlemen, is why we come here and speak often of Jews:
because they make it so difficult to discuss their reality anywhere else.
This fact has to change in America and Europe as well.
Well, the verified Twitter account of BLM UK put out the above tweet, after that happened
we saw an ebbing away of support for it and footballers no longer kneeled before a game.
Really tells you a lot about the totem poll and which groups are placed where.
Before she met Biden, she was supportive of the Obama presidency, and critical of
President Trump.
After the white supremacist march at Charlottesville she wrote of the president: "To
those of you who voted for this POS [piece of s ** t] you should be ashamed. That's
all."
According to the New Yorker, Cohen has a tattoo of the word "Shalom," or "peace," in
Hebrew on her bicep.
While you might not have written the headline it's an accurate synopsis of your
argument.
I shouldn't give you a hard time for it because it's accepted across the geopolitical
universe on Israel. Including, as you have long detailed, by Israel itself.
Amusingly, if you compare the mirror position along this spectrum, for example,
elimination/"It's the 51st state!," they complete each other.
It just simply isn't true. Israel isn't sui genesis. It isn't a planet that doesn't have
to, or refuses to, obey the laws of geopolitical physics.
Think of it this way. There's a disingenuous disconnect between the public discussion and
that which takes place behind the curtain. As with seemingly everything else, it's just more
so when it comes to Israel.
All of that was the shortest predicate for suggesting you notice the slim to none argument
from this author in defense of the JCPOA, much less what the Obama administration sold as a
rapprochement with Iran.
Did it have any coherence in that regard? No, indeed the Iranians stupidly insisted on
rubbing it in our faces as an abandonment of not just Israel but all other states in the
region.
It's impossible to overstate how thoroughly this has discredited the proponents of a deal
with Iran.
Whatever you think are Israel's malefactions, they are no legitimate basis for the USG to
gift a trouble-making Iran anything. Least of all, regional hegemony at the expense of
everyone else.
The Anti-Defamation League is a front for Jewish organized crime that launders their money
and defames anyone who says anything about it. The ADL openly supports apartheid in
occupied Palestine. All Silicon Valley companies, including Wikipedia, count them as an
"expert" on "hate" – despite the ADL being openly pro-apartheid. All the major news
media corporations quote them as "experts" despite them being nothing more than a partisan
political lobby.
How is the world is such an organization considered "mainstream" as opposed to a fringe
hate group?
When it comes to Israel, it is obvious that President Trump has pretty much given the jews
everything they wanted.
From the annexation of Jerusalem proper to the Golan Heights, Israel has gained approval
for its questionable, illegal actions from President Trump and others in the U S government.
His encouragement of recognition of Israel by other middle eastern countries is telling.
President Trump has been dealing with jews all of his life, being in the New York City
real estate market. He KNOWS how jews act and what they are capable of, along with their
foibles and weaknesses.
Since Trump gave the jews just about everything they wanted, he is finally going to exact
his "price" for acquiescing to Israeli demands and is going to demand something in
return.
President Trump is about to reduce, if not withdraw the entire American troop presence in
the middle east. American troops can be replaced with Israeli troops.
Of course the jews will cry foul and scream that they need an American troop presence, but
if President Trump does anything right , the reduction or withdrawal of American troops in
the middle east would be a good first step.
President Trump has already replace the Secretary of Defense with someone more amenable to
him. The American military-industrial complex will not like the changes, but they can go
"pound sand".
Well they are the chosen ones, and the rest of us are just beasts of burden. Just ask
them. They wrote it in their book. The real travesty was putting the Torah in the Bible. Or
maybe the penultimate travesty was being forcibly converted to Christianity by the Roman
Catholic Church?
Here is another good source about the Sassoon's destruction of China in the 19th century.
The Chinese remember it well especially for what was done to their summer palace, Yuan ming
yuan. It held 5000 years of Chinese history.
Deference of Washington's elected politicians to Israel is repeatedly discussed in these
columns. Courts traditionally hesitate to adjudicate issues of Uncle Sam's wars and other
"foreign policy," and even related questions ( FEC v. Akins ). Americans tend to
assume and accept that the judicial "branch" of the USG has nothing to do with these
matters.
However, with another Presidential election possibly headed to the SCOTUS, there's an
intriguing adjective in this sentence:
One should note that none of the pro-Israeli measures that are likely to come out of the
White House enhance U.S. security in any way and they also do nothing particularly
to benefit Trump's campaign to be re-elected through legal challenges.
Does Dr. Giraldi believe that the measures may generally benefit the legal
challenges?
Without a doubt, her "tat" notwithstanding, she meant "piece." As in a piece for her and
hers sufficient to allow nothing left for the deplorable goyim.
After reading that I thought that Americans are really admirable. Kamala's both parents
came recently from foreign countries which have no close relation with the US. They were
recent immigrants, refugees from poverty and other inconveniences. A few years later the
daughter becomes vice president of the country, the controler of the president (one of them)
and possibly the next president and at the same time begins to tell Americans what they have
to think and to want. It's not even merely her opinion. She is telling Americans what they
have to think and to accept. You don't have any choice. Kamala has decided.
"It is time for all Americans, including Jews, to accept that Israel is a foreign country
that must make its own decisions and thereby suffer the consequences."
You're still walking on eggshells, Giraldi. You're either having problem understanding or
are in deliberate need to evade the issue of a Jew not needing to practice Jewism (my
definition of a complete Jew), that is to say, separate himself from Israel no Jew can nor
will do so. Hence, America is either stuck with them or will have to declare that Jews, and
only Jews, aren't part of this great experiment called United States of America. It'll hurt
like hell to be divorced from present reality but at least this nation, without any natural
enemies, will have a fighting chance of being a truly great country within the commity of
nations. So long as a single Jew remains in America, there isn't any chance of having
daylight between two separate nations. So, what's going to be, slavery with comfort or
freedom with sacrifices?
@BuelahMan con
black and 99% NWO white Zionist on the inside. 2005 Senator Obama heads to Donetsk, Ukraine
with 40 million dollars to De arm the Ukrainian military – he was successful and I can
more that prove it since I lived there shortly after and knew some Ukraine military guys.
This was part/ start of the Maidan plan. Move along to 2013 " We now have the right to use
propaganda against our own citizens" Prez. Obama. Veterans Today – Obama WAS born in
Africa , but we support him 100% . And this is is also true which means we have a psyops
webpage there. Nam Vet here – and I don't like seeing Veterans screwed over by other "
Veterans".
The key to zionist ie Israels power comes from the zionist owning the FED and from this
came the zionist owning the government of the ZUS and from this came the trillions in debt
and the unending wars for the zionists and for Israel.
Also from this control of the ZUS came the assassination of JFK and RFK and JFKjr. and the
attack on the USS Liberty and the attack on the WTC on 911, which was used to plunge America
into the unending wars against the Arabs, all for the benefit of Israel and the zionist dual
citizen traitors in the ZUS.
Zionists are destroyers of nations and humanity and they are behind the covid-19 scam and
psyop which is being used to destroy America and they are doing this via the World Economic
Forum and the Rockefeller Foundation and UN Agenda 2030 which are the tips of the zionist
spears aimed at the heart of America.
@anarchyst be
illegal to print what Giraldi penned herein, as well as to discuss it over the internet, even
via 'private' e-mails. Anti-semitism was quickly made a capital offense when the mostly
jewish Bolshevik leaders enslaved Russia over a century ago. Expect similar here shortly, as
many of us on Unz are somewhat elderly, and so a long prison term for 'inappropriate
political speech' is basically a death sentence, which will be gleefully enforced by Tribal
minions, of which there is never a dearth.
So we should enjoy our liberty to speak our minds freely here at Unz while we still have
it, as it won't last long, I can assure you .
also do nothing particularly to benefit Trump's campaign to be re-elected
through legal challenges.
Does Dr. Giraldi believe that the measures may generally benefit the legal
challenges?
wasn't your entire shtick that it doesn't matter in the least which whore of Zion sits in
the White House, and that we're all chumps for caring or voting, because it doesn't matter
one whit?
And now somehow that the voting is over, you still seem keen on obsessing over the
outcome.
To answer your question, (if I may Mr. G)..
'Pro-Israeli measures' (presidential slavish and abased fealty to Bibi/Israel) does
nothing to particularly *or* generally benefit Trump, vs. the other whore of Zion. As 'Bibi'
was one of the very first heads of state to congratulate Biden and toss his former supplicant
and courtesan out the door – with less grace or gratitude than I've seen sailors toss
two-bit hookers out the door once the service was performed.
I'm sure in both cases they feel particularly sullied. Considering how eagerly and
enthusiastically they swallowed their um.. duties.
I must say, I felt more pity for the whore in some Caribbean port, who sold herself for a
few pesos, than I do for the political whore who sold out my nation.
That said, Trump has done more to keep whatever shred of dignity a whore has, than all his
recent predecessors.. (how do you quantify the incomprehensible evil of 9/11, Shock and Awe,
Patriot Act, Gitmo, Obama's destruction of Libya and Syria, etc , using the English
language?)
The bar has been so low for so long, that simply not having destroyed several nations and
mass-murdered untold hundreds of thousands- in slavish fealty to Israel- is reason enough for
some of us to consider your presidency a measured success.
Our free-fall into the abyss hit a snag on the way down with the Trump administration.
But not to worry, under Biden/Harris, we'll get to those 'seven nations'. It's just going
to take a little longer than 'five years', is all.
Nor is it really about Jews as such, it is about a Jewish financial elite that took
control with the signing of the Federal Reserve act in 1913.
Face facts Americans, your 'deep state' is mostly controlled by Jewish bankers. If white
gentiles were really in charge of America would they be demonising themselves with anti-white
racism? Have you not noticed that your own political elites are marrying into the tribe?
Remember those royal weddings that European monarchies arranged to seal alliances with other
nations? Your political elites are cementing alliances with the bankers by marriage.
If you're serious about this, you will acknowledge that your bosses at NHB get away with
murder, torture, assassination of heads of state including your own, coercive interference,
aggression, and use of banned weapons. Now is the time to drop your Boy Scout act.
You won't have to lean on your vegetable Biden too hard to make him faithfully execute the
Symington-Glenn Amendment and the Leahy Law. That cuts off Mossad's bribe spigot. Maybe there
will be a little dustup on your own turf, but who's going to win that? When it comes down to
it, Israel is a one-nuke laydown.
The Israeli command structure are deep-dyed cowards. Whack a few in spectacular ways and
the grabass will stop. Start with Bibi.
And Phil is right, that we are very disgusted (understatement of the century) with
the Eternal Wars for Israel.
But like the French, (who bombed Libya into the stone age in fealty to Zion), and the
Brits who go along with it all, and the Germans who piss their lederhosen at the mention of
Israel, and all the other countries that are vassals of the Federal Reserve and their Satanic
minions, our institutions also have been utterly corrupted by this (((fiat paper))).
many American politicians get "very, very rich" through their support
That's one of the major features of American politics. American politicians are mostly
whores for sale so naturally various interests will buy them. It's not what's good for the
country but what's good for their bank account. Greed and corruption are what'll be the
undoing of the US.
It's only logical that Iran would want to build nuclear weapons since the US and Israel have
them and war has been threatened against Iran almost continuously. Being threatened has a way
of spurring on the acquisition of nuclear weapons. The US was the first to develop them and
then actually used them, setting off a chain reaction of other countries developing their
own. It seems to only be a matter of time before Iran actually has it. Then what?
Are we talking about the same Obama? The Obama who invaded Syria and Libya when they did
absolutely nothing to threaten the security of the US? The JCPOA was credit to John Kerry,
who was then slaughtered by msm on his way out for calling for a two-state solution that
includes Israel leaving the occupied West Bank.
Osama was spot on when he called Obama a "house nigger". That was all he was, nothing
more. We don't need another. We already had one.
They had a revolution to get rid of western influenced degeneracy. They support Palestine
unwaveringly. They support Lebanon unwaveringly. They defended Syria along with Russia. They
are Russia's closest ally in the world. They stand up to Israel. They fight Israel. They
attack the social and political theory of Zionism as well it's existence.
God bless them and protect them because often it seems like they are the only ones at a
state level doing anything about the evil in our world.
Those are things happening IN Canada due to its insane decision to import Muslims and
Haitians.
You're right that Israel at times can be brutal. Muslim barbarism coarsens those around
them. Not just Israel: Thailand, Philippines, Burma, India, Ethiopia, Greece, Armenia.
The worldwide Jihad Colin and Phil support creates bloody borders with Islam always
seeking to conquer and enslave.
Israel says NO! And that's why they are full of obsessive hate for it.
@anon ormer
number two at the State Department) and his son Douglas published 'The Passionate
Attachment," explaining how it had evolved over the years. In 2007 came the Mearsheimer/Walt
book on AIPAC. For a critical history of Israel wince Biblical times, see Laurent Guyenot's
book From Yahweh to Zion, published in 2018. The last-named says that Israel is responsible
for JFK's death. He had tried to stop Israel's nuclear weapons program and thus was killed.
The Warren Report covered up that particular crime. Jews are a tremendously talented tribe,
but they have no right to dominate the world, which is what Israel is now determined to do.
@Realist eing
but another hazard that the left takes advantage of, in order to silence the opposition, with
good effect, so far
All one has to do is look at the Memphis couple who was arrested for defending themselves as
well as James Fields who has been wrongly convicted of murder while attempting to escape
while being attacked.
At the present time, discretion is advised.
The only effective way to "nip this in the bud" would be to confront the police, city
officials, judges and prosecutors directly
As they are well-protected, that is not a viable option at this time presently, but in the
future who knows??
There are some very good books on the subject. See The Passionate Attachment by George and
Douglas Ball, published in 1992. (George Ball was the number two man at State under jFK and
LBJ.)
See the book on AIPAC by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, published in 2007. See Laurent
Guyenot's From Yahweh to Zion, published in 2018.
@BL Did Jews
learn nothing by wandering the desert for 40 years? Do they forget that they were
frog-marched for defying their own god, Yahweh, yet again? Yet they seem to think their
slow-motion shoahing of Palestinians will go unpunished.
How many future small-but-hugely-powerful guided missiles hitting Haifa, Tel Aviv, etc.
will Israelis be able to take? What their power-hungry pride protect them then?
Do Jews really think they will not be held responsible/targeted around the world for the
crimes of their state?
What other state, what other people, think only THEY matter?
The Jewish State has become a blight unto the nations.
Whilst human beings conspiring is as old nevertheless the Biden family is an example of
something way, way beyond human artifice. You do not have to be a Christian to recognize that
what Jesus said of the Jews was right on the mark – their father is a devil. The New
Testament says explicitly that the ruler of this world is the Satanic Majesties the Rolling
Stones celebrated in 1967.
Jesus was offered the entire world if he would take the knee not to Saint George of this
sick era but to satan. He replied that this was the epitome of shortermism.
People are no more than puppets on a string without divine protection and that is why I do
not hate Jews but only the vile evil in which they excel through the "gifts" of their
spiritual father.
@Rurik ion
sits in the White House, and that we're all chumps for caring or voting, because it doesn't
matter one whit?
And now somehow that the voting is over, you still seem keen on obsessing over the
outcome.
There's nothing inconsistent in (i) my position about the futility of Red/Blue politics to
effect any change in what matters to the Establishment and (ii) the question I've posed to the
author. In fact, how and why "the outcome" is arrived at may enlighten some gullible
voters.
Of course, you neither needed nor wanted to hear that. Which is why you didn't reply to me
directly, right?
Your observation is confirmed by Lord Beaverbrook explaining to the young Robert Kennedy at
the end of WW2 that the USA was a subjugated country run by Jews.
The Talmudic Zionist jew vampire pirates, in their arrogance, believe themselves to be
beyond accountability for their many misdeeds.
Speed The Day when their filthy little illegitimate enclave on the Easterrn shores of The Med
gets glassed over in a thermonuclear kind of way.
The remedy for the ills of Wall Street and The Bank of England will only be a tad less
harsh.
A bounty on all Rothschilds and Warburgs and their servile rats and snakes would also be
nice.
And then there's also the 'Atlas Shrugged' strategy- wherein all honest and productive
people of good will, eventually refuse to be willing lapdogs to this Satanic cabal.
As long as you'll lose your job, by mentioning the truth, don't do so. But more and more, as
the 'hundredth monkey' come around to the Great Awakening', like the Soviet Union, this devil'$
charade must certainly die its ignoble death.
and beauty, truth and peace, will once again rise like a phoenix from the ashes of Zion
The bolsheviks goal was a %90 reduction in population, the Talmud states that the "goy" were
to be their servants, the beasts are not worthy. 10% of the Russian goys would be enough.
After their reign of terror from 1917 to 1989, they sucked the rest of Russia dry and moved
to their next target, the USA. They are almost done here, they will poison us with the covid
vaccination and as a final F you leave us as a minority among the hoards of subhumans.
Their next target is Uzbekistan, this is why no one ever hears about the country or can
point it out on a map.
Ben Franklin, in his prescient wisdom, wanted a Constitutional inclusion that would have
barred (((them))) from even setting foot upon The New Republic.
Too bad that (((The Worms))) were already here perpetrating their financial scumbaggery.
@Anonymous e in
terms of any real concern for the national interest of the United States vis-à-vis Iran.
Also, did you intentionally omit the USA removing Iran's democratically-elected leader in
1953? Or America giving poison gas to Iraq to use against Iranians?
A word to the wise, sovereigns aren't cute and cuddly. The effect their interests with
little regard for humans in their way.
It's downright embarrassing that Iran and its acolytes are still belly-aching about
Mosaddegh. It's going to continue to be a hard road with the US if they don't learn to shake it
off.
dig a bit deeper on the interwebz and you will see that there are many wypipo historians
that have screamed this message the last 100 years+.
They get shunned, memoryholed or worse.
I will not link on purpose because the search is important for learning, but i will give you a
hint
archiveDOTorg have many off their books available.
Type "political zionism" into their searchbar and learn about the enemy of humanity and their
origins first.
Pharisees is their true name btw, b4 the 2 world wars this was common knowledge among us
Christian goyims
This is from wikipedia for whatever it's worth -- Centuries later, the Jews were
expelled from China proper during the Great Anti-Buddhist Persecution (845–46), where
they lived in the region of Ningxia.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaifeng_Jews
@Greta Handel
p> The fact that I quoted you, on the same thread you're reading and writing on, means to a
certainty that I was responding to your post with the intent that you'd see it. (duh)
There's nothing inconsistent in (i) my position about the futility of Red/Blue politics to
effect any change in what matters to the Establishment and (ii) the question I've posed to
the author. In fact, how and why "the outcome" is arrived at may enlighten some gullible
voters.
Yea, that was your only interest, in your priggish, pedantic parsing of Philip's prose.
Canada has been kiked for 50 years. The Canada I grew up in had no problem pointing out
tribal influence, and no one called it Auntie Shem-itism.
We have gone from the 1930s when "one would be too many" was the attitude to Jewish "refugees"
asking for admission to openly admitting we are Israel's bitch. At the same time, making it
clear non-whites were not welcome to let's flood the country, already suffering from high
unemployment, with more than 1% of our population annually from the 3rd world.
"t's downright embarrassing that Iran and its acolytes are still belly-aching about
Mosaddegh."
It's downright embarrassing that Israel and its acolytes are still belly-aching about
Holocaust to steal few more pennies and dimes .
t's downright embarrassing that west and its acolytes are still belly-aching about 911 ,and
knife attacks and Chinese something to wage wars for Israel.
Good points all.
My suggestion?
Establish Greater Israel from Nile to Euphrates. Give Jews full hegemony in their new
country.
Then, deport 3/4 of American Jews. Make laws to prevent, here, Jewish control of finance,
education, or media. And above all, keep America's nuclear deterrent razor sharp.
Thank you. Thank you very much.
'Israel says NO! And that's why they are full of obsessive hate for it.'
No -- I'm full of hate for Israel because it's an evil, duplicitous, corrosive, criminal,
indefensible, and unnecessary state that generates a great deal of misery that wouldn't
otherwise happen and that has corrupted my own country and implicated us in its crimes.
You see, it is the Banana States of America which is the most indebted beggar nation on
earth. It survives because foreign nations perform trade using the dollar. Without that trade,
the Banana States would be on its knees, literally begging.
@frankie p
mplex–and often ruthless–political struggle.
In fact, 'anti-Semitism' is a legitimate and appropriate self-defense mechanism.
'Anti-Semitism' needn't produce violence, injustice, or bloodshed. It is fundamentally about
awareness and self-preservation. It is a discredited virtue, born from necessity.
Invasive, devious, and destruction species must be resisted. 'Anti-Semitic' theory suggests
that one party–often the dominant, duplicitous, and aggressive one– is endowed with
moral superiority in the struggle for political power and self-determination. This inculcated
myth is an oversized kosher lie.
@Cauchemar du
Singe . So do not knowingly set up equals to Allah ˹in worship˺ .
And if you are in doubt about what We have revealed to Our servant, then produce a
sûrah like it and call your helpers other than Allah, if what you say is true.
But if you are unable to do so -- and you will never be able to do so -- then fear the
Fire fuelled with people and stones, which is prepared for the disbelievers .
May your hate consume you in this world, while the fire of Hell awaits your kind with much
anticipation.
On the Day We will say to Hell, "Have you been filled?" and it will say, "Are there some
more?"
Just like any cancer, it finally kills it's host, and it goes down with it.
Some day , the cure will come , and the world will be rid of it's foremost problem
This narrative of the poor enslaved USA, beholden to Isreal is openly contradictory to our
manifest galactic power -- something, something middle-east energy and minerals, geopolitics
Whatever Boring!
As to heartache of Obama: While Isreal working him over through the derp state double agent
Rahm, U.S. Republicans shit on the President's head continuously, en masse for his entire
tenure and thwarted with open bigotry and contempt his every attempt to execute thoroughly
Republican policy!
So yes, Zion, and Republicans. Both a great threat to USA and democracy.
Old Joe's most humiliating (& revealing) experience
was immediately consigned to the Memory Hole:
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
"I HAVE NOTHING TO OFFER YOU BUT BROKEN GLASS," Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu addressed
US Vice President Biden during an after-dinner ceremony in Jerusalem on March 9, 2010.
Netanyahu had prepared a symbolic gift for visiting Vice President JoeBiden: a framed
document announcing that several trees were planted in Jerusalem in memory of Biden's mother, a
loyal supporter of Israel.
But with Biden's mission to persuade the Israeli government to begin shrinking Greater
Israel back to its pre-1967 borders, Netanyahu leaned on thepresent (NOT "accidentally" as
reported by the Jew-owned press) and shattered the glass frame.
Then came Netanyahu's cyptic warning and by way of indirection, a threat to Obama: "I have
one thing to offer you right now, and it's broken glass." [ViewFull Photo Here.]
It got worse. At a later tour of Israel's Holocaust memorial museum, Yad Vashem, the lights
in the Hall of Remembrance "unexpectedly" went out as a prayer for the dead was chanted.
Catching Biden's security detail by surprise as they anxiously stood forover 60 seconds in
utter darkness, only the "eternal fire" that honored the Jewish dead spread its ominous light
upon the Biden contingent.
By the time the lights flickered back on, Biden's Middle East fortunes were sealed with an
Israeli announcement that it would build 1,600 new homes for Jewish settlers, ignoring US and
Palestinian objections. On Biden's departure for Jordan, Ha'aretz reported that Israel plans to
build 50,000 new homes in East Jerusalem over the next three years.
The "broken glass" and the "moments of darkness" that Biden experienced were not chance
events. Nothing happens at official Israeli gatherings that is not carefully planned and
orchestrated in advance. And in spite of Biden's groveling before Netanyahu and Peres, with
vows of Israel being the "centerpiece of US policy," the Vice President's cowering was met with
glassy eyes by the leaders of the "master race."
Symbolic acts, such as the breaking of a glass by a Jewish groom beforemaking vows of
faithfulness to his bride at every Jewish wedding, are part of Jewish tradition. When the
Jewish groom crushes the glass beneath his rightfoot, he silently pledges to avenge the
destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem and wage war on all those who would perpetuate
that destruction .
Trump hasn't just been dealing with Jews his whole life. The Trumps are Jews, as Trump's
elder brother told his frat brothers at his Jewish fraternity at college. What Trump did for
Israel was done because of what he considers himself to be. But that doesn't mean he doesn't
recognize something higher. He does. Himself. If he can't be a winner affirming Israel, then
the hell with Israel. That's really ultimate Jewish values, right? Some have spoken of it as
having no soul.
@anonymous e to
nothing to do with the US's foreign aid scam.
Foreign aid supports dictators around the world to see things the US's way.
It provides the money to, for example, Israel, to turn that money around to purchase weapons
and to bribe Congress with our own currency. In effect, the US uses foreign aid as a straw man
to simply funnel money from the US gov't to the US corporate elite and Congress.
Some of the money that went to Ukraine eventually found its way back to the US in Biden's
pocket along with a whole host of DNC operatives. That revelation should come out if the
Justice Dept weren't part of the scam.
Must be, look at what theyve gotten away with. COVID race specific biowar. 9/11. Theres no
terrorism, only Israel going for world domination. USS Liberty. Murder of Patton. On and
on.
@Rurik " into
pseudonymity by Mr. Unz's recent limit of three anonymous comments per day, tends to decay the
quality of discussion in comment threads. People think that they have to mark every hydrant,
and wait on each other to settle scores, rather than comment on the column. (I'm not immune!)
This is what happened at Taki's, ZeroHedge, and most recently Kunstler, where the same people
trudge into their pews every Monday and Friday, hear one of the same few sermons, and then
start snipping.
If we didn't have a history, "Rurik," I doubt that you would have taken much interest in my
#35, which you apparently still misunderstand.
"... "They've got a set of Republican waiters on one side and a set of Democratic waiters on the other side, but no matter which set of waiters brings you the dish, the legislative grub is all prepared in the same Wall Street kitchen." ..."
"... we can see that 2016 candidate Trump was relatively Trumpist but President Trump was less so. Salaries for the bottom 25% of workers did have the highest rate in increase during his term (through 2019). But in 2020, candidate Trump almost completely rejected Trumpism and ran as an ruling class establishment stooge. ..."
"... Trumpism is not a revolutionary ideology in the correct sense of the term. It is an incrementalist approach that seeks to better the material conditions of the working class but within the current capitalist power structure. ..."
"... The ruling class strategy in the US is to decorate with masks of "diversity" the ugly visages of class dominance. Thus Obama's and soon Kamala's pro-ruling class policies cannot be criticized for fear of being abused as a "racist". ..."
"... Trumpism relies on labor markets to improve the material conditions of the working class. A tight labor market necessarily transfers wealth from the rich to the poor in the form of decreased profits for the rich through increased salaries for the poor. ..."
"... Trump the ruler was presented with the greatest gift a border-loving Trumpist politician could ever ask for: Covid-19. But instead of exploiting this crisis like Viktor Orbán did in Hungary, Trump stabbed Trumpism in the back by turning himself into a useless libertarian during the crisis by refusing for example to push a law that requires home manufacturing of all critical supplies and in never closing the borders properly. He acted like a narcissistic clown in the early days of the crisis and deserves to lose just for that reason. ..."
"... So US racism is fully owned and perpetuated by the ruling class: wealthy oligarchs (including Trump), the media, Wall Street, CIA, FBI, the military industrial complex, multi-national corporations, Silicone Valley Tech, Hollywood, etc. Where there is power there is racism, where there is powerlessness there may be bigotry but not racism. The above lineup of ruling class racists, except for Trump, is the Biden coalition. The ruling class goal is to place an "enlightened person" mask over naked and rapacious ruling class greed and oppression. ..."
"... Under Biden, globalization will once again increase the pace and amplitude of the immiseration of the working class, resistance to the dominant economic paradigm will only grow on both the progressive left and the popular right. ..."
"... In a sense the Biden presidency will be a reactionary movement in that they will be trying to restore the pre-Trumpism political order. This will only further cement the soundness of Trumpism as an ideology. ..."
"... The bottom has no political or economic leverage, and isn't navigating to a position of strength. For example, the "bottom" is currently accepting placebo identity-politics as pacifier. The "bottom" is still searching for an "easy button" solution rather than taking a deeper look at oneself and the layout of the chess board at the macro level. ..."
"... Within an environment of worker scarcity, automation is a positive trend and helps lessen inflationary pressures. The problem with the US is that there is not enough automation because of cheap and docile labor. Compare a meat packing plant in Denmark which is highly automated compared to a US plant, which is packed to the brim with cheap imported labor. Much of the Covid crisis in the US and UK is brought about by sweatshop-style working conditions. ..."
"... It's grotesque to learn that Kamila Harris's relatives are connected to Uber/Lyft. Prop. 22 getting approved in California is another sign of propaganda/big money effectiveness ..."
"... Trumpism stands in opposition to globalization; whose goal is worker abundance which necessarily drives wages down and increases oligarchic wealth. US led imperialism, especially in the Middle East is also a necessary feature of globalization. ..."
"... Here too I would make a modification. Neo-liberalism and globalization aren't about worker "abundance" but rather worker "disposability." Again, if the idea is to create an abundance of workers, driving down market share, then why make finding work so complicated? Why be against strong education systems which would create new workers. Why shut down factories here in the US only to open them in Korea? Why lock up so many Americans for petty offensive, removing them from the willing work force. ..."
"... I would argue that the heart of neo-liberalism is a class structure that places "the establishment" as not just important in the grand scheme of things, but completely indispensable to an individual. And part of that self-aggrandizement is the subjection of every one else. "I am worth more than a thousand of you." Thus, why I must get 2-million-dollar bonus (even after bankrupting the company) and a post on the new re-org chart while everyone else gets a pink slip and watch their hard-earned pensions disappear in chapter 11 proceedings. ..."
"... But it does speak to how disposable workers are to upper management. You are hired for X, and when X is done you are automatically laid off. Why would you waste time giving such an employee training of any sort? Let alone benefits or perks. ..."
"... What is inexplicable is when unions attack Trumpist attempts at macro-scarcity through the use of national borders. A united Union/Trumpist front is required against ruling class interests. Struggling for worker scarcity does not mean one "hates" the workers the ruling class is importing in order to create worker abundance. ..."
"... Neoliberalism is Capitalism's attempt to remove the fetters on profits that exist within the power of a nation-state. Worker abundance is just one of many Neoliberal goals. Borders are a huge fetter to capitalism's basic mission of maximizing profit by producing commodifies with the cheapest labor and selling them to the wealthiest consumers. ..."
"... This is a very important aspect of precarity. Reducing work competition for jobs to increase wages is only half the job, stopping financial predators is the other half, imo ..."
"... Without immigration or outsourcing or even automation, the predators will find still other ways to break labor. We are seeing it with identity politics. ..."
"... I would argue that Bernie and Tulsi are "Trumpism adjacent" in the larger sense of Trumpism. ..."
"... If Trumpism as an ideology is going to flourish, Tulsi in particular will play a critical role in this. The simplest way to see this is that when the ruling class smears someone as a "Russian asset" what they are really doing is recognizing them as a Trumpist threat. ..."
"... precarious (adj.) 1640s, a legal word, "held through the favor of another," from Latin precarius "depending on favor, pertaining to entreaty, obtained by asking or praying," from prex (genitive precis) "entreaty, prayer" (from PIE root *prek- "to ask, entreat"). ..."
"... The notion of "dependent on the will of another" led to the extended sense "risky, dangerous, hazardous, uncertain" (1680s), but this was objected to. "No word is more unskillfully used than this with its derivatives. It is used for uncertain in all its senses; but it only means uncertain, as dependent on others " [Johnson]. Related: Precariously; precariousness. ..."
"... Questiones Disputatae ..."
"... contra, sed contra, ..."
"... When investigating the nature of anything, one should make the same kind of analysis as he makes when he reduces a proposition to certain self-evident principles." ..."
"... Vista Hermosa residents like Luna are troubled by a 2019 environmental rollback by the state, AB1197, that exempts homeless housing developments in the City of Los Angeles from the mandates of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). Arguably California's broadest environmental law, CEQA requires builders to assess the environmental impacts of new development and find ways to avoid or mitigate them. ..."
"... The political will to rollback CEQA has continued into 2020. In January, Assemblyman Miguel Santiago, who represents District 53 bordering Vista Hermosa, introduced a new piece of legislation, AB1907, to further expand CEQA exemptions to now include all affordable housing. ..."
"... "a giant suction pump had by 1929 to 1930 drawn into a few hands an increasing proportion of currently produced wealth. This served then as capital accumulations. But by taking purchasing power out of the hands of mass consumers, the savers denied themselves the kind of effective demand for their products which would justify reinvestment of the capital accumulation in new plants. In consequence as in a poker game where the chips were concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, the other fellows could stay in the game only by borrowing. When the credit ran out, the game stopped" ..."
We have to carefully distinguish between two very different concepts, both based on the word
"Trump". First there is "Trumpism" which is an ideology. The overarching idea behind Trumpism
is to make the GOP a working-class oriented party. The key policy aims of Trumpism are worker
scarcity and anti-imperialism. Worker scarcity is achieved through immigration restriction and
protectionist trade policies. So together, we have the Trumpist Trinity, anti-immigration,
trade restriction, and anti-imperialism. This is the ideology that Trump ran on and rode to
victory in 2016. This is the idea. Unions exist to create micro-worker scarcity. Borders can be
used to create macro-worker scarcity which is far more powerful. And E-verify can be far more
effective than a bombastic wall.
Trumpism stands in opposition to globalization; whose goal is worker abundance which
necessarily drives wages down and increases oligarchic wealth. US led imperialism, especially
in the Middle East is also a necessary feature of globalization. Invade the World / Invite the
World.
The US has always featured two political parties that serve ruling class interests; Huey
Long described it thusly,
"They've got a set of Republican waiters on one side and a set of Democratic waiters
on the other side, but no matter which set of waiters brings you the dish, the legislative
grub is all prepared in the same Wall Street kitchen."
Trumpism attempts to force one group of waiters to get their grub from the working class'
kitchen. This is obviously an ambitious goal.
Now comes a crucial distinction. In addition to the ideology of "Trumpism" there is "Trump",
the man and his brand. At best there is an extremely tenuous relationship between Trumpism and
Trump. Now to some extent this is natural as ideas never remain pure for long when poured into
the cauldron of reality. With that in mind, we can see that 2016 candidate Trump was
relatively Trumpist but President Trump was less so. Salaries for the bottom 25% of workers did
have the highest rate in increase during his term (through 2019). But in 2020, candidate Trump
almost completely rejected Trumpism and ran as an ruling class establishment stooge.
Now of course Trump is an oligarch and so he is a member of the ruling class. But within
oligarchy, the only people who can challenge the existing order are oligarchs. He committed
massive class treason in 2016 in order to serve his narcissistic need for recognition and
power. In no way should Trump be idealized as altruistically caring about the working class.
Trumpism was nothing more than a means to an end. Trump's end is and always will be Trump, not
Trumpism per se. But none the less Trump exploited and brought to life Trumpism and his motives
for doing so are irrelevant.
Trumpism is not a revolutionary ideology in the correct sense of the term. It is an
incrementalist approach that seeks to better the material conditions of the working class but
within the current capitalist power structure. It posits a class struggle ideological
superstructure which is radical opposition to the globalist ruling classes insistence on an
identitarian (politics of race, sex, etc) perspective. The ruling class strategy in the US
is to decorate with masks of "diversity" the ugly visages of class dominance. Thus Obama's and
soon Kamala's pro-ruling class policies cannot be criticized for fear of being abused as a
"racist".
Trumpism's non-revolutionary aspect is similar to social democracy, as was championed by
Bernie Sanders in 2016 (in 2020 Bernie unfortunately fell to the dark side of identitarian
politics, which are necessarily the enemy of class politics and the most effective class
warfare tool in the ruling class' tool box). The key difference is that Trumpism relies on
labor markets to improve the material conditions of the working class. A tight labor market
necessarily transfers wealth from the rich to the poor in the form of decreased profits for the
rich through increased salaries for the poor.
In fact far from there being any contradiction between Trumpism and social democracy there
is a mutual dependence between them. The public education, health, and support institutions of
social democracy are can only be supported and revitalized by a prosperous working class. The
key idea of Trumpism is that the state asserts its borders to create labor scarcity. The great
problem of Trumpism is that the state is everywhere a tool of ruling class oppression. Borders
are the battle lines of the struggle.
Trump the ruler was presented with the greatest gift a border-loving Trumpist politician
could ever ask for: Covid-19. But instead of exploiting this crisis like Viktor Orbán
did in Hungary, Trump stabbed Trumpism in the back by turning himself into a useless
libertarian during the crisis by refusing for example to push a law that requires home
manufacturing of all critical supplies and in never closing the borders properly. He acted like
a narcissistic clown in the early days of the crisis and deserves to lose just for that
reason.
The ruling class response to Trumpism is identitarian politics: noble ruling class lords
screaming that the dirty peasants are racist. What the US ruling class must always do is
project their racism onto the peasants, who white or black, both suffer economically from
racial oppression. Mao Tse-Tung gave this astute analysis of US racism:
In the final analysis, national struggle is a matter of class struggle. Among the whites
in the United States, it is only the reactionary ruling circles who oppress the Negro people
. They can in no way represent the workers, farmers, revolutionary intellectuals and other
enlightened persons who comprise the overwhelming majority of the white people. At present,
it is the handful of imperialists headed by the United States, and their supporters, the
reactionaries in different countries, who are oppressing, committing aggression against and
menacing the overwhelming majority of the nations and peoples of the world. We are in the
majority and they are in the minority.
So US racism is fully owned and perpetuated by the ruling class: wealthy oligarchs
(including Trump), the media, Wall Street, CIA, FBI, the military industrial complex,
multi-national corporations, Silicone Valley Tech, Hollywood, etc. Where there is power there
is racism, where there is powerlessness there may be bigotry but not racism. The above lineup
of ruling class racists, except for Trump, is the Biden coalition. The ruling class goal is to
place an "enlightened person" mask over naked and rapacious ruling class greed and
oppression.
Under Biden, globalization will once again increase the pace and amplitude of the
immiseration of the working class, resistance to the dominant economic paradigm will only grow
on both the progressive left and the popular right. Previously elections in the US were
between center left and center right factions fighting for the right to serve the ruling class.
Looking at 2020 from a bird's eye perspective, roughly speaking the Biden coalition is most
progressives, the center left, and many elements of the center right (elements close to the
Bush family). The Trump coalition is portions of the center right and the popular right. The
ruling class was going to be fine whatever the result, but a Biden presidency constrained by a
GOP Senate is ideal in some ways to the ruling class.
A key strategic objective of the ruling class is to keep the left and right at each other's
throats. Trump helped them achieve this rigid politically binary goal despite occasionally
flirting with political fluidity during the 2016 campaign where his similarities to Bernie
Sanders were unmistakable. In contrast, anti-ruling class progressives and popularists have to
find a way to combine their forces and energy in opposition to the ruling class and not in a
pointless stalemate of playing "socialists" vs; "fascists", a battle whose only possible winner
is the ruling class.
One of the most interesting outcomes of the 2020 election is the specter of Latinos
embracing Trumpism. From an economic point of view this makes total sense. Immigration
restriction will benefit first and foremost the material conditions of the Latino working
class. Also Trump's macho populist persona works well within Latino culture. Not to mention
many Latinos despise blacks and so the whole BLM phenomenon helped push Latinos onto the Trump
train.
California is a now a de facto one-party state but that conditions are ripe for the rise of
a popularist yet macho, Latino based, Trumpist style political faction to oppose the
cosmopolitan urban Democratic hegemony. Back in the 60's, Cesar Chavez was endeavoring to
increase the QUALITY of Hispanic life in the US by increasing the salaries of farm workers
through a strategy of worker scarcity.
Ruling class institutions, threatened by the potential of having portions of their wealth
transferred to poor peasants, created an organization called "La Raza" as an alternative to
Chavez. La Raza wanted QUANTITY, they wanted more and more Latinos to build up their base of
political power.
And all the better if these Latinos stayed poor: not only do their ruling class paymasters
stay happy, this would also keep the Latino masses dependent on their identitarian political
leaders. So one of the key outcomes of the 2020 election is that in ever larger numbers,
Latinos are rejecting Quantity of Latinos and opting for Latino Quality of life.
And so in order to further Trumpism, Trump, who is acting as a fetter upon it, must go.
In a sense the Biden presidency will be a reactionary movement in that they will be trying
to restore the pre-Trumpism political order. This will only further cement the soundness of
Trumpism as an ideology.
But Trump as a leader is a much more mixed bag. New Trumpists will arise, for example Tucker
Carlson or podcaster Joe Rogan. 2024 will be a great year for Trumpism because this time Trump
will not be running it; and that may allow many progressives to join the train, especially in
light of how much hippy punching they are about to endure from the coming Biden synthesis of
Neolibs and Neocons.
Nice essay. I especially liked the differentiation between Trump and Trumpism.
I'd be interested to hear what your vision of the platform (main objectives) might be for
this new Trumpism party.
I still question whether top-down politics of any stripe is really going to address the
underlying economic and biosphere issues we're facing. Why? Because:
the top-down political economy is dedicated to maintaining status quo (with emphasis on
status & wealth), and
the bottom-up people who want things to change seem to want someone else to do all the
changing
most of our big problems arise from the disconnect between what we must do as a species
in order to survive and what we're currently, actually doing as individuals
When a Zen-like party emerges, which encourages its adherents to understand themselves,
seek "right" action (accurate situational analysis yielding a well-crafted strategy), and do
right action, I'll get interested in politics again. For now, we're just treading water in a
strong current that's headed to a bad place.
The Zen plan is no panacea, though. That path involves great risk (e.g. lots of failures)
and hard work. Pay's not that good, either.
Top-down vs. bottom-up are not necessarily contradictory and can in successive waves
contribute to social change in an increasingly self-reinforcing manner. Bottom-up change
influences top-down change (often through the opposition forces' malignant top-down
overreaction) which intensifies bottom-down change: so on and so on.
I would describe the main objectives for Trumpist party as the development of "Green
Trumpism". The moral imperatives associated with the climate crisis would be used as a
catalyst for Trumpist labor scarcity through the means of a Green Reindustrialization. The
process of globalization is one where production is severed from consumption. Production is
moved to cheap labor countries with terrible environmental standards. Capitalists produce
dirtier commodities while increasing their profits. This process must be reversed. If the
first world wants to consume then they must produce.
First world population growth is a critical factor in exasperating the climate crisis. All
of this growth can be linked to immigration, usually people from low consuming nations moving
to high consumption nations. These migration flows must be reversed.
Globalization requires imperialist power to enforce the safe transport of commodities
produced in far flung regions of the world. As globalization declines, so will necessarily US
imperialism.
yes, bottom-up and top-down would interact, if only the bottom-up was happening. It's
not.
The bottom has no political or economic leverage, and isn't navigating to a position of
strength. For example, the "bottom" is currently accepting placebo identity-politics as
pacifier. The "bottom" is still searching for an "easy button" solution rather than taking a
deeper look at oneself and the layout of the chess board at the macro level.
Using the climate crisis as driver for econ change is the Great Hope, and the top 1% is
hip to the game. They have and will continue to block meaningful change. Keep in mind that
just stopping the daily damage to the environment will render much (most) of our industrial
and household infrastructure obsolete. Nobody's ready to take that on, and that's the
implication of actually effective Green policy.
Right now, across the political spectrum, "green" consists of "what's convenient" instead
of "what's necessary". This is the individual-ethic bankruptcy I've alluded to elsewhere:
it's endemic from top 1% to bottom-est of the bottom.
You made a few statements I don't agree with:
"Capitalists have dirtier / more destructive production than (others)." 1st world production
is cleaner than in other places, and that 2nd and 3rd world production often happens in
non-capitalistic scenarios. Dirty production happens where dirty production is tolerated.
Another statement you made: "globalization has to stop / be reversed". Dunno about that
one. Globalization has resulted in production moving to cheapest-input locations. Like China.
Globalization will stop only when cost-of-inputs is leveled, and we're decades away from
that, and a whole lot more pain for the Developed world. Slow barge, that one.
Your essay doesn't address the effect of automation on household or societal economics.
Automation is not a reversible trend, and it's accelerating. The focus on the "where" of
production might not yield the HH economic benefits you're hoping for.
Some fairly different strategies need to be developed at the household level in order to
address the problems we face. Would you consider using the household as the pivot-point of
your new econ strategy rather than using industry and government?
Americans can exert more power with their consumption choices than their choices at the
ballot box. So certainly the household is a crucial pivot point.
Green tariffs can overnight level cost-of-inputs. Climate change provides a powerful moral
incentive to co-locate US consumption and production.
Within an environment of worker scarcity, automation is a positive trend and helps lessen
inflationary pressures. The problem with the US is that there is not enough automation
because of cheap and docile labor. Compare a meat packing plant in Denmark which is highly
automated compared to a US plant, which is packed to the brim with cheap imported labor. Much
of the Covid crisis in the US and UK is brought about by sweatshop-style working
conditions.
The question on automation is that somehow "the people" have to have a slice of the
profits and thus benefit from the process. A Yang-style UBI would need to go hand in hand
with increased automation.
I agree with the uselessness of the current Green movement. It is typically just used as a
tool to attack perceived opponents. But a Green Trumpism would no doubt both address the
climate crisis and help alleviate economic inequalities.
"The ruling class was going to be fine whatever the result, but a Biden presidency
constrained by a GOP Senate is ideal in some ways to the ruling class."
Yeah – there will be a lot of Biden disappointment amongst Us the majority –
this Precariat. A true Green New Deal would offer lots of employment opportunities here in
the USA – and would seem ideal for either party to embrace. Divided government won't
achieve it – the ruling class – and both parties – with short sighted heads
up their asses won't embrace it anyhow.
Regardless, Trumpism seems a fail except for a vast mob angry/scared/confused voters- and
some tax break aficionados. It's not just Biden/Harris won't deliver – but Tucker
Carlson, Joe Rogan, Ted Cruz, or whichever clever one runs in 2024 , won't deliver either,
and Trumps wall is a fiasco. If still effective propaganda..?
It's grotesque to learn that Kamila Harris's relatives are connected to Uber/Lyft. Prop.
22 getting approved in California is another sign of propaganda/big money effectiveness
– and We the People being tricked once again. I got lot's of mail showing
photos and quotes of regular working people embracing Prop 22 VOTE YES! save our jobs –
it passed easily.
Overall: Still glad to see Trump himself out of the White House – the clever
SOB.
This is a good essay. But I still have a few issues with it.
The key policy aims of Trumpism are worker scarcity and anti-imperialism. Worker scarcity
is achieved through immigration restriction and protectionist trade policies. So together, we
have the Trumpist Trinity, anti-immigration, trade restriction, and anti-imperialism. This is
the ideology that Trump ran on and rode to victory in 2016. This is the idea. Unions exist to
create micro-worker scarcity. Borders can be used to create macro-worker scarcity which is
far more powerful. And E-verify can be far more effective than a bombastic wall.
I would modify this to say "worker exclusivity", that only a narrow class of workers can
be tapped for specific terms of employment. When discussing the subject with those on the
rights, they are far more concerned about immigrants "taking their jobs" then they are of
building a scarcity of workers to gain a market share over employers. Let's not forget that
"Trumpian" is still fervently anti-union, even though this would be a good way of
generating "micro scarcity" as you put it. Being anti-union would be counterproductive to
worker scarcity.
Assuredly, "worker scarcity" makes a certain degree of sense. And I can easily see how
you came to that conclusion. But I fear you still give "trumpisim" too much credit in that
they have specific goals that they are attempting to achieve, and thus conceive of logical
steps to that goal.
I would argue that the right doesn't have goals in the same perspective as we on the
left may seem them. What we might think of as "goals" are better described as ideological
commandments that must be obeyed at all cost, and ignoring all consequence. As you noted
yourself. Trump's wall would do little to impede immigration. A better e-verify system
would be far more effective. So why ignore e-verify while being completely for the wall?
Because the wall is a visible simple of defiance against immigration that conservatives can
march back and forth in front of brandishing their 2nd amendment right. You can't do that
for a government policy.
Trumpism stands in opposition to globalization; whose goal is worker abundance which
necessarily drives wages down and increases oligarchic wealth. US led imperialism, especially
in the Middle East is also a necessary feature of globalization.
Here too I would make a modification. Neo-liberalism and globalization aren't about
worker "abundance" but rather worker "disposability." Again, if the idea is to create an
abundance of workers, driving down market share, then why make finding work so complicated?
Why be against strong education systems which would create new workers. Why shut down
factories here in the US only to open them in Korea? Why lock up so many Americans for
petty offensive, removing them from the willing work force.
I would argue that the heart of neo-liberalism is a class structure that places "the
establishment" as not just important in the grand scheme of things, but completely
indispensable to an individual. And part of that self-aggrandizement is the subjection of
every one else. "I am worth more than a thousand of you." Thus, why I must get
2-million-dollar bonus (even after bankrupting the company) and a post on the new re-org
chart while everyone else gets a pink slip and watch their hard-earned pensions disappear
in chapter 11 proceedings.
Of course, unlike much of the right, neo-liberalism does have a goal-oriented
methodology. So, creating "worker abundance" to force down individual worker market share
certainly makes sense. But is it true? It doesn't capture the full cynicism of typical
neo-liberal thinking. For creating so much worker abundance, plenty of neo-liberal aligned
employers still managed to complain about worker "allocations" (the idea that certain
employment sectors face chronic worker scarcity.) Indeed, current "plug-n-play" employment
patterns have made filling many positions nearly impossible because no one ever has the
right qualifications for a specific job without training. I have seen engineering jobs go
empty for years because they can't find "prior experience for proprietary development
project." (face palm.).
But it does speak to how disposable workers are to upper management. You are hired for
X, and when X is done you are automatically laid off. Why would you waste time giving such
an employee training of any sort? Let alone benefits or perks.
Thank you for your thoughtful reply. I will attempt to respond to your points.
Ruling class elements of the GOP attack unions in order to minimize worker micro-scarcity.
What is inexplicable is when unions attack Trumpist attempts at macro-scarcity through the
use of national borders. A united Union/Trumpist front is required against ruling class
interests. Struggling for worker scarcity does not mean one "hates" the workers the ruling
class is importing in order to create worker abundance.
This is to accept the ruling elite's identitarian frame, which boils down to: class struggle is racist. What this basically boils
down to is that the ruling class is benevolent and kind and loves purely altruistically to
import little brown workers while evil workers hate them because they are taking their jobs.
Oligarchs + cheap labor immigrants = good. Workers militating for their class interests =
bad. The key goal for Trumpism is to flip these equations.
Worker abundance necessarily means job scarcity from the worker's point of view. This
makes workers desperate and willing to accept lower wages. This has been happening for the
last 40 years at least since the end of the Cold War, if not a little sooner. Worker scarcity
means job abundance, from the worker's point of view. This means plenty of options because
management has to bid up salaries to attract workers.
Neoliberalism is Capitalism's attempt to remove the fetters on profits that exist within
the power of a nation-state. Worker abundance is just one of many Neoliberal goals. Borders
are a huge fetter to capitalism's basic mission of maximizing profit by producing commodifies
with the cheapest labor and selling them to the wealthiest consumers.
Nation-states can also
impose regulations (environmental, worker, etc) which also limit capitalist profit. Free
trade allows corporations to relocate factories to nations with the lowest salaries,
environmental and worker protections. For those jobs that cannot be transferred, Prop 22 is
the thin edge of the neoliberal wedge that is constraining the nation-state from protecting
workers.
I understand restricting immigration and anti-globalism as a means to increase US workers
leverage in raising wages in jobs and in better political representation. This addresses the
physical world of work.
Left unaddressed, and equally important imo, is the fact that US business and economy is now
largely financialized; much of the greatest wealth comes from unregrulated or restrained
predatory financial practices, from rentierism, from tolls and fines and fees.
This
financialization is every bit as important as the physical conditions you list in the rise in
precarity, maybe even more so at this time. How, for instance, would only physical
restrictions have changed the financial outcomes of the 2008 mortgage bank frauds and
financial crisis, the outcomes of ratings agencies giving bogus ratings to junk bonds,
changed the exorbitant rise in medicine prices, etc?
This is a very important aspect of
precarity. Reducing work competition for jobs to increase wages is only half the job,
stopping financial predators is the other half, imo
O could have stopped the bank predators in 2009-10, but chose not to. In his own
words:
+++ Without immigration or outsourcing or even automation, the predators will find still other
ways to break labor. We are seeing it with identity politics.
Beware of the UBI: it simply greases the wheels for more privatization instead of public
goods and infrastructure, similar to how vouchers and charters gut a public school
system.
Financialization is the necessary result of globalization's destruction of Fordism: which
is the interdependent role of worker and consumer. In order to increase profits, Ford doubled
his workers' salaries so that could serve him as consumers as well as workers.
Globalization
seeks to increase profits even further by disassociating the worker and the consumer. Work is
off-shored to low wage countries, whose leaders intentionally damp down local consumption.
This paradoxically means the soon to be immiserated western worker is still called upon to
play the role of global consumer of last resort.
At the same time, huge waves of profits are
washing over Wall Street. And so temporary speculative bubbles are created that serve two
purposes. First false wave of prosperity brought on for example by a real estate boom tamps
down any worker resistance towards the new economic order. Secondly the seemingly "free
money" created by speculation allow western consumption to continue.
So necessarily a Green Reindustrialization will force Wall Street to stop chasing
speculative squirrels and to instead concentrate on financing the new clean plant that will
help alleviate the climate crisis.
Rogan likes to do long form interviews across the political spectrum, but he has
consistently been a fan of Bernie and Tulsi. Author is Confusing the medium with the message.
Not the same.
I would argue that Bernie and Tulsi are "Trumpism adjacent" in the larger sense of
Trumpism.
If Trumpism as an ideology is going to flourish, Tulsi in particular will play a
critical role in this. The simplest way to see this is that when the ruling class smears
someone as a "Russian asset" what they are really doing is recognizing them as a Trumpist
threat.
Trumpism in its highest form will mean a reconciliation of the non-identitarian left
and right. For example, white identitarians like Richard Spencer have abandoned Trumpism.
I think that one of the most important considerations is that there needs to be a
coalition of sorts – between the working class Trumpian base and the Left (primarily
Generation Y and X). It shares one thing, they are both victims of the Establishment,
neoliberals, and urgently need change.
One image has always been very important to me. Note the distribution of socially
conservative, economically left wing voters.
The major challenge facing Democrats today is that race, gender, identity politics, and
religion appear to trump economics, at least as far as politically engaged primary voters
go. The old-line Democrats were an economic liberal party with socially conservative and
socially liberal wings (the social liberals, in fact, were in a minority). The new
Democrats are a socially liberal party with an economic conservative wing (neoliberals) and
a progressive economic wing. They all agree on social issues. They are loath to compromise
on open borders (which is what the existing immigration dysfunction de facto gives us),
transgender bathrooms, making room for pro-life members, or gay married couples' wedding
cakesbecause those are the only issues that hold their economic right and economic left
together.
I don't think that the Democratic Party in its current form is viable for the left.
So the price of a new New Deal majority would be to let Democrats welcome abortion
critics and opponents of mass immigration, so long as they favored a higher minimum wage,
less "synthetic immigration," and a pause on globalization (which facilitates international
labor arbitrage). In the words of John Judis:
I think that we would end up with the following compromise.
1. The economically left, culturally right agrees to accept global warming, end the wars,
and "socialism" like universal healthcare), and to offer legal immigrants along with
minorities a shot at the middle class
2. The economically left, culturally left agrees to compromise on immigration, globalization
(think put a strong emphasis on re-industrialization and de-financialization), and social
issues (think abortion, guns, defend the police, etc).
Interestingly, the American Conservative has an article lambasting Trump as well.
"The ruling class goal is to place an "enlightened person" mask over naked and rapacious
ruling class greed and oppression."
Maybe the same can be said of placing a "socially conservative" mask. We need to be
cautious in positing the possiblility of a multi-ethnic, multi-racial conservative movement
that somehow manages to be "nationalist, anti-cosmopolitan, anti-immigration" but still
serves the interests of the multi-racial, multi-ethnic, religiously diverse, working class
populace that's already here.
Implementing worker scarcity will necessarily further the economic interests of the
multi-racial, multi-ethnic, religiously diverse, working class populace that's already
here.
Just as implementing worker abundance necessarily furthers the economic interests of the
multi-racial, multi-ethnic, religiously diverse, RULING class populace that's already
here.
Great write up.
While I generally agree with your characterizations, I will also throw out there ..in no
particular order..
1) luckily , trump and his "legion of doom" aren't competent enough to draw on the "larger
picture" you've outlined here to maximize his effectiveness by using these natural
advantages, in their plot of self aggrandizement luckily for us americans/ the trump is his
own worst enemy.
2) ejecting trump from trumpism is a path to greater success for the right and
fascism/corporatism, which some "smart" people will surely weave into their future plans and
models. And the corporatists,be they from the republican side of the aisle, or the democratic
side will surely carry forward with this opening in american politics.
because trump does have to go the professionals of deception can mold that wisp of smoke into
any shape they want but it won't stay for long and doesn't hold up to any scrutiny . it isn't
real..It isn't even a chunk of clay
3] the problem of trumpism, or "conservative republican politics", or "democratic party
politics" is that they all necessarliy MUST be a lie in progress. NONE of the political
duopoly can go into "truthland" . it is their kryptonite. So all have agreed to never enter
and call it a no go zone
And the fact that everything about our political situation is "fact free",at least in the
sense that any facts used are only used out of context to keep a truer understanding from
happening; hasn't stopped anyone yet and isn't likely too any time soon so too bad for
everyone. .we'll call that a draw.
The 30,000 foot description of yours not withstanding, that type of over arching layers of
this onion, is something for planners to incorporate in "the con" as it needs to be.. but is
above the paygrade of most political actors , who work at rousing the rabble
4) I don't see actual agency of the people . what people want to do has nothing to do with
what is going to happen usually, if the elites want something to happen, they provide the
opinions and the votes.. "deserve" has nothing to do with it.. and "our reality" is just an
illusion.
So over layering a description of bigger forces, over the chaos that has been created to keep
this "hegelian dialect" in place , is again for those at a higher pay grade in the
process..
Too many chefs ruin the meal but hey ,it's our gruel and we have nothing else to eat , for
the moment and maybe less later, if they get their way.
"Post-truth" is dystopian. It's a luxury to live at a distance from unpleasant realities.
If a society can sustain a population/segment so far up their own **** then you've "arrived"
in a sense.
However, dystopia sounds better than the crises that lay ahead. It's the unavoidable hard
landing that worries me.
Maybe truth works like wealth: The first generation discovers the truth. The second
generation teaches the truth. And the third generation fakes news.
The Democratic Party doesn't want to come to terms with the fact that they deserve as much
blame as the GOP for the predicament the working class finds itself in.
They chose under Clinton to repeal Glass Steagall, sign free trade agreements, and bring
China into the WTO. Under Obama, those policies largely continued. Under Biden, all signs
indicate that this will still continue.
I think the brutal reality is that the upper middle class is willfully ignorant of what
the precariat faces. Public health authorities, while understandably trying to contain the
pandemic, are not the ones who are going to see their lives destroyed. The working class was
doomed either way, either by being disproportionately hurt by the coronavirus (they can't
work from home) or from long-term unemployment (they've suffered more as a percentage of
total jobs lost). In other words, they don't have a stake in keeping the lockdown and may see
opening up as a lesser evil.
Likewise, the Liberals who are in secure upper middle class white collar jobs tended to
act disdainfully when working class people protested the lockdowns. I'm not saying the
protestors were right, but many are people who put their lives into their work, such as small
business owners. Evidently, subsidies were needed at the very least.
In this regard, the GOP might have more hope than the Democrats, barring a Berniecrat
takeover of the Democrats, which is looking less likely. That said the GOP still has a huge
right wing apparatus that would have to be overcome for a "real populist" (ex: someone who
actually cared about the well being of the working class) to take over.
One advantage might be that younger people are overwhelmingly left wing economically, so
as Generation Y and Z become a bigger share of the electorate, things may change.
Likewise, the Liberals who are in secure upper middle class white collar jobs tended to
act disdainfully when working class people protested the lockdowns. I'm not saying the
protestors were right, but many are people who put their lives into their work, such as
small business owners. Evidently, subsidies were needed at the very least
To this day, they still get outraged for the same reasons. If you so much as point out
what you just wrote–not being anti-science but simply the hardship lockdowns cause and
how it needs to be properly addressed–at best you'll be called scientifically
illiterate. At worst you'll be accused of being an evil rich person who wants to kill grandma
to make the stock market go up.
While some of the protests may have been astroturf, not all of them were. If you're a
small-business owner facing the prospect of losing everything you've worked for and basically
being told "you're on own" of course you will be angry. Likewise, if you're an employee and
can't work from home, of course you will be stressed out about losing your job. This is the
real "economic anxiety" and it is no laughing matter.
for the real small business owners, and the individuals who can't work .
they ought to feel pissed
after all . a fraction of the trillions that are earmarked for wall street, could have "paid
their bills"..at least for a year . and then the "citizens" would be getting something
tangible for the debt being incurred in their name by the duopoly.
All the people realizing "someone" is getting bailed out and it isn't them
I was puzzled by the victory of Prop. 22 in California. This is a state which has huge
Democratic majorities, and normally rubber-stamps all union-sponsored legislation.
Uber and Lyft threatened that if Prop. 22 did not pass, they would either stop operations
or would lay off 75% of their temp workers.
(not unlike an employer threatening to move to China if their workers form a union.)
They also threatened that ride prices would at least double, and wait times would greatly
increase.
The average voter may have put their own self-interest ahead of any class loyalty.
Final note: the gig workers did get a few benefits out of AB 5, things granted by Uber and
Lyft to buy some goodwill.
Comments welcome! I do not live in CA so I am just guessing on this. It was an important
vote.
Prop 22 is going to be the most important result of the 2020 election, not Trump
v Biden or control of either legislature.
I've been very puzzled by the result too as it passed handily and wasn't really close. I
don't live near CA either, but I did read that among other misleading tactics, the Prop 22
proponents gave delivery bags to restaurants that use these gig delivery services so that the
delivery drivers would be dropping off meals to people in Yes on 22 bags, which made it seem
like prop 22 would be beneficial to gig workers if you didn't look into it much.
So on the one hand there was the intent to deceive. But then I think that if I heard about
these dirty tricks 3,000 miles away, surely CA voters must have known about them too.
The depressing thing is that maybe a lot of people did know exactly what Prop 22 was all
about and decided they liked the idea of a permanent underclass always only minutes
away at the touch of a button to do the things they can't be bothered with for a
pittance.
The fact that so many of the gig company execs worked first in the Obama administration
and are now heading back to the Biden administration with dreams of scaling up prop 22 is a
very ominous portent.
I voted NO on prop 22, but a mailer I received from the YES side may show why it
passed.
It has text with "by 4-to-1, app-based drivers overwhelmingly prefer to work as
independent contractors".
The pictures of smiling workers on the mailer are all minorities (Asian, Hispanic,
Black).
I'd suggest a small percentage of CA voters actually use Uber/Lyft, so am inclined to
believe voters did not vote to preserve their own self-interest.
The "YES" mailer lists 5 advantages for the drivers, "guaranteed hourly earnings for
app-based drivers", "per mile compensation toward vehicle expenses", "medical and disability
coverage for injuries and illnesses", "new health benefits for drivers who work 15+ hours a
week", and "additional safety protections for app-based drivers"
The mailer lists groups supporting it, NAACP, California Hispanic Chamber of Commerce,
Consumer Choice Center, The Latin Business Association, Black Women Organized for Political
Action, California Small Business Association, California Senior Advocates League.
I remember a prior YES on 22 mailer had support from Mothers Against Drunk Driving..
The "YES" group spent about 12x more than the No group (188 million vs 15million)
I saw a lot of pro Prop 22 advertising and nothing against it. The ads were all sleek,
full of cheerful drivers with big smiles, and easily the best made ads of 2020. I knew that
there was something bad about the proposition, but until just a few days before the election
I couldn't tell you why. All my mental bandwidth was on the national elections and not on
parsing the various state propositions like I normally would. This time it was all on
something else.
If a poli-sci/poli-econ geek like me was having some problems with truly understanding
this extremely effective, slickly made campaign of manufactured consent, what does that say
about the many, often financially and/or socially overwhelmed, California voters who would be
much like me? I think that the overlords had the perfect situation for getting the
proposition passed.
"but the (GOP) party needs to reverse its positions on taxing the wealthiest, punishing
and preventing the expansion of organized labor, reversing their position on outsourcing
manufacturing, and addressing economic precarity"
And I need to become 6'4″, handsome, young and athletic.
Indeed why would they reverse when the Dems agree with them on all of it. What the above
article doesn't get is that the true ruling class response to precarity is simply to make
sure voters have no options to address it. We are in a class war, not a battle between
political parties. Any promises Biden made to the poor will blow away like smoke once in
office. He is on the record saying that billionaires are swell folks.
Lambert linked an interesting article yesterday in Water Cooler that talked about cycles
in history and the ingredients of high social unrest. The subject is historian Peter
Turchin
He has been warning for a decade that a few key social and political trends portend an
"age of discord," civil unrest and carnage worse than most Americans have experienced. In
2010, he predicted that the unrest would get serious around 2020, and that it wouldn't let
up until those social and political trends reversed. Havoc at the level of the late 1960s
and early '70s is the best-case scenario; all-out civil war is the worst.
The fundamental problems, he says, are a dark triad of social maladies: a bloated elite
class, with too few elite jobs to go around; declining living standards among the general
population; and a government that can't cover its financial positions.
Turchin is saying that social instability is not just the result of high inequality but
also of a bloated ruling class that is itself insecure because there aren't enough PMC jobs
for all those college graduates and their credentials. Thus in our case the political parties
have come to be dominated by these middle class concerns with the poor almost entirely out of
the picture and dismissed as racist deplorables who probably deserve their fate. As the
article says this sociological theory of history is controversial but at least worth
considering.
A good, broad, liberal arts degree, or something like it, can be useful in many kinds of
jobs, if the jobs exist . Much of the high skilled, high paying jobs have all been shipped
overseas, and the remaining good paying jobs increasingly are office jobs requiring not only
a masters degree, but good social connections, and at least saying only goodthoughts to get
and keep.
It use to be that there was plenty of diverse work. If you failed at getting tenure or
that job at the bank, or the government position you wanted, there was plenty of good work
requiring only some education, intelligence, and drive. Having the kind of degree and
connections that someone in the modern PMC would merely be very useful, not a requirement for
a good life. Bur now we have too many people having the exact education needed to get the few
remaining good jobs in the few safe fields, and unlike fifty years, failure means
destitution, not disappointment.
And yet claiming that this class war exist, which is supposedly immiserating increasing
numbers of Americans ever higher up the class chain, is all deplorably racist, sexist,
homophobic, and transphobic I am reliable informed. /s
It is unsettling to see writers who I have been reading for years, even decades, start
saying that it is racism or bigotry, and only that, which explains the Bad Man. One doesn't
have to be a Marxist to make a connection with the increasing poverty and corruption under
both parties over the past forty or fifty years with President Trump. Yet, many refuse
to.
It does make me wonder what it is that I am blind to.
I agree,
the class war is a better way of seeing things.
all the symptoms and externalities the class war provides are the things the parties use as
fodder issues for their respective bases but all the duopoly can provide is more of the same
. "their way" their culture . their rules . their precedents their history..
this is how they seem to win they teach the children to think their" way".
Then what else will happen in the future
people continually adopting patterns that already exist.
They have created a culture . and we all know how people are treated by their neighbors who
are "counter-culture"
It becomes a self reinforcing narrative, where the hive keeps the status quo because they
want to .
We keep supporting systems that are there to control us rather than recreating systems that
help .. like we are "supposed" to or something.
James P. Yep. That paragraph has some giant "ifs" in it that caught my eye as I was
reading. The likelihood of Republicans sponsoring legislation to repeal "right to work" laws,
which tend to be in Republican-dominated states, is almost nil. Further, a party that is
opposed to any tax increases, no matter what need has to be addressed, isn't going to change
course. Another "if" is relying on someone like the egregious Tom Cotton, as mentioned, for
leadership about legislation.
I am sure, though, that you are already on your way to becoming a beefcake model and
internet influencer.
It's going to take some time for this article to sink in. Words like precariat and
precarity are fairly new concepts, at least for me and my automatic spell checker. What is
the etymology of this word and what are it's conceptual dimensions. I know what precarious
means and I can see how using it as an adjective works. But if it's going to be a key term I
want to know more about it. Accordiing to a quick search, the etymology is:
precarious (adj.)
1640s, a legal word, "held through the favor of another," from Latin precarius "depending on
favor, pertaining to entreaty, obtained by asking or praying," from prex (genitive precis)
"entreaty, prayer" (from PIE root *prek- "to ask, entreat").
The notion of "dependent on the will of another" led to the extended sense "risky,
dangerous, hazardous, uncertain" (1680s), but this was objected to. "No word is more
unskillfully used than this with its derivatives. It is used for uncertain in all its senses;
but it only means uncertain, as dependent on others " [Johnson]. Related: Precariously;
precariousness.
So what is striking in reading it's etymology is that it is defined as something
"dependent, uncertain, risky, dangerous, hazardous." This characterizes many areas of life.
With respect to contemporary life in the area of economics, I certainly see it all around me
and in the news headlines, in the instability of good long-term paying jobs with benefits. In
politics, I certainly see the risks, dangers, and hazards, especially in the highly
militarized nature of foreign relations. But looking at the term from the perspective of a
"social scientist" does it explain the antecedents that lead to this condition and is it
operational in the sense of breaking it down into more rudimentary terms and
relationships.
I am reading St. Thomas Aquinas' book "On Truth" and although the style of Questiones
Disputatae , with its contra, sed contra, and style is archaic and hard to
follow, it provides a good way of centering dialogue. In Question one of Article 1, the
formal reply to the stated Article of "What is Truth?" states:
When investigating the nature of anything, one should make the same kind of analysis
as he makes when he reduces a proposition to certain self-evident principles."
Since this term "precarity" is new to me, I don't think I have a good handle on how to use
it outside of a descriptor. Does it explain anything? And maybe I'm just asking too much of
the word. Maybe it's just meant as that, a simple characterization whose underlying causal
relationships are to yet be determined and examined.
I've seen precariate be described as a combination of precarious proletariat.
While one could argue the position of the proletariat is always precarious, I do think the
are times in history which are more precarious than others, and what we see now is certainly
one (climate change impacts, opioid/alcoholism, covid19 pandemic, ever increasing inequality,
globalization of manufacturing, health care for profit in the US, increasing cost of housing
and education, no doubt many more)
Nice piece generally and which kinda validates a feeling I've had generally that
"uncertainty is increasing" which is often bad for people in so many ways – uncertainty
among the "entitled" can be highly damaging to polling (in addition to all the points raised
in the article). The elephant in the room is of course interpreting polling results. For
example 70% Democrat at a precinct/state/national level is consistent with an infinite number
of explanations: at one end we have "strong means" (meaning these are "solid" votes) and at
the other we have "very weak means but big variances" (meaning these votes are subject to all
sorts of factors like news items, real or manufactured, etc). We can't "know" which universe
we're in .Unless we conduct a secondary survey to give a "second line in the x-y plane" to
see where it intersects the main one ..then we know whether the 70% is driven by means or
variances or some combination.
The likelihood function for all "limited dependent variable models" – discrete
choices like voting – has a term that is multiplicative in means and variances. Thus
"70%" could mean any of a HUGE number of things. Those of us experienced in interpreting
these data can rule out the "dumb" explanations .but we are still left with a number of
"possible explanations". If we don't actively talk to voters, do a lot of qualitative
research etc, then we can't begin to limit the number of "possible solutions" further. I have
had little experience in applying the methods to polling so I rely a lot on sites like NC to
give "insights from the ground". It is a pity polling institutions don't. YouGov were on the
right track in 2017 but bottled it due to collecting data for their "second line" in a poor
way. It's a pity – if they collected data in better way they'd be far and away the best
polling organisation. Though the downright lies told by Trumpites that Lambert has
highlighted remain a problem – I do have ideas how to address this but they go way
beyond the scope of the site and like I've said before, I think pushing MMT etc is a better
use of resources (even though it pains me personally not to have my own "hobby horse"
championed, hehe).
But I personally think increased variances are a fact of life and reflect the article's
point that uncertainty in life is hurting everyone.
Uncertainty and fear are increasing because the kick-the-can strategies are starting to
look really wobbly, and the fights for survival and hail-marys (like MMT) are being trotted
out.
The velocity of change has increased, and the rate of adaptation appears to have somehow
actually slowed down. Just exactly the wrong response at the wrong time.
One commenter above poked fun at the term "precarity" – said it was a $10 gimmick
for the word "poor".
A while back Mark Twain said a "cauliflower is a cabbage with a college education".
Precarity is a college-educated middle class "information worker" who is "feeling
poor".
The effects of automation and globalization are moving up the class ladder. The ship's
sinking and the water's already flooded 3rd class berths (rust belt and flyover), and is
about 1/3 of the way into the 2nd class cabins.
Agree or disagree with Andrew's Yang's proposal for a universal basic income, I think he
is definitely on to something when he talks about the ramifications of automation and machine
learning, though he isn't the first person to point it out.
Some people are simply not aware–it's not that they necessarily don't care, they
simply just don't know–while others are in denial or don't care.
Regardless of where a given person falls, I do agree that with Yang and others that say
dealing with this economic reshaping will be of the key challenges–if not the most
important challenge–of our time.
reshaping our monetary system is one of the biggest hurdles in reshaping our economic
present.
Monetary reform efforts like the modern day "chicago plan" as was described in the bill
proposed in congress in 2011/2012 112th congress HR 2990
open the door to creating money debt free, and permanently which could pay off the national
debt, and fund policies like single payer health care and even "citizen dividends", that are
really just ways to inject money into the economy, rather than starting the injection of
money into the economy on wall street , like now.. https://www.congress.gov/bill/112-thcongress/house-bill/2990/text
In sharp contrast, Trump may have appeared indifferent to the gravity of the coronavirus,
but his persistent calls to reopen the economy addressed the precarity issue, as they
appealed to many workers whose livelihoods were being destroyed by the pandemically induced
government restrictions placed on economic activity.
The average worker up through October does not have Covid and may not know anyone of
working age who does have Covid ..but they do have a job, and if the job must be done
in-person they know they were vulnerable.
"Keeping the economy open" is more urgent to them than defeating Covid through
lockdowns.
This is a big reason why Trump even kept this election close.
In America, the authorities who order lockdowns cannot simultaneously order financial
relief. This created a tragic class divide on fighting the pandemic.
These days the members of the media tend to be dominated by the upper middle class who
attended elite colleges and probably don't even understand the meaning of precarity.
Therefore to them it seems perverse to object to lockdowns and elaborate precautions that the
work from home set can more easily deal with. In the old days newspaper reporters rose
through the ranks and came from small town newspapers and were more in touch with the general
society rather than journalism schools.
I live in California and was surprised to learn here that Harris opposed prop 22. While
the Pro campaign carpet bombed the airwaves with ads, I never saw any CA leaders raise a
voice in opposition or attempt to explain why this would be bad for working people. Never saw
any mention, other than in the state election booklet, that the prop introduced a huge
supermajority needed to repeal it, making it effectively impossible to remove once passed.
Didn't see any out of state money funding ads despite it being obvious that success in
California would lead to adoption in other states.
Well Harris does all support and oppose M4A depending on who shes talking to and when
she's saying it, so there's that. I suspect any disagreements she may express over prop 22's
passage are crocodile tears at best.
Her and every other leader who takes positions on many issues but not on this one. Perhaps
they saw polling and thought it best instead to add to the strategic underground reserves of
dry powder.
Great piece. One effect of spreading precarity–and I will use the term more loosely
to encompass not only economic precarity, but also the increasing sense of pervasive dread
and fear experienced by so many across all walks of life–is that living in this state
increases one's susceptibility to both totalitarian ideologies and to drives for war against
some perceived enemy. To me this explains the shadow of "law and order" hard nationalism
coming from the far right, the more extreme variants of identity politics on the left, and
the terrified push for censorship and "full lockdown" coming from the neoliberal center.
Unfortunately the billionaire class and their pets in the media see all of this as a
potential cash cow rather than a serious danger. Given their stranglehold on the national
discourse and their control of the most effective means of mass organizing (social media),
I'm not sure it is possible to reverse the trend early enough to prevent some kind of major
conflict. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try!
P.S. To avoid any confusion, when I disparagingly refer to "full lockdown" I mean an
authoritarian lockdown without accompanying benefits for workers and with "papers please"
checkpoints and penalties. The worst kind of lockdown, where people are both unable to
support themselves and are actively prevented from doing so. In my opinion people who push
for a hard lockdown before benefits/compensation can be arranged are unintentionally
advocating for such a position; the compensation will never come.
Heck, I've seen comments (generally not on this site) admiring what China did and
lamenting the fact that it can't be done here in the United States.
I sure hope these are troll accounts and not real people in this country, especially not
real people on the left. If these are real people, we are in more trouble than I thought.
A government with the power to literally weld people's door shut, which is what China did,
can do a lot of other scary things.
Yes, like get on top of a virus (and achieve the highest level of economic growth in human
history, and produce incredible poetry, and so on). And as I'm not 'in this country,' I
believe I'm not 'real people.'
I have seen the same thing and have had the same concerns. I do think there is more
dishonest disruption/manipulation and trolling going on than we are aware of. It's at the
point where I automatically assume that most social media accounts are not taking an honest
position. I hope I'm right, because if I'm wrong then humanity is absolutely terrifying.
The corporate imperialism status quo isn't terrifying enough for you? Oil and gas seeping
out through the land under and around "affordable housing" because CEQA doesn't count on
those properties doesn't terrify you? Flint's water crisis doesn't terrify you?
The throngs of human beings thrown out onto the street by Upgrading slumlords and
developers doesn't terrify you? Overlords talking with straight faces about excess and
surplus humans and ramming Prop 22 through doesn't terrify you?
There's a big difference between "humanity is OK, but the small slice that rules us is
terrible" and "humanity is in deep shit because we're mostly terrible." The first implies a
solution, the second what? Hope for a benevolent AI overlord to emerge?
Read my post again. I said that I automatically assume that most accounts posting terrible
stuff are bots. There are accounts that say awful things about almost any and every topic
imaginable. The number of them is so huge that if these are real people and not
bots, then people may indeed be largely terrible. But I assume they are bots.
https://popularresistance.org/affordable-housing-developers-set-their-sights-on-former-toxic-oil-fields/
DeSmog blog Vista Hermosa residents like Luna are troubled by a 2019 environmental rollback by the
state, AB1197, that exempts homeless housing developments in the City of Los Angeles from the
mandates of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). Arguably California's broadest
environmental law, CEQA requires builders to assess the environmental impacts of new
development and find ways to avoid or mitigate them.
The political will to rollback CEQA has continued into 2020. In January, Assemblyman
Miguel Santiago, who represents District 53 bordering Vista Hermosa, introduced a new piece
of legislation, AB1907, to further expand CEQA exemptions to now include all affordable
housing.
I'm reminded of the excellent post by Anne Amnesia in May 2016, (yes, when Obama and Biden
were still in office, and the White House was just a huge gleam in Kamala's way too sparkly
eyes, given the massive poverty, incarceration and inequality in California, as she
successfully ran for California Senator and will have not completed even one term)
Unnecessariathttps://morecrows.wordpress.com/2016/05/10/unnecessariat/
A very brief excerpt (it's long and meaty), emphasis mine:
In 2011, economist Guy Standing coined the term "precariat" to refer to workers
whose jobs were insecure, underpaid, and mobile, who had to engage in substantial "work for
labor" to remain employed, whose survival could, at any time, be compromised by employers
(who, for instance held their visas) and who therefore could do nothing to improve their
lot. The term found favor in the Occupy movement, and was colloquially expanded to include
not just farmworkers, contract workers, "gig" workers, but also unpaid interns, adjunct
faculty, etc. Looking back from 2016, one pertinent characteristic seems obvious: no matter
how tenuous, the precariat had jobs. The new dying Americans, the ones killing themselves
on purpose or with drugs, don't. Don't, won't, and know it.
Here's the thing: from where I live, the world has drifted away. We aren't
precarious, we're unnecessary. The money has gone to the top. The wages have gone to
the top. The recovery has gone to the top. And what's worst of all, everybody who matters
seems basically pretty okay with that. The new bright sparks, cheerfully referred to as
"Young Gods" believe themselves to be the honest winners in a new invent-or-die economy,
and are busily planning to escape into space or acquire superpowers, and instead of
worrying about this, the talking heads on TV tell you its all a good thing- don't worry,
the recession's over and everything's better now, and technology is TOTES AMAZEBALLS!
The Rent-Seeking Is Too Damn High
If there's no economic plan for the Unnecessariat, there's certainly an abundance for
plans to extract value from them. No-one has the option to just make their own way and be
left alone at it. It used to be that people were uninsured and if they got seriously sick
they'd declare bankruptcy and lose the farm, but now they have a (mandatory) $1k/month plan
with a $5k deductible: they'll still declare bankruptcy and lose the farm if they get sick,
but in the meantime they pay a shit-ton to the shareholders of United Healthcare, or Aetna,
or whoever. This, like shifting the chronically jobless from "unemployed" to "disabled" is
seen as a major improvement in status, at least on television.
I was surprised Prop 22 passed because it was not doing well in the polls for most of the
pre-election period. It seemed Californians were solidly against it. Then, perhaps 4-6 weeks
before the election, I noticed a dramatic change in messaging. Suddenly the ads were touting
that if Prop 22 passed, Uber and Lyft drivers would receive health care benefits. I assumed
that this was deceptive messaging designed to turn the vote around. Here is what Kaiser
Health News says about the benefits:
https://www.news-medical.net/news/20201029/App-based-companies-pushing-Prop-22-say-drivers-will-get-health-benefits-Will-they.aspx
Looks like it worked. I guess there's no penalty for this sort of deception, or at least, no
enforcement of a penalty.
So, I have CSPAN on at the moment. They're streaming the DC #MillionMAGAMarch
#StopTheSteal SuperSpreader rally.
The over-the-top vitriol is rather breathtaking. The angry ignorance is depressing.
They're "not gonna allow the Steal." They're gonna "be warriors." "Trump WON! Trump WON!
Trump WON! Trump WON! "
The Occam's Chainsaw "logic" is on full display.
Meanwhile, yesterday's new U.S. Covid19 case count was more than 184k, 1.6m for Nov
1-13.
No argument there. I started an Excel sheet, w/ transcribed JHU data commencing Oct 1st
(thru yesterday). The exponential upward trendline in the graph has an R-sq of 0.91. (an
iterative 7-day moving avg is also illuminating.)
Of course, it'll go up until it no longer does. And, "new cases" incidence rates comprise
but one facet of interest.
If you're struggling but aren't sick (yet), economic concerns win out. No big surprise
there. 70 million people are fighting a return to austerity and a technocratic "Great Reset"
that was devised without their input. They see it as literally fighting for their lives and
livelihoods. The new admin can ignore this at their own peril. (Too bad Trump didn't actually
solve any of their problems, but at least he gave them his attention, more than anyone else
has done in decades.)
Many people have to choose between the certainty of being unable to pay their bills, if
they stay home, versus the unknown risk of contracting COVID if they work.
Staying home is luxury a lot of people just don't have–even pre-COVID it was very
common for people in low-wage jobs that don't provide sick-leave to show up to work sick. It
wasn't because these people are evil or wanted to get anyone sick but rather because if you
don't work you don't get paid.
Precisely. The rent isn't going to pay itself, and people are scared about their future.
Covid isn't an obvious terror like Ebola, so people weigh the risks and decide in favor of
their economic security. If we were like some of the more advanced countries in the world,
they wouldn't have to make this choice, but here we are.
"at least he gave them his attention, more than anyone else has done in decades."
Hmmm last time I looked Bernie Sanders was paying attention and proposing solutions since
at least 2015. Nice how you just erased him and the millions who voted for him.
You're right. Trump is the only primary-winning candidate who paid attention to
the working class in recent memory. Bernie was obviously a million times better than Trump
because he was sincere, he had a plan, and he would have followed through. But he got
screwed.
I'm becoming a bit weary of reading that politicians like Trump are "exploiting anxieties"
about poverty and unemployment, as though such anxieties were unreasonable and the problems
didn't really exist. The trouble is that "responding to voters' concerns about their lives"
doesn't have quite the same dismissive overtones. The supercilious assumption that people who
are afraid of losing their jobs are being "exploited", whereas people being urged to vote on
gender lines aren't, seems very strange. Is anyone really surprised that people are more
worried about how much money they have than about which gender they are?
Understand people's problems, devise reasonable solutions, communicate your plan to the
voters, and follow through on your promises. It sounds so easy, doesn't it but good luck
trying it with the media and parties working together against you at every turn. Pull up
those bootstraps!
Thanks. We are going to find out how the velocity of the vote is slower than the velocity
of hunger.
"Civilization is about 3 meals thick." John Brockman, ex-con.
We are not together and the people in power don't want to give the people without, food
money. Two more and 3 more months of disease as hunger and death knock at more and more
doors. Evictions pick up apace.
Cormac McCarthy dystopia. No country for anybody.
The economic theory attributed to Warren Mosler and popularized by Stephanie Kelton is the
last idea. If it is a Hail Mary then so be it. If it doesn't work, isn't put to work, mankind
itself is doomed.
Public health care authorities understandably directed their policy responses toward
pandemic mitigation, and the Democrats largely embraced their recommendations. But they
remained insensitive to the anxieties of tens of millions of Americans, whose jobs were
being destroyed for good, whose household debts -- rent, mortgage, and utility arrears, as
well as interest on education and car loans -- were rising inexorably, even allowing for
the temporary expedient of stimulus checks from the government until this past August
I agree and worse this dynamic is playing itself out again–talk about whether
President-elect Biden should institute a lockdown is bringing out the "lockdown now, worry
about the consequences later" mentality again.
While I'm not sure Biden personally regards the millions of those who cannot work from
home, but aren't considered essential, collateral damage, there are clearly a segment of
Democrats who do–I've even seen it on Facebook among people I know. It provides further
proof that the Democrats, as Thomas Frank and others have astutely noted, have become
predominantly the party of the college-educated upper-middle class.
While I'm not denying the severity of the pandemic, the consequences of business shutdowns
and subsequent layoffs are very real and not something to be laughed at or minimized,
especially if Democrats want to have a future among those who are less affluent.
The globalists found just the economics they were looking for.
The USP of neoclassical economics – It concentrates wealth.
Let's use it for globalisation.
Mariner Eccles, FED chair 1934 – 48, observed what the capital accumulation of
neoclassical economics did to the US economy in the 1920s. "a giant suction pump had by 1929 to 1930 drawn into a few hands an increasing proportion
of currently produced wealth. This served then as capital accumulations. But by taking
purchasing power out of the hands of mass consumers, the savers denied themselves the kind of
effective demand for their products which would justify reinvestment of the capital
accumulation in new plants. In consequence as in a poker game where the chips were
concentrated in fewer and fewer hands, the other fellows could stay in the game only by
borrowing. When the credit ran out, the game stopped"
This is what it's supposed to be like.
A few people have all the money and everyone else gets by on debt.
Most of today's problems come from the 1920s.
Financial stability had been locked into the regulations of the Keynesian era.
The neoliberals removed them and the financial crises came back. https://www.brettonwoodsproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/banking-crises.png
"This Time is Different" by Reinhart and Rogoff has a graph showing the same thing (Figure
13.1 – The proportion of countries with banking crises, 1900-2008).
After the 1930s, they wanted to ensure those times would never return and put things in
place to ensure they didn't.
The neoliberals have been busy stripping them away.
What did the economists learn in the 1940s? http://delong.typepad.com/kalecki43.pdf
In the paper from 1943 you can see ..
They knew Government debt and deficits weren't a problem as they had seen the massive
Government debt and deficits of WW2.
They knew full employment was feasible as they had seen it in WW2.
After WW2 Governments aimed to create full employment as policymakers knew it could be done
and actually maximised wealth creation in the economy.
Balancing the budget was just something they used to do before WW2, but it wasn't actually
necessary.
Government debt and deficits weren't a problem.
They could now solve all those problems they had seen in the 1930s, which caused politics to
swing to the extremes and populist leaders to rise.
They could eliminate unemployment and create a full employment economy.
They could put welfare states in place to ensure the economic hardship of the 1930s would
never be seen again.
They didn't have to use austerity; they could fight recessions with fiscal stimulus.
The neoliberals started to remove the things that had created stable Western societies
after WW2.
"If I thought voters were racists who want basic economic security and the other party was
offering them racism but not economic security, I would simply try offering economic security
but not racism rather than offering them neither." -Ed Burmilla https://twitter.com/edburmila/status/1324420903409692673
We stepped onto an old path that still leads to the same place.
1920s/2000s – neoclassical economics, high inequality, high banker pay, low regulation,
low taxes for the wealthy, robber barons (CEOs), reckless bankers, globalisation phase
1929/2008 – Wall Street crash
1930s/2010s – Global recession, currency wars, trade wars, austerity, rising
nationalism and extremism
1940s – World war.
We forgot we had been down that path before.
Right wing populist leaders are only to be expected at this stage.
Why is Western liberalism always such a disaster?
They did try and learn from past mistakes to create a new liberalism (neoliberalism), but the
Mont Pelerin Society went round in a circle and got back to pretty much where they
started.
It equates making money with creating wealth and people try and make money in the easiest
way possible, which doesn't actually create any wealth.
In 1984, for the first time in American history, "unearned" income exceeded "earned"
income.
The American have lost sight of what real wealth creation is, and are just focussed on making
money.
You might as well do that in the easiest way possible.
It looks like a parasitic rentier capitalism because that is what it is.
Bankers make the most money when they are driving your economy into a financial
crisis.
What they are doing is really an illusion; they are just pulling future spending power into
today.
The 1920s roared at the expense of an impoverished 1930s.
Japan roared on the money creation of real estate lending in the 1980s, they spent the next
30 years repaying the debt they had built up in the 1980s and the economy flat-lined. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YTyJzmiHGk
Bankers use bank credit to pump up asset prices, which doesn't actually create any
wealth.
The money creation of bank credit flows into the economy making it boom, but you are heading
towards a financial crisis and claims on future prosperity are building up in the financial
system.
https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/quarterly-bulletin/2014/money-creation-in-the-modern-economy.pdf
Early success comes at the expense of an impoverished future.
Let's get the basics sorted.
When no one knows what real wealth creation is, you are in trouble.
We want economic success
Step one – Identify where wealth creation occurs in the economy.
Houston, we have a problem.
Economists do identify where real wealth creation in the economy occurs, but this is a
most inconvenient truth as it reveals many at the top don't actually create any wealth.
This is the problem.
Much of their money comes from wealth extraction rather than wealth creation, and they need
to get everyone thoroughly confused so we don't realise what they are really up to.
The Classical Economists had a quick look around and noticed the aristocracy were
maintained in luxury and leisure by the hard work of everyone else.
They haven't done anything economically productive for centuries, they couldn't miss it.
The Classical economist, Adam Smith:
"The labour and time of the poor is in civilised countries sacrificed to the maintaining of
the rich in ease and luxury. The Landlord is maintained in idleness and luxury by the labour
of his tenants. The moneyed man is supported by his extractions from the industrious merchant
and the needy who are obliged to support him in ease by a return for the use of his
money."
There was no benefits system in those days, and if those at the bottom didn't work they
died.
They had to earn money to live.
Ricardo was an expert on the small state, unregulated capitalism he observed in the world
around him. He was part of the new capitalist class, and the old landowning class were a huge
problem with their rents that had to be paid both directly and through wages.
"The interest of the landlords is always opposed to the interest of every other class in the
community" Ricardo 1815 / Classical Economist.
They soon identified the constructive "earned" income and the parasitic "unearned"
income.
This disappeared in neoclassical economics.
GDP was invented after they used neoclassical economics last time.
In the 1920s, the economy roared, the stock market soared and nearly everyone had been making
lots of money.
In the 1930s, they were wondering what the hell had just happened as everything had appeared
to be going so well in the 1920s and then it all just fell apart.
They needed a better measure to see what was really going on in the economy and came up with
GDP.
In the 1930s, they pondered over where all that wealth had gone to in 1929 and realised
inflating asset prices doesn't create real wealth, they came up with the GDP measure to track
real wealth creation in the economy.
The transfer of existing assets, like stocks and real estate, doesn't create real wealth and
therefore does not add to GDP. The real wealth creation in the economy is measured by
GDP.
Real wealth creation involves real work producing new goods and services in the economy.
So all that transferring existing financial assets around doesn't create wealth?
No it doesn't, and now you are ready to start thinking about what is really going on
there.
Economists do identify where real wealth creation in the economy occurs, but this is a
most inconvenient truth as it reveals many at the top don't actually create any wealth.
Hide what real wealth creation is, and pretend it's making money, and this problem goes
away.
Daniel Kovalik teaches International Human Rights at the University of Pittsburgh School
of Law, and is author of the recently-released No More
War: How the West Violates International Law by Using "Humanitarian" Intervention to Advance
Economic and Strategic Interests. You might have noticed something curious following
Biden's apparent election win – liberal politicians and media are sounding the alarm that
Trump may use his remaining months in office to draw down our troops from Afghanistan.
For example, the New York Times ran a piece on
November 12 claiming that " both in Kabul and Washington, officials with knowledge of
security briefings said there was fear that President Trump might try to accelerate an all-out
troop withdrawal in his final days in office " before the more "responsible" Biden can take
over and try to stop or at least slow this. It is clear now that it is the liberal
establishment, and the Democratic Party, which is more wedded to war than their counterparts
across the aisle, and that should be disturbing to people hoping for progressive change with
the incoming Administration.
First of all, we must start with this discussion with the undisputed fact that our leaders
do not know, and have not known for some time, what the US' goals and strategy in Afghanistan
even are. One would be forgiven for not knowing, or for forgetting this fact because the
incontrovertible evidence of it – the so-called "
Afghanistan Papers " – received scant and only momentary attention when they were
exposed last year by the Washington Post.
As these documents, consisting of interviews with hundreds of insiders responsible for
prosecuting the war show, the American public was intentionally lied to about the alleged "
progress " of this war, even as our leaders were unsure what " progress "
meant.
As the Washington Post noted, the US government never even decided who it was really
fighting there: " Was al-Qaeda the enemy, or the Taliban? Was Pakistan a friend or an
adversary? What about Islamic State and the bewildering array of foreign jihadists, let alone
the warlords on the CIA's payroll? According to the documents, the US government never settled
on an answer ." Almost to a person, everyone involved in this morass agreed that the
billions of dollars spent, and thousands of lives lost, have been in vain. It has all been a
colossal waste.
Now, however, we are being told to panic that Trump may end this disastrous conflict. For
example, the quite liberal and almost blatantly pro-Biden news outlet, National Public Radio
(NPR) ran segments all last week about
female soccer teams in Afghanistan. The message of these segments was clear – these
soccer teams are (allegedly) proof of women's advances in Afghanistan as a result of the US'
intervention since 2001, and these advances are in jeopardy if Trump ends this
intervention.
Such manipulative stories of course obscure the real fact that the US has been undermining
women's rights in Afghanistan since it began intervening there in 1979, and Afghanistan
still
ranks at the very bottom of all countries for women's rights. But there is no doubt that
such stories will warm the hearts of many Biden supporters to continue war there.
Meanwhile, it is not only Afghanistan which is the focus of the liberal enthusiasm for war.
Thus, as the Grayzone
has reported , Dana Stroul, the Democratic co-chair of the Congressionally-appointed Syria
Study Group, recently outlined the plans for even deeper US intervention in Syria – an
intervention which Trump has at least paid lip service to ending.
Specifically, Stroul emphasized that " one-third of Syrian territory was owned via the US
military, with its local partner the Syrian Democratic Forces, " that this territory
happened to be the richest in Syria in terms of oil and agriculture, and that the US would
intensify its intervention in and against Syria to keep its control of this territory and its
resources. Of course, taking over other nations' resources is a violation of international law,
including the Geneva Conventions prohibition against "plunder," but that seems to be of no
concern.
The liberal media is also elated by the prospect of a Biden White House being more
aggressive in its foreign policy towards both Russia and China.
As CNBC explains
, " Now there is likely to be a change in the air when it comes to U.S.-Russia relations. At
the very least, analysts told CNBC before the result that they expected a Biden win to increase
tensions between Washington and Moscow, and to raise the probability of new sanctions on
Russia...Experts from risk consultancy Teneo Intelligence said they expected more cooperation
between Biden and Europe on global issues such as 'countering China, Russia' ."
While one might think that increased tensions with two major nuclear powers would not be a
welcome development, years of the false Russiagate narrative have groomed liberals for such
tensions.
Incredibly, Trump has been portrayed as being soft on Russia, even as he backed out of a
major
anti-proliferation treaty (The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty) which had been
signed with the Kremlin back in 1987, and even as he
sent the largest contingent of US troops (20,000) in a quarter of a century to train with
European soldiers on the Russian border. I must note here that the converse – Russia's
sending tens of thousands of troops to the border with the US – is simply inconceivable
and would indeed be seen in Washington as an occasion for war. I, for one, am quite alarmed to
think of what a Biden policy of "getting tougher" with Russia would look like, and what kind of
catastrophe it could bring about.
Regretfully, I now live in a country in which liberals outflanking conservatives in terms of
their tolerance and even eagerness for aggression and war, especially when that aggression and
war is being led by officials who, as I'm sure we will see in the new Biden Administration,
happen to be women or people of color. For the first time recently, I have seen the concept of
"intersectional imperialism" being used to describe this situation, and I believe this to be a
very real phenomenon; to be but another means of making war that much easier to swallow for
broad swaths of the American public.
The irony, of course, is that the bombs dropped by the US in war, no matter who happens to
be in charge of the US government at the time, disproportionately fall upon women and children
of a darker skin hue, and they maim and kill just as much as those dropped by old white male
Republicans. Sadly, few seem to understand or care about this.
Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author
and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
benalls 31 minutes ago 16 Nov, 2020 10:27 AM
It's not the "left" or "right", republicans or democrats, but a new American movement,,,,
CBM,,, wich usually means 'silent but deadly' but in this case it stands for "CEO's Bonus
Matters" . The movement congressional members from Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Boeing vowed to
support. Its time for us to grab our shields, helmets, and frozen water bottles and travel to
a new neighborhood to loot and burn. Israel has given Harris and JOJO their instructions.
razzims 49 minutes ago 16 Nov, 2020 10:10 AM
same ol empire of chaos and their eternal war. no matter which party wins election
HypoxiaMasks 1 hour ago 16 Nov, 2020 09:42 AM
Other than the Bush and lil Bush, every war from the beginning of the 20th century was
started with a Democrat president. Tell me again how the Republicans are the party of war
MarkG1964 5 minutes ago 16 Nov, 2020 10:54 AM
The democrats and republicans are two wings on the same bird.
"What Syria withdrawal? There was never a Syria withdrawal," Jeffrey said.
" ... even as he praises the president's support of what he describes as a successful
"realpolitik" approach to the region, he acknowledges that his team routinely misled senior
leaders about troop levels in Syria.
"We were always playing shell games to not make clear to our leadership how many troops we
had there," Jeffrey said in an interview. The actual number of troops in northeast Syria is "a
lot more than" the roughly two hundred troops Trump initially agreed to leave there in 2019.
Defense One
-------------
"We?" Who are "We?"
State Department people? Well, certainly some of those were involved.
But ... IMO it would not have been possible to deceive or mislead the WH and specifically
the Commander in Chief without the active cooperation of CENTCOM, the JCS and OSD.
If they had not been participating in the lying, it would have been obvious in any number of
interactions with President Trump that the president's understanding of troop numbers in Syria
was not correct and that he was being deceived by "we." (whoever that was). That revelation
evidently did not happen. The NSC staff should have detected the lack of truth in reported
numbers. That it did not tells me that at least some of the NSC staff were disloyal to Trump.
Obvious? Yes, but that is worth re-stating.
James Jeffrey is quite proud of his achievement in maintaining a "realpolik" stalemate in
Syria, one that stymies both Russia and the Syrian government.
IMO opinion he is revealed by his own words as a treacherous back stabber. "Un hombre
sin honor." pl
This is exactly the result of Trump's lack of interest in fulfilling his original promise
of ending the "forever wars" in the middle east. This is exactly the result of putting
opelny-Democrat Jared Kushner (a lifelong member of Chabad-Lubavich network) and his ilk in
charge of the middle east geopolitics.
It also clearly proves that the State Dep. is a monsterous autonomous entity with its own
permanent objectives and agendas, independent of the WH. No matter what Trump wanted to
achieve in the ME, the so-called Blob (or as Col. Lang here has coined as the "BORG") do what
they will. You have to also remember that back in '17, career diplomats and high-ranking
State Dep. officials sounded the alarm that Rex Tillerson was down-sizing the Department so
much and that it was contrary to American interests abroad etc...fast forward to today, it
would not have mattered how much down-sizing Tillerson actually managed to do, they (people
like Jeffries) were still able to pursue their own agenda and undermine Trump's original
promise of ending the forever wars in the middle east.
The liberal elites managed to 'allegedly' manipulate the election against a sitting
president in favor of an highly unappealing candidate in Joe Biden. In all honesty, does
anyone think the Blob/Borg would NOT undermine the president's agenda and follow their own
permanent objectives aboard?
Trump should be furious about this. He should be firing everyone involved in the
deception. Those involved don't belong in ANY administration. Was convincing Trump that he
was getting the Syrian oil part of this despicable con? As you mentioned last night, this
deception is probably also going on in Afghanistan. This is a clear sign of a totally
dysfunctional nation security apparatus... Trump's national security apparatus. Could Trump
find no one he could trust to carry out his orders? Or did he just not even care? He
certainly wasn't up to the task.
However, our troop level in Syria has been widely and openly reported to be above the 200
level since Trump's initial announcement of a total pull out in December 2018. I thought it
was odd when shortly after that it was announced that more troops were being sent in to
facilitate the withdrawal of the 2,000 plus troops already there. We did reduce the level
somewhat, but then we brought in mech infantry with their Bradleys to secure the oil fields
and later more to counter the Russian patrols in northeast Syria. And isn't counting whatever
we have in Tanf.
"He should be firing everyone involved in the deception"
He just fired Esper. "Trump's national security apparatus." You mean America's natonal
security apparatus, the one that gave us LTC Vindman and that crew of Ambassadors, and the
'whistlebolower' Chief Justice Robert's wouldn't let any senator name nor ask questions about
during the impeachment. You remember all that don't you? I'm sure the same cast of characters
Biden would bring back if he succeeds in the rigged election would never do that to him.
COL(R) Mark Mitchell stated the following recently, regarding the duties and
responsibilities of the SECDEF in response to POTUS directives. The comments were in regard
to Acting SECDEF Miller (a longtime friend and colleague of Mitchell), but apply to any
Cabinet or sub-Cabinet post:
"He [POTUS] may make decisions that other people disagree with. They have two options:
they can do what he directs them to do, or after they've offered their advice, if they find
it illegal, immoral, unethical, unadvisable, they can step down," retired Col. Mark Mitchell,
who most recently served in the Pentagon as the principal deputy assistant defense secretary
for special operations/low-intensity conflict.
Mitchell added that he resented the implication at the defense secretary should be
expected to stand up to the president, or in his way, as the duly elected commander in
chief.
"You either carry out your lawful orders or you resign," he said. "We don't get the option
to 'stand up to him.' "(End of quote)
Unfortunately, President Trump made many poor personnel decisions, and selected people who
believed they had the duty and right to work against the President from within the
Administration. This has driven me nuts for the last four years, as I have watched senior
civilian and uniformed leaders actively undermining the Commander-in-Chief. They weren't
subtle about it. For whatever reason, they mostly got away with it.
To be clear, I am not writing this as a Trump supporter. As a career military
professional, I have a duty to support the Commander-in-Chief, and obey lawful orders from
the Commander-in-Chief.
It is very easy to play shell games with the BOG caps in the war zones.
Looking forward to a reprise of Trump's former starring role in The Apprentice, and
finally uttering yet again his immortal words: You're Fired!
The final days of Trump's first term are going to be awesome. Banish the Borg. BAMN. Put
Biden's fingerprints on any re-hiring.
Typically a new CEO will ask for everyone's resignation, and select and cull according to
new needs and new directions. Something Trump should have done, but he too was the apprentice
in this office when his term began.
Nothing to stop Trump from doing this now in reverse, and finally cleaning out the dross
that was dedicated to his administration's destruction. Better late than never. Our country
deserves nothing less. These insider traitors deserve to have their termination for cause
permanently be part in their career resumes.
It appears that POTUS Trump once his re-election is affirmed, urgently needs to fire a
large percentage of top-level ranks at the Pentagon, fire the CENTCOM CC and his staff, fire
the JCS, close down the NSC until it's thoroughly bleached, and charge all of them under the
UCMJ. Bust them down to slick-sleeves and show them the door. How many back-stabbing Vindman
types remain within the NSC? They need to be fired and prosecuted under the UCMJ as well.
As a citizen I am having great difficulty not concluding that the US is showing all the
signs of decline like the late Roman Republic.
James Jeffrey along with the rest of the herd that have run one agitprop disinformation
scheme after another since the 2016 election are like the roman senators that had the intent
to save the Republic but fatally weakened it by killing Caesar at its very center, in the
Senate.
Biden's people are openly calling for even more internet censorship and continuing to rush
out inherently dangerous mRNA vaccines without proper testing - and may force us to take it.
Groups are starting to create a database of Trump supporters to enable censoring them where
they work and live - what is this other than terrorism against half the voting population? If
just five percent of the 70M that voted for Trump moves together in resistance then the new
regime herd will be holding a tiger by is tail and with the election showing the people are
split right down the middle I fail to see how we can avoid even much worse chaos the next
four years. The American Republic is disintegrating while the herd is having a romp and
thinks it is winning while they are its assassins.
I am sick at heart of this and fear for the future of my children whose standard of living
opportunities are in free-fall.
We are shocked, SHOCKED! that military bureaucrats are acting in the same ways that they
always have. Come on now. The job of president is to get all these people to work in concert
to an extent adequate for getting things to come out mostly in our favor. None of this is
unique to Trump. Nearly every president in my lifetime has had to learn to deal with these
aspects of the military. Jimmy Carter trusted them to plan a rescue mission. They used navy
pilots for a mission over the desert! With no extra to enable adaptation to events! Ronald
Reagan sent a battleship to Lebanon and then found out the brass wouldn't take the risk of
actually using it for anything. Not to mention the superbly uncoordinated near simultaneous
invasion of Grenada. John Kennedy accepted a duplicitous projection of events for the bay of
pigs. Bill Clinton got caught in Somalia. George W. got sucked into a strategically unplanned
invasion of Iraq. Obama was told that an 18-month escalation would resolve Afghanistan. He
believed it! Boy were they shocked when he actually enforced the deadline. This is not a
criticism of any of those presidents. It is normal, however bizarre that may sound. My point
is that they mostly get bit once and learn not to trust the military's own estimates of what
they can or should do. Then they begin to do the job more adequately. They learn to pay
attention to goals and to manage their resources. Trump does not seem capable of this kind of
learning. The last months of an administration are not the time to suddenly discover the
nature of the organizations you are leading. And in any case, there is no time left for
learning how to get actual results.
JFK never should have unionized the government workforce.
Pits existential self-interests against patriotic national interest, should these
interests become in conflict. FDR warned against doing this. More attention needs to be paid
to this fundamental national turning point.
What ills were cured by this act (EO) and has the cure become worse than the perceived
disease. Must like term limits in California - the cure was 100 times worse than the original
disease.
Entrenched political personalities come and go; entrenched and corrupted political systems
are forever, because in the process they learned to self-perpetuate.
Name your favorite EO to strike down with an counter-mand EO, before a sitting president
leaves office:
1. Anchor baby citizenship triggering chain migration
2. Unionized government workforce
1. Use Democrat's standard politics of personal destruction to attack and harass any Trump
appointments; make working for the Trump administration so undesirable none dare even ask for
consideration.
2. Tie up the President's time with endless personal attacks, lies and investigations, so
Trump has no time as elected Chief Executive to oversee and clean up valid government
operations;
3. Take advantage of Trump's exclusively private sector experience to lull Trump into
thinking entrenched government BORGs are loyal government employees, who serve only to help
Trump carry out his Executive Office duties;
4. Leak like crazy; make things up if necessary that ensure the Trump administration
narrative appears chaotic and dysfunctional. Claim anonymous sources that undermine positive
functioning within Trump administration. Make everyone suspicious of everyone else.
5. Obliterate any recognition for the remarkable Trump administration accomplishments that
occurred, regardless of all of the above.
6. Pout relentlessly because regardless of the above, the President and the GOP Senate
appointed over 200 new federal judge and 3 new SCOTUS members.
7. In full public view, tear up the SOTU address listing remarkable administration
accomplishments mouthing - these are all lies -- laying down the gauntlet for all out
war.
8. Gin up pandemic hysteria to fill in any and all loopholes not yet covered by all of the
above.
Democrat skullduggery may have effectively destroyed an temporal administration, but Trump
Judiciary appointments are the equivalent of a very welcomed forever.
President Trump, you are missed already. But I suspect in short order it is you, who will
not miss the office. You are enshrined forever - #45 as President of the United States of
America. History will treat you far kinder than your current fellow citizens.
You broke up the Democrat plantation. You exposed the dark underbelly of the body politic.
Mission accomplished. There is no going back.
this sounds like the definition of a traitor to me - jeffery.... on the other hand one
could say he is working for wall st and the mil complex and has done a good job... which is
it??
I don't understand this. Trump is the Commander in Chief, at any time he could have asked
a straight-up question: How. Many. Troops. Do. We. Still. Have. In. Syria?
I find it astonishing that the military leadership would tell a lie to their Commander in
Chief when the question itself leaves no wriggle-room.
Heck, Trump could has asked for a list of every single one of those brave 200 boys, and
even if it included Name, Rank, and Serial Number that would still fit on a single
letter-sized printout.
I can't understand how Jeffrey's and his band of "we's" could get away with this unless
Trump wasn't paying any attention at all.
"... It would not be overstating the case to suggest that the neoconservative movement has now been born again, though the enemy is now the unreliable Trumpean-dominated Republican Party rather than Saddam Hussein or Ayatollah Khomeini. ..."
"... The transition has also been aided by a more aggressive shift among the Democrats themselves, with Russiagate and other “foreign interference” being blamed for the party’s failure in 2016. ..."
"... The unifying principle that ties many of the mostly Jewish neocons together is, of course, unconditional defense of Israel and everything it does, which leads them to support a policy of American global military dominance which they presume will inter alia serve as a security umbrella for the Jewish state. ..."
"... That change has now occurred and the surge of neocons to take up senior positions in the defense, intelligence and foreign policy agencies will soon take place. In my notes on the neocon revival, I have dubbed the brave new world that the neocons hope to create in Washington as the “Kaganate of Nulandia” after two of the more prominent neocon aspirants, Robert Kagan and Victoria Nuland. ..."
"... A Dick Cheney and Hillary Clinton protégé, Nuland openly sought regime change for Ukraine by brazenly supporting government opponents in spite of the fact that Washington and Kiev had ostensibly friendly relations. Her efforts were backed by a $5 billion budget, but she is perhaps most famous for her foul language when referring to the potential European role in managing the unrest that she and the National Endowment for Democracy had helped create. The replacement of the government in Kiev was only the prelude to a sharp break and escalating conflict with Moscow over Russia’s attempts to protect its own interests in Ukraine, most particularly in Crimea. ..."
"... A lot of the neocons are Russian Jews who grew up in households that were Bolshevik communists. They're idea of spreading democracy goes back to Trotsky who tried to spread communism through the Soviet Union. Their hatred toward Russia dates back to their ancestors feudal days under the Tsars and the pogroms they suffered and the ice pick Trotsky got to the head. ..."
"... Obama's deep state lied, people died: https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2020/11/outgoing-syria-envoy-admits-hiding-us-troop-numbers-praises-trumps-mideast-record/170012/ ..."
"... I've never quite figured out the "neocon" ideology, beyond the fact that neocons seem devoted to the sort of status quo present in Washington, D.C. during the three administrations prior to Trump. Military adventurism, nation-building, and interventionist foreign policy, all based on nebulous concepts which are applied unevenly around the world. ..."
"... The Neocon movement seems to have morphed into nothing more than a club for bullies trying to one up each other. ..."
"... "It makes no difference what men think of war, said the judge. War endures. As well ask men what they think of stone. War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner. That is the way it was and will be. That way and not some other way." ..."
"... Neocons don't really prefer war, so much as they prefer overseas "engagements" that may look like war and smell like war. All that's missing in neocon military operations is a defined end state. ..."
Donald Trump was much troubled during his 2016 and 2020 campaigns by so-called conservatives who rallied behind the #NeverTrump
banner, presumably in opposition to his stated intention to end or at least diminish America’s role in wars in the Middle East and
Asia. Those individuals are generally described as neoconservatives but the label is itself somewhat misleading and they might more
properly be described as liberal warmongers as they are closer to the Democrats than the Republicans on most social issues and are
now warming up even more as the new Joe Biden Administration prepares to take office.
To be sure, some neocons stuck with the Republicans, to include the highly controversial Elliott Abrams, who initially opposed
Trump but is now the point man for dealing with both Venezuela and Iran. Abrams’ conversion reportedly took place when he realized
that the new president genuinely embraced unrelenting hostility towards Iran as exemplified by the ending of the Joint Comprehensive
Plan of Action (JCPOA) and the assassination of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad. John Bolton was also a neocon in the
White House fold, though he is now a frenemy having been fired by the president and written a book.
Even though the NeverTrumper neocons did not succeed in blocking Donald Trump in 2016, they have been maintaining relevancy by
slowly drifting back towards the Democratic Party, which is where they originated back in the 1970s in the office of the Senator
from Boeing Henry “Scoop” Jackson. A number of them started their political careers there, to include leading neocon Richard Perle.
It would not be overstating the case to suggest that the neoconservative movement has now been born again, though the enemy is
now the unreliable Trumpean-dominated Republican Party rather than Saddam Hussein or Ayatollah Khomeini.
The transition has also
been aided by a more aggressive shift among the Democrats themselves, with Russiagate and other “foreign interference” being blamed
for the party’s failure in 2016. Given that mutual intense hostility to Trump, the doors to previously shunned liberal media outlets
have now opened wide to the stream of foreign policy “experts” who want to “restore a sense of the heroic” to U.S. national security
policy. Eliot A. Cohen and David Frum are favored contributors to the Atlantic while Bret Stephens and Bari Weiss were together at
the New York Times prior to Weiss’s recent resignation.
Jennifer Rubin, who wrote in 2016 that “It is time for some moral straight
talk: Trump is evil incarnate,” is a frequent columnist for The Washington Post while both she and William Kristol appear regularly
on MSNBC.
The unifying principle that ties many of the mostly Jewish neocons together is, of course, unconditional defense of Israel and
everything it does, which leads them to support a policy of American global military dominance which they presume will inter alia
serve as a security umbrella for the Jewish state. In the post-9/11 world, the neocon media’s leading publication The Weekly Standard
virtually invented the concept of “Islamofascism” to justify endless war in the Middle East, a development that has killed millions
of Muslims, destroyed at least three nations, and cost the U.S. taxpayer more than $5 trillion. The Israel connection has also resulted
in neocon support for an aggressive policy against Russia due to its involvement in Syria and has led to repeated calls for the U.S.
to attack Iran and destroy Hezbollah in Lebanon. In Eastern Europe, neocon ideologues have aggressively sought “democracy promotion,”
which, not coincidentally, has also been a major Democratic Party foreign policy objective.
The neocons are involved in a number of foundations, the most prominent of which is the Foundation for Defense of Democracies
(FDD), that are funded by Jewish billionaires. FDD is headed by Canadian Mark Dubowitz and it is reported that the group takes direction
coming from officials in the Israeli Embassy in Washington. Other major neocon incubators are the American Enterprise Institute,
which currently is the home of Paul Wolfowitz, and the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at John Hopkins University.
The neocon opposition has been sniping against Trump over the past four years but has been biding its time and building new alliances,
waiting for what it has perceived to be an inevitable regime change in Washington.
That change has now occurred and the surge of neocons to take up senior positions in the defense, intelligence and foreign policy
agencies will soon take place. In my notes on the neocon revival, I have dubbed the brave new world that the neocons hope to create
in Washington as the “Kaganate of Nulandia” after two of the more prominent neocon aspirants, Robert Kagan and Victoria Nuland.
Robert was one of the first neocons to get on the NeverTrump band wagon back in 2016 when he endorsed Hillary Clinton for president
and spoke at a Washington fundraiser for her, complaining about the “isolationist” tendency in the Republican Party exemplified by
Trump. His wife Victoria Nuland is perhaps better known. She was the driving force behind efforts to destabilize the Ukrainian government
of President Viktor Yanukovych. Yanukovych, an admittedly corrupt autocrat, nevertheless became Prime Minister after a free election.
Nuland, who was the Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs at the State Department, provided open support
to the Maidan Square demonstrators opposed to Yanukovych’s government, to include media friendly appearances passing out cookies
on the square to encourage the protesters.
A Dick Cheney and Hillary Clinton protégé, Nuland openly sought regime change for Ukraine by brazenly supporting government opponents
in spite of the fact that Washington and Kiev had ostensibly friendly relations. Her efforts were backed by a $5 billion budget,
but she is perhaps most famous for her foul language when referring to the potential European role in managing the unrest that she
and the National Endowment for Democracy had helped create. The replacement of the government in Kiev was only the prelude to a sharp
break and escalating conflict with Moscow over Russia’s attempts to protect its own interests in Ukraine, most particularly in Crimea.
And, to be sure, beyond regime change in places like Ukraine, President Barack Obama was no slouch when it came to starting actual
shooting wars in places like Libya and Syria while also killing people, including American citizens, using drones. Biden appears
poised to inherit many former Obama White House senior officials, who would consider the eager-to-please neoconservatives a comfortable
fit as fellow foot soldiers in the new administration. Foreign policy hawks expected to have senior positions in the Biden Administration
include Antony Blinken, Nicholas Burns, Susan Rice, Valerie Jarrett, Samantha Power and, most important of all the hawkish Michele
Flournoy, who has been cited as a possible secretary of defense. And don’t count Hillary Clinton out. Biden is reportedly getting
his briefings on the Middle East from Dan Shapiro, former U.S. Ambassador to Israel, who now lives in the Jewish state and is reportedly
working for an Israeli government supported think tank, the Institute for National Security Studies.
Nowhere in Biden’s possible foreign policy circle does one find anyone who is resistant to the idea of worldwide interventionism
in support of claimed humanitarian objectives, even if it would lead to a new cold war with major competitor powers like Russia and
China. In fact, Biden himself appears to embrace an extremely bellicose view on a proper relationship with both Moscow and Beijing
“claiming that he is defending democracy against its enemies.” His language is unrelenting, so much so that it is Donald Trump who
could plausibly be described as the peace candidate in the recently completed election, having said at the Republican National Convention
in August “Joe Biden spent his entire career outsourcing their dreams and the dreams of American workers, offshoring their jobs,
opening their borders and sending their sons and daughters to fight in endless foreign wars, wars that never ended.”
It should be noted that the return of "neocons" does not mean the return of people like Wolfowitz, Ladeen, Feith, Kristol who
are more "straussian" than "liberal/internationalist", but those like Nuland, Rice, Sam Powell, Petraeus, Flournoy, heck even
Hilary Clinton as UN Ambassador who are CFR-type liberal interventionist than pure military hawks such as Bolton or Mike Flynn.
These liberal internationalists, as opposed to straussian neocons, will intervene in collaboration with EU/NATO/QUAD (i.e. multilaterally)
in the name upholding human rights and toppling authoritarianism, rather than for oil, WMDs, or similar concrete objectives. In
very simple terms, the new Biden administration's foreign policy will be none other than the return to "endless wars" for nation-building
purposes first and last.
The name Kagan is the Russianized version of the name Cohen. He was going to be McCain's NSA had he been elected. They pulled
a stunt with the Bush admin to make Obama look weak by pushing Georgia into war with Russia in 2008. Sakaasvili, the president
of Georgia, was literally eating his own tie:
A lot of the neocons are Russian Jews who grew up in households that were Bolshevik communists. They're idea of spreading democracy
goes back to Trotsky who tried to spread communism through the Soviet Union. Their hatred toward Russia dates back to their ancestors
feudal days under the Tsars and the pogroms they suffered and the ice pick Trotsky got to the head.
I don't think they have that much influence. They pushed a lot of nonsense in the late 70/early 80s about how the Taliban were
George Washingtons and here we are today, they're worst than the Comanche. The last time I saw Richard Perle make a TV appearance,
he was crying like a baby. Robert Novak, the prince of darkness, was a Ron Paul supporter. The only ones really kicking around
are Bill Kristol and Jennifer Rubin, but Kristol was almost alone when he was talking about putting 50,000 boots on the ground
in Syria. Rubin is a harpie who only got crazier and crazier. Kagan had his foot in the door with Hillary only because of his
wife. Those two might get back in with Biden on Ukraine, but Biden would do well to keep them at a distance.
I've never quite figured out the "neocon" ideology, beyond the fact that neocons seem devoted to the sort of status quo present
in Washington, D.C. during the three administrations prior to Trump. Military adventurism, nation-building, and interventionist
foreign policy, all based on nebulous concepts which are applied unevenly around the world.
It seems now that there is a new breed of neocons, unified by opposition to Trump's messaging, but not much else. Odd to find
people like Samantha Power, John Bolton, Jim Mattis, and Paul Wolfowitz marching together in perfect step.
A good perspective by Philip Weiss on the same subject. Eliot A Cohen must be communicating a lot with the Kagan brothers ,
Dennis Ross and Perle to see who can be parachuted either to the WH or Foggy Bottom.
I've never quite figured out the "neocon" ideology
The revolutionary spirit (see E. Michael Jones' work). From communism to neoconservatism it's ultimately an attack on the Beatitudes
and Christ's Sermon on the Mount. "The works of mercy are the opposite of the works of war" -- Servant of God Dorothy Day
I hold the Cold Warriors like Scoop a species distinct from those of the post-USSR era. The current version started at the
end of the cold war. We felt like kings of the world after Gulf War 1 and the shoe seemed to fit.
The HW Bush administration pondered how best to use this power for good. I've read some things which report there was a debate
within the administration on whether to clean up Yugoslavia or Somalia first. They got Ron to "do the honors" for the invasion
of Somalia at Oxford: About 20 minutes in.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?35586-1/arising-ashes-world-order
That was played as part of the pep-talk on the Juneau off the coast of Somalia. Stirring stuff.
In some small way I never stopped sipping that Kool Aid. It's hard to stand by and watch unspeakable evil go down when you
have the power to stop it...or think you do. Time will tell if the Neocons are capable of perceiving the limits of force. Certainly
had some hard lessons in the last few decades.
Hogs lining up for a spot at the trough? The Neocon movement seems to have morphed into nothing more than a club for bullies trying to one up each other.
I think its generally shocking that Trump or the republicans didn't make a bigger issue of Biden's history of supporting disastrous
intervention, especially his Iraq War vote. Maybe they felt like its not a winning issue, that they would lose as many votes as
they gain by appearing more isolationist. But overall, Trump favoring diplomacy over cruise missiles should have been a bigger point in his favor in the election.
It is distressing to read that we will have people in the government who are looking for a fight. That is especially true in
view of China's aggression in recent years and the responses we will have to make to that. I think we will have more than enough
to do to handle China. What do the neocons want to do about China?
Here is an article about China that really startled me and made me realize how much of a threat is was becoming. The Air Force
chief of staff talks about the challenges of countries trying to compete militarily with us in ways that have not occurred for
awhile. Here are two quotes that really got me:
"Tomorrow's Airmen are more likely to fight in highly contested environments, and must be prepared to fight through combat
attrition rates and risks to the nation that are more akin to the World War II era than the uncontested environments to which
we have since become accustomed," Brown writes."
And
"Wargames and modeling have repeatedly shown that if the Air Force fails to adapt, there will be mission failure, Brown warns.
Rules-based international order may "disintegrate and our national interests will be significantly challenged," according to the
memo."
The article doesn't say we will have another arms race but that is an obvious response to China's competition with us. I thought
all that was done and gone. I do not want to resume it. I don't want another period of foreign entanglements, period. We still
haven't paid for the War Against Terrorism. I look into the future and all I see is us racking up bills that we have no ability
to pay. And then there is the human cost of all this, I don't want to even think about that.
Snouts in the trough accounts for a certain amount of neocons, I'm sure. There is, however, a unifying vision beyond that which
puzzles me, given the very different political orientations of various neocons. Neocons are found in academia and the media as
well. Those types are less dependent on taxpayer dollars in exchange for their views (they'll get whatever tax money gets pushed
their way in grants, etc regardless).
I find Polish Janitor's "straussian" and "liberal/internationalist" flavors of neocon intriguing, as I hadn't considered that
before.
COL Lang's quote from Plato reminds me of another (from Cormac McCarthy): "It makes no difference what men think of war, said
the judge. War endures. As well ask men what they think of stone. War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The
ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner. That is the way it was and will be. That way and not some other way."
Neocons don't really prefer war, so much as they prefer overseas "engagements" that may look like war and smell like war. All
that's missing in neocon military operations is a defined end state.
I concur with your thoughts about standing by as evil occurs. We just have a habit of jumping into complex situations we don't
understand, and making things worse. I suspect you feel the same way.
The military misadventures during my career (Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Syria) were marked by our own black and white
thinking. The more successful adventures (Colombia, Nepal) were marked by our appreciation (to a certain extent) of the complex
nature of the environments we were getting involved in...and the fact that we weren't involved in nation-building in the latter
two locales. There were viable governments in place, and we weren't trying to replace them.
Here is another Biden clip that should have been exploited too - way back when - when the media was a little more trusted,
but no less pompous. However, Biden The Plagerizer had it coming.
Though I am warming more and more to Trump Media becoming the real soul of America. Plus someone, in time. will need to pick
up Rush Limbaugh's empire. America needs a counter-weight to fake news more than it needs the keys to the White House, with all
its entangling webs, palace intrigues, chains and pitfalls.
Godspeed President Trump. If someone with as few talents s Biden can rise like Lazarus, just think what you can do with your
little finger. No wonder the Democrats want Trump destroyed; not just defeated in a re-election. We have your back, Mr President.
Are the people of America up for another arms race and a more or less cold war with China? I think the Chinese will give us
a lot more trouble than the Soviets ever did.
And yet we allow their students to come here and learn all we know and their elites to bring their dirty money here and we
give them green cards and citizenship and protect the money they took from the Chinese people. Not so smart on our part.
What is the next theater of war that Biden's new friends will involve us in? I noticed lots of Cold War era conflicts are heating
up lately, Ethiopia Morocco Armenia being recent examples. IS in Syria/Iraq is still castrated due to the continued mass internment
of their population base in the dozens of camps, but they have established thriving franchises in Africa and their other provinces
continue to smolder.
@shylockcracy Solmeimani, he hasn't started any shooting wars. Sanctions are undeclared
wars, and Trump's sanctions help US corporations, most of which are globalist anyway. Same
shit different pile.
The last US Presidents who were mildly anti-Zionist were turfed out of office and
assassinated. All of the branches of the USG are (((occupied territory))) and have been for
decades, as was noted by George Wallace in the 1960s.
Trump's redeeming qualities are few and far between, but getting out of "free trade" deals
and reduced immigration, whether legal or illegal, are a big finger in the eye of the
globalists. Other than that, it appears as if he is the only one serious about cleaning up
vote fraud. If the Demicans are caught out, they will shut down the Republocrats fixing in
retaliation, until a new scam is figured out.
Third, on the international front, we can expect even more hysterical Russia bashing
(the Dems all hate Russia with a passion, especially since they have brainwashed themselves
for four years that "Putin" had "attacked" the US elections). But there is really nothing
the US can do to Russia, it is way too late for that. So I would expect even more hot air
than from the Trump Administration, and probably not much more action, although that is by
no means certain, since a braindead nominal President like Biden would not have Trump's
intelligence to understand that a war against Russia, China or Iran would end in a
disaster: Dems always start wars to try to convince the public that they are "tough"
(Dukakis in his M-1 tank).
The Dems don't hate Russia it is used as a bogeyman to re direct the populace anget at the
neoliberal social system .
Russia, China, Iran and all the rest of the world probably can't believe their good
fortune the US is destroying itself.
Biden will not be in control of the US, or any part of it he will be in the corner pissing
his pants. The Deep State will be calling the shots.
1. The phrase 'Make America Great Again' implicitly acknowledges that America which is
supposedly, 'the greatest country in the world', is not great and hence needs its 'greatness'
restored.
The problem is that the US rose to global hegemony amongst a backdrop of huge industrial
and manufacturing power. Whilst the Europeans were fighting each other on their continent in
WW2, US manufacturing was booming.
Then in the 70s US courts said factories were liable to huge lawsuits for environmental
and medical problems caused by them hence the resultant 'outsourcing' or transfer or labour
to countries with cheaper labour costs such as China, Vietnam, Bangladesh etc.
2. This de-industrialization of the US or at least decimating of its manufacturing leads
to systemic unemployment in the long run. The US is lucky in that it can still flourish with
the reserve dollar, a status it enforces with its global imperial power. However with the
Sino-Russian block seeking to end dollar hegemony the questions are:
- How long will dollar hegemony last for?
- At what pace will it decrease?
-To what point does the US economy experience decline until it substantially impacts the US
itself?
3. The same sort of 'patriots' and right-wingers in the early 2000s who would have cheered
on a US war in the early Bush era and before are now often the most opposed to war. Not on
grounds of altruism but because it doesn't benefit the US, or they themselves see no tangible
benefits whilst the US experiences socio-economic decline.
This trend of economic decline is only going to continue and with it US power.
The US is hardly interested in flexing its - still considerable - muscles in Libya. That
theatre is between the Turks, Arabs and Russians. The US is hardly much of a party in the
tension between Greece and Turkey over their EEZ claims.
This is now replicating itself in the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict where the US has little
power and the main external actors are the Turks and Russians and some others.
Expect this sort of trend to continue whereby regional actors and others will decide on
regional 'solutions' (arrangements) free of the US.
4. As for the US internally, it will experience some sort of internal decline and it will
either:
a: Change itself fundamentally.
b: Experience cessation or 'semi-cessation'. The latter meaning that the states will have a
new deal with the centre, whereby the 'US' can still exist but the states can opt out of
things they don't like.
c: Civil war or internal conflict, think post-George Floyd riots X 10 amidst the background
of far greater poverty in the future.
P.S. In terms of right-wing militias, the military if anything has indicated it is
slightly 'anti-Trump' (the hero of the right-wing militias). The military is a
civic-nationalist, racially inclusive organisation whose current head of the air force is a
black man. This is why in some quarters of the internet some US right-wingers who aware of
this are not so confident about default US backing of any right-wing
I would also add Bolton to complete the list of crazy-hawk Trump appointees.
While some credit is due to Trump not starting any wars, I have to think it was
unintentional on Trump's part, as evidenced by the same list of ultra aggressive foreign
policy advisors he appointed.
More likely, the subpar crop of new wars was the result of the foreign policy apparatus
refusing to give his administration the authority to launch any original policy of their own.
Venezuela, Iran, Yemen, Syria were continuations of existing policy, and sponsored by
"respected" interests (respectively: by the Oil Industry, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and all of
the above).
The biggest foreign policy initiative of all, cold war with China, is a long term
bipartisan project.
RSH's warning that Trump could still start a war should be taken very seriously. Trump has
vowed that he will never allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon. Will he leave office without
ENSURING that they cannot?
I don't think for a minute think that Zionist Biden will do anything to upset Israel. But
the election of Biden is a convenient excuse for Trump to start a war (probably based on a
false flag of some sort) that Biden (or Kamala-Hillary) will "inherit".
@ pnyx #43 . . .on Biden. Just think of the warmongering role he played for the Iraq war. The Neocons
would have an easier time with Biden than with Tronald
Yes. Biden is a Clintonite, Trump was anti-Clinton.
The US war in Iraq - Operation Iraqi Freedom - with its death, destruction and displacement
has been rightly called the worst US foreign policy move ever.
The Clintons started it, and then promoted it with Biden's assistance as Chair of the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee.
President Clinton signed the Iraq Liberation Act into law on October 31, 1998.
On December 16, 1998, President Bill Clinton announces he has ordered air strikes against
Iraq because it refused to cooperate with United Nations (U.N.) weapons inspectors.
Trump's foreign policies were remarkably different? How? He assassinated an Iranian
general, which nearly had the US enter into a hot war with Iran, bombed Syria twice, put
additional sanctions on Iran, Venezuela, Russia and the DPRK. Trump's State Department has
successfully enacted regime change in Zimbabwe, Sudan, El Salvador, Chile, Honduras, Bolivia
(Mike Pompeo congratulating Luis Arce on his win -- very suspicious), and is trying regime
change in Hong Kong, Belarus, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Iran, Eritrea, and Zimbabwe again, and as
of late, Nigeria.
You could argue that Trump wants Iran to be somewhat stronger so he can sell more weapons
to his MIC buddies and profit that way, therefore he pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal, and
the weapons import/export sanctions on Iran expired. But that's a different and more brash
method of managing Empire. It's different from Biden's "strategic de-escalation" policy with
Iran via the Iran nuclear deal, but not that one that necessarily yields better results for
Iran in the long term.
Calm down folks, the elected officials in the US have been puppets of the elite for the
entire history of the country.
The problem we're facing is within the elite community and far above any government's
control.
They didn't legalize drone striking "terrorists" any where on the globe by accident.
This means the elite are terrified of the fact that the internet and Trump both have exposed
them for the morally bankrupt, greedy, mass murdering psychopaths they truly are.
The accidental presidency of Trump made them realize that their useful idiots(elected
officials) where more idiots than useful and that they had to use the state sponsored
monopolies in the press as well as their privately controlled publicly funded covert
community to steer the narrative away from actual reality into their alternative commoditized
version of reality.
Trump was never trying to defend America from the elite for the common man. He was trying
to exploit the elite who had rejected him and his father for decades as well as cash in on
their predicament in order to pay off his debts and start his own reality TV network.
I agree Trump was useful and informative but in the end he, like us is just along for the
ride.
Don't do anything rash and don't for one second think a regime change in America is a rare
occurrence. Remember the Kennedy's ?
The only way to win is to not become one of the elite's useful idiots by lashing out
against another citizen. Poor and middle class only get the illusion they help decide
policy.
The policy is decided and auctioned off within the billionaire funded think tanks and sent to
the useful idiots in DC to be rubber stamped in order to trick you into thinking the
legislative branch is legitimate. These people could f*ck up a two car parade and prove it
over and over again.
Stay sane folks, the motives haven't changed in centuries and the elite are far more
scared of us than they are the other elite's because they all know they're all cowards.
In addition, considering Trump was supposedly a Russian puppet, Congress under his admin
passed a bill which allowed the US to arm Ukraine against Russia even more.
Wonderful and thought provoking analysis of current political affairs b. However I would
like to add that Biden and Trump are the products of political trends that have deep roots in
modern US and world political affairs that have been ongoing for some 100 years or more.
Biden and Trump did not occur in a vacuum. Both are products of the two world wars that were
fought in the last century. More recently, the US since 1940 and continuing to the present
day, has been actively preparing or fighting a major war somewhere on this planet. This
development has in turn created a vast military and civilian bureaucracy that constantly
needs to be fed a diet of real or imagined threats in order to survive.
The world recognizes what U.S. elites don't: the utter, total American failure to contain
Covid-19 has damaged U.S. standing and will do so until the virus is controlled. Meanwhile,
regional powers, China and Russia, cooperate and share resources, particularly vaccines. Cuba
provides treatments, but the U.S. turns up its nose at Cuban medicine, even if it means more
American covid patients die – this, though Cuba's pharmacopeia for this plague appears
superior. China sends doctors and medicines across the globe. Russia opts for sane herd
immunity – through vaccination. These countries act like adults. Not a good look for the
U.S.
The Obama regime's deplorable trade and military "pivot to China," along with its sanctions
against high-ranking Russians and Russian energy, financial and defense firms and the Trump
regime's provocations, sanctions and insults aimed at both countries have now born fruit: There
is talk of a military alliance between China and Russia. Both countries deny that such is in
the offing, but the fact that it is even discussed reveals how effectively U.S. foreign policy
has created enemies and united them. Even if they would have drawn closer anyway, China and
Russia cannot ignore the advantage of teaming up in the face of U.S. hostility. A more idiotic
approach than this hostility is scarcely imaginable. Remember, not too long ago the U.S. had
little problem with its chief trading partner, China, and there were even reports some years
back of actual military cooperation in Syria between the U.S. and Russia. All that is gone now,
dissolved in a fog of deliberate ill-will.
So what are some of the absurd U.S. policies that have reaped this potential whirlwind? An
utterly unnecessary trade war with China, with tariffs that were paid, not by China, but by
importers and then passed on to American consumers. There is the Trump regime's assault on
China's technology sector and its attempt to lockout Huawei from the 5G bonanza. Then there are
the attacks on Russian business, like its deal to sell natural gas to Germany, attacks in which
the U.S. insists Germany buy the much more expensive U.S. product to avoid becoming beholden to
Russia. And of course, there are the constant mega-deals involving sales of U.S. weapons to
anyone who might oppose China, Russia, North Korea or Iran.
Aggravating these economic assaults, the U.S. navy aggressively patrols the South China Sea,
the Black Sea and more and more the Arctic Ocean, where Russia has already been since forever.
Russia has a lengthy Siberian coast, making U.S. talk of Russia's so-called aggressive posture
there just plain ludicrous. And now a NATO ally, Turkey, stirs the pot by egging on Azerbaijan
in its war against Armenia, which has a defense treaty with Russia. Azerbaijan is famous for
the oil fields of Baku.
Never has it been clearer that the U.S. deploys its military might to advance its
corporations' interests, international law be damned. As General Smedley Butler wrote of his
military service way back in the early 20 th century, he was "a high-class muscle
man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster
for capitalism. I helped make Mexico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make
Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank Boys to collect revenues in," and on
and on. Nothing has changed since them. It's only gotten worse. Indeed now we're in a position
where it is Russia that abides by international law, while the U.S. flouts it, instead
following something bogus it calls the "rules of the liberal international order."
The biggest and most consequential U.S. foreign policy failure involves nuclear weapons.
Here the Trump regime has outdone all its predecessors. It withdrew the U.S. from the
Intermediate Range Nuclear treaty, which banned land-based ballistic missiles, cruise missiles
and certain missile launchers and which it first signed in 1987. It withdrew from the Open
Skies Treaty, inked in 1992. That agreement allowed aircraft to fly over the signatories'
territory to monitor missile installations.
Trump has also made clear he intends to deep-six the 2010 New Start Treaty with Russia,
which limits nuclear warheads, nuclear armed bombers, intercontinental ballistic missiles and
missile launchers. The Trump regime has made the ridiculous, treaty-killing demand that China
participate in START talks. Why should it? China has 300 nuclear missiles, on a par with
countries like the U.K. The U. S. and Russian have 6000 apiece. China's response? Sure we'll
join START, as soon as the U.S. cuts its arsenal to 300. Naturally that went over like a lead
balloon in Washington.
And now, lastly, the white house has urged nations that signed the Treaty on the Prohibition
of Nuclear Weapons – which just recently received formal UN ratification – to
withdraw their approval. The U.S. spouted doubletalk about the TPNW's dangers, in order to head
off international law banning nuclear weapons, just as it has banned – and thus
stigmatized – chemical weapons, cluster bombs and germ warfare. Doubtless the Trump
regime's panic over the TPNW derives from its desire to "keep all options on the table"
militarily, including the nuclear one.
What is the point here? To make the unthinkable thinkable, to make nuclear war easier to
happen. The Pentagon appears delighted. Periodically military bigwigs are quoted praising new
smaller nuclear missiles, developed not for deterrence, but for use. Indeed, scrapping
deterrence policy – which has, insofar as it posits no first use, arguably been the only
thing keeping humanity alive and the planet habitable since the dangerous dawn of the atomic
era – has long been the dream of Pentagon promoters of "small, smart nuclear weapons" for
"limited" nuclear wars. How these geniuses would control such a move from escalating into a
wider nuclear war and planetary holocaust is never mentioned.
Before he assumed office, Trump reportedly shocked his advisors by asking, if we have
nuclear weapons, why can't we use them? Only someone dangerously ignorant or profoundly lacking
in basic human morality could ask such a question. Only someone eager to ditch the
human-species-saving policy of no-first-strike nuclear deterrence but willing to risk nuclear
extinction could flirt with such madness. Later in his presidency, Trump asserted that he could
end the war in Afghanistan easily if he wanted, hinting that he meant nukes, but that he did
not incline toward murdering 10 million people. Well, thank God for this shred of humanity.
Some assume a Biden presidency would chart a different course, but they may be counting
their chickens before they're hatched. Biden has made very hostile noises about Russia, China
and North Korea and has surrounded himself with neo-con hawks. He has so far made no promise to
return to the nuclear negotiating table for anything other than START. Would he try to
resuscitate the INF and Open Skies treaties? Would he end Trump regime blather aimed at
scotching TPNW? Maybe. Or he may have imbibed so much anti-Russia and anti-China poison that
he, like Trump, sees the absence of treaties as a green light for nuclear aggression.
Biden's official Foreign Policy Plan says that he regards the purpose of nuclear weapons as
deterrence, thus endorsing this at best very flawed compromise for survival. That he,
apparently unlike Trump, abjures a nuclear first strike is a huge relief, but how long will it
last? The Pentagon has been very persuasive over many decades of center-right rule and there is
no reason to assume that it will suddenly adopt a hands-off policy with Biden just because he
favors nuclear deterrence. Some military-industrial-complex sachems regard the no-first-use
principle as a mistake. Also, remember, Obama okayed a trillion-dollar nuclear arms upgrade.
Biden was his vp. What about that? This is no minor, petty concern. Russia is armed to the
teeth with supersonic nuclear weapons and China has concluded from U.S. belligerence that it
better arm up too. We are in dangerous waters here. Let's hope they don't become
radioactive.
What is patently clear is how bitterly polarized and divisive US domestic politics have
become. This is due to the historic failing of the two-party system which has, over
decades, left whole swathes of the population, in particular the majority working class,
alienated from the political class. There is irreparable distrust and distortion among the
American populace. To the point where it would seem impossible for any nominal winner of
the election to be able to command a mandate.
A tried and trusted mechanism for galvanizing is to "unite" the people by rallying them
around the flag against some designated foreign enemy. Given the increasing unwieldy,
fractious nature of American society, it is all the more imperative for the US ruling class
to impose some level of coherence in order to restore the essential authority of governing
power. With this paramount need to shore up a sense of authority, it can therefore be
expected that American foreign policy will become more aggressive and militaristic in the
next four years.
"Let's bring decency and integrity back to the White House." I can't count the number of
times I have heard and read this phrase uttered by U.S. expats here in Paris, France. As one
of many American expats living here, of course I share in the desire for an end to a Donald
Trump presidency. But at what cost? And will a Biden presidency – which promises a
return to "normalcy" – really merit the sigh of relief that so many think it will?
Below I summarize some of the most troubling information I have uncovered about some of the
most likely foreign policy picks for key positions in a Biden cabinet.
Susan Rice for Secretary of State
Susan Rice, who was also reportedly being considered for the role of Biden's Vice
President, served as United States Ambassador to the United Nations and as National Security
Advisor, both under the Obama administration.
While Benghazi has been the focus of much criticism of Rice, she has received virtually no
scrutiny for her backing of the invasion of Iraq and claiming that there were WMDs there.
Some of her statements:
"I think he [then Secretary of State Colin Powell] has proved that Iraq has these weapons
and is hiding them, and I don't think many informed people doubted that." (NPR, Feb. 6,
2003)
"It's clear that Iraq poses a major threat. It's clear that its weapons of mass
destruction need to be dealt with forcefully, and that's the path we're on. I think the
question becomes whether we can keep the diplomatic balls in the air and not drop any, even
as we move forward, as we must, on the military side." (NPR, Dec. 20, 2002)
"I think the United States government has been clear since the first Bush administration
about the threat that Iraq and Saddam Hussein poses. The United States policy has been regime
change for many, many years, going well back into the Clinton administration. So it's a
question of timing and tactics. We do not necessarily need a further Council resolution
before we can enforce this and previous resolutions." (NPR, Nov. 11, 2002; requests for audio
of Rice's statements on NPR were declined by the publicly funded network.)
She has also been criticized extensively for her record on the African continent, which
judging by the following quote
at the beginning of the 1994 Rwandan genocide seems to have been to adopt a "laissez faire"
attitude : "If we use the word 'genocide' and are seen as doing nothing, what will be the
effect on the November [congressional] election?"
In a
speech given at the AIPAC Synagogue Initiative Lunch back in 2012, Rice boasted about
vetoing a UN resolution that would deem Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land as
illegal, and further characterized the Goldstone Report as "flawed" and "insisted on Israel's
right to defend itself and maintained that Israel's democratic institutions could credibly
investigate any possible abuses." Her position has changed little since then, as recently as
2016,
she proclaimed that "Israel's security isn't a Democratic interest or a Republican
interest -- it's an enduring American interest."
Tony Blinken for National Security Adviser
Tony Blinken is also an old member of the Obama administration, having served first as VP
Biden's National Security Advisor from 2009 to 2013, Deputy National Security Advisor from
2013 to 2015 and then as United States Deputy Secretary of State from 2015 to 2017.
Blinken had immense
influence over Biden in his role as Deputy National Security Advisor, helping formulate
Biden's approach and support for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"For Biden ", he argued , "and
for a number of others who voted for the resolution, it was a vote for tough diplomacy." He
added "It is more likely that diplomacy will succeed, if the other side knows military action
is possible."
The two of them were responsible for delivering on Obama's campaign promise
to get American troops out of Iraq, a process so oversimplified and poorly handled that it
led to even more
chaos than the initial occupation and insurgency.
Blinken seems to be
of the view that it is up to the US, and only the US, to take charge of world affairs :
"On leadership, whether we like it or not, the world just doesn't organize itself. And until
this [Trump] administration, the US had played a lead role in doing a lot of that organizing,
helping to write the rules, to shape the norms and animate the institutions that govern
relations among nations. When we're not engaged, when we don't lead, then one or two things
is likely to happen. Either some other country tries to take our place – but probably
not in a way that advances our interests or values – or no one does. And then you get
chaos or a vacuum filled by bad things before it's filled by good things. Either way, that's
bad for us."
Blinken also appears to be steering
Biden's pro-Israel agenda, recently
stating that Biden "would not tie military assistance to Israel to any political
decisions that it makes, period, full stop," which includes an all out
rejection of BDS , the Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions Movement against Israel's
occupation of Palestine.
Michèle Flournoy for Secretary of Defense
Michele Flournoy was Under Secretary of Defense for Policy from 2009 to 2012 in the Obama
administration under Secretaries Robert Gates and Leon Panetta.
Flournoy, in writing the
Quadrennial Defense Review during her time as Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy
under President Clinton, has paved the way for the U.S.'s endless and costly wars which
prevent us from investing in life saving and necessary programs like Medicare for All and the
Green New Deal. It has effectively granted the US permission to no longer be bound by the
UN
Charter's prohibition against the threat or use of military force. It declared that,
"when the interests at stake are vital, we should do whatever it takes to defend them,
including, when necessary, the unilateral use of military power."
While working at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a
"Top Defense and National Security Think Tank" based in Washington D.C., in June 2002, as
the Bush administration was threatening aggression towards Iraq, she
declared , that the United States would "need to strike preemptively before a crisis
erupts to destroy an adversary's weapons stockpile" before it "could erect defenses to
protect those weapons, or simply disperse them." She continued along this path even in 2009,
after the Bush administration, in
a speech for the CSIS : "The second key challenge I want to highlight is the
proliferation – continued proliferation of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass
destruction, as these also pose increasing threats to our security. We have to respond to
states such as Iran, North Korea, who are seeking to develop nuclear weapons technologies,
and in a globalized world there is also an increased risk that non-state actors will find
ways to obtain these materials or weapons."
It is extremely important to note that Flournoy and Blinken co-founded the strategic
consulting firm, WestExec Advisors, where the two use their large database of governmental,
military, venture capitalists and corporate leader contacts to help companies win big
Pentagon contracts. One such client being Jigsaw, a technology incubator created by Google
that describes itself on its website
as "a unit within Google that forecasts and confronts emerging threats, creating
future-defining research and technology to keep our world safer." Their partnership on the AI
initiative entitled Project Maven led to a rebellion
by Google workers who opposed their technology being used by military and police
operations.
Furthermore, Flournoy and Blinken, in their jobs at WestExec Advisors, co-chaired the
biannual meeting of the liberal organization Foreign Policy for America. Over 50
representatives of national-security groups were in attendance. Most of the attendees
supported "ask(ing)
Congress to halt U.S. military involvement in the (Yemen) conflict." Flournoy did not. She
said that the weapons should be sold under certain conditions and that Saudi Arabia needed
these advanced patriot missiles to defend itself.
Conclusion
If a return to "normalcy" means having the same old politicians that are responsible for
endless wars, that work for the corporate elite, that lack the courage to implement real
structural change required for major issues such as healthcare and the environment, then a
call for "normalcy" is nothing more than a call to return to the same deprived conditions
that led to our current crisis. Such a return with amplified conditions and circumstances,
could set the stage for the return of an administration with dangers that could possibly even
exceed those posed by the current one in terms of launching new wars.
With his laughable attempts at diplomacy and general hawkishness, he's certainly in the
runnings for the honor. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks at a press conference at the
State Department in Washington, DC, on October 21, 2020. (Photo by NICHOLAS KAMM/POOL/AFP via
Getty Images) |
12:01 AM
Is Mike Pompeo the worst secretary of state ever? He's been awful, no doubt. However, there
are 69 other contenders for that title.
Among modern secretaries, Colin Powell was misused by George W. Bush, who defrauded the
country in selling the tragically misbegotten invasion of Iraq. Madeleine Albright, her mindset
permanently stuck in Adolf Hitler's world, stands out for her enthusiastic embrace of war for
others to fight. Alexander Haig achieved little beyond claiming to be in charge in the wake of
the assassination attempt against Ronald Reagan. William Rogers was overshadowed by National
Security Adviser Henry Kissinger, who eventually took the latter's position.
Going back a bit further, Robert Lansing helped maneuver the U.S. into World War I, one of
the dumbest, most counterproductive moves in American history. The earlier one looks, the more
circumstances diverge, making any comparative judgment more difficult.
Still, about the best that can be said of Pompeo is that he has not gotten America into any
new wars, despite his best efforts. Most often he has played the anti-diplomat, determined to
insult, hector, demand, insist, dictate, threaten, harangue, and impose. But never persuade.
The results speak for themselves: the administration's record lacks any notable successes that
benefit the U.S, the supposed purpose of an "America First" foreign policy. There was a bit of
good, a lot of bad, and some real ugly.
A solid good was President Donald Trump's most important diplomatic initiative: his opening
with North Korea. Pompeo took over in March 2018, with the first summit already planned. That
initiative faltered the following year at the second summit in Hanoi, which was Pompeo's
responsibility.
Alas, the secretary lost points by apparently doing nothing to disabuse the president of the
belief that Pyongyang was prepared to turn over its entire arsenal with the hope that
Washington would look favorably upon its future aspirations. That was never going to happen,
especially after the allied double-cross of Libya, which yielded its missiles and nascent
nuclear program, and after Trump dumped the nuclear accord with Iran, demanding that Tehran
abjectly surrender its independent foreign policy. The North can easily imagine similar
mistreatment, by this or a future administration.
Washington has also pursued better relations with India, which is a positive. As elsewhere,
however, concern about human rights violations is almost entirely absent from Pompeo's
portfolio unless it operates as a weapon against an adversary. The secretary cheerfully holds
the coat of allied dictators as they jail, torture, and murder. Such is the case with Prime
Minister Narendra Modi, who has abetted if not aided rising religious persecution.
The Abrahamic accords between Israel and Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates were a tepid
good. Improved relations between Arabs and Israelis are useful, though strengthening two
authoritarian regimes is not. The Bahraini Sunni monarchy sits atop a Shia population with the
backing of the Saudi military, while the Emirates, nicknamed "Little Sparta," by the Pentagon
-- as if that's a compliment -- has used its military to commit murder and mayhem against Yemen
in a war of political aggression and economic exploitation. The related negotiations with Sudan
have been worse, using an unjust terrorist state designation to force recognition of Israel,
which will undermine the democracy that has yet to be fully born after last year's popular
revolution.
Examples of bad are far more common. For example, Pompeo has worked to thwart the
president's evident desire to exit "endless wars." Nineteen years of nation-building in
Afghanistan is enough. The U.S. does not belong in the Syrian civil war. Iraq and its neighbors
are capable of and should deal with whatever remains of the Islamic State.
The secretary has played an equally malign role in Europe, undercutting his boss -- and, not
incidentally, the American people -- by working to spend more on, and place more troops in, the
continent, even as Trump pushed the Europeans to do more on their own defense. This is an inane
strategy: Washington should cut defense welfare to states with the capability to protect
themselves and allow them to decide how to proceed.
Much the same policy has played out with America's relationship to South Korea. Japan has
escaped most of that pressure. Yet consider the defensive capabilities against China for Japan
and the region if Tokyo spent not 1 percent of GDP on its military, but 2 or 3 percent. And why
shouldn't it do so, instead of expecting Americans to do the job for it?
The secretary turned human rights into a political weapon, sacrificing any credibility on
the issue. He tears up while criticizing Iran but kowtows to the Saudi royals, who are far more
brutal killers. He is horrified by the crimes committed by Venezuela's Maduro regime, but
spreads love to Egypt's Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who has punished the slightest criticism, and
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is turning Turkey into an autocracy. Pompeo actually introduced a new
initiative in support of unalienable rights with the support of countries like Saudi
Arabia and other assorted tyrannies.
Then there is the ugly. Using sanctions to try starve the people of Syria and Venezuela in
order to force their governments to yield to America is not just immoral but ineffective. Both
regimes have survived much and are not inclined to surrender.
At least Venezuela is a matter of geographic interest to Washington. Syria has never
mattered to U.S. security and Pompeo should have backed the president's effort to bring home
all American troops. Today, U.S. and Russian troops are clashing there over the
administration's bizarre and illegal seizure of Syrian oilfields. Also inexplicable is
reinforcing six decades of failure by tightening sanctions on Cuba; the private business
community there has suffered badly as a result, reducing what was becoming a sharp challenge to
the political authorities during the waning days of the Obama administration.
The fixation on Iran, which appears to come more from Pompeo than Trump, can best be
explained as turning Mideast policy over to Saudi Arabia and Israel. The result of abandoning
the nuclear accord has been nothing short of catastrophic. The Iranians have refused to
negotiate. Instead they ramped up nuclear reprocessing, interfered with Gulf tanker traffic,
attacked Saudi oil facilities, and attacked U.S. bases and the embassy in Iraq. Far from
reestablishing deterrence, as claimed, the secretary was left to whimper and whine that he
might have to close America's embassy in Baghdad.
Pompeo has taken the lead in the administration's shameful policy toward Saudi Arabia,
aiding it in its war of aggression against impoverished Yemen. That nation has been at war
within and without for most of its existence. Riyadh decided to invade to restore a puppet
regime to power, turning typical internal discord into a sectarian war in which Tehran was able
to bleed the ineffective Saudi armed forces, which were armed and aided by the Pentagon. In
this way, the secretary has made the American population into accomplices to war crimes.
Even more foolish geopolitically, Pompeo has matched Albright's retreat to World War II
clichés with a stroll back into the Cold War. Russia is an unpleasant actor but doesn't
threaten American security. Europe is capable of defending itself. Alas, constantly piling on
sanctions without providing an off-ramp ensures continued Russian hostility and a tilt toward
China in that burgeoning struggle. How does this make any sense for America?
Finally, Pompeo has been his blundering, maladroit, offensive self in seeking to launch an
American-led campaign against the People's Republic of China. Beijing poses a serious
challenge, but not primarily a security issue. No one believes that the PRC plans to launch an
armada across the Pacific to conquer Hawaii. The issue is Washington's willingness to pay the
cost to forever treat Asia-Pacific waters as an American lake.
As for other issues, the U.S. needs work in concert with friendly powers. Pompeo has done
his best to drive away potential partners: for instance, the G-7 refused his demand to call
COVID-19 the Wuhan Virus and even allies such as South Korea have remained far more measured in
their relations with China, determined not to turn their large neighbor into an enemy. In what
promises to be a long and complicated relationship, genuine and serious diplomacy, which
obviously lies beyond Pompeo's limited capabilities, is required.
On the personal side, he appears to have abused his position for both personal and
ideological advantage. For example, so committed to showing his fealty to Riyadh, he declared
an "emergency" to thwart congressional opposition and rush munitions to the Saudi military so
it could kill more Yemeni civilians. He then sought to impede a departmental investigation,
pressuring and firing the inspector general. What prompted his determination to so avidly
assist a ruler who is ostentatiously vile, reckless, and even criminal is one of the greatest
mysteries of his tenure.
Tragically, Pompeo proved to be one of the greatest obstacles to the best of the president's
international agenda. In a speech delivered last year in which he claimed to be implementing
the Founders' foreign policy vision, he denigrated diplomacy and its successful fruits, such as
opening up both Cuba and Iran to potentially corrosive outside influences, which is the most
likely strategy to induce change over the long term. This approach would be more in sync with
Trump's desire to deal with countries such as North Korea and Iran.
Indeed, left to his own devices, Pompeo would likely have America at war with Iran and
perhaps beyond -- Venezuela, China, and/or Russia. His belligerence serves the American people
badly. As does his consistent campaign, conscious or not, to thwart the president's brave but
incompetent attempts to escape largely braindead practices enforced by what Ben Rhodes termed
"the Blob," the foreign policy establishment that dominates the field.
The secretary has forgotten that his job is not to push his personal ideological line.
Rather, it is to advance the interests of the American people, with a special emphasis on
defending their lives, territory, liberties, constitutional system, and prosperity. In this, he
has failed consistently. Maybe he isn't the worst secretary of state in history. But surely he
is one of the worst.
Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. A former special assistant to
President Ronald Reagan, he is the author of Foreign Follies: America's New Global Empire
.
On the eve of the election, for example, Politico published a fawning
profile of Congresswoman Liz Cheney of Wyoming, who is laying the groundwork to become
speaker of the House in a future Republican majority. An ideological mirror of her father, she
and her cohort long for a restoration of the early 2000s Bushite foreign policy of
globe-trotting regime change and democratic nation building administered by a national security
state in Washington D.C.
Their cause, however, is as infertile as their past efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. That is
because despite his poor record, Donald Trump has created a permanent and growing disconnect
between the War Party and the GOP.
There is no need to sugarcoat how Donald Trump has squandered four years of opportunity in
foreign policy. His promises to bring the troops home have not materialized and remain
"promises" to be kept at a permanently delayed date. He has intensified U.S. interference in
Yemen, Syria, Somalia, and Venezuela. He's overseen the continued deterioration of relations
with Russia, while leaving North Korea at the diplomatic altar. And he's brought the United
States and Iran into a first exchange of direct, open conflict.
A big-picture assessment, however, requires not looking at how Trump failed to bring what
restrainers wanted, but how he succeeded in destroying what they needed gone.
Trump's election caused the departure of the most loathsome of the war peddlers -- including
Bill Kristol, David Frum, Jamie Kirchick, Steve Schmidt, and Max Boot -- from Republican ranks.
United under the banner of "Never Trump," for four years they used every inch of column space,
every CNN interview, and a small fortune to cleave off a portion of the Republican base that
they believed would be happy to return to the world of 2006.
The result? Exit polls show Trump winning 93 percent of the Republican vote, a higher
percentage than he won in 2016. As an election post-mortem summarized,
Never Trump hawks "basically do not exist anywhere outside of the Washington Beltway or cable
news green rooms -- and after tonight's results, we shouldn't have to see them on TV or even
see their tweets ever again."
That the average American has the same respect for the War Party's minions as they have for
a tobacco executive should come as no surprise.
Polling continually shows a supermajority of Americans ready and eager to withdraw from
Iraq and Afghanistan. That includes 77 percent of Republicans, 40 percent of whom want to
decrease military engagement with the rest of the world as well. These voters are a vanguard
that will stop any future Bushite ascendance, whether from Nikki Haley or the spawn of Dick
Cheney.
Slowly, Republican members of Congress are beginning to reflect the wishes of their voters.
One year ago this month, I wrote about the
emerging cadre of antiwar conservatives in the House of Representatives. While most broke
under pressure to support Trump's escalation with Iran, not all did. It's a more active and
vocal Republican contingent than has existed for decades and it's growing fast. Following
Tuesday's results, Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming will join Rand Paul and Mike Lee in the U.S.
Senate, while Nancy Mace of South Carolina will lock arms with Representatives Thomas Massie
and Matt Gaetz. Both women are vetted and proven war skeptics who are determined to challenge
Liz Cheney at every turn.
Beyond government, the creative destruction brought by the Trump presidency in conservative
circles has given a new lease on life to restrainers long excluded from the Beltway's
incestuous institutions. That includes the continued ascension of publications like The
American Conservative , which has become a wheelhouse for the
most important foreign policy conversations happening on the right; Tucker Carlson, whose
program has become the highest rated in cable news history, no doubt aided by his antiwar
opening monologues; the Quincy Institute, which is dragging other think tanks kicking and
screaming into dialogues about shifting U.S. positioning overseas; and activist organizations
like BringOurTroopsHome.US , a
collection of right-of-center veterans who are lobbying to end the country's unconstitutional
wars.
The American empire was formed over the course of a century, and currently encompasses over
850 overseas military bases. Hundreds of billions of dollars are exchanged every year through
facets of the military-industrial complex, while thousands of very powerful people make their
cushy salaries off the current imperialistic system (and will fight tooth and nail to keep it
that way).
One election was never going to change that. Donald Trump was never going to be a miracle
worker. But he's kicked in the door and let us in, even if we wish he'd tidied up better before
he left.
We have principled leaders in government. We have the infrastructure. And most importantly,
we have the voters. Liz Cheney and her misbegotten hangers-on may not realize it yet, but their
heyday has long past. It's our party now and we're going to bring America home.
Hunter DeRensis is the communications director of BringOurTroopsHome.US and a regular
contributor to The American Conservative . Follow him on Twitter
@HunterDeRensis.
Western hypocrisy revealed 10 years after the event in today's Independent:
"Tony Blair and Iraq: The damning evidence" . And they go on and on about those wicked,
evil Russians and their tyrannical leader causing death and destruction Syria by their
"support" of the Assad government whilst the West arms the "freedom fighters" there.
Neoconservatives are flocking to the Biden campaign. The DC braintrust that believes in
using US military power to aid Israel in the Middle East has jumped parties before– to
Clinton in '92, and back to Bush in 2000– and now they're hopping aisles to support
Biden, with Bill Kristol leading the way.
Last night on an official Biden campaign webinar led by "Jewish Americans for Biden", and
moderated by Ann Lewis of Democratic Majority for Israel, two prominent neocon Republicans
endorsed Biden, primarily because of Trump's character posing a danger to democracy. But both
neocons emphasized that Biden would be more willing to use force in the Middle East and
reassured Jewish viewers that Biden will seek to depoliticize Israel support, won't
necessarily return to the Iran deal and will surround himself with advisers who support
Israel and believe in American military intervention.
Eliot Cohen, a Bush aide and academic , echoed
the fear that Israel is being politicized. "A lot of Jews made a big mistake by taking
something I was in favor of, moving the embassy to Jerusalem and obsessing about that," he
said. But there was huge political risk in that: if the United States is internally divided,
at war with itself, and "Israel has become a partisan issue, which it should never ever be .
That's not in Israel's longterm security interest."
Biden will reverse that trend by appointing strong supporters of Israel, Cohen said.
"Joe Biden has a long record as a friend of Israel. I think we're both quite familiar
with the kinds of people who will go into a Biden administration and I think we feel very
comfortable that they will have a deep and abiding concern for Israel which is not going to
go away."
Edelman also said that Trump has created many "dangers" in the region by not being
aggressive:
"By withdrawing or threatening to withdraw US forces, by repeatedly not replying or
dealing with Iranian aggression in the Persian Gulf or against Saudi oil infrastructure,
he's created a sort of vacuum that is being filled in Libya by Russia and by Turkey "
Biden will work with allies and be ready to use U.S. military in the region– or as
Edelman said, "to play."
"The region is a mess," Edelman said. "And yet the president continually says he wants the
U.S. to withdraw from the region. The reality is that the withdrawal of US power form the
region has helped create this morass of threats."
He cited three war zones in which the U.S. or proxies' bombing is essential to U.S.
security, Libya, Yemen and Syria.
In Syria, "The Trump administration pulled out and said, we don't want to play here,"
Edelman said.
"Other forces are going to fill the vacuum created by the absence of US leadership and
they won't be benign forces," Edelman said. Iran, Russia, or Turkey will come in and create a
"vortex of instability that can potentially come back to haunt us" -- with terrorist attacks
or the disruption of energy markets.
Cohen and Edelman opposed Obama's Iran deal, and both predicted that Biden will be hawkish
on Iran.
In other words, Trump has failed the Israel Lobby because he has tried to pull our US forces
from the Middle East and, although he has laid down sanctions against Iran, he has not gone to
war. Of course, these are the people who promoted the ongoing disaster of the Iraq war. They
are probably right that Russia and Turkey would benefit from US pulling out completely
(Libya??), but where are legitimate US interests in all this? Trump ran on ending Middle East
wars and getting out of the region–the original reason the neocons jumped ship (in
addition to fears of a nascent Orange Hitler). Despite being president he has been unable to do
so. He has been strongly
opposed by the foreign policy establishment and the Pentagon -- a testament to the extent
to which the US security establishment is Israel-occupied territory.
Lurking in the background of the attitudes of Cohen and Edelman is the idea that Biden would
tame the forces on the left that have been so critical of Israel in recent years. With Biden
they get it all: Strongly pro-Israel even to the point of initiating a war with Iran, taming
the anti-Israel voices on the left (Kamala Harris with her Jewish husband s not among them),
and perhaps a Senate led by Israel operative Chuck Schumer. Meanwhile the Republican Party
would default to the Chamber of Commerce and the remaining neocons, and the hope of a
nationally competitive GOP, much less a truly populist GOP, would die. Bill Kristol loves the
prospect of a long-term Democrat domination.
And of course, all of these bellicose proposals are cloaked in a veneer of "Jewish values"
-- not so ironic if one assumes, as is certainly the case, that promoting war for specifically
Jewish interests is indeed a Jewish value.
Cohen spoke about Jewish values. He and his family belong to an orthodox synagogue and
have raised four children with a religious education. "I've tried to live my life by Jewish
values. One thing that's very important for Jewish Republicans. Obviously the issue of Israel
is important, it's the only Jewish state, it's important to look after it and for it to
thrive, but what is our approach to politics?" Jews don't believe that you Render unto God
the things that are God and render unto Caesar the thing that are Caesar's and therefore not
take issue with a politician's character "so long as they do what we want them to do." He
said, "That's not the Jewish way." In the Book of Samuel, the king engages "in despicable
behavior," and the prophet storms into his bedroom. "We believe that character matters." And
this election is about character.
Okay, Trump is not a saint. But given that Biden is up to his eyeballs in scandal doesn't
bother Cohen at all -- despite overwhelming documentation. So we are not supposed to care that
the Biden family raked in millions by using Biden's influence to alter US foreign policy or
that China could easily blackmail him into doing their bidding on trade and military issues. So
in the end, it's really about what Cohen, Edelman, Kristol, et al. think is good for Israel
(Jennifer Rubin and Max Boot jumped the GOP ship even before Trump was elected). Again, count
me unsurprised.
And of course, the other thing is that neocons have always been on the left
within the Republican Party. One might say they have attempted to not only make Israel a
bi-partisan issue (their first priority) but also promoting the liberal/left social agenda,
such as replacement-level non-White immigration, as a bipartisan issue -- both values strongly
promoted by the mainstream Jewish community. They jumped ship mainly because Trump was
promising to undo the liberal/left social agenda as well as disengage from foreign wars and US
occupation of the Middle East. During the 2016 campaign, some of the strongest denunciations of
Trump came from neocons ("
Jewish Fear and Loathing of Donald Trump: Neocon Angst about a Fascist America" ).
If you haven't seen it, Carlson's interview with Bobulinski is damning, and the documents he
refers to have been thoroughly authenticated.
Trump has been dealing with jews all of his life and knows what they are like. This is a
double-edged sword for jews as he is wise to their dishonest criminality and double-dealing
and is able to work around their machinations and dishonesty.
This s why (some) jews hate him. If he wanted to, he could expose them for what they truly
are
To Trump's credit, he has his own security detail interspersed within his Secret Service
protection team making possible harm or actions against him difficult if not impossible. A
good thing
I truly believe that Jews are the strongest assets Satan has. They are constantly forcing
us super-stupid Gentiles into wars for Israel. We have Gentile-American soldiers (Jews don't
serve) facing off against my white Christian brothers, mainly to be a counter-balance to
Iranian forces in the country who are battling U.S.-backed terrorists. Jews hate Russians
because they are white Christians and they actually hate us white-Christians in America, too.
(For now, we are simply useful idiots for them.) It is time that we Gentiles wake up and kick
every single last Jew out of this country before the Jews get us all killed!
DJT has done a good job of separating the J wheat from the chaff so to speak.
Unfortunately, it's the chaff that seems to have all the power money and influence. For
now.
Who paid for all this peace in the Middle East?
American tax money was used to
De-stabilize Iraq
De-stabilize Libya
De-stabilize Syria
Only Iran is left as a major power in the Middle East.
Let's get the draft going to get our brave boys and girls(and LGBTQ) fighting to maintain
peace in the Middle East.
We ALL need to give until we can give no more.
Maybe draft exemptions for the Ivy League, someone has to tell us what to do.
Jewish promoted Critical Race Theory believes and teaches that systemic racism is the main
reason why blacks commit criminal acts. Therefore the response to the disparity between White
and Black crime is to alter the standards, i.e., change White expections of the Black
community. Because to say to Black Americans that they must alter their behavior to meet the
current standards is racist.
Samuel Krasner, the Jewish DA in Philadelphia, is aboard with this. He decriminalised
shoplifting in his jurisdiction. And we now have shoplifters walking out of stores with
armfuls of stolen goods whilst smiling in the cameras and saying, 'I can't be
prosecuted.'
Then there is this unbelievable piece of BS legislation from Virginia: "Virginia
legislature passes bill preventing cops from stopping cars with no headlights, brake lights,
etc."
When Virginia state legislator who sponsored the bill, Patrick Hope, was asked about this
by a reporter from The Daily Press he responded by saying he didn't know that police were no
longer allowed to stop vehicles for not having their lights illuminated.
Patrick Hope sponsored a bill without actually knowing what was in it! If you think at
this stage that Patrick Hope is a hopeless idiot he gets worse.
When the importance of working brake lights on vehicles was mentioned to Hope he said:
"The brake lights -- I'm not concerned about that as a safety issue -- but I can certainly
see how headlights could be of concern ."
A Virginia state legislator is dumb enough to believe that brake lights have no importance
whatsoever to road safety in his state.
The modern United States? You couldn't f ** king make it up! By the way, who are the
majority people driving defective cars in Virginia? Blacks and other newly arrived
minorities, of course.
Would the local authorities in any part of Israel decriminalise shoplifting for a minority
demographic in their area? Not likely. How about Samuel Krasner, would he recommend that
crime be legalised for minorities in the state of Israel? No, he wouldn't. He's not stupid.
He would not do anything that would destroy his native country.
Would an utter idiot like Hope be allowed to introduce insane life endangering legislation
in Israel? No, his Jew financial backers would not allow that.
But, Trump or no Trump, all this is coming to your local area of America very soon.
It's amazing. It's astounding. A cursory look shows there are Jews behind every act of
destruction against White America and its founding culture.
The Jews are driving the de-educating of American youth, they've staffed 90% of the media
with lying, immoral and shameless journalists and installed unintelligent and easily
corruptible politicians in both US political parties.
As we see with Hope, the Jews have made possible state legislators who are so stupid that
they are probably suffering from mental health issues. What's very sad is that there's hardly
a peep from the great American public against them.
The Jews who first suggested making anti-semitism a crime in the West actually said to
their comtemperies at the time that it was just a "pipe dream." They never actually thought
in their wildest dreams that Western people and politicians would accept the lie that
anti-Jewishness was systemic in the West and needed laws to counteract it.
But, unbelievably for them, they easily got their anti-Semitism legislation enacted. And
then, enboldened, they drove ahead with Holocaust denial and all the other BS.
Now, as we see with the headlights, brake lights and the decriminalising of shoplifting
for Blacks, the Jews have become viciously emboldened. They've learned that European
provenanced Whites will accept any and all Bull S ** t that is thrown at them.
Shame on all Americans for sitting idly by whilst the tiny Jew demographic urines on all
that your forefathers built and fought for.
If your descents are Islamist slaves policed by Blacks in the latter half of this century
(all ruled from on-high by the Jews) they'll deserve it. They'll deserve it because their
fathers and grandfathers were idle and lazy cowards who sat on their butts while the great
inheritance which they were bequeathed was pulled out from under them.
BTW: Who had secured a vantage point in New York in September 2001 from which to watch the
planes fly into the buildings? And who then danced and cheered energetically as the planes
hit the buildings and killed 2,977 people?
Surely, you might think, it was Arabic Islamists, or Pakistanis, or some other race of
Muslims.
You'd be wrong if you thought this.
The correct answer is "five Israelis". Yes, it was five Jews who danced and sang as 2,977
Americans were murdered in cold blood.
@Lot el. Cursed with the loss of thousands of American lives resulting from such actions.
Cursed with the loss of tens of thousand of non-American lives from such actions. All this
for a shitty little country with which America doesn't even have a defence treaty.
Our Steadfast Ally ? The USS Liberty, Jonathan Pollard and the Israeli selling of American
defence technology to China immediately spring to mind. There is no defence treaty between
America and Israel. Israel is not America's ally. Rather it is a parasite on the American
body politic. Either Americans rip the parasite off their body, or it will eventually kill
America.
The Biden campaign has worked tirelessly over the past year to channel the image of Joe
Biden as a "serious person," particularly on foreign policy matters. Biden, according to this
narrative
, is an elder statesman who grasps the intricacies of international politics. Trump, by
contrast, is
presented as an inept bull in a china shop who only speaks
the language of "fire and fury." Only Biden, we are told, can bring back stability around the
globe.
Don't believe a word of it.
This carefully curated image of Joe Biden's strategic acumen and geopolitical foresight is
at odds by the former vice president's own stated views and policy track record. His statements
about a variety of countries suggest that they are based less on a strategic view of world
affairs than snap judgments.
Consider Korea. At the Third Presidential Debate on October 22, Trump touted the benefits of
having "good relations" with foreign leaders like North Korea's Kim Jong Un. Biden responded by
invoking Hitler: "We had a good relationship with Hitler before he, in fact, invaded Europe,
the rest of Europe. Come on. The reason he would not meet with President Obama is because
President Obama said, 'We're going to talk about denuclearization. We're not going to
legitimize you and we're going to continue to push stronger and stronger sanctions on you.'
That's why he wouldn't meet with us." It should go without saying that likening Kim Jong Un to
Adolf Hitler is not only wildly inflammatory but also contributes nothing to our policy
understanding of either figure. The second part of Biden's statement is even more dangerous,
reflecting a failed commitment to old Washington orthodoxy at a time when a growing number of
North Korea experts are quite correctly warning that a blanket insistence on
denuclearization as a precondition for peace talks is futile and counterproductive.
Biden extended a similarly brash stance toward America's friends. At a recent Philadelphia
town hall event, Biden-- who has incessantly lectured Trump on the perils of spurning America's
longstanding allies-- all but
consigned two key US partners into a new Axis of Evil: "And NATO is in the risk of
beginning to crack because they don't doubt -- they doubt our -- whether we're there. You see
what's happened in everything from Belarus to Poland to Hungary, and the rise of totalitarian
regimes in the world, and as well, this president embraces all the thugs in the world." It
bears repeating that Hungary and Poland -- which have both had
legitimate and competitive elections within the past several years-- are not only members of
the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, but are among the two biggest military contributors to
NATO's collective security arrangement. Biden's comments are even more tone-deaf in light of
data showing that Poland and Hungary consistently rank among the most pro-American EU
member states. This unprompted attack has already prompted vigorous
rebuke from the government in Budapest, needlessly harming relations between a NATO ally
and prospective President-elect before they began.
Nor does Biden fare better on matters of grand strategy. At a political event in Iowa City,
the former Vice-President dismissed the bipartisan consensus that Beijing poses potential
economic and security threats to the United States. "China is going to eat our lunch? Come on,
man I mean, you know, they're not bad folks, folks. But guess what? They're not competition for
us," he said. Biden's reasoning? Chinese society is too divided, and the Chinese Communist
Party (CCP) too corrupt, to mount a credible challenge to the United States: "They can't even
figure out how to deal with the fact that they have this great division between the China Sea
and the mountains in the east, I mean the west.. they can't figure out how they're going to
deal with the corruption that exists within the system."
In point of fact, serious
ethnic cleavages and rampant corruption have not prevented China from aggressively
expanding its geo-economic influence across every continent. From shoring up Venezuela's
embattled Nicolás Maduro with mercenaries and billions of dollars to systematically
undercutting
Washington's economic and political
reach in Africa, the CCP is actively challenging US interests across the world. This isn't
to say that those challenges are unmanageable with fresh and forward-looking strategies, but to
deny their existence only serves to compound their growing threat.
Biden's comments unsurprisingly drew the ire of politicians from as diverse a cast as
Mitt
Romney and Bernie Sanders . With the
2020 presidential election looming large on the horizon, Biden jettisoned his position for an
entirely new set of talking points. By the summer of 2019, Biden was
arguing that Trump is the one who is blind to the Chinese threat: "While Trump is attacking
our friends, China is pressing its advantage all over the world you bet I'm worried about China
-- if we keep following Trump's path." He labeled China as a "competitor" at a September 18 CNN
town hall in 2020, and again during a 60 minutes interview last week.
It is unclear what prompted Biden's change of heart, other than perhaps the electoral optics
of being seen as soft on China at a time when millions of Chinese Uighur muslims are being
ethnically cleansed in hundreds of internment camps strewn across China's northwest.
Biden's abrupt, pre-election
transformation into a China hawk has hardly been accompanied by concrete solutions for
managing Sino-American competition. Instead, he continues to tout the old chestnuts of
Washington's inept bipartisan China policies: targeted sanctions for human rights abuses,
multilateral action to stem China's "illegal and unfair trade practices," and more robust
enforcement of intellectual property laws. These generic prescriptions are premised on the
decades-old neoliberal article of faith that closer engagement with international institutions
will inevitably bring China into the fold of liberal-democratic nations.
But a rising China remains a secondary concern for the Democratic candidate, whose go-to
campaign trail foreign policy topic remains the Russia menace. Beginning with the Obama
administration's support for regime change in Ukraine during the 2014 Maidan revolution, Biden
has distinguished himself as one of the foremost advocates for a bellicose approach toward
Russia. Biden's conceit stems from a peculiar, but unfortunately popular, understanding of
Russian president Vladimir Putin's true motives: "The Cold War was based on a conflict of two
profoundly different ideological notions of how the world should function. This is just
basically about a kleptocracy protecting itself I think there's a basic decision that they
cannot compete against a unified West. I think that is Putin's judgment. And so everything he
can do to dismantle the post-World War II liberal world order, including NATO and the EU, I
think, is viewed as in their immediate self-interest,"
said Biden during a 2018 Council on Foreign Relations appearance.
In Biden's view, Putin, an authoritarian kleptocrat fearful of losing his iron grip over
Russia, is on a mission to divide and destroy NATO and the EU because he knows he can't compete
against a united west. Thus, concludes Biden, the thrust of Washington's Russia policy should
be to " impose
meaningful costs " on Moscow for its vast and ever-growing list of transgressions against
the free world. Predictably, these "meaningful costs" amount to more of the same: targeted
sanctions, stationing NATO troops ever closer to Russia's borders, corralling NATO into a
united front against Russia's global assault on democracy, and lobbying for the NATO accession
of post-Soviet states like Georgia and Ukraine.
Though certainly punitive in their effect, it is unclear what concrete strategic goals these
policies are meant to accomplish. After six years of crescendoing sanctions and international
measures aimed at isolating Moscow geopolitically, Russia is no closer to pro-western regime
change; if anything, the economic pain from sanctions has only stoked anti-western sentiment
and further consolidated the Russian masses behind Putin's government. Nor did the Obama-Biden
administration's punitive measures induce any significant changes in the Kremlin's behavior,
partly because the sanctions arrayed against Russia are so rigid and exhaustive that the
Kremlin has long since
abandoned any hope they will ever be lifted.
If nothing else, Biden's recent foreign policy statements are par for the course of his
four-decade long political career-- one that has long been characterized by intermittent
attempts to seize short-term political advantages by rewriting his own policy history. Since
the beginning of the 2020 election, for example, Biden has consistently portrayed himself as an
avowed opponent of the Iraq War. "From the moment Shock and Awe started," said Biden at a
Democratic Presidential Debate in 2019, "from that moment, I was opposed to the effort." But,
as numerous fact-checkers have noted , Biden was not at
all opposed to "the effort." In fact, he repeatedly endorsed the invasion of Iraq from 2003
through 2004, even chiding some skeptical Democrats for not being sufficiently supportive of
the war effort. Biden's volte-face only came in 2005, coinciding
with his newly revealed intention to explore a presidential run. By then, opposition to the
Iraq war was no longer a particularly novel political opinion to hold.
Biden's track record hardly paints the portrait of a sophisticated statesman or "serious"
foreign policy thinker. What emerges instead is the familiar portrait of an old party stalwart
who will say anything, sign on to any position, to seize an advantage in that moment. What so
many commentators and journalists have graciously dismissed as his countless '
gaffes ' is really a reflection of a tired and outdated worldview.
* * *
Mark Episkopos is the new national security reporter for the National Interest.
The 2020 presidential election is here. Americans are turning out in record numbers to
vote, with pre-election
voting surpassing two-thirds of the number of all ballots cast in 2016 . The country is
divided, and the two major-party candidates are presented as starkly different options. But
one thing Donald Trump and Joe Biden have in common is their admiration for the US empire,
and both candidates have plans to keep the war machine chugging along.
Comparing the foreign policy of a second Trump term to a new Biden administration is
tough. There are certain areas where Trump is marginally better, and there are areas where a
Biden administration could be better.
Afghanistan is one place where Trump seems superior to Biden. Although
Trump dropped a record number of bombs on Afghanistan in 2018 and 2019 , the US-Taliban
peace deal signed in February paved the way for a complete US withdrawal by Spring 2021. The
timing of the withdrawal means Trump could reverse the plan after being elected for a second
term, but he seems committed to ending this one war. Biden, on the other hand, said
in an interview with Stars and
Stripes in September that he cannot promise a full withdrawal from Afghanistan and
that he favors keeping a small troop presence in the country.
Biden said the same for Syria and Iraq in the Stripes interview, two other
countries Trump has said he would like to get out of. Regarding Syria, Trump failed miserably
to follow through on a withdrawal and decided to
stay in the country to "secure" the oil . Besides the criminality of occupying a
sovereign country to steal its resources, the small US occupation force risks confrontation
with Russia. With Syrian President Bashar al-Assad being a favorite enemy of the Democratic
establishment, it's possible the number of US troops in the Syria could increase under a
Biden administration.
In Iraq, the US recently announced its plan to draw down troops from 5,200 to
3,000 . Trump says
he wants a full withdrawal from the country , where US troops are no longer welcome since
the assassination of Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani. Iraq's parliament voted
unanimously to expel US troops after Trump's enormous provocation towards Iran that
brought the region to the brink of a major new war. Trump's Iran policy clashes with his
desire to withdraw from Iraq. It's likely the Iran hawks driving the "maximum pressure"
campaign would not want to give up bases in Iraq, which could serve as a launchpad for
attacks against Iran.
Iran is one area where Biden could be much better than Trump. The "maximum pressure"
campaign against the Islamic Republic has been disastrous and shows no sign of waning. Biden
has said he would work
with Iran to restore the 2015 Iran nuclear deal , a foreign policy achievement of the
Obama administration.
Recent comments from Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) suggest Biden will face pressure from
both Republicans and Democrats to try to make a tougher deal with Iran. Menendez said Biden
should seek an agreement that further restricts Iran's nuclear and military capabilities,
something Tehran would never agree to before sanctions relief. Biden will also face pressure
from Israel to be tough on Iran.
Some believe Biden is
the most pro-Israel presidential nominee ever from either side of the aisle. President
Trump has arguably been the most pro-Israel president of all time, recognizing Jerusalem as
the country's capital, recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, changing US
policy to no longer consider Jewish settlements in the West Bank illegal,
and the so-called "Vision for Peace" that would essentially formalize apartheid rule over
Palestinians.
Biden says he opposes Israeli annexation of the West Bank, but there's no reason to
believe he would reverse any of Trump's policies, like moving the US embassy to Jerusalem,
something Biden said he would not change . As far annexation, the Israelis have decided
to hold off on annexing portions of the West Bank allocated to them in Trump's plan and are
going back to the slower, more politically palatable form of annexation,
through settlements , something Biden would probably not interfere with.
Perhaps the worst stain on the Trump administration is the war in Yemen. President Trump
chose to continue this genocidal
war in April 2019,
when he vetoed a war powers resolution passed by Congress that called for an end to US
military involvement in Yemen. The president did it again in July 2019, when he
vetoed three separate resolutions that would have banned US arms sales to Saudi Arabia.
Experts agree , if the US cuts off support for the Saudis in Yemen, the war would quickly
come to an end.
Joe Biden has repeatedly said he would end US support for the war in Yemen. "Under a
Biden-Harris administration, we will reassess our relationship with the Kingdom, end US
support for Saudi Arabia's war in Yemen, and make sure America does not check its values at
the door to sell arms or buy oil," the former vice president
said in a statement on the anniversary of Jamal Khashosggi's death.
President Trump also significantly
escalated the war against al-Qaeda in Yemen and carried out more ground and air
operations in the country than the administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama
combined. Trump also broke records in Somalia. The first seven
months of 2020 saw more US airstrikes on the African country than under Bush and Obama
combined. With virtually no opposition in Washington to the drone war against al-Shabab in
Somalia, the Biden administration would likely continue the campaign.
There's no telling which candidate would be worse on Russia and China. Despite every
liberal news outlet saying otherwise, President Trump has been
extremely hawkish on Russia . One area where Biden outshines Trump with respect to Moscow
is arms control treaties. The Trump administration has withdrawn
from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty , which banned medium-range missiles,
and the Open
Skies Treaty , which allowed unarmed aerial surveillance between its signatories.
In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, the Trump administration's hawkish China policies
have been thrown into hyper-drive. The US has increased its military presence in the
Indo-Pacific, frequently
sending warships into the South China Sea and flying
spy planes near China's coast . Although they got bogged down in the Middle East, the
Obama administration started the "pivot to Asia," and a Biden administration would likely
continue boosting the US military presence in the region.
One of the Trump administration's most embarrassing failures is its Venezuela policy,
which Trump appointed washed up neocon Elliot Abrams to run. Since January 2019, the US has
recognized Juan Guaido as the president of Venezuela, despite Nicolas Maduro still holding
power in Caracas.
Guaido's coup attempts were utter failures , and the crippling economic sanctions on the
country have done nothing
but made the civilian population suffer . Democrats criticize Trump for his Venezuela
policy, not for the harm it does to the people, but because it failed to
depose Maduro .
Another disgraceful thing about the Trump administration is the attempt to prosecute
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for exposing US war crimes. On the campaign trail in 2016,
Trump praised WikiLeaks for exposing corruption in the DNC. After Assange was arrested in the
UK, Trump said
he knew "nothing" about WikiLeaks .
The British judge presiding over Assange's extradition case is expected to make a decision
in January 2021. This author has little faith that Joe Biden would drop the charges against
Assange since he has previously
likened the WikiLeaks founder to a "hi-tech terrorist." It's clear Biden does not
consider Assange to be a journalist.
Unfortunately, the issues listed above are far down on the list of priorities for
Americans today. Throughout the pandemic, the civil unrest, and the antics surrounding the
election, the drones have continued to buzz, the bombs continued to fall, and the sanctions
continued to strangle economies. While these crimes committed by the empire are just
background noise to the subjects living within the 50 states, they are absolutely everything
to the people affected.
It's tough to blame Americans for their lack of awareness of their country's murderous
foreign policy. The corporate press ignores the atrocities going on overseas and amplifies
the skirmishes on the streets of the US between people with opposing political views. It's
easy to keep people unaware of the mass-murder funded by their tax dollars on the other side
of the world while they are fighting with each other.
The lack of concern over US foreign policy was put on stark display by the two
presidential debates. The two men auditioning to control the military of the largest empire
in the history of the world didn't even have to tell the voters what they plan to do with it.
The best the candidates could muster up was some tough talk on Russia and China, and Biden
criticized one of the few good things Trump did in his term – meeting with North
Korea's Kim Jong-un.
For these reasons, it is more important than ever for independent media outlets like
Antiwar.com to continue to shine a light on the crimes of the empire, even when so few care.
We can guarantee that no matter who wins on Tuesday, we will cover their foreign policy
critically. And if by some freak chance Libertarian Party candidate Jo Jorgensen wins, we
will not rest until she fulfills her plan to withdraw US troops from every foreign
country.
While our staff might celebrate Trump's declarations to bring the troops home and is
hopeful Biden would end the war in Yemen, we are under no illusions. The major-party options
this year are this: An incumbent president who campaigned on ending "endless war" but has
only escalated them or a lifelong politician who led the charge in the Senate to give George
W Bush his invasion of Iraq and now lies about
it . Antiwar.com needs your help to cover the interventionist foreign policy of whichever
candidate wins on Tuesday. Consider
making a donation today , and spread the word. Tell your friends and family about us and
help make Washington's imperialist wars part of the national conversation.
Dave DeCamp is the assistant news editor of Antiwar.com and is based in Richmond, VA.
Follow him on Twitter @decampdave .
Congress and White House work together to reward the Jewish state PHILIP GIRALDI NOVEMBER 3, 2020 1,300 WORDS
92
COMMENTS REPLY
The U.S. election will end today, more or less, and we Americans will suffer another four
years of putting up with serial nonsense out of a White House and Congress that could care less
about us no matter who is elected. Whether the party where everything changes or the party
where everything remains the same wins the inevitable result will be further aggrandizement of
authoritarian power combined with increased distancing of government from the people who are
ruled.
Amidst all the gloom, however, there is one great success story. That is the tale of how
Israel and its friends in politics and financial circles have been able to screw every possible
advantage out of both major parties simultaneously and apparently effortlessly. Israel might be
the true undisputed winner in the 2020 election even though it was not on the ballot and was
hardly mentioned at all during the campaign.
Jewish billionaires with close ties to Israel have been courted by the two major parties,
both to come up with contributions and to urge their friends in the oligarch club and media to
also respond favorably. The Democrats'
largest single donor is entertainment mogul Haim Saban while the Republicans rely on casino
multi-billionaire Sheldon Adelson. It is estimated that 60% of the political contributions for
the Democrats comes from Jewish sources and Saban is the single largest contributor. He is also
an Israeli holding dual citizenship. Adelson, who may also hold dual citizenship and is married
to an Israeli, is the major supporter of the Republicans, having coughed up more than $100
million in recent elections.
Both Saban and Adelson have not been shy about supporting Israel as their first priority.
Saban is on record as supporting Joe Biden "because of his track record on supporting Israel
and its alliance with the United States." Adelson, who was drafted into the U.S. Army in the
1950s, has said that he would much rather have served in the Israel Defense Force. Saban and
Adelson are joined in their love fest with Israel by a number of Israel-firsters in Congress
and the Administration, all eager to shower unlimited political support, money and weapons on
the Jewish state.
In the latest manifestation of noblesse oblige, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper
stopped off in Israel last week to present his counterparts with a significant bit of
assistance, all funded by the American taxpayer, of course. According to sources in Washington
and Jerusalem, the U.S. "will grant Israel direct access to highly classified satellites such
as the missile detection birds known as SBIRS and ensure Israel gets critical defense platforms
in a very short time by using production slots planned for the U.S armed forces." Israel will
also be given "deeper access to the core avionic systems" of the new F-35 fighter that it has
been obtaining from Washington.
The claimed rationale for the upgrade is the Congressionally mandated requirement for the
U.S. to maintain Israel's "qualitative military edge" in light of the impending sale of the
F-35 to Arab states that have recently established diplomatic relations with Israel. At the
time, Israeli sources were suggesting that the Jewish state
might need $8 billion in new military
hardware upgrades to maintain its advantage over its neighbors. It is presumed that the
American taxpayer will foot the bill, even though there is a serious financial crisis going on
in the U.S.
The satellite detection system operates from aerial platforms that are deployed on
helicopters. The astute reader will notice that no U.S. security interest is involved in the
latest giveaway to Israel. On the contrary, Israel will be receiving material from "production
slots planned for the U.S. armed forces," reducing America's own ability to detect incoming
missiles. And there will also be considerable damage to American defense interests in that
Israel will inevitably steal the advanced F-35 technology that they will be given access to,
re-engineer it for their own defense industries and sell it to clients in Asia, Africa, and
Latin America. They have
done so before , selling U.S. developed missile technology to China.
Congress is also doing its bit. A bill, the so-called "U.S.-Israel Common Defense
Authorization Act," is making its way through the House of Representatives and will authorize
the provision of U.S. manufactured
bunker buster bombs to Israel. As the bombs would only be useful in Israel's neighborhood
to bomb hardened sites in Iran, the message being sent is obvious. The Massive Ordnance
Penetrator weighs 30,000 pounds and is capable of destroying targets located deep underground.
Oddly, Israel doesn't have a plane capable of carrying that weight so the presumption is that
the White House will also have to provide the bomber. The bill is co-sponsored by two leading
Israel firsters in Congress Democrat Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey and Republican Brian Mast of
Florida.
Israel is also
seeking an upgrade of some of its other fighter aircraft. It reportedly has approached the
Pentagon seeking to buy the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor, a single-seat, twin-engine,
all-weather stealth tactical fighter aircraft that was originally developed for the United
States Air Force (USAF). Its stealth capability, top speed, maneuverability combined with
advanced air-to-air and air-to-ground weapon systems, makes it the best air superiority fighter
in the world.
Unfortunately for Israel, the F-22 is not currently available and is only operated by the
USAF. Current U.S. federal law prohibits the export of the plane to anyone to protect its top
secret advanced stealth technology as well as a number of advances in weaponry and situational
awareness. But if deference to Israel's wishes is anything to go by, one might safely bet that
the Jewish state will have received approval to acquire the plane by inauguration day in
January. And it is a safe bet that Israeli defense contractors will have reverse engineered the
stealth and other features soon thereafter.
The U.S. government has been pandering to Israel in other ways,
to include labeling , and sanctioning, prominent human rights groups that have criticized
the Jewish state as anti-Semitic. It has also strengthened existing sanctions
against Iranian financial institutions , reportedly in an attempt to make it more difficult
for a President Biden to reinstate the suspended Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)
that sought to monitor the Iranian nuclear program. The sanctions come on top of other moves to
destroy the Iranian economy, to include " that the U.S., along with Israel, has in recent
months carried out sabotage attacks inside Iran, destroying power plants, aluminum and chemical
factories, a medical clinic and 7 ships at the port of Bushehr "
Other recent developments favoring Israel include Congress's legislating Israeli government
veto authority over U.S. sales of weapons to any other Middle Eastern nation. The bill is
called "Guaranteeing Israel's QME [Qualitative Military Edge] Act of 2020" (H.R. 8494). There
has also been the
expansion by Executive Order of U.S. funded illegal West Bank Jewish settlements' science
development projects that will eventually compete with American companies.
In truth, the United States has become Israel's bitch and there is hardly a politician or
journalist who has the courage to say so. Congress and the media have been so corrupted by
money emanating from the Israeli lobby that they cannot do enough to satisfy America's rulers
in Jerusalem. And for those who do not succumb to the money there is always intimidation,
career-ending weaponized accusations of holocaust-denial and anti-Semitism. It is all designed
to produce one result: whoever wins in American elections doesn't matter as long as Israel gets
what it wants. And it almost always gets what it wants.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest,
a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a
more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is https://councilforthenationalinterest.org,
address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is[email protected] .
' The sanctions come on top of other moves to destroy the Iranian economy, to include "
that the U.S., along with Israel, has in recent months carried out sabotage attacks inside
Iran, destroying power plants, aluminum and chemical factories, a medical clinic and 7 ships
at the port of Bushehr "
Good fucking question. I for one am sick of this shit ..claims made, no sources revealed
we are supposed to take these claims on "faith" ..akin to a religion.
I can tell you this. If I was Iran I'd be working day and fucking night to get a nuke the
neocon, liberalcon warmongers have made it clear as soon as it's convenient, invasion and
destroy Iran
Like Neo when he is first released from the matrix and in the construct "I want out, let
me out" .of this insanity, the mask shit included.
He also just assumes Jewish trickery, and not the obvious fact that Israel is like
Medicare and Social Security and NASA: popular with politicians because it is popular with
the public.
Israel, as Phil's commie friends put it, is our "settler-colonial" daughter state. And
nothing is too good for our girl!
I have been reading articles that go back as far as 1967 and the U.S.S. Liberty incident
in which it was implied by many writers that the U.S. was Israel's bitch. It's not as if this
thought is new, as even Admiral Thomas Moorer having stated he never knew a U.S. president
who could stand up to Israel. If all of this is true, it's pathetic as well.
Is it possible that the USA will curtail her defence power for the sake of Israel? What
will be the benefit of the USA if it amplifies Israeli Defence at the cost of US defence?
Dr. Phil, your article is truly very precise, penetrating and embarrassing to our
political class.
I can see that the American public is already all stirred up and will not take this
slouched in front of their TV sets watching the game any longer.
The MAGA's are sure to march on the White House and oust our leaders Kushner / Ivanka. The
BLM/ANTIFA's are sure to demonstrate again and ransack Congress and oust the Pelosi
Democrats.
Hilarious, LOL
I decided not to hold my breath waiting for any public reaction.
We Americans at the bottom of the money pyramid prefer to fight and name call each other
and not look upwards.
That's why America needs a revolution culminating in a complete regime change. Civil war
already appears to be on the horizon, ugly things will Bev happening, but it will
unfortunately be necessary to change the world for the better. And other countries, France,
Germany and Britain may follow.
A Democrat of New Jersey and a Republican of Florida sponsoring a bill to benefit Israel
let's just forget the Jewish angle in all these charades and call it bipartisan.
Do we need to have sources on these issues?
Haven't you learn by now, that any stone you pick, you will find a Jew hiding under?
Few days ago, with all this Bobulinski/Joe Biden/Hunter family crap I said to my wife.
Honey something is missing from the whole story.
She ask. What is missing?
I said. The Jew
And two days ago .voila!
The Yaacov(s) Apelbaum(s) have everything to see https://apelbaum.wordpress.com/
I always thought we were England's "bitch". Fought 2 world wars to stop them from having
to learn German and have continued to use our military to support their business interests
throughout the world. It can even be argued that our support for Israel is based on our
subservience to the British Crown since Israel itself is a British project. Anyway, there is
no major political leader in the US who hasn't said he is a staunch supporter of Israel. That
isn't going to change.
The way Trump has bent over and offered his rear to the Jewish lobby and Israel is
embarrassing. The USA should help and support Israel, but not at the blatant expense of
raping its own citizens.
However, one can't blame Israel for taking advantage of the corruption and weakness in the
USA, and also its amazingly dumb voting public. Who wouldn't want another country(USA) to pay
for their military(Israel) and also use the USA to fight, pay, and die for Israel?
White nationalists blame the Jewish lobby for much of the problems in America, but at the
same time they lovingly Asskiss Trump and his horrid son-in-law, who would sell out America
to Israel without any hesitation. This is first-class stupidity.
Biden may say he is a Zionist, but he has never shown the full-on, total sellout Trump has
done in putting Jewish interests always before American interests. Trump and his horrid
son-in-law have literally allowed Israel to rape America's ass everyday since he has been
POTUS.
A vote for Trump is a vote for the Jewish lobby to keep on raping America's ass thru
"bendover" Trump for the next 4 years.
Strangely here in Australia, chairman Morrison was going to put three and a half million
dollars to be matched by his hopefully newly elected Qld premier, into constructing a Jewish
holocaust museum. One can only wonder why in Qld, Australia of all places and in the 21st
century, we would need to have a Jewish propaganda business setup. Paid for by the poor old
taxpayer of course.
What follows? A museum dedicated to the twenty million dead Russians. Maybe one for the
hundreds of thousands of slaughtered Iraqi muslims. Or one in remembrance to the millions of
lives lost to the covid19 holocaust of 2020.
Sadly it seems like this Jewish rot is spreading quicker than the virus through our
societies.
The US and the Rothschild neocolony in Palestine are part of the same conglomerate. Simon
Bolivar was warning us that the US would enslave the Americas in the name of "freedom" a
years before the Monroe Doctrine became a thing, so it didn't exactly become what it is after
the Ziocorporate neocolony came to exist. How nice that the goals of the founding fathers and
the Ziocorporate world order came to intertwine so conveniently since so early on.
Have the Ziocorporate contractors and entities profited from selling tech and weapons to
the Ziosalafi former British colonies in the Middle East and from the petrodollar?
Transfering all that technology, spanning everything from nuclear weapons to cybersecurity
and AI, is the way to ensure that mafia conglomerate's primacy there and everywhere.
Jews of Europe and North Africa could've been Haavara'd to the US after WW2 but that would
have limited and complicated business opportunities for the American overclass to globalise
the Monroe Doctrine. Rome wasn't built in a day after all.
@Rich and while
we are about it you never broke the German enigma code, we did, whatever your lying Hollywood
garbage tells you. So maybe, if you end up in a war we will sell you stuff from the sidelines
until we get dragged into it ourselves and then we will see how grateful you are. As I said
earlier, save it for the French.
WW1, on the other hand was a stalemate until the Americans joined (late as always) and
after you had made huge profits, mainly at our expense. So we weren't exactly in danger then
either.
So no, you are not our bitches, both of our nations are bitches of the international
bankers.
Philip! You used the word bitch. For a faceless nobody like me that's fine but for you Mr.
Giraldi, the 'spears tip' and highly respected member of the 'beware of Zion' movement that's
even better. (Grin)
That kikenvermin Gottheimer unfortunately happens to be my congressman. He's in a close
election so lets hope he loses even though his opponent is all too aware of the power of the
CABAL. I pray for even worse endings for this slug, Jay -sus forgive me.
PS. If the Zionists get 'Bunker Buster' bombs they will need the platforms to carry them,
so the U.S. Government (us) will have to give them B 2 bombers. Insane!
The zionists were the biggest winners in 1913, when they fastened their FED and IRS on
America and since that time zionists and since 1948 Israel has been the winner and America
the loser, as the zionists have raped America.
The biggest example of this was the Israel and zionist in the ZUS attack on the WTC which
was blamed on the Arabs and gave the kabal the excuse to destroy the middle east.
You didn't really think the Zionists were going to give up control of the president to
China did you? A honeypot operation is something all intel agencies do but Israel snagged
Bill Clinton and hundreds of others.
Funny thing is the rank and file of the Jewish community is 90% registered Democrat and
wanted Hillary and now Joe but their "elites" and "leadership" care as much about their
opinion as any other groups' elites and leaders. ZERO. George Carlin was correct: "There's a
big club and you and I aren't in it".
Palm Beach County school board members voted unanimously Monday to rescind their
reinstatement of Spanish River High School Principal William Latson.
He was originally fired last year after telling a student's parent that "he can't say the
Holocaust is a factual, historical event."
The community was outraged by his comments, and the board's decision to rehire him after
an administrative law judge ruled he shouldn't have been fired.
Board member Barbara McQuinn says Latson opened the door to denying the atrocity of the
Holocaust.
=============
Sadly for you, Lot, it turns out Giraldi does have evidence for his claim: see his
response to my post.
Isn't it nice that that we clarified that?
You're a bright young gentleman, Lot -- but in Israel, you're trying to defend the
indefensible.
No matter what your intellectual resources or how much energy you expend, it can never
work. It's like trying to prove two and two make five. You may well be a mathematical prodigy
-- you still won't be able to do it.
You're wrong: logically, factually, morally. That's the way it is. It can never
change.
In truth, the United States has become Israel's bitch
Beautifully stated, Phil!
Right on tripping bro! The US should be Iran's shiite bitch as it was under Barak Hussein
Ubama. Uber Bama where you dumb whites will bump heads on carpets as you submit.
Years ago, before he was VP, I saw Biden give a speech on C-SPAN in which he said, "I am
a Zionist." I thought, "Note to self: never vote for him."
90% of Politicians are Zionists. You will NOT have a career in politics unless you are a
Zionist. If you judge by what someone says it is fatal .judge by words, actions and results.
Do the later and you will be convinced whomever the new President is .is corrupt and a
liar.
The most disgusting thing to me or should I say the most RETARDED thing to me is that
America SACRIFICES OUR TROOPS to build a Greater Israel, while America and the rest of
traditionally White nations in Europe take in primitive Muslims who are literally raping
Europeans and slaughtering them on the streets. So we bomb Arab nations for Israel, have to
MAKE ISRAEL GREAT AGAIN, get rid of (((their Muzzie problem))), and then import the
"refugees" to lands that are responsible for bombing them or killing their relatives, family
members, friends, etc. Does this sound like a recipe for DESTROYING THE WEST to you? It is a
LOSE LOSE for Whitey most definitely, and a win somewhat for the Muslim invaders who are
acquiring free housing, breeding at a rate where they will soon become the majority in places
like London, maybe even in Stockholm IF we don't put a stop to this insanity. WE are DEMANDED
to hate Muslims/Arabs when it comes to fighting Israel's Wars in the Middle East but then WE,
White people that is, are DEMANDED by our Jewish overlords to love being infested with hordes
of these same people being brought into our nations. Yes, we are to love people who rape OUR
women, live off OUR blood, sweat, and tears for FREE, take over positions of power like
becoming a mayor in the largest city in Europe, etc.
NEWS FLASH: How many Whites are in the world? How many Jews are in the world? Money and
political clout only works against you when you allow it to, when you have the numbers, you
decide, learn that. Whitey, you better wake up while you still are a diminishing majority in
your own nations.
I'll end with this one. We have all seen the commercial about sending money to Israel for
the endless "holocaust victims," my gawd, when is the last "holocaust victim" going to
finally die of old age, but now (((they))) have a commercial encouraging people to send money
to elderly Jews in Israel who are dealing with (((Covid-19.))) My lawd, do (((these people)))
have no shame. America is currently sending A MINIMUM OF 3.8 BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR TO THIS
TINY NATION, AND HERE (((THEY))) ARE STILL BEGGING FOR MORE, THIS TIME, USING THE TEAR
JERKING TECHNIQUE of showing poor, frail, bent elderly people who desperately need YOUR
shekels against the Jew Flu.
What are you going to sell used tanks? Thats like selling coal to newcastle, the only
thing we make anymore is bombs and you fellows dont make anything but obscene profits for
international banking types. You wont be dragged into to war you will be thrown in with the
rest of the nato poodles. Sad state of affairs.
@Jiminy
Strangely here in Australia, chairman Morrison was going to put three and a half million
dollars to be matched by his hopefully newly elected Qld premier, into constructing a Jewish
holocaust museum. One can only wonder why in Qld, Australia of all places and in the 21st
century, we would need to have a Jewish propaganda business setup. Paid for by the poor old
taxpayer of course.
"They" have done the same in South Africa. Modern Jewish holocaust museum in Cape Town while
native Africans sleep in the surrounding park lawns and benches. Hollowcaust Propaganda is big
"free money" business.
Everyone keeps on talking about the election. I just can't be bothered to care.
I do care about politics in the sense that I care, as anyone else does, about the
distribution of power in the United States and the extent to which American ideas can spread to
the rest of the world. These issues, like Israel, are not voted upon.
That's a bit different than "politics", a local American ritual in which normies select a
random point within the pre-packaged spectrum of political correctness and pick a candidate
based on where they live and what's considered socially acceptable in that locale They then
rationalize their decision based on the perception of the candidate's personality and/or some
generality like "I oppose racism".
Its truly masterful to create a system where any potential criticism or pushback you may
face is made illegal under defamation laws enforced by an Institution – you control. The
Jewish 'attack' (and I think it is fair to say, we are under attack from a highly ruthless,
very clever enemy playing completely by its own rules) appears to be on several fronts
–
1)Political lobbying / Political positioning / Positions in Justice System / Other
Government Positions
This has effectively given a foreign power a vice like grip on our politics, law, culture,
industry and banking system/financial markets. They are able to create and control a narrative
to enforce beneficial ideologies whilst simultaneously censoring any threats through fact and
data suppression. Its a communist dream come true. The worst thing is, they make us grateful
and willing participants, its the definition of evil genius!
What scares me is we what we don't know about Jewish Power -the clandestine activities to
gain more political leverage and power.
Trying to educate people on this subject (made easier by articles like this)is very
difficult. Would we be comfortable with allowing moslems or hindus the same influence in our
governments in terms of sheer number of positions and access to policy creation/change or
military funding etc Probably not but that's becasue nobody does it better than the Jews. Your
absolutely right – Israel always gets what it wants.
@Clyde sh
President" became the cover headline for a 2011 article in New York Magazine). In that same CJN
article, another Democratic activist, Newton Minow, told CJN that Obama "is very much at home
with Jewish people, their values and interests," while Rabbi Arnold Wolf of KAM Isaiah Israel
Congregation in Chicago, of blessed memory, said Obama is "embedded in the Jewish world."
@MarkU
g-letter-documents-King-George-V-urged-foreign-secretary-justify-conflict-two-days-outbreak-First-World-War.html
In a time where mobilization was seen as an act of war, Germany was the last country to
mobilize for WWI.
Of course the evil Nahhhtzeees were just itching to invade the UK. http://www.tomatobubble.com/id763.html
He may have done the same to the UK as he had done to Germany – have full employment
and an increased standard of living, without the banks being involved. That just was not going
to happen. All wars are banker wars.
"Could care less about" drives me up the wall, too, as we split grammatical hairs
while Israel is right on the cusp of finally getting White America destroyed. This is it!
Thank God Trump put an end to all this Israel's bitch nonsense. Now we're a full blown whore
for
Tel Aviv and the world knows it. Trump gave "Cadillac Bebe" our pimp the key to the "White
House, America and the hearts of the American people". Yo Bebe when you're finished turn the
lights out.
As IF Joe " I Am A Zionist" Biden, and Barack Obama aka "The First Jewish President" were
any better. I voted for Trump, and I agree, he is no different than the rest when it comes to
Israel, but do you really want Joe The Zionist who will gladly step down and relinquish the
office to "Caramel" Harris in less than a year to run things.
Trump has been a disappointment but at least he is isn't OPENLY ANTI-WHITE and he bides us 4
more years.
The demsheviks suck even more Zionist cawk than the republiCANTS if that is possible.
Well to be fair, you did manage to sell us used destroyers which might have seemed equally
unlikely. But you are right, I was merely making a rhetorical point, and yes a very sad state
of affairs.
"If we're supposed to be so worried about "election disinformation" and foreign election
meddling, shouldn't we be concerned about a British multimillionaire -- with unexplained
connections to the CIA and the White House press corps, and public affiliation with other
institutions clearly hostile to Trump like the ADL -- carrying out massive information ops in
the lead-up to an election that he has publicly expressed an interest in influencing? Or should
we just pretend it's all okay because the press told us we're supposed to be laughing?"
Am I allowed to point out that if America is Israels slave, then surely America is Japan's
slave?
America keeps large troop forces in Japan to defend it. The Japanese save money and use it
to develop their industries which outcompete American industries.
To an alien, it would surely appear that somehow, Japan has managed to infiltrate the top
levels of the US government.
Likewise, America lost over 70,000 soldiers to defend Vietnam, and spent an untold amount
over several years, in a region far from America. An alien might think Vietnam had somehow
managed to enslave American leaders.
Or would our alien be missing crucial context, and is American policy consistent in all
these cases on based on principles, and not a question of being enslaved by foreign powers.
@Curmudgeon body
is going to argue about borrowing, unless they want to be called a traitor. I wonder how many
people could provide even a vaguely sensible account of the issues that started WW1?
He is a comedian primarily but I thought it was interesting and he provides some key
insights. It is also quite entertaining I thought, but humour is a very individual thing. You
sound as if you would know most of that stuff anyway but it is worth a watch even so.
How do you win this civil war? Sounds good, but I know way to may holy rollers that want
their rapture and Jew rule. I don't know a liberal who isn't a Zionist. So where will you get
the human numbers, and how do you get weapons?
Kinda old news. The Zionists have been ruling the US since they were rumored to have
assassinated JFK. Like him or not , he was the last president to say no to Israel. Well George
HW Bush did a soft no on West Bank settlements, but I believe he was the one to put us under
Noahide laws. Guess losing an election was the nice way to admonish him for being a partial
good goy.
Great piece this, confirming what we have already known for some decades: that we are
effectively a colony of Israel. And as colonies go, crucial decisions of the colonies are made
in the colonizers' metropolitan capitals, in this case, of Zionist Israel. What sets this
relationship apart from classical colonizer-colony ones, is that the colonizer is heavily
subsidized by its colony's taxes – in this case a blank check without the consent of the
tax payers. Moreover, in contrast to classic colonialism, America's total surrender to Jewish
power, means that any war of liberation from colonialism has been effectively neutralized long
before the first salvo has been fired. This mockery of a nation's "sovereignty" marks a
historic first in the annals of the so-called international relations and power dispensation
among sovereign nations. The Anglo-Zio Empire's takeover of American, and by extension Western
countries is now complete. And all without a single shot being fired. It is surrender and
capitulation in the absence of war. It has to be admitted that Jewish power has pulled off a
uniquely historic and non-violent colonial project – with the absolute complicity of the
colonized.
Biden is just a hologram who will vanish shortly. They'll keep "Five Dollar Kamala" on ice
till crypt keeper Joe exits at that time Miss Mudsville will start getting her orders from Mt.
Zion in keeping with American tradition.
You didn't fight 2 world wars, you came late to both and entered after everyone else did the
heavy lifting. In neither case did your national industry and infrastructure suffer any damage,
which allowed you to remain a rich country compared to devastated nations.
You deserve what Israel is doing to you for no other reason than that you are incapable of
understanding history and consider yourselves exceptional like all the other failed empires of
history.
The Israeli attack on U.S.S. LIBERTY was a criminal act. A commissioned vessel of the United
States Navy was attacked under conditions of flawless weather and calm seas. Earlier, Israeli
planes had flown reconnaissance over the ship. They knew damned well she was American.
Admiral Thomas Moorer, USN was right. Also, to his dying day, he believed the attack on
LIBERTY was deliberate.
@geokat62 hey have
gotten the US to do for them what AIPAC can only dream about.
How AIPAC would love to get America stations tens of thousands of troops in Israel and
commit to defending it so Israel can disband the IDF and build up its economy!
All Israel gets is a few billion thrown at it and guarantees about its "qualitative edge",
while Vietnam gets 70,000 Americans dying for it, and Japan gets an actual defense
commitment.
AIPAC are rank amateurs compared to the Japanese and Vietnamese, whose ability to infiltrate
and manipulate Ameeica to their advantage is awe inspiring.
@Colin Wright I
certainly hope Israel has enough agents/embedded computer viruses in Iran that it can "in a
period of months"
destroying power plants, aluminum and chemical factories, a medical clinic and 7 ships at
the port of Bushehr
But that strikes me as implausible, and your question indicates you may have agreed.
Not just "a power plant" and "a factory." Not just "damaged." But "destroyed" "power plant
s " plural and "aluminum and chemical factories." While a chemical plant could be a
small operation, aluminum mills are expensive and gigantic operations.
Of course, why does NuttyYahoo need a bodyguard when he's visiting Knesset West–er,
uh, the U.S. Congress? Surely he must know he's among friends?! . . .
' Not just "a power plant" and "a factory." Not just "damaged." But "destroyed" "power
plants" plural and "aluminum and chemical factories." While a chemical plant could be a small
operation, aluminum mills are expensive and gigantic operations.'
Nu? So what would an acceptable amount of aggression be?
Say, a couple of twin towers? How about something like the Liberty?
So lessee. Japan is 146,000 square miles. The territory assigned to the Jewish state in 1947
was maybe 6000 square miles. Let's say 7300 square miles -- just to simplify the math. Besides,
we can be afford to be generous Israel being such a valuable ally and all.
So you get one-twentieth the garrison Japan gets. That would be 3500 troops!
I wonder how many Americans are serving in the IDF right now? Maybe we can just reassign
them.
Then you could disarm and withdraw from your Manchukuos et al right away. why wait?
We have a deal!
maybe after ten years or so we'll let you establish a self-defense force.
Meantime in Yankee Land Defund the police depts, jewish led riots, lootings, BLMANTIFA
terrorism, and electoral FRAUD, cut Medicare payments, Lockdowns, WS bail outs, massive
layoffs, small business bankcrupcies, foreclosures, delapidated failed cities Detroit, St
Louis, Baltimore, decrepit national infrasestructure, massive illeteracy, rise of crime,
resurgence of 3th world diseases, urban blight, 5more wars in the MEast Iran, Syria, and
probably, open borders, H1A,Bs visas expansion, .Massive Chinese global expansion teh New Silk
Road, Venezuelas oil, Bolvias (lithium), while Israel enjoys a record economic growth, and
FISCAL surplus who is paying for that???
@Colin Wright
Japan, S Korea, Taiwan, and Europe in the Cold War.
I actually kind of feel like a sucker – we fought all our bloody wars ourselves while
somehow the devious Vietnamese and Japanese, South Koreans and Europeans, conned the Americans
to actually die for them, or be prepared to, in large numbers.
And hey, you guys claim America fights our wars anyways, so we might as well actually make
that a reality, as it is for so many other countries.
AIPAC is pretty pathetic come to think of it. We're getting the worst deal America has given
any of its liberal democratic allies.
@Orville H. Larson
g constitutionally valid currency as against their "Green Frog-Skin" Monopoly money printed and
owned by the bankster-owned "Federal" Reserve Bank.
According to a source I recently accessed, the Rothschilds may well have been behind the
assassinations of 6 previous presidents and an attempted hit on the greatest enemy of privately
owned central banks, Andrew Jackson.
The rotting/rotten bodies of both McCains and LBJ, should be disinterred and hanged by their
skeletal necks on the Capital Mall as examples (even post-mortem) of the fate of traitors to
the Republic and its sovereign power, WE THE PEOPLE.
"A bill, the so-called "U.S.-Israel Common Defense Authorization Act," is making its way
through the House of Representatives and will authorize the provision of U.S. manufactured
bunker buster bombs to Israel. As the bombs would only be useful in Israel's neighborhood to
bomb hardened sites in Iran, the message being sent is obvious. The Massive Ordnance Penetrator
weighs 30,000 pounds and is capable of destroying targets located deep underground. Oddly,
Israel doesn't have a plane capable of carrying that weight so the presumption is that the
White House will also have to provide the bomber. The bill is co-sponsored by two leading
Israel firsters in Congress Democrat Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey and Republican Brian Mast of
Florida."
The intriguing part about this is israel lacking a bomber capable of carrying the bomb. Will
the b-21 in development be capable of carrying these bombs? Can the b-2? I have not looked into
it, but as this type of bomb is dropped from high altitude, I believe, these low flying
"stealth" types would probably be unsuitable platforms. That leaves old b-52s and b-1s. Both of
these would require the israelis controlling the air space they are used in, as well as the AD
to have been neutralized.
Regarding target countries, I'm sure the israelis wouldn't limit their use to a war against
Iran, but would drop them on anyone. Especially Gazans. Doubtful the israelis would go to war
against Iran, since they have usa/nato available for that role. If one notices, the israelis
don't really fight wars any more, they have the colonials do that for them.
"It reportedly has approached the Pentagon seeking to buy the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor, a
single-seat, twin-engine, all-weather stealth tactical fighter aircraft that was originally
developed for the United States Air Force (USAF). Its stealth capability, top speed,
maneuverability combined with advanced air-to-air and air-to-ground weapon systems, makes it
the best air superiority fighter in the world."
The f-22 is not "the best air superiority fighter in the world." That's pindo exceptionalism
mythology at work. Its capabilities were grossly exaggerated and its real measure is why the
aircraft was taken out of production early. Well before the scheduled full production run was
complete. Had this aircraft actually been what the propagandists claimed, it would still be in
production today, despite it's high cost. Also the f-22 is less up to date than the f-35, for
example, with regard to electronics.
It is too late to restart production, so any given to israel would be from the existing
stock. There are only about 180 of these built, about enough for 6-8 squadrons (?), any given
to israel would probably leave the usa with too few for its own, now minimal, requirements for
the plane. The few given to israel would not improve israel's military much, while require a
disproportionate effort of upkeep to their net worth.
On the other hand, maybe israel wants all the f-22s, while it awaits the u.s. 6th gen to be
developed (in something like 20 years ), and will leave its american colony with just the f-35.
I can see their likudite trump regime pushing that through.
"In truth, the United States has become Israel's bitch"
Yup. And under the trump regime the israelis this bitch services are the likudites, the
netanyahoos and even more bug-eyed extreme. Decent article, btw, on the israeli control of its
american colony.
' Admiral Thomas Moorer, USN was right. Also, to his dying day, he believed the attack on
LIBERTY was deliberate.'
There's also Dean Rusk, the US Secretary of State at the time:
' But I was never satisfied with the Israeli explanation. Their sustained attack to
disable and sink Liberty precluded an assault by accident or some trigger-happy local
commander. Through diplomatic channels we refused to accept their explanations. I didn't
believe them then, and I don't believe them to this day. The attack was outrageous."'
How is it ok for a person of jewish heritage to make fun of slavs but not ok for people of
slavic heritage to make fun of jews? Cohen is now a "serious actor"with his role as the "hero"
mossad mole of the same name who inflitraited the syrian govt. (and got what he deserved for
it).
' I actually kind of feel like a sucker – we fought all our bloody wars ourselves
while somehow the devious Vietnamese and Japanese, South Koreans and Europeans, conned the
Americans to actually die for them, or be prepared to, in large numbers '
Only Aaron could transmogrify our having fought World War Two into having fought it 'for'
Japan. I'm not sure the Japanese are suitably appreciative. I mean, they're reasonably polite
about it and all, but
Anyway, Israel hasn't fought a war on her own since 1948. We've been over that.
Profiles In Courage Department. In March 2015 the visiting Izzy PM spoke before the
U.S.Congress. Of course, the speech ended with a raucous Standing Ovation in which the pols
competed with each other as to who could display the most ecstatic cheering possible. However,
jew spotters noticed one pol, Rand Paul, not clapping and cheering enthusiastically enough, and
took him to task in the kept media for displaying less than orgasmic approval of the visiting
Izzy PM. The courageous senator defended himself by loudly exclaiming to anyone who would
listen: "I have given him over 50 standing ovations".
"Nu? So what would an acceptable amount of aggression be?'
Like I said, I would be pleasantly surprised if PG's claim were true. But it is implausible
and its "source" is an un-sourced claim at a nutball website.
"... There is no fool like an old American fool. Like Joe Biden, for instance. In the last presidential "debate" he called Xi Jinping and Putin "thugs." What does this tell you about the state of American diplomacy? ..."
I'm not even a US American but I recall deep my embarrassment when watching the vulgar
Hillary Clinton handling herself in the presence of Sergey Lavrov – around the time of
the excruciating "reset" event.
And today you guys have Pompeo for Christ sake! How can you stand the shame – where
do you get these people?
There is no fool like an old American fool. Like Joe Biden, for instance. In the last
presidential "debate" he called Xi Jinping and Putin "thugs." What does this tell you about
the state of American diplomacy?
Sure, Joe is trying to win cheap political points by catering to the abysmally ignorant
and savagely russophobic average American voters. But at what political cost to the country
he represents! And what exactly does this old American fool want to do when he says that
Russia and China will "pay a price."
What can America do to the world's supreme military power (Russia) and to the world's
supreme economic power (China)? Particularly now that these two superpowers are working
together.
How senile and stupid has Biden become! He stopped developing intellectually about 50
years ago. And now he never will.
The senility may be new but joe biden has always been stupid. One of the only people on
the planet that can stick both of his feet in his mouth at the same time.
Tramp was essentially the President from military industrial complex and Israel lobby. So he was not played. That's naive. He
followed the instructions.
On March 20, 2018, President
Donald Trump
sat beside Saudi crown prince Muhammed bin Salman at the White House and lifted a giant map that said
Saudi weapons purchases would support jobs in "key" states -- including Pennsylvania, Michigan, Florida and Ohio, all
of which were crucial to Trump's
2016 election victory
.
"Saudi Arabia has been a very great friend and a big purchaser of
equipment but if you look, in terms of dollars, $3 billion, $533 million, $525 million -- that's peanuts for you. You
should have increased it," Trump
said
to the prince, who was (and still is) overseeing a military campaign in Yemen that has deployed U.S. weaponry to commit
scores
of alleged war crimes.
Trump has used his job as commander-in-chief to be America's arms-dealer-in-chief
in a way no other president has since Dwight Eisenhower, as he prepared to leave the presidency, warned in early 1961
of the military-industrial complex's political influence. Trump's posture makes sense personally ― this is a man who
regularly
fantasizes
about violence, usually toward foreigners ― and he and his advisers see it as politically useful, too. The president
has repeatedly appeared at weapons production facilities in swing states,
promoted
the head of Lockheed Martin using White House resources, appointed defense industry employees to top government jobs
in an unprecedented way and expanded the Pentagon's budget to near-historic highs ― a guarantee of future income for
companies like Lockheed and Boeing.
Trump is "on steroids in terms of promoting arms sales for his own
political benefit," said William Hartung, a scholar at the Center for International Policy who has tracked the defense
industry for decades. "It's a targeted strategy to get benefits from workers in key states."
In courting the billion-dollar industry, Trump has trampled on moral
considerations about how buyers like the Saudis misuse American weapons, ethical concerns about conflicts of interest
and even part of his own political message, the deceptive
claim
that he is a peace candidate. He justifies his policy by citing job growth, but data from
Hartung
,
a prominent analyst, shows he exaggerates the impact. And Trump has made clear that a major motivation for his defense
strategy is the possible electoral benefit it could have.
Next month's election
will show if the bargain was worth it. As of now, it looks like Trump's bet didn't pay off
― for him, at least. Campaign contribution records, analysts in swing states and polls suggest arms dealers have given
the president no significant political boost. The defense contractors, meanwhile, are expected to
continue
getting richer, as they have in a dramatic
way
under Trump.
Playing Corporate Favorites
Trump has thrice chosen the person who decides how the Defense Department
spends its gigantic budget. Each time, he has tapped someone from a business that wants those Pentagon dollars. Mark
Esper, the current defense secretary, worked for Raytheon; his predecessor, Pat Shanahan, for Boeing; and Trump's first
appointee, Jim Mattis, for General Dynamics, which reappointed him to its board soon after he left the administration.
Of the senior officials serving under Esper, almost half have connections
to military contractors,
per
the Project on Government Oversight. The administration is now rapidly trying to fill more Pentagon jobs under the guidance
of a former Trump campaign worker, Foreign Policy magazine recently
revealed
― prioritizing political reasons and loyalty to Trump in choosing people who could help craft policy even under a
Joe Biden
presidency.
Such personnel choices are hugely important for defense companies'
profit margins and risk creating corruption or the impression of it. Watchdog groups argue Trump's handling of the hiring
process is more evidence that lawmakers and future presidents must institute rules to limit the reach of military contractors
and other special interests.
"Given the hundreds of conflicts of interest flouting the rule of
law in the
Trump administration
, certainly these issues have gotten that much more attention and are that much more salient
now than they were four years ago," said Aaron Scherb, the director of legislative affairs at Common Cause, a nonpartisan
good-government group.
The theoretical dangers of Trump's approach became a reality last
year, when a former employee for the weapons producer Raytheon used his job at the State Department to advocate for a
rare emergency declaration allowing the Saudis and their partner the United Arab Emirates to buy $8 billion in arms ―
including $2 billion in Raytheon products ― despite congressional objections. As other department employees warned that
Saudi Arabia was defying U.S. pressure to behave less brutally in Yemen, former lobbyist Charles Faulkner led a unit
that urged Secretary of State
Mike Pompeo
to give the kingdom more weapons. Pompeo
pushed
out Faulkner soon afterward, and earlier this year, the State Department's inspector general
criticized
the process behind the emergency declaration for the arms.
MOHAMED AL-SAYAGHI / REUTERS
Red
Crescent medics walk next to bags containing the bodies of victims of Saudi-linked airstrikes on a Houthi detention center
in Yemen on Sept. 1, 2019. The Saudis military campaign in Yemen has relied on U.S. weaponry to commit scores of alleged
war crimes.
Even Trump administration officials not clearly connected to the
defense industry have shown an interest in moves that benefit it. In 2017, White House economic advisor Peter Navarro
pressured
Republican lawmakers to permit exports to Saudi Arabia and Jared
Kushner, the president's counselor and son-in-law, personally
spoke
with Lockheed Martin's chief to iron out a sale to the kingdom, The New York Times found.
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When Congress gave the Pentagon $1 billion to develop medical supplies
as part of this year's
coronavirus
relief package, most of the money went to defense contractors for projects like jet engine parts instead,
a Washington Post investigation
showed
.
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"It's a very close relationship and there's no kind of sense that
they're supposed to be regulating these people," Hartung said. "It's more like they're allies, standing shoulder to shoulder."
Seeking Payback
In June 2019, Lockheed Martin announced that it would close a facility
that manufactures helicopters in Coatesville, Pennsylvania, and employs more than 450 people. Days later, Trump tweeted
that he had asked the company's then-chief executive, Marillyn Hewson, to keep the plant open. And by July 10, Lockheed
said
it would do so ― attributing the decision to Trump.
The president has frequently claimed credit for jobs in the defense
industry, highlighting the impact on manufacturing in swing states rather than employees like Washington lobbyists, whose
numbers have also
grown
as he has expanded the Pentagon's budget. Lockheed has helped him in his messaging: In one instance in Wisconsin, Hewson
announced
she was adding at least 45 new positions at a plant directly after Trump spoke there, saying his tax cuts for corporations
made that possible.
Trump is pursuing a strategy that the arms industry uses to insulate
itself from political criticism. "They've reached their tentacles into every state and many congressional districts,"
Scherb of Common Cause said. That makes it hard for elected officials to question their operations or Pentagon spending
generally without looking like they are harming their local economy.
Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, a Democrat who represents Coatesville,
welcomed
Lockheed's change of course, though she warned, "This decision is a temporary reprieve. I am concerned that Lockheed
Martin and [its subsidiary] Sikorsky are playing politics with the livelihoods of people in my community."
The political benefit for Trump, though, remains in question, given
that as president he has a broad set of responsibilities and is judged in different ways.
"Do I think it's important to keep jobs? Absolutely," said Marcel
Groen, a former Pennsylvania Democratic party chair. "And I think we need to thank the congresswoman and thank the president
for it. But it doesn't change my views and I don't think it changes most people's in terms of the state of the nation."
With polls showing that Trump's disastrous response to the
health pandemic
dominates voters' thoughts and Biden sustaining a lead
in surveys of most swing states
, his argument on defense industry jobs seems like a minor factor in this election.
Hartung of the Center for International Policy drew a parallel to
President George H.W. Bush, who during his 1992 reelection campaign promoted plans for Taiwan and Saudi Arabia to purchase
fighter jets produced in Missouri and Texas. Bush
announced
the
decisions
at events at the General Dynamics facility in Fort Worth, Texas, and the McDonnell Douglas plant in St. Louis that made
the planes. That November, as Bill Clinton defeated him, he lost Missouri by the highest
margin
of any Republican in almost 30 years and won Texas by a slimmer
margin
than had become the norm for a GOP presidential candidate.
MANDEL NGAN VIA GETTY IMAGES
President
Donald Trump greets then-Lockheed Martin CEO Marillyn Hewson at the Derco Aerospace Inc. plant in Milwaukee on July 12,
2019. Trump does not appear to be winning his political bet that increased defense spending would help his political
fortunes.
Checking The Receipts
The defense industry can't control whether voters buy Trump's arguments
about his relationship with it. But it could, if it wanted to, try to help him politically in a more direct way: by donating
to his reelection campaign and allied efforts.
Yet arms manufacturers aren't reciprocating Trump's affection. A
HuffPost review of Federal Election Commission records showed that top figures and groups at major industry organizations
like the National Defense Industrial Association and the Aerospace Industries Association and at Lockheed, Trump's favorite
defense firm, are donating this cycle much as they normally do: giving to both sides of the political aisle, with a slight
preference to the party currently wielding the most power, which for now is Republicans. (The few notable exceptions
include the chairman of the NDIA's board, Arnold Punaro, who has given more than $58,000 to Trump and others in the GOP.)
Data from the Center for Responsive Politics
shows
that's the case for contributions from the next three biggest groups of defense industry donors after Lockheed's employees.
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One smaller defense company, AshBritt Environmental, did
donate
$500,000 to a political action committee supporting Trump ― prompting a complaint from the Campaign Legal Center, which
noted that businesses that take federal dollars are not allowed to make campaign contributions. Its founder
told
ProPublica he meant to make a personal donation.
For weapons producers, backing both parties makes sense. The military
budget will have increased 29% under Trump by the end of the current fiscal year,
per
the White House Office of Management and Budget. Biden has
said
he doesn't see cuts as "inevitable" if he is elected, and his circle of advisers includes many from the national security
world who have worked closely with ― and in many cases worked for ― the defense industry.
And arms manufacturers are "busy pursuing their own interests" in
other ways, like trying to get a piece of additional government stimulus legislation, Hartung said ― an effort that's
underway as the Pentagon's inspector general
investigates
how defense contractors got so much of the first coronavirus relief package.
Meanwhile, defense contractors continue to have an outsize effect
on the way policies are designed in Washington through less political means. A recent report from the Center for International
Policy found that such companies have given at least $1 billion to the nation's most influential think tanks since 2014
― potentially spending taxpayer money to influence public opinion. They have also found less obvious ways to maintain
support from powerful people, like running the databases that many congressional offices use to connect with constituents,
Scherb of Common Cause said.
"This goes into a much bigger systemic issue about big money in politics
and the role of corporations versus the role of Americans," Scherb said.
Given its reach, the defense industry has little reason to appear
overtly partisan. Instead, it's projecting confidence despite the generally dreary state of the global economy: Boeing
CEO Dave Calhoun
has said
he expects similar approaches from either winner of the election,
arguing even greater Democratic control and the rise of less conventional lawmakers isn't a huge concern.
In short, whoever is in the White House, arms dealers tend to do
just fine.
We all like to have our worldview affirmed by a corroborating voice, even if that, too, is
an opinion. This, for me, was like lying back in a hot bath.
I have said as far back as I can remember, during Pompeo's tenure as Giant Blasphemous
Cream Puff of State, that the damage he was doing to the relationship between America and her
allies was significant and perhaps irreparable. The article, if accurate, reveals a China
which is quite a bit like Russia in its official treatment of minorities – subordinate
ethnicities are recognized as distinct societies if their population meets a reasonable
threshold, and where an ethnic population is regionally dominant, an autonomous government is
established to facilitate local governance by people of the same ethnic background.
I was not aware that during the term of China's one-child policy – a dreadful time
which led to the abortion or other more-horrible disposals of unwanted baby girls –
mothers among ethnic minorities were permitted two or even three children.
The article is obviously written in defense of China, but the authors seem to have
substantiated their claims satisfactorily where such material is offered. Unsubstantiated
opinion is often a close match with those offered by commenters on this forum.
George Koo linked to a Youtube video of Mike Pompeous and the Croatian Prime Minister
Andrej Plenkovic at a press conference in Dubrovnik. Watch how Plenkovic deals with
Pompeosity!
I swear I saw the Pompous One deflate considerably after Plenkovic's speech about China's
BRI initiative. Good thing the wind was up and active otherwise the smell would have been
horrific and everyone would have been knocked unconscious.
Fight it all you want, but there's nothing you can do. "The emails are Russian" is going to
be the official dominant narrative in mainstream political discourse, and there's nothing you
can do to stop it. Resistance is futile.
Like the Russian hacking narrative, the Trump-Russia collusion narrative, the Russian
bounties in Afghanistan narrative, and any other evidence-free framing of events that
simultaneously advances pre-planned cold war agendas, is politically convenient for the
Democratic party and generates clicks and ratings, the narrative that the New York Post
publication of Hunter Biden's emails is a Russian operation is going to be hammered and
hammered and hammered until it becomes the mainstream consensus. This will happen regardless of
facts and evidence, up to and including rock solid evidence that Hunter Biden's emails were not
published as a result of a Russian operation.
This is happening. It's following the same formula all the other fact-free Russia hysteria
narratives have followed. The same media tour by pundits and political operatives saying with
no evidence but very assertive voices that Russia is most certainly behind this occurrence and
we should all be very upset about it.
"To me, this is just classic textbook Soviet Russian tradecraft at work," Russiagate founder
and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper is heard assuring CNN's audience .
"Joe Biden – and all of us – SHOULD be furious that media outlets are spreading
what is very likely Russian propaganda," begins and eight-part thread by Democratic Senator
Chris Murphy, who claims the emails are "Kremlin constructed anti-Biden propaganda."
"It's not really surprising at all, this was always the play, but still kind of
head-spinning to watch all the players from 2016 run exactly the same hack-leak-smear op in
2020. Even with everyone knowing exactly what's happening this time," tweets MSNBC's Chris
Hayes.
"How are you all circling the wagons instead of being embarrassed for peddling Russian ops
18 days before the election. It's not enough that you all haven't learned from your atrocious
handling of 2016 -- you are doubling down," Democratic Party think tanker Neera Tanden
tweeted in admonishment of
journalists who dare to report on or ask questions about the emails.
Virtually the entirety of the Democratic Party-aligned political/media class has streamlined
this narrative of Russian influence into the American consciousness with very little inertia,
despite the fact that neither Joe nor Hunter Biden has disputed the authenticity of the emails
and despite a complete absence of evidence for Russian involvement in their publication.
This is surely the first time, at least in recent memory, that we have ever seen such a
broad consensus within the mass media that it is the civic duty of news reporters to try and
influence the outcome of a presidential general election by withholding negative news coverage
for one candidate. There was a lot of fascinated hatred for Trump in 2016, but people still
reported on Hillary Clinton's various scandals and didn't attack one another for doing so. In
2020 that has changed, and mainstream news reporters have now largely coalesced along the
doctrine that they must avoid any reporting which might be detrimental to the Biden
campaign.
"Dem Party hacks (and many of their media allies) genuinely believe it's immoral to report
on or even discuss stories that reflect poorly on Biden. In reality, it's the responsibility of
journalists to ignore their vapid whining and ask about newsworthy stories, even about Biden,"
tweeted The Intercept 's Glenn
Greenwald recently.
"You don't even have to think the Hunter Biden materials constitute some kind of
earth-shattering story to be absolutely repulsed at the authoritarian propaganda offensive
being waged to discredit them -- primarily by journalists who behave like compliant little
trained robots ," tweeted journalist Michael
Tracey.
Last month The Spectator 's Stephen L Miller described how the consensus
formed among the mainstream press since Clinton's 2016 loss that it is their moral duty to
be uncritical of Trump's opponent.
"For almost four years now, journalists have shamed their colleagues and themselves over
what I will call the 'but her emails' dilemma," Miller writes. "Those who reported dutifully on
the ill-timed federal investigation into Hillary Clinton's private server and spillage of
classified information have been cast out and shunted away from the journalist cool kids'
table. Focusing so much on what was, at the time, a considerable scandal, has been written off
by many in the media as a blunder. They believe their friends and colleagues helped put Trump
in the White House by focusing on a nothing-burger of a Clinton scandal when they should have
been highlighting Trump's foibles. It's an error no journalist wants to repeat."
So "the emails are Russian" narrative serves the interests of political convenience,
partisan media ratings, and the national security state's pre-planned agenda to continue
escalating against Russia as part of its
slow motion third world war against nations which refuse to bow to US dictates, and you've
got essentially no critical mainstream news coverage putting the brakes on any of it. This
means this narrative is going to become mainstream orthodoxy and treated as an established
fact, despite the fact that there is no actual, tangible evidence for it.
Joe Biden could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and the mainstream
press would crucify any journalist who so much as tweeted about it. Very
little journalism is going into vetting and challenging him, and a great deal of the energy
that would normally be doing so is going into ensuring that he slides right into the White
House.
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If the mainstream news really existed to tell you the truth about what's going on, everyone
would know about every questionable decision that Joe Biden has ever made, Russiagate would
never have happened, we'd all be acutely aware of the fact that powerful forces are pushing us
into increasingly aggressive confrontations with two nuclear-armed nations, and Trump would be
grilled about
Yemen in every press conference.
But the mainstream news does not exist to tell you the truth about the world. The mainstream
news exists to advance the interests of its wealthy owners and the status quo upon which they
have built their kingdoms. That's why it's
so very, very important that we find ways to break away from it and share information with
each other that isn't tainted by corrupt and powerful interests.
* * *
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I've written) in any way they like free of charge.
Esper's speech demonstrates a confluence of policies, ideas, and funds that permeate
through the system, and are by no means unique to a single service, think tank, or
contractor.
First, Esper consistently situated his future expansion plans in a need to adapt to "an
era of great power competition." CNAS is one of the think tanks leading the charge in
highlighting the threat from Beijing.
They also received at least $8,946,000 from 2014-2019 from the U.S. government and
defense contractors, including over $7 million from defense contractors like Northrop
Grumman, Lockheed Martin, Huntington Ingalls, General Dynamics, and Boeing who would stand
to make billions if the 500-ship fleet were enacted.
It's all about the money. Foreign and domestic policy is always all about the money,
either directly or indirectly. Of course, the ultimate goal is power - or more precisely, the
ultimate goal is relief of the fear of death, which drives every single human's every action,
and only power can do that, and in this world only money can give you power (or so the
chimpanzees believe.)
The problem with American imperialism that like tiger it can't change its spots. In this
sense Trump vs Biden is false dilemma. "Bothe aare worse" as Stalin quipped on the other
occasion. Both still profess "Full Spectrum Dominance" doctrine at the expense of the standard of
living of the USA people (outside of top 10 or 20%)
The problem with Putin statement is that both candidates are marionette of more powerful
forces. Trump is a hostage of Izreal lobby, which in the USA are mostly consist of rabid
Russophobes (look art Schiff, Schumer and other members of this gang). Biden is a classic
neoliberal warmonger, much like Hillary was, who voted for Iraq war, contributed to color
revolution in Ukraine, and was instrumental in the conversion of Dems into the second war party.
So there is zero choice in the coming election unless you want to punish Trump for the betrayal
of his electorate, which probably is the oonly valid reason to vote for Biden in key states;
otherwise you san safely ignore the elections as youn; influence anythng. In a deep sense this is
a simply legitimization procedure for the role of the "Deep State", not so much real elections as
both cadidates were already vetted by neoliberal establishment
The key problem with voting for Bide is that this way you essentially legitimizing Obama
administration RussiaGate false flag operation. But as Putin said, chances for extending the
Start treaty might worse this self-betrayal.
Like much of the American public, the Russian public is no doubt weary of the prior couple
years of non-stop 'Russiagate' headlines and wild accusations out of Western press, which all
are now pretty much in complete agreement came to absolutely nothing. This is also why the
whole issue has been conspicuously dropped by the Biden campaign and as a talking point among
the Democrats, though in some corners there's been meek attempts to revive it, especially
related to claims of "expected" Kremlin interference in the impending presidential
election.
Apparently seeing in this an opportunity for some epic trolling, Russian President Vladimir
Putin in an interview with Rossiya 1 TV days ago said it was actually the Democratic Party and
the Communist Party which have most in common.
Putin was speaking in terms of historic Soviet communism in the recent interview (Wednesday)
detailed in Newsweek. "The Democratic Party is traditionally closer to the so-called liberal
values, closer to social democratic ideas," Putin began. "And it was from the social democratic
environment that the Communist Party evolved."
"After all, I was a member of the Soviet Communist Party for nearly 20 years" Putin added.
"I was a rank-and-file member, but it can be said that I believed in the party's ideas. I
still like many of these left-wing values. Equality and fraternity. What is bad about them?
In fact, they are akin to Christian values."
"Yes, they are difficult to implement, but they are very attractive, nevertheless. In
other words, this can be seen as an ideological basis for developing contacts with the
Democratic representative."
The Russian president also invoked that historically Russian communists in the Soviet era
would have been fully on board the Black Lives Matter movement and other civil rights related
causes. "So, this is something that can be seen, to a degree, as common values, if not a
unifying agent for us," the Russian president said. "People of my generation remember a time
when huge portraits of Angela Davis, a member of the U.S. Communist Party and an ardent fighter
for the rights of African Americans, were on view around the Soviet Union."
So there it is: Putin is saying his own personal ideological past could be a basis of
"shared values" with a Biden presidency, again, it what appears to be a sophisticated bit of
trolling that he knows Biden won't welcome one bit. Or let's call it a 'Russian endorsement
Putin style'. The Associated Press and others described it as Putin "hedging his bets",
however.
Another interesting part of the interview is where the Russian TV presenter asked Putin the
following question:
"The entire world is watching the final stage of the US presidential race. Much has
happened there, including things we could never imagine happening before but the one constant
in recent years is that your name is mentioned all the time," Zarubin said. "Moreover, during
the latest debates, which have provoked a public outcry, presidential candidate Biden called
candidate Trump 'Putin's puppy.'"
"Since they keep talking about you, I would like to ask a question which you probably will
not want to answer," the interviewer continued. "Nevertheless, here it is: Whose position in
this race, Trump's or Biden's, appeals to you more?"
And here's Putin's response:
"Everything that is happening in the United States is the result of the country's internal
political processes and problems," Putin said. "By the way, when anyone tries to humiliate or
insult the incumbent head of state, in this case in the context you have mentioned, this
actually enhances our prestige, because they are talking about our incredible influence and
power. In a way, it could be said that they are playing into our hands, as the saying
goes."
But on a more serious note Putin pointed out that contrary to the notion some level of
sympathy between the Trump administration and the Kremlin, much less the charge of "collusion",
it remains that US-Russia relations have reached a low-point in recent history under Trump. The
record bears this out.
Putin underscored that "the greatest number of various kinds of restrictions and sanctions
were introduced [against Russia] during the Trump presidency."
"Decisions on imposing new sanctions or expanding previous ones were made 46 times. The
incumbent's administration withdrew from the INF treaty. That was a very drastic step. After
2002, when the Bush administration withdrew from the ABM treaty, that was the second major
step. And I believe it is a big danger to international stability and security," Putin
explained.
"Now the US has announced the beginning of the procedure for withdrawing from the Open
Skies Treaty. We have good reason to be concerned about that, too. A number of our joint
projects, modest, but viable, have not been implemented – the business council project,
expert council, and so on," he concluded.
But then on Biden specifically Putin said that despite "rather sharp anti-Russian rhetoric"
from the Democratic nominee, it remains "Candidate Biden has said openly that he was ready to
extend the New START or to sign a new strategic offensive reductions treaty."
"This is already a very significant element of our potential future cooperation," Putin
added of a potential Biden presidency.
I draw your attention to the irrefutable fact that Mr. Cohen said that the Buk missile, which
brought down Malaysian Flight 370 over the skies of Donbas, was the Ukraine government "playing
with its new toys and made a big mistake." -- and I draw your attention to the irrefutable fact
that Mr. Cohen said that the Buk missile, which brought down Malaysian Flight 370 over the skies
of Donbas, was the Ukraine government "playing with its new toys and made a big mistake."
He was a real giant in comparison with intellectual scum like Fiona Hill, Michael McFaul and other neocons.
Notable quotes:
"... I tried to explain to American friends what was happening, but quickly realized that ultimately, even friends believe what they read in the newspapers, and the newspapers were pushing the Washington line. Except for Steve Cohen. Steve was the only major figure in America who insisted on remembering the Russian-speaking Ukrainians who, like my family members, distrusted and hated the new Kiev government. He spoke of neo-Nazi paramilitiaries who fought for the US-backed government committing war crimes against civilians in eastern Ukraine. He spoke the truth, regardless of how unwieldy it was. ..."
"... There's a lot to say about Steve. He was extraordinarily kind, never forgetting that in geopolitics, the ones who have the most to lose aren't strategists but everyday individuals impacted by policy. He was a consummate teacher, insisting on giving mentees the skills to navigate the world, a real proponent of the Teach a man to fish philosophy. He had facets and stories and memories; he lived life with empathy and gusto. ..."
"... Steve's insistence on speaking the truth about Ukraine and US-Russia relations drew all sorts of attention. America was hurtling toward a new cold war with Russia, and Steve well, from the perspective of Washington's foreign policy establishment, Steve was fucking up the narrative. Steve talked about inconvenient things, things like US-backed war criminals and America's own meddling in Russian affairs; in the process, he himself had become inconvenient. ..."
"... After all, this wasn't some random blogger. This was one of America's foremost Russia experts, a tenured professor at Princeton and New York University, someone who didn't just write about history but had dinner with it, had briefed US presidents, and was friends with legends like Mikhail Gorbachev. Steve had clout earned from decades of brilliant work; by 2014, he was using that clout to throw a wrench in the think tank world. ..."
"... It was something far colder, more sustained, something that ironically the Soviets did to dissidents: a relentless crusade to render the target untouchable, a leper without a platform. The barrage of articles and diatribes hurled at Steve in the national press painted him as not just a dissenter but a supporter of dictators and murderers. It was a vicious, prolonged assault carried out by think tank toadies, the kind of people who win races by kneecapping the competition. ..."
"... I'd often talk with Steve after a new hatchet job or smear on national television. Of course, the attacks were hurtful -- the only way to not be affected was to not care, and Steve cared. But I also noticed he was remarkably free of bitterness. Every time I thought he'd snap, he'd return the next day to write, discuss, keep fighting. ..."
"... It took me a couple of years to understand that what kept Steve going was faith in his beloved institutions. He believed in academia, in scholarship, in discourse, debate, and civility. He believed in the capacity of everyday people to explore and engage with their world, he believed in Russia, and he always believed in America. He believed in these things far more than he believed in the power of today's warmongers. ..."
"... In 1967 Noam Chomsky wrote an article in the NY Review entitled "the Responsibility of Intellectuals" the first sentence ran like this: "IT IS THE RESPONSIBILITY of intellectuals to speak the truth and to expose lies.". Stephen Cohen did precisely that when all the parrots and pundits were lined up against him. ..."
"... Always I was skeptical of prevailing scholarly interpretive trends on the Soviet experience that were echoed by colleagues claiming expertise on the subject. Cohen provided the foundation for my skepticism and invigorated my lectures on American foreign policy. ..."
"... Once Cohen plied his knowledge against the hysterical narrative that culminated in 4 years of frothing neo-McCarthyism (by the freakin' "left," no less), we were no longer gonna see him on the PBS newshour any more likely than we would and will see chris hedges, chomsky, or margaret kimberly. ..."
"... His book War With Russia? was an oasis of counter-narrative when I picked it up. Losing voices like his is immeasurable as we hurtle toward total war with Russia and/or China, both of whom are finally, naturally, and perfectly predictably beginning to draw a line in the sand. ..."
I first reached out to Stephen Cohen because I was losing my mind.
In the spring of 2014, a war broke out in my homeland of Ukraine. It was a horrific war in a
bitterly divided nation, which turned eastern Ukraine into a bombed-out wasteland. But that's
not how it was portrayed in America. Because millions of eastern Ukrainians were against the
US-backed government, their opinions were inconvenient for the West. Washington needed a clean
story about Ukraine fighting the Kremlin; as a result, US media avoided reporting about the
"wrong" half of the country. Twenty-plus million people were written out of the narrative, as
if they never existed.
I tried to explain to American friends what was happening, but quickly realized that
ultimately, even friends believe what they read in the newspapers, and the newspapers were
pushing the Washington line. Except for Steve Cohen. Steve was the only major figure in America
who insisted on remembering the Russian-speaking Ukrainians who, like my family members,
distrusted and hated the new Kiev government. He spoke of neo-Nazi paramilitiaries who fought
for the US-backed government committing war crimes against civilians in eastern Ukraine. He
spoke the truth, regardless of how unwieldy it was.
And so I e-mailed him, asking for guidance as I began my own writing career. Of course,
there were many who clamored for Steve's time, but I had an advantage over others. Steve and I
were both night owls, real night owls, the kind who have afternoon tea at three am. It
was then, when the east coast was sleeping, that he became my mentor and friend.
There's a lot to say about Steve. He was extraordinarily kind, never forgetting that in
geopolitics, the ones who have the most to lose aren't strategists but everyday individuals
impacted by policy. He was a consummate teacher, insisting on giving mentees the skills to
navigate the world, a real proponent of the Teach a man to fish philosophy. He had
facets and stories and memories; he lived life with empathy and gusto.
But one thing Steve taught me is to stick to my strengths, and truth be told, there are
others who can describe his life better than I. I'll stick to what I learned during our
conversations at three in the morning, which is that, above all else, Stephen F. Cohen was a
man of faith.
Steve's insistence on speaking the truth about Ukraine and US-Russia relations drew all
sorts of attention. America was hurtling toward a new cold war with Russia, and Steve well,
from the perspective of Washington's foreign policy establishment, Steve was fucking up the
narrative. Steve talked about inconvenient things, things like US-backed war criminals and
America's own meddling in Russian affairs; in the process, he himself had become
inconvenient.
After all, this wasn't some random blogger. This was one of America's foremost Russia
experts, a tenured professor at Princeton and New York University, someone who didn't just
write about history but had dinner with it, had briefed US presidents, and was friends with
legends like Mikhail Gorbachev. Steve had clout earned from decades of brilliant work; by 2014,
he was using that clout to throw a wrench in the think tank world.
The DC apparatchiks couldn't discredit Steve's credentials or track record -- he'd predicted
events in Ukraine and elsewhere years before they occurred. They couldn't intimidate him --
he'd faced far worse threats, like the KGB. Instead, they set out to turn him into an
America-hating, Putin-loving pariah.
This went beyond an ad hominem campaign. It was something far colder, more sustained,
something that ironically the Soviets did to dissidents: a relentless crusade to render the
target untouchable, a leper without a platform. The barrage of articles and diatribes hurled at
Steve in the national press painted him as not just a dissenter but a supporter of dictators
and murderers. It was a vicious, prolonged assault carried out by think tank toadies, the kind
of people who win races by kneecapping the competition.
I'd often talk with Steve after a new hatchet job or smear on national television. Of
course, the attacks were hurtful -- the only way to not be affected was to not care, and Steve
cared. But I also noticed he was remarkably free of bitterness. Every time I thought he'd snap,
he'd return the next day to write, discuss, keep fighting.
It took me a couple of years to understand that what kept Steve going was faith in his
beloved institutions. He believed in academia, in scholarship, in discourse, debate, and
civility. He believed in the capacity of everyday people to explore and engage with their
world, he believed in Russia, and he always believed in America. He believed in these things
far more than he believed in the power of today's warmongers.
Steve liked movies and would often end a lecture with a movie reference to drive home the
thesis. When I think of him, I think of the ending of The Shawshank Redemption , the
line about Andy Dufresne crawling through filth and coming out clean on the other side. Steve
didn't live in a movie; I can't claim he emerged unscathed. What he did was come through
without bitterness or cynicism. He refused to turn away from the ugliness, but he didn't allow
it to blind him to beauty. He walked with grace. And he lost neither his convictions nor his
faith.
Lev
Golinkin Lev Golinkin is the author of A Backpack, a Bear, and Eight Crates of Vodka,
Amazon's Debut of the Month, a Barnes & Noble's Discover Great New Writers program
selection, and winner of the Premio Salerno Libro d'Europa. Golinkin, a graduate of Boston
College, came to the US as a child refugee from the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkov (now
called Kharkiv) in 1990. His writing on the Ukraine crisis, Russia, the far right, and
immigrant and refugee identity has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los
Angeles Times, CNN, The Boston Globe, Politico Europe, and Time (online), among other venues;
he has been interviewed by MSNBC, NPR, ABC Radio, WSJ Live and HuffPost Live.
Pierre Guerlain says: October 1, 2020 at 12:42 pm
In 1967 Noam Chomsky wrote an article in the NY Review entitled "the Responsibility of
Intellectuals" the first sentence ran like this: "IT IS THE RESPONSIBILITY of intellectuals
to speak the truth and to expose lies.". Stephen Cohen did precisely that when all the
parrots and pundits were lined up against him. He was a Mensch. History will bear him
the historian out.
Valera Bochkarev says to Lance Haley: October 1, 2020 at 11:09 am
Hmm, who's the apologist here ?
If the Ukraine is SO sovereign how is it I did not see any outrage in your diatribe
against 'Toria, Pyatt and the rest orchestrating the Maidan putsch or the $5Billion US spent
on softening up the ukraine for the regime change ?
I believe in numbers, as in the number of military bases any given country has surrounding
the ones it wants to subvert, in the amount of money allocated to vilify and eventually bring
down the "unwanted" regimes and the quantity and 'quality' of sanctions imposed against those
regimes; and the sum of all of the above perpetrated against humanity in the past 75 or so
years.
Your vapid drivel, Mr Haley, evaporates almost without a trace once seen with those
parameters in mind.
Numbers don't lie.
Michael Batinski says: September 30, 2020 at 5:48 pm
Let me add from the perspective of an American historian who taught for forty years in a
midwestern university. From the start I depended on William Appleman Williams to keep
perspective and to counter prevailing interpretive trends.
Always I was skeptical of
prevailing scholarly interpretive trends on the Soviet experience that were echoed by
colleagues claiming expertise on the subject. Cohen provided the foundation for my skepticism
and invigorated my lectures on American foreign policy.
I will always be thankful.
Michael Batinski
Tim Ashby says: September 30, 2020 at 2:37 pm
The smothering agitprop in America trumps even Goebbels and co. with its beautifully
dressed overton window and first-amendment-free-press bullshit.
Once Cohen plied his knowledge against the hysterical narrative that culminated in 4 years
of frothing neo-McCarthyism (by the freakin' "left," no less), we were no longer gonna see
him on the PBS newshour any more likely than we would and will see chris hedges, chomsky, or
margaret kimberly.
Let's face it, we were lucky to win the editorial fight to even give him
space in the Nation.
His book War With Russia? was an oasis of counter-narrative when I picked it up. Losing
voices like his is immeasurable as we hurtle toward total war with Russia and/or China, both
of whom are finally, naturally, and perfectly predictably beginning to draw a line in the
sand.
"... Virtually every aspect of the Syrian opposition was cultivated and marketed by Western government-backed public relations firms, from their political narratives to their branding, from what they said to where they said it. ..."
"Western government-funded intelligence cutouts trained Syrian opposition leaders,
planted stories in media outlets from BBC to Al Jazeera, and ran a cadre of journalists. A
trove of leaked documents exposes the propaganda network."
"Leaked documents show how UK government contractors developed an advanced infrastructure of
propaganda to stimulate support in the West for Syria's political and armed opposition.
Virtually every aspect of the Syrian opposition was cultivated and marketed by Western
government-backed public relations firms, from their political narratives to their branding,
from what they said to where they said it.
The leaked files reveal how Western intelligence cutouts played the media like a fiddle,
carefully crafting English- and Arabic-language media coverage of the war on Syria to churn out
a constant stream of pro-opposition coverage.
US and European contractors trained and advised Syrian opposition leaders at all levels,
from young media activists to the heads of the parallel government-in-exile . These firms also
organized interviews for Syrian opposition leaders on mainstream outlets such as BBC and the
UK's Channel 4.
More than half of the stringers used by Al Jazeera in Syria were trained in a joint US-UK
government program called Basma, which produced hundreds of Syrian opposition media
activists.
Western government PR firms not only influenced the way the media covered Syria, but as the
leaked documents reveal, they produced their own propagandistic pseudo-news for broadcast on
major TV networks in the Middle East, including BBC Arabic, Al Jazeera, Al Arabiya, and Orient
TV .
These UK-funded firms functioned as full-time PR flacks for the extremist-dominated Syrian
armed opposition. One contractor, called InCoStrat, said it was in constant contact with a
network of more than 1,600 international journalists and "influencers," and used them to push
pro-opposition talking points.
Another Western government contractor, ARK, crafted a strategy to "re-brand" Syria's
Salafi-jihadist armed opposition by "softening its image ." ARK boasted that it provided
opposition propaganda that "aired almost every day on" major Arabic-language TV networks."
"The Western contractor ARK was a central force in launching the White Helmets operation.
The leaked documents show ARK ran the Twitter and Facebook pages of Syria Civil Defense,
known more commonly as the White Helmets.
ARK also facilitated communications between the White Helmets and The Syria
Campaign , a PR firm run out of London and New York that helped popularize the White
Helmets in the United States.
It was apparently "following subsequent discussions with ARK and the teams" that The Syria
Campaign "selected civil defence to front its campaign to keep Syria in the news," the firm
wrote in a report for the UK Foreign Office." thegreyzone
--------------
Using really basic intelligence analytic tools; Occam's Razor, Walks like a duck,
Smileyesque back azimuth's, etc. it has been clear that the UK government has been deeply
involved in sponsoring and influencing the Syrian/ jihadi opposition in that miserable country.
The wide spread British Old Boys network of aspirants to the tradition of imperial manipulation
has been visible just below the surface if you had eyes to look and a brain to think.
A lot of the money for this folly came right out of USAID.
I object to the line in the article that they "played the media like a fiddle" - as it
implies the mainstream media is a victim as opposed to willing accomplice.
The American public very strongly told Obama they didn't want another invasion and war in
the middle east (red lines or not) so rather ineffective propaganda.
Moreover, I suspect that given the US public inattention to overseas events that do not
involve much US blood (in places they can not find on a map). Today's mess would be where
more or less the same if the entire IO had never happened - though maybe with less cynicism
of US/UK gov'ts and media.
OTH, it is curious how well the British Old Boys network (and US) aligns with Israeli
interests (and runs counter to US or British interests). Maybe grayzone will investigate that
(impressive) IO campaign. I think a small country in the middle east played US and UK elites
like a fiddle.
I've only given this article a cursory reading so far and it is clear that the Brits are
going balls to the wall on the PSYOPS/perception management front. This campaign flows
naturally from the strong material support for the Syrian "moderate rebels" provided by the
US, the Brits and probably others for years. We may still be blowing up IS jihadis, but we're
also supporting our own brand of jihadis around Al-Tanf, giving free hand to Erdogan's
jihadis along the Turkish-Syrian border and doing our best to stymie R+6 efforts to crush the
remaining jihadis and unite Syria.
The article focuses on the contractors role in PSYOP. I'm not sure if it mentions the
British government's role in this. The GCHQ's Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group
(JTRIG) probably manages most of those contractors. The British Army also has the 77th
Brigade. This brigade's slogan is: "behavioural change is our unique selling point". Gordon
MacMillan, a reserve officer with the 77th Brigade, is now Twitter's head of editorial
operations for the Middle East.
The 77th was formed in 2015 and subsumed the 15th Psychological Operations Group which was
headed by Steve Tathan, who went on to head the defence division of SCL, the now defunct
parent of Cambridge Analytica. I'm sure the 77th is capable of managing some of those
contractors, as well. I wouldn't be surprised if quite a few of contractors were also
reservists in the 77th.
I bet we're not letting the Brits have all the fun. The CIA Special Activities Center
(formerly SAD) includes the Political Action Group for PSYOP, economic warfare and
cyberwarfare. That dovetails nicely with what CENTCOM is doing in Syria. I knew some of those
guys a while back. I remember scaring them with some of my own anarchist hacker rantings when
I was penetrating those hackers.
Our Army has fours PSYOP groups brigade-sized), two active and 2 reserve. I would think
they have advanced their methodology since I took the course at Bragg. For a few years, they
were called military information support operations (MISO) groups rather than PSYOP groups.
They have since reverted to their PSYOP name although their activities are referred to as
MISO. I don't know what the difference is.
There is no such small country as you describe in the Near East.
There is an self-disciplined proxy force masquerading as a state which is mostly funded by
the United States to further the religious policies of the WASP Culture Continent.
It is no accident that in this context, the names of US and UK occur often in the same
sentences; one declared a crusade to wrestle control of Plastine from Muslims, and the otber
one carried out that crusade and escalated it.
That is also the reason that US cannot end the war over Palestine or leave Islamdom
(Oil, Geostrategic considerations, arms sales, Realpolitik are just pseudo-rationications
to obscure the real war.)
"WASP Culture" is into golfing, not crusading. Erik Prince and the religious
fundamentalists, maybe, but they don't drive US policy.
Russia and/or Chinese dominion over Eurasia cannot be permitted. Their means to achieve
that would be less ethical, not that the US or UK have been prince among men and salts of the
earth, as noted in the article.
The US has tried in vain to win over hearts and minds. It has been a mostly noble effort
to bring countries like Iraq and Afghanistan into the 21st century, but it was always more of
a losing game. The problem lies too much in Islam and tribal rivalries.
If all the energy wasted on peddling Russiagate had instead been used to push real
political alternatives to Trump's programs the Democrats and their voters would likely be in
a better position.
The Ds defeated that possibility when they conspired to derail Sanders and promote
Clinton. As a result, Obama's legacy is Trump. But there was a Deep State faction pulling
Obama's strings that's likely supporting the attempt to foment a domestic Color Revolution,
yet for the life of me I can't see why as all the grifters are getting billions--unless--it's
perceived that Trump's stalled their imperialist projects or stopped what they hoped to
accomplish via JCPOA. In other words, we need a better motive for Russiagate than the mere
disruption of Trump's administration.
The Nexus is Ukraine, where the DNC, Obama and others were heavily involved with corruption,
money into their pockets and money laundered for campaign uses, illegally brought back into
the US.
It was never Russia or Russians. It was always the Podesta-Clinton-Obama operatives and
their true believers in FBI and DOJ, working with the Russophobes in NGOs and the State
Dept.
The desperation as Trump became a real possible President and then an actual elected
President was to cover their crimes in Ukraine and the illegal actions to spy on Trump and
set up Trump campaign associates.
The difficult call now is how high up do the present investigators have cover to save the
institutions of the FBI and DOJ? A real take down would go to Obama, Biden, Clapper, Comey,
Brennan, Podesta, Clinton and all their lieutenants. It would collapse the CIA, State, FBI,
DOJ, and all the lying experts on Russia who perjured to Congress.
Red Ryder gets it -- Ukraine is the specific catalyst, linked to the New Cold War against
Russia and the corruption of the Democrats involved in that conflict.
There is also Flynn and his dirt on Obama's Syria/ISIS policy -- remember his Al Jazeera
interview about Obama's "wilful decision" to ignore DIA reports on ISIS. Flynn knows the US
and its allies had some kind of links to ISIS and Nusra Front (Al Qaeda) in Syria.
And there is also the more general concern, raised by Karlof1, about the Presidency and
the empire.
I found this barb delivered by Lavrov during his presser with Zarif I linked to on the open
thread to be very curious when thought about in the context of Russiagate:
"The fact that the United States has threatened to impose sanctions on those who defy the
American interpretation of the current situation serves as further proof of Washington's
desire to move like a bull in a china shop, putting ultimatums to everyone and punishing
everyone indiscriminately because, in my view, the incumbent US administration has lost
its diplomatic skills almost for good ." [My Emphasis]
Red Ryder @8 & profk @10 connect Ukraine and the outing of the Empire's role in the
creation of Daesh. Yes, it seems much is related to Russia's Phoenix-like rise and outwitting
the Empire's buffoons beginning in 2013 that's generated the above behavior noted by Lavrov.
If TrumpCo does get a second term, unless the entire foreign policy team is dumped and
replaced, its agenda will go nowhere other than further into the hole they've dug for
themselves over the past 20 years--almost every nation is now against Bush's USA as many now
know who the terrorists really are and where they live.
What if the goal of 2016 election was to set up the 2020 American color revolution? If so
Trump needed to win. Obama and the FBI did the groundwork here at home. There is some debate
if the first Trump dossier was actually the second one to cover for the Cody Shearer one that
was given to Strobe Talbot to give to Christopher Steele. Still it had the same goal as to
foster doubt about the legitimacy of 2016 that is currently culminating with the gun toting,
fire bombing hissy fit of the children of liberal privilege. Now if those blasted supreme
righties would just show up, and the whole thing can go really hot like it did in Ukraine,
Libya, Egypt, almost Syria, and any country I might be forgetting. Notice the Trump
administration is parroting the left's white supremacist conspiracy. Its all really bad
theater, but does anyone really care the crumbing infrastructure and the looming economic
collapse when you can instead root for your team. Yes, I am guilty of the later too. Added
bonus we already have a twofer of enemies (Russian and China) for yet another elitist war.
I very doubt that it was "Russiagate" who make it difficult for Trump to pursue the policies
he had been advocating during his election campaign...In fact, "Russiagate" has long ago been
debunked and we have not seen Trump worrying a bit about the average American Joe, most
flagrant during this pandemic...I doubt he would had behaved different were the "Russiagate"
to have never existed..
Simply, electoral "promises" almost never are fullfilled in the already dating decades
neoliberal order, both from the right or the "alleged" liberal left...
On the same grounds, we could affirm then that conspiracy theories about Obama´s
birth place made it difficult for Obama to pursue the policies he had been advocating during
his election campaign....
That Trump has ties to Russian oligarchs is, to my view, out of doubt for anyone following
a bit some writers who use to deeply research their analyses out there like John Helmer....
That these oligarchas had anything to do, in this respect, with the Kremlin, it is doubtful,
but highly likely related to business shenanigans amongst them and Trump & Co...related
to illegal bribes and money laundering...
What have been largely proved is that Trump and his administration have been using big
data management corporations and social networks engineering to manipulate elections and give
coups eveywhere ( as the thorough research I posted at the Week in Review leaves in evidence
it happened in several countries in Latin America , which leads us to suspect that they would
not resist the desire to use the same methods in the US...before...and after the 2016
elections...having Bannon ad chief of campaign and then as chief of staff in 2016 so as that
does not add for tranquility, with what legal methods is respected for achieving whatever
goal..as the last events have clearly showed...
It was during Trump´s mandate that the war on Yemen continued towards total
erradication of Yemenis, especially of Shia belief, by indiscriminate bombing and blockade of
essential goods...that Qasem Soleimani was murdered without any justified reason...that NATO
started a cheeky build up in Russian borders who remained still free of it...that the US
withdrew from most international agreements leaving US/Russia, US/Iran, US/LatinAmerican
relations at its lowest levels, by underminig any remaining trust...Trump reinstated and made
even harsher sanctions against everybody who was not already a "puppet regime", including
Venezuela, Cuba, Argentina, Russia, Iran, China, and, even looping the loop, against puppet
governments in the EU...
I very doubt it was Russiagate which kept him from releasing his tax records as requested
by governance transparecny, returning the ammounts of money defrauded in the "University
Loans" affair, clarifying his ties to Epstein network, stopping sowing hatred and divide
amongst US population, build the most world wide network of far-right extremists since post
WWII around the world but especially in Europe to undermine what of "democracy" remains left,
labeled and declared as "terrorists" any political party abroad who does not go along and
oppose his puppet government´s corrupt policies anywhere, lit the Middle East on fire
by continuously provoking Iran, Lebanon, Syria, sent his regime envoys to the EU to twist arm
so that the European countries dedicate more budget to buy provedly ineffective arms from the
US when the money is most needed for socio-economic and health issues in the middle of a
pandemic, not to mention the requisition of health supplies´ cargos in the very Chinese
tarmac which had been previously ordered and bought by European countries which needed them
urgently, criminalized, and tried to label them as second cathegory citizens, a great part of
US population of non-white foreign descent through whose hard work and shameful labor
conditions US thrived along all these decades, well, you name it, the list would be almost
for a book...or two...
To blame all this mess on "Russiagate" is, well, in the best case, underestimating the
readership here...
Oh please, b: "legal jeopardy", don't make me laugh. It's been four years . The whole
political part of Trump's career he's been under the tutelage of mafia consigliere Roy Cohn.
Even better known, he's flown on the Lolita Express, and the FBI has a trove of videos etc
from Epstein's safe (hmm, what else does the latter have in common with Roy Cohn besides the
Trump connection). Bottom line, he's a deeply compromised individual who's concluded long
ago, and correctly, that he's in over his head and better off just playing along. He's had no
reservations appointing professional Russophobes like Fiona Hill; in fact, which of his
appointees has not been a Cold Warrior besides perhaps T-Rex, who was a mere Venezuela
hawk because of some old Exxon bad blood, and who was quickly ditched anyway. Even now, his
own FBI director spouts RussiaGate red meat, and the Donald is doing squat about it.
What does it all matter to Trump? He doesn't have a good name to clear. He didn't run for
president expecting to win, let alone to carry out this or that specific program. This
Vale Tudo carnival atmosphere clearly suits him: if his opponents can make baseless
accusations, so can he. If they can expect to skate beyond some meaningless fall guys, so can
he. To actually uphold the law--it's just not how he rolls.
Had he mostly contented himself with playing president on TV and enjoying the perks of the
office, and understood you can't just let a pandemic kill off your own voters, all would've
been dandy. But, predictably, his ego got the better of him, and he just had to be the
statesman who was finally going to bring China to heel. Again, merely tweeting about it
could've been ignored, but by appointing an array of rabid ideologues who went to work on
"decoupling", he's sided with a Deep State which will hate him regardless, against
Corporate America which went into China to, you know, make money. In this way, he's made
himself enemies a Republican can ill afford; combine this with his personal style (or lack of
it), and just about nobody has his back any more. So the machine goes about purging this
alien body from its system.
when do the American people get to investigate Truman, Ike, John McCain, JFK, Johnson, Bush,
Obama, FBI, Trump, 9/11, CIA, invasion of Iraq, wall street, the US Treasury, the military,
Afghanistan, Yemen, Syria, Lebanon and the like..?
,==He did it==> he did not do it, <=someone else did it, ==>avoids the basic
problem:
America has a government that
a.) conducts wars to protect the economic interest of its favored few.
b.) uses law , to grant feudal lords wealth creating by extracting bits of wealth from
Americans.
c.) conducts nearly all its affairs in classified secret..
d.) is un accountable for the money it spends.
e.) is un accountable for the genocides it conducts in foreign lands.
f.) has two crime families which divide and conquer the citizens to control all election
outcomes
g.) has given to private bankers, its power to print money, control the economy, and tax the
people.
h.) has not adhered to the Bill of Rights or the un amended constitution.
i.) refuses to require private media to speak only the truth.
j.) Refuses to comply with and orto enforce the 1st and 4th amendment<=papers and effects
t/b secure
expand this list as you like
and
Americans have
a.) no access to the USA. <= 3 votes, insolation of state or voting district,
out 527 positions don't get it & none for the President
b.) must pay to the USA taxes and have no input as to how such taxes are collected or
used,
c.) must register their presence to the USA with id numbers
d.) must obey USA laws which Americans had no say in writing, or passing.
e.) must endure foreign wars and domestic programs that serve no legitimate domestic
interest.
expand this list as you like.
You are onto something there...I do not recall whose US think tank analyse I read about US
youth tending ideologically to the left...the same could be said of any youth around the
world after they have been left without future prospect and past opportunities to rise
through the social ladder by rampant savage neoliberal capitalism...
I said at the time that the Ukrainian experiment of 2014 was a general dressed rehearsal
for a future planned authoritarian fascist rule in most of the world, especially the West,
once the prospects, already known by the elites, of collapsing capitalism are obvious for the
general public and cause the consequent uprising..It is in this context that the pandemic and
its sudden impoverishing outcome fits, along with the "orchestrated" violent riots at various
locations, to justify martial law...
Notice that "rewritting of history of WWII" in favor of fascism is a feature of any US
administration since the fall of the USSR...
Past days I read that Roger Stone, former Trump advisor, if i am not wrong also implied in
a corruption case, advised Trump to declare martial law after winning in Novemeber...It is in
that context that all the noise we have been hearing all these past months about the riots,
militias, coups, and so on fit...What we have not heard about is about hundreds of thousands
of evictions, inacabable line ups for food banks, and the total socio-economic disaster more
than anything willingly built by TPTB...
Recal that they "built their own reality, and when you are catching up with that reality,
they build another one"...
It is difficult to teach old chickenhawk a new tricks. Looks like she is a real "national
security parasite" and will stay is this role till the bitter end.
"America's world management, NATO, the European Union and the construction of establishments and
alliances the US constructed after World War II have taken a hit." took hit because of the crisis of neoliberalism
not so much because of Russia resistance to the USA neoliberal domination and unwillingness to became a vassal state a la EU
states, Japan and GB.
Her hostile remark confirms grave mistake of allowing immigrants to occupy high position in the US foreign policy hierarchy.
They bring with themselves "ancient hatred"
Only a blind (or a highly indoctrinated/brainwashed) person is unable to see where all these neocon policies are leading...
Notable quotes:
"... America's world management, NATO, the European Union and the construction of establishments and alliances the US constructed after World War II have taken a hit ..."
"... "They lost the entire US political class ..."
Fiona Hill, the National Security Council's senior director for European and Russian affairs
till 2019, says divisions are rising inside the Kremlin over the knowledge of persevering with
a "dirty tricks" marketing campaign that's had combined outcomes and will now face diminishing
returns.
On the one hand, Russia's 2016 affect operations succeeded past the Kremlin's wildest goals.
The US-dominated, unipolar world that Putin has lengthy railed in opposition to is now not.
America's world management, NATO, the European Union and the construction of establishments and
alliances the US constructed after World War II have taken a hit. "On that ledger, wow, yes,
basically over-fulfilled the plan," mentioned Hill.
At the identical time, getting caught in the act of making an attempt to sabotage US
democracy has proved pricey. "They lost the entire US political class and politicized ties so that the whole future of
US-Russia relations now depends on who wins in November," she mentioned.
Probably counting on the desperate vanity and ego of Trump with the looming election to not
shorten the length of the leash on Pompass. Pompass must also have noticed that Trump is
willing to shove the homeland into civil war in order to claim victory, so maybe Pompass
finally has the latitude to slake his bloodthirstiness.
Since I'm wondering down the path of speculation, a bit further into the murk. If there is
one thing that characterizes the US today from the highest to the low, it is corruption. I
submit that this corruption finds its zenith in the military, and especially the procurement
train: any engagement with a near-peer (or the coalition/bloc we're talking about here,) and
the rot and corruption will collapse this empire in upon itself. I've had this suspicion for
some time, and believe if the going got rough the collapse would come rather quickly and
completely.
Following a long line of very arrogant american imperial "negotiators", mr oblivion
billingslea used standard "negotiating" techniques like
(a) accusing the other side of crimes Americans have committed first and forever, eg,
extreme lying, bad faith argumentation, military aggression, foreign government security
breaching, assassination and poisoning [as in american presidents and independent thinkers],
and of course, electoral cheating;
(b) putting the opponent in the "negotiation process" on the defensive or back foot by
stating false news allegations amplified by the media controlled by the american empire;
(c) offering nothing useful or commitable to be done by the empire, and yet
"magnanimously" demanding the moon as opponents' concessions, eg, russian, iranian and
chinese nuclear weapons limits, but not for nato's development and deployment, and; (d) after
making impossible demands, the imperials accuse the opponents of hostility and unwillingness
to "negotiate".
The russians can skillfully agree by stating that they only require the americans to
reduce their nukes to 320 pieces like china, and in less than five years.
This is why it is very important for sovereign nations to read the guidebook, called the
"idiot's guide on running the american empire", and developing deep and lasting
solutions.
As for the other american imperial military "advantages", eg, constellation of
"aggression" satellites, andrei forgot to mention that these can be shot or burned down in
minutes easily by russia, china and even iran, as these stations cannot hide or run away in
earth orbits.
Replenishment of weapons and military supplies after 3 months is rather doomed as the
cheap, mass production and manufacturing facilities do not exist. Which must be re-created
somehow but now
American lands are the targets. Much, Much Different Than WW2 !!
And of course, russia can always nuke down the USA and its vassal countries, and thus
permanently ruin their economies for a decade or more, they don't know how to run defense --
this was always the fatal weakness of all bullies - if they'll have enough time to "learn
it"... let's see... I doubt this.
Let's see americans try to start and conduct a nuclear war after too many spy, internet
and gps satellites are shot down. Russia can even do this today using conventional
explosives, and the world will be shocked how helpless the american military and economy can
be made even without using russian nukes.
There are countries still immune to the numerous american imperial diseases that are
already documented daily in zerohedge postings. The better countries still have lots of
parents telling their kids to study and work hard so they can have better lives than their
ancestors.
In oregon and california, they teach unemployable kids to burn something or somebody
sometime before dinner.
CdVision • 11 hours ago
I was about to say that what now comes out of the US & Trump's mouth in particular, is
Orwellian. But that credits it with too much gravitas. The true comparison is Alice in
Wonderland:
"Words mean whatever I want them to mean".
Reminiscence of the Future.. ( http://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2020/09/russia-steals-everything.html)
Russia "Steals Everything" !! (Not just China, oops... ???!!!!)
And Jesus Christ was an American and was born in Kalamazoo, MI. It is a well-known fact. So
Donald Trump, evidently briefed by his "utterly competent and crushingly precise aids", knows
now that too! !!! LOL
> US President Donald Trump claims that Russia developed hypersonic weapons after
allegedly stealing information from the United States.
> According to him, "Russia received this information from the Obama administration,"
Moscow "stole this information." Trump said that "Russia received this information and then
created" the rocket, reports TASS.
> "We have such advanced weapons that President Xi, Putin and everyone else will envy
us. They do not know what we have, but they know that it is something that no one has ever
heard of. "
->We are the foremost and always number one. Everything is invented only by us, the
rest can only either steal, or be gifted with our developments for good behavior. This
situation is eternal, unchanging, everyone lags behind American Tikhalogii at least 50 years
(the time frame was chosen so that even a 20-year-old would lose heart, "what's the point of
trying to catch up, it won't work anyway, in my lifetime"). It was, is, and will be, this is
the natural course of events.
All this is delivered in the format of the classic Sunday sermon of the American
provincial Protestant church, coding the parishioners for further deeds and actions. And it
worked effectively, creating in some basalt confidence "we are better because we are better",
in others - "I don't mind anything for joining this radiant success, I'm ready for anything,
I'll go for any hardships and crimes, if only There".
Only now it worked. In a situation where the frequency of pronouncing such mantras is more
and more, emotions are invested in them too, but in fact everyone understands that this is
what autohypnosis does not work.
The poor have stolen from the United States, if you look at it, literally everything. And
5G and the superweapon of the gods. Moreover, a pearl with a characteristic handwriting is
not copy / paste, but move / paste, you bastards. Therefore, the United States does not even
have any traces of developments left - the guys just sit in an empty room, shrug their hands,
"here we have a farm of mechanical killer dolls, with the faces of Mickey Mouse overexposed,
and now look - traces of bast shoes and candy wrappers from "Korkunov" only, ah-ah-ah, well,
something like that, ah. "
At the same time, there are no cases of sabotage, espionage - whole projects were simply
developed, developed, brought to a working product, and then the hob - and that's it, and
disappeared. And this became noticeable only after years. And all the persons involved are
like "wow, wow."
Psychiatric crazy fool of the head, no less.
But due to the fact that all of the above theses are driven very tightly into the template
for the perception of the world, both those who voiced these theses and the listeners are
satisfied.
Because the post-American post-hegemonic world is not terrible because in some ratings
another country will be higher there, and Detroit will never be rebuilt "as it was". It is
scary because it is not clear how to live for people who had no support in the form of global
goals, faith, philosophy of life, and all this was replaced by narcissism on the basis of
"successful success is my second self".
This means that the moment when this issue has to be resolved must be delayed to the last.
Leaving the whole topic on the plane "we were offended, we are offended, we were dishonest,
which means we have the right to any action" is not a bad move.
It's a pity that it doesn't really affect the essence of what is happening.
"... There is no chance of mending relations and even less of achieving some security partnership between US and Russia. The rift will only keep on widening as US political and financial elites are growing increasingly desperate (and thus even more aggressive) while Russia abandons its attempts to please the haters and moves its focus on to its future prospective partners who have genuine interest in cooperating with Russia and achieving common goals.... including opposing the common enemy if you like! Well at least I hope so: the only reason why US wish to get closer to Russia would be to stab it in the back... one more time! ..."
Speaking as an Independent, I say that our country, the USA, has engineered past confilcts and wars in order to feed the military
industrial complex. Not so much that it results in a nuke-shooting war, but in a regular non-nuke shooting war. The solution?
Send the sons and daughters of the politicians into direct combat, every time they approve another war. That should keep things
a bit more peaceful.
Professor Cohen is this nation's most objective and therefore most valuable thinker on Russia! The charge that his views are
"not patriotic" is a compliment rather than the insult they intended. A scholar's views are only valuable to the public and, more
importantly, policy makers, if they are OBJECTIVE!!! Which is to say that he follows the FACTS wherever they lead!
Any "discussion" with no mention of the supranational central bank cartel is intentional deceptive omission. The "brass ring"
is forced use of petro-dollars. The central bank stock holders and bankers loaning all dollars into existence as national debt,
do not care who owns land. They care who pays off national debts and interest on debt. Civil war is their racket. There are no
sovereign nations. No genuine nations that create their medium of exchange publicly. No national people. Just participants in
an extortion or its victims. The "Elite" collect on money they created as loans in their central banking accounts. All others
are only human numbers assigned billing addresses.
Welcome to the New World Order ....where Multinational corporations rule & their profits are what are most important..... NOT
nation states it's the 99.9% against the .01% and they use MSM propaganda & fear to control the DUMB masses thinking
I just discovered John Batchelor Show on which Cohen has a guest spot- I just was drawn to this man's thinking, probably because
I had made up my mind about Russia during the Ukraine crises. Seeing the US has ruin every country we have gone into- I'm on Russia's
side, especially where Russia and Ukraine has a history, on that side of the world.
38:49 - Apologies for the somewhat Utopian
question here. I agree with everything Cohen has said, but regarding cause of jihadist terrorism ( ie implosion of the economies
in the region), does it make sense to discuss primarily this game of terrorist whack a mole (bombing, invading and crushing Jihadist
insurgencies)? Is there any point in talking about a pro active policy of recreating sustainable, stable economies in the region?
What would that even look like?
Not very many average Americans would be able to easily access and watch this. Average Americans still consume mainly mainstream
media. Too bad, because this lecture would have opened their eyes and have blown up their brain-contaminated minds by the CNN,
the New York Times and alike.
I agree wholeheartedly Loane. Have always been extremely impressed with and appreciative of Cohen's carefully & thoughtfully
considered contribution. We in the US have gone a bit off the deep end when it comes to this deeply embedded belief in exceptionalism
and superiority, and have been extremely rude to much of the rest of the world in the process. It amazes me how patient Russia
has been with us, waiting for us to come around to a more sober understanding of the world we live in today. I have to conclude
that what we are experiencing here in the US is a perennial phenomenon that comes with the end of all empires throughout history,
the mission creep of over-extending resources and the big one, seemingly blind hubris.
There is no chance of mending relations and even less of achieving some security partnership between US and Russia. The rift
will only keep on widening as US political and financial elites are growing increasingly desperate (and thus even more aggressive)
while Russia abandons its attempts to please the haters and moves its focus on to its future prospective partners who have genuine
interest in cooperating with Russia and achieving common goals.... including opposing the common enemy if you like! Well at least
I hope so: the only reason why US wish to get closer to Russia would be to stab it in the back... one more time!
NATO'S reason to exist ended when the Warsaw Pact was demolished. It was created to confront the socialist Warsaw Pact but
today ALL of the members of the pact are part of NATO, except Russia. So why is it still operating? Who are they confronting?
They are a bunch of bureaucrats looking for a reason to stay employed in an organization that lost its excuse to be. However,
their behavior has gone from increasing security to actually becoming a menace to trigger a nuclear war to destroy life on earth.
It will take a Republican President to turn our relationships with hostile nations around. For some irrational reasoning, the
current administration refuses negotiation with it's enemies. Somehow this is going to create understanding. and a less dangerous
world. I don't see a continuation of this Administrations policy anything but reckless . I am assuming this policy has been one
determined through Clinton, and will remain so. Clinton has said on a number of occasions, it is the Obama Administration's policies
that will be hers as well. As an ex cold warrior, who has spent a lot of time chasing Soviet boomers in the North Atlantic, I
am not willing to gamble my children and grand children's lives . It is a dangerous and ego driven pissing match. Let us start
talking , This administration and families can climb into their luxury nuclear bomb proof bunkers...... My family and most Americans
don't have that luxury.
Dr. Cohen, so Putin gave the Northern Alliance to the USA after 911 to bludgeon Afghanistan for hiding Bin Laden? Paul Craig
Robert, David Ray Griffin and a growing list of Americans believe 911 was a total bamboozle. If that is true which it looks increasingly
like it was, does that mean Putin was playing along with the our Reichstag fire? What does that make Putin? NATO should have been
totally remade after 1986, but it wasn't and we simply missed a huge opportunity not for worldwide U.S. hegemony, but for a new
umbrella of security by super powers in alliance. Obviously, the proliferation of ethno-religious groups was in Putin's mind when
he welcomed us into Afghanistan, but damn it man, tell people EXACTLY why we and the Russians want to be in the Golden Crescent
besides the extraction of minerals.
Julia Ioffe is a joke -- she is essentially a typical "national security parasite" and of the level that surprisingly, is
lower that Max Boor, although previously I thought this is impossible. Julia Ioffe is very typical of the anti-Russian thinking
in the West.
This incessant Russophobia constantly being trumpeted by the Washington militarist imperialists must stop. It's putting the
world on the brink of nuclear war.
Stephen Cohen's a godsend along with a handful of the other intellectuals out there speaking and writing the truth that penetrates
the miasma of disinformation, half-truths and exaggerations emanating from the state-corporate nexus in the American mass media.
Cohen, along with John Pilger, James Petras, Robert Parry, Michael Parenti, John Pilger, Eva Bartlett, Diana Johnstone and
Paul Craig Roberts must be read widely in order for folks to get a grasp of where the Washington imperialist ruling class is driving
the world.
at 25:40 he just destroys her totally. what
a point he made, amazing!! "thank you professor" the guy on the left wants to end Cohen's carnage of the so called experts. Cohen
made minced meat out of em. Fact after fact...stonewalled em both. Listen to her, ISIS doesn't have nuke's, she obviously doesn't
have a clue.
Cohen is always cogent and convincing. One area I wish some historian would look into is how "Russia-gate" is not echoing Cold
War themes, but echoing themes from the German Nazis in particular their belief about a great Jewish conspiracy against Europe.
Even Putin recently remarked on all these accusations: "It reminds me of anti-Semitism, A dumb man who can't do anything would
blame the Jews for everything." Look at how Putin is drawn and pictured on major outlets. The NYTimes blamed resistance to TPP
on Putin.
The Russians like the Jews are behind every social problem. Popular culture shows and speaks of Russia in the same way Nazi
propagandists wrote about Russia.
Undermining Western liberal democracies, Jews were compared to spiders catching people in the webs. Same with Putin. Pick up
Hitler's speech after the invasion of the Soviet Union justifying it., Echos? Accidental rhetoric of conspiracies ?
"to look past a long list of transgressions and abuses..." this is what I absolutely hate about America, they are all so stupid
and ignorant to their own countries misdeeds it is unbelievable, infuriating beyond belief. The US is currently fighting 7 wars
simultaneously, which it all started itself under false pretences and hid the real reason beneath a thick layer of BS propaganda
and misinformation.
The secession of Crimea is the least egregious event of the entire conflicts history. The EU and US have pumped billions of
dollars into the coup which took place weeks before the Crimean referendum, on the 20th of February 2014, 2 weeks prior to that,
an intercepted phone conversation between Victoria Nuland (Assistant Secretary of State of the United States to Europe) and Geoffrey
Pyatt (US Ambassador to the Ukraine) was leaked on February 4th, 2014. In this phone conversation, they describe key positions
within the Ukrainian government being filled by Klitshko and Yatz... fast forward a few weeks, who do we see? Klitsh and Yatz!
It was the most obvious sponsored coup in history.
Putin snatched the Crimean peninsula from NATO, who wanted to seize Russias military harbour in Sevastopol (which the Russians
have used to supply Syria, this was one and a half years before they entered the conflict directly, apart from being a very important
strategic harbour in general), by suggesting a referendum to the local government and they accepted.
Why? Because they were ethnic Russians and knew who gained power in Kiev, the neo-Nazi, Bandera-worshipping OUN, which the
US has nourished, supported and developed for the last 100 years within the Ukrainian territory. These Nazis hate Russians, they
have a deep seeded hatred of all things Russian which has been indoctrinated and drilled into them by the CIA for decades, the
first thing they did after seizing power was to demote the Russian language from the official list of languages of the Ukraine.
They have since honoured Ukrainian Nazi-collaborators from WWII by erecting statues, renaming streets, creating new holidays
etc. This is just one example of US misinformation and propaganda, nothing they say accurately describes the truth, nothing, not
one thing has it's bases in reality. Be it about Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, and what have you, it's all lies and propaganda
to mask their intentions.
North Korea is another example. North Korea is a hornets nest they kick once in a while to scare the Japanese and South Koreans
into tolerating US occupation longer. Everything North Korea does is a direct response to threats and intimidations by the US.
They staged a drill off the coast of North Korea which they called "Decapitation" for F's sake.
They have ratcheted up the tension again these past few months to sneak in their THAAD weapons stations, before the new President
was chosen. And these THAAD systems have absolutely nothing to do with North Korea, it's against China and Russia, North Korea
is a pretext.
The still active war, which has merely been under a seize fire for decades, against North Korea, could have been ended before
there was colour television, but the US needs North Korea to exist in order to justify their occupation of S.Korea and Japan.
And by the way, the CrowdStrike guy testified in 2017 that there was ZERO PROOF that the Russians hacked the DNC, but Schiff
hid that for 2 years until John Ratcliff threatened to declassify it, then Schiff's sorry ass released the interviews. So, this
man was 100 percent right, there is ZERO PROOF the Russians or anyone hacked the DNC. Its a damned lie, and it was always a lie.
As usual, the journalists and leftist have nothing to offer- no facts, no forensic evidence, no truth. Only speculation hyperbole
and hysteria. I don't believe Russia are the good guys but give me a break in all this crap!
why did cohen tell everyone even potential 'terrorists' that there is too much of exactly what 'terrorists' wish to get their
hands on in the former soviet states?!!? if he is 'so afraid' of 'terrorism...' WHY did he say THAT?!!? not very bright... or
perhaps he is FOS. idk?! wth?! SMH. maybe e is trying to inform people who r not 'terrorists,' so that people know n can figure
out how to address the issues...?
Yet, for any terrorists who wanted to know how to get materials he spoke of, now they may know a region where they could potentially
go to attain the materials... maybe in 'terrorists' circles they all know this already? it just seems concerning, is all...
Beth Lemmon, 2 years ago (edited)
Love Stephen Cohen, he is spot on and right about most if not all points, he's fair, wicked smart and sober minded. However
he isn't right about POTUS Trump. If anyone has been watching this type of discourse about world geopolitics it looks like the
NWO wants wars to depopulate the earth, set up a OWG and a utopia. It's so blatantly obvious to those who are honest and not ideologically
possessed.
They recruit their stupid Antifa army and zombie possessed minions to do their dirty work in the streets. They want send our
amazing military to do the fighting wars that are just to feed the MIC, and does nothing for America's good.
Crisis of neoliberal undermines the USA supremacy and the US elite hangs by the stras to the Full Specturm Domionanc edoctrine,
whih it now can't enforce and which is financially unsustainable for the USA.
Collapse of neoliberalism means the end of the USA supremacy and the whole political existence on the USA was banked on this
single card.
Notable quotes:
"... In America, this unfortunate status quo in support of primacy persists even in the Trumpian Age and within debates around the eccentric and unconventional presidency of Donald Trump. In fact, despite all the talk of political polarization in the United States, it appears that when it comes to naming new threats and enemies to "contain," "deter," and deem "existential," bipartisan consensus is found swiftly and quite readily. ..."
"... In a recent speech delivered in Europe, the U.S. defense secretary and former corporate lobbyist for Raytheon, Mark Esper, unified these two faces of the Janus that embodies the North Atlantic foreign policy establishment. Esper referred to both China and Russia as disruptive forces working to unravel the international order, which "we have created together," and called on the international community to preserve that order by countering both powers. As it stands, we are on the path to a series of cold wars throughout this century, if not a hot conflict between rival great powers that could spiral into World War III. Despite increased calls for realism and restraint in foreign policy, primacy is alive and well. ..."
"... There is, however, a more significant psychosociological reason for the blob's remarkable persistence. When it comes to foreign policy, Western policymakers today suffer from a Manichean worldview, a caustic mindset crystalized during a decades-running Cold War with the Soviet Union. ..."
"... Frozen in this Cold War mindset, the Atlanticist blob has internalized the bipolar moment that followed the Second World War, treating it as a permanent fixture and the normal state of the international system. In fact, the bipolar and unipolar periods we have undergone over the past 75 years are nothing but aberrations and historical anomalies. In truth, the reality of the international system tends toward multi-polarity -- and at long last it appears that the system is self-correcting. The North Atlantic establishment came of age during that time of exception, forming its (liberal) identity through the process of "alterity" and in a nemetic opposition to communism. ..."
"... Not surprisingly then, the North Atlantic elites continue to seek adversaries to demonize and "monsters to destroy" in order to justify their moral universalism and presumed ideological superiority, doing so under the garb of a totalizing and absolutist idea of exceptionalism. ..."
The international order is no longer bipolar, despite the elites' insistence otherwise.
Fortunately there is hope for change.
Despite its many failings and high human, social, and economic costs, American foreign
policy since the end of the Second World War has shown a remarkable degree of continuity and
inflexibility. This rather curious phenomenon is not limited to America alone. The North
Atlantic foreign policy establishment from Washington D.C. to London, which some have aptly
dubbed the "blob," has doggedly championed the grand strategic framework of "primacy" and armed
hegemony, often coated with more docile language such as "global leadership," "American
indispensability," and "strengthening the Western alliance."
In America, this unfortunate status quo in support of primacy persists even in the Trumpian
Age and within debates around the eccentric and unconventional presidency of Donald Trump. In
fact, despite all the talk of political polarization in the United States, it appears that when
it comes to naming new threats and enemies to "contain," "deter," and deem "existential,"
bipartisan consensus is found swiftly and quite readily.
On the Left, and in the wake of
President Trump's election, the Democratic establishment began fixating its wrath on
Russia–adopting a confrontational stance toward Moscow and fueling fears of a renewed
Cold War. On the Right, the realigning GOP has increasingly, if at times inconsistently,
singled out China as the greatest threat to U.S. national security, a hostile attitude further
exacerbated in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Alarmingly, Joe Biden, the Democratic
presidential nominee, has recently joined the hawkish bandwagon toward China, even attempting
to outflank Trump on this issue and attacking the president's China policy as too weak and
accommodating of China's rise.
In a recent speech delivered in Europe, the U.S. defense secretary and former corporate
lobbyist for Raytheon, Mark Esper, unified these two faces of the Janus that embodies the North
Atlantic foreign policy establishment. Esper referred to both China and Russia as disruptive
forces working to unravel the international order, which "we have created together," and called
on the international community to preserve that order by countering both powers. As it stands,
we are on the path to a series of cold wars throughout this century, if not a hot conflict
between rival great powers that could spiral into World War III. Despite increased calls for
realism and restraint in foreign policy, primacy is alive and well.
Indeed, the dominant tendency among many foreign policy observers is to overprivilege the
threat of rising superpowers and to insist on strong containment measures to limit the spheres
of influence of the so-called revisionist powers. Such an approach, coupled with the prospect
of ascendant powers actively resisting and confronting the United States as the ruling global
hegemon, has one eminent International Relations scholar warning of the Thucydides Trap.
There are others, however, who insist that the structural shifts undermining the liberal
international order mark the end of U.S. hegemony and its "unipolar moment." In realist terms,
what Secretary Esper really means to protect, they would argue, is a conception of
"rules-based" global order that was a structural by-product of the Second World War and the
ensuing Cold War and whose very rules and institutions were underwritten by U.S. hegemony. This
would be an exercise in folly -- not corresponding to the reality of systemic change and the
return of great power competition and civilizational contestation.
What's more, the sanctimony of this "liberal" hegemonic order and the logic of democratic
peace were both presumably vindicated by the collapse of the Soviet Union and its totalitarian
system, a black swan event that for many had heralded the "end of history" and promised the
advent of the American century. A great deal of lives, capital, resources, and goodwill were
sacrificed by America and her allies toward that crusade for liberty and universality, which
was only the most recent iteration of a radically utopian element in American political thought
going back to Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine. Alas, as it had eluded earlier generations of
idealists, that century never truly arrived, and neither did the empire of liberty and
prosperity that it loftily aimed to establish.
Today, the emerging reality of a multipolar world and alternate worldviews championed by the
different cultural blocs led by China and Russia appears to have finally burst the bubble of
American Triumphalism, proving that the ideas behind it are "not simply obsolete but absurd."
This failure should have been expected since the very project the idealists had espoused was
built on a pathological "savior complex" and a false truism that reflected the West's own
absolutist and distorted sense of ideological and moral superiority. Samuel Huntington might
have been right all along to cast doubt on the long-term salience of using ideology and
doctrinal universalism as the dividing principle for international relations. His call to
focus, instead, on civilizational distinction, the permanent power of culture on human action,
and the need to find common ground rings especially true today. Indeed, fostering a spirit of
coexistence and open dialogue among the world's great civilizational complexes is a fundamental
tenet of a cultural realism.
And yet, despite such permanent shifts in the global order away from universalist
dichotomies and global hegemony and toward culturalism and multi-polarity, there exists a
profound disjunction between the structural realities of the international system and the often
business-as-usual attitude of the North Atlantic foreign policy elites. How could one explain
the astonishing levels of rigidity and continuity on the part of the "blob" and the
military-industrial-congressional complex regularly pushing for more adventurism and
interventionism abroad? Why would the bipartisan primacist establishment, which their allies in
the mainstream media endeavor still to mask, justify such illiberal acts of aggression and
attempts at empire by weaponizing the moralistic language of human rights, individual liberty,
and democracy in a world increasingly awakened to arbitrary ideological framing?
There are, of course, systemic reasons behind the power and perpetuation of the blob and the
endurance of primacy. The vast economic incentives of war and its instruments, institutional
routinization and intransigence, stupefaction and groupthink of government bureaucracy, and the
significant influence of lobbying efforts by foreign governments and other vested interest
groups could each partly explain the remarkable continuity of the North Atlantic foreign policy
establishment. The endless stream of funding from the defense industry, neoliberal and
neoconservative foundations, as well as the government itself keeps the "blob" alive, while the
general penchant for bipartisanship around preserving the status quo allows it to thrive. What
is more, elite schools produce highly analytic yet narrowly focused and conventional minds that
are tamed to be agreeable so as to not undermine elite consensus. This conveyor belt feeds the
"blob," supplying it with the army of specialists, experts, and wonks it requires to function
as a mind melding hive, while in practice safeguarding employment for the career bureaucrats
for decades to come.
There is, however, a more significant psychosociological reason for the blob's remarkable
persistence. When it comes to foreign policy, Western policymakers today suffer from a
Manichean worldview, a caustic mindset crystalized during a decades-running Cold War with the
Soviet Union. The world might have changed fundamentally with the fall of the Berlin Wall in
1989, the bipolar structure of the international system might have ended irreversibly, but the
personnel -- the Baby Boomer Generation elites conducting foreign policy in the North Atlantic
-- did not leave office or retire with the collapse of the USSR. They largely remain in power
to this day.
Every generation is forged through a formative crisis, its experiences seen through the
prism that all-encompassing ordeal. For the incumbent elites, that generational crisis was the
Cold War and the omnipresent threat of nuclear annihilation. The dualistic paradigm of the
international system during the U.S.-Soviet rivalry bred an entire generation to see the world
through a black-and-white binary. It should come as no surprise that this era elevated the
idealist strain of thought and the crusading, neo-Jacobin impulse of U.S. foreign policy
(personified by Thomas Jefferson and Woodrow Wilson) to new, ever-expanding heights. Idealism
prizes a nemesis and thus revels in a bipolar order.
Frozen in this Cold War mindset, the Atlanticist blob has internalized the bipolar moment
that followed the Second World War, treating it as a permanent fixture and the normal state of
the international system. In fact, the bipolar and unipolar periods we have undergone over the
past 75 years are nothing but aberrations and historical anomalies. In truth, the reality of
the international system tends toward multi-polarity -- and at long last it appears that the
system is self-correcting. The North Atlantic establishment came of age during that time of
exception, forming its (liberal) identity through the process of "alterity" and in a nemetic
opposition to communism.
Not surprisingly then, the North Atlantic elites continue to seek adversaries to demonize
and "monsters to destroy" in order to justify their moral universalism and presumed ideological
superiority, doing so under the garb of a totalizing and absolutist idea of exceptionalism.
After all, a nemetic zeitgeist during which ideology reigned supreme and realism was routinely
discounted was tailor-made for dogmatic absolutism and moral universalism. In such a zero-sum
strategic environment, it was only natural to demand totality and frame the ongoing
geopolitical struggle in terms of an existential opposition over Good and Evil that would quite
literally split the world in two.
Today, that same kind of Manichean thinking continues to handicap paradigmatic change in
foreign policy. A false consciousness, it underpins and promotes belief in the double myths of
indispensability and absolute exceptionality, suggesting that the North Atlantic bloc holds a
certain monopoly on all that is good and true. It is not by chance that such pathological
renderings of "exceptionalism" and "leadership" have been wielded as convenient rationale and
intellectual placeholders for the ideology of empire across the North Atlantic. This sense of
ingrained moral self-righteousness, coupled with an attitude that celebrates activism,
utopianism, and interventionism in foreign policy, has created and reinforced a culture of
strategic overextension and imperial overreach.
It is this very culture -- personified and dominated by the Baby Boomers and the blob they
birthed -- that has made hawkishness ubiquitous, avoids any real reckoning as to the limits of
power, and habitually belittles calls for restraint and moderation as isolationism. In truth,
however, what has been the exceptional part in the delusion of absolute exceptionalism is Pax
Americana, liberal hegemony, and the hubris that animates them having gone uncontested and
unchecked for so long. That confrontation could begin in earnest by directly challenging the
Boomer blob itself -- and by propagating a counter-elite offering a starkly different
worldview.
Achieving such a genuine paradigm shift demands a generational sea-change, to retire the old
blob and make a better one in its place. It is about time for the old establishment to forgo
its reign, allowing a new younger cohort from among the Millennial and post-Millennial
generations to advance into leadership roles. The Millennials, especially, are now the largest
generation of eligible voters (overtaking the Baby Boomers) as well as the first generation not
habituated by the Cold War; in fact, many of them grew up during the "unipolar moment" of
American hegemony. Hence, their generational identity is not built around a dualistic alterity.
Free from obsessive fixation on ideological supremacy, most among them reject total global
dominance as both unattainable and undesirable.
Instead, their worldview is shaped by an entirely different set of experiences and
disappointments. Their generational crisis was brought on by a series of catastrophic
interventions and endless wars around the world -- chief among them the debacles in Afghanistan
and Iraq and the toppling of Libya's Gaddafi -- punctuated by repeated onslaughts of financial
recessions and domestic strife. The atmosphere of uncertainty, instability, and general chaos
has bred discontent, turning many Millennials into pragmatic realists who are disenchanted with
the system, critical of the pontificating establishment, and naturally skeptical of lofty
ideals and utopian doctrines.
In short, this is not an absolutist and complacent generation of idealists, but one steeped
in realism and a certain perspectivism that has internalized the inherent relativity of both
power and truth. Most witnessed the dangers of overreach, hubris, and a moralized foreign
policy, so they are actively self-reflective, circumspect, and restrained. As a generation,
they appear to be less the moralist and the global activist and more prudent, level-headed, and
temperamentally conservative -- developing a keen appreciation for realpolitik, sovereignty,
and national interest. Their preference for a non-ideological approach in foreign policy
suggests that once in power, they will be less antagonistic and more tolerant of rival powers
and accepting of pluralism in the international system. That openness to civilizational
distinction and global cultural pluralism also implies that future Millennial statesmen will
subscribe to a more humble, less grandiose, and narrower definition of interest that focuses on
securing core objectives -- i.e., preserving national security and recognizing spheres of
influence.
Reforming and rehabilitating the U.S. foreign policy establishment will require more than
policy prescriptions and comprehensive reports: it needs generational change. To transform and
finally "rein in" North Atlantic foreign policy, our task today must be to facilitate and
expedite this shift. Once that occurs, the incoming Millennials should be better positioned to
discard the deep-seated and routinized ideology of empire, supplanting it with a greater
emphasis on partnership that is driven by mutual interests and a general commitment to sharing
the globe with the world's other great cultures.
This new approach calls for America to lead by the power of its example, exhibiting the
benefits of liberty and a constitutional republic at home, without forcibly imposing those
values abroad. Such an outlook means abandoning the coercive regime change agendas and the
corrosive projects of nation-building and democracy promotion. In this new multipolar world,
America would be an able, dynamic, and equal participant in ensuring sustainable peace
side-by-side the world's other great powers, acting as "a normal country in a normal time."
Reflecting the spirit of republican governance authentically is far more pertinent now and
salutary for the future of the North Atlantic peoples than is promulgating the utopian image of
a shining city on a hill.
Arta Moeini is research director at the Institute for Peace and Diplomacy and a postdoc
fellow at the Center for the Study of Statesmanship. Dr. Moeini's latest project advances a
theory of cultural realism as a cornerstone to a new understanding of foreign policy.
The Institute for Peace and Diplomacy will be co-sponsoring "The Future of Grand Strategy
in the Post-COVID World," with TAC, tonight at 6 p.m. ET. Register for free here
.
I always assumed that Trump was the candidate of MIC in 2016 elections, while Hillary was the
candidate of "Intelligence community." But it looks like US military is infected with desperados
like Mattis and Trump was unable fully please them despite all his efforts.
But it looks like US military is infected with desperados like Mattis and Trump was unable
fully please them despite all his efforts. Military desperados are not interested in how many
American they deprived of decent standard of living due to outside military expenses. All they
want is to dominate the word and maintain the "Full Spectrum Dominance" whatever it costs.
It is Trump's tortured relationship with the military that stands out the most, especially
as told through the eyes of former Secretary of Defense Jim 'Mad Dog' Mattis, a retired marine
general. It is clear that Bob Woodward spent hours speaking with Mattis -- the insights,
emotions and internal voice captured in the book show a level of intimacy that could only be
reached through in-depth interviews, and Woodward has a well-earned reputation for getting
people to speak to him.
The book makes it clear that Mattis viewed Trump as a threat to the US' standing as the
defender of a rules-based order -- built on the back of decades-old alliances -- that had been
in place since the end of the Second World War.
It also makes it clear that Mattis and the military officers he oversaw placed defending
this order above implementing the will of the American people, as expressed through the free
and fair election that elevated Donald Trump to the position of commander-in-chief. In short,
Mattis and his coterie of generals knew best, and when the president dared issue an order or
instruction that conflicted with their vision of how the world should work, they would do their
best to undermine this order, all the while confirming to the president that it was being
followed.
This trend was on display in Woodward's telling of Trump's efforts to forge better relations
with North Korea. At every turn, Mattis and his military commanders sought to isolate the
president from the reality on the ground, briefing him only on what they thought he needed to
know, and keeping him in the dark about what was really going on.
In a telling passage, Woodward takes us into the mind of Jim Mattis as he contemplates the
horrors of a nuclear war with North Korea, and the responsibility he believed he shouldered
when it came to making the hard decision as to whether nuclear weapons should be used or not.
Constitutionally, the decision was the president's alone to make, something Mattis begrudgingly
acknowledges. But in Mattis' world, he, as secretary of defense, would be the one who
influenced that decision.
Mattis, along with the other general officers described by Woodward, is clearly gripped with
what can only be described as the 'Military Messiah Syndrome'.
What defines this 'syndrome' is perhaps best captured in the words of Emma Sky, the female
peace activist-turned adviser to General Ray Odierno, the one-time commander of US forces in
Iraq. In a frank give-and-take captured by Ms. Sky in her book 'The Unravelling', Odierno spoke
of the value he placed on the military's willingness to defend "freedom" anywhere in the world.
" There is, " he said, " no one who understands more the importance of liberty and
freedom in all its forms than those who travel the world to defend it ."
Ms. Sky responded in typically direct fashion: " One day, I will have you admit that the
[Iraq] war was a bad idea, that the administration was led by a radical neocon program, that
the US's standing in the world has gone down greatly, and that we are far less safe than we
were before 9/11. "
Odierno would have nothing of it. " It will never happen while I'm the commander of
soldiers in Iraq ."
" To lead soldiers in battle ," Ms. Sky noted, " a commander had to believe in the
cause. " Left unsaid was the obvious: even if the cause was morally and intellectually
unsound.
his, more than anything, is the most dangerous thing about the 'Military Messiah Syndrome'
as captured by Bob Woodward -- the fact that the military is trapped in an inherited reality
divorced from the present, driven by precepts which have nothing to with what is, but rather by
what the military commanders believe should be. The unyielding notion that the US military is a
force for good becomes little more than meaningless drivel when juxtaposed with the reality
that the mission being executed is inherently wrong.
The 'Military Messiah Syndrome' lends itself to dishonesty and, worse, to self-delusion. It
is one thing to lie; it is another altogether to believe the lie as truth.
No single
general had the courage to tell Trump allegations against Syria were a hoax
The cruise missile attack on Syria in early April 2017 stands out as a case in point. The
attack was ordered in response to allegations that Syria had dropped a bomb containing the
sarin nerve agent on a town -- Khan Shaykhun -- that was controlled by Al-Qaeda-affiliated
Islamic militants.
Trump was led to believe that the 59 cruise missiles launched against Shayrat Airbase --
where the Su-22 aircraft alleged to have dropped the bombs were based -- destroyed Syria's
capability to carry out a similar attack in the future. When shown post-strike imagery in which
the runways were clearly untouched, Trump was outraged, lashing out at Secretary of Defense
Mattis in a conference call. " I can't believe you didn't destroy the runway !",
Woodward reports the president shouting.
" Mr. President ," Mattis responds in the text, " they would rebuild the runway in
24 hours, and it would have little effect on their ability to deploy weapons. We destroyed the
capability to deploy weapons " for months, Mattis said.
" That was the mission the president had approved, " Woodward writes, clearly
channeling Mattis, " and they had succeeded ."
The problem with this passage is that it is a lie. There is no doubt that Bob Woodward has
the audio tape of Jim Mattis saying these things. But none of it is true. Mattis knew it when
he spoke to Woodward, and Woodward knew it when he wrote the book.
There was no confirmed use of chemical weapons by Syria at Khan Shaykhun. Indeed, the
forensic evidence available about the attack points to the incident being a false flag effort
-- a successful one, it turns out -- on the part of the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamists to
provoke a US military strike against Syria. No targets related to either the production,
storage or handling of chemical weapons were hit by the US cruise missiles, if for no other
reason than no such targets could exist if Syria did not possess and/or use a chemical weapon
against Khan Shaykhun.
Moreover, the US failed to produce a narrative of causality which provided some underlying
logic to the targets that were struck at Khan Shaykhun -- "Here is where the chemical weapons
were stored, here is where the chemical weapons were filled, here is where the chemical weapons
were loaded onto the aircraft." Instead, 59 cruise missiles struck empty aircraft hangars,
destroying derelict aircraft, and killing at least four Syrian soldiers and up to nine
civilians.
The next morning, the same Su-22 aircraft that were alleged to have bombed Khan Shaykhun
were once again taking off from Shayrat Air Base -- less than 24 hours after the US cruise
missiles struck that facility. President Trump had every reason to be outraged by the
results.
But the President should have been outraged by the processes behind the attack, where
military commanders, fully afflicted by 'Military Messiah Syndrome', offered up solutions that
solved nothing for problems that did not exist. Not a single general (or admiral) had the
courage to tell the president that the allegations against Syria were a hoax, and that a
military response was not only not needed, but would be singularly counterproductive.
But that's not how generals and admirals -- or colonels and lieutenant colonels -- are
wired. That kind of introspective honesty cannot happen while they are in command.
Bob Woodward knows this truth, but he chose not to give it a voice in his book, because to
do so would disrupt the pre-scripted narrative that he had constructed, around which he bent
and twisted the words of those he interviewed -- including the president and Jim Mattis. As
such, 'Rage' is, in effect, a lie built on a lie. It is one thing for politicians and those in
power to manipulate the truth to their advantage. It's something altogether different for
journalists to report something as true that they know to be a lie.
On the back cover of 'Rage', the Pulitzer prize-winning historian Robert Caro is quoted from
a speech he gave about Bob Woodward. " Bob Woodward ," Caro notes, " a great
reporter. What is a great reporter? Someone who never stops trying to get as close to the truth
as possible ."
After reading 'Rage', one cannot help but conclude the opposite -- that Bob Woodward has
written a volume which pointedly ignores the truth. Instead, he gives voice to a lie of his own
construct, predicated on the flawed accounts of sources inflicted with 'Military Messiah
Syndrome', whose words embrace a fantasy world populated by military members fulfilling
missions far removed from the common good of their fellow citizens -- and often at conflict
with the stated intent and instruction of the civilian leadership they ostensibly serve. In
doing so, Woodward is as complicit as the generals and former generals he quotes in misleading
the American public about issues of fundamental importance.
Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!
Scott Ritter
is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and author of ' SCORPION
KING : America's Suicidal Embrace of Nuclear Weapons from FDR to Trump.' He served in the
Soviet Union as an inspector implementing the INF Treaty, in General Schwarzkopf’s staff
during the Gulf War, and from 1991-1998 as a UN weapons inspector. Follow him on Twitter
@RealScottRitter
Whichever construct you want to believe, the fact remains that US has continued to sow
instability around the world in the name of defending the liberty and freedom. Which brings
to the question how the world can continue to allow a superpower to dictate what's good or
bad for a sovereign country.
Johan le Roux Jewel Gyn 18 hours ago 17 Sep, 2020 03:42 AM
The answer you seek is not in the US's proclaimed vision of 'democracy' ot 'rescuing
populations from the clutches of vile dictators.' They just say that to validate their
actions which in reality is using their military as a mercenary force to secure and steal the
resources of countries.
Joaquin Montano 1 day ago 16 Sep, 2020 04:57 PM
Bob Woodward was enshrined as a great, heroic like journalist by the Hollywood propaganda
machine, but reality is he is a US Security agent pretending to be a well informed/connected
journalist. And indeed, he is well informed/connected, since he was a Naval intelligence man,
part responsible of the demise of the Nixon administration when it fell out of grace with the
powerful elites, and the Washington Post being well connected with the CIA, the rest is
history. And as they say, once a CIA man, always a CIA man.
That is correct. Woodward is a Naval intelligence man. The elite in the US was not happy
about Nixon's foreign policy and his detante with the Soviet Union. Watergate was invented,
and Nixon had nothing to do with it. However, it brought him down, thank's to Woodward.
NoJustice Joaquin Montano 1 day ago 16 Sep, 2020 06:48 PM
But he also exposed Trump's lies about Covid-19.
lectrodectus 17 hours ago 17 Sep, 2020 04:45 AM
Another first class article by ....Scott .. The book makes it clear that Mattis viewed Trump
as a threat to the Us' standing as the defender of a " rules -based order -built on the back
of decades -old alliances-that had been in place since the end of the second World War". It
also makes it clear that " Mattis and the Military officials he oversaw placed defending this
order above the implementing the will of the American People " These old Military Dinosaurs
simply can't let go of the past, unfortunately for the American people / the World I can't
see anything ever changing, it will be business as usual ie, war after War after War.
Jonny247364 lectrodectus 5 minutes ago 17 Sep, 2020 09:53 PM
Just because donny signs a dictact it does not equate to the will of the americian people.
The americian people did not ask donny to murder Assad.
neeon9 1 day ago 16 Sep, 2020 06:56 PM
"a threat to the US’ standing as the defender of a rules-based order –" Who made
that a thing? who voted for the US to be the policeman of the planet? and who said their
"rules" are right? I sure didn't, nor did anyone I know, even my american friends don't know
whose idea it was!
fezzie035fezzm 1 day ago 16 Sep, 2020 06:29 PM
It's interesting to note that every president since J.F.K. has got America into a military
conflict, or has turned a minor conflict into a major one. Trump is the exception. Trump
inherited conflicts (Afghanistan, Syria etc) but has not started a new one, and he has spent
his three years ending or winding down the conflicts he had inherited.
NoJustice fezzie035fezzm 1 day ago 16 Sep, 2020 06:34 PM
Trump increased military deployment to the Middle East. He increased military spending. He
had a foreign general assassinated. He had missiles fired into Syria. He vetoed a bill that
would limit his authority to wage war. Trump is not an exception.
T. Agee Kaye 1 day ago 16 Sep, 2020 05:59 PM
Good op ed. 'Rage is built on a lie' applies to many things.
E_Kaos T. Agee Kaye 7 hours ago 17 Sep, 2020 02:46 PM
True, the beginning of a new narrative and the continuation of an old narrative.
PYCb988 1 day ago 16 Sep, 2020 07:25 PM
Something's amiss here. Mattis was openly telling the press that there was no evidence
against Assad. Just Google: Mattis Newsweek Assad.
erniedouglas 12 hours ago 17 Sep, 2020 09:14 AM
What was Watergate? Even bet says there were tapes of a private relationship between Nixon
and BB Rebozo.
allan Kaplan 1 day ago 16 Sep, 2020 06:03 PM
Continuation of a highly organized and tightly controlled disinformation campaign to do one
singularly the most significant and historically one of the most illegal act of American
betrayal... overthrow American elections at any and all costs to install one of the most
deranged, demoralized sold out brain dead Biden and his equally brown nosing Harris only to
unseat a legally and democratically elected US president according to our Constitution! Will
their evil acts against America work? I doubt it! But at a price that America has never
before seen. Let's sit back and watch this Rose Bowl parade of America's dirtiest of the
dirty politics!
E_Kaos allan Kaplan 7 hours ago 17 Sep, 2020 02:49 PM
"brown nosing harris", how apropos with the play on words.
Bill Spence allan Kaplan 1 day ago 16 Sep, 2020 06:29 PM
Both parties and their politicians are totally corrupt. Why would anyone support one side
over the other? Is that because you believe the promises and lies?
custos125 17 hours ago 17 Sep, 2020 04:35 AM
Is there any evidence that both Mattis and Woodward knew that the allegations of a Syrian use
of chemical weapons by plane were not true, a false flag? On the assumption of this use, the
capacity to fly such attack and deploy such weapons was destroyed for some time. I recommend
reading of Rage, it is quite interesting, even if some people will not like it and try to
keep people away from the book.
E_Kaos custos125 7 hours ago 17 Sep, 2020 02:58 PM
My observations were: 1 - where were the bomb fragments 2 - why use rusted gas cylinders 3 -
how do you attach a rusted gas cylinder to a plane 4 - were the rusted gas cylinders tossed
out of a plane 5 - how did the rusted gas cylinders land so close to each other My conclusion
- False Flag Incident
neeon9 1 day ago 16 Sep, 2020 06:58 PM
The is only one threat to peace in the world, and it's the US/Israeli M.I.C.. War mongering
children, who actually believe, against all reason, that they are the most worthy and
entitled race on earth! they are not. The US has been responsible for more misery in the
world than any other state, which isn't surprising given how many Nazi's were resettled there
by the Jews. They are also the only Ppl on the planet who think a nuclear war is winnable!
How strange is that!
NoJustice 1 day ago 16 Sep, 2020 06:22 PM
So everything is a lie because Woodward didn't mention that there was no evidence found that
linked the Syrian government to the chemical attack?
Strongbo50 6 minutes ago 17 Sep, 2020 09:58 PM
The left is firing up the Russian Interference narrative again, how Russia is trying to take
the election. The real truth is in plain sight, The main stream media is trying to deliver
Biden a win, along with google yahoo msn facebook and twitter. I say, come on Russia, if you
can help stem that tide of lies please Mr Putin help. That's a joke but the media is real.
And Woodward in his old age wants one more trophy on his mantle.
CuttySark 1 day ago 16 Sep, 2020 05:41 PM
Trump has become the great white whale. Seems like there are Ahab's everywhere willing to
shoot their hearts upon the beast to bring it down whatever the cost. I think it was this
kind of rage and attitude that got Adolf off to a good start.
NoJustice CuttySark 1 day ago 16 Sep, 2020 05:44 PM
He's an easy target because he keeps screwing up.
Gryphon_ 1 day ago 16 Sep, 2020 06:59 PM
The Washington Post is owned by Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon. Never in my life have I seen a
newspaper that lies as much as the post. Bob Woodward works for the post.
It took balls for Carlson to have Anya Parampil on his show last night. He has had her on
before, so he knows what she is like she tells it like it is. He will get shit for that.
I don't think he agrees with everything she said but agrees with some of it.
"There's no difference between John Bolton, Brian Hook or Elliott Abrams," Iranian Foreign
Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said in
a tweet with the hashtag #BankruptUSPolicy on Friday.
"When U.S. policy concerns Iran, American officials have been biting off more than they can
chew. This applies to Mike Pompeo, Donald Trump and their successors," Mousavi added.
Indeed in perhaps one of the greatest symbols or representations of the contradictions and
absurdity inherent in US foreign policy of the past few decades, and a supreme irony that can't
be emphasized enough: the new US envoy to Iran who will oversee Pompeo's 'maximum pressure'
campaign remains the most publicly visible face of the 1980's Iran-Contra affair .
Elliott Abrams has been named to the position after Brian Hook stepping down. This means the
man who will continue to push for the extension of a UN arms embargo against Iran once himself
was deeply involved in illegally selling weapons to Iran and covering it up .
Most famously, or we should say infamously, Abrams pleaded guilty to lying to Congress in
1991 following years of the Iran-Contra scandal engulfing the Reagan administration; however,
he was also pardoned by outgoing president George H.W. Bush at around the same time.
"Pardoned by George H.W. Bush in 1992, Abrams was a pivotal figure in the foreign-policy
scandal that shook the Reagan administration, lying to Congress about his knowledge of the plot
to covertly sell weapons to the Khomeini government and use the proceeds to illegally fund the
right-wing Contras rebel group in Nicaragua ,"
NY Mag reviews.
Some are noting this heightens the chances that Washington could get dragged into a war
involving Israel and Iran.
Recall too that Abrams has been Trump's point man for ousting Maduro from Venezuela, and it
appears he'll remain in the post of special envoy for Venezuela as well.
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The Grayzone journalist, Anya Parampil, who has frequently reported from Venezuela, alleged
this week that Abrams will "try and destroy Venezuela and Iran at the same time".
https://www.dianomi.com/smartads.epl?id=4879&num_ads=18&cf=1258.5.zerohedge%20190919&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fmarkets%2Fno-difference-between-john-bolton-brian-hook-or-elliott-abrams-iran-fm Wild Bill Steamcock , 14 hours ago
Abrams is a disgrace. This Administration should be dying in it's own shame bringing this
swine back into government.
He's a leach. He's about lining his own pockets. He can't even own a .22 single shot, yet
he's shaping international policy.
This country is dead. And the fact Trump has democrat and zionist Kushner as advisor,
bringing in guys like Bolton and Abrams, Reince Priebus, H.R. McMaster and that Ukranian pet
goblin of his, in not firing Comey et. al day 1 means he's not the answer. Face it.
And to be fair, it doesn't matter anymore who is POTUS. It hasn't really mattered in quite
some time. The Plan rolls along.
Kinskian , 15 hours ago
Trump is a clumsy and transparent Zionist stooge.
PT , 14 hours ago
Gotta admit, if you're going to have a Zionist stooge then you are better off having a
clumsy and transparent one.
Dank fur Kopf , 14 hours ago
Elliott Abrams is a moron. He's been running the exact same stupid coup strategy for
decades, and can't conceive of a world where the enemy has worked out how to defeat that.
Venezuela was set to be US foreign policies most embarrassing failure--but maybe Iran will
be worse.
Dank fur Kopf , 14 hours ago
Let's predict what Abrams will attempt:
Running out of the US/UK embassies, Abrams will attempt to identify a potential
alternative leader who is corrupt and controllable. They'll throw political support behind
this false leader, and try and find enough military to support him. Then, protests in the
streets, and the small faction of the military--supported by foreign forces--will attempt to
establish control.
Counter: China and Russia will import anti-coup specialists. Individuals in the Iranian
military will pretend to be on board claiming to have thousands at call, and when the false
leader gives the call, they won't answer. All the conspirators will be caught out on the
street, and have to flee to embassies for political asylum. Like what happened in Venezuela
recently, and Turkey in 2016. This will allow Iran to do a purge of all the real threats
(remembering that Iran has the death penalty for sedition), and give them enough
justification to end diplomatic missions in the country that are being used as launch
pads.
Hillary is a co-founder of Onward
Together , a Democratic Party front group that is affiliated to other activist
organizations. In a recent e-mail she played the race card in a bid to solidify the black vote
behind the Democratic Party, writing "Friend, George Floyd's life mattered. Ahmaud Arbery and
Breonna Taylor's lives mattered. Black lives matter. Against a backdrop of a pandemic that has
disproportionately ravaged communities of color, we are being painfully reminded right now that
we are long overdue for honest reckoning and meaningful action to dismantle systemic
racism."
It is, of course, a not-so-subtle bid to buy votes using the currently popular code words
"systemic racism" as a pledge that the Democrats will take steps to materially benefit blacks
if the party wins the White House and a majority in the Senate. She ends her e-mail with an odd
commitment, "I promise to keep fighting alongside all of you to make the United States a place
where all men and all women are treated as equals, just as we are and just as we deserve to
be." The comment is odd because she is on one hand promising to promote the interests of one
group based on skin color while also stating that everyone should be "treated as equals."
Someone should tip her off to the fact that employment and educational racial preferences and
reparations are not the hallmarks of a government that treats everyone the same.
But if one really wants to dig into the depths of the Democratic Party soul, or lack
thereof, there is no one who is better than former U.N. Ambassador and Secretary of State under
Bill Clinton, the estimable Madeleine Albright. She too has written an e-mail that recently
went out to Democratic Party supporters, saying:
"I'm deeply concerned. Donald Trump poses an existential threat to our standing in the world
and continues to threaten the decades of diplomatic progress we had made. It is easy to forget
from the comfort of our homes that for many people, America is a beacon of hope and
opportunity. We're known as a country that keeps our promises and upholds justice and
democracy, and that didn't just happen overnight. We've spent decades building our
nation's reputation on the world stage through careful, strategic diplomacy -- but in just
under four years, Trump has done unspeakable damage to those relationships and has insulted
even our closest allies."
Albright, who is perhaps most famous for having stated that she thought that the deaths of
500,000 Iraqi children due to U.S. imposed sanctions was "worth it," is living in a fantasy
bubble that many politicians and high government officials seem to inhabit. She embraces the
America the "Essential Nation" concept because it makes her and her former boss Bill Clinton
look like great statesmen. She once enthused
nonsensically that "If we have to use force, it is because we are America; we are the
indispensable nation. We stand tall and we see further than other countries into the future,
and we see the danger here to all of us."
Madeleine Albright's view that "America is a beacon of hope and opportunity known as a
country that keeps our promises and upholds justice and democracy" is also, of course,
completely delusional, as opinion polls regularly indicate that nearly the entire world
considers the U.S. to be extremely dangerous and virtually a rogue state in its blind pursuit
of narrow self-interest combined with an unwillingness to uphold international law. And that
has been true under both Democratic and Republican recent presidents, including Clinton. It is
not just Trump.
Albright is clearly on a roll and has also submitted to a New York Times
interview , further enlightening that paper's readership on why the Trump administration is
failing in its job of protecting the American people. The questions and answers are singularly,
perhaps deliberately, unexciting and are largely focused on coronavirus and the new world order
that it is shaping. Albright faults Trump for not promoting an international effort to defeat
the virus, which is perhaps a bridge too far for most Americans who are not even very receptive
to a nationally mandated pandemic response, let alone one requiring cooperation with
"foreigners."
Albright's persistence as a go-to media "expert" on international relations is befuddling
given her own history as an integral part of the inept foreign policy promoted by the Clinton
Administration. She and Bill Clinton became cheerleaders for an unnecessary Balkan war that
still resonates and were responsible for what was possibly the greatest foreign policy blunder
(with the possible exception of the Iraq War) since the Second World War. That consisted of
ignoring the commitment to post-Soviet Russia to not take advantage of the 1991 end of
Communism by expanding U.S. or NATO military presence into Eastern Europe. Clinton/Albright
reneged on that understanding and opened the door for many of the former Soviet allied states
to enter NATO, thereby introducing a hostile military presence right up to Russia's border.
Simultaneously, the U.S. enabled the election as Russian president of the hapless drunk
Boris Yeltsin, who, guided by advisers sent by the White House, oversaw the western looting of
his country's natural resources. The bad decision-making under the Clintons led inevitably to
the rise of Vladimir Putin as a corrective, which, exacerbated by Hillary Clinton as Secretary
of State and a maladroit Donald Trump, has in turn produced the poisoned bilateral relationship
between Washington and Moscow that currently prevails.
So, one might reasonably suggest to Joe Biden that if he really wants to get elected in
November it would be a good idea to keep the Clintons, Albright and maybe even Obama carefully
hidden away somewhere. Albright's interview characteristically concludes with her plan for an
"Avengers style dream team" to "fix the world right now." She said that "Well, it certainly
would be a female team. Without naming names, I would really try to look for women who are in
office, both in the executive and legislative branch. I would try to have a female C.E.O., but
also somebody who heads up a nongovernmental organization. You don't want everybody that's
exactly the same. Oh, and I'm about to do a program for the National Democratic Institute with
Angelina Jolie, and she made the most amazing movie about what was going on in Bosnia, so I
would want her on my team."
No men allowed and a Hollywood actress who is regarded as somewhat odd? Right.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest,
a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a
more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is
<a://councilforthenationalinterest.org%2C/"
title="https://councilforthenationalinterest.org%2C/"
href="https://councilforthenationalinterest.org%2C/">https://councilforthenationalinterest.org,
address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is
<a:[email protected]" title="mailto:[email protected]"
href="mailto:[email protected]">[email protected].
Hillary and Barack were also complicit in unnecessary wars against Libya and Syria that
have devastated both countries.
Most Americans remain unaware of their destruction of Libya, Africa's most prosperous
nation, which claimed 40,000 black lives. Thousands more were killed as they destroyed
Somalia and Sudan as part of the neocon plan from the Bush era to destroy "seven countries in
five years" as General Wesley Clark told the world. Thousands more died as they attempted to
destroy Syria. Here is a short summary of their destruction of Libya:
Take a close look at the visage of Mad Albright. What do you see beyond the simple ravages
of the aging process on a life misspent? Check out those eyes, unmasked by the rouge. Take a
close look. What do you see? Can you discern the sociopathic evidence, the haunting by the
scores of thousands of Iraqi children who starved to death under the tender mercies of United
$tates of America Corporation's foreign policy on behalf of the agenda of the elite crime
clans of highest international finance.
Maddie is a minion, a minion for genocide and for a total lack of elementary human
empathy. She is an ambulatory exemplar of Kali Yuga, the age of devolution, which in polar
opposition to the Celestial Kingdom which reigned in China as recently as the Ming Dynasty.
During that era where administrative positions were based as much as possible on merit, the
contrast is vivid versus the current reality in our ruptured republic where instead of the
cream, the scum rises to the top.
Remove that pic of know nothing old owl from this site – some children might see
it!
We need updates on Biden's mega corruption in Ukraine investigation. Trump was impeached
for talking to Ukraine president about Biden's corruption and that lifetime taxpayers leech
is Democrats front runner for the highest office – pathetic.
During the days of her power and glory (Yeltsin years) Albright had made nine maps of the
countries that would be created by the dissolution of Russia. Somebody walked in the poker
game room and said "Let's play a different game". Enter the Putin era.
The democrats are just snake skins laying on the asphalt. The new sheriff in town (Syria,
Libya) is laying out a different plan. Good by NWO , halo multipolar world.
Trump declared on many occasions " we are there because we want the oil"; crude? Yes but
honest at least. For those who prefer smooth talkers like the Clintons and the Obamas, I
state that the legacy of those two administrations has done more harm to the foreign
perception of US power In the Middle East and Eastern Europe than any vulgar language
pronounced by Trump who, so far, can be credited with not having started any foreign
wars.
At least Trump tried to withdraw American troops from Syria only to be kept in check by
the reality of the American Deep state power structure. Had he succeeded in his endeavour, US
Russia relations would have better than they are today.
Three months to the election and what is on the main menu? Two old white men, neither fit
to serve the office of the Presidency. The nation is a tired old whore, spent from all those
wars for Zion, and it seems to me the crazy cat lady from the Simpsons is better than Trump
or Biden. Both candidates are loony tune, both are completely unacceptable. We are looking at
Weimar in the mirror. The nation has run it's course, the Republic is dead.
(Weimar Germany, of course, collapsed. Weimar is also the prelude democratic state before
the rise of the authoritarian state. All those who thought Trump was a new Hitler are fools,
Trump is the slavish whore of the Jews, not the opposing force, not the charismatic leader
who restores sanity to the nation wrecked by Jews. What Trump is, is the final wrecking ball,
not the savior.)
Gone are the glory days of imperial dreams, Amerika is not longer fit to wage another big
war in the Middle East for Israel. So what is Bibi to do, Israel is in corona crazy lockdown,
and his influence on Amerikan politics seems to me slipping badly. How much longer will AIPAC
be allowed to influence our politicians if we go into a hyper deflationary crash? It seems to
me the Greater Israel project is about to get the rug pulled out, because if the USA crashes
and burns no one will tolerate one more cent going to that god forsaken shithole.
"If we have to use force, it is because we are America; we are the indispensable nation.
We stand tall and we see further than other countries into the future, and we see
the danger here to all of us."
Whom the gods would destroy they first make Madeleine.
The main difference between the reps and dems is their party names. Both represent the
same oligarch interests. Most of the dem objections to trump are psywar manipulations for
public consumption, not serious policy differences. Pretty much all fluff. The reps also do
the same about influencial dems, they endlessly talk nonsense about inconsequential things
about them.
The drama queenery is to manipulate the public into thinking their votes for either party
actually matter in some way. As of late, that psywar has been failing since most people don't
see much difference between the two and believe both parties don't represent them and are
lying scum. Trying to neutralize this view by the people is part of the reason the psywar
critters have ramped up the hysterics.
Barack's mother, Madeleine's father and Chelsea's husband all have one thing in common and
that something is without which sleepy Joe can't be elected so the author's advice to keep
Obamas, Clintons and Albright at bay is moot at best!
Her statement about Iraqi children should not come as a surprise to any. She was is from
that part of Europe which is famous for being racist.
I came across with an interesting story during Balkan "peace" negotiations in a Paris in
90s. The Bosnian and Serbian delegates were negotiating in Paris hotel where American
delegate was staying. One time, at 4 O'clock in the morning out curiosity sMadeline went and
knocked on the negotiators door. One of them opened the door and failed to recognize her and
thought her to be the cleaning lady. Told her to come back later.
That role suits her perfectly.
Set everything else aside and consider the relationship of each POTUS to the
sovereign.
The terminology I use is that they fall somewhere on the spectrum from figurehead to real
POTUS.
Obama and Trump are opposites in this respect. Obama took office having gifted the
national security state a globally appealing front-man. While he had campaigned and started
his presidency looking like he wanted to use his power to move the needle in the right
direction, he was quickly snapped like a butter bean, retreating into the presidential safe
space offered, at least up until that point, to a POTUS that accepted the constrained role to
which the American presidency had been consigned in the modern era.
There were signs almost immediately with Obama. After decisively winning election and
becoming our first black president, he was house-trained early on over a single comment
defending his Harvard professor friend after a silly arrest.
Does anyone other than me even remember this incident? Or how it completely emasculated
the new POTUS, with him retreating behind a teleprompter for everything other than occasional
unscripted remarks that, if unwittingly notable or problematic, were quickly corrected by
some handler.
Now consider Trump. Both as candidate and POTUS he's Obama's opposite. Where Obama had the
establishment wind at his back, writ large those same forces tried to destroy Trump's
candidacy and presidency.
Rather than belabor any particulars I'll just note that the psychological driver for the
ruling and governing classes, regardless of their ideological and programmatic preferences,
is boundless resentment toward him.
After all, it isn't an overstatement to note that more than any other president, Trump got
there on his own, with a near complete array of establishment forces, domestic and foreign,
against him, including his own party.
Who would have thought such a thing possible before Trump did it?
Little has changed since 2016. We're in our current moment because destroying Trump
remains as close to a dues ex machina as any of us have or will see in our lifetimes. There
are real, monumental interests at stake but when you get right down to it most personalities
in the ruling and governing classes -- who to a one grew up with mama telling them they
should be POTUS someday, need him gone so they can go back to feeling better about
themselves.
@RoatanBill pointees he has to placate some truly awful people, such as Mitt Romney. Some
personnel selections that appear to be made by the President are actually part of package
deals where key Senators get to pick their names. That is why certain parts of the
administration are out of touch with Trump's agenda.
Trump has been 100% successful preventing NeoConDemocrats from starting new wars.
Unwinding the messes he inherited from prior administrations is much more complicated.
Hopefully Trump's now inevitable second term will include a friendlier Senate. That will
help him get more done than his first term which was impeded by the ObamaGate deception.
I don't care about all the political backstabbing and massaging. If he had any balls he'd
use the same New York English I grew up with and tell the entire Congress, the Supreme Court
and the intel agencies to go F themselves and do so on national TV. The silent majority in
the country would back up his play.
But he doesn't do that because he's a bought and paid for politico just like the rest of
them. The deep state probably has dirt on him like everyone else in the District of Criminals
and they tell him how to behave. He backs off and allows more deaths to occur to save his
sorry ass from some exposure.
@RoatanBill asking the wrong question . Let me Fix That For You.
As Impeachment Jury, the Senate has final say on whether Trump stays in
office.
Is that true or isn't it? Yes or no?
Are you leading a movement to:
-- Jettison the Constitution
-- Dissolve Congress and the Supreme Court
-- Proclaim Trump as God Emperor of the Golden Throne
When you finish this task, I will back your position that Trump can act unilaterally with
regard to foreign troop deployments.
Until then, I strongly recommend a more realistic and nuanced view on what a President can
accomplish.
complicit in unnecessary wars against Libya and Syria
That's putting it in polite terms. In reality it's massive war criminality, wars of
aggression that killed, maimed and uprooted millions of people in other countries. Not that
it caused as much of a stir domestically as the death of Floyd but there you have it, the
order of priorities of the American people and their supposed leaders. During the Vietnam war
a common chant was "Hey hey, LBJ, how many kids you kill today?". This is true for the
Clintons, Obama, Albright and all the rest of them yet somehow they still have their fans.
They're past their expiration dates yet are still kicking around since the Dem party is
sclerotic with no new blood, no new ideas, just the same old parasites. Their presidential
candidate is way past retirement age and has been obviously faltering in public. This is
their champion, a lifelong mediocrity who is entering senility? US no longer has any wind in
its sails.
O think out move in the Balkans was essentially correct. Even Russia scolded their allies
for their behavior as over the top in brutality. If Russia your closest ally says you are
over the top -- then there's a good chance the genocide claim has merit.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- –
But I see no reason for Dr. Giraldo to be tepid here. somalia is the a complete
embarssment. The admin took a feed and water operation and turned into a "warloard" hunt
without any clue began interfering into the internal affairs of a complex former colonized
region left bankrupt to reconfigure itself and began a failed bid to set aright -- ohhh that
should sound familiar.
1. They turned a mess into a "warlord" victory for the leader they thought most
dangerous(and I hate that word and its connotations -- a civil conflict) and then to top it
off
2. ran away with their tail between their legs -- it was in my mind the second sign of US
vulnerability to asymmetric warefare
counter balance that against not intervening in the genocide in Africa's Rwanda. The deep
level hypocrisy here or complete bankrupt moral efficacy -- intervening in Bosnia-Herzegovina
but completely ignoring the a worse case in Africa.
All of which occurred under the foreign policy headship of Mrs Albright. Ahhh they are
women hear them roar . . . Let's get it straight.
Women wanted us in
Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Syria, Ukraine, Libya, they want to intervene . . . in the name
of humanity for any host of issues, in a bid to appear tough they will on occasion say the
incedulous -- but the bottom lie
female leadership has demonstrated to be no more effective, astute, or beneficial than
that of the men.
And allow me to get this out of the way before it starts though start it will,
In fact, it appears that not even white skin is not road to effective political leadership
or governance as all of the key players have been predominately and by that I mean near all
white. But here the test cases about femininity alone being a key qualifier just does not pan
out. And no personal offense Dr. Giraldi neither is an elite education.
@A123 ght as the dollar keeps declining in importance and the whole world is sick of the
sanctions and bullying.
So, Yes, I'm in favor of ending the Constitution as it has shown to be a useless piece of
paper except to deceive those that think it's worth something. Yes, I'm in favor of getting
rid of the criminals in DC including the asshat president, all of congress and the absolutely
useless supreme court. I'm in favor of 50 new countries once the empire expires offering 50
experiments on how to govern and let the best idea win.
Your more nuanced approach is exactly what Trump is doing – exactly nothing. He's
the most do nothing president in decades.
If a primary principle, supposedly justifying the Nuremburg Trials, that initiating wars
of aggression is a criminal act against humanity, then the Clintons, Bush II, Albright,
essentially all the USA's senior foreign policy and military bureaucrats over the last thirty
years, and all the Zionist/neocons urging them on and aiding and abetting their criminal
acts, would end their lives in Spandau Prison or dangling at the end of a rope.
In the following years I've been shocked again and again to observe Trump's ignorance of
government and politics and, even more disturbing, his apparent unwillingness to recover and
learn from his mistakes. I'm not sure whether this is due to stupidity, laziness, or
sociopathic levels of grandiosity. Whatever the cause, the result has been an inability on
the part of Trump to fill many campaign promises. (A less sympathetic interpretation of
events might be that Trump's campaign promises were deliberate lies.)
@A123 ng out of the country. The Chinese were eager to comply to get access to the
processes involved. The Chinese didn't have to steal anything, as the US corporations
voluntarily gave them the tech as part of the deal to be in China. The reason to move out of
the US is due to the high labor rate and regulations costs. Those costs are high because the
Fed Gov that you apparently like is sucking the life out of the population with high taxes,
an oversize and out of control military and intelligence services, a financial sector that
repeatedly rapes the country and gets away with it, etc, etc, etc.
@A123 a rel="nofollow"
href="https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/Law_of_conservation_of_energy">
https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/Law_of_conservation_of_energy
In other words, the Democrats and their Allied Media's malefactions against Trump
forestalled them suffering what Republicans did post-Watergate in the House and Senate
midterms in 1974, but all of that negative energy didn't go away.
Either they will get their comeuppance in 2020, or it will remain and grow, biting them in
ass soon enough.
We Americans are kinda attached to our constitutional republic thingie, including our
right to choose the POTUS.
It really is stunning that the dimo crats have learned nothing from their decades of
disaster after disaster after disaster!
From regime change to financial debacles to the looting of the break up of the Soviet
Union: the cretins are now once again being trotted out as part of the biden farcial
"campaign."
A case in point is the odious Larry Summers: This article goes far in summarizing this
pending disaster with the prominent placement of summers:
@Joe Levantine could be behind the lines calling the shots) and the other, representing
the Marianas Trench of the Deep $tate (CIA) and also the Rushdoony loonies of the
Dispensationalist "Great Rupture" Christian-Zionist ambulatory oxymorons are THEIR reeking
heinies.
Trump is merely a girlie-lusting ram compared with those two prowling lobos, sporting
images of blood in their eyes and hatred in their hearts. Suburban soccer-moms detest the
Dumpster, mainly because he exacerbates their emotional radar-screens. They totally overlook
the deep danger lurking beneath the surface in the likes of Bolton and Pomposity, because
they are adroit at masking their totally psychopathic sociopathy.
No men allowed and a Hollywood actress who is regarded as somewhat odd? Right.
Almost 40 years ago my late aunt (in her mid 70s) opined that more women leaders were
needed to stop all of the wars. I asked her if she thought Golda Meir, Sirimavo Bandaranaike,
and Margaret Thatcher were really women, and if so, how were they any different than the
men?
In a Foreword to Christopher Bollyn's book, "The War on Terror; The Plot to Rule the
Middle East," USMC vet, Alan Sabrosky wrote:
"The book provides a way for even informed readers to better appreciate the origins,
evolution, and extent to which Israel has driven a process by which the United States and
other countries have systematically destroyed Israel's enemies, at no cost to itself. As we
have torn up or assailed a long list of countries -- only Iran has not yet been openly
attacked."
A less known fact is how the US is undergoing systematic Israel attack, and I suggest that
the best outcome is our being "Balkanized," as described by vagabond, Linh Dinh, who now
describes the resilient life in Serbia.
The Process continues even if Trumpstein does or does not consent to leave the Blue &
White House.
Thank you, Friends.
The Cato article in May on her "new book" gives her the right treatment. Even if you are a
long way from libertarian, well worth a read. The first paragraph:
"Madeleine Albright is back with a new book to sell. Interviewed in by the New York
Times magazine, she reminds us how she continues to live in the past. Unfortunately, that's
what made her advice as UN ambassador and secretary of state so uniformly bad."
@BL culate faceman which the shotcallers running the Deep $tate tend to prefer as their
podium images.
The failure of the Wicked Witch of the West to achieve her 2017 coronation was a total
shock to the system for the DNC, FBI, CIA, Chew Pork Slymes and other major institutional
minions for the ruling plutocratic oligarchy. Even before Trump's Inauguration, they set out
to destroy his presidency. After all, it had been decreed from on high that our ruptured
republic would be blessed by our first female (more or less) chief executive and that she
would be totally on-message and not some small (d) Democrat the likes of Tulsi
Gabbard–an irrepressible anti-imperialist.
President issues executive order at 4 PM. Liberals electronically file for a court order
at 5 PM. 8AM next day some judge, county, state or federal, issues an injunction forbidding
carrying out the executive order. The executive order is tied up in the courts for
months.
Last President to successfully defy the courts was Lincoln. The judiciary overturns laws
passed by legislators and referendums. The judiciary's orders create new laws.
@Ray Caruso who looks cross eyed at terrorist states Israel or Saudi Arabia , it takes
some pretty rancid balls to call those defending their nations from an illegal
aggressor, 'terrorists'.
What, if not massive and collective terror, is the murder by drone of villagers and
leaders? When their children look at the sky, they don't see wonder and beauty, but terror of
an arbitrary death.
The only thing we Americans should be feeling these days, is an excruciating shame for the
mass-murder and nation destructions our government has perpetrated in our name.
'The exceptional people'. If only we understood just how true that is.
Dr. Phil is sound on this issue. Democrat nomenklatura must impute some cultic authority
to the quivering rhytides of their living-dead mummies.
A gerontocracy is the appropriate government for this degenerate state. The interview
excerpt is priceless with Albright's senile brain fart: "let's hire Angelina Jolie, she made
an amazing movie!" about how those crispies fucked the Balkans up for shits & grins. You
can just see her masticating bon-bons in her slow-motion catapult chair, watching the
genocide she caused like it's Star Wars, feeling transient stirrings in her crepey loins at
the more romantic rape scenes. Just give that rank old downer cow the bolt gun.
One cavil on the rhetorical devices of the piece: even in jest it makes no sense to
suggest ideas to Vegetable-in-Chief Joe Biden. CIA is going to hook him up to a teleprompter
or some brain electrodes or whatever and make him talk and nod and gesture like
audio-animatronic Lincoln at Disneyland. He's gonna say we have to blow shit up. And MBNA
needs privatized debtors' prisons. It's pointless to offer friendly advice to the captive
parties of this failed state. It's like telling NAMBLA they should fuck adults. Wipe out this
roach motel of a party. The Greens have signed on to BAP's demilitarization pledge. Or write
in your Grammy's moldering corpse. Or that big wet floater dump you took this morning. Fuck
the USA and its fake democracy.
OK, now to be serious. This article and most of the responses to it thus far, however
erudite and with good intention seem to have fallen into a trap before they realized it was a
trap namely that everything depends on the result of Dems vs Repubs version 2020. Will Mr.
Giraldi write an article to show how it makes even in the slightest way a difference who is
the President at this late stage ( or any stage) of decay in the US? I know he knows better
to especially on this site. So has he really shed his roots?
I have recently entered into cash bets with almost all of my friends of all dispositions
and mental acuity on the prospect of Trump being re-elected. They think that I am crazy. I
may be but not on this topic. They are all infected with a mental disease called "normiesm".
It is immensely frustrating for me to put any kind of 'out of the box' thinking into
conversations regarding Trump because they react like women going through hormonal flushes.
All verbal reactions seemingly in lockstep.
So with the monetary challenges shoved in their faces they all seemed to pause briefly to
wonder if it was decent to take money from a fool such as I. After a few profanities and
insults as to their inter-cranial pressure from me they gladly accepted to a one and some
doubled down.
Taking their money, as I will, is the only way that they can be brought to bear to hear me
out about my logic. Funny, but it always seems to come down to money.
Now lookie here. What have we had since the Trump inauguration? Four years of 24/7/365
vilification, right versus left, grabbing P ***** , Putin, Stormy Daniels, impeachment (a 24
hour respite when he sent 77 missiles into Syria) and then back to 24/7 of Trump foibles.
Do you see what is/was happening? TDS was the precursor of Covid. And like a charm it
worked and still works. Divide and conquer, bread and circuses rolled onto one tasty bagel.
Look around you. Would you recognize main-street 4 months ago? I would not. Why would the PTB
want to remove Trump? He is a major cog in their satanic wheel whether he knows it or
not.
So with the powerful combination of TDS, COVID, BLM and antifa backed by MSM effectively
scaring the normies from even uttering a peep , I would say that things are going swimmingly
in some power's interests.
Mr Giraldi, "New Dummies, Same Ventriloquist" should be your next article for the sake of
your own credibility not digging up another corpse (living or not) like that of of Madeleine
Halfbright.
Your use of the ad hominem 'hopium addict' slur shows your frustration. You can't come up
with an actual retort, so you lash out.
I notice that you intentionally came out against me personally, because you are unable to
defeat my ideas. Your sad & pathetic attempt to paint you submission to Biden as a virtue
has failed. And, your personal attacks are simply shameless.
@Alden ferson's administration. But as Leo the Lip Durocher insisted, "nice guys finish
last."
Jefferson should have had his fellow Virginian arrested and imprisoned for overstepping
his constitutional powers. Didn't happen. Marshall (the darling of the Kavanaugh-cloned
Federalist Society of statist lawyers) had set a bad precedent, much to the dismay of the
president and all freedom-loving elements of WE THE PEOPLE. The very root concept of small
(r) republicanism, that of popular sovereignty ,was promptly derailed by that closet
monarchist.
Well, at least his fellow Federalist (and London bankster tool) Alexander Hamilton got his
just desserts.
Simultaneously, the U.S. enabled the election as Russian president of the hapless drunk
Boris Yeltsin, who, guided by advisers sent by the White House, oversaw the western looting
of his country's natural resources.
False. But Giraldi knows most readers won't know the truth. It wasn't "western looting,"
it was looting by a group inside Russia, "the oligarchs". Eight out of the twelve were Jews,
among them the top oligarch, Berezovsky.
Philip Giraldi also doesn't mention that Madeleine Albright is a Jew. It's as if her lust
for war springs from being pro-American to a fault. Right? Except it's all about destroying
Israel's targets, the few Middle Eastern and Central Asian nations that support the
Palestinians. And Russia, for giving some support to pro-Palestinian Iran and Syria. The
Israeli Lobby always gets what it wants.
Both in Russia and in the Middle East it's about race, not "the West". Of course, ask a
communist like "Eric Striker" who writes for Unz Review, and he'll do everything he can to
make you believe it's "the Right," "capitalists," "the West" who are behind it all, while
conveniently forgetting the Left's domination of media, universities and politics. The lies
flow freely.
'Steal of the Century' (Part 2), filmed in occupied #Palestine is now out! (The first part
is being censored on Youtube.) Find out what Donald Trump's plan has paved the way for and
what's happening right now in Palestine. •Premiered Aug 2, 2020
'Steal Of The Century': Trump's Palestine-Israel Catastrophe (Documentary) | Episode
2/2
"... Furthermore, it is pretty obvious to the Russians that while Crimea and MH17 were the pretexts for western sanctions against Russia, they were not the real cause. The real cause of the West's hatred for Russia is as simple as it is old: Russia cannot be conquered, subdued, subverted or destroyed. They've been at it for close to 1,000 years and they still are at it. In fact, each time they fail to crush Russia, their russophobia increases to even higher levels (phobia both in the sense of "fear" and in the sense of "hatred"). ..."
"... I would argue that since at least Russia and the AngloZionist Empire have been at war since at least 2013, when Russia foiled the US plan to attack Syria under the pretext that it was "highly likely" that the Syrian government had used chemical weapons against civilians (in reality, a textbook case of a false flag organized by the Brits), This means that Russia and the Empire have been at [Cold] war since at least 2013, for no less than seven years (something which Russian 6th columnists and Neo-Marxists try very hard to ignore). ..."
"... True, at least until now, this was has been 80% informational, 15% economic and only 5% kinetic, but this is a real existential war of survival for both sides: only one side will walk away from this struggle. The other one will simply disappear (not as a nation or a people, but as a polity; a regime). The Kremlin fully understood that and it embarked on a huge reform and modernization of the Russian armed forces in three distinct ways: ..."
"... While some US politicians understood what was going on (I think of Ron Paul, see here ), most did not. They were so brainwashed by the US propaganda that they were sure that no matter what, "USA! USA! USA!". Alas for them, the reality was quite different. ..."
Truth be told, most Russian politicians (with the notable exception of the official Kremlin
court jester, Zhirinovskii) and analysts never saw Trump as a potential ally or friend. The
Kremlin was especially cautious, which leads me to believe that the Russian intelligence
analysts did a very good job evaluating Trump's psyche and they quickly figured out that he was
no better than any other US politician.
Right now, I know of no Russian analyst who would predict that relations between the US and
Russia will improve in the foreseeable future. If anything, most are clearly saying that "guys,
we better get used to this" (accusations, sanctions, accusations, sanctions, etc. etc.
etc.).
Furthermore, it is pretty obvious to the Russians that while Crimea and MH17 were the
pretexts for western sanctions against Russia, they were not the real cause. The real cause of
the West's hatred for Russia is as simple as it is old: Russia cannot be conquered, subdued,
subverted or destroyed. They've been at it for close to 1,000 years and they still are at it.
In fact, each time they fail to crush Russia, their russophobia increases to even higher levels
(phobia both in the sense of "fear" and in the sense of "hatred").
Simply put -- there is nothing which Russia can expect from the upcoming election. Nothing
at all. Still, that does not mean that things are not better than 4 or 8 years ago. Let's look
at what changed.
I would argue that since at least Russia and the AngloZionist Empire have been at war
since at least 2013, when Russia foiled the US plan to attack Syria under the pretext that it
was "highly likely" that the Syrian government had used chemical weapons against civilians (in
reality, a textbook case of a false flag organized by the Brits), This means that Russia and
the Empire have been at [Cold] war since at least 2013, for no less than seven years (something
which Russian 6th columnists and Neo-Marxists try very hard to ignore).
True, at least until now, this was has been 80% informational, 15% economic and only 5%
kinetic, but this is a real existential war of survival for both sides: only one side will walk
away from this struggle. The other one will simply disappear (not as a nation or a people, but
as a polity; a regime). The Kremlin fully understood that and it embarked on a huge reform and
modernization of the Russian armed forces in three distinct ways:
A "general" reform of
the Russian armed forces which had to be modernized by about 80%. This part of the reform is
now practically complete. A specific reform to prepare the western and southern military
districts for a major conventional war against the united West (as always in Russian history)
which would involve the First Guards Tank Army and the Russian Airborne Forces. The development
of bleeding-edge weapons systems with no equivalent in the West and which cannot be countered
or defeated; these weapons have had an especially dramatic impact upon First Strike Stability
and upon naval operations.
While some US politicians understood what was going on (I think of Ron Paul, see
here ), most did
not. They were so brainwashed by the US propaganda that they were sure that no matter what,
"USA! USA! USA!". Alas for them, the reality was quite different.
Russian officials, by the way,
have confirmed that Russia was preparing for war . Heck, the reforms were so profound
and far reaching, that it would have been impossible for the Russians to hide what they were
doing (see here for details; also
please see Andrei Martyanov's excellent primer on the new Russian Navy here ).
While no country is ever truly prepared for war, I would argue that by 2020 the Russians had
reached their goals and that now Russia is fully prepared to handle any conflict the West might
throw at her, ranging from a small border incident somewhere in Central Asia to a full-scaled
war against the US/NATO in Europe .
Folks in the West are now slowly waking up to this new reality (I mentioned some of that
here
), but it is too late. In purely military terms, Russia has now created such a qualitative gap
with the West that the still existing quantitative gap is not sufficient to guarantee a US/NATO
victory. Now some western politicians are starting to seriously freak out (see this lady ,
for example), but most Europeans are coming to terms with two truly horrible
realities:
Russia is much stronger than Europe and, even much worse, Russia will never
attack first (which is a major cause of frustration for western russophobes)
As for the obvious solution to this problem, having friendly relations with Russia is simply
unthinkable for those who made their entire careers peddling the Soviet (and now Russian)
threat to the world.
But Russia is changing, albeit maybe too slowly (at least for my taste). As I mentioned last
week, a number of Polish, Ukrainian and Baltic politicians have declared that the Zapad2020
military maneuvers which are supposed to take place in southern Russia and the Caucasus could
be used to prepare an attack on the West (see here
for a rather typical example of this nonsense). In the past, the Kremlin would only have made a
public statement ridiculing this nonsense, but this time around Putin did something different.
Right after he saw the reaction of these politicians, Putin ordered a major and UNSCHEDULED
military readiness exercise which involved no less than 150,000 troops, 400 aircraft
& 100 ships ! The message here was clear:
Yes, we are much more powerful than
you are and No, we are not apologizing for our strength anymore
And, just to make sure that the message is clear, the Russians also tested the readiness of
the Russian Airborne Forces units near the city of Riazan, see for yourself:
This response is, I think, the correct one. Frankly, nobody in the West is listening to what
the Kremlin has to say, so what is the point of making more statements which in the future will
be ignored equally as they have been in the past.
If anything, the slow realization that Russia is more powerful than NATO would be most
helpful in gently prodding EU politicians to change their tune and return back to reality.
Check out this recent video of Sarah Wagenknecht, a leading politician of the German Left and
see for yourself:
https://www.dailymotion.com/embed/video/x7uu5fk
The example of Sahra Wagenknecht is interesting, because she is from Germany, one of the
countries of northern Europe; traditionally, northern European powers have been much more
anti-Russian than southern Europeans, so it is encouraging to see that the anti-Putin and
anti-Russia hysteria is not always being endorsed by everybody.
But if things are very slowly getting better in the EU, in the bad old US of A things are
only getting worse. Even the Republicans are now fully on board the Russia-hating float (right
behind a "gay pride" one I suppose) and they are now contributing their own insanity to the
cause, as this article entitled "
Congressional Republicans: Russia should be designated state sponsor of terror " shows
(designating Russia as a terrorist state is an old idea of the Dems, by the way).
Russian options for the Fall
In truth, Russia does not have any particularly good options towards the US. Both parties
are now fully united in their rabid hatred of Russia (and China too, of course). Furthermore,
while there are many well-funded and virulently anti-Russian organizations in the US (Neo-cons,
Papists, Poles, Masons, Ukrainians, Balts, Ashkenazi Jews, etc.), Russian organizations in the
US like this one , have
very little influence or even relevance.
Banderites marching in the US
However, as the chaos continues to worsen inside the US and as US politicians continue to
alienate pretty much the entire planet, Russia does have a perfect opportunity to weaken the US
grip on Europe. The beauty in the current dynamic is that Russia does not have to do anything
at all (nevermind anything covert or illegal) to help the anti-EU and anti-US forces in Europe:
All she needs to do is to continuously hammer in the following simple message: "the US is
sinking -- do you really want to go down with it?".
There are many opportunities to deliver that message. The current US/Polish efforts to
prevent the EU from enjoying cheap Russian gas might well be the best example of what we could
call "European suicide politics", but there are many, many more.
Truth be told, neither the US nor the EU are a top priority for Russia, at least not in
economic terms. The moral credibility of the West in general can certainly be described as dead
and long gone. As for the West military might, it is only a concern to the degree that western
politicians might be tempted to believe their own propaganda about their military forces being
the best in the history of the galaxy. This is why Russia regularly engages in large surprise
exercises: to prove to the West that the Russian military is fully ready for anything the West
might try. As for the constant move of more and more US/NATO forces closer to the borders of
Russia, they are offensive in political terms, but in military terms, getting closer to Russia
only means that Russia will have more options to destroy you. "Forward deployment" is really a
thing of the past, at least against Russia.
With time, however, and as the US federal center loses even more of its control of the
country, the Kremlin might be well-advised to try to open some venues for "popular diplomacy",
especially with less hostile US states. The weakening of the Executive Branch has already
resulted in US governors playing an increasingly important international role and while this is
not, strictly speaking, legal (only the federal government has the right to engage in foreign
policy), the fact is that this has been going on for years already. Another possible partner
inside the US for Russian firms would be US corporations (especially now that they are hurting
badly). Finally, I think that the Kremlin ought to try to open channels of communication with
the various small political forces in the US which are clearly not buying into the official
propaganda: libertarians, (true) liberals and progressives, paleo-conservatives.
What we are witnessing before our eyes is the collapse of the US federal center. This is a
dangerous and highly unstable moment in our history. But from this crisis opportunities will
arise. The best thing Russia can do now is to simply remain very careful and vigilant and wait
for new forces to appear on the US political scene.
I really agree with you that the “blame Russia” and “blame China”
thing has gotten out of hand in US politics. Whether it will turn into a shooting war seems
doubtful to me, as the government is still full of people who are looking out for their own
interests and know that a full-sized war with Russia, China, Iran or whoever will not advance
their interests.
But who would have guessed, a few years ago, that “Russian asset” would become
the all-purpose insult for Democrats to use, not just against Republicans, but against other
Democrats?
With Republicans I think that “blame China” is stronger. China makes a good
scapegoat for the economic situation in the United States. But convincing the working class
that China is the source of their problems (and that Mr. MAGA is going to solve those
problems by standing up to China) requires ignorance of the crucial facts about the trade
relationship between those two countries.
Namely, that the trade deficit exists only because the Federal Reserve chooses to
create huge amounts of new dollars each year for export to other countries, and it’s
only possible for US exports to fall behind imports so badly (and thus put so many American
laborers out of work) because the Fed is making up the difference by exporting dollars.
Granted, it isn’t a policy that the US can change without harming the interests of its
own upper classes; at the same time, it isn’t a policy that China could force on the US
without the people in charge of the United States wanting it.
This is a topic I’ve dealt with a few times on my own blog.
Ambassador John Bolton hinted that he doesn't like being called a hawk, since foreign policy labels are simplistic.
But first of all, he labeled libertarian Sen. Rand Paul an isolationist, rather than say, a non- interventionist. And after
nearly 500 pages (all but the epilogue), what you will absorb is absolutely the worldview of a geopolitical hawk. He is not technically
a neoconservative (like, say, Paul Wolfowitz) because the latter were more focused on nation building and spreading democracy.
Bolton sees what he's promoting as defense, but it requires a constant offense.
Bolton is very bright, as Jim Baker noted decades ago, and very well-read, even endorsing his fellow Baltimorean and my teacher
Steve Vicchio's book on Lincoln's faith. But his intelligence is all put into an ideological reading of situations. As Aristotle
would put it, the problem is not lack of theoretical wisdom, but the deficiency in practical wisdom and prudential judgment. Certainly
there are bad actors in the world, and vigilance is required. But when is aggressive action called for, and when is it better
to go with diplomacy? In this book, I find few cases of such restraint. For Bolton, it seems that the goal of peace and security
requires the constant threat of war and presence on every continent. All this intervention around the world requires troops, soldiers,
real men and women and their lives and those of their families, requiring lots of sacrifice. At times, his theorizing seems distant
from these realities on the ground.
So Bolton is critical of the "axis of adults" in the Trump administration, the "generals", but not Kelly and not much on his
predecessor McMaster, much less the eccentric Flynn. So his beef is with Mattis, another fine student of history. Bolton says
he went by the rules, as James Baker had said that Bush 41 was "the one who got the votes". He tried to influence Trump within
the rules, while Mattis, Tillerson and Haley pursued their own foreign policy. I'm sure that Mattis was sometimes right and sometimes
wrong, but I would trust his prudential judgment above that of the equally bright Bolton, because of his life experience, being
the one on the ground and knowing what war is like.
When Bolton was considered for secretary state right after the 2016 election, I said, well I don't care for the guy, but at
least I've heard of him and we know what we're dealing with. His opponent in GOP foreign policy is the libertarian and non-interventionist
Sen. Rand Paul. What does Bolton say about the big players in the Trump administration? Nikki Haley is dismissed as a lightweight
who was posing for her political future. Well, that's basically what Trump, "the one that got the votes", put her there for. But
it's interesting that Bolton is so anti-Haley, when she was for Rubio and the more hawkish platform.
Tillerson's successor Mike Pompeo had sort of a love-hate relationship with Bolton.
Steve Mnuchin is the epitome of the globalist establishment, along with Javanka. Jared Kushner is dismissed as no Kissinger,
but when it comes to China, his soft stance is blamed on Kissinger! While Bolton didn't testify in the impeachment, Fiona Hill
is mentioned only with respect in this book.
Everybody's flaw, from Bolton's point of view, is being less belligerent than Bolton. (Even in the Bush administration, the
only name I can think of would be Michael Ledeen). He even defends the concept of Middle Eastern "endless wars" on the grounds
that we didn't start them and can't dictate when they end. Obama was a dove, but in 2016 the GOP marked a shift, with Trump, Paul,
Ben Carson and even Ted Cruz opposing the "invade every country on earth" philosophy that this book promotes. It's true that Trump
is not an ideologue and thinks in terms of individual transactions. But the movement I see is a dialectic of alternating between
aggression and diplomacy, or as he sees it, friendly relationship among leaders.
Bolton is a superhawk on North Korea and Iran throughout, while China and Russia are our hostile rivals. Other matters are
Syria, Iraq and ISIS, Venezuela, Afghanistan and finally Ukraine, which by the end of the book I had almost forgotten. If Bolton
is dovish anywhere, it's on the Saudis, the rivals with Iran in the Sunni-Shiite dispute chronicled recently in the book "Black
Wave".
You can learn a lot from this book, but just keep in mind that it's filtered through the mind of a strong ideologue, so other
people's faults are seen through that lens. But he has great knowledge of the details of policy. Bolton would like to be an inter-generational
guru like Henry Kissinger or Dean Acheson, but both parties have turned away from the "endless wars" philosophy.
If you are looking for anti-Trump material, I don't really see the point of investing this time and intellectual effort. The
more sensational parts have been reported-the exchanges involving Xi Jinping and Kim Jong Un, and to a lesser extent Erdogan.
As most reviewers have said, it's about 100 pages too long, but Bolton is looking for a scholarly work like Kissinger's Diplomacy
or World Order, and this is the one that he hopes people will read.
John Bolton, on some fundamental level, is a brilliant, dedicated conservative intent on improving the future of the country
he and I love. THAT similarity is probably the only point we share.
I wanted to love this book, because I knew it would be jam-packed with juicy tidbits that justify me derision of the biggest
failure ever to assume the office of POTUS. Instead, quite early on, I realized the reason Trump became President was the enormous
ineptitude of those otherwise brilliant people who, in short, simply felt that somebody opposing those the person they despise,
on principle, was better for America than the other guy or gal.
Throughout this book, Bolton reminds us of Trump's inability to focus attention on the information provided by his handlers.
Yes, Trump is naive and intellectually lazy. Yes, so, too, are many of those aiding and abetting Mr. Trump. But, yes, Mr. Bolton
also suffers from gross naïveté, and, is just plain foolish. His ego led him to join the Trump Administration, as he admits in
"The Room Where It Happened."
Bolton's greatest error, however, was in refusing to tell the country what he chose to sell to the public through this book.
The writing is, mechanically, quite good. But, Bolton comes across as thinking he is the only person of intelligence. That
becomes clear by page two, and never changes, except for his insight that he was wrong about Trump.
Unfortunately, Bolton also was wrong about Bolton.
Whoa. Hold on. Just about everyone in both political parties is no better than Bolton. A few exceptions would be Former governor
John Kasick and Utah Senator Mitt Romney. Oh, and former Vice President Joe Biden, I believe. Yet, to be honest, I need to see
him prove me right. I would hate to make the same mistake regarding Biden as Bolton did regarding Trump.
Americans need to take a good, hard look at how we are governed and at those whom we support.
BOTTOM LINE
Writing quality, passable. But don't expect to gain a great deal of new knowledge.
The Russian-born Danchenko, who was living in the U.S. on a work visa, was released from
jail on the condition he undergo drug testing and "participate in a program of substance abuse
therapy and counseling," as well as "mental health counseling," the records show. His lawyer
asked the court to postpone his trial and let him travel to Moscow "as a condition of his
employment." The Russian trips were granted without objection from Rosenstein. Danchenko ended
up several months later entering into a plea agreement and paying fines.
In 2006, Danchenko was arrested in Fairfax, Va., on similar offenses, including "public
swearing and intoxication," criminal records show. The case was disposed after he paid a
fine.
At the time, Danchenko worked as a research analyst for the Brookings Institution, where he
became a protégé of Hill. He collaborated with her on at least two Russian policy
papers during his five-year stint at the think tank and worked with another Brookings scholar
on a project to
uncover alleged plagiarism in Russian President Vladimir Putin's doctoral dissertation --
something Danchenko and his lawyer boasted about during their meeting with FBI agents. (Like
Hill, the other scholar, Clifford Gaddy, was a Russia hawk. He and Hill in 2015 authored "Mr.
Putin: Operative in the Kremlin," a book strongly endorsed by Vice President Joe Biden at the
time.)
"Igor is a highly accomplished analyst and researcher," Hill noted on his LinkedIn page in
2011.
"He is very creative in pursuing the most relevant of information and detail to support
his research."
Strobe Talbott of Brookings with Hillary Clinton: He connected with Christopher Steele and
passed along a copy of his anti-Trump dossier to Fiona Hill. AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster
Hill also vouched for Steele, an old friend and British intelligence counterpart. The two
reunited in 2016, sitting down for at least one meeting. Her boss at the time, Brookings
President Strobe Talbott, also connected with Steele and
passed along a copy of his anti-Trump dossier to Hill. A tough Trump critic, Talbott
previously worked in the Clinton administration and rallied the think tank behind Hillary.
Cutting the defense budget by a modest 10 percent could provide billions to combat the pandemic, provide health
care and take care of neglected communities.
Capitol Souvenir Company, Inc. via Boston Public Library
Sen. Bernie Sanders is an independent from Vermont.
▶ Click here for the
conservative
case
for reducing defense spending.
Fifty-three years ago Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. challenged all of us to fight against three major evils: "the
evil of racism, the evil of poverty and the evil of war." If there was ever a moment in American history when we
needed to respond to Dr. King's clarion call for justice and demand a "radical revolution of values," now is that
time.
Whether it is fighting against systemic racism and police brutality, defeating the deadliest pandemic in more than
a hundred years, or putting an end to the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, now is the time to
fundamentally change our national priorities.
Sadly, instead of responding to any of these unprecedented crises, the Republican Senate is on a two-week
vacation. When it comes back, its first order of business will be to pass a military spending authorization that
would give the bloated Pentagon $740 billion -- an increase of more than $100 billion since Donald Trump became
president.
Let's be clear: As coronavirus
infections
,
hospitalizations
and
deaths
are
surging to record levels in states across America, and the lifeline of unemployment benefits keeping 30 million
people afloat expires at the end of the month, the Republican Senate has decided to provide more funding for the
Pentagon than the next 11 nations' military budgets combined.
Under this legislation, over half of our discretionary budget would go to the Department of Defense at a time when
tens of millions of Americans are food insecure and over a half-million Americans are sleeping out on the street.
After adjusting for inflation, this bill would spend more money on the Pentagon than we did during the height of
the Vietnam War even as up to 22 million Americans are in danger of being evicted from their homes and
health
workers
are still forced to reuse masks, gloves and gowns.
Moreover, this extraordinary level of military spending comes at a time when the Department of Defense is the only
agency of our federal government that has not been able to pass an independent audit, when defense contractors are
making enormous profits while paying their CEOs outrageous compensation packages, and when the so-called War on
Terror will cost some $6 trillion.
Let us never forget what Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a former four-star general, said in 1953:
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from
those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."
What Eisenhower said was true 67 years ago, and it is true today.
If the horrific pandemic we are now experiencing has taught us anything it is that national security means a lot
more than building bombs, missiles, nuclear warheads and other weapons of mass destruction. National security also
means doing everything we can to improve the lives of tens of millions of people living in desperation who have
been abandoned by our government decade after decade.
That is why I have introduced an amendment to the Defense Authorization Act that the Senate will be voting on
during the week of July 20th, and the House will follow suit with a companion effort led by Representatives Mark
Pocan (D-Wis.) and Barbara Lee (D-Calif.). Our amendment would reduce the military budget by 10 percent and use
that $74 billion in savings to invest in communities that have been ravaged by extreme poverty, mass
incarceration, decades of neglect and the Covid-19 pandemic.
Under this amendment, distressed cities and towns in every state in the country would be able to use these funds
to create jobs by building affordable housing, schools, childcare facilities, community health centers, public
hospitals, libraries and clean drinking water facilities. These communities would also receive federal funding to
hire more public school teachers, provide nutritious meals to children and parents and offer free tuition at
public colleges, universities or trade schools.
This amendment gives my Senate colleagues a fundamental choice to make. They can vote to spend more money on
endless wars in the Middle East while failing to provide economic security to millions of people in the United
States. Or they can vote to spend less money on nuclear weapons and cost overruns, and more to rebuild struggling
communities in their home states.
In Dr. King's 1967 speech, he warned that "a nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military
defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."
He was right. At a time when half of our people are struggling paycheck to paycheck, when over 40 million
Americans are living in poverty, and when 87 million lack health insurance or are underinsured, we are approaching
spiritual death.
At a time when we have the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any major country on Earth, and when
millions of Americans are in danger of going hungry, we are approaching spiritual death.
At a time when we have no national testing program, no adequate production of protective gear and no commitment to
a free vaccine, while remaining the only major country where infections spiral out of control, we are approaching
spiritual death.
At a time when over 60,000 Americans die each year because they can't afford to get to a doctor on time, and one
out of five Americans can't afford the prescription drugs their doctors prescribe, we are approaching spiritual
death.
Now, at this unprecedented moment in American history, it is time to rethink what we value as a society and to
fundamentally transform our national priorities. Cutting the military budget by 10 percent and investing that
money in human needs is a modest way to begin that process. Let's get it done.
MOST READ
By a vote of 324-93 ,
the House of Representatives soundly defeated an
amendment to reduce Pentagon authorized spending levels by 10%. The amendment does not
specify what to cut, only that Congress make across-the-board reductions. The amendment to
the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) was offered by Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI). No
Republicans voted for the amendment. Libertarian Justin Amash supported the amendment.
Earlier, the House defeated an amendment to stop the Pentagon's submission of an unfunded
priorities list. Each year, after the Pentagon's budget request is submitted to Congress, the
military services send a separate "wish list," termed "unfunded priorities." This list
includes requests for programs that the military would like Congress to fund, in case they
decide to add more money to the Pentagon's proposed budget.
This article was written while observing the voting on CSPAN. The House Clerk has not
yet posted the roll-call vote. Additional information will be added to the article when
available.
P
resident Donald Trump's third National Security Advisor opens his memoir with this quote from the
Duke of Wellington at Waterloo: 'Hard Pounding, this, gentlemen. Let's see who will pound the longest.' And
pound for pound, that's the (nearly) 500 page memoir in a nutshell. Unremitting pounding is both the theme
and the style. As John Bolton urged the White House to take a 'harder line" on Iran and North Korea, Trump's
chief of staff "urged me to keep pounding away in public, which I assured him I would.' China 'pounded away
during my tenure, sensing weakness at the top.' As with Bolton's mission, so too with America's statecraft,
that must 'keep moving and keep firing, like a big grey battleship.'
From his infamous unsubtle moustache to his bellicosity,
Bolton traffics on a self-image of straight shooter who sprints towards gunfire. He does not set out to
offer a meditation on a complex inner life. This image is also slightly misleading. For all the barrage,
Bolton turns out to be a more conflicted figure, especially when his supporting fire is most called upon.
The Room Where it
Happened
is Bolton's account of his part in
the power struggles within Trump's almost medieval court, his attempt to steer the executive branch towards
the right course, unmasked supremacy everywhere, and his failure and disillusion with Trump's chaotic,
self-serving and showbiz-driven presidency.
The
room where it happened: A White House memoir, by John Bolton
The memoir itself is a non-trivial political event.
Other reviewers have assailed it for being turgid. Bolton, though, has at least done the state some service
by habitually recording and recounting every meeting. This is an important record of an important eighteen
months packed with the escalating brinksmanship with Iran, an impeachment inquest, the return of great power
competition and a fierce struggle to control the policy levers in Washington itself. For that detail,
especially when contrasted with the exhausting melodrama of the era, Bolton deserves a little credit. The
Trump administration's determined effort to suppress it on the grounds of classified information suggests
there is substance to Bolton's allegations of corruption and turmoil at the heart of government.
It is also, though, a work of self-vindication. Bolton's
life is an adversarial one. A former attorney, he became a policy advocate and a Republican Party
institution, consistently taking the hardest of lines. He was ever drawn to aggressive combatants – like
Hillary Clinton, in his formative years he supported Barry Goldwater. He interned for Vice-President Spiro
Agnew, the "number one hawk." As a measure of Bolton's faith that war works and that co-existence with
"rogue states" is impossible, he advocated attacking a heavily (and nuclear)-armed North Korea in 2018, an
adversary that lies in artillery range of Seoul and thousands of Americans as effective hostages, and
offered up a best-case scenario in doing so.
Bolton brought to government a world view that was
dug-in and entrenched. For Bolton, the world is hostile, and to survive America must be strong (wielding and
brandishing overwhelming force) at all times. Enemy regimes cannot be bargained with or even co-existed with
on anything less than maximalist terms dictated by Washington. The US never gives an inch, and must demand
everything. And if those regimes do not capitulate, America must topple or destroy them: Iran, Syria, Libya,
Venezuela, Cuba, Yemen and North Korea, and must combat them on multiple fronts at once. In doing so,
America
itself must remain unfettered with an absolutely free hand, not nodding even hypocritically to law or custom
or bargaining.
If Bolton's thoughts add up to anything, it is a general
hostility, if not to talking, certainly to diplomacy – the art of giving coherence and shape to different
instruments and activities, above all through compromise and a recognition of limits. The final straw for
Bolton was Trump's cancelling an airstrike on Iran after it shot down a drone. An odd hill to die on, given
the graver acts of corruption he as witness alleges, but fitting that the failure to pull the trigger for
him was Trump's most shocking misdemeanour.
What is intended to be personal strength and clarity
comes over as unreflective bluster
This worldview is as personal as it is geopolitical.
Importantly for Bolton, in the end he fights alone, bravely against the herd. He fights against other
courtiers, even fellow hawks, who Bolton treats with dismissive contempt – Nikki Haley, Steve Mnuchin, Mike
Pompeo, or James Mattis who like Bolton, champions strategic commitments and views Iran as a dangerous
enemy, but is more selective about when to reach for the gun. The press is little more than an "hysterical"
crowd. Allies like South Korea, who must live as neighbours with one of the regimes Bolton earmarks for
execution, and who try conciliatory diplomacy occasionally, earn slight regard. Critics, opponents or those
who disagree are 'lazy,' 'howling' or 'feckless.'
For a lengthy work that distils a lifetime's experience,
it is remarkably thin regarding the big questions of security, power and order. The hostile world for him
contains few real limits other than failures of will. He embraces every rivalry and every commitment, but
explanations are few and banal. 'While foreign policy labels are unhelpful except to the intellectually
lazy,' he says, 'if pressed, I like to say my policy was "pro-American".' Who is lazy, here?
The purpose of foreign policy, too, is largely absent.
Armed supremacy abroad, and power-maximisation, seems to be the end in itself, regardless of what is has
wrought at home. This makes his disdain for Trump's authoritarian ways especially obtuse: what does he think
made possible an imperial presidency in the first place?
There's little room for principled or reasonable
disagreement. What is intended to be personal strength and clarity comes over as unreflective bluster, in a
town where horse-trading and agility matter. Unintentionally, it is a warning to anyone who seeks to be
effective as well as right, and to those of us who debate these questions.
The most provocative part of the book comes at the end,
and points to a man more conflicted than his self-image of the straight shooter. Bolton issues an extended,
uneasy defence of his decision not to appear as a witness before the House impeachment inquiry against a
president he believed to be corrupt. Having celebrated the need to "pound away" with inexhaustible energy,
it turned out his ammunition was low. 'I was content to bide my time. I believed throughout, as the line in
Hamilton
goes,
that "I am not throwing away my shot".' Drawing on a characteristic claim to certainty, 'it would have made
no significant difference in the Senate outcome.' How can he know this? And even if the odds were long, was
there not – for once – a compelling basis in civic virtue to be that relentless grey battleship, pounding
away? He now hopes "history" will remember Trump as a one-term president. History needs willing agents.
Other reviews have honed in on Bolton's decision to
delay his revelations for a book pay-day. But consider another theme – the war-hawk who is in fact torn and
agonised around combat when it comes to himself. It echoes his retrospective rationale for not fighting in
Vietnam, a war he supported, and (as he has recorded) the detailed efforts he made to avoid service in that
tragic theatre after being drafted. It was, he decided, bound to fail given that the anti-war Democrats
would undermine the cause, a justification he later sheepishly regretted.
So twice the advocate of forceful confrontation refused
the call to show up, generously awarding to himself a rationale for non-intervention that relieves him of
commitment. He refuses to extend that same exonerating, prudential logic to his country, when it debates
whether to wade in to conflict abroad. Neither does he extend it to other Americans who think the nation,
like Bolton, might be better off sometimes holding its fire, biding its time, dividing its enemies, and
keeping its powder dry.
Given that Bolton failed in the end to attend the "room
where it happened", his title is unwittingly ironic. In his favour, Bolton's testy defence of his absence at
least suggests something. In contrast with the front cover of another
forthcoming,
Trump-era memoir
, he retains a modest
capacity for embarrassment.
By middle of last week
we observed of the Russian bounties to kill American troops in Afghanistan story that "at
this point this non-story looks to be dead by the weekend as it's already unraveled."
Indeed by Thursday and Friday, as more Congressional leaders received closed door
intelligence briefings on the allegations which originated with an anonymously sourced NY Times
report claiming Trump supposedly ignored the Russian op to target Americans, the very Democrat
and Republican lawmakers previously hyping it as a 'major scandal' went conspicuously silent
.
Recall too that John Bolton, busy with a media blitz promoting his book,
emerged to strongly suggest he had personal knowledge that Trump was briefed on the matter
. The former national security adviser called the Trump denial of being briefed "remarkable".
Well, look who is now appearing to sing a different tune. A week ago Bolton was all too wiling
to voluntarily say Trump had "likely" been briefed and that was a big scandal. The whole story
was indeed dead by the weekend:
Bolton: 'Fickle' Trump would sell out Israel for photo op with Iran's leaders
U.S. should consider sanctions if bounty reports true: Bolton
Bolton book hits shelves, bruises Trump's ego
Viral Finland PM quote about US being under Russian control 'not true' | #TheCube
Bolton's New Claims
Bolton Claims Trump Asked China's XI to Help Win Re-Election
Bolton book creates shockwaves
Senator Who Voted Against Bolton Testifying Is Now Angry Bolton Didn't Testify
Other reports said Bolton has been telling people he had personally
briefed the president :
Former national security adviser John Bolton told colleagues that he personally briefed
President Donald Trump about intelligence that Russia offered Afghan militants bounties to
kill American troops , U.S. officials told the Associated Press .
Bolton briefed Trump on the matter in March of 2019, according to the report, a year
earlier than previously
reported by The New York Times . The information was also included in at least one
presidential Daily Brief, according to the AP,
CNN and
The Times . The AP earlier reported that it was also
included in a second presidential Daily Brief earlier this year and that current national
security adviser Robert O'Brien discussed the matter with Trump.
His Sunday refusal to even address the question - again after he was all too willing to
speak to the issue a week ago when it was driving headlines - speaks volumes.
Now that even The Washington Post
awkwardly walked back the substance of much of its reporting on the 'Russian bounties'
story, Bolton has conveniently gone silent .
There is not much "real" left in the the USA. Usually what we see is just different flavors
of far right and right.
Money quote: "Ah, for the good old days when lefties could be treated as a deluded minority rather than a vanguard party of
globalist imperialists. pl"
Notable quotes:
"... As Johnstone recounts, after the Cold War liberals became bewitched by the prospect of waging wars for humanitarian ends. A generation of journalists and foreign policy experts including Samantha Power, Christiane Amanpour, Jamie Rubin, and Christopher Hitchens, would make the Balkans a proving ground for their liberal theories of preventative war, in the process throwing the ancient and venerable tradition of St. Augustine’s Just War theory on the trash heap and paving the way for what was to follow in the coming decades, including Iraq II, Libya, Syria and a global drone war and a “targeted” assassination program." ..."
"... In other words we are seeing the tight squeezing of the New Democrats (Wall-Street, Tech, humanitarian intervention) by the radical left (Green New Deal, UBI) and by the angry Trumpists. ..."
"... Samantha Power is Irish bred and London born. She was schooled in Dublin till her mother emigrated to the US. Christiane Amanpour is British-Iranian. As far as I can determine she never has had US citizenship. ..."
"... WTF were they smoking when they decided to promote war to secure human rights??? So why did we let these halfwits in the country? ..."
"... Kerry seems is the perfect example of Democrats’ hypocritical ‘opposition’ to pointless and futile wars. Not that anybody remembers, but it was the liberal Bill Clinton who went to war in Yugoslavia and defanged the anti-war wing of the party. After Clinton Democrats only raised their voices against Republican wars and now have taken to criticizing Trump for not being belligerent enough!!! ..."
"... The same white men who stood three years ago Charlottesville to prevent the toppling of statues could be the backbone of a new anti-war movement ..."
"... The New York Times is not revolutionary, not by a very long shot. Neither are all the big corporations and foundations who've donated generously to the cause of BLM. ..."
"... America is not in the middle of a revolution — it is a reactionary putsch. About four years ago, the sort of people who had acquired position and influence as a result of globalisation were turfed out of power for the first time in decades. They watched in horror as voters across the world chose Brexit, Donald Trump and other populist and conservative-nationalist options. ..."
"... The essential idea is that neither the non Trump wing of the American establishment (more properly Global establishment still anchored tenuously in DC) nor the Trump wing want the voters to discuss the economy - it's too hot a subject. ..."
"... Way too hot since the financial crisis of 2007-08 followed the working class jobs overseas and south of the border in the 90s and inequality exceeded that of the gilded age. No. But they will discuss racism (and gender). It divides the country further than ever, deflects focus on wealth disparity (the establishment has no intention of ever equalizing wealth even a bit) and presto - gives corporate America and media a new policing tool in the form of mandatory workshops and summary job dismissals even more unsubstantiated than many of those with #MeToo. It enhances the academic totalitarians of political correctness with corporate / employer totalitarianism of "learn your inclusivity lessons reeducation camp" or else. Unions disappeared long ago and now this. ..."
"... Yes the stupidity is ominous. They act as though there is no potential for repurcussion. It's very peculiar. ..."
As Johnstone recounts, after the Cold War liberals became bewitched by the prospect of waging wars for humanitarian ends.
A generation of journalists and foreign policy experts including Samantha Power, Christiane Amanpour, Jamie Rubin, and
Christopher Hitchens, would make the Balkans a proving ground for their liberal theories of preventative war, in the process
throwing the ancient and venerable tradition of St. Augustine’s Just War theory on the trash heap and paving the way for what
was to follow in the coming decades, including Iraq II, Libya, Syria and a global drone war and a “targeted” assassination
program."
This is a serious article addressing a serious problem. If the "left" sells out on war
issues as they have done the last 20 years or so, there is no pushback against the permanent
war system. Those one-time leftists who have sold out are no longer really leftists,
especially once they are relying on the corrupt permanent spy state for their information and
support.
Interesting and correct observation. Allow me to throw in my own two cents with regards to
the rise of what is defined as the "anti-Anti War left". I should note that there are eerily
similar parallels between the rise of the New Left in the 60s that was the mix of socialist
democrats, sexual revolutionaries, flower-power hippies, anti-imperialist/anti-war activists,
and identitarianists (Huey Netwon, Cesar Chavez, MLK) etc. and today's BLM, Antifa, 'woke'
types, third-gen feminists, broke millennials.
While the former's rise in the Democratic
Party led to the exodus of Neoconservatives (former Trotskyists, Socialist and Marxists) to
the Conservative movement, the latter is also moving the New Democrats to the Right, but the
problem is that the current Political Right is mostly controlled by the Trumpists so these
New Democrat types (Pelosi, Schumer, Schiff, Menendez, Biden etc.) are stuck between a hard
place and a rock.
In other words we are seeing the tight squeezing of the New Democrats
(Wall-Street, Tech, humanitarian intervention) by the radical left (Green New Deal, UBI) and
by the angry Trumpists.
Just to give you one example, last week a prototype New Democrat and long time congressman
(since 89) Elliot Engel of NY who fits well into this definition was defeated handily in the
NY-16 primaries by the Democratic Socialists of America endorsed candidate, Jamal Bowman. Mr.
Bowman, an African American is ideologically very similar to AOC, Tlaib, and Omar.
He won on
a platform of foreign policy endorsed by the left-zionists (ex-labor zionists) against the
likudnik right-wing zionist of Engles' which is very interesting since, Engel has been known
for his hawkish views on foreign policy and extremely pro-Israel and chaired the House
Foreign Affairs Committee recently.
Recently Sanders and the Democratic Socialists expressed their opposition to Bibi's
planned annexation of West-bank and adjacent Palestinian enclaves and threatened to to
cut-off the military aid to Israel if Bibi moved on with his plan.
Domestically, there are several seats up for re-election and especially two in Georgia and
Arizona Senate whose ppointed Republican candidates are in very shaky grounds versus their
democratic challengers. What is clear is that the New Democrat platforms are no longer
popular by the Democratic base and given recent events, it can be safely said that either the
most law and order and Trumpian candidates will win or the Democratic socialists endorsed
ones. So another problem for the New Dems.
Judging by my observation, the current trend is the alliance between the NeverTrumpers
(The Lincoln project, The Right Pac) like Bill Kristol and the
Reagan-to-Bush-43-neoconservatives (most of whom were Reagan Democrats in the late 70s and
80s themselves so nothing new for them) to push Trump out of office in their view before the
RNC in Aug and to make room for the New Democrats and also to restore their previous 20+
years of reigning over the Republican Party. If their plan becomes successful, in the post
2020 election we will see a political configuration resembling the 90s and early 2000s with
one major difference which is the introduction of several, in my opinion less that 10 seats
in the House reserved for the far-Left socialist Democrats.
And in terms of Foreign policy, everyone will get happy and the Blob/Borg think tank class
in D.C. will see business as usual as the Democratic Socialists will be "persuaded" to team
up with the New Democrats with regards to sending Troops to conduct humanitarian intervention
abroad (i.e. the Powell Doctrine) in exchange for domestic welfare programs, the
NeverTrumpers and the Republican hawks (Cotton, Graham, Rubio, Cruz, etc.) will have war
plans already written for them at AEI, Hudson and Heritage that focuses on China with the
help of the New Democrats and probably the Far-left.
Samantha Power is Irish bred and London born. She was schooled in Dublin till her mother
emigrated to the US. Christiane Amanpour is British-Iranian. As far as I can determine she
never has had US citizenship. Christopher Hitchens is English born, never visited America
unti he was 32. And even then kept his British citizenship for another 26 years, only
becoming a US citizen in 2007. Probably to take advantage of favorable US income tax on his
book earnings.
WTF were they smoking when they decided to promote war to secure human rights??? So why
did we let these halfwits in the country?
Seems to me we are better off by letting in a few more Sikh farmers from India or more
wannabee restaurant owners from Ethiopia. Or maybe even more wannabee bodega empresarios from
south of our border.
Anyone remember John Kerry, who criticized the anti-war movement and enlisted and served
in Vietnam, only to opportunistically turn against the war. As long as the winds blew
anti-war, he continued to posture that way. Then he reversed course, maybe sensing an SOS
opportunity, and voted for the War in Iraq, meanwhile posturing against it on the grounds
that it wasn’t being fought right!
Kerry seems is the perfect example of Democrats’ hypocritical
‘opposition’ to pointless and futile wars. Not that anybody remembers, but it was
the liberal Bill Clinton who went to war in Yugoslavia and defanged the anti-war wing of the
party. After Clinton Democrats only raised their voices against Republican wars and now have
taken to criticizing Trump for not being belligerent enough!!!
The "anti-antiwar left" is of course an oxymoron. In reality, they are neo-McCarthyites,
neocons, and Israel-firsters. Nothing new. They were never leftists to begin with and
certainly never will be.
To add onto the comments by Polish Janitor regarding Jamaal Bowman, I have this to say.
Just like AOC, he'll cuck out to Israel. He'll take the money and he'll probably take that
"educational" trip to Israel as well. While he's there, would anyone be surprised if he had a
hot time with some honey pie and they got him on Kodak? They'll only drop hints about the
stick, in the meantime, they'll be stuffing his face with carrots as he comes around to the
Zionist agenda.
The same white men who stood three years ago Charlottesville to prevent the toppling of
statues could be the backbone of a new anti-war movement, if only conservatives weren't
afraid of being called 'racist' by people who hate them anyway.
To better get one's bearings regarding what's going on I highly recommend this Spectator
article to the committee. Although BLM and other nefarious types referred to as Antifa
certainly do pass the anarchist test and Marxist test it's critical the committee understand
that the whole thing is being managed by a wing of the establishment.
The New York Times is
not revolutionary, not by a very long shot. Neither are all the big corporations and
foundations who've donated generously to the cause of BLM.
Editorial talents at NYT
instigated the wholesale rewriting of American history over a year ago with their fraudulent
1619 project which says American history began in that year with the importation of African
slaves.
But it's real thesis is that the revolution of 1776 (an inspiration to people
everywhere), was not undertaken to free the thirteen colonies from the tyranny of King
George - no - it was done for the sole reason of perpetuation of slavery because Washington
and other colonial land owners feared that the institution of slavery would be made illegal
by their then British overlords. I kid you not.
The NY Times. Pure revisionism of the worst
sort. But the ends which this revisionism serve, as do the subsequent BLM riots and mindless
iconoclasms, are revealed in this piece:
(This Revolution isn't What it Looks Like). Here's a brief excerpt - it's a management
device. Matt Taibbi has a treatment nearly as good but too diffuse and witty for these
purposes, under the title "Year Zero" on his blog, but it is behind a paywall. Many
illustrative exames though.
Spectator first few paragraphs..
Bear with this. What they're doing is designed to infuriate and disable critical
understanding as they proceed to carry the day in real time.
QUOTE:
America is not in the middle of a revolution — it is a reactionary putsch. About
four years ago, the sort of people who had acquired position and influence as a result of
globalisation were turfed out of power for the first time in decades. They watched in horror
as voters across the world chose Brexit, Donald Trump and other populist and
conservative-nationalist options.
This deposition explains the storm of unrest battering American cities from coast to coast
and making waves in Europe as well. The storm’s ferocity — the looting, the mobs,
the mass lawlessness, the zealous iconoclasm, the deranged slogans like #DefundPolice —
terrifies ordinary Americans. Many conservatives, especially, believe they are facing a
revolution targeting the very foundations of American order.
But when national institutions bow (or kneel) to the street fighters’ demands, it
should tell us that something else is going on. We aren’t dealing with a Maoist or
Marxist revolt, even if some protagonists spout hard-leftish rhetoric. Rather, what’s
playing out is a counter-revolution of the neoliberal class — academe, media, large
corporations, ‘experts’, Big Tech — against the nationalist revolution
launched in 2016. The supposed insurgents and the elites are marching in the streets
together, taking the knee together.
They do not seek a radically new arrangement, but a return to the pre-Trump, pre-Brexit
status quo ante which was working out very well for them. It was, of course, working out less
well for the working class of all races, who bore the brunt of their preferred policy mix:
open borders, free trade without limits, an aggressive cultural liberalism that corroded
tradition and community, technocratic ‘global governance’ that neutered democracy
and politics as such.
When national institutions bow to the street fighters’ demands, it tells us
something else is going on
...Did you realize that the Black Lives Matter group only has 14 local chapters in America
and 3 in Canada? I don't think there are many actual Antifa members out there either. Now of
course a few determined troublemakers can cause a lot of problems but still I can't see how
the country is in real danger.
Probably the real danger here is that these groups get moral support from nonradical
people for radical actions and policies. Right now there are a lot more people against
getting rid of the police than are for it. Now if that changed I would get worried. I have to
admit that I don't like the fact that we do not know who's funding the radicals and that many
are anonymous but I am not afraid of them. I can't imagine a situation in which they would
win and we would lose over time.
No it doesn't, not that I know of. It was the brainchild of Nikole Hannah-Jones working
since 2015 for the times, who received a 2020 Pulitzer prize for the project which initially
was presented in the Times magazine for the 400th anniversary of 1619 when it is claimed that
enslaved Africans first arrived to the American colonies. However it mushroomed into
something much larger and won the award. It was to investigate the legacy of slavery but with
its claim that the true founding of the United States was in 1619 rather than 1776, it drew
criticism from several historians. The controversy was conducted in Politico and on the pages
of the World Socialist Web Site. See here:
You will find links to several of the articles of the project, including: "America Wasn't
a Democracy Until Black Americans Made It One", essay by Nikole Hannah-Jones and "American
Capitalism Is Brutal. You Can Trace That to the Plantation", essay by Matthew Desmond.
I prefaced the intro to the Spectator article with mention of the Times award winning
project because it is vital cultural- historical background to what's transpired since George
Floyd incident of May 25.
My purpose was not to focus on that revisionist project though one
may investigate it at leisure, but the reactionary establishment counter coup to the 2016
election of which the events of May 25 et seq are the most recent chapter - chapters one and
two being Russiagate and impeachment.
Taibbi, in his latest which parallels the Spectator
piece, does think to mention it. The essential idea is that neither the non Trump wing of the
American establishment (more properly Global establishment still anchored tenuously in DC)
nor the Trump wing want the voters to discuss the economy - it's too hot a subject.
Way too
hot since the financial crisis of 2007-08 followed the working class jobs overseas and south
of the border in the 90s and inequality exceeded that of the gilded age. No. But they will
discuss racism (and gender). It divides the country further than ever, deflects focus on
wealth disparity (the establishment has no intention of ever equalizing wealth even a bit)
and presto - gives corporate America and media a new policing tool in the form of mandatory
workshops and summary job dismissals even more unsubstantiated than many of those with
#MeToo. It enhances the academic totalitarians of political correctness with corporate /
employer totalitarianism of "learn your inclusivity lessons reeducation camp" or else. Unions
disappeared long ago and now this.
From Taibbi:
It’s the Fourth of July, and revolution is in the air. Only in America would it look
like this: an elite-sponsored Maoist revolt, couched as a Black liberation movement whose
canonical texts are a corporate consultant’s white guilt self-help manual, and a New
York Times series rewriting history to explain an election they called wrong.
Much of America has watched in quizzical silence in recent weeks as crowds declared war on
an increasingly incoherent succession of historical symbols. Maybe you nodded as Confederate
general Albert Pike was toppled or even when Christopher Columbus was beheaded, but it got a
little weird when George Washington was emblazoned with “Fuck Cops” and set on
fire, or when they went after Ulysses S. Grant, abolitionist Colonel Hans Christian Heg,
“Forward,” (a seven-foot-tall female figure meant to symbolize progress), the
Portland, Oregon “Elk statue,” or my personal favorite, the former slave Miguel
de Cervantes, whose cheerful creations Don Quixote and Sancho Panza were apparently mistaken
for reals and had their eyes lashed red in San Francisco.
Was a What the Fuck? too much to ask? It was! In the space of a few weeks the level of
discourse in the news media dropped so low, the fear of being shamed as a deviationist so
high, that most of the weirder incidents went uncovered. Leading press organs engaged in
real-time Soviet-style airbrushing. Here’s how the Washington Post described a movement
that targeted Spanish missionary Junipero Serra, Abraham Lincoln (a “single-handed
symbol of white supremacy,” according to UW-Madison students), an apple cider press
sculpture, abolitionist Mathias Baldwin, and the first all-Black volunteer regiment in the
Civil War, among others:
Across the country, protesters have toppled statues of figures from America’s sordid
past — including Confederate generals — as part of demonstrations against racism
and police violence.
The New York Times, once the dictionary definition of “unprovocative,”
suddenly reads like Pol Pot’s Sayings of Angkar. Heading into the Fourth of July
weekend, the morning read for upscale white Manhattanites was denouncing Mount Rushmore,
urging Black America to arm itself, and re-positioning America alongside more deserving
historical parallels in a feature about caste systems:
For 150 years the US treated its defeated internal enemy with respect in the interest of
re-unification and reconciliation. Now that is gone destroyed by Marxist vanguard
conspiratorial parties like antifa and BLM and the the power hungry Democrat Party pols who
have made a deal with their soul mate extremists. Well, laissez les bon temps roulez!
Yes the stupidity is ominous. They act as though there is no potential for repurcussion.
It's very peculiar. Maybe they think oh well, there's been plenty of riots over the years.
What ever happened? Didn't we get OJ freed? Didn't they pass civil rights legislation back in
the day? And as for right now - aren't all the big people taking the knee - aren't
corporations endorsing us? Isn't Twitter censoring in our favor? The mayor of New York City -
wasn't he all set to paint a black lives matter mural onto 5th avenue opposite Trump tower
before postponing it to paint one in Harlem instead?
Yes, all true. I don't think they've detected how furious people are getting with their
behavior though. The tide is turning - CHAZ is gone, the conventions loom.
Long term I see nothing to be optimistic about. If Trump wins the counter coups will
continue. If Biden, with a female minority VP who may become President -- good luck. Remember
the Tea Party reaction ensuing on the heels of the first African American President? Reaction
will be quite as bad at least with Trump, his family and his base still very much on the
scene and infuriated.
But the oligarchs have seen their assets rise by hundreds of billions of dollars in a few
short months. The surviving owners consolidate. People will be forced to work for peanuts.
Evictions and repossessions are coming soon.
"... the essential backdrop for the timing of this story. It really reveals how completely decayed mainstream media is as an institution, that none of these reporters protested the story, didn't see fit to do any independent investigation into it. At best they would print a Russian denial which counts for nothing in the US, or a Taliban denial which counts for nothing in the US. And then and this gets into the domestic political angle because so much of Russiagate, while it's been crafted by former or current intelligence officials, depends on the Democratic Party and it punditocracy, MSNBC and mainstream media as a projection megaphone, as its Mighty Wurlitzer. ..."
"... That took place in this case because, according to this story, Donald Trump had been briefed on Putin paying bounties to the Taliban and he chose to do nothing. Which, of course Trump denies, but that counts for nothing as well. But, again, there's been no independent confirmation of any of this. And now we get into the domestic part, which is that this new Republican anti-Trump operation, The Lincoln Project, had a flashy ad ready to go almost minutes after the story dropped. ..."
"... They're just, like, on meth at Steve Schmidt's political Batcave, just churning this material out. But I feel like they had an inkling, like this story was coming. It just the coordination and timing was impeccable. ..."
"... And The Lincoln Project is something that James Carville, the veteran Democratic consultant, has said is doing more than any Democrat or any Democratic consultant to elect Joe Biden. ..."
"... the Carter Administration, at the urging of national security chief Zbigniew Brzezinski, had enacted what would become Operation Cyclone under Reagan, an arm-and-equip program to arm the Afghan mujahideen. The Saudis put up a matching fund which helped bring the so-called Services Bureau into the field where Osama bin Laden became a recruiter for international jihadists to join the battlefield. And, you know, the goal was, in the words of Brzezinski, as he later admitted to a French publication, was to force the Red Army, the Soviet Red Army, to intervene to protect the pro-Soviet government in Kabul, which they proceeded to do. ..."
"... What he means is by basically paying bounties, which the US was literally doing along with its Gulf allies, to exact the toll on the allies of Assad, Russia. So, let's just say it's true, according to your question, let's just say this is all true. It would be a retaliation for what the United States has done to Russia in areas where it was actually legally invited in by the governments in charge, either in Kabul or Damascus. And that's, I think, the kind of ironic subtext that can hardly be understated when you see someone like Dan Rather wag his finger at Putin for paying the Taliban as proxies. But, I mean, it's such a ridiculous story that it's just hard to even fathom that it's real. ..."
"... just kind of neocon resistance mind-explosion, where first John Bolton was hailed as this hero and truthteller about Trump. ..."
"... And then you have this and it, you know, today as you pointed out, Chuck Todd, "Chuck Toddler", welcomes on Meet the Press John Bolton as this wise voice to comment on Donald Trump's slavish devotion to Vladimir Putin and how we need to escalate. ..."
"... This is what Russiagate has done. It's taken one of the most Strangelovian, psychotic, dangerous, bloodthirsty, sadistic monsters in US foreign policy circles and turned him into a sober-minded, even heroic, truthteller. ..."
Max Blumenthal breaks down the "Russian bounty" story's flaws and how it aims to prolong the
war in Afghanistan -- and uses Russiagate tactics to continue pushing the Democratic Party to
the right
Multiple US media outlets, citing anonymous intelligence officials, are claiming that Russia
offered bounties to kill US soldiers in Afghanistan, and that President Trump has taken no
action.
Others are contesting that claim. "Officials said there was disagreement among
intelligence officials about the strength of the evidence about the suspected Russian
plot," the New York Times reports. "Notably, the National Security Agency, which specializes in
hacking and electronic surveillance, has been more skeptical."
"The constant flow of Russiagate disinformation into the bloodstream of the Democratic Party
and its base is moving that party constantly to the right, while pushing the US deeper into
this Cold War," Blumenthal says.
Guest: Max Blumenthal, editor of The Grayzone and author of several books, including his
latest "The Management of Savagery."
TRANSCRIPT
AARON MATÉ: Welcome to Pushback, I'm Aaron Maté. There is a new supposed
Trump-Russia bombshell. The New York Times and other outlets reporting that Russia has
been paying bounties to Afghan militants to kill US soldiers in Afghanistan. Trump and the
White House were allegedly briefed on this information but have taken no action.
Now, the story has obvious holes, like many other Russiagate bombshells. It is sourced to
anonymous intelligence officials. The New York Times says that the claim comes from
Afghan detainees. And it also has some logical holes. The Taliban have been fighting the US and
Afghanistan for nearly two decades and never needed Russian payments before to kill the
Americans that they were fighting; [this] amongst other questions are raised about this story.
But that has not stopped the usual chorus from whipping up a frenzy.
RACHEL MADDOW, MSNBC: Vladimir Putin is offering bounties for the scalps of American
soldiers in Afghanistan. Not only offering, offering money [to] the people who kill Americans,
but some of the bounties that Putin has offered have been collected, meaning the Russians at
least believe that their offering cash to kill Americans has actually worked to get some
Americans killed.
FORMER VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Donald Trump has continued his embarrassing campaign
of deference and debasing himself before Vladimir Putin. He had has [sic] this information
according to The Times, and yet he offered to host Putin in the United States and sought
to invite Russia to rejoin the G7. He's in his entire presidency has been a gift to Putin, but
this is beyond the pale.
CHUCK TODD, NBC: Let me ask you this. Do you think that part of the that the
president is afraid to make Putin mad because maybe Putin did help him win the election and he
doesn't want to make him mad for 2020?
SENATE MINORITY LEADER CHUCK SCHUMER: I was not briefed on the Russian military
intelligence, but it shows that we need in this coming defense bill, which we're debating this
week, tough sanctions against Russia, which thus far Mitch McConnell has resisted.
Joining me now is Max Blumenthal, editor of The Grayzone, author of The Management of
Savagery . Max, welcome to Pushback. What is your reaction to this story?
MAX BLUMENTHAL: I mean, it just feels like so many other episodes that we've
witnessed over the past three or four years, where American intelligence officials basically
plant a story in one outlet, The New York Times , which functions as the media wing of
the Central Intelligence Agency. Then no reporting takes place whatsoever, but six reporters,
or three to six reporters are assigned to the piece to make it look like it was some
last-minute scramble to confirm this bombshell story. And then the story is confirmed again by
The Washington Post because their reporters, their three to six reporters in, you know,
capitals around the world with different beats spoke to the same intelligence officials, or
they were furnished different officials who fed them the same story. And, of course, the story
advances a narrative that the United States is under siege by Russia and that we have to
escalate against Russia just ahead of another peace summit or some kind of international
dialogue.
This has sort of been the general framework for these Russiagate bombshells, and of course
they can there's always an anti-Trump angle. And because, you know, liberal pundits and the,
you know, Democratic Party operatives see this as a means to undermine Trump as the election
heats up. They don't care if it's true or not. They don't care what the consequences are.
They're just gonna completely roll with it. And it's really changed, I think, not just US
foreign policy, but it's changed the Democratic Party in an almost irreversible way, to have
these constant "quote-unquote" bombshells that are really generated by the Central Intelligence
Agency and by other US intelligence operations in order to turn up the heat to crank up the
Cold War, to use these different media organs which no longer believe in reporting, which see
Operation Mockingbird as a kind of blueprint for how to do journalism, to turn them into keys
on the CIA's Mighty Wurlitzer. That's what happened here.
AARON MATÉ: What do you make of the logic of this story? This idea that the
Taliban would need Russian money to kill Americans when the Taliban's been fighting the US for
nearly two decades now. And the sourcing for the story, the same old playbook: anonymous
intelligence officials who are citing vague claims about apparently what was said by Afghan
detainees.
MAX BLUMENTHAL: This story has, as I said, it relies on zero reporting. The only
source is anonymous American intelligence officials. And I tweeted out a clip of a former CIA
operations officer who managed the CIA's operation in Angola, when the US was actually fighting
on the side of apartheid South Africa against a Marxist government that was backed up by Cuban
troops. His name was John Stockwell. And Stockwell talked about how one-third of his covert
operations staff were propagandists, and that they would feed imaginary stories about Cuban
barbarism that were completely false to reporters who were either CIA assets directly or who
were just unwitting dupes who would hang on a line waiting for American intelligence officials
to feed them stories. And one out of every five stories was completely false, as Stockwell
said. We could play some of that clip now; it's pretty remarkable to watch it in light of this
latest fake bombshell.
JOHN STOCKWELL: Another thing is to disseminate propaganda to influence people's
minds, and this is a major function of the CIA. And unfortunately, of course, it overlaps into
the gathering of information. You, you have contact with a journalist, you will give him true
stories, you'll get information from him, you'll also give him false stories.
OFF-CAMERA REPORTER: Can you do this with responsible reporters?
JOHN STOCKWELL: Yes, the Church Committee brought it out in 1975. And then Woodward
and Bernstein put an article in Rolling Stone a couple of years later. Four hundred
journalists cooperating with the CIA, including some of the biggest names in the business.
MAX BLUMENTHAL: So, basically, I mean, you get the flavor of what someone who was in
the CIA at the height of the Cold War I mean, he did the same thing in Vietnam. And the
playbook is absolutely the same today. These this story was dumped on Friday in The New York
Times by "quote-unquote" American intelligence officials, as a breakthrough had been made
in Afghan peace talks and a conference was finally set for Doha, Qatar, that would involve the
Taliban, which had been seizing massive amounts of territory.
Now, it's my understanding, and correct me if I'm wrong, that the Taliban had been fighting
one of the most epic examples of an occupying army in modern history, just absolutely chewing
away at one of the most powerful militaries in human history in their country for the last 19
years, without bounties from Vladimir Putin or
private-hotdog-salesman-and-Saint-Petersburg-troll-farm-owner Yevgeny Prigozhin , who always comes up
in these stories. It's always the hotdog guy who's doing everything bad from, like, you know,
fake Facebook ads to poisoning Sergei Skripal or whatever.
But I just don't see where the Taliban needs encouragement from Putin to do that. It's their
country. They want the US out and they have succeeded in seizing large amounts of territory.
Donald Trump has come into office with a pledge to remove US troops from Afghanistan and ink
this deal. And along comes this story as the peace process begins to advance.
And what is the end-result? We haven't gotten into the domestic politics yet, but the
end-result is you have supposedly progressive senators like Chris Murphy of Connecticut
attacking Trump for not fighting Russia in Afghanistan. I mean, they want a straight-up proxy
war for not escalating. You have Richard Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign
Relations, someone who's aligned with the Democratic Party, who supported the war in Iraq and,
you know, supports just endless war, demanding that the US turn up the heat not just in
Afghanistan but in Syria. So, you know, the escalatory rhetoric is at a fever pitch right now,
and it's obviously going to impact that peace conference.
Let's remember that three days before Trump's summit with Putin was when Mueller chose to
release the indictment of the GRU agents for supposedly hacking the DNC servers. Let's remember
that a day before the UN the United Nations Geneva peace talks opened on Syria in 2014 was when
US intelligence chose to feed these shady Caesar photos, supposedly showing industrial
slaughter of Syrian prisoners, to The New York Times in an investigation that had been
funded by Qatar. Like, so many shady intelligence dumps have taken place ahead of peace summits
to disrupt them, because the US doesn't feel like it has enough skin in the game or it just
simply doesn't want peace in these areas.
So, that's what happened here. That's really, I think, the essential backdrop for the timing
of this story. It really reveals how completely decayed mainstream media is as an institution,
that none of these reporters protested the story, didn't see fit to do any independent
investigation into it. At best they would print a Russian denial which counts for nothing in
the US, or a Taliban denial which counts for nothing in the US. And then and this gets into the
domestic political angle because so much of Russiagate, while it's been crafted by former or
current intelligence officials, depends on the Democratic Party and it punditocracy, MSNBC and
mainstream media as a projection megaphone, as its Mighty Wurlitzer.
That took place in this
case because, according to this story, Donald Trump had been briefed on Putin paying bounties
to the Taliban and he chose to do nothing. Which, of course Trump denies, but that counts for
nothing as well. But, again, there's been no independent confirmation of any of this. And now
we get into the domestic part, which is that this new Republican anti-Trump operation, The
Lincoln Project, had a flashy ad ready to go almost minutes after the story dropped.
THE LINCOLN PROJECT AD: Now we know Vladimir Putin pays a bounty for the murder of
American soldiers. Donald Trump knows, too, and does nothing. Putin pays the Taliban cash to
slaughter our men and women in uniform and Trump is silent, weak, controlled. Instead of
condemnation he insists Russia be treated as our equal.
MAX BLUMENTHAL: I mean, maybe they're just really good editors and brilliant
politicians who work overtime. They're just, like, on meth at Steve Schmidt's political Batcave, just churning this material out. But I feel like they had an inkling, like this story
was coming. It just the coordination and timing was impeccable.
And The Lincoln Project is something that James Carville, the veteran Democratic consultant,
has said is doing more than any Democrat or any Democratic consultant to elect Joe Biden.
They're always out there doing the hard work. Who are they? Well, Steve Schmidt is a former
campaign manager for John McCain 2008. And you look at the various personnel affiliated with
it, they're all McCain former McCain aides or people who worked on the Jeb and George W. Bush
campaigns, going back to Texas and Florida. This is sort of the corporate wing of the
Republican Party, the white-glove-country-club-patrician Republicans who are very pro-war, who
hate Donald Trump.
And by doing this, by them really taking the lead on this attack, as you pointed out, Aaron,
number one, they are sucking the oxygen out of the more progressive anti-Trump initiatives that
are taking place, including in the streets of American cities. They're taking the wind out of
anti-Trump more progressive anti-Trump critiques. For example, I think it's actually more
powerful to attack Trump over the fact that he used, basically, chemical weapons on American
peaceful protesters to do a fascistic photo-op. I don't know why there wasn't some call for
congressional investigations on that. And they are getting skin in the game on the Biden
campaign. It really feels to me like this Lincoln campaign operation, this moderate Republican
operation which is also sort of a venue for neocons, will have more influence after events like
this than the Bernie Sanders campaign, which has an enormous amount of delegates.
So, that's what I think the domestic repercussion is. It's just this constant it's the
constant flow of Russiagate disinformation into the bloodstream of the Democratic Party and its
base that's moving that party constantly to the right, while pushing the US deeper into this
Cold War that only serves, you know, people who are associated with the national security state
who need to justify their paycheck and the budget of the institutions that employ them.
AARON MATÉ: Let's assume for a second that the allegation is true, although, you
know, you've laid out some of the reasons why it's not. Can you talk about the history here,
starting with Afghanistan, something you cover a lot in your book, The Management of
Savagery, where the US aim was to kill Russians, going right on through to Syria, where
just recently the US envoy for the coalition against ISIS, James Jeffery, who handles Syria,
said that his job now is to basically put the Russians in a quagmire in Syria.
JAMES JEFFREY: This isn't Afghanistan. This isn't Vietnam. This isn't a quagmire. My
job is to make it a quagmire for the Russians.
MAX BLUMENTHAL: Yeah, I mean, it feels like a giant act of psychological and
political projection to accuse Russia of using an Islamist militia in Afghanistan as a proxy
against the US to bleed the US into leaving, because that's been the US playbook in Central
Asia and the Middle East since at least 1979. I just tweeted a photo of Dan Rather in
Afghanistan, just crossing the Pakistani border and going to meet with some of the Mujahideen
in 1980. Dan Rather was panned in The New York in The Washington Post by Tom
Toles [Tom Shales], who was the media critic at the time, as "Gunga Dan," because he was so
gung-ho for the Afghan mujahideen. In his reports he would complain about how weak their
weaponry was, you know, how they needed more how they needed more funding. I mean, you could
call it bounties, but it was really just CIA funding.
DAN RATHER: These are the best weapons you have, huh? They only have about twenty
rounds for this?
TRANSLATOR: That's all. They have twenty rounds. Yes, and they know that these are
all old weapons and they really aren't up to doing anything to the Russian weaponry that's
around. But that's all they have, and this is why they want help. And he is saying that America
seems to be asleep. It doesn't seem to realize that if Afghanistan goes and the Russians go
over to the Gulf, that in a very short time it's going to be the turn of the United States as
well.
DAN RATHER: But I'm sure he knows that in Vietnam we got our fingers burned. Indeed,
we got our whole hands burned when we tried to help in this kind of situation.
TRANSLATOR [translating to the Afghan man and then his reply]: Your hands were burned
in Vietnam, but if you don't agree to help us, if you don't ally yourself with us, then all of
you, your whole body will be burnt eventually, because there is no one in the world who can
really fight and resist as well as the as much and as well as the Afghans are.
DAN RATHER: But no American mother wants to send her son to Afghanistan.
TRANSLATOR [translating to the Afghan man and then his reply]: We don't need
anybody's soldiers here to help us, but we are being constantly accused that the Americans are
helping us with weapons. What we need, actually, are the American weapons. We don't need or
want American soldiers. We can do the fighting ourselves.
MAX BLUMENTHAL: And a year or several months before, the Carter Administration, at
the urging of national security chief Zbigniew Brzezinski, had enacted what would become
Operation Cyclone under Reagan, an arm-and-equip program to arm the Afghan mujahideen. The
Saudis put up a matching fund which helped bring the so-called Services Bureau into the field
where Osama bin Laden became a recruiter for international jihadists to join the battlefield.
And, you know, the goal was, in the words of Brzezinski, as he later admitted to a French
publication, was to force the Red Army, the Soviet Red Army, to intervene to protect the
pro-Soviet government in Kabul, which they proceeded to do.
And then with the introduction of
the Stinger missile, the Afghan mujahideen, hailed as freedom fighters in Washington, were able
to destroy Russian supply lines, exact a heavy toll, and forced the Red Army to leave in
retreat. They helped create what's considered the Soviet Union's Vietnam.
So that was really but the blueprint for what Russian for what Russia is being accused of
now, and that same model was transferred over to Syria. It was also actually proposed for Iraq
in the Iraq Liberation Act in 1998. Then Senate Foreign Relations chair Jesse Helms actually
said that the Afghan mujahideen should be our model for supporting the Iraqi resistance. So,
this kind of proxy war was always on the table. Then the US did it in Syria, when one out of
every $13 in the CIA budget went to arm the so-called "moderate rebels" in Syria, who we later
found out were 31 flavors of jihadi, who were aligned with al-Qaeda's local affiliate Jabhat
al-Nusra and helped give rise to ISIS. Michael Morell, I tweeted some video of him on Charlie
Rose back in, I think, 2016. He's the former acting director for the CIA, longtime deputy
director. He said, you know, the reason that we're in Syria, what we should be doing is causing
Iran and Russia, the two allies of Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, to pay a heavy
price.
MICHAEL MORELL: We need to make the Iranians pay a price in Syria. We need to make
the Russians pay a price. The other thing
CHARLIE ROSE: We make them pay the price by killing killing Russians?
MICHAEL MORELL: Yes.
CHARLIE ROSE: And killing Iranians.
MICHAEL MORELL: Yes, covertly. You don't tell the world about it, right? You don't
stand up at the Pentagon and say we did this, right? But you make sure they know it in Moscow
and Tehran.
MAX BLUMENTHAL:What he means is by basically paying bounties, which the US was
literally doing along with its Gulf allies, to exact the toll on the allies of Assad, Russia.
So, let's just say it's true, according to your question, let's just say this is all true. It
would be a retaliation for what the United States has done to Russia in areas where it was
actually legally invited in by the governments in charge, either in Kabul or Damascus. And
that's, I think, the kind of ironic subtext that can hardly be understated when you see someone
like Dan Rather wag his finger at Putin for paying the Taliban as proxies. But, I mean, it's
such a ridiculous story that it's just hard to even fathom that it's real.
AARON MATÉ: Let me read Dan Rather's tweet, because it's so it speaks to just
how pervasive Russiagate culture is now. People have learned absolutely nothing from it.
Rather says, "Reporters are trained to look for patterns that are suspicious, and time and
again one stands out with Donald Trump. Why is he so slavishly devoted to Putin? There is a
spectrum of possible answers ranging from craven to treasonous. One day I hope and suspect we
will find out."
It's like he forgot, perhaps, that Robert Mueller and his team spent three years
investigating this very issue and came up with absolutely nothing. But the narrative has taken
hold, and it's, as you talked about before, it's been the narrative we've been presented as the
vehicle for understanding and opposing Donald Trump, so it cannot be questioned. And now it's
like it's a matter of, what else is there to find out about Trump and Russia after Robert
Mueller and the US intelligence agencies looked for everything they could and found nothing?
They're still presented as if it's some kind of mystery that has to be unraveled.
MAX BLUMENTHAL: And it was after, like, a week of just kind of neocon resistance
mind-explosion, where first John Bolton was hailed as this hero and truthteller about Trump.
Then Dick Cheney was welcomed into the resistance, you know, because he said, "Wear a mask." I
mean, you know, his mask was strangely not spattered with the blood of Iraqi children. But, you
know, it was just amazing like that. Of course, it was the Lincoln project who hijacked the
minds of the resistance, but basically people who used to work on Cheney's campaign said, "Dick
Cheney, welcome to the resistance." I mean, that was remarkable. And then you have this and it,
you know, today as you pointed out, Chuck Todd, "Chuck Toddler", welcomes on Meet the
Press John Bolton as this wise voice to comment on Donald Trump's slavish devotion to
Vladimir Putin and how we need to escalate.
CHUCK TODD, NBC: Let me ask you this. Do you think that part of the that the
president is afraid to make Putin mad because maybe Putin did help him win the election and he
doesn't want to make him mad for 2020?
MAX BLUMENTHAL: I mean, just a few years ago, maybe it was two years ago, before
Bolton was brought into the Trump NSC, he was considered just an absolute marginal crank who
was a contributor to Fox News. He'd been forgotten. He was widely hated by Democrats. Now here
he is as a sage voice to tell us how dangerous this moment is. And, you know, he's not being
even brought on just to promote his book; he's being brought on as just a sober-minded foreign
policy expert on Meet the Press . That's where we're at right now.
AARON MATÉ: Yeah, and when his critique of Trump is basically that Trump was not
hawkish enough. Bolton's most the biggest critique Bolton has of Trump is, as he writes about
in his book, is when Trump declined to bomb Iran after Iran shot down a drone over its
territory. And Bolton said that to him was the most irrational thing he's ever seen a president
do.
MAX BLUMENTHAL: Well, Bolton was mad that Trump confused body bags with missiles,
because he said Trump thought that there would be 150 dead Iranians, and I said, "No, Donald,
you're confused. It will be 150 missiles that we're firing into Iran." Like that's better!
Like, "Oh, okay, that makes everything all right," that we fire a hundred missiles for one
drone and maybe that wouldn't that kill possibly more than 150 people?
Well, in Bolton's world this was just another stupid move by Trump. If Bolton were, I mean,
just, just watch all the interviews with Bolton. Watch him on The View where the only
pushback he received was from Meghan McCain complaining that he ripped off a Hamilton
song for his book The Room Where It Happened , and she asked, "Don't you have any
apology to offer to Hamilton fans?" That was the pushback that Bolton received. Just
watch all of these interviews with Bolton and try to find the pushback. It's not there. This is
what Russiagate has done. It's taken one of the most Strangelovian, psychotic, dangerous,
bloodthirsty, sadistic monsters in US foreign policy circles and turned him into a
sober-minded, even heroic, truthteller.
AARON MATÉ: And inevitably the only long-term consequence that I can see here is
ultimately helping Trump, because, if history is a pattern, these Russiagate supposed
bombshells always either go nowhere or they get debunked. So, if this one gets forcefully
debunked, because I think it's quite possible, because Trump has said that he was never briefed
on this and they'll have to prove that he's lying, you know. It should be easy to do. Someone
could come out and say that. If they can't prove that he's lying, then this one, I think, will
blow up in their face. And all they will have done is, at a time when Trump is vulnerable over
the pandemic with over a hundred thousand people dead on his watch, all these people did was
ultimately try to bring the focus back to the same thing that failed for basically the entirety
of Trump's presidency, which is Russiagate and Trump's supposed―and non-existent in
reality―subservience to Vladimir Putin.
MAX BLUMENTHAL: But have you ever really confronted one of your liberal friends who
maybe doesn't follow these stories as closely as you do? You know, well-intentioned liberal
friend who just has this sense that Russia controls Trump, and asked them to really defend that
and provide the receipts and really explain where the Trump administration has just handed the
store to Russia? Because what we've seen is unprecedented since the height of the Cold War, an
unprecedented deterioration of US-Russia relations with new sanctions on Russia every few
months. You ask them to do that. They can't do it. It's just a sense they get, it's a feeling
they get. And that's because these bombshells drop, they get reported on the front pages under
banners of papers that declare that "democracy dies in darkness," whose brand is something that
everybody trusts, The New York Times , The Washington Post , Woodward and
Bernstein, and everybody repeats the story again and again and again. And then, if and when it
gets debunked, discredited or just sort of disappears, a few days later everybody forgets about
it. And those people who are not just, like, 24/7 media consumers but critical-minded media
consumers, they're left with that sense that Russia actually controls us and that we must do
something to escalate with Russia. So, that's the point of these: by the time the
disinformation is discredited, the damage has already been done. And that same tactic was
employed against Jeremy Corbyn in the UK, to the point where so many people were left with the
sense that he must be an antisemite, although not one allegation was ever proven.
AARON MATÉ: Yeah, and now to the point where, in the Labour Party―we
should touch on this for a second―where you had a Labour Party member retweet an article
recently that mentioned some criticism of Israel and for that she was expelled from her
position in the shadow cabinet.
MAX BLUMENTHAL: Yeah, well, you know, as a Jew I was really threatened by that
retweet [laughter]. I don't know about you.
I mean, this is Rebecca Long Bailey. She's one of the few Corbynites left in a high position
in Labour who hasn't been effectively burned at the stake for being a, you know, Jew hater who
wants to throw us all in gas chambers because she retweets an interview with some celebrity I'd
never heard of before, who didn't even say anything that extreme. But it really shows how the
Thought Police have taken control of the Labour Party through Sir Keir Starmer, who is someone
who has deep links to the national security state through the Crown Prosecution Service, which
he used to head, where he was involved in the prosecution of Julian Assange. And he has worked
with The Times of London, which is a, you know, favorite paper of the national security
state and the MI5 in the UK, for planting stories against Jeremy Corbyn. He was intimately
involved in that campaign, and now he's at the head of the Labour Party for a very good reason.
I really would recommend everyone watching this, if you're interested more in who Keir Starmer
really is, read "Five Questions for [New Labour Leader] Sir Keir Starmer" by Matt Kennard at
The Grayzone. It really lays it out and shows you what's happening.
We're just in this kind of hyper-managed atmosphere, where everything feels so much more
controlled than it's ever been. And even though every sane rational person that I know seems to
understand what's happening, they feel like they're not allowed to say it, at least not in any
official capacity.
AARON MATÉ: From the US to Britain, everything is being co-opted. In the US
it's, you know, genuine resistance to Trump, in opposition to Trump, it gets co-opted by the
right. Same thing in Britain. People get manipulated into believing that Jeremy Corbyn, this
lifelong anti-racist is somehow an antisemite. It's all in the service of the same agenda, and
I have to say we're one of the few outlets that are pushing back on it. Everyone else is
getting swept up on it and it's a scary time.
We're gonna wrap. Max, your final comment.
MAX BLUMENTHAL: Well, yeah, we're pushing back. And I saw today Mint Press
[News], which is another outlet that has pushed back, their Twitter account was just
briefly removed for no reason, without explanation. Ollie Vargas, who's an independent
journalist who's doing some of the most important work in the English language from Bolivia,
reporting on the post-coup landscape and the repressive environment that's been created by the
junta installed with US help under Jeanine Áñez, his account has been taken away on
Twitter. The social media platforms are basically under the control of the national security
state. There's been a merger between the national security state and Silicon Valley, and the
space for these kinds of discussions is rapidly shrinking. So, I think, you know, it's more
important than ever to support alternative media and also to really have a clear understanding
of what's taking place. I'm really worried there just won't be any space for us to have these
conversations in the near future.
AARON MATÉ: Max Blumenthal, editor of The Grayzone, author of The Management
of Savagery , thanks a lot.
"... As Johnstone recounts, after the Cold War liberals became bewitched by the prospect of waging wars for humanitarian ends. A generation of journalists and foreign policy experts including Samantha Power, Christiane Amanpour, Jamie Rubin, and Christopher Hitchens, would make the Balkans a proving ground for their liberal theories of preventative war, in the process throwing the ancient and venerable tradition of St. Augustine's Just War theory on the trash heap and paving the way for what was to follow in the coming decades, including Iraq II, Libya, Syria and a global drone war and a "targeted" assassination program." Carden ..."
"... Ah, for the good old days when lefties could be treated as a deluded minority rather than a vanguard party of globalist imperialists. pl ..."
"... . While the former's rise in the Democratic Party led to the exodus of Neoconservatives (former Trotskyists, Socialist and Marxists) to the Conservative movement, the latter is also moving the New Democrats to the Right, but the problem is that the current Political Right is mostly controlled by the Trumpists so these New Democrat types (Pelosi, Schumer, Schiff, Menendez, Biden etc.) are stuck between a hard place and a rock. In other words we are seeing the tight squeezing of the New Democrats (Wall-Street, Tech, humanitarian intervention) by the radical left (Green New Deal, UBI) and by the angry Trumpists. ..."
"... Recently Sanders and the Democratic Socialists expressed their opposition to Bibi's planned annexation of West-bank and adjacent Palestinian enclaves and threatened to to cut-off the military aid to Israel if Bibi moved on with his plan. ..."
"... Judging by my observation, the current trend is the alliance between the NeverTrumpers (The Lincoln project, The Right Pac) like Bill Kristol and the Reagan-to-Bush-43-neoconservatives (most of whom were Reagan Democrats in the late 70s and 80s themselves so nothing new for them) to push Trump out of office in their view before the RNC in Aug and to make room for the New Democrats and also to restore their previous 20+ years of reigning over the Republican Party. If their plan becomes successful, in the post 2020 election we will see a political configuration resembling the 90s and early 2000s with one major difference which is the introduction of several, in my opinion less that 10 seats in the House reserved for the far-Left socialist Democrats. ..."
"... And in terms of Foreign policy, everyone will get happy and the Blob/Borg think tank class in D.C. will see business as usual ..."
"Only "a few decades ago, "the Left" was considered the center of opposition to imperialism,
and champion of the right of peoples to self-determination."
Johnstone is part of a distinguished line of American expatriate writers, who, perhaps
because of an objectivity conferred by distance, saw their country more clearly than many of
their stateside contemporaries.
Members of the club include William Pfaff who for many years
wrote from Paris and the longtime Asia correspondent Patrick Lawrence . The Paris based Johnstone brings a
moral clarity to matters of war and peace that is, alas, too often absent from most
contemporary foreign affairs writing. Its near total absence on the Left during the Trump years
should be cause for reflection, and concern.
As Johnstone recounts, after the Cold War liberals became bewitched by the prospect of
waging wars for humanitarian ends. A generation of journalists and foreign policy experts
including Samantha Power, Christiane Amanpour, Jamie Rubin, and Christopher Hitchens, would
make the Balkans a proving ground for their liberal theories of preventative war, in the
process throwing the ancient and venerable tradition of St. Augustine's Just War theory on the
trash heap and paving the way for what was to follow in the coming decades, including Iraq II,
Libya, Syria and a global drone war and a "targeted" assassination program." Carden
---------------
Ah, for the good old days when lefties could be treated as a deluded minority rather than a
vanguard party of globalist imperialists. pl
This is a serious article addressing a serious problem. If the "left" sells out on war
issues as they have done the last 20 years or so, there is no pushback against the permanent
war system. Those one-time leftists who have sold out are no longer really leftists,
especially once they are relying on the corrupt permanent spy state for their information and
support.
Interesting and correct observation. Allow me to throw in my own two cents with regards to
the rise of what is defined as the "anti-Anti War left". I should note that there are eerily
similar parralels between the rise of the New Left in the 60s that was the mix of socialist
democrats, sexual revolutionaries, flower-power hippies, anti-imperialist/anti-war activists,
and identitarianists (Huey Netwon, Cesar Chavez, MLK) etc. and today's BLM, Antifa, 'woke'
types, third-gen feminists, broke millennials\
. While the former's rise in the Democratic
Party led to the exodus of Neoconservatives (former Trotskyists, Socialist and Marxists) to
the Conservative movement, the latter is also moving the New Democrats to the Right, but the
problem is that the current Political Right is mostly controlled by the Trumpists so these
New Democrat types (Pelosi, Schumer, Schiff, Menendez, Biden etc.) are stuck between a hard
place and a rock. In other words we are seeing the tight squeezing of the New Democrats
(Wall-Street, Tech, humanitarian intervention) by the radical left (Green New Deal, UBI) and
by the angry Trumpists.
Just to give you one example, last week a prototype New Democrat and long time congressman
(since 89) Elliot Engel of NY who fits well into this definition was defeated handily in the
NY-16 primaries by the Democratic Socialists of America endorsed candidate, Jamal Bowman. Mr.
Bowman, an African American is ideologically very similar to AOC, Tlaib, and Omar. He won on
a platform of foreign policy endorsed by the left-zionists (ex-labor zionists) against the
likudnik right-wing zionist of Engles' which is very interesting since, Engel has been known
for his hawkish views on foreign policy and extremely pro-Israel and chaired the House
Foreign Affairs Committee recently.
Recently Sanders and the Democratic Socialists expressed their opposition to Bibi's
planned annexation of West-bank and adjacent Palestinian enclaves and threatened to to
cut-off the military aid to Israel if Bibi moved on with his plan.
Domestically, there are several seats up for re-election and especially two in Georgia and
Arizona Senate whose pointed Republican candidates are in very shaky grounds versus their
democratic challengers. What is clear is that the New Democrat platforms are no longer
popular by the Democratic base and given recent events, it can be safely said that either the
most law and order and Trumpian candidates will win or the Democratic socialists endorsed
ones. So another problem for the New Dems.
Judging by my observation, the current trend is the alliance between the NeverTrumpers
(The Lincoln project, The Right Pac) like Bill Kristol and the
Reagan-to-Bush-43-neoconservatives (most of whom were Reagan Democrats in the late 70s and
80s themselves so nothing new for them) to push Trump out of office in their view before the
RNC in Aug and to make room for the New Democrats and also to restore their previous 20+
years of reigning over the Republican Party. If their plan becomes successful, in the post
2020 election we will see a political configuration resembling the 90s and early 2000s with
one major difference which is the introduction of several, in my opinion less that 10 seats
in the House reserved for the far-Left socialist Democrats.
And in terms of Foreign policy, everyone will get happy and the Blob/Borg think tank class
in D.C. will see business as usual as the Democratic Socialists will be "persuaded" to team
up with the New Democrats with regards to sending Troops to conduct humanitarian intervention
abroad (i.e. the Powell Doctrine) in exchange for domestic welfare programs, the
NeverTrumpers and the Republican hawks (Cotton, Graham, Rubio, Cruz, etc.) will have war
plans already written for them at AEI, Hudson and Heritage that focuses on China with the
help of the New Democrats and probably the Far-left.
Bolton is just "yet another MIC puppet", who has complete vacuum in his head as for morality
and decency. In other words he is a typical Washington psychopath. Like many sociopaths he is a
compulsive liar, undeniable careerist and self-promoter.
This week on Empire Has No Clothes, we spoke with Elizabeth Shackelford, a former Foreign
Service Officer and author of
The Dissent Channel: American Diplomacy in a Dishonest Age . Kelley Vlahos, Matt Purple
and I talked about demoralization in the department, the reasons for her resignation, U.S.
policy in South Sudan and Africa, and the need for greater accountability in our foreign
policy. We also covered John Bolton's new book, his outdated foreign policy views, and whether
anything he says can be trusted.
Listen to the episode in the player below, or click the links beneath it to subscribe using
your favorite podcast app. If you like what you hear, please give us a rating or review on
iTunes or Stitcher, which will really help us climb the rankings, allowing more people to find
the show.
So former tank repairman decided again managed to make a make a mark in world diplomacy
:-).
Notable quotes:
"... Mike Pompeo delivered an embarrassing, clownish performance at the U.N. on Tuesday, and his attempt to gain support for an open-ended conventional arms embargo on Iran was rejected the rest of the old P5+1: ..."
"... The Trump administration has abused our major European allies for years in its push to destroy the nuclear deal, and their governments have no patience with any more unilateral U.S. stunts. This is the result of two years of a destructive policy aimed solely at punishing Iran and its people. The administration's open contempt for international law and the interests of its allies has cost the U.S. their cooperation. ..."
"... Underscoring the absurdity of the Trump administration's arms embargo appeal were Pompeo's alarmist warnings that an end to the arms embargo would allow Iran to purchase advanced fighters that it would use to threaten Europe and India: ..."
"... This is a laughably unrealistic scenario. Even if Iran purchased advanced fighters, the last thing it would do is send them off on a suicide mission to bomb Italy or India. This shows how deeply irrational the Iran hawks' fearmongering is. Iran has already demonstrated an ability to launch precise attacks with drones and missiles in its immediate neighborhood, and it developed these capabilities while under the current embargo. ..."
"... The Secretary of State called on the U.N. to reject "extortion diplomacy." The best way to reject extortion diplomacy would be for them to reject the administration's desperate attempt to use America's position at the U.N. to attack international law. ..."
Mike Pompeo delivered an embarrassing, clownish performance at the U.N. on Tuesday, and his
attempt to
gain support for an open-ended conventional arms embargo on Iran was rejected the rest of the
old P5+1:
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called on Tuesday for an arms embargo on Iran to be
extended indefinitely, but his appeal fell flat at the United Nations Security Council, where
Russia and China rejected it outright and close allies of the United States were
ambivalent.
The Trump administration is more isolated than ever in its Iran obsession. The ridiculous
effort to invoke the so-called "snapback" provision of the JCPOA more than two years after
reneging on the agreement met with failure, just as most observers predicted months
ago when it was first floated as a possibility. As I said at the time, "The
administration's latest destructive ploy won't find any support on the Security Council. There
is nothing "intricate" about this idea. It is a crude, heavy-handed attempt to employ the
JCPOA's own provisions to destroy it." It was never going to work because all of the other
parties to the agreement want nothing to do with the administration's punitive approach, and
U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA meant that it forfeited any rights it had when it was still part
of the deal.
Opposition from Russia and China was a given, but the striking thing about the scene at the
U.N. this week was that major U.S. allies
joined them in rebuking the administration's obvious bad faith maneuver:
The pointedly critical tone of the debate saw Germany accusing Washington of violating
international law by withdrawing from the nuclear pact, while Berlin aligned itself with
China's claim that the United States has no right to reimpose U.N. sanctions on Iran.
The Trump administration has abused our major European allies for years in its push to
destroy the nuclear deal, and their governments have no patience with any more unilateral U.S.
stunts. This is the result of two years of a destructive policy aimed solely at punishing Iran
and its people. The administration's open contempt for international law and the interests of
its allies has cost the U.S. their cooperation.
Underscoring the absurdity of the Trump administration's arms embargo appeal were Pompeo's
alarmist
warnings that an end to the arms embargo would allow Iran to purchase advanced fighters
that it would use to threaten Europe and India:
If you fail to act, Iran will be free to purchase Russian-made fighter jets that can
strike up to a 3,000 kilometer radius, putting cities like Riyadh, New Delhi, Rome, and
Warsaw in Iranian crosshairs.
This is a laughably unrealistic scenario. Even if Iran purchased advanced fighters, the last
thing it would do is send them off on a suicide mission to bomb Italy or India. This shows how
deeply irrational the Iran hawks' fearmongering is. Iran has already demonstrated an ability to
launch precise attacks with drones and missiles in its immediate neighborhood, and it developed
these capabilities while under the current embargo.
It has no need for expensive fighters, and
it is not at all certain that their government would even be interested in acquiring them. Pompeo's presentation was a weak attempt to exaggerate the potential threat from a state that
has very limited power projection, and he found no support because his serial fabrications
about Iran have rendered everything he says to be worthless.
The same administration that wants to keep an arms embargo on Iran forever has no problem
flooding the region with U.S.-made weapons and providing them to some of the worst governments
in the world. It is these client states that are doing the most to destabilize other countries
in the region right now. If the U.N. should be putting arms embargoes on any country, it should
consider imposing them on Saudi Arabia and the UAE to limit their ability to wreak havoc on
Yemen and Libya.
The Secretary of State called on the U.N. to reject "extortion diplomacy." The best way to
reject extortion diplomacy would be for them to reject the administration's desperate attempt
to use America's position at the U.N. to attack international law.
This is an attempt to move Trump in the direction of more harsher politics toward Russia. So not Bolton's but Obama ears are
protruding above this dirty provocation.
Notable quotes:
"... According to the anonymous sources that spoke with the paper's reporters, the White House and President Trump were briefed on a range of potential responses to Moscow's provocations, including sanctions, but the White House had authorized no further action. ..."
"... Bolton is one of the only sources named in the New York Times article. Currently on a book tour, Bolton has said that he witnessed foreign policy malfeasance by Trump that dwarfs the Ukraine scandal that was the subject of the House impeachment hearings. But Bolton's credibility has been called into question since he declined to appear before the House committee. ..."
"... "Who can forget how 'successful' interrogators can be in getting desired answers?" writes Ray McGovern, who served as a CIA analyst for 27 years. Under the CIA's "enhanced interrogation techniques," Khalid Sheik Mohammed famously made at least 31 confessions, many of which were completely false. ..."
"... This story is "WMD [all over] again," said McGovern, who in the 1980s chaired National Intelligence Estimates and prepared the President's Daily Brief. He believes the stories seek to preempt DOJ findings on the origins of the Russiagate probe. ..."
"... The bungled media response and resulting negative press could also lead Trump to contemplate harsher steps towards Russia in order to prove that he is "tough," which may have motivated the leakers. It's certainly a policy goal with which Bolton, one of the only named sources in the New York Times piece, wholeheartedly approves. ..."
"... Not only did CIA et al.'s leak get even with Trump for years of insults and ignoring their reports (Trump is politically wounded by this story), but it also achieved their primary objective of keeping Putin out of the G7 and muzzling Trump's threats to withdraw from NATO because Russia is our friend (well his, anyway). ..."
"... Point 4: the whole point of the Talibans is to fight to the death whichever country tries to control and invade Afghanistan. They didn't need the Russians to tell them to fight the US Army, did they? ..."
"... Point 5: Russia tried to organise a mediation process between the Afghan government and the Talibans already in 2018 - so why would they be at the same time trying to fuel the conflict? A stable Afghanistan is more convenient to them, given the geographical position of the country. ..."
"... As much as I love to see everyone pile on trump, this is another example of a really awful policy having bad outcomes. If Bush, Obama, trump, or anyone at the pentagon gave a crap about the troops, they wouldn't have kept them in Afghanistan and lied about the fact they were losing the whole time. ..."
"... the idea is stupid. Russia doesn't need to do anything to motivate Afghans to want to boot the invaders out of their country, and would want to attract negative attention in doing so. ..."
"... Contrast with the CIA motivations for this absurd narrative. Chuck Schumer famously commented that the intelligence agencies had ways of getting back at you, and it looks like you took the bait, hook, line and sinker. ..."
"... And a fourth CIA goal: it undermines Trump's relationship with the military. ..."
"... Having failed in its Russia "collusion" and "Russia stole the election" campaigns to oust Trump, this is just the latest effort by the Deep State and mass media to use unhinged Russophobia to try to boost Biden and damage Trump. ..."
"... The contemporary left hate Russia , because Russia is carving out it own sphere of influence and keeping the Americans out, because it saved Assad from the western backed sunni head choppers (that the left cheered on, as they killed native Orthodox, and Catholic Christians). The Contempary left hate Russia because it cracks down on LGBT propaganda, banned porn hub, and return property to the Church , which the leftist Bolsheviks stole, the Contempaty left hate Russia because it cracked down on it western backed oligarchs who plundered Russia in the 90's. ..."
Bombshell report
published by The New York Times Friday alleges that Russia paid dollar bounties to the Taliban in Afghanistan to kill U.S
troops. Obscured by an extremely bungled White House press response, there are at least three serious flaws with the reporting.
The article alleges that GRU, a top-secret unit of Russian military intelligence, offered the bounty in payment for every U.S.
soldier killed in Afghanistan, and that at least one member of the U.S. military was alleged to have been killed in exchange for
the bounties. According to the paper, U.S. intelligence concluded months ago that the Russian unit involved in the bounties was also
linked to poisonings, assassination attempts and other covert operations in Europe. The Times reports that United States intelligence
officers and Special Operations forces in Afghanistan came to this conclusion about Russian bounties some time in 2019.
According to the anonymous sources that spoke with the paper's reporters, the White House and President Trump were briefed
on a range of potential responses to Moscow's provocations, including sanctions, but the White House had authorized no further action.
Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe said in a statement Saturday night that neither Trump nor Vice President Pence
"were ever briefed on any intelligence alleged by the New York Times in its reporting yesterday."
On Sunday night, Trump tweeted that not only was he not told about the alleged intelligence, but that it was not credible."Intel
just reported to me that they did not find this info credible, and therefore did not report it to me or @VP" Pence, Trump wrote Sunday
night on Twitter.
Ousted National Security Advisor John Bolton said on NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday that Trump was probably claiming ignorance
in order to justify his administration's lack of response.
"He can disown everything if nobody ever told him about it," said Bolton.
Bolton is one of the only sources named in the New York Times article. Currently on a book tour, Bolton has said that
he witnessed foreign policy malfeasance by Trump that dwarfs the Ukraine scandal that was the subject of the House impeachment hearings.
But Bolton's credibility has been called into question since he declined to appear before the House committee.
The explanations for what exactly happened, and who was briefed, continued to shift Monday.
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany followed Trump's blanket denial with a statement that the intelligence concerning
Russian bounty information was "unconfirmed." She didn't say the intelligence wasn't credible, like Trump had said the day before,
only that there was "no consensus" and that the "veracity of the underlying allegations continue to be evaluated," which happens
to almost completely match the Sunday night statement from the White House's National Security Council.
Instead of saying that the sources for the Russian bounty story were not credible and the story was false, or likely false, McEnany
then said that Trump had "not been briefed on the matter."
"He was not personally briefed on the matter," she said. "That is all I can share with you today."
It's difficult to see how the White House thought McEnany's statement would help, and a bungled press response like this is communications
malpractice, according to sources who spoke to The American Conservative.
Let's take a deeper dive into some of the problems with the reporting here:
1. Anonymous U.S. and Taliban sources?
The Times article repeatedly cites unnamed "American intelligence officials." The Washington Post and The
Wall Street Journal articles "confirming" the original Times story merely restate the allegations of the anonymous
officials, along with caveats like "if true" or "if confirmed."
Furthermore, the unnamed intelligence sources who spoke with the Times say that their assessment is based "on interrogations
of captured Afghan militants and criminals."
That's a red flag, said John Kiriakou, a former analyst and case officer for the CIA who led the team that captured senior
al-Qaeda member Abu Zubaydah in Pakistan in 2002. "When you capture a prisoner, and you're interrogating him, the prisoner is going to tell you what he thinks you want to hear,"
he said in an interview with The American Conservative . "There's no evidence here, there's no proof."
Kiriakou believes that the sources behind the report hold important clues on how the government viewed its credibility.
"We don't know who the source is for this. We don't know if they've been vetted, polygraphed; were they a walk-in; were they
a captured prisoner?"
If the sources were suspect, as they appear to be here, then Trump would not have been briefed on this at all.
With this story, it's important to start at the "intelligence collection," said Kiriakou. "This information appeared in the
[CIA World Intelligence Review] Wire, which goes to hundreds of people inside the government, mostly at the State Department and
the Pentagon. The most sensitive information isn't put in the Wire; it goes only in the PDB."
"If this was from a single source intelligence, it wouldn't have been briefed to Trump. It's not vetted, and it's not important
enough. If you caught a Russian who said this, for example, that would make it important enough. But some Taliban detainees saying
it to an interrogator, that does not rise to the threshold."
2. What purpose would bounties serve?
Everyone and their mother knows Trump wants to pull the troops out of Afghanistan, said Kiriakou.
"He ran on it and he has said it hundreds of times," he said. "So why would the Russians bother putting a bounty on U.S. troops
if we're about to leave Afghanistan shortly anyway?"
That's leaving aside Russia's own experience with the futility of Afghanistan campaigns, learned during its grueling 9-year
war there in the 1980s.
The Taliban denies it accepted bounties from Russian intelligence.
"These kinds of deals with the Russian intelligence agency are baseless -- our target killings and assassinations were ongoing
in years before, and we did it on our own resources," Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taliban, told The New York Times
. "That changed after our deal with the Americans, and their lives are secure and we don't attack them."
The Russian Embassy in the United States called the reporting
"fake news."
While the Russians are ruthless, "it's hard to fathom what their motivations could be" here, said Paul Pillar, an academic
and 28-year veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency, in an interview with The American Conservative. "What would they
be retaliating for? Some use of force in Syria recently? I don't know. I can't string together a particular sequence that makes
sense at this time. I'm not saying that to cast doubt on reports the Russians were doing this sort of thing."
3. Why is this story being leaked now?
According to U.S. officials quoted by the AP,
top officials in the White House "were aware of classified intelligence indicating Russia was secretly offering bounties to the Taliban
for the deaths of Americans" in early 2019. So why is this story just coming out now?
This story is "WMD [all over] again," said McGovern, who in the 1980s chaired National Intelligence Estimates and prepared the
President's Daily Brief. He believes the stories seek to preempt DOJ findings on the origins of the Russiagate probe.
The NYT story serves to bolster the narrative that Trump sides with Russia, and against our intelligence community estimates and
our own soldiers lives.
The stories "are likely to remain indelible in the minds of credulous Americans -- which seems to have been the main objective,"
writes McGovern. "There [Trump] goes again -- not believing our 'intelligence community; siding, rather, with Putin.'"
"I don't believe this story and I think it was leaked to embarrass the President," said Kiriakou. "Trump is on the ropes in the
polls; Biden is ahead in all the battleground states."
If these anonymous sources had spoken up during the impeachment hearings, their statements could have changed history.
But the timing here, "kicking a man when he is down, is extremely like the Washington establishment. A leaked story like this
now, embarrasses and weakens Trump," he said. "It was obvious that Trump would blow the media response, which he did."
The bungled media response and resulting negative press could also lead Trump to contemplate harsher steps towards Russia
in order to prove that he is "tough," which may have motivated the leakers. It's certainly a policy goal with which Bolton, one of
the only named sources in the New York Times piece, wholeheartedly approves.
Barbara Boland is TAC's foreign policy and national security reporter. Previously, she worked as an editor for the Washington
Examiner and for CNS News. She is the author of Patton Uncovered , a book about General George Patton in World War II, and her work
has appeared on Fox News, The Hill , UK Spectator , and elsewhere. Boland is a graduate from Immaculata University in Pennsylvania.
Follow her on Twitter @BBatDC .
Caitlin Johnstone was the first journalist to question this NYT expose' several days ago in her blog. After looking into
it, I had to agree with her that the story was junk reporting by a news source eager to stick it to Trump for his daily insults.
NYT must love the irony of a "fake news" story catching fire and burning Trump politically. After all, paying people to kill
their own enemies? That is a "tip," not a bounty. It is more of an intel footnote than the game-changer in international relations
as asserted by Speaker Pelosi on TV as she grabbed her pearls beneath her stylish COVID mask.
I was surprised that Ms. Boland could not think of any motivation for leaking the story right now given recent grousing
on the Hill about Trump's inviting Putin to G7 over the objections of Merkel and several other NATO heads of state. I even
posted a congratulatory message in Defense One yesterday to the US Intel community for mission accomplished.
Not only did CIA
et al.'s leak get even with Trump for years of insults and ignoring their reports (Trump is politically wounded by this story),
but it also achieved their primary objective of keeping Putin out of the G7 and muzzling Trump's threats to withdraw
from NATO because Russia is our friend (well his, anyway).
That "bounty" story never passed the smell test, even to my admittedly untrained nose. My real problem is that it's a story
in the first place, given that Trump campaigned on a platform that included bringing the boys home from sand hills like Afghanistan;
yet here we are, four years later, and we're still there.
Point 4: the whole point of the Talibans is to fight to the death whichever country tries to control and invade Afghanistan.
They didn't need the Russians to tell them to fight the US Army, did they?
Point 5: Russia tried to organise a mediation process between the Afghan government and the Talibans already in 2018 - so
why would they be at the same time trying to fuel the conflict? A stable Afghanistan is more convenient to them, given the
geographical position of the country.
This whole story is completely ridiculous. Totally bogus.
As much as I love to see everyone pile on trump, this is another example of a really awful policy having bad outcomes. If
Bush, Obama, trump, or anyone at the pentagon gave a crap about the troops, they wouldn't have kept them in Afghanistan and
lied about the fact they were losing the whole time.
Of course people are trying to kill US military in Afghanistan. If I lived in Afghanistan, I'd probably hate them too. And
let's not forget that just a few weeks ago the 82nd airborne was ready to kill American civilians in DC. The military is our
enemy too!
Moreover, the idea is stupid. Russia doesn't need to do anything to motivate Afghans to want to boot the invaders out of
their country, and would want to attract negative attention in doing so.
The purported bounty program doesn't help Russia, but the anonymous narrative does conveniently serve several CIA purposes:
1. It makes it harder to leave Afghanistan.
2. It keeps the cold war with Russia going along.
3. It damages Trump (whose relationship with the CIA is testy at best).
Then there's the question of how this supposed intelligence was gathered. The CIA tortures people, and there's no reason
to believe that this was any different.
1. Russia wants a stable Afghanistan. Not a base for jihadis.
2. The idea that Russia has to encourage Afghans to kill Invaders is a hoot. They don't ever do that on their own.
3. Not only do Afghans traditionally need no motivation to kill infidel foreign Invaders, but Russia would have to be incredibly
stupid to bring more American enmity on itself.
Contrast with the CIA motivations for this absurd narrative. Chuck Schumer famously commented that the intelligence agencies
had ways of getting back at you, and it looks like you took the bait, hook, line and sinker.
Either that, or you're just cynical. You'll espouse anything, however absurd and full of lies, as long as it damages Trump.
I don't have a clue if this bounty story is correct, but I can imagine plenty of reasons why the Russians would do it. It's
easy enough to believe it or believe it was cooked up by CIA as you suggest.
There will be one of these BS blockbusters every few weeks until the election. There are legions of buried-in democrat political
appointees that will continue to feed the DNC press. It will be non-stop. The DNC press is shredding the 1st amendment.
Not shredding the First Amendment, just shining light on the pitfalls of a right to freedom of speech. There are others
ramifications to free speech we consider social goods.
These aren't buried-in democrats. These people could care less which political party the President is a member of. They
only care that the President does what they say. Political parties are just to bamboozle the rubes. They are the real power.
The best defence that the WSJ and Fox News could muster was that the story wasn't confirmed as the NSA didn't have the same
confidence in the assessment as the CIA. "Is there anything else to which you would wish to draw my attention?" "To the curious
incident of the denial from the White House", "There was no denial from the White House". "That was the curious incident".
I note that Fox News had buried the story "below the scroll" on their home page - if they had though the story was fake,
the headlines would be screaming at MSM.
Pravda was a far more honest and objective news source than The New York Times is. I say that as someone who
read both for long periods of time. The Times is on par with the National Enquirer for credibility, with the
latter at least being less propagandistic and agenda-driven.
Having failed in its Russia "collusion" and "Russia stole the election" campaigns to oust Trump, this is just the latest
effort by the Deep State and mass media to use unhinged Russophobia to try to boost Biden and damage Trump.
The extent to which the contemporary Left is driven by a level of Russophobia unseen even by the most stalwart anti-Communists
on the Right during the Cold War is truly something to behold. I think at bottom it comes down to not liking Putin or Russia
because they refuse to get on board with the Left's social agenda.
The contemporary left hate Russia , because Russia is carving out it own sphere of influence and keeping the Americans out,
because it saved Assad from the western backed sunni head choppers (that the left cheered on, as they killed native Orthodox,
and Catholic Christians). The Contempary left hate Russia because it cracks down on LGBT propaganda, banned porn hub, and return
property to the Church , which the leftist Bolsheviks stole, the Contempaty left hate Russia because it cracked down on it
western backed oligarchs who plundered Russia in the 90's.
The Contempary left wants Russia to be Woke, Broke, Godless, and Gay.
The democrats are now the cheerleaders of the warfare -welfare state,, the marriage between the neolibs-neocons under the
Democrat party to ensure that President Trump is defeated by the invade the world, invite the world crowd.
"The Trumpies are right in that this was obviously a leak by the intel community designed to hurt Trump. But what do you
expect...he has spent 4 years insulting and belittling them. They are going to get their pound of flesh."
Intel community was behind an attempted coup of Trump. He has good reason not to trust them and insulting is only natural.
Hopefully John Durham will indict several of them
Interesting take. I certainly take anything anyone publishes based on anonymous sources with a big grain of salt,
especially when it comes from the NYT...
Control freaks that cannot even control their own criminal impulses!
...They suffer from god-complexes, since they do not believe in God, they feel an obligation to act as God, and decide the fates
of over 7 billion people, who would obviously be better off if the PICs were sent to the Fletcher Memorial Home for Incurable Tyrants!
Thomas Ambrosio, Assistant Professor of Political Science, North Dakota State University;Yossi Shain, Professor
of Comparative Government and Diaspora Politics, Georgetown University
DATE & TIME
Jun. 23, 2003
3:00pm – 4:00pm
EVENT SPONSORS
AFRICA PROGRAM
ASIA PROGRAM
MIDDLE EAST PROGRAM
DIASPORA COMMUNITIES: INFLUENCING U.S. FOREIGN POLICY
Thomas Ambrosio, Assistant Professor of Political Science, North Dakota State University and Yossi Shain,
Professor of Comparative Government and Diaspora Politics, Georgetown University
In an age marked by the greater ease of communication and travel, recent research on ethnic groups and
conflict has begun to examine the influence of diaspora groups. Of particular interest are their efforts
to affect political environments in their "home" and host countries through their remittance of funds,
lobbying and the dissemination of information. Dr. Thomas Ambrosio, Assistant Professor at North Dakota
University presented material from his recent edited volume Ethnic Identity Groups and U.S. Foreign
Policy. Commentary was provided by Yossi Shain, Professor at Georgetown and Tel Aviv Universities, author
of "Marketing the American Creed Abroad: Diasporas in the U.S. and their Homelands" and a contributor to
Ambrosio's book. The meeting marked what moderator Carla Koppell, Interim Director of the Wilson Center's
Conflict Prevention Project called, "a relatively new area of analysis and dialogue for the Woodrow
Wilson International Center for Scholars."
Ambrosio, stated that as we seek to understand diaspora groups and their influence on U.S. foreign
policy, the question is not should ethnic groups influence foreign policy but how they effect foreign
policy, what are their goals and why do they mobilize. He began his presentation by defining ethnic
identity groups as "politically relevant social divisions based on a shared sense of cultural
distinctiveness." This would include racial, religious, national and ethnic identities. Ethnic identity
groups often form institutions that effect U.S. foreign policy or ethnic communities abroad, most
commonly in the form of ethnic lobbies.
These ethnic lobbies seek to influence U.S. policy in three ways. First, by framing the issues "they help
set the terms of debate" or "put items on the country's agenda." Second, they are a source of information
and analysis that provide a great deal of information to members of Congress and serve as a resource for
other branches of government and non-governmental organizations, and shaping general perspectives.
Finally, ethnic group lobbies provide policy oversight. "They examine the policies of the U.S.
government, propose policies, write letters and [are] involved in electioneering activities."
Ambrosio cautioned, that we must not believe that the effort by "ethnic groups to influence U.S. foreign
policy is new." It has a long history but "has become increasingly active in recent years." To
illustrate, he presented five periods of ethnic lobbying in the United States--Pre-WWI, WWI, Cold War,
post-Cold war, and post-September 11.
Since before WWI, there has been a "steady rise in the number of ethnic groups in the U.S. mobilizing to
influence the foreign policy process." Both the WWI and Cold War periods saw an explosion in the number
of interest groups affecting domestic and foreign policy. According to Ambrosio, however, it was the
post-Cold War period that gave way to a real increase in American multiculturalism. U.S. interests during
this period were not clearly defined, and the Congress had more influence than the Executive Branch over
policy-making. That balance of power according to Ambrosio allowed ethnic lobbying groups greater access
to policy-makers and potential influence in policy formation. Since September 11 quite the opposite is
true; there is a re-centralization of foreign policy in the White House. That re-centralization is
restricting influence over policy.
Ambrosio concluded by suggesting several areas for future research. First, the question of the legitimacy
of ethnic group influence on foreign policy deserves some attention. Second, more case study analysis is
need. In Ambrosio's view, we need to look at specific groups, and why or how they influence policy. In
particular, greater attention should be paid to the case of Muslim Americans. Third, is the need to
examine the relationship between ethnic and non-ethnic interest groups. For instance, Ambrosio suggested
that a comparison of the influence of "the Oil lobby versus the Armenian lobbies over the issue of
Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan" could provide some interesting insights. Fourth, the reliance on natives
for intelligence information should be examined more closely. In the case of Iraq, there is the question
of "how Iraq exiles influence U.S. foreign policy." Finally, the export of American values must be better
understood. Further research could help the U.S. government mobilize diaspora groups in the United States
to deal with growing anti-Americanism throughout the world.
Shain, began by commenting that while the topic of diaspora group influence on U.S. foreign policy is
important, "it is perhaps an overblown topic." He agreed with Ambrosio that the idea of transnational
influence on U.S. foreign policy is not new. However, Shain contends that people have always been wary of
such influences. The topic, according to Shain, became more salient in the 1990's with the end of the
Cold War when the "us versus them posture was no longer in existence." It was also a time when more
people began "shuttling back and forth," retaining greater ties to their home country. According to
Professor Shain, the question is "who really speaks [in U.S. foreign policy]?" This was the period of
increasing American multiculturalism; the identity of the U.S. itself was changing. As a result,
attention to issues reflected the makeup of the U.S. For instance, before September 11, relations between
the United States and Mexico in the age of NAFTA, had center stage.
Shain suggested that while ethnic Americans mobilize to influence U.S. foreign policy, their ability to
do so is quite limited. Ethnic lobbies have more often been used to market American ideals in their home
countries or to "democratize their countries of origin." When they do have influence, it has generally
been at the electoral level in connection with a domestic issue, or when an issue is of little importance
to the administration. Professor Shain continued contending that the influence of ethnic lobbies relies
on their ability to advance a message that resonates with the American values and ideals. This is one
reason he believes Arab-Americans have had difficulty influencing U.S. foreign policy; there is a
perception that they are attempting to influence policy in ways that would be contrary to American
values. When issues promoted by an ethnic lobby are priorities, and are in line with the administration,
ethnic lobbies have the greatest influence in policy oversight.
According to Shain there are several issues that warrant future research and understanding. The first is
to understand the explosion of Islam in the United States; rather than lobbying for national country
interests, there is greater mobilization around religious beliefs. According to Shain, this has little to
do with ethnic lobbies; rather it is a question of who is mobilizing communities. This is a difficult
question to examine because, depending on the time period, different people will speak for a community.
Another issue for further study involves tracking and better understanding economic influence. For
example, donations for Israel at the same time support local organizations and Jewish-American issues;
financial support drives diaspora politics. At the same time, many country economies depend on money sent
from abroad; this gives diasporas a greater say in their "home" countries. "When you do any politics in
Haiti, there is the 10th department... the 10th department is here. This is the community that can
mobilize and has money."
The final issue for further study according to Shain is the concept of identity in America. While there
is identity as an American, many still "retain some affinity and memories" of their home country. This is
particularly galvanizing where there is still instability in the country of origin. Shain concluded that
the subject of the influence of diaspora communities in the U.S. was most important in regard to identity
in America. "Identity is critical for America because the American makeup has always been changing." "The
market, democracy and human rights are much more on the minds of ethnic groups as they relate to their
country of origin,"concluded Shain.
Carla Koppell, Conflict Prevention Project, Interim Director, 202-691-4083
Drafted by Channa Threat
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EVENT FEEDBACK
"... Before this new outbreak, Beijing had been virus-free for nearly 60 days, meaning there were no local viruses and that this new pathogen was definitely an import (or an American export). On June 19, China's CDC experts, after intensive investigations of the Xinfadi market, announced what they termed "a groundbreaking virus tracing discovery", which was that the strain of the new virus in Beijing was the same as that in much of Europe – but much older than those in Europe, and "had been around for quite some time" – and that can mean only that it came from the US because that was the source of all the original varieties many months ago. [4] https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1192146.shtml ..."
"... For a long time, Russia had only a few infections, rising steadily by only five or ten per day, then suddenly it exploded, rising by 5,000, then 10,000 and 20,000 per day. Virus outbreaks don't normally manifest that way. The normal process upon an outbreak is a rapid acceleration in the number of infections until it peaks, as happened with all other countries. ..."
"... And on June 20, 2020, the Italian National Institute of Health (ISS) revealed that they had discovered that COVID-19 was present in water samples dating back to mid-December of 2019 ..."
"... And it wasn't only Italy. Dutch researchers discovered COVID-19 RNA in a wastewater plant in the Utrecht, Netherlands, city of Amersfoort. French scientists detected "high concentrations" of COVID-19 RNA in samples of sewage water from greater Paris that were obtained before Paris first recorded any deaths. ..."
"... The Irish Mirror reported on June 19 that "many countries are beginning to use wastewater sampling to track the spread of the disease", scientists claiming these detections were "consistent with evidence emerging in other countries" that COVID-19 was circulating around the world long before China reported its first cases ..."
"... Covid's here to stay – irrespective of the fact that it has never and will never satisfy Koch's Postulates. Why? Two reasons. First, because it has proved itself to be a highly effective means of controlling first world populations. Second, because now that it's been rolled out, it'll be impossible to roll it back without waking up the normies. You don't turn off the gas before the frog's been boiled. ..."
"... The Chinese analyzed the new outbreak and determined the genome was that of a strain that existed only in the US & Europe, but not heretofore in China. The Chinese have identified many different strains of this virus, seven or more. ..."
"... This covid19 with its growing number of strains seems likely to have escaped from a lab and it is most probably a product of US ingenuity, with cleverly engineered gain of function, but to leap to the conclusion that the US has deployed this bioweapon against China and Russia goes too far. Why would the US target its own population in the process? ..."
From the date of the initial outbreak in Wuhan I watched carefully on a daily basis the
dispersion and progression of the coronavirus in China and then abroad, collecting as much data
as were available on each location. By late May of 2020, China had been infection-free for many
weeks, the concern turning to the identification and quarantine of imported cases. At the same
time, the US became once again 'the leader of the world', this time in virus infections and
deaths, producing 20,000 to 30,000 new cases and around 1,000 deaths per day. At the time,
American hostility toward China's success in stopping the virus was palpable, with many nasty
media articles and White House accusations about China's false statistics and blaming China for
"spreading the virus" to the US. CNN stated, "Chinese state media has repeatedly touted
China's effective measures in containing the virus as the number of infections and deaths
surged abroad, contrasting its success with the failures of Western governments, especially the
United States." [1]
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/15/asia/coronavirus-...x.html Clearly there was much
surprise and bitterness at China's success and America's failure, this coated in a sticky layer
of resentment based partly on a justified suspicion that the Chinese were not overly distressed
at the Americans enjoying the fruits of their own labor.
But even then I had a sense of an apparition, a version of Dickens' 'ghost of coronavirus
past', accompanied by an uncomfortable feeling the Americans were sufficiently bitter (and
vicious) to deny the Chinese their apparently easy victory. My fear was that the Americans
would try to reseed China as they did Russia, and it would seem my fears were not unjustified.
The new virus that broke out at the Xinfadi market in Beijing was a different strain than any
previously existing in China, one that existed only in the US and Europe and could only have
been brought in from the outside. And once again at a seafood market with no identifiable
patient zero, no clear epidemiology (source and distribution) of a virus that did not exist in
China. It almost had to be deliberately seeded, the odds against being infinitesimally
small.
In terms of what I am calling COVID-20 (to differentiate it from the initial outbreak),
China may have been fortunate to detect and corral this new pathogen before it could spread.
The outbreak did expand to three other provinces but in single digits and the medical
authorities have taken extreme action to prevent further spread since this variety –
which again did not exist in China and had to be seeded from another country, appears to be
much more contagious than the original COVID-19. [2]
https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1191598.shtml In response, Beijing has locked down
everything and sent a group of experts to guide the fight against this new potential epidemic,
so far with good success. Nucleic acid testing has been initiated on a massive scale, already
many millions of people tested, and all those in contact with the Xinfadi market being in
quarantine. Many residential compounds in the city strictly prohibit anyone from entering or
leaving, with residents having their temperatures checked and reported on a daily basis, and
their food and daily necessities delivered. [3]
https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/15/asia/coronavirus-beij...x.html
Before this new outbreak, Beijing had been virus-free for nearly 60 days, meaning there were
no local viruses and that this new pathogen was definitely an import (or an American export).
On June 19, China's CDC experts, after intensive investigations of the Xinfadi market,
announced what they termed "a groundbreaking virus tracing discovery", which was that the
strain of the new virus in Beijing was the same as that in much of Europe – but much
older than those in Europe, and "had been around for quite some time" – and that can mean
only that it came from the US because that was the source of all the original varieties many
months ago. [4]
https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1192146.shtml
The investigators said they obtained so many positive samples that the entire market was
"severely contaminated by the virus", but also that no one should form the conclusion that the
market was the origin merely because the outbreak took place there. More importantly, they also
said "Beijing's outbreak gives us the opportunity to re-examine our previous speculation that
the virus originated from wildlife", because unlike Wuhan, "the possibility of wildlife causing
Beijing's latest outbreak is slim." Their conclusion was that "an infected individual or object
contaminated with the virus entered the wet market, and the market only gave it an environment
to multiply". [3]
https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/15/asia/coronavirus-beij...x.html The authorities have already
produced the genome sequence and are now establishing when and how the virus was likely
imported into China, and how long was the transmission chain. There is no question this
pathogen was brought into China "by people", the question being the identity of those people
and their purpose. [5]
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202006/15/WS5ee6b33d...9.html And, what better way to "teach
those smug Chinese a lesson" and attempt to derail China's rapid economic recovery.
Russia Re-seeded
There is something equally strange about the virus in Russia. For a long time, Russia had
only a few infections, rising steadily by only five or ten per day, then suddenly it exploded,
rising by 5,000, then 10,000 and 20,000 per day. Virus outbreaks don't normally manifest that
way. The normal process upon an outbreak is a rapid acceleration in the number of infections
until it peaks, as happened with all other countries.
But with Russia, the infections were
minor for a long time, steady at very low numbers, with all the indications of an unsuccessful
epidemic, and the Russian government took strict measures to control the spread. The US
government was clearly resentful at the failure of the virus to devastate Russia and the US
media bemoaned the fact that Russia's death rate was so low.
I would be very interested to see
the genome sequences from the first infections in January and February, and for those happening
in April and May. I haven't any definitive proof, but I am certain Russia, as China, was seeded
again with another variety for a second attempt.
Virus Distribution
But to return to our main point, it isn't necessary for us to determine the physical origin
of the virus. We know the virus originated in bats; that much is confirmed, but the more
important issue is the epidemiology, particularly the incidence and distribution. First of all,
for China and most other nations originally infected, there were so many multiple and
simultaneous sources that locating a patient zero was a hopeless task. Virus outbreaks, left to
their own natural devices, do not behave in this fashion, but begin with one person in a
tightly localised situation and provably spreading from that point. Equally distressing is that
we have the truly unprecedented "two waves" of worldwide infections. For this, let's review my
observations from an earlier article [6] COVID-19 – Two
Major 'Waves' of Global Infection;
https://www.moonofshanghai.com/2020/05/covid-19-two-...l.html and take a quick look at
those two waves of infections that circled the globe.
The First Wave simultaneously infected 25 nations within a few days centered on January 25.
One month later, the Second Wave simultaneously infected 85 nations within a few days centered
on February 25. A natural virus hasn't the ability to simultaneously (within three days) infect
85 different countries on all continents of the world. More peculiar is that these countries
were not all infected with the same variety of the virus, and that most reported simultaneous
outbreaks in multiple locations. Considering the above information in light of the basics of
virus transmission, the only theory that fits all the known facts is that these waves resulted
from many people leaving Fort Detrick on the same day carrying a pail of different live
viruses, because those multiple varieties at the time existed only in the US. It could not
possibly have resulted from air travel because that timing would have been scattered. When 85
countries experience a virus outbreak on virtually the same day, this can happen only with
human assistance. The Americans have steadfastly refused to address this point.
Experts on biological weapons are in unanimous agreement that eruptions in a human
population of a new and unusual pathogen in multiple locations simultaneously, with no clear
idea of source and cases with no proven links, is virtually prima facie evidence of a pathogen
deliberately released, since natural outbreaks can almost always be resolved to one location
and one patient zero. But with COVID-19 (or COVID-20), not one country out of 200 has been able
to do this.
It should be firmly noted that this new infection in Beijing is not a "second wave" as
termed by the Western media. This is an entirely new and different infection by a new virus and
totally unrelated to anything prior, a strain of a new and different virus that was
deliberately carried to Beijing and flooded in the Xinfadi Market. This infection is not
related to COVID-19 but is the seeding of yet another biological pathogen in China, making that
now seven different biological attacks on China in two years. And China has suffered others
similar. One of the most notable was the H1N1 virus that caused the 1918 flu pandemic –
and which was extinct for decades – but which suddenly appeared in 1977 in both China and
Russia causing a global pandemic, prompting immediate claims by the Americans that it "escaped
from a Chinese lab". But the only sensible explanation is that the H1N1 virus 'escaped' from
the Americans because there were persistent reports that the US military had found or saved
samples of the original 'Spanish Flu' virus and were attempting to re-activate it. There was
never a shred of evidence that either China or Russia had anything to do with this, and both
were taken entirely by surprise.
It is my view that the world needs to stop pretending that COVID-19 was an accident of
nature. Consider China's recent experience. In addition to SARS – which was indisputably
man-made, China has suffered repeated viral pandemics in the past two years. February 15, 2018:
H7N4 bird flu. June, 2018: H7N9 bird flu. August, 2018: outbreak of African swine flu. May 24,
2019: massive infestation of armyworms. December, 2019: COVID-19. January, 2020: A "highly
pathogenic" strain of bird flu. June, 2020: China is hit with COVID-20. Are we to tell
ourselves it was merely a run of bad luck that China was the only nation in the world to be hit
repeatedly with so many different biological pathogens in such a short time? And merely more
'bad luck' that China became the only country in the world that was domestically virus-free and
was suddenly hit again with a foreign strain in another wet market? This assumption is too
ridiculous to bother refuting.
It is unfortunate that so much of our information today comes to us in a passive receptance
from the mass media because one result is the loss of our ability to examine information
critically and use our minds to assess the presentation. As an example, it was very clever for
the Americans to use a wet market as a distribution point for a virus and for the media to give
this point massive air time, because we instinctively associate such markets with at least a
possibility of germs and bacteria and thus passively accept the claims as true without the
necessary evidence and thus avoid using our brains as intended. Our assessment of wet markets
as unsanitary may be correct, but common germs and bacteria are a very different thing from a
coronavirus that makes its home in bats and has no business being in a vegetable market. It
isn't important for our purposes to decide if COVID-19 was created in a lab; the important
point is that a coronavirus has no means of transportation from bat caves in Sichuan to a
market in Wuhan, nor the ability to mutate itself in such a way as to be energetically
contagious to humans, and much less the conscious intelligence to choose China's largest
passenger transportation hub as the distribution point and the Eve of the Chinese New Year as
the best time to attack. For these, the coronavirus required a helping 'black hand'.
The Noose Tightens on the US
There is almost daily an increase in the volume of evidence that COVID-19 was circulating in
the US far earlier than admitted, and serving as incriminating proof that the CDC's deliberate
(and threatening) forbidding of testing was to bury this evidence. The most recent example is
headlines in the US media on June 21, 2020, stating, "Over 40 mysterious respiratory deaths in
California could dramatically rewrite narrative of COVID-19" in the US. [7]
https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1192389.shtml The LA Times reported on "a cluster
of mysterious respiratory deaths" beginning in December of 2019. The local news website
www.bakersfield.com stated this meant that COVID-19 was circulating in California "way
earlier than we knew". And let's not forget too quickly that Japanese tourists were infected in
Hawaii in September of 2019.
And on June 20, 2020, the Italian National Institute of Health (ISS) revealed that they had
discovered that COVID-19 was present in water samples dating back to mid-December of 2019. The
results were confirmed by two separate labs that used two entirely different testing methods,
and also showed that environmental wastewater from Milan, Turin and Bologna returned positive
traces of the virus dating back to December if not earlier. Apparently, the RNA from COVID-19
does not readily dissolve or disintegrate in water and polymerase chain reaction testing allows
scientists to identify the RNA after many months. [8]
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronaviru...23Q1J9 [9]
https://www.news.com.au/world/coronavirus/global/ita...5a35e3
And it wasn't only Italy. Dutch researchers discovered COVID-19 RNA in a wastewater plant in
the Utrecht, Netherlands, city of Amersfoort. French scientists detected "high concentrations"
of COVID-19 RNA in samples of sewage water from greater Paris that were obtained before Paris
first recorded any deaths.Sputnik News reported in May that a Paris hospital confirmed
it had treated Amirouche Hammar, the country's first COVID-19 patient, on December 27, 2019
– one month before France's first announcement of infections and four days before the WHO
China bureau was informed of a "pneumonia of unknown etiology" on December 31. [10]
https://sputniknews.com/europe/202006191079667103-sc...break/
The Irish Mirror reported on June 19 that "many countries are beginning to use
wastewater sampling to track the spread of the disease", scientists claiming these detections
were "consistent with evidence emerging in other countries" that COVID-19 was circulating
around the world long before China reported its first cases, all of which would of necessity
have had to have originated in the US and transported around the world. It is now beginning to
appear that many countries were seeded at approximately the same time, perhaps in their water
distribution systems. Following these discoveries, the ISS told Reuters it intends to
launch a new study of the wastewater of Italian tourist resorts. I suspect other nations will
follow.
And it would seem the NYT, WSJ, WP, CNN, ABC, NBC, National Post, Globe & Mail ,
have no knowledge of this. The Chinese and Europeans know, but the Americans and Canadians
don't know because the owners of their major newspapers and TV networks don't want them to
know.
A Brief Update
If you look at the graph (courtesy of CNN ), you can see the European infection
pattern (in pink) and the American (in green). The Europeans followed China's protocols in
varying degrees, and thus with varying degrees of success. Europe's infections peaked at around
30,000 per day then descended to around 2,000 near the end of June, while the Americans, led by
a man who is living proof that democracy is the worst possible form of government, saw their
infections peak at the same level, slightly decrease, then revert to 30,000 infections and
around 1,000 deaths per day where they will now remain until the virus surges through the
entire population. Twenty-six states are already experiencing dramatic spikes reaching new
records each day, so Trump ordered the CDC to "stop testing" because it makes him look bad.
The next graphic is a list of the top ten nations for COVID-19 infections. Missing from this
picture is a comparison I want to make about leadership and competence, to say nothing of
intelligence. Shanghai is a city only two hours from Wuhan and, when the infections exploded,
had no warning and almost no time to prepare, but acted so quickly and decisively that the city
had only 26 infections and 7 deaths. Missing from the graphic is Canada, with a population very
similar to Shanghai, and who, with months to plan and prepare, had 101,000 infections and 8,400
deaths. Canada's Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau is also living proof of democracy's vast
failings.
The Americans elected a pathetic buffoon who lives in outer space, while the Canadians
elected a bullied child so painfully unintelligent and indecisive his wife would have to tell
him to call the fire department if his house were burning down. I would include here the
Brazilians who, with excessive assistance from the Americans, elected an arrogant sociopath who
said famously, "It's not my fault. What do you want me to do about it?"
In all three countries the leaderless pandemic results are the same, with infections and
deaths likely increasing until at least the end of the year. China, with a population of more
than 1.4 billion people, had about 80,000 infections and little more than 4,000 deaths, and
stopped the virus cold in about three months. But according to the NYT, WSJ, WP, and
Canada's terminally-obnoxious National Post , the "free-market capitalist" countries are
God's first choice while "socialist authoritarian" China should incur yet more sanctions for
all its mistakes.
Larry Romanoff is a retired management consultant and businessman. He has held senior
executive positions in international consulting firms, and owned an international import-export
business. He has been a visiting professor at Shanghai's Fudan University, presenting case
studies in international affairs to senior EMBA classes. Mr. Romanoff lives in Shanghai and is
currently writing a series of ten books generally related to China and the West. He can be
contacted at: [email protected]. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
This flu like outbreak in July '19 in VA that killed two and sent 18 to the hospital in a
nursing home in Springfield, VA, should be fully investigate, it could explain the origin of
the virus:
Springfield, VA, where this nursing home was located, is about an hour south east of Ft.
Detrick, the bioweapons lab that was shut down by CDC at around the same time after it failed
a safety inspection in June, 2019.
To think the evil geniuses that would create such nasty pathogens would not have a whole
panoply of similar bugs to release would seem naive. I suspect the future strains will only
become more virulent, thus insuring a very complacent and fearful populace for unlimited
vaccinating, microchipping and contact tracing, all to the PTB's delight and profits. Not to
mention the ease with which the American populace will have their anger, fears and
frustrations twisted into hatred for all things Chinese. How convenient!
What is currently amusing is watching how deftly the Chinese government is dealing with
these assaults, both biological and economic, and how impotent and visibly frustrated the US
powerbrokers are with the efficiency and effectiveness of the Chinese responses.
If the Chinese continue to effectively fend off the future attacks, whether they be
biological or financial/trade, one can expect that these same evil geniuses, having been
frustrated over and over, will only continue their escalations. Expect the anti-China
rhetoric from the West's political puppets and the MSM to reach fever pitch just before
things turn 'hot' in the new cold war against Chinese ascendancy. Whether it will eventually
(or inevitably) go nuclear is the real $64,000 question that leaves many of us concerned
observers awake at night ..
So what we have here, if we accept the basic discourse of this highly interesting article, is
therefore likely the following:
China got hit by various "flu weapons" and "livestock diseases" over the last twenty
years, to keep the "dirty commies" from "getting too uppity", but, not counting SARS, only
became capable of keeping an accurate tally of the different jabs and pokes over the last
five years.
At some point, the Chinese government decided that enough is enough. Their think-tanks
recommended the following strategy as the only feasible one: the next time they get seeded,
the instantly pounce on the new pathogen, and blow it out of all proportion, causing a) the
whole world to panic, and b) the whole world to start paying attention to the issue of new
and old pathogens floating around.
In this sense, the "it's just the flu bro" people are correct, meaning that this is not
really some apocalyptic plague that justifies shutting down the world. But on the other hand,
it was used by Beijing as an example to point out that this crap is happening, and that they
know it's happening, and that this game can't be played like this anymore.
In effect they "pulled a Trump". Through their bombastic overreaction, they forced the
whole world to notice and discuss the issue they wanted noticed and discussed.
So from now on, the whole world -- except the Anglospherical powers completely taken over
by the GloboHomo alliance of corporations, deep state, and baizuo (and where the heritage
white demographic replacement has gone farthest) -- will also be super careful about these
things, and evidence will begin to accumulate through this "forced crowd-sourcing".
authorities have taken extreme action to prevent further spread since this variety
– which again did not exist in China and had to be seeded from another country,
appears to be much more contagious than the original COVID-19.[2] In response
( )
Many residential compounds in the city strictly prohibit anyone from entering or leaving,
with residents having their temperatures checked and reported on a daily basis, and their
food and daily necessities delivered.[3]
So this is how the new shamdemic of COVID-20 will cement and perfect the destruction of
freedom across the world?
We will have discussion on fictious body counts and false statistics here at UR for ever more
with COVID-20, -21, -22 and so on?
This pattern makes sense, because the victory over the populace who have given up their
freedom to lead anything that can be called a life worth living is just to great to be
allowed to be ephimeral.
The total destruction of freedom only makes sense, if there is a follow up until all the
deluded hoaxers who believe that their is a life beyond feeling sick kill themselves. Then it
will be lockdowns and quarantines for ever more and families will have online celebrations
when the newborns will get their masks sealed on their seventh day on earth, before they are
handed over to the overlords.
As for this authorities conclusions: It should be known by now that when you interpret
bogus data, above all when you do so with bad intentions, you will find any conclusions that
suite your purpose. Of course, COVID-19 has been found in older samples, as by now the
testing has been so well established that they can find it anywhere. Next, they will find it
in eghiptian mumies.
This author is a management consultant. He has done missinterpreting statistics for a living
and should know how to reasonably sell bad advice.
Covid's here to stay – irrespective of the fact that it has never and will never
satisfy Koch's Postulates.
Why? Two reasons. First, because it has proved itself to be a highly effective means of
controlling first world populations. Second, because now that it's been rolled out, it'll be
impossible to roll it back without waking up the normies. You don't turn off the gas before
the frog's been boiled.
Ditto the assault on 'white privilege'. Like Covid, it's only going to get worse –
not better.
Ten citations, and three are from "The Global Times", one from "China Daily", and one is an
article penned by the author himself. Impressive scholarship, Mr Romanoff, very impressive
scholarship.
Virus outbreaks don't normally manifest that way. The normal process upon an outbreak is
a rapid acceleration in the number of infections until it peaks
Occams Razor. It's a hoax or else the virus is violating the laws of Nature.
I would include here the Brazilians who, with excessive assistance from the Americans,
elected an arrogant sociopath who said famously, "It's not my fault. What do you want me to
do about it?"
In Brazil, the Supreme Court has decided that governors don't have to obey the federal
government on local health policies. So, it really makes no difference whether the President
is Mother Theresa or Jason Voorhees. It's true that Bolsonaro tries once in a while to enact
some federal regulations, but he seems to fail every time. It's odd that you don't know that
fact, seeing as in the U.S. I hear things are quite similar. As for Brazilian governors, they
oddly don't get the same international flak as Bolsonaro does, despite many of them being
suspected of using the pandemic as an opportunity for stealing.
This kind of inexactitude immediately throws the rest of the article under heavy
suspicion. When people start spewing words like 'sociopath', it is clear to me that they have
an agenda.
It is unfortunate that so much of our information today comes to us in a passive
receptance from the mass media because one result is the loss of our ability to examine
information critically and use our minds to assess the presentation. As an example, it was
very clever for the Americans to use a wet market as a distribution point for a virus and
for the media to give this point massive air time, because we instinctively associate such
markets with at least a possibility of germs and bacteria and thus passively accept the
claims as true without the necessary evidence and thus avoid using our brains as
intended.
Rewrite: "it is unfortunate that alternative media distill their take on the news, based
on data fed into the public domain. As much as MSM do. Garbage in, garbage out. Sorting
garbage, no avail. This article is just another layer of meaningless deft. If any statement
here is true, it would be by accident.
In that, of course, it follows the enforcing of the media rule: keep a grasp on the
surplus population by manipulating the frequency and number of tainted information. All data
in the public domain are probably useless by now. All data on Covid are willfully
manipulated. The author of course knows this, and his dump is intentional. The immediate
reason, middle class making a living, book pushing, bread-writing, self-promotion, retirement
gig, no more. Summer months in the media year, another step-in. Jewish by hazard?
We know the virus originated in bats; that much is confirmed
then it'd only be fair for you to inform us of your alternate explanation, giving
convincing proof [assuming you'd have some?]
FYI there exists a bat-coronavirus genetic sequence RaTG13 which agrees with 96.2% of
Covid-19, and an even closer match in RmYN02 at 93.3% agreement. Thesis: That someone took
RaTG13 [see 1st and 3rd parts in image below; the RaTG13 spike is so far a 'best fit'] and
force-evolved it by infecting cultures of human cells in an evolution-enabling environment,
collecting any 'survivors' then repeating this process [a possible proof being the Covid-19
attack disabling victims' sense of smell, indicating 'force-evolving' in cultures of human
nerve cells]. In addition, I've seen suggested, that infecting animals with some
human-similar traits [here, ferrets with ACE2, say] could have evolved the virus to attack
via ACE2 in humans. Then, there's the *unique* inclusion of RPPA in the Covid-19 spike, both
enabling infection and that with greatly enhanced pathogenicity [compared to SARS-1, say].
rgds PS An interesting extension to some ideas in the article, is that since the virus
infections have gone global, IF it was human-made [my best tip] THEN whoever made it [=
clearly rogue-state operatives] contributed to killing 100s of 1000s, *including their own
people* ! brrr
{The Americans elected a pathetic buffoon who lives in outer space,}
He may or may not be a pathetic buffoon*, but he is smart enough to parlay inherited
wealth to become a Billionaire, he is POTUS, he lives in the White House or Mar-a-Lago with a
model-wife, and will be remembered as such long after you are forgotten.
Aside from that, who would you have Americans elect? The Hildabeast?
But it's not too late: if enough Americans lose their minds and elect The DementiaMan, we
will be subjected to the non-buffoon experience of Hildabeast 2.0.
Biden will be a near complete vegetable in a year or two, and the chosen female radical
left, Antifa (sic) ** embracing VP will run the show. America as it was founded will be no
more.
_____________________
* Lookup Scott Adams' discussions on how Trump manipulates and influences.
Scott predicted way back that Trump would be POTUS.
Note: Scott is a trained hypnotist, and recognizes classic 'tells' of hypnosis in
Trump's seemingly "buffoonish" behaviour.
** Despite their cleverly chosen moniker, these violent thugs are the real Fascists: their
behaviour and tactics are an exact copy of Mussolini's Blackshirts.
Don't viruses mutate anyway? See science direct.com ~ covid in France in December. Also an acquaintance of
mine had a horrible virus in December in England.
The Chinese analyzed the new outbreak and determined the genome was that of a strain that
existed only in the US & Europe, but not heretofore in China. The Chinese have identified
many different strains of this virus, seven or more.
But the author goes on to say later in his diatribe: " This is an entirely new and
different infection by a new virus and totally unrelated to anything prior, a strain of a new
and different virus that was deliberately carried to Beijing and flooded in the Xinfadi
Market. "
This covid19 with its growing number of strains seems likely to have escaped from a lab
and it is most probably a product of US ingenuity, with cleverly engineered gain of function,
but to leap to the conclusion that the US has deployed this bioweapon against China and
Russia goes too far. Why would the US target its own population in the process?
If, as Ron Unz speculates, this virus is a botched attack on China and other enemies by
stupid people in a stupid administration that has had unanticipated blowback hitting the US,
then these same stupid perps would not launch another such aggression!
This notion of a secret biological aggression does not hold water, but the Chinese
probably appreciate Larry Romanoff's efforts.
Where have you been? The examples of massive cheating and common reckless are
decades long. The melamine-milk scandals and falling down buildings were not merely "one-off"
but a commonplace for the Chinese themselves.
I myself have examples of deal-breaking cheating that cost them bigger opportunities, and
shake my head. Yes, they can do world class, sometimes.
We will probably never know how much has been copied. It's been so pervasive at all
scales.
With borg like eavesdropping and acquisition systems gobbling everything up, 4x our
population, with our declining high quality population, we may yet see how much they can or
can't innovate.
They have a lot of stripped assets and resources now to command impoverished Americas'
hopes and attention, against prior experiences.
Even Chinese are skeptical of anything "Made In China". Last year, in a Canadian
Tire store I saw a Chinese couple. Hubby had selected an item for possible purchase. His wife
tore into him, speaking rapidly and scornfully in Chinese. I do not understand Chinese, but
didn't need to, as she repeatedly dropped in the English phrase "Made In China", in a
sarcastic tone of voice. Hubby put the item back on the shelf and they walked away. China is
a deeply cracked culture. My friend Meng(female), who was born in China and married to a
Chinese guy, put it to me bluntly: "In China, 90% of marriages are without love".
Here's a novel solution do nothing. It works for Belarus. Some 80-year-olds die and society
goes on as usual problem solved. Spoken by someone getting closer to 80.
Jun 22, 2020 CELEBRATED SCIENTIST: '80% NOT SUSCEPTIBLE TO COVID"
Named the "most influential" brain scientist of our time, Dr. Karl Friston, made waves
when he published his study mapping the real susceptibility of contracting Coronavirus. His
results are staggering and challenge the rationale for a lockdown like no other.
Jun 15, 2020 The Collapse of the COVID-1984 Narrative
Now that the major institutions pushing the COVID panic are now admitting that the virus
is not an existential threat and the lockdowns were not necessary, what does this mean for
the future of the COVID-1984 police state and the ushering in of the new "biosecurity"
paradigm?
@Mustapha
Mond In any complex, highly planned operation such as you describe, where motives of such
depth and perception are necessary, there are going to have to be real persons with real
names. You can't go on saying that "evil geniuses" at Fort Deitrich or wherever engineered
and executed so deftly these multilayered "seedings" without getting orders or authorization
from someone we all know. Is it Trump, Pompeo, Hilary, Biden, Obama or Amy Semple McPherson?
It's like the Germans and the Holocaust. You'd have to have so many evil players with
superhuman capacity to hold onto their secret motives and actions that we still can't pin
them down. I don't think there are so many such people in our stupid federal government. Even
our brave and feared John Bolton, when he reveals himself, is just an oversensitive
weeny.
This article suffers from many fundamental misunderstandings of government weenies. Those
people in Northern Virginia who are "seeding" foreign nations with new strains of virus every
sixty days on some diabolically precise motivational dynamic live in boring suburbs and fix
awful chicken on their barbecues. They drink watery beer and watch "Wheel of Fortune". Give
me a break!
@Bombercommand
If they are Chinese travellers exploring Canada and Canadian culture it would be silly of
them to buy something made in China as though it was Canadian. Your reasoning does not hold
up.
@Emslander
Hannah Arendt noted the 'banality of evil' long ago. It's pretty common, sad to say.
The military is filled with 'ordinary' people who apparently have no qualms about
murdering anyone their 'superiors' point to and say, "Kill!" They are just following orders,
after all.
The number of 'evil players' is simply staggering, whether we want to admit it or not. And
yes, they DO drink watery beer and watch "Wheel of Fortune" and have bar-b-ques. John Wayne
Gacy comes to mind immediately. Who knows who our neighbors really are, deep down inside?
As for naming names, gosh, I seem to have lost my DARPA personnel directory of evil
geniuses, and my CIA directory of same as well.
(But as for who REALLY controls things and gives the orders, I think you may have nailed
it with Sister Aimee. And she was HOT in her day, and apparently knew how to have a good
time. Hallelujah, brother ..)
@Anon So the
"flu like outbreak" skipped Frederick, Maryland, the town Fort Detrick is located in to
strike Springfield, Virginia which is very close to Washington DC, as well as not striking
other communities between Frederick, Maryland and Springfield, Virginia including Washington
DC. I like how your brain works, you should be working at The Global Times or perhaps you
already are .
Considering that you've been targeting residential area, market places, wedding dinner,
mosques, churches, you've prolly vaporised 20-30M dogs and cats, those are the lucky
ones, many more were left maimed and paralyzed.
"I would include here the Brazilians who, with excessive assistance from the Americans,
elected an arrogant sociopath who said famously, "It's not my fault. What do you want me to
do about it?""
"In Brazil, the Supreme Court has decided that governors don't have to obey the federal
government on local health policies. So, it really makes no difference whether the President
is Mother Theresa or Jason Voorhees. It's true that Bolsonaro tries once in a while to enact
some federal regulations, but he seems to fail every time. It's odd that you don't know that
fact, seeing as in the U.S. I hear things are quite similar. As for Brazilian governors, they
oddly don't get the same international flak as Bolsonaro does, despite many of them being
suspected of using the pandemic as an opportunity for stealing."
"This kind of inexactitude immediately throws the rest of the article under heavy
suspicion. When people start spewing words like 'sociopath', it is clear to me that they have
an agenda."
.
I don't normally respond to rubbish, but readers might care to look at this one because
it's a classic of dishonest misrepresentation.
First, M. Cubas quotes from the article about Bolsonaro being a sociopath. He (or she, or
it) then turns the subject to Brazilian governors not having to obey the federal government.
Who cares? Where did that come from? Relevant to what?
Then, the author is chastised for "not knowing this fact", although we have no idea if he
does or doesn't know, because this was never discussed.
M. Cubas then converts the author's supposed 'lack of knowledge' of this irrelevant bit of
information, to claim that "This kind of inexactitude immediately throws the rest of the
article under heavy suspicion." That is to say that if I fail to mention the process for
deep-frying chicken in a conversation about bridge construction, you should assume I know
nothing about deep-frying chicken, and furthermore that my failure to mention deep-frying
chicken in a conversation about bridge construction should make you suspect everything I say.
You got that?
Then, the word sociopath is 'spewed', and anyone who uses that word must have an
'agenda'.
But, with Bolsonaro in Brazil, when the man offers no leadership, trivialises a pandemic,
takes no action to protect the population, watches more than one million citizens become
infected and more than 50,000 of them die, and then says, "It's not my fault. What do you
want me to do about it?", I think we have a sociopath on our hands.
This covid19 with its growing number of strains seems likely to have escaped from a lab
and it is most probably a product of US ingenuity, with cleverly engineered gain of
function, but to leap to the conclusion that the US has deployed this bioweapon against
China and Russia goes too far. Why would the US target its own population in the
process?
To answer the last bit 1st, the rogue-state operators did not expect USA to get bitten,
due to a) already having a mild form active there, and b) SARS-CoV-1 was largely contained in
Asia (84% of all deaths in Mainland China and Hong Kong).
Note that Forster found only a few occurrences of the A-strain, closest may have been 50km
SE of Wuhan; the overwhelming majority of Chinese infections being B-strain. Now a
new-to-China strain has somehow 'arrived' in Beijing (termed 'older' in headline article).
The people who 'built' the Covid-19 causing virus = SARS-CoV-2 know exactly what they've
done, and it is my thesis that when the PRRA insert was recognised in Wuhan, that was the
moment the Chinese knew they were under attack, and the rest of the chaos ensued. Any
alleging 'scam' must explain why Russia and Iran, say, play along. rgds
The banality of evil is often not known until revisionist historians are able to make
connections post facto. In the moment people do not have enough information to make informed
decisions.
"That's not the way the world really works anymore." He continued "We're an empire now,
and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality --
judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can
study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors and you, all of you,
will be left to just study what we do."
For example, during the French Revolution most of the participants had no idea of what a
Jacobian was.
Or, during the Bolshevik Revolution, most participants had no idea of who Kuhn and Loeb
was.
Or, before WW1 was the machinations of the Milner Group known?
Or, before WW2, the machinations of Zionists to get Balfour.
Or, how Focus group had gotten to Churchill with loans.
Why the evil? It is usually hidden string pullers who are afraid of losing their vaunted
position in ruling hierarchy. They may actually think they are doing good, because doing good
is defined as "what is good for me, or my in-group."
@Nikola
Zrinski The ADL and SPLC always raise funds by paying people, virtually all of them Jews,
to write or orate things like your comment. They then send the 'anti-Semitic' outburst to the
hordes of gullible Jews and white liberals and ask for money that is required to fight
anti-Semitism.
If we or the Chinese are going to stop this we're going to have to get rid of the
Jews. The Jews are the only people that profit from this. If this or one of their other
viruses kills one of your family then the Jews have directly killed your family.
A vast amount of the problems we have could be sewed up in very quick order if we got rid
of the Jews.
@mike99588
I'm not keen on a lot of stuff from China, but your comment lacks perspective.
What happened with the melamine milk scandal that killed 6 and damaged approximately 300k?
The perp was tried and executed. What has happened in the US with oxyContin which has caused
tens of thousands of deaths and ruined up to a million more? Nothing of consequence. The lead
paint in/on Marx toys? China – people responsible committed suicide knowing they would
be executed. US – Gee we didn't know, why would we test products to ensure they were
being made properly?
China today is where Japan was in the late 60s and Korea in the late 80s. Huge capacity
not so good quality. Japanese and Korean cars used to be crap, now they are the most
reliable. US cars used to be the most reliable, now they are crap. The same goes for
electronics and even washing machines today.
China will only get better, just as the Japanese and Koreans did. The orientals have a better
sense of "the whole" of the population benefiting. The US, and most of (((the West))) lost
that concept long ago.
Pompeo is suggesting that Iran will spend tens of millions on planes, fly them unopposed
through the radar coverage of several countries, to let Iranian Kamikaze pilots crash them into
some temple in Nepal.
This does not make any sense. No foreign politician will be impressed by this 'argument'.
Pompeo's tweet is for consumption at home.
The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump introduced a long-awaited U.N. Security
Council (UNSC) draft resolution extending an arms embargo on Iran that is due to expire in
October, setting the stage for a great-power clash and likely veto in the U.N.'s principal
security body, according to a copy of the draft obtained by Foreign Policy .
...
If passed, the resolution would fall under Chapter VII of the U.N. charter, making it legally
binding and enforceable. But the U.S. measure, according to several U.N. Security Council
diplomats, stands little chance of being adopted by the 15-nation council.
...
Some council diplomats and other nonproliferation experts see the U.S. move as a way to score
political points at home , not to do anything about Iran's destabilizing activities in the
region.
"The skeptic in me says that the objective of this exercise is to go through the arms
embargo resolution, and when it fails, to use that as an excuse to get a snapback of the
embargo, and if and when that fails too, to use as a political talking point in the election
campaign ," said Mark Fitzpatrick, a former State Department nonproliferation official now at
the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Since China and Russia are almost certain
to ignore any U.N. arms embargo forced by U.S. maneuvers, the practical impact on Iran's
ability to cause mischief will be minimal, he said.
"It's not actually about stopping any arms from China and Russia, it's about winning a
political argument ," he said.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and the Chinese government's top diplomat, Wang Yi,
both wrote to the 15-member council and U.N. chief Antonio Guterres as the United States
threatens to spark a so-called sanctions snapback under the Iran nuclear deal, even though
Washington quit the accord in 2018.
Lavrov wrote in the May 27 letter, made public this week, that the United States was being
"ridiculous and irresponsible."
"This is absolutely unacceptable and serves only to recall the famous English proverb
about having one's cake and eating it," Lavrov wrote.
Washington has threatened to trigger a return of U.N. sanctions on Iran if the Security
Council does not extend an arms embargo due to expire in October under Tehran's deal with
world powers to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons.
...
Lavrov cited a 1971 International Court of Justice opinion, which found that a fundamental
principle governing international relationships was that "a party which disowns or does not
fulfill its own obligations cannot be recognized as retaining the rights which it claims to
derive from the relationship."
Despite the evident failure to convince others the U.S. continues make stupid
arguments :
Russia and China will be isolated at the United Nations if they continue down the "road to
dystopia" by blocking a U.S. bid to extend a weapons ban on Iran, U.S. Iran envoy Brian Hook
told Reuters ahead of his formal pitch of the embargo to the U.N. Security Council on
Wednesday.
...
"We see a widening gap between Russia and China and the international community," Hook said
in an interview with Reuters on Tuesday evening.
The U.S. has left the JCPoA deal and can not claim a right under that deal to snap back the
sanctions that the deal has lifted. It is the U.S. that is isolated. Even its allies do not
support the attempt:
"We firmly believe that any unilateral attempt to trigger UN sanctions snapback would have
serious adverse consequences in the UNSC," the foreign ministers of Britain, France, and
Germany said in a statement on June 19. "We would not support such a decision which would be
incompatible with our current efforts to preserve the JCPoA."
The Trump policy against Iran has failed. He has tried a 'maximum pressure' campaign to
blackmail Iran into more concessions. But despite sanctions and economic problems caused by
them Iran is not willing to talk with him. Its conditions for talks
are clear :
"We have no problem with talks with the U.S., but only if Washington fulfils its obligations
under the nuclear deal, apologies and compensates Tehran for its withdrawal from the 2015
deal," Rouhani said in a televised speech.
The U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, including the new sanctions against Syria under
the 'Ceasar's Law', have been helping Iran to
strengthen its position :
Iran is reaping huge benefits, including more robust allies and resistant strongholds as a
result of the US's flawed Middle Eastern policies. Motivated by the threat of the
implementation of "Caesar' Law", Iran has prepared a series of steps to sell its oil and
finance its allies, bypassing depletion of its foreign currency reserves.
Iranian companies found in Syria a paradise for strategic investment and offered the
needed alternative to a Syrian economy crippled by sanctions and nine years of war. Iran
considers Syria a fertile ground to expand its commerce and business like never before.
With Iran's influence growing and Russia making
inroads even with once staunch U.S. allies like Saudi Arabia it seems that real U.S.
influence in the Middle East is on a decisive downturn.
Whatever Pompous Pompeo says or tweets will not change that. But there's a sucker born every
minute. Some of those may still fall for the stuff he says.
--- Twice a year I ask readers of this blog to support my effort. Please consider contributing
.
Posted by b on June 24, 2020 at 17:10 UTC | Permalink
Bolton, of course, dismissed the entire concept of diplomacy from the very start. He never
bought into the notion that North Korean officials could be talked to sensibly because they
were, well, insane. Bolton's version of North Korea diplomacy was to tighten the
economic screws, brandish the U.S. military, and wait until one of two things happened: 1) the
Kim regime surrendered its entire nuclear weapons program like Libya's Muammar al-Qaddafi, or
2) the Kim regime continued to spur Washington's demands, in which the White House would have
no option but to use U.S. military force. Bolton's
record is analogous to a stereotypical linebacker on an obscene amount of steroids -- smash
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The only problem:
North Korea isn't some helpless punter with string bean arms and a lanky midsection. It's a
nuclear weapons state fiercely proud of its independence and sovereignty, constantly on guard
for the slightest threat from a foreign power, and cognizant of its weakened position relative
to its neighbors. This is one of the prime reasons Bolton's obsession with the Libya-style
North Korea deal, in which Pyongyang would theoretically discard its entire nuclear apparatus
and allow U.S. weapons inspectors to take custody of its nuclear warheads before flying them
back to the U.S. for destruction, was
unworkable from the start. The Libya-model trumpeted by Bolton was a politically correct
way of demanding Pyongyang's total surrender -- an extremely naive goal if there ever was one.
When one remembers the fate of Qaddafi 8 years after he traded sanctions relief for his weapons
of mass destruction -- the dictator was assaulted and humiliated before being executed in the
desert -- even the word "Libya" is treated by the Kim dynasty as a threat to its existence. As
Paul Pillar wrote
in these pages more than two years ago, "Libya's experience does indeed weigh heavily on the
thinking of North Korean officials, who have taken explicit notice of that experience, as a
disincentive to reaching any deals with the United States about dismantling weapons
programs."
One can certainly take
issue with Trump's North Korea policy. Two years of personal diplomacy with Kim Jong-un have yet to
result in the denuclearization Washington seeks (denuclearization is more of a slogan than a
realistic objective at this point, anyway). But Trump's strategy aside, Bolton's alternative
was worse. The president knew his former national security adviser's public insistence on the
Libya model was dangerously inept. He
had to walk back Bolton's
comments weeks later to ensure the North Koreans didn't pull out of diplomacy before it got
off the ground. Trump hasn't forgotten about the experience; on June 18, Trump tweeted
that "Bolton's dumbest of all statements set us back very badly with North Korea, even now. I
asked him, "what the hell were you thinking?"
Personally he is a bully and as such a coward: he can attack only a weaker opponent. His new
book shows that however discredited and intellectually thin his foreign policy views are, they
always rise to the top. To Bolton the country is simply a vehicle for smiting his enemies
abroad.
Notable quotes:
"... Bolton's hawkishness is combined with an equally striking lack of originality. It is possible to be an unorthodox or partisan hawk, as we see in populists who want to get out of the Middle East but ramp up pressure on China, or Democrats who have a particular obsession with Russia. Bolton takes the most belligerent position on every issue without regards for partisanship or popularity, a level of consistency that would almost be honorable if it wasn't so frightening. No alliance or commitment is ever questioned, and neither, for that matter, is any rivalry. ..."
"... Bolton lacks any intellectual tradition or popular support base that he can call his own. Domestic political concerns are almost completely missing from his book, although we learn that he follows "Adam Smith on economics, Edmund Burke on society," is happy with Trump's judicial appointments, and favors legal, but not illegal, immigration. Other than these GOP clichés, there is virtually no commentary or concern about the state of American society or its trajectory. Unlike those who worry about how global empire affects the United States at home, to Bolton the country is simply a vehicle for smiting his enemies abroad. While Bolton's views have been called "nationalist" because he doesn't care about multilateralism, nation-building, or international law, I have never seen a nationalist that gives so little thought to his nation. ..."
"... Bolton recounts how his two top aides, Charles Kupperman and Mira Ricardel, had extensive experience working for Boeing. Patrick Shanahan similarly became acting Secretary of Defense after spending thirty years at that company, until he was replaced by Mark Esper, a Raytheon lobbyist. Why working for a company that manufactures aircraft and weapons prepares one for a job in foreign policy, the establishment has never felt the need to explain, any more than it needs to explain continuing Cold War-era military commitments three decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union. ..."
"... The most important question raised by the career of John Bolton is how someone with his views has been able to achieve so much power. While Bolton gets much worse press and always goes a step too far even for most of the foreign policy establishment, in other ways he is all too typical. Take James Mattis, a foil for Bolton throughout much of the first half of the book. Although more popular in the media, the "warrior monk" slow-walked and obstructed attempts by the president to pull out of the Middle East, and after a career supporting many of the same wars and commitments as Bolton, now makes big bucks in the private sector, profiting off of his time in government. ..."
The release of John Bolton's book today has become a Washington cultural event, because he
is, by all measures, Washington's creature.
Those who dislike the Trump administration have been pleased to find in The Room Where It
Happened confirmation in much of what they already believed about the Ukraine scandal and
the president's lack of capacity for the job. Some accusations in the book, such as the story
about Trump seeking reelection help from China through American farm purchases, are new, and in
an alternative universe could have formed the basis of a different, or if Bolton had his way,
more comprehensive, impeachment inquiry.
While Bolton's book has been found politically useful by the president's detractors, the
work is also important as a first-hand account from the top of the executive branch over a
19-month period, from April 2018 to September 2019. It also, mostly inadvertently, reveals much
about official Washington, the incentive structures that politicians face, and the kind of
person that is likely to succeed in that system. Bolton may be a biased self-promoter, but he
is nonetheless a credible source, as his stories mostly involve conversations with other people
who are free to eventually tell their own side. Moreover, the John Bolton of The Room Where
It Happened is no different from the man we know from his three-decade career as a
government official and public personality. No surprises here.
There are three ways to understand John Bolton. In increasing order of importance, they are
intellectually, psychologically, and politically -- that is, as someone who is both a product
of and antagonist to the foreign-policy establishment -- in many ways typical, and in others a
detested outlier.
On the first of these, there simply isn't much there. Bolton takes the most hawkish position
on every issue. He wants war with North Korea and Iran, and if he can't have that, he'll settle
for destroying their economies and sabotaging any attempts by Trump to reach a deal with either
country. He takes the maximalist positions on great powers like China and Russia, and third
world states that pose no plausible threat like Cuba and Venezuela. At one point, he brags
about State reversing "Obama's absurd conclusion that Cuban baseball was somehow independent of
its government, thus in turn allowing Treasury to revoke the license allowing Major League
Baseball to traffic in Cuban players." How this helps Americans or Cubans is left
unexplained.
Bolton's hawkishness is combined with an equally striking lack of originality. It is
possible to be an unorthodox or partisan hawk, as we see in populists who want to get out of
the Middle East but ramp up pressure on China, or Democrats who have a particular obsession
with Russia. Bolton takes the most belligerent position on every issue without regards for
partisanship or popularity, a level of consistency that would almost be honorable if it wasn't
so frightening. No alliance or commitment is ever questioned, and neither, for that matter, is
any rivalry.
Anyone who picks up Bolton's over 500-page memoir hoping to find serious reflection on the
philosophical basis of American foreign policy will be disappointed. The chapters are broken up
by topic area, most beginning with a short background explainer on Bolton's views of the issue.
In the chapter on Venezuela, we are told that overthrowing the government of that country is
important because of "its Cuba connection and the openings it afforded Russia, China, and
Iran." The continuing occupation of Afghanistan is necessary for preventing terrorists from
establishing a base, and, in an argument I had not heard anywhere before, for "remaining
vigilant against the nuclear-weapons programs in Iran on the west and Pakistan on the east."
Iran needs to be deterred, though from what we are never told.
Bolton lacks any intellectual tradition or popular support base that he can call his
own. Domestic political concerns are almost completely missing from his book, although we learn
that he follows "Adam Smith on economics, Edmund Burke on society," is happy with Trump's
judicial appointments, and favors legal, but not illegal, immigration. Other than these GOP
clichés, there is virtually no commentary or concern about the state of American society
or its trajectory. Unlike those who worry about how global empire affects the United States at
home, to Bolton the country is simply a vehicle for smiting his enemies abroad. While Bolton's
views have been called "nationalist" because he doesn't care about multilateralism,
nation-building, or international law, I have never seen a nationalist that gives so little
thought to his nation.
The more time one spends reading Bolton, the more one comes to the conclusion that the guy
just likes to fight. In addition to seeking out and escalating foreign policy conflicts, he
seems to relish going to war with the media and the rest of the Washington bureaucracy. His
book begins with a quote from the Duke of Wellington rallying his troops at Waterloo: "Hard
pounding, this, gentlemen. Let's see who will pound the longest." The back cover quotes the
epilogue on his fight with the Trump administration, responding "game on" to attempts to stop
publication. He takes a mischievous pride in recounting attacks from the media or foreign
governments, such as when he was honored to hear that North Korea worried about his influence
over the President. Bolton is too busy enjoying the fight, and as will be seen below, profiting
from it, to reflect too carefully on what it's all for.
Bolton could be ignored if he were simply an odd figure without much power. Yet the man has
been at the pinnacle of the GOP establishment for thirty years, serving appointed roles in
every Republican president since Reagan. The story of how he got his job in the Trump
administration is telling. According to Bolton's account, he was courted throughout the
transition process and the early days of the administration by Steve Bannon and Jared Kushner,
ironic considering the reputation of the former as a populist opposed to forever wars and the
latter as a more liberal figure within the White House. Happy with his life outside government,
Bolton would accept a position no lower than Secretary of State or National Security Advisor.
Explaining his reluctance to enter government in a lower capacity, Bolton provides a list of
his commitments at the time, including "Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute; Fox
News contributor; a regular on the speaking circuit; of counsel at a major law firm; member of
corporate boards; senior advisor to a global private-equity firm."
Clearly, being an advocate for policies that can destroy the lives of millions abroad, and a
complete lack of experience in business, have proved no hindrance to Bolton's success in
corporate America.
Bolton recounts how his two top aides, Charles Kupperman and Mira Ricardel, had
extensive experience working for Boeing. Patrick Shanahan similarly became acting Secretary of
Defense after spending thirty years at that company, until he was replaced by Mark Esper, a
Raytheon lobbyist. Why working for a company that manufactures aircraft and weapons prepares
one for a job in foreign policy, the establishment has never felt the need to explain, any more
than it needs to explain continuing Cold War-era military commitments three decades after the
collapse of the Soviet Union.
Ricardel resigned after a dispute over preparations for the First Lady's trip to Africa, an
example of how too often in the Trump administration, nepotism and self-interest have been the
only checks on bad policy or even greater corruption ("Melania's people are on the warpath,"
Trump is quoted as saying). Another is when Trump, according to Bolton, was less than vigorous
in pursing destructive Iranian sanctions due to personal relationships with the leaders of
China and Turkey. At the 2019 G7 summit, when Pompeo and Bolton try to get Benjamin Netanyahu
to reach out to Trump to talk him out of meeting with the Iranian foreign minister, Jared
prevents his call from going through on the grounds that a foreign government shouldn't be
telling the President of the United States who to meet with.
The most important question raised by the career of John Bolton is how someone with his
views has been able to achieve so much power. While Bolton gets much worse press and always
goes a step too far even for most of the foreign policy establishment, in other ways he is all
too typical. Take James Mattis, a foil for Bolton throughout much of the first half of the
book. Although more popular in the media, the "warrior monk" slow-walked and obstructed
attempts by the president to pull out of the Middle East, and after a career supporting many of
the same wars and commitments as Bolton, now makes big bucks in the private sector, profiting
off of his time in government.
In the coverage of Bolton, this is what should not be lost. The former National Security
Advisor is the product of a system with its own internal logic. Largely discredited and
intellectually hollow, and without broad popular support, it persists in its practices and
beliefs because it has been extremely profitable for those involved. The most extreme hawks are
simply symptoms of larger problems, with the flamboyant Bolton being much more like mainstream
members of the foreign policy establishment than either side would like to admit.
Richard Hanania is a research fellow at the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace
Studies at Columbia University.
"... let us not forget that bolton threatened a un officials kids because they guy wasn't going along with the iraq war propaganda. ..."
"... Close -- the threatened official was Jose Bustani, at that time (2002) the head of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW)as he had been for five years. ..."
"... Bustani had been working to bring Iraq and Libya into the organization, which would have required those two countries to eliminate all of their chemical weapons. ..."
"... The US, though, had other ideas -- chiefly invading and destroying both of those nations, and when Bustani insisted on continuing his efforts then Bolton threatened Bustani's adult children. ..."
The political establishment in Canada appeared dismayed at the prospect of Bolton as National
Security Adviser. See these interviews with Hill + Knowlton strategies Vice-chairman, Peter
Donolo, from 2018:
So Bolton gets in, Meng Wangzhou is detained in Vancouver on the US request (that's
another story), and in time, Canada appoints a new Ambassador to China - Mr. Dominic
Barton.
Close -- the threatened official was Jose Bustani, at that time (2002) the head of the
Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW)as he had been for five
years.
Bustani had been working to bring Iraq and Libya into the organization, which would
have required those two countries to eliminate all of their chemical weapons.
The US, though, had other ideas -- chiefly invading and destroying both of those
nations, and when Bustani insisted on continuing his efforts then Bolton threatened Bustani's
adult children.
let the lobbyists with the most money win... that's what defines the usa system, leadership
and decision making process... no one in their right mind would support this doofus..
At least the one saving grace about John Bolton's memoir is that it might be a tad closer to
reality than Christopher Steele's infamous dossier and might prove valuable as a source of
evidence in a court of law. Maybe
Yosemite Sam himself should start quaking in his boots.
Yes why not? If Obama awarded the Noble prize even before he begins serving his first term
I can't see why Bolton not nominated now. America is a joke, not a banana republic. It
deserves Obama, Trump, Bolton or Biden another stoopid joker.
@ Jpc
When faced with Trump's behavior of employing warmongers, including several generals, some
observers opined that Trump wanted people with contrasting opinions so that he could consider
them and then say "no." He did more with Bolton eventually, sending him to Mongolia while he
(Trump) went to Singapore (or somewhere over there).
re Ian2 | Jun 17 2020 23:08 utc | 19
who hazarded : My guess Trump went along with the tough guy image that Bolton projected in
media and recommendations by others.
Not at all, if you go back to the earliest days of the orangeman's prezdency, you will see
Trump resisted the efforts by Mercer & the zionist casino owner to give Bolton a gig.
He knew that shrub had problems with the boasts of Bolton and as his reputation was as an
arsehole who sounded his own trumpet at his boss's expense orangeman refused for a long time.
Trump believes the trump prezdency is about trump no one else.
Thing was at the time he was running for the prez gig trump was on his uppers, making a few
dollars from his tv show, plus licensing other people's buildings by selling his name to be
stuck on them. trump tower azerbnajan etc.
He put virtually none of his own money into the 'race' so when he won the people who had put
up the dosh had power over him.
Bolton has always been an arse kisser to any zionist cause he suspects he can claw a penny
outta, so he used the extreme loony end of the totally looney zionist spectrum to hook him
(Bolton) up with a gig by pushing for him with trump.
It was always gonna end the way it did as Bolton is forever briefing the media against
anyone who tried to resist his murderous fantasies. Trump is never gonna argue for any scheme
that doesn't have lotsa dollars for him in it so he had plenty of run ins with Bolton who
then went to his media mates & told tales.
When bolton was appointed orangey's stakes were at a really low ebb among DC warmongers, so
he reluctantly took him on then spent the next 18 months getting rid of the grubby
parasite.
div> Yosemite Sam did it better. I would prefer a Foghorn Leghorn-type
character, for US diplomacy.
Real History: Candidate Trump praised Bolton and named him as THE number one Foreign Policy
expert he (Trump) respected.
Imagine the mustachioed Mister Potatoe (sic) Head and zany highjinks!
Bolton and one of his first wives were regulars at Plato's Retreat for wife swapping
orgies. The wife was not real keen on the behavior, but she allegedly found herself verbally
and physically abused for objecting.
Trump is at fault for hiring him to appease the Zionist lobby. We all knew the guy was a
warmonger and a scumbag. It's not a surprise. Trump surrounds himself with the worst people
Did John Bolton put his personal interests above the will of congress in an attempt to extort
the Ukrainian government? You're making a false equivalence. You seem to have a soft spot for
Trump. Bolton is an in-your-face son of a bitch, but Trump, Trump is just human garbage.
Pretty much a nothing burger if thats all he has got. Just a distraction. Trumps outrage just
meant help Bolton sell some books. Lol. People are so easy to fool.
I still think Bolton managing the operations as COG in Cheneys old bunker. Coming out for
a vacation while next phase is planned
Bolton is just another American arsehole. Nothing new. When they do not get their way, the y
always turn on their superiors, or those in charge. Bolton is just another "Anhänger"
personal gain is what motivates him.
He should have been a blot on his parents bedsheets or at least a forced abortion, but
unfortunately that did not happen...
The self-appointed Deep State has pretty much thwarted him (Trump) and his voters.
Posted by: bob sykes | Jun 17 2020 20:55 utc | 11
Trump thwarted Trump. Before he got elected, Trump mentioned his admiration of Bolton more
than once. Voters of Trump elected a liar and an incoherent person -- at time,
incomprehensible, a nice bonus. But it is worth noticing that Trump never liked being binded
by agreement, like, say, an agreement to pay money back to creditors, or whatever
international agreement would restrict USA from doing what they damn please.
Superficially, it is mysterious why Trump made an impression that he wants to negotiate
with North Korea with some agreement at the end. Was he forced to make a mockery from the
negotiation by someone sticking knife to his back?
Some may remember that Trump promised to abolish Affordable Care Act and replace it with
"something marvelous". The latest version is that he will start thinking about it again after
re-election. If you believe that...
Granted, Trump is more sane than Bolton, but just a bit, unlike Bolton he has some moments
of lucidity.
In conclusion, I would advocate to vote for Biden. If you need a reason, that would be
that Biden never tweets, or if he does, it is forgettable before the typing is done. Unlike
the hideous Trumpian productions.
"men fit to be shaved," Tiberius, on Bolton and Friedman.
he is the best & brightest we have. when a dreadful mouth is called for. his insights
into the Trump WH are probably as deep as his knowledge of VZ, Iran, Cuba, etc. he's a useful
idiot, a willing fool. like Trump, he's the verbal equivalent of the cops on the street, in
foreign "policy." another abusive father figure
reading the imperial steak turds - an American form of reading the tea leaves or goat
livers or chicken flight or celestial what have you. an emperor craps out a big hairy one
like Bolton and the priests and hierophants and lawyers and scribes come for a long, close up
inspection and fact-gathering smell of another steaming pile of gmo-corn-and-downer-cow-fed,
colon cancer causing, Kansas feed-lot raised, grade A Murkin BEEF. guess what they in their
wisdom find? Trump stinks.
Scotch Bingeington @ 6 -- "Take a look at his face. It's obvious to me that even John Bolton
does not enjoy being John Bolton. That mouth, it's drooping to an absurd degree. Comparable
to Merkel's face, come to think of it.
At last, someone who notices physionomy!
That face drips with false modesty, kind of trying to make his face say, "... look at
harmless old me..."
That walrus bushiness points at an attempt to hide, to camouflage his true thoughts, his
malevolence.
That pretended stoop, with one hand clutching a sheaf of briefing papers, emulating the
posture of deferential court clerks, speaks to a lifetime of a snake in the grass "fighting"
from below for things important to himself.
But those of us who have been around the block a couple times will know to watch our backs
around this type. Poisoned-tipped daggers are their fave weapons, and your backs are their
fave "battle space". LOL
This statement by Jeffrey Sachs may as well also describe America's leadership crisis: "At
the root of America's economic crisis lies a moral crisis: the decline of civic virtue among
America's political and economic elite."
GeorgeV @ 8 -- "It's like standing on a street corner watching two prostitutes calling each
other a whore! How low has the US sunk."
And the US "leadeship" sends these types out to lecture other peoples on "values"? on how
to become "normal nations"? on how to "contain" old civilisations such as Iran, Russia,
China?
It is axiomatic that the stupid do not know they are stupid. Same goes for morals. The
immoral do not know they are immoral. Or, perhaps, as Phat Pomp-arse shows, they know they
are immoral, but do not care. Which makes one rightly guess that people like Bolt-On and him
must be depraved.
Yes, it may take centuries before the leadership in this depraved Exceptionally
Indispensable Nation to become truly normal again.
Of course, Trump actually campaigned to leave Afghanistan and Syria, and he was elected to do
so. The self-appointed Deep State has pretty much thwarted him and his voters. by: bob sykes
11
I wondered about He King claims that Trump actually attempted to do those awful things, .
.. , I looked for evidence to prove the claim.. I asked just about every librarian I could
find to please show me evidence that confirms the deep state over rode Mr. Trump's actual
attempt to remove USA anything from Afghanistan and Syria. thus far, no confirming or
supporting facts have been produced. to support such a claim. Mr. Trump could easily have
tweeted to his supporters something to the effect that the damn military, CIA, homeland
security, state department, foreign service, federal reserve, women's underwear association
and smiley Joe's hamburger stand in fact every militant in the USA governed America were
holding hands, locked in a conspiracy to block President Trumps attempt to remove USA
anything from Afghanistan or Syria.. If Mr. Trump has asked for those things, they would have
happened. The next day there would have been parties in the streets as the militant agency
heads began rolling as Mr. Trump fired them each and everyone.. No firings happened, the
party providers were disappointed, no troops, USA contractors or privatization pirates left
any foreign place.. as far as I can tell. 500 + military bases still remain in Europe none
have been abandoned.. and one was added in Israel. BTW i heard that Mr. Trump managed to get
17 trillion dollars into the hands of many who are contractors or suppliers to those foreign
operations. I can't say I am against Trump, but i can ask you to show me some evidence to
prove your claim.
Trump searches for new slogan as he abandons Keep America Great amid George Floyd and covid
turmoil
The president has taken to inserting the term 'Transition to Greatness' into his remarks.
His 2016 slogan was 'Make America Great Again'. After election he polled audiences on whether
to go with 'Keep America Great'. He told CPAC this year and said at the State of the Union
'The Best is Yet to Come'. Tweaks come as he trails Biden in new NBC and CNN polls, as the
nation struggles with the coronavirus and protests over police violence.
Ukrainian police seize $6 Million in bribes paid to kill the new case into crooked
Burisma.
This money is a Followup to the multi-millions in bribes Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, and
President Poroshenko earned to leverage their offices to kill the original case.
goals that you consider important are different from personal interests.
What personal interests has Trump actually advanced during his time as president. Leaving out
the fake allegations, I'm hard put to think of any. If you look at Trump's actual behaviour
rather than his bullshit or the bullshit aimed at him, I'm also hard put to think of anything
illegal he's done while in office that wasn't done by previous administrations.
US President Donald Trump sought help from Xi Jinping to win the upcoming 2020 election,
"pleading" with the Chinese president to boost imports of American agricultural products,
according to a new book by former national security adviser John Bolton. The accusations were
included in an excerpt from The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir, which is set to
be released on June 23. Bolton also wrote that Trump demonstrated other "fundamentally
unacceptable behaviour", including privately expressing support for China's mass interment of
Uygur Muslims and other ethnic minority groups in Xinjiang.*This video has been updated to
fix a spelling mistake.
@42 Mao I'm struggling to see how "pleading" with any country for it to purchase more US
goods is "fundamentally unacceptable behaviour" from a US President.
Pleading to Xi for China to give, say, Israel preferential access to markets, sure.
I have lived in the United States for a total of 24 years and I have witnessed many crises
over this long period, but what is taking place today is truly unique and much more serious
than any previous crisis I can recall. And to explain my point, I would like to begin by
saying what I believe the riots we are seeing taking place in hundreds of US cities are not
about. They are not about:
* Racism or "White privilege"
* Police violence
* Social alienation and despair
* Poverty
* Trump
* The liberals pouring fuel on social fires
* The infighting of the US elites/deep state
They are not about any of these because they encompass all of these issues, and more.
It is important to always keep in mind the distinction between the concepts of "cause" and
"pretext". And while it is true that all the factors listed above are real (at least to some
degree, and without looking at the distinction between cause and effect), none of them are
the true cause of what we are witnessing. At most, the above are pretexts, triggers if you
want, but the real cause of what is taking place today is the systemic collapse of the US
society.
Don't really want to take sides between those two odious characters, but I think there's a
difference in what the paper is saying.
One is about someone pursuing policy goals they favour, the other "personal interest".
From what I have seen so far, Bolton's main definition of Trump's "personal interest" is his
chances for re-election (rather than any personal business interest).
I think Bolton was happy for Trump to pursue the policy goals he favoured, at least when
they coincided with Bolton's!
How many people have cashed in on Trump so far? Countless numbers of them. An ocean of them.
Scathing books about Trump is one way to cash in on thr Trump effect, and the authors, many
of whom don't even write the book themselves, get promoted and their books promoted in the
mainstream media and elsewhere.
There is nothing new under the sun when it comes to Trump. We know everything there is to
know about Trump. Some of us knew everything there was to know about him before he became
POTUS. And yet, there he is, sitting like the Cheshire Cat in the Oval Office, untouchable
and beyond reproach. Meanwhile, even more scathing books are in the pipeline because there's
money, so much money, to be made don't you know.
Bolton is a shitbird every bit as much as Trump is and in fact an argument can be made
Bolton is even worse and even more dangerous than Trump because if Bolton had his druthers,
Iran would be a failed state right about now and America would be bogged down in a senseless
money-making (for the defense contractors owned by the extractive wealthy elite) quagmire in
Iran just as it was in Iraq and still is in Afghanistan.
Colbert is all into the Bolton book because he and his staff managed to secure an
interview with Bolton. Bolton, of course, has agreed to this because it's a great way to
promote his book to the likes of Cher who is the perfect example of the demographic Colbert
caters to with his show. Some of the commercials during Colbert's show last night? One was an
Old Navy commercial where they bragged about how they're giving to the poor. The family they
used for the commercial, the recipients of this beneficence, was a black family. Biden is
proud of Old Navy because don't you know, poor and black are one and the same. In otherwords,
there are no poor people except black people. No, that's not racist. Not at all. Also,
another commercial during Colbert's show was for the reopening of Las Vegas amidst the
spreading pandemic. This is immediately after a segment where Colbert is decrying Republican
governors for opening southern states too early. The hypocritical irony is so stark, you can
cut it with a chainsaw.
Mao @ 45 quoting The Saker -- ".... the real cause of what is taking place today is the
systemic collapse of the US society."
And the cause of American societal collapse has been corrupt US leadership.
In my 50 years of studying American society, I have learned to watch what US leaders do,
not what they preach. More profitable is to look at what declassified US documents tell us
about the truth, not what the presstitudes of the day pretend to dish up. Also, what other
world leaders might, in a candid moment, tell us about America.
And the cause of American societal collapse has been corrupt US leadership.
I would argue that this is a symptom or a feature versus the root of the problem.
Afterall, a system that allows for creeping entrenched endemic corruption, is a crappy
system. It's the system that's the root of this and it's not just isolated to the United
States. It's civilization itself that's the root and what enabled civilization -- the spirit
in our genes as Reg asserts.
I'm fully expecting the Dem "left" to try and praise the monsterous Bolton for "going
against Trump", as they did with war criminal Mad Dog Matis and Bush. Bolton has to be one
of the most evil mass murders on the face of the Earth. The world will be an infinitely
better place when he and his ilk like Netanyahu, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Chertoff..etc finally go
back to hell.
I agree. They would, because they already have and continue to do so, coddle and provide
apologia for any and all monsters who decry Trump. Hell, I'm convinced they would clamor for
Derek Chauvin's exoneration if he vocally decried Trump. Chauvin would make the rounds on the
media circuit excoriating Trump and telling the world, contritely of course, that it was
Trump who made him do it and now he sees the error of his ways. He'd be on Morning Joe and
Chris Cuomo's and Don Lemon's shows not to mention Ari Melber and Anderson Cooper and
Lawrence O'Donnell. The conservatives and their networks, who have provided apologia for
Chauvin thus far, would now be his worst enemy. Colbert and Kimmel would have him on and
guffawing with him asking him how it felt to choke the life out of someone, laughing all the
way so long as he hates Trump and tells the world how much he hates Trump.
This world is an insane asylum, especially America. All under the banner and aegis of
progress. And to think, humanity wants to export this madness to space and the universe at
large. Any intelligent life that would ever make its way to Planet Earth, if ever, would be
well-advised to exterminate the species human before it spread its poison to the universe at
large. Not that that is possible, but just in case the .000000000001% chance of that does
miraculously manifest.
Concerning Trump "pleading" with Xi, it is only right for a leader to request others to
buy more US farm produce. We have only Bolton's word that the request was a plea. We also
have only Bolton's word that the request / plea was to seek "help from Xi Jinping to win the
upcoming 2020 election". Too early to believe Bolton. Wait till we see the meeting
transcripts.
Bolton also alleged that Trump exhibited "fundamentally unacceptable behaviour" concerning
the Uygurs. Again, only Bolton's word. Even so, saying it is "unacceptable behavior" presumes
that China does wrong to incarcerate Uygurs. If not, ie, China either does not incarcerate
them, or if China has good moral grounds to do so, then Bolton is wrong to disagree with his
boss for uttering the right sentiment. Judging by how the anglo-zios shout about China's
"crime", I tend to think the opposite just might be the truth, and that says that Bolton is
simply mudslinging to sell books; score brownie points with the anglo-zios, virtue-signalling
for his next gig.
NYT writes Bolton direct US policy to fit his own political agenda,
while Bolton emphasizes Trump direct US policy in the way that pocket him most money.
Politician Bolton is consistent with his politician job (like it or not), Trump is
corrupted.
@56, I would argue that if one person could be both at the same time, that one person would
be Donald Trump. He's already proven, like Chauncey Gardner, he can walk on water. Seriously,
that excellent movie, Being There , starring the incomparable Peter Sellers, was about
Donald Trump's ascension to the Oval Office.
Using this 'quod licet jovi ...' the author apparently knows quite a bit of Latin, the dead
language!
But seriously, the nomination of Bolton who had always behaved like 2nd rate advisor, a 3rd
rate mcarthist cold warrior was a surprise to me. Such a short sighted heavily biased person
could be, yes, chosen a Minister or advisor in a banana Republic but was picked up by the
United states.
One can only conclude such a choice was driven by very specific interests of the deep
state.They needed a bulldog and got it for one year and half and threw the stinky perro soon
as the job was done.
And the cause of American societal collapse has been corrupt US leadership.
I would argue that this is a symptom or a feature versus the root of the problem.
Posted by: 450.org | Jun 18 2020 12:30 utc | 52
The primary cause of corrupt leadership is corrupt and corruption-accepting
population.
Without a population that is fundamentally corrupt and immoral, corrupt leadership is
unstable. Conversely - and this is important to recognise as the same phenomenon - democracy
cannot exist if the population accepts and takes for granted corruption, as the two are
mutually exclusive. In other words if you root out the corrupt leadership without dealing
with the mentality of the population, the corruption will quickly come back and any
democratic experiment will collapse very quickly.
There is one important qualifier - an overwhelming external influence (since WWII always
the USA, either directly or as secondary effect) can leverage latent corruption so that it
becomes more exaggerated than it normally would be.
What is clear from only this account of the crucial role of big money foundations behind
protest groups such as Black lives Matter is that there is a far more complex agenda driving
the protests now destabilizing cities across America. The role of tax-exempt foundations tied
to the fortunes of the greatest industrial and financial companies such as Rockefeller, Ford,
Kellogg, Hewlett and Soros says that there is a far deeper and far more sinister agenda to
current disturbances than spontaneous outrage would suggest.
Bolton pretended to be President, screwing up negotiations with his Libya Model talk,
threatening Venezuela (and anywhere generally) and directing fleets all over the world
(including Britain's to capture that Iranian oil tanker). Vindman revered "Ambassador" Bolton
because he was keeping the Ukraine corruption in Americans (and Ukrainian Americans') hands,
and daring the Russians to "start" WWIII. Bolton might have been a bit more bearable if he
had ever been elected, but was happy to see him go. Trump seemed mystified by him.
b has presented us (knowingly or not, but I wouldn't put it past him) with the Socratic
question of the presumed identity between the morality of the State and personal morality, as
best encountered in Plato's dialogue, 'The Republic' ['Politeia' in the Greek] That dialogue
begins by examining personal morality, but changes to an examination of what would bring into
being a perfect state. In doing the latter, however, it is how to create public spirited
persons, in the best sense, which is the actual concern, and the conversation ranges far and
wide, becoming more and more complex.
I've always thought that to consider the perfect state had to be an impossibility if the
individual, the person him or herself isn't up to the task - and that is the point of the
Politeia enterprise. Like the ongoing relay race on horseback that is happening at the same
time in the Piraeus, the passing of the argument one person to another that happens in the
dialogue demonstrates that what is most crucial for the state as well as for the individual
is personal integrity.
I take as an example the message of Saker's essay, linked by Down South and commented on
above by others. Saker is pointing out that the protests have been seized upon by the
anti-Trumpists who have been disrupting things from the beginning of his administration. But
he also says:
"My personal feeling is that Trump is too weak and too much of a coward to fight his
political enemies"
Which comes first, the chicken or the egg? The discussion of different kinds of states,
which we often have here pursued, or the discussion of what makes a person able to function
in one or another state? I don't think Plato was saying that Greece had it made, that Greece
needed to throw its weight around more to be great. He's pointing out that it had lost
greatness, the same way every empire loses when it forgets that individual spark that is in a
single person, his virtue. And the sad thing is it all comes down to the education of our
young people in the values, the virtues that apply both to his own personal life and to the
life of the state.
At its heart, the protests which are beginning, only beginning, and which are peaceful,
may be politeia vs. republic, the 'polis' itself against 'things political'. A new and true
enlightenment, multipolar.
Corruption's been a fact of life in North America ever since it was "discovered."
Bernard Bailyn captured it quite well in his The New England Merchants in the
Seventeenth Century , that is during the very first stages of plantation, with most
corruption taking place in Old England then exported to the West. Even the Founders were
corrupt, although they didn't see themselves as such. Isn't Adam & Eve's corruption
detailed in Genesis merely an indicator of a general human trait that needs to be managed via
culture? That human culture has generally failed to contain and discipline corruption speaks
volumes about both. John Dos Passos in his opus USA noted that everyone everywhere was
on the "hustle"--from the hobo to the banker. "Every child gots to have its own" are some of
the truest lyrics ever written. Will humanity ever transcend this major failure in its
nature?
Who is behind the claim that China is imprisoning vast numbers of Uighurs in concentration
camps and what evidence has been presented? See the Greyzone for its recent report on this.
Thanks to all of you for your insights on Bolton.
I still don't see anything to explain why he got a second gig in the Whitehouse.
Or anything that he did that enhanced US security long term.
And another guy who dodged active service.
Strange angry dude,!
Pat Lang believes that Bolton has breached a law requiring US Officials with access to Top
Secret Stuff to submit personal memoirs for scrutiny before publishing. Col Lang is awaiting
similar approval for a memoir of his own and thinks Bolton didn't bother waiting for the
Official OK.
There's a diverse range of comments. Most commentators like the idea of Bolton being tossed
in the slammer. Others speculate that as a Swamp Creature, Bolton will escape prosecution.
It's interesting that no-one has asked to see the publisher's copy of the USG's signed &
dated Approval To Publish document, relevant to Bolton's book.
Re: the Nuremberg trials , I became fascinated by the writings of Paul R. Pillar who
pointed out that U.S. sanctions are frequently peddled as a peaceful alternative to
war fit the definition of 'crimes against peace' . This is when one country sets up an
environment for war against another country. I'll grant you that this is vague but if this is
applicable at all how is this not an accurate description of what we are doing against Iran
and Venezuela?
In both cases, we are imposing a full trade embargo (not sanctions) on basic civilian
necessities and infrastructures and threatening the use of military force. As for Iran, the
sustained and unfair demonization of Iranians is preparing the U.S. public to accept a
ruthless bombing campaign against them as long overdue. We are already attacking the civilian
population of their allies in Syria, Yemen, and Lebanon.
How Ironic that the country that boasts that it won WW2 is now guilty of the very crimes
that it condemned publicly in court.
Security screening of manuscripts I t is the law in the United States that those who
have had legal access to the secrets of the government must submit private manuscripts for
removal of such secrets BEFORE they are published or even presented to a potential publisher.
Every department of government has an office charged with such work.
I know this process well because my memoir "Tattoo" has been in the hands of the appropriate
Defense Department office for nigh on six months. The book is long, and I was so unlucky as to
have DoD shut down its auxiliary services during my wait. I have thought of withdrawing it from
screening but, surprisingly, the screeners tell me it has some worth for those who will come
after. So, I will wait.
All this applies to John Bolton, a career State Department man whose adult life has been
soaked in government secrets. I first noticed Bolton as a glowering presence at briefings I
gave to selected State Department people with regard to national command authority projects I
was running. His attitude was consistent. If the idea was not his, it was simply wrong.
Bolton's "kiss and tell" book about Trump is IMO as much caused by wounded ego as a desire
to make money. He submitted the book for security review to DoD and the CIA. Why not State? Ah,
Pompeo would tear it to pieces. Bolton evidently grew impatient with the pace of clearance and
decided to go ahead with publication without clearance
To do this is a felony. The release of the book today completes the elements of proof for
the crime.
Bolton should be arrested and charged with any of a number of possible crimes. pl
Let's see what Trump does with Bolton now that he has committed a felony.
My bet is that other than crying on Twitter, he'll not do much. His previous
actions/inactions on these matters show weakness.
In any case bitching on Twitter makes him look like an executive with poor hiring
judgement as he was the one that hired him. Just like he hired Mattis and Kelly as well as
Rosenstein and Wray.
Bolton being successfully charged with violations associated with his sour grapes hit piece
memoir is analogous to Al Capone finally going down for tax evasion. But if that's the way it
goes I will not be sad.
Re "Tattoo", your Memorial Day "Ap Bu Nho" extract alone makes "some worth" an amusingly
ludicrous understatement. I wish you luck with the censors & very much look forward to
one day reading "Tattoo".
"He was a convert - - -"
I was going to ask what went wrong with Bolton: was he dropped on his head as an infant? No
father in the home? The Dulles brothers spent their childhoods being harangued by their
bible-thumping Calvinist grandfather (reports Kinzer in his useful bio on the brothers).
In Jeff Engel's book about the decision-making behind G H W Bush's decision to wage war
against Saddam re Kuwait, he recounts that an argument by Brent Scowcroft was significant,
AND that "Scowcroft, who was very short," confronted taller-than-average Bush while
knees-to-knees in an airplane.
Bolton is shorter than the average American male. Does he have 'short-person' compulsion to
compensate?
People psychologize Trump constantly, usually from ignorance and malice. But something is
very wrong with Bolton. Pompeo as well. What is it?
"What huge imago made a psychopathic god?" (Auden, Sept. 1939)
#1 I read this WaPo article that argued because the recent DOJ's lawsuit against the
release of the book is based on "prior restraint on speech before it occurs", meaning the
Trump administration cannot censor speech before it happens, therefore there is no 1st
amendment breach against the Trump admin by Bolton. As the court elaborated in Nebraska Press
Association v. Stuart, prior restraints are "the most serious and the least tolerable
infringement on First Amendment rights" and "one of the most extraordinary remedies known to
our jurisprudence."
#2 Bolton took all of his notes containing classified intelligence with him after he was
fired and nobody took an issue. How is that possible?
#3 The Wapo article says his manuscript was reviewed for four months by one Ellen Knight,
an official (doesn't mention which department) responsible for reviewing publishing material
and she gave it the green light for publication on April 27th.
#4 During a press conference, Bill Barr gave an unusual take on Bolton's book as if he was
giving publicity to the book. He said he had never seen a book being written on Trump with
such pace and in such quick time and that it had a lot of sensitive information and stuff. It
sounded really odd what Bill Barr said. I dunno maybe I am reading to much between the
lines...
#5 With regards to Pompeo, back in September during a press conference at the State, when
asked by a reporter about Bolton's firing I specifically remember watching him on TV giving a
big meaningful chuckle and a smile... it was revealed later that they clearly did not get
along with each other and Pompeo had complained on numerous times that Bolton as NSA, who
does not have executive authorities, had been doing a lot of policy stuff and running his own
show in shadow.
On a final note, I don't think Bolton is a neocon in the mold of Perle, Wolfowitz, Feith,
Abrams, Kagan, Kristol etc...There is this long piece by New Yorker published last year that
really gets into detail of how and why Bolton is not a neocon, but adheres to a more hawkish
Jacksonian nationalism approach rather than the liberal idealism of arch neocons I mentioned
above. However, he does have quite similar F.P. views with neocon oldies such as Irving
Kristol, Norman Podhoretz, and Jeane Kirkpatrick.
If Bolton does NOT get the book thrown at him, it will be pretty good evidence of the
existence of the Deep State allowing those it favors to write their own rules. Of course, we
already knew that after Clapper lied with impunity to Wyden when he was under oath.
He'll never be prosecuted and neither will Comey, Clapper and the rest of the swamp scum.
Strozk (lower on the food chain) might be the human sacrifice (with a sentence of "community
service") but no one of any significance (or "royal" title) is ever prosecuted in the
swamp.
Trump has tried, but his miserable lack of hiring experience and skill has not made a dent
I feel like I have a few words to say about Bolton if I may,
IMHO Bolton's view of the world is very dark and extremely Hobbesian. He is no slouch by
any stretch of imagination, in fact he is extremely knowledgeable and masterful when it comes
to policy-making and that basically how things are done in D.C. He has made a brand for
himself as the most hawkish national security expert in all of America in my opinion.
Honestly I cannot think of anyone else who espouses more hawkishness and zero diplomacy than
Bolton, ever... maybe Tom Cotton or Liz Cheney but still not close. This is the reason why
Trump hired him. In fact Trump did not want to hire him as the top brass in first place,
citing his mustache as one reason that would not look good on TV and wanted to give him 2nd
tier jobs at the State or as NSA early on, but Bolton refused. Trump, wanted to hire Bolton's
"brand" not his policies or hawkishness to intimidate Nkorea, Iran, and China to force them
come into making deals with him and him personally.
IMO Trump found out after the first Kim summit that Bolton was
such an ambitious and counterproductive foreign policy maker and one-man-team that if he
allowed Bolton to get his way, there would be world war III (Trump's own words) and his most
important promise to keep America out of forever wars which was his wining platform over
neocons such as Hilary, Jeb and Rubio during 2016 election would disappear into thin air.
So, Trump found ways to check Bolton and keep him out of the loop in sensitive and crucial
moments by Mattis, Kelly, Joe Dunford, Pompeo and even Melania (in the case of getting rid of
Bolton's close confidant and neocon Mira Ricardel when she called for bombing Iranian forces
back in September 2018 in respone to several rockets by iraqi militias hitting the ground
close to the U.S. embassy in Baghdad), and even sent him to Mongolia last year on a goose
chase to make an embarrassing example of him for undermining him (i.e. Trump's) authority in
the case of sitting down with the Taliban in Camp David to discuss military pullout from
Afghanistan back in Sep. whereas at the same time Pompeo was smart enough to tow the same
line as Trump and survive.
I few years ago I came across this interesting but odd piece by B on the Moon of Alabama
on Bolton. I honestly dunno what to make of it.
The book is already released in the hundreds. It will be on-line soon enough regardless of
the niceties of Barr's attempt to slam shut the barn door, or what the legal system does with
Bolton going fwd.
Those close to Trump know his emotional state must be appeased or they will soon be departing
- unless there's a DNA match.
Reaction to it will be a test of one's ability to distinguish Bolton from the events he
describes & their veracity. Is there anything of Trump's statements & acts (released
so far) that surprises anyone... that rings untrue?
Those ideologically (or religiously) dependent upon the Trump Phenomenon for validating their
core beliefs will demonstrate how creative true believers can be when attached to a
personality.
For what its worth I am looking forward to buying it, should scratch that Peter Scholl Latour
itch.
Another thing is that I just dont get the Neocons.
Their politics are bad both from a Machieavellian (dilutes US forces, creates enemies,
considerably restricts creative ways in which US power could be employed) and from a moral
(obviously) point of view. I also dont get their power, stupid/evil tends to be competed out.
Heck, even if they are stupid/evil but very good at beurocratic backbiting stuff, they are
still supposedly disadvantadged against skilled beurocratic backbiters that arent stupid/evil
(or at least only evil and not stupid).
Is it internal cohesion or a much higher degree of ruthlessness that maintains their
position?
I've for many years thought that the Bolton problem was best solved with a speedy trial and a
swift execution, with remains thrown overboard somewhere in the Indian ocean.
He signed an oath to safeguard the secrecy of the information when "read on" for it and
another such when he was "read off." The 1st Amendment does not come into it at all
I'm fully expecting the Dem "left" to try and praise the monsterous Bolton for "going against
Trump", as they did with war criminal Mad Dog Matis and Bush. Bolton has to be one of the
most evil mass murders on the face of the Earth. The world will be an infinitely better place
when he and his ilk like Netanyahu, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Chertoff..etc finally go back to hell.
Poor Johnny! What's sadder than being a crook, but an ineffective one? I think that's what he
is. He may be infamous enough to be a household name, but he never really managed to make a
career. Hardly ever did he stay on a job for more than 2 years, before his fellow crooks
deemed him unfit for his position, again and again. Says a lot.
I hope they will confiscate his book on some flimsy pretext, only to lose the piles of
copies in storage, so they cannot possibly be released to bookstores again. Maybe some mice
will make use of it to furnish their nests?
Take a look at his face. It's obvious to me that even John Bolton does not enjoy being
John Bolton. That mouth, it's drooping to an absurd degree. Comparable to Merkel's face, come
to think of it.
John Bolton's tell all book about his tenure with the Trump administration is a perfect
example of the pot calling the kettle burned. It is a fitting description of the leadership
of the US government and it's capitol city as a den of backstabbing, corkscrewing and double
dealing vipers. It's like standing on a street corner watching two prostitutes calling each
other a whore! How low has the US sunk.
Of course, Trump actually campaigned to leave Afghanistan and Syria, and he was elected to do
so. The self-appointed Deep State has pretty much thwarted him and his voters.
The political establishment in Canada appeared dismayed at the prospect of Bolton as National
Security Adviser. See these interviews with Hill + Knowlton strategies Vice-chairman, Peter
Donolo, from 2018:
So Bolton gets in, Meng Wangzhou is detained in Vancouver on the US request (that's
another story), and in time, Canada appoints a new Ambassador to China - Mr. Dominic
Barton. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominic_Barton
Then Bolton gets fired. 'Nuff said. Just to let everyone know that Bolton is well and truly
hated, as a government official, in certain circles.
Close -- the threatened official was Jose Bustani, at that time (2002) the head of the
Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW)as he had been for five years.
Bustani had been working to bring Iraq and Libya into the organization, which would have
required those two countries to eliminate all of their chemical weapons.
The US, though, had other ideas -- chiefly invading and destroying both of those nations,
and when Bustani insisted on continuing his efforts then Bolton threatened Bustani's adult
children.
let the lobbyists with the most money win... that's what defines the usa system, leadership
and decision making process... no one in their right mind would support this doofus..
At least the one saving grace about John Bolton's memoir is that it might be a tad closer to
reality than Christopher Steele's infamous dossier and might prove valuable as a source of
evidence in a court of law. Maybe
Yosemite Sam himself should start quaking in his boots.
@ Jpc
When faced with Trump's behavior of employing warmongers, including several generals, some
observers opined that Trump wanted people with contrasting opinions so that he could consider
them and then say "no." He did more with Bolton eventually, sending him to Mongolia while he
(Trump) went to Singapore (or somewhere over there).
re Ian2 | Jun 17 2020 23:08 utc | 19
who hazarded : My guess Trump went along with the tough guy image that Bolton projected in
media and recommendations by others.
Not at all, if you go back to the earliest days of the orangeman's prezdency, you will see
Trump resisted the efforts by Mercer & the zionist casino owner to give Bolton a gig.
He knew that shrub had problems with the boasts of Bolton and as his reputation was as an
arsehole who sounded his own trumpet at his boss's expense orangeman refused for a long time.
Trump believes the trump prezdency is about trump no one else.
Thing was at the time he was running for the prez gig trump was on his uppers, making a few
dollars from his tv show, plus licensing other people's buildings by selling his name to be
stuck on them. trump tower azerbnajan etc.
He put virtually none of his own money into the 'race' so when he won the people who had put
up the dosh had power over him.
Bolton has always been an arse kisser to any zionist cause he suspects he can claw a penny
outta, so he used the extreme loony end of the totally looney zionist spectrum to hook him
(Bolton) up with a gig by pushing for him with trump.
It was always gonna end the way it did as Bolton is forever briefing the media against
anyone who tried to resist his murderous fantasies. Trump is never gonna argue for any scheme
that doesn't have lotsa dollars for him in it so he had plenty of run ins with Bolton who
then went to his media mates & told tales.
When bolton was appointed orangey's stakes were at a really low ebb among DC warmongers, so
he reluctantly took him on then spent the next 18 months getting rid of the grubby
parasite.
Real History: Candidate Trump praised Bolton and named him as THE number one Foreign Policy
expert he (Trump) respected.
Imagine the mustachioed Mister Potatoe (sic) Head and zany highjinks!
Bolton and one of his first wives were regulars at Plato's Retreat for wife swapping
orgies. The wife was not real keen on the behavior, but she allegedly found herself verbally
and physically abused for objecting.
Trump is at fault for hiring him to appease the Zionist lobby. We all knew the guy was a
warmonger and a scumbag. It's not a surprise. Trump surrounds himself with the worst people
If we view Bolton as Adelson puppet, such a behaviour clearly does not make much sense. Or this is a single from Israel lobby to
Trump "moor did his duty, moor can go"?
Notable quotes:
"... "a variety of instances when he sought to intervene in law enforcement matters for political reasons." ..."
"... "in effect, give personal favors to dictators he liked," ..."
"... "The pattern looked like obstruction of justice as a way of life, which we couldn't accept," ..."
"... "bombshells" ..."
"... "exactly the right thing to do." ..."
"... "systematic use of indoctrination camps, forced labor, and intrusive surveillance to eradicate the ethnic identity and religious beliefs of Uyghurs and other minorities in China." ..."
"... "Panda Hugger." ..."
"... The mustachioed warhawk had served as Trump's national security adviser from April 2018 to September 2019. While the exact reason for his firing was never revealed, Trump has since commented that Bolton was interfering with his peace initiatives and had "never seen a war he didn't like." ..."
"... Indeed, the "most irrational thing" Bolton accuses Trump of was to refuse to bomb Iran in June 2019, according to the New York Times excerpt. ..."
"... "soft on China" ..."
"... As for Trump supporters, many were indifferent about Bolton's betrayal, noting that Trump hired the neocon in the first place and kept him on for over a year, while ditching the faithful General Michael Flynn after less than two weeks on the job, following a FBI ambush and a Washington Post hit job. ..."
Former national security adviser John Bolton has leaked excerpts of his book to major newspapers, accusing President Donald Trump
of colluding with leaders in China and Turkey, and obstruction of justice "as a way of life." Facing a DOJ lawsuit seeking to
block the publication of his memoir for containing classified information, Bolton decided to go to the press, leaking parts of
the book to the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday.
Breaking News: John Bolton says in his new book that the House should have investigated President Trump for potentially impeachable
actions beyond Ukraine https://t.co/8lpd4xAzYu
Bolton famously refused to testify before the Democrat-led impeachment proceedings against Trump over his alleged abuse of power
regarding Ukraine, but now claims that they should have expanded the probe to "a variety of instances when he sought to intervene
in law enforcement matters for political reasons."
He accuses Trump of wanting to "in effect, give personal favors to dictators he liked," bringing up companies in China
and Turkey as examples, according to the Times. "The pattern looked like obstruction of justice as a way of life, which we couldn't
accept," the Times quotes him as saying.
One of the Bolton "bombshells" is that he sought China's purchase of US soybeans in order to get re-elected, during trade
negotiations with President Xi Jinping.
SOYBEAN DIPLOMACY: The WSJ has published an excerpt of
@AmbJohnBolton 's forthcoming book, revealing
Trump-Xi conversation and how the American president pleaded his Chinese counterpart to buy U.S. soybeans so he could win farm
states in the 2020 presidential elections |
#OATT pic.twitter.com/XKAogLCCtN
An excerpt in the Wall Street Journal has Trump telling Xi that – alleged – concentration camps for Uighur Muslims in China's
Xinjiang province were "exactly the right thing to do." It also alleges that Trump did Xi a favor by relaxing US sanctions
on ZTE, a Chinese telecom company.
WSJ excerpt of Bolton book has Trump & China bombshells. Trump told Xi building concentration camps for Muslims "was exactly
the right thing to do." Trump pleaded w/ Xi to help him w/ re-election by making US farm product buys. And Trump helped Xi w/
ZTE. https://t.co/4CSflQQqcL
This comes as Trump signed into law
the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act of 2020, which mandates US sanctions against Chinese officials over "systematic use of indoctrination
camps, forced labor, and intrusive surveillance to eradicate the ethnic identity and religious beliefs of Uyghurs and other minorities
in China."
Another excerpt has Bolton referring to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin as a "Panda Hugger."
According to Bolton, Trump told Xi to "go ahead with building the camps" for imprisoned Uighurs.
As another proof of Trump's perfidy, Bolton writes that the president told Xi that he would like to stay in office beyond the
two terms the US Constitution would allow him. Bolton's one-time colleague Dinesh D'Souza commented that Bolton was unable to recognize
a clear joke.
Really? This is it? John Bolton's smoking gun? Trump has been jokingly putting out memes about this for four years. This conversation,
if it occurred at all, seems obviously jocular. Bolton, however, whom I knew quite well from AEI, doesn't have a jocular bone
in his body pic.twitter.com/Qe8sXCAT58
Trump has on more than one occasion shared a meme showing him staying in power forever, triggering Democrats into denouncing him
as an aspiring dictator. Apparently, Bolton thought the same.
According to John Bolton posting this meme was an impeachable offense https://t.co/q2BHlfVTEu
-- Will Chamberlain 🇺🇸 (@willchamberlain)
June 17, 2020
The mustachioed warhawk had served as Trump's national security adviser from April 2018 to September 2019. While the exact
reason for his firing was never revealed, Trump has since commented that Bolton was interfering with his peace initiatives and had
"never seen a war he didn't like."
Indeed, the "most irrational thing" Bolton accuses Trump of was to refuse to bomb Iran in June 2019, according to the New York
Times excerpt.
Pretty telling that the episode which pissed off Bolton the most during his tenure was Trump calling off airstrikes which would
have killed dozens of Iranian soldiers in June 2019 https://t.co/ruFSInj2Mu
pic.twitter.com/5zO7UrxMTM
Arguing that Trump is being "soft on China" and colluding with Xi also happens to be a Democratic Party strategy for the
2020 presidential election, outlined in April
and reported by Axios.
While Democrats and the mainstream media welcomed Bolton's bombshells as validating their position on Trump, he is unlikely to
become a #Resistance hero, simply because they still remember he refused to say these things under oath during the impeachment hearings,
when they – in theory – could have bolstered their case for getting Trump out of office.
As for Trump supporters, many were indifferent about Bolton's betrayal, noting that Trump hired the neocon in the first place
and kept him on for over a year, while ditching the faithful General Michael Flynn after less than two weeks on the job, following
a FBI ambush and a Washington Post hit job.
Do I care that Bolton is stabbing Trump in the back? Not at all. General Flynn was NSA and Trump made his choices. Being outraged
on behalf of a 70+ year old man who makes poor choices is well beyond my job description.
"... Firstly your definition of 'deep state' is too limited, it includes the bureaucracy, much of the judiciary, banks and other financial institutions, and the major political parties. It is not restricted only to the intelligence agencies. It is not a US-specific issue, but a global one. For the deep state exists everywhere, and is often more powerful in commonwealth countries, such as here in apathetic Australia. ..."
"... When the CIA kills Kennedy you know you've got problems... And whilst agents in the CIA probably did not pull the trigger - their "assets" did... If you don't believe me spare me your tiresome ignorant replies and go and do some research... ..."
"... " We were warned about the Military Industrial Complex, Sadly the Government Media Complex, has done way more damage, and will be much harder to overcome" ~ Dr. Mike Savage 2008 ..."
Sky News Australia In this Special Investigation Sky News speaks to former spies, politicians and investigative journalists to
uncover whether US President Donald Trump is really at war with "unelected Deep State operatives who defy the voters".
George Soros, The clintons, The royal family, The Rothschild's, the Federal reserve as a whole, The modern Democrat, cia, fbi,
nsa, Facebook, Google, not to mention all the faceless unelected bureaucrats who create and push policies that impact our every
day lives. This, my lads, is the deep state. They run our world and get away with whatever they want until someone in their circle
loses their use (Epstein)
The Cabal owns the US intelligence agencies, the media, and Hollywood. That's how all these big name corrupted figure heads
aren't in prison for their crimes. The Clinton email scandal is a prime example. This is much bigger than the USA... it's effects
are world wide.
The Four Stages of Ideological Subversion: 1 - Demoralization 2 - Destabilization 3 - Crisis 4 - Normalization Are you not
entertained? The above is "their" roadmap. Learn what it means and spread this far & wide, as that will be the means by which
to end this.
President JFK on April 17, 1961: "Today no war has been declared--and however fierce the struggle may be, it may never be declared
in the traditional fashion. Our way of life is under attack. Yet no war has been declared, no borders have been crossed by marching
troops, no missiles have been fired. If the press is awaiting a declaration of war before it imposes the self-discipline of combat
conditions, then I can only say that no war ever posed a greater threat to our security. If you are awaiting a finding of 'clear
and present danger,' then I can only say that the danger has never been more clear and its presence has never been more imminent.
It requires a change in outlook, a change in tactics, a change in missions--by the government, by the people, by every businessman
or labor leader, and by every newspaper. For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies
primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence--on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of
elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted
vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic,
intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations. Its preparations are concealed, not published. Its mistakes are buried,
not headlined. Its dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed, no secret is revealed.
It conducts the Cold War, in short, with a war-time discipline no democracy would ever hope or wish to match." thoughts: by saying,
'conducts the Cold War' did he directly call out the CIA???
Most troubling now it is known about the deep state: is Trump a double agent just another puppet just giving the appearance
of working against the deep state?
Thank you Australians for having rhe courage to speak out for us Patriots!!! We know the Deep State Cabal retaliated with the
fires. We love you guys from 💖💗
Well done Skynews. THE DEEP STATE IS REAL. I woke up 10+ years ago. Turn off the TV for 1-2 years to study and awaken. Make
a start on learning with David ickes Videos and books. WWG1 WGA
Before I go and pass this on to as many as I can get to follow it I just wanted to commend those that produced this and I hope
that it gets fuller dissemination because it is such a rare truth in such a time of utter deceit by most all of the MSM (Main
Stream Media) that this country I reside in uses to supposedly inform the American people ...what a crock! Thank You, Australia
for making this available (but beware, the Five Eyes are always very active in related matters to this) ... This has been welcome
confirmation of what many of us have known and attempted to tell others for about 5 years now. Sadly, I doubt that has or will
help very much, The System is so corrupted from top to bottom ... IMnsHO and E.
Firstly your definition of 'deep state' is too limited, it includes the bureaucracy, much of the judiciary, banks and other
financial institutions, and the major political parties. It is not restricted only to the intelligence agencies. It is not a US-specific
issue, but a global one. For the deep state exists everywhere, and is often more powerful in commonwealth countries, such as here
in apathetic Australia.
When the CIA kills Kennedy you know you've got problems... And whilst agents in the CIA probably did not pull the trigger -
their "assets" did... If you don't believe me spare me your tiresome ignorant replies and go and do some research...
" We were warned about the Military Industrial Complex, Sadly the Government Media Complex, has done way more damage, and will
be much harder to overcome" ~ Dr. Mike Savage 2008
14:20 I met a guy from Canada in the early
2000s, a telephone technician, told me about when he worked at the time for the government telephone company in the early 80s.
He was given a really strange job one day, to go do some work in the USA. Some kind of repair work that required someone with
experience and know-how, but apparently someone from out-of-country, he guesses, because there certainly must have been many people
in the USA who could have done it, he figured. He flew down to oregon, then was driven for hours out into the middle of nowhere
in navada, he said. They came to a small building that was surrounded by fencing etc. Nothing interesting. Nothing else around,
he said, as far as he could see. They went in, and pretty much all that was there was an elevator. They went in, and he said,
he didn't know how many floors down it went, or how fast it was moving, but seemed to take quite sometime, he figured about 8
stories down, was his guess, but he didn't know. He was astounded to see that there was telephone recording stuff in there about
the size of two football-fields. He said they were recording everything. He said, even at that time, it was all digital, but they
didn't have the capacity to record everything, so it was set up to monitor phone calls, and if any key words were spoken, it would
start recording, and of course it would record all phone calls at certain numbers. "So, who knows what they've got in there today,
he said" back in the early 2000s. So, imagine what they've got there today, in the 2020s. I didn't know whether or not to believe
this story, until I saw a doc about all of the telephone recording tapes they have in storage, rotting away, which were used to
record everyone's phone calls onto magnetic tape. Literally tonnes and tonnes of tapes, just sitting there in storage now, from
the 1970s, the pre-digital days. They've always been doing it. They're just much better at it today than ever. Now they can tell
who you are by your voice, your cadence, your intonation, etc. and record not just a call here and there, but everything.
"The greatest trick the devil ever pulled is convincing the world he didnt exist" Credit the --- Usual Suspects ---- That's
the playbook of the "Deep State"
The last guy (denying the deep state's existence) was lying. When someone shakes their head when talking in the affirmative
you can be 100% sure it is a lie (micro expressions 101).
Bitcoin Blockchain
1 day ago
1950–1953: Korean War United States (as part of the United Nations) and South Korea vs. North Korea and Communist China
1960–1975: Vietnam War United States and South Vietnam vs. North Vietnam
1961: Bay of Pigs Invasion United States vs. Cuba
1983: Grenada United States intervention
1989: U.S.Invasion of Panama United States vs. Panama
1990–1991: Persian Gulf War United States and Coalition Forces vs. Iraq
1995–1996: Intervention in Bosnia and Herzegovina United States as part of NATO acted as peacekeepers in former Yugoslavia
2001–present: Invasion of Afghanistan United States and Coalition Forces vs. the Taliban regime in Afghanistan to fight terrorism
2003–2011: Invasion of Iraq The United States and Coalition Forces vs. Iraq
2004–present: War in Northwest Pakistan United States vs. Pakistan, mainly drone attacks
2007–present: Somalia and Northeastern Kenya United States and Coalition forces vs. al-Shabaab militants
2009–2016: Operation Ocean Shield (Indian Ocean) NATO allies vs. Somali pirates
2011: Intervention in Libya U.S. and NATO allies vs. Libya
2011–2017: Lord's Resistance Army U.S. and allies against the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda
2014–2017: U.S.-led Intervention in Iraq U.S. and coalition forces against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria
2014–present: U.S.-led intervention in Syria U.S. and coalition forces against al-Qaeda, ISIS, and Syria
2015–present: Yemeni Civil War Saudi-led coalition and the U.S., France, and Kingdom against the Houthi rebels, Supreme Political Council in Yemen, and allies
2015–present: U.S. intervention in Libya
Deep State is the "Wealthy Oligarchy", an "International Mafia" who controls the Central Bank (a privacy owned banking system
which controls the worlds currencies). The Wealthy Oligarchy "aka Deep State" controls most all Democratic countries, and controls
the International Media. In the United States, both the Republican and Democrat parties are controlled by the Wealthy Oligarchy
aka Deep State.
A beautifully crafted and delivered discourse, impressive! As a Londoner I have become increasingly interested in Sky News
Australia, you are a breath of fresh air and common sense in this world of ever growing liberal media hysteria!
I have to laugh at the people, including our supposedly unbiased and intelligent media, who said the Russia thing was the truth
when it was nothing but a conspiracy theory. Everything else was a conspiacy theory according to the dems ans the mainstream media..
Wall Street and the banksters control the CIA. One can imagine the ramifications of control of the world via the moneyed interests
backed by James Bond and the Green Berets, the latter, under control of the CIA.
Deep State Powers have been messing with your USA long before your War of Independence . Your Founding Fathers knew , why do
you think they wrote your Constitution that way. Now everyone is always crying about something but fail to realize you gave your
freedoms away over time . The Deep State never left it just disguised itself and continued to regain control under a new face
or ideaology. Follow the money . "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."― Edmund Burke
After the John F. Kennedy assassination the took full power,those who are in power now are the descendants of the criminals
who did it,some of their sons just have a different last name but they are the same family,like George Bush and John Kerry are
cousins but different last name and the list goes and goes.
Council on Foreign Relation is more Deep State than CIA and FBI . The two worked for CFR. CFR tel president whom to appoint
to what positions. Nixon got a list of 22 deep state candidates for top US position and all were hired. Obama appointed 11 from
the list. Kissinger is behind the scenes strings puller also.
Thanks Sky and Peter for bringing this to the mainstream attention, it really is time! Wished you had aired John Kiriakou,s
other claims off child sex trafficking to the elites which has been corroborated by so many other sources now and is the grossest
deformity of this deep state which you can see footage of trump talking about. I am amazed and greatful to see Trump has done
more about this than all other presidents in the last 20 years. Lets end this group. All we need to do is shine the light on them
The CIA are only an intelligence and operations functioning part of the deep state its much more complex and larger than just
the CIA. The British empire controls the deep state they always have it is just a modern version of the old East India Company
controlled by the same families with the same ideology.
https://theduran.com/the-origins-of-the-deep-state-in-north-america/
It's funny how for decades "the people" were crying on their knees about how bad every president was n how corrupt n controlled
they were. Now you've got a president with no special interest groups publicly calling out the deep state n ur still bitching.
U know you've got someone representing the people when the cia n fbi r out to get him. In 50 years trump will be looked back at
with the likes of Washington, Lincoln n jfk. Once the msm smear campaign is out of everyone's brain.
When they start spying on people within the United States and when they used in National Defense authorization act that gave
them a lot of power since after 911 to give them more power now they have Homeland Security which is the next biggest threat to
the United States it can be abused and some of these people have a higher security clearance than the president.... they're not
under control the NSA is one of them you don't mention in here either one is about the more that you don't even know about that
they don't have names are acronyms that we knew about that's why the American people have been blindsided by this overtime they've
been giving all this money to do things... allocation of money they gathered to do this and now Congress itself doesn't know temperature
of Schumer when you caught him saying to see I can get back at you three ways to Sunday I mean he's got some words in this saying
to the president of usa donald trump... basically threatening the President right there.. you can see it's alive and well when
Congress is immune from prosecution from anything or anyone....
"I think in light of all of the things going on, and you know what I mean by that: the fake news, the Comeys of the world,
all of the bad things that went on, it's called the swamp you know what I did," he asked. "A big favor. I caught the swamp. I
caught them all. Let's see what happens. Nobody else could have done that but me. I caught all of this corruption that was going
on and nobody else could have done it."
there is no big secret that CIA is deeply involved in drug smuggling operations...i remember interview with ex marine colonel
who said that he was indirectly involved in such operations in panama...
Attempting to infiltrate News rooms😆😅😂 all those faces you see in the MSM are all working for Cia. In 1967 one of the 3
letter agencys bragged about having a reporter working in 1 of the 3 letter news channel!
Wow this was really good. It's funny you showed a clip from abc of kouriakow and it reminded me how much the news in america
has been propagandized and just fake. I'm 38 and it's sad that these days the news is unpatriotic. Well most . Ty sky news Australia
Why no mention of what facilitates the surveilance? Telecom infrastructure is a nations nerve system and the powergrid its
bloodsystem. Who controls them? That is where you find the head of the deep state!
What people aren't aware of is that Facebook YouTube Twitter Instagram Google maps and Google search are all NSA CIA and DIA
creations and CEO's are only highly paid operatives who are not the creators but the face of a product and what better way to
collect all of your information is by you giving it to them
More please? A subject for another installment regarding the Deep State could be Banking, Federal Reserves and Fiat currencies.
Later, another video could be Russia's success at expelling the Deep State in 2000 after it took them over (for a 2nd time) in
1991. Be cognizant, the Deep State initially had for a short time from 1917 via 'it's' 'Bolshivics,' orchestrated the creation
of the Soviet Union through the Bolshivic take over of Russia from it's independence minded and Soveriegn Czarist led Eastern
Orthodox State. Now, President Trump is preventing a similar Deep State take-over by Intelligence agencies, Corporations and elected
political thugs as bad as Leon Trotsky and V I Lennin were to the Russian Czar. The Soviets soon after their (1917) take-over
went Rogue on the Deep State and therefore the Soviet Union was independent until The Deep State orchestrated it's downfall and
anexation of it's substantial wealth and some territory (1991). More, more, more please Sky News, this video was great!
Amazing, Sky News is the ONLY TV News Service in Australia Trying to deliver true news. Australia's ABC news are CIA Deep State
Shills and propagandists - Sarah Ferguson Especially - see her totally CIA scripted Four Corners Report on the Russia Hoax. John
Gantz IS a Deep State Operative Liar.
Isnt it time to see TERM LIMITS in Co gress and to realign our school education to teach the real history of these unites states?
End the control of Congress and watch the agencies fall in step with OUR Conatitution. No one should ever be allowed in Congress
or any other elected position of trust if they are not a devout Constitutionalist. Anyone who takes the oath to see w the people
and fails to so so should be charged with TREASON and removed immediately. Is there a DEEP STATE? Damn right there is and has
been for many decades. Where is our sovereignty? Where is the wealth of a capitalist nation? Why so much poverty and welfare and
why do communists and socialist get away with damaging our country, state or communities. Yes, there has been a deep state filled
with criminals who all need to be charged, tried and executed for TREASON.
The CIA and Australias Federal police have One main Job/activity to feed their Populations with Propaganda & Lies to give them
their Thoughts & Opinions on Everything using their psyOps through MSM News & Programming...you prolly beLIEve this informative
News Story as well. : (
These people denying a deep state with such straight faces are psychopaths. Unwittingly, or maybe not, Schumer made liars of
them with his comment to Maddow
President Trump is correct. He knows exactly what's going on. The 3 letter agencies are up to no good and work against the
fabric of our nation's founding fathers. It's despicable behavior. Just one example is John Brennan (CIA Director) and Barack
Hussein Obama's Terror Tuesdays. Read all about it on the internet now before it's permanently removed. Thank you for creating
this video.
When was the last time we ever witnessed an American President openly abused continually attacked over manufactured news treated
with absolutely no respect for him or the office his family unfairly attacked and misrepresented etc, etc, that's right never,
which proves he threatens the existence of the deep state as discussed. He should declare Martial Law Hang the consequences and
remove every single deep state player everywhere. Foreign influence? read Israel.
People are so fixated on trumps outspoken Sometimes outrageous demeanor which in my opinion it's just being really honest and
yes he can Be rude at times but when you look at the facts He's the only one that has gone against the deep state! those are the
real devils dressed up in sheep's clothing! Wake up!
You are missing the point. It goes further then intelligence agency working against the people. It's the ultra rich literally
trillionaires like the rothchilds that control the cia etc. That is who trump is fighting. The globalists line gates soros etc.
The national security establishment does represent the actual government of dual "double
government". And it is not unaccountable to, and unsupervised by, the elected branches of
government. Instead it controls them and is able to stage palace coups to remove "unacceptable"
Presidents like was the case with JFK, Nixon and Trump.
For them is are occupied country and then behave like real occuplers.
Notable quotes:
"... In Trumpian fashion, Kirkpatrick then goes on to warn Americans about the danger of an unaccountable "deep state" in foreign policy that is immune to popular pressures. ..."
"... She says that, no, "it has become more important than ever that the experts who conduct foreign policy on our behalf be subject to the direction of and control of the people." ..."
"... She points out that because America had for much of the twentieth century assumed global responsibilities, our foreign policy elites had developed "distinctive views" that are different from those of the electorate. ..."
"... foreign policy elites "grew accustomed to thinking of the United States as having boundless resources and purposes . . . which transcended the preferences of voters and apparent American interests . . . and eventually developed a globalist attitude." ..."
"... In support of Kirkpatrick's concern, Tufts professor Michael Glennon has more recently argued that the national security establishment has now become so "distinctive" in their separation from our constitutional processes that they represent one wing of a now "double government" that is not unaccountable to, and unsupervised by, the popular branches of government. The Russiagate investigations and the attempt to disable the Trump presidency, aided by many in the establishment, would appear to confirm Kirkpatrick's warning that foreign policy elites want no part of the electoral preferences of voting Americans. ..."
"... Kirkpatrick died in 2006 and had, like many neoconservatives, evolved from a Humphrey Democrat into a member of the GOP establishment. With William Bennett and Jack Kemp, in 1993 she cofounded a neoconservative group, Empower America, which took a very aggressive stance against militant Islam after the 9/11 attacks. However, she was quite ambivalent about the invasion of Iraq and was quoted in The Economist ..."
Kirkpatrick's essay begins by insisting that, because of world events since 1939, America
has given to foreign affairs "an unnatural focus." Now in 1990, she says, the nation can turn
its attention to domestic concerns that are more important because "a good society is defined
not by its foreign policy but its internal qualities . . . by the relations among its citizens,
the kind of character nurtured, and the quality of life lived." She says unabashedly that
"there is no mystical American 'mission' or purposes to be 'found' independently of the U.S.
Constitution and government."
One cannot fail to notice that this perspective is precisely the opposite of George W.
Bush's in his second inauguration. According to Bush, America's post –Cold War purpose
was to follow our "deepest beliefs" by acting to "support the growth of democratic movements
and institutions in every nation and culture." For three decades neoconservative foreign policy
has revolved around "mystical" beliefs about America's mission in the world that are unmoored
from the actual Constitution.
In Trumpian fashion, Kirkpatrick then goes on to warn Americans about the danger of an
unaccountable "deep state" in foreign policy that is immune to popular pressures. She
rejects emphatically the views of some elitists who argue that foreign policy is a uniquely
esoteric and specialized discipline and must be cushioned from populism. She says that, no,
"it has become more important than ever that the experts who conduct foreign policy on our
behalf be subject to the direction of and control of the people."
She points out that because America had for much of the twentieth century assumed global
responsibilities, our foreign policy elites had developed "distinctive views" that are
different from those of the electorate. Again, in Trumpian fashion, she argued that
foreign policy elites "grew accustomed to thinking of the United States as having boundless
resources and purposes . . . which transcended the preferences of voters and apparent American
interests . . . and eventually developed a globalist attitude."
In support of Kirkpatrick's concern, Tufts professor Michael Glennon has more recently
argued
that the national security establishment has now become so "distinctive" in their separation
from our constitutional processes that they represent one wing of a now "double government"
that is not unaccountable to, and unsupervised by, the popular branches of government. The
Russiagate investigations and the attempt to disable the Trump presidency, aided by many in the
establishment, would appear to confirm Kirkpatrick's warning that foreign policy elites want no
part of the electoral preferences of voting Americans.
Kirkpatrick concludes her essay with thoughts on "What should we do?" and "What we should
not do." Remarkably, her first recommendation is to negotiate better trade deals. These deals
should give the U.S. "fair access" to foreign markets while offering "foreign businesses no
better than fair access to U.S. markets." Next, she considered the promotion of democracy
around the world and, on this subject, she took the John Quincy Adams
position : that "Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be
unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be." However, she insisted:
"it is not within the United States' power to democratize the world."
When Kirkpatrick goes on to discuss America's post –Cold War alliances, she makes
clear that she is advocating, quite simply, an America First foreign policy. Regarding the
future of the NATO alliance, a sacrosanct pillar of the American foreign policy establishment,
she argued that "the United States should not try to manage the balance of power in Europe."
Likewise, we should be humble about what we can accomplish in Eastern Europe and the former
Soviet Union: "Any notion that the United States can manage the changes in that huge,
multinational, developing society is grandiose." Finally, with regard to Asia: "Our concern
with Japan should above all be with its trading practices vis-à-vis the United States.
We should not spend money protecting an affluent Japan, though a continuing alliance is
entirely appropriate."
She famously concludes her essay by making the plea for the United States to become "a
normal country in a normal time" and "to give up the dubious benefits of superpower status and
become again an unusually successful, open American republic."
Kirkpatrick became Ronald Reagan's United Nations ambassador because her 1979
article in Commentary , "Dictatorships and Double Standards," caught the eye of
the future president. In that article, she sensibly points out that authoritarian governments
that are allies of the United States should not be kicked to the curb because they are not free
and open democracies. The path to democracy is a long and perilous one, and nations without
republican traditions cannot be expected to make the transition overnight. Regarding the
world's oldest democracy, she remarked: "In Britain, the road from the Magna Carta to the Act
of Settlement, to the great Reform Bills of 1832, 1867, and 1885, took seven centuries to
traverse."
While at the time neoconservatives opportunistically embraced her for this position as a
tactic to fight the Cold War, the current foreign policy establishment would consider
Kirkpatrick's argument to be beyond the bounds of decent conversation, as it would lend itself
to an accommodation with authoritarian Russia as a counterweight to totalitarian China.
Kirkpatrick died in 2006 and had, like many neoconservatives, evolved from a Humphrey
Democrat into a member of the GOP establishment. With William Bennett and Jack Kemp, in 1993
she cofounded a neoconservative group, Empower America, which took a very aggressive stance
against militant Islam after the 9/11 attacks. However, she was quite ambivalent about the
invasion of Iraq and was quoted in The Economist as saying that George W.
Bush was "a bit too interventionist for my taste" and that Bush's brand of moral imperialism is
not "taken seriously anywhere outside a few places in Washington, DC."
The fact that Kirkpatrick's recommendations in her 1990 essay coincide with some of Donald
Trump's positions in the 2016 campaign (if not with many of his actual actions as president)
make her views, ipso facto, not serious. The foreign policy establishment gives something like
pariah status to arguments that we should negotiate better trade deals, reconsider our Cold War
alliances and, most especially, subject American foreign policy to popular preferences. If she
were alive today and were making the arguments she made in 1990, then she would be an outcast.
That a formidable intellectual like Kirkpatrick would be dismissed in such a fashion is a sign
of how obtuse our foreign policy debate has become.
William S. Smith is Senior Research Fellow and Managing Director of the Center for the
Study of Statesmanship at The Catholic University of America. His recent book, Democracy
and Imperialism , is from the University of Michigan Press. He studied political philosophy
under Professor Jeane Kirkpatrick as an undergraduate at Georgetown University.
With the 24/7 media circus coverage of Covid-19 I find it particularly interesting that
there is an obvious glaring omission of some extremely important facts relative to dealing with
a virus, especially one that is allegedly so virulent like this one. Yes, I read all about the
critical need to shelter in place, stay inside away from other people, wash your hands
constantly, avoid touching your eyes, nose or mouth, wear your face mask and by all means
observe social distancing if you MUST venture outside for food!
Then it's repeated ad infinitum that the ONLY hope we have of ever returning to a semblance
of normalcy is to have a vaccine to protect us! Then to add some drama to this narrative the
media highlights their death-o-meter scoreboard with the implied threat that you'll be next IF
you don't obey the rules as dictated by the "experts".
But what is assiduously avoided at all cost is any reference to our most potent defense
against any virus; our body's natural immune system. Try as I might I couldn't find anything
about this first line of defense on the World Health Organizations (WHO) website or Centers for
Disease Control (CDC) website. It's as if it doesn't exist and is completely irrelevant.
If these organizations were genuinely concerned about the health of citizens they would
obviously discuss the vital role a healthy immune system plays in protecting us from illnesses.
But since they don't its obvious some other motive is at work, at least to me, and I strongly
suspect to other critical thinkers as well.
We now know from the science and data that over 90% of the people exposed to Covid-19 have
no symptoms at all or at worst a mild cold. The flu vaccines we have are only effective 30% to
60% of the time and the bugs change regularly so a vaccine that worked OK last year may barely
work at all this year. Let's learn some more about our body's immune system.
Virus
protection without a vaccine
There is an enlightening article on Web MD titled: "How to use Your Immune System to Stay
Healthy". That's a pretty straight forward title now isn't it? Early on Bruce Polsky, MD,
interim chairman department of medicine and chief division of infectious disease at St.
Lukes-Roosevelt Hospital Center in New York City says:
"We are endowed with a great immune system that has been designed evolutionarily to keep
us healthy."
The article goes on. . .
"The immune system is your body's natural defense system. It's an intricate network of
cells, tissues and organs that band together to defend your body against invaders. Those
invaders can include bacteria, viruses, parasites, even fungus, all with the potential to
make us sick. They are everywhere-in our homes, offices and backyards. . . "
The truth is no amount of social distancing, hand washing or face mask wearing is going to
eliminate our exposure to these various bugs. That's why we were created with this amazing
first line of natural defense.
Here's more from Web MD . . .
"The immune system can recognize millions of different antigens. And it can produce what
it needs to eradicate nearly all of them. When it's working properly, this elaborate defense
system can keep health problems ranging from cancer to the common cold at bay. . . "
Wow! That's pretty amazing stuff isn't it! According to Web MD a properly functioning immune
system can "keep health problems ranging from cancer to the common cold at bay." So why isn't
this "science" being included in all the other health recommendations we're being bombarded
with daily? It seems to me that any "expert" worth their salt would be talking about the
importance of a healthy immune system to stay healthy.
But there's more . . .
The Web MD article noted that failure to eat a healthy diet, sitting around not exercising,
not getting enough sleep and chronic stress can all lead to a compromised immune system. To
quote Dr. Polsky again:
". . . Lifestyle aspects are very, very important."
So if our lifestyle is very, very important to staying healthy as the good doctor says ask
yourself this question? Based on the Web M.D. article virtually all the results of the lockdown
serve to weaken our immune systems. The stress of unemployment, constant harping about
infections and rising death rates, lack of exercise and now a crack in our food distribution
system all are known to weaken the human immune system.
I also find it quite interesting that large groups of people can shop at Walmart, Home Depot
or other big box stores but they can't attend their local church even if it's a "drive through"
service?
Web M.D. says:
"Research shows that people with close friendships and strong support systems tend to be
healthier than those who lack such supports."
During times of crisis people need encouragement and their faith built up more than ever
before. Mandating people huddle in fear in their homes with constant media reports of
infections and death bombarding them continually is there any wonder peoples immune systems are
under severe stress?
Heck US aircraft carriers used to visit HK quite often until recently, even after the hand
over. They anchored in the harbor while thousands of sailors headed to the Wanchai bars,
although after the hand over they anchored in a less visible part of the harbor. China didn't
have a problem.
I doubt China sweats a couple of aircraft carriers when we have large bases in Japan and
South Korea, not to mention Guam.
False conflicts with China, North Korea, Russia and Iran are needed to keep support for
MIC and Security State which cost 1.2 trillion a year.
If the US were serious about confronting China there would be sanctions and not tariffs.
China and US are partners. We sell them chips that they put in our electronics and sell to
us, so we can spy on our people, and they test out our social control technology on their own
people. They clothe us, sell cheap API's for drugs and they invest in treasuries and other US
assets and we educate their young talent and give them access to our research and technology
and fund some of their own research and share numerous patents
The case of Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn is inevitably heading toward
its conclusion. While the presiding district judge, Emmet Sullivan , is trying to keep it
going, there's only so much he can do, chiefly because there's nobody left to prosecute the
case after the Department of Justice (DOJ) dropped it
last month .
In the latest developments, the District of Columbia appeals court set a hearing in the case
for tomorrow (June 12), while the DOJ's solicitor general himself, as well as five of his
deputies, urged the court to order the lower-court judge to accept the case dismissal.
"I cannot overstate how big of a deal this is," commented appellate attorney John Reeves,
former assistant Missouri attorney general, in a series of tweets on June
1 .
Personal involvement of the solicitor general "is highly unusual and rare," he said .
" Unusual " seems a fitting euphemism for the Flynn case, which has been filled with
contradictions, falsehoods, apparent blunders, extraordinary moves, and strange
coincidences.
The Epoch Times has so far counted 85 such instances.
Flynn, former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency during the Obama administration and
former national security adviser to President Donald Trump, pleaded guilty on Dec. 1, 2017, to
one count of lying to FBI agents during a Jan. 24, 2017, interview.
The FBI officially opened an investigation on Flynn on Aug. 16, 2016, based on a suspicion
that he "may wittingly or unwittingly be involved in activity on behalf of the Russian
Federation which may constitute a federal crime or threat to the national security."
What activity? The case was opened under a broader investigation into whether the Trump 2016
presidential campaign conspired with Russia to steal emails from the Democratic National
Committee and release them through Wikileaks.
The bureau learned from the Australian government that its then-ambassador to the UK,
Alexander Downer, spoke with Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos, who "suggested" that the
campaign received "some kind of suggestion" that Russia could help it by anonymously releasing
some information damaging to Trump's opponent, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
The FBI didn't know what Papadopoulos actually said or what he was talking about.
Officially, this information was used by the FBI to comb through its databases for
information on people associated with the Trump campaign and open investigations on four
individuals supposedly linked to Russia.
Because Flynn's paid speaking engagements in years past included some for Russian companies
-- one for Kaspersky Lab and one for RT television in Moscow -- the FBI decided to open a
counterintelligence investigation on the retired three-star general.
But the FBI seemed to have trouble getting its story straight.
1. Comey
Contradiction
The FBI officially opened the four individual cases in mid-August 2016.
But former FBI Director James Comey testified to Congress that he was
briefed already "at the end of July that the FBI had opened counterintelligence investigations
of four individuals to see if there was a connection between any of those four and the Russian
effort."
2. Unlikely Target
Suspecting a man with patriotic bona fides of Flynn's caliber of having colluded with Russia
based on two speaking engagements seemed particularly unusual.
Flynn's command of military intelligence to aid American troops in combat has earned him
great praise.
"Mike Flynn's impact on the nation's War on Terror probably trumps any other single person,"
wrote then-Brig. Gen. John Mulholland in Flynn's
2007 performance review .
Mulholland went as far as calling Flynn "easily the best intelligence professional of any
service serving today."
Flynn was driven out of his post in 2014 after he repeatedly embarrassed President Barack
Obama by insisting, contrary to the administration's official stance, that a resurgence of
Islamic terrorism in the Middle East was imminent.
Two months after his resignation, the rise of ISIS proved him right.
3. A Name for the
Spotlight
The Russia probe was titled "Crossfire Hurricane" (CH), and Flynn was given the code name
"Crossfire Razor."
This was unusual, according to Marc Ruskin, a 27-year veteran of the FBI and an Epoch Times
contributor.
Rank-and-file agents would never pick a name like this, he told The Epoch Times in a
previous interview.
"They would mock it as being overly dramatic," he said.
4. Snooping During
Briefing
The day after opening the Flynn case, the FBI participated in a strategic intelligence
briefing given to Donald Trump and two of his advisers by the Office of the Director of
National Intelligence.
Because Flynn was to be present, the FBI took the extraordinary step of sending in
supervisory special agent Joe Pientka to collect intel on Flynn for the investigation. Pientka
was to assess Flynn's "overall mannerisms" and listen for "any kind of admission" that could be
used by the bureau, the DOJ's inspector general (IG) said in a Dec. 9 report on the CH
investigation ( pdf ).
The IG raised the question of whether snooping on officials the FBI is supposed to brief
could have a "chilling effect" on any such intelligence briefings in the future.
5.
Dossier Coincidence
The FBI directly targeted four Trump campaign aides, opening cases on three of them --
Papadopoulos, Carter Page, and Paul Manafort -- on Aug. 10, 2016. The IG never received an
explanation for why the Flynn case was opened later. Incidentally, Page and Manafort had
already been mentioned in the infamous Steele dossier since July 28, 2016. Flynn's name,
however, was only mentioned in the dossier report dated Aug. 10, 2016.
The dossier, which drummed up unsubstantiated allegations of a Trump–Russia
conspiracy, was being spread to the media, the FBI, the State Department, the DOJ, and Congress
by operatives funded by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee.
One of the CH case agents, Stephen Somma, happened to have a longstanding relationship with
Stephan Halper, a Cambridge professor who was also a longtime political operative and FBI
informant.
Somma and another agent met with Halper on Aug. 11, 2016, and learned that, in a stunning
coincidence, Halper was already in contact with Page, had known Manafort for years, and "had
been previously acquainted with Michael Flynn," the IG report said
The CH team "couldn't believe [their] luck," Somma told the IG.
7. Halper's Story
Halper was accused of spreading rumors, starting in late 2016, that Flynn had an affair with
a Russian woman while visiting the UK in 2014 for a dinner hosted by the Cambridge Intelligence
Seminar co-convened at the time by Halper.
An "established" FBI informant told the CH team that the woman jumped in a cab with Flynn
after the dinner and joined him for a train ride to London (
pdf ).
She said Halper was the one spreading the rumor to the media and the FBI, even though he
didn't actually attend the event. She unsuccessfully
sued Halper for defamation in May 2019.
Somehow, Steele also became privy to the rumor and
shared it with Adam Kramer , an aide to the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). Kramer
testified to Congress that he was in regular contact with Steele between Nov. 28, 2016, and
early March 2017.
8. Unmasking
The names of Americans are normally masked -- that is, replaced with generic names -- in
foreign intelligence reports. Many senior government officials have the authority to ask for
names to be unmasked for various reasons, such as to understand the intelligence. There were
dozens of unmasking requests for reports related to Flynn, between Nov. 8, 2016, and Jan. 31,
2017 (
pdf ). The number of unmasking requests has been described as alarming by some
commentators, while others described it as routine.
9. Non-masking
There are also indications that Flynn's name was never masked in summaries or
transcripts of his calls with then-Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergey Kislyak
on Dec. 29, 2016, and in the following days. FBI leaders were distributing the documents to top
Obama officials. Even President Barack Obama himself was briefed on them on or before Jan. 5,
2017.
10. Who Briefed Obama?
Comey testified to Congress that it was then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper
who briefed Obama on the Flynn–Kislyak calls (
pdf ). Clapper, however, denied this to Congress.
11. 'Unusual'
Obama's national security adviser, Susan Rice, memorialized a Jan. 5, 2017, meeting with
Obama, Comey, and then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates . Rice wrote in an email to
herself that Obama asked Comey whether he should withhold any Russia-related information from
the incoming administration and from Flynn in particular.
"Potentially," Comey replied, adding that "the level of communication" between Flynn and
Kislyak was "unusual,"
she wrote . There's no indication Flynn was talking to Kislyak unusually often. He was at
the time responsible for laying the groundwork for Trump's foreign relations as president and
was frequently on the phone with foreign dignitaries.
12. Late Memo
Rice's memo itself is unusual. She emailed it to herself more than two weeks after the
meeting took place, on the day of Trump's inauguration.
13. Strzok Intervention
On Jan. 4, the FBI was already in the process of closing Flynn's case. But the bureau's
counterintelligence operations head at the time, Peter Strzok,
scrambled to keep it open , noting that the "7th floor," meaning the FBI's top leadership,
was involved.
14. McCabe–Comey Contradiction
Comey testified that he authorized the Flynn case "to be closed at the end of December,
beginning of January."
"I don't think a closure would have been soon," he said.
15. Shaky Theory
FBI documents and Comey's testimony indicate that the
bureau kept the Flynn case open solely based on a legal theory that he may have violated
the Logan Act, even though the DOJ made clear that such charges wouldn't pass muster in court
-- nobody has ever been successfully prosecuted for a Logan Act violation and the government
last tried in 1852.
The law prohibits private citizens from engaging in diplomacy on their own with countries
the United States is in dispute with. Not only have questions been raised as to whether the law
would pass today's constitutional scrutiny, which places greater emphasis on First Amendment
protections, but also there's no indication the law was conceived to apply to a
president-elect's incoming top adviser.
16. Call Leaks
In early January, information about Flynn's calls with Kislyak was leaked to then-Washington
Post reporter Adam Entous. He said there was a discussion at the paper about what to do with
the information, as it would have been expected of Flynn, given his position, to talk to
Kislyak (
pdf ). In the end, the paper
ran a column on Jan. 12 by David Ignatius speculating that Flynn may have violated the
Logan Act if he discussed fresh sanctions imposed on Russia during the calls.
Obama imposed the sanctions on Russian entities, including its intelligence services, on
Dec. 29, 2016. At the same time, he also expelled 35 Russian intelligence officers.
17.
Denial
The calls "had nothing whatsoever to do with the sanctions," incoming Vice President Mike
Pence told CBS News on Jan. 15, 2017, in an interview the network almost wholly dedicated to
questions about Russia.
This wasn't completely true.
Kislyak did bring up the issue of sanctions during the call, though Flynn didn't engage him
in a conversation on the topic.
Flynn raised the issue of the expulsions, which is technically a separate issue from
sanctions, though both were announced at the same time. He asked for "cool heads to prevail"
and for Russia to only respond reciprocally, as further escalation into a "tit for tat" could
lead to the countries shutting down each other's embassies, complicating future
diplomacy.
18. 'Blackmailable'
Yates said she wanted to inform Trump's White House about the Kislyak calls as Russia would
know that what Pence said wasn't true and could thus blackmail Flynn with the information,
according to an Aug. 15, 2017, FBI report from her interview
with the Mueller team.
According to Ruskin, this was hardly a blackmail situation, which ordinarily involves
serious compromising information, such as evidence of bribery or sexual misconduct.
Comey acknowledged to Congress in March 2017 that the idea that Flynn was compromised struck
him "as a bit of a reach."
19. Comey Blocked Information
Despite issues with Yates's argument, informing the White House may have indeed cleared up
the situation. However, Comey blocked it, saying it could have interfered with the
investigation of Flynn -- despite that it appears there was nothing for the bureau to
investigate. At that point, the DOJ already had disapproved of the Logan Act idea. In any case,
the probe was supposed to be about Russian collusion. The bureau could have closed it and
opened a new one on the Logan Act, if it indeed had had sufficient predication. But it never
opened such an investigation, the DOJ noted in its motion to dismiss Flynn's case.
20.
Another Comey–McCabe Contradiction
In the days before Jan. 24, 2017, top FBI officials were discussing plans to interview
Flynn. Comey said the point of the interview was to find out why Flynn didn't tell Pence that
sanctions were discussed during the call (even though Flynn wasn't actually the one talking
about sanctions).
"My judgment was we could not close the investigation of Mr. Flynn without asking him what
is the deal here. That was the purpose," Comey testified.
McCabe, however, told a different story when then-Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) asked him, "Was
[Flynn] interviewed because the Vice President relied upon information from him in a national
interview?"
"No. I don't remember that being a motivating factor behind the interview," McCabe
said.
21. No Mention of Pence
During the interview, the agents didn't ask Flynn about what he did or didn't tell Pence --
an unusual approach if the point, as Comey said, was to find out why Flynn hadn't "been candid"
with Pence. The FBI, in fact, had no idea what Flynn did or didn't tell Pence.
22.
Slipped-In Warning
Agents regularly warn interviewees that lying to federal officers is a crime. Before the
Flynn interview, however, McCabe's special counsel Lisa Page emailed another FBI lawyer asking
how the warning should be given and whether there was a way "to just casually slip that
in."
23. No Warning
In the end, the agents never gave Flynn any such warning.
24. 'Get Him to Lie Get Him
Fired?'
The FBI officials agreed that the agents wouldn't show Flynn the transcripts of the calls.
If he said something that diverged from them, they would ask again, slipping in some words from
the transcript. If that didn't jog his memory, they were not to confront him about it.
On the day of the interview, then-FBI head of counterintelligence
Bill Priestap wrote a note saying he told other officials to "rethink" the approach.
"What's our goal? Truth/Admission or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him
fired?" he wrote, noting, "We regularly show subjects evidence."
Apparently, his concerns were ignored.
25. Discouraging Having a Lawyer Present
On the day of the interview, McCabe spoke with Flynn on the phone to ask him for the
interview. McCabe said he told Flynn he wanted the interview done "as quickly, quietly, and
discreetly as possible." If Flynn wanted anybody to sit in, such as one of the White House
lawyers, the DOJ would have to be involved, McCabe told him.
According to Ruskin, that was "egregious" behavior akin to discouraging a subject of an
investigation from having a lawyer present for an interview.
26. No White House
Notice
An FBI interview of a president's national security adviser is a big deal. Normally, it
would warrant a back-and-forth between the White House and the bureau on the scope, content,
purpose, and other parameters. Most likely, multiple White House lawyers would sit in.
Comey, however, said in a public forum
that he just sent the agents in, taking advantage of the fact that it was "early enough" --
only four days after the inauguration.
27. No Notice Given to DOJ
According to Yates, Comey didn't consult the DOJ about his intention to interview Flynn,
even though the department would usually be involved in such decisions.
28. Not Quite a
Denial From Flynn
After the interview, in which Strzok and supervisory special agent Pientka extensively
questioned Flynn about his conversations with Kislyak, Comey said that Flynn denied talking to
the ambassador about the sanctions. But the agents' notes indicate that though Flynn denied it
at first, he seemed unsure when the agents asked again.
"Not really. I don't remember. It wasn't, 'Don't do anything,'" he said, according to the
notes.
"I told the agents that 'tit-for-tat' is a phrase I use, which suggests that the topic of
sanctions could have been raised," he
said .
29. UN Vote Denial
Based on the agent's notes, Flynn did deny asking for Russia to delay a U.N. vote in Israeli
settlements. One of the call transcripts indicates he in fact made such a request.
Flynn told the agents he was calling multiple countries regarding the vote, but it was more
an exercise of how quickly he could get foreign officials on the phone since there was no way
the transition team could convince enough countries to actually change the outcome. Indeed, the
vote passed with only the United States abstaining.
30. No Indication of Deception
The agents came back with the impression "that Flynn was not lying or did not think he was
lying," according to Strzok.
Comey seemed on the fence.
"I don't know. I think there is an argument to be made that he lied. It is a close one," he
testified.
31. Flynn Knew They Knew
According to McCabe, Flynn expressed awareness before the interview that the FBI knew
exactly what he said during the Kislyak calls.
"You listen to everything they [Russian representatives] say," Flynn told him, according to
McCabe's notes from that day.
32. Belated Report
The FBI interview summary, form FD-302, is required to be completed within five days of the
interview. Flynn's, however, took more than two weeks.
33. Rewritten 302
Strzok texted Page on Feb. 10, 2017, he was "trying to not completely rewrite" the 302 "so
as to save [redacted] voice." The redacted name was most likely Pientka's.
34. Missing
Original
Flynn was ultimately provided two draft versions of the 302 -- one from Feb. 10, 2016, and
one from the day after. But based on Strzok's texts, there should have been at least two draft
versions produced on Feb. 10, 2016, or before.
In fact, Judge Sullivan said in a Dec. 17, 2018, minute order that the 302 "was drafted
immediately after Mr. Flynn's FBI interview." It's not clear what the judge was basing this
assertion on or what happened to the early draft.
Flynn's current attorney, former federal prosecutor Sidney Powell , later said she'd found a
witness who saw an earlier draft and that it said "that Flynn was honest with the agents
and did not lie."
35. No Reinterview
It is common that when the FBI has questions after an interview about the candor of the
subject, it would question the person again. But in this case, the FBI showed no interest in
doing so.
36. Still Investigating What?
After the interview, Comey promptly agreed to Yates informing the White House about the call
transcripts. Flynn was fired two weeks later. But, somehow, the investigation was still not
over.
Comey said in his March 2, 2017, testimony that the bureau wasn't investigating any possible
Logan Act violation by Flynn and wouldn't do so unless the DOJ directed it.
But he said the investigation was "obviously" still ongoing and "criminal in nature."
McCabe said that "even following the interview on the 24th, we had a lot of work left to do
in that investigation."
By mid-February, the status of the probe wouldn't have "changed materially" in his belief,
he said.
"Like we were pursuing phone records and toll records at that time," he said. "There were
all kinds of really very basic foundational investigative activity that had to take place and
we were committed to getting that done."
It's unclear what the point of the investigation was.
37. FARA Papers
Around Christmas 2016, Flynn found in the office of his defunct consultancy, Flynn Intel
Group (FIG), a letter from the DOJ telling him he may need to file foreign lobbying disclosures
under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).
The DOJ's National Security Division (NSD) wanted to know about a job FIG did earlier that
year for Turkish businessman Kamil Ekim Alptekin.
It should have been a routine procedure. Washington lobbyists commonly flunk FARA rules and
the NSD usually just asks them to register retrospectively because FARA cases are difficult to
prosecute. Flynn hired a team from Covington and Burling led by Robert Kelner, a
"never-Trumper" and an expert on FARA, to prepare the paperwork.
This time, the NSD was unusually eager. Heather Hunt, then-FARA unit chief herself, was
repeatedly prompting the lawyers to expeditiously file the papers.
Comey's leaking the content of this and other memos to the media served as a catalyst for
then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointing former FBI head Robert Mueller as a
special counsel to take over the CH probe.
39. Rosenstein's Scope Memo Still Alludes to
Logan Act
Even though Comey said in March 2017 that the FBI wasn't investigating Flynn for a Logan Act
violation, Mueller received in August 2017 a mandate from Rosenstein ( pdf
) to probe whether Flynn "committed a crime or crimes by engaging in conversations with Russian
government officials during the period of the Trump transition." That appears to be an allusion
to the Logan Act.
Rosenstein testified
to Congress that he simply put in the scope of Mueller's mandate whatever the CH team was
investigating at the time.
The scope memo also tasked Mueller with probing whether Flynn lied to the FBI during the
interview, whether he failed to report foreign contacts or income on his national security
disclosure forms, and whether the Turkey job by his firm meant that he "committed a crime or
crimes by acting as an unregistered agent for the government of Turkey."
40. Lawyers
Delay Informing Flynn?
By mid-August 2017, Covington learned that prosecutors were looking at Flynn's FARA filings.
But the lawyers didn't inform Flynn until weeks later, according to his current lawyer,
Powell.
41. Conflict of Interest
Convington faced a conflict of interest in Flynn's case, because it was in their interest to
say any problems with the FARA papers were Flynn's fault, while it was in Flynn's interest to
say the lawyers were responsible.
Covington and the Mueller team agreed the firm can continue to represent Flynn if they tell
him about the conflict and he consents to it. Powell said the conflict was so serious bar rules
required the lawyers to withdraw.
42. Lawyers Don't Take Responsibility
In Flynn's situation, it would have been the ethical thing to do for the lawyers to take
responsibility for any problems with the FARA papers, according to Powell. But they didn't do
that.
43. Lawyers Express Apprehension About Being Targeted Themselves
The Covington lawyers on several occasions expressed concern that Mueller may target them
with a crime-fraud order, a measure that allows prosecutors to break through the
attorney-client privilege if they get a judge to agree that the client was conferring with
lawyers to further a crime or some misconduct. The lawyers were aware Mueller's team had
already used the order against Manafort.
Facing a crime-fraud order would cause bad publicity for Covington, Powell noted. Leading
Flynn into the plea allowed the firm to avoid it.
44. Perilous Interviews
In early November 2016, Mueller prosecutors, led by Brandon Van Grack, told Covington that
Flynn was facing charges for lying to the FBI and lying on the FARA papers. They asked for
Flynn's cooperation with the broader Russia probe, particularly regarding any communications he
or other Trump people had with foreign officials.
Van Grack wanted Flynn to sit down for a series of interviews. He offered Flynn limited
immunity, but acknowledged that Flynn could still be charged for lying during the
interviews.
The lawyers noted that this could have been dangerous for Flynn, even if he was completely
honest.
"To ask someone about meetings and calls during an incredibly busy period of his life as an
evaluation of candor is not a particularly attractive option," Kelner told the prosecutors
during a conference call (
pdf ).
Yet ultimately the Covington lawyers agreed to make Flynn available for the
questioning.
45. Belated Consent
Covington only asked Flynn for consent with their conflict of interest in writing on Nov.
19, 2017, after Flynn had already been through two days of interviews with the
prosecutors.
46. Wrong Standard
The consent request, sent via email, cited the wrong bar rule for handling of conflicts. The
correct rule "creates a much lower threshold at which a lawyer must bow out," Powell said in a
court filing.
47. Innocent but Guilty
The Covington lawyers repeatedly told the prosecutors that they didn't think Flynn was
guilty of a felony. They were also told that Strzok and Pientka "saw no indication of
deception" on Flynn's part and had the impression after the interview that he wasn't lying or
didn't think he was lying. But the lawyers still convinced Flynn that he should plead guilty to
the felony charge.
48. Threat to Son
According to Flynn's declaration, the Covington lawyers told him that if he didn't plead,
the prosecutors would charge his son (who had a four-month-old baby at the time) with a FARA
violation, because the son worked for Flynn's firm and was involved in the Turkey project. If
he did plead, however, his son "would be left in peace," Flynn said.
The pressure campaign, it seems, was also reflected in media leaks.
"If the elder Flynn is willing to cooperate with investigators in order to help his son it
could also change his own fate, potentially limiting any legal consequences,"
NBC News reported on Nov. 5, 2017, referring to "sources familiar with the
investigation."
"To twist the father's arm with regard to his child is a pretty low thing to do," Ruskin
commented.
49. 302 Not Shared
The prosecutors refused to share with Flynn the 302 from his January interview until shortly
before he agreed to plead. Also, they only shared the final version of the report, which was
significantly different from its previous drafts, Flynn later learned.
50. Strzok Texts
Understatement
Shortly before Flynn signed his plea, the prosecutors disclosed to his lawyers that one of
the agents who interviewed Flynn (Strzok) was being investigated by the IG for potential
misconduct. They also disclosed that the agent expressed in electronic communications "a
preference for one of the candidates for President."
This was far from covering the bombshell the Strzok texts actually were, Powell noted.
Strzok not only voiced preference for Clinton, but cursed at and repeatedly derided Trump.
In one 2016 text, he argued that the FBI needed to take action akin to an "insurance policy" in
case Trump won. Strzok later said he was referring to proceeding in the CH probe more
aggressively out of a worry that Trump may interfere with it if elected.
51. Lawyers
Never Told Flynn?
Flynn said the Convington lawyers never told him that the FBI agents didn't think he lied.
Even after he specifically asked about the agents' impression, the lawyers didn't disclose the
information and instead told him that "the agents stood by their statement."
"I then understood them to be telling me that the FBI agents believed that I had lied,"
Flynn said, explaining that had he known, he wouldn't have signed the plea.
52. Statement
of Offense Inaccurate
As part of his statement of offense, Flynn affirmed that FIG's FARA papers contained three
false statements and one omission. Yet, on all four points the statement of offense was
inaccurate, Powell demonstrated (
pdf ).
"The prosecutors concocted the alleged 'false statements' by their own misrepresentations,
deceit, and omissions," she said in a court filing (
pdf ).
The FARA papers were "substantially correct" and any deficiencies were the fault of
Covington, she said.
53. Lawyers Knew
In an internal email three days before Flynn signed his plea, one of the Covington lawyers
pointed out that some of the "false statements" attributed to Flynn in the statement of offense
regarding the FARA filings were "contradicted by the caveats or qualifications in the
filing."
It seems the lawyers failed to correct the issue, since the statement of offense remained
inaccurate. They also never informed Flynn of the issue, according to Powell.
54. Judge
Recusal
Flynn entered his plea on Dec. 1, 2017. Shortly after, the judge who accepted the plea,
Rudolph Contreras, recused himself from the case. The apparent but undisclosed reason was
likely his personal relationship with Strzok.
55. Strzok Texts Media Coincidence
While the IG had found Strzok's texts already in June 2017, their first disclosure in the
media came from The Washington Post the day after Flynn entered his guilty plea. Powell noted
how convenient the timing was for the prosecutors.
56. Side Deal
The prosecutors conveyed to Covington an "unofficial understanding" that they were
"unlikely" to charge Flynn's son in light of Flynn's agreement to continue to cooperate with
the Mueller probe, one of the lawyers said in an internal email.
Such an under-the-table deal is "unethical," Ruskin said.
57. Avoiding Giglio
Disclosure
Another internal Covington email suggests the prosecutors intentionally kept the deal
regarding Flynn's son unofficial to make future prosecutions easier.
"The government took pains not to give a promise to MTF [Michael T. Flynn] regarding Michael
[Flynn] Jr., so as to limit how much of a 'benefit' it would have to disclose as part of its
Giglio disclosures to any defendant against whom MTF may one day testify," the email reads.
"Giglio" refers to a 1972 Supreme Court opinion that requires prosecutors to disclose to the
defense that a witness used by the prosecutors has been promised an escape from prosecution in
exchange for cooperation.
58. Questionable Disclosures
After the case was assigned to Judge Sullivan, he entered an order for the DOJ to give Flynn
all exculpatory information it had, as the judge does in all cases.
The prosecutors, however, weren't prompt in revealing the information. The Strzok texts, for
instance, were only provided to Flynn after they were released publicly.
59. Business
Partner Coincidence
One day before Flynn's sentencing hearing, his former business partner, Bijan Rafiekian, was
charged with a failure to register as a foreign agent in relation to FIG's Turkey job.
Powell called it a "shot across the bow" which the Mueller team wanted to "leverage" against
Flynn.
"Mr. Van Grack used the possibility of indicting Flynn in the Rafiekian case at the
sentencing hearing to raise the specter of all the threats he had made to secure the plea a
year earlier -- including the indictment of Mr. Flynn's son," she said in a court filing (
pdf ).
60. Judge Makes False Accusations, Backtracks
During a Dec. 18, 2018, sentencing hearing, Sullivan questioned the prosecutors about
whether they considered charging Flynn with treason.
"Arguably, you sold your country out," he told Flynn, saying that he acted as an agent of
Turkey while in the White House.
That was wrong on multiple levels. Not only does treason not apply to unregistered lobbying,
but the Turkey job had virtually no impact on American interests. It prepared a plan to lobby
for the extradition of an Islamic cleric, Fethullah Gülen, who lives in exile in the
United States, and whom Ankara blamed for instigating a coup attempt in 2016. Almost none of
the plan materialized. Most importantly, Flynn shuttered his firm shortly after the election to
comply with Trump's promise of no lobbyists in his administration.
Sullivan corrected himself later in the hearing, but many media outlets still put his
original remarks in headlines.
61. MSNBC Coincidence
While Sullivan's question about treason and his gaffe about the Turkey job seemed to come
out of left field, they mirrored MSNBC talking points from days prior.
The day before Flynn's sentencing hearing, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow claimed Flynn and Rafiekian "disguised" the
origins of payments for the Turkey job so they could "secretly work in the interest of a
foreign country without anybody knowing it while they were also working high-level jobs in
intelligence inside the U.S. government."
"Flynn really thought he could be a national security adviser, the national security adviser
in the White House, and a secret foreign agent at the same time," Maddow said .
Three days before Flynn's sentencing hearing, Malcolm Nance, a counterterrorism commentator,
said on MSNBC that Flynn "may have been one step away from treason" and "pulled back by
cooperating" with Mueller.
62. Judge Fails to Satisfy Plea Rules
Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure state in Rule 11 that "before entering judgment on a
guilty plea, the court must determine that there is a factual basis for the plea."
As such, Sullivan was required to check that Flynn's alleged lies to the FBI were
"material," meaning relevant enough to potentially affect an FBI investigation.
But the judge acknowledged during the sentencing hearing that he hadn't done so.
"It probably won't surprise you that I had many, many, many more questions. such as, you
know, how the government's investigation was impeded? What was the material impact of the
criminality? Things like that," he said at the conclusion of the hearing.
There's no indication Sullivan has asked those questions since.
63. Unacceptable
Plea
Not only could Sullivan not have accepted Flynn's plea before determining materiality,
there's evidence he was in fact required to refuse it.
Rule 11 requires the court to "determine that the plea is voluntary and did not result from
force, threats, or promises (other than promises in a plea agreement)."
In Flynn's case, there actually was a threat and a promise left out of the deal -- the
"unofficial understanding" that his son was "unlikely" to be charged if Flynn
cooperated.
64. Lawyers Insisted Flynn 'Stay on the Path'
Before the sentencing hearing, the Covington lawyers told Flynn to "stay on the path" and to
refuse if Sullivan offered him to take his plea back, Flynn said in his court declaration.
"If the judge offers you a chance to withdraw your plea, he is giving you the rope to hang
yourself. Don't do it," the lawyers said, according to Powell.
65. Unprepared
Flynn said the lawyers only prepared him for a "simple hearing" and not for the extended
questioning Sullivan engaged in.
"I was not prepared for this court's plea colloquy, much less to decide, on the spot,
whether I should withdraw my plea, consult with independent counsel, or continue to follow my
existing lawyers' advice," he said.
In the end, he affirmed his plea during the hearing.
66. Prosecutors Asked for False
Testimony?
Flynn was expected to testify against Rafiekian in 2019, but when the moment was to come,
prosecutors asked him to say that he signed FIG's FARA papers knowing there were lies in them.
Flynn, who had already fired Convington and hired Powell by that point, refused. He said he
only acknowledged in hindsight that the FARA papers were inaccurate, but didn't know it at the
time.
67. Prosecutors Knew?
Powell has argued that the prosecutors knew they were asking for a false testimony. She
filed with the court a draft of Flynn's statement of offense, which shows that the words "FLYNN
then and there knew" (pertaining to the FARA registration) were cut from the final version.
Moreover, Powell submitted emails that indicate the words were cut by the prosecutors
themselves after the Covington lawyers raised some objections to the draft.
68.
Retaliation?
Flynn's refusal to say what prosecutors wanted angered Van Grack, contemporaneous notes show
(
pdf ). Shortly after, prosecutors tried to label Flynn as a co-conspirator in the Rafiekian
case and put Flynn's son on the list of witnesses for the prosecution. According to Powell,
this was retaliation for Flynn's refusal to lie.
69. Rafiekian Case Collapses
Prosecutors in the Rafiekian case tried to argue that anybody who does something political
at the request of a foreign official and fails to disclose it to the DOJ is an "agent of a
foreign government" and can be put in prison for up to 10 years.
The presiding judge, Anthony Trenga, rejected the theory, ruling that an "agent" -- as used
in that context -- needs to have a tighter relationship with the foreign government, a
relationship that includes "the power of the principal to give directions and the duty of the
agent to obey those directions."
Starting in August, Powell started to bombard the prosecutors with demands for exculpatory
evidence she was convinced the DOJ possessed. But the prosecutors repeatedly claimed the
government already provided all it had and had no more.
The main issue was, Powell noted, that the DOJ had a very narrow view of what is
exculpatory.
"If something appears on its face to be favorable to the defense the government will claim
it was said 'with a wink and a nod,' and therefore it showed the defendant's guilt after all,"
she complained in an Aug. 30, 2019, filing (
pdf ).
As it later turned out, the FBI was sitting on a number of documents favorable to the
defense.
71. Contradicting Notes
When Flynn finally obtained the hand-written notes Strzok and Pientka took during the
interview, it turned out they didn't quite match the final 302.
The 302, for instance, says that Flynn remembered making four to five phone calls to Kislyak
on Dec. 29, 2016. Both sets of notes indicate that Flynn didn't remember that.
Also, the 302 says that Flynn denied that Kislyak got back to him with the Russian response
a few days later. There's no mention of a Russian response in the notes.
72. Notes
Mixup
It took the prosecutors until November 2019 to find out and tell Flynn that the notes they
said belonged to Strzok were actually Pientka's and vice versa.
73. No Date, Name
The notes mixup wasn't that easy to spot because neither set of notes was signed or dated,
even though they should have been, according to Powell.
74. Harsher Sentence
Since his sentencing hearing, Flynn was expected to receive a light sentence, possibly
probation. In January 2020, however, the prosecutors indicated that Flynn should be treated
more harshly because he reneged on his promise to cooperate on the Rafiekian case.
This was part of the retaliation for Flynn's refusal to lie for the prosecutors, according
to Powell.
Shortly after that, Flynn asked the court to let him withdraw his plea.
Any limitation the court puts on how the attorney-client information can be used shouldn't
"preclude the government from prosecuting the defendant for perjury if any information that he
provided to counsel were proof of perjury in this proceeding," they said.
It's not clear what specifically they were referring to.
76. Thousands More
Documents
In April, Covington told Flynn they
found thousands more documents related to his case that they failed to give to Powell due
to "an unintentional miscommunication involving the firm's information technology
personnel."
77. Van Grack Out
On May 7, 2020, Van Grack withdrew from Flynn's case as well as others. The reason is not
clear.
The same day, the DOJ moved to withdraw the Flynn case.
78. Judge Delays
A government motion to withdraw a case usually marks the end of the case. The court still
needs to accept the motion, but there's not much it can do, since there's nobody left to
prosecute the case.
Sullivan, however, didn't accept it.
79. Appointing Amicus
On May 13, 2020, Sullivan appointed former federal Judge John Gleeson as an amicus curiae
(friend of court) "to present arguments in opposition to the government's Motion to Dismiss" as
well as to "address" whether the court should make the defense explain why "Flynn should not be
held in criminal contempt for perjury."
This was an unusual move. Amici are normally only appointed in civil or higher court cases.
Powell has said Sullivan doesn't have authority to do so.
80. Another Washington Post
Coincidence
Just two days earlier, Gleeson co-authored an op-ed in The Washington Post where he accused
the DOJ of "impropriety," "corruption," and "improper political influence" for dropping the
Flynn case.
81. More Delays
On May 19, 2020, Sullivan issued a scheduling order that set an oral argument for July 16,
when third parties invited by the judge would get a chance to voice their opinions. As such,
the judge
set to prolong the case for about two more months and possibly beyond.
In a rare move , the appeals court
ordered Sullivan to respond to Flynn's petition within 10 days. Usually, the court would
appoint an amicus curiae to argue the case on behalf of the judge. Sometimes, the court would
invite the judge to respond. Ordering a response is "very rare," Reeves commented.
Wilkinson has in the past represented major corporations such as Pfizer, Microsoft, and
Phillip Morris, as well as Hillary Clinton aides during the FBI's investigation of Clinton's
use of a private email server. She also assisted then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh in
preparing his 2018 defense against a sexual assault allegation.
Wilkinson is married to CNN analyst David Gregory, the former host of the NBC News' "Meet
the Press."
84. DOJ Brings Big Guns
In another unusual move, the DOJ's Solicitor General and five of his deputies responded to
the appeals court in support of Flynn's petition. The Solicitor General usually argues cases on
behalf of the DOJ before the Supreme Court. His personal involvement in an appeals court
petition "is highly unusual and rare," Reeves said.
"For non-lawyers, a ten day notice for oral argument may seem like a long time, but it
isn't. It's an increidibly [sic] short amount of time," he said, noting that a call for a
hearing "shows that the DC Circuit is gravely concerned about this matter."
...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.
"... People who bravely post about how the U.S. needs to invade some country in the Middle East or Asia or outer space will get a pop-up notice indicating they've been enlisted in the military. A recruiter will then show up at their house and whisk them away to fight in the foreign war they wanted to happen so badly. ..."
U.S. -- A new policy issued by the United States Department of Defense, in conjunction
with online platforms like Twitter and Facebook, will automatically enlist you to fight in a
foreign war if you post your support for attacking another country.
People who bravely post about how the U.S. needs to invade some country in the Middle East
or Asia or outer space will get a pop-up notice indicating they've been enlisted in the
military. A recruiter will then show up at their house and whisk them away to fight in the
foreign war they wanted to happen so badly.
"Frankly, recruitment numbers are down, and we needed some way to find people who are
really enthusiastic about fighting wars," said a DOD official. "Then it hit us like a drone
strike: there are plenty of people who argue vehemently for foreign intervention. It doesn't
matter what war we're trying to create: Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, North Korea,
China---these people are always reliable supporters of any invasion abroad. So why not get
them there on the frontlines?"
"After all, we want people who are passionate about occupying foreign lands, not grunts
who are just there for the paycheck," he added.
Strangely, as soon as the policy was implemented, 99% of saber-rattling suddenly
ceased.
Note: The Babylon Bee is the world's best satire site, totally inerrant in all its
truth claims. We write satire about Christian stuff, political stuff, and everyday life.
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"... Russiagate became a convenient replacement explanation absolving an incompetent political establishment for its complicity in what happened in 2016, and not just the failure to see it coming. ..."
"... Because of the immediate arrival of the collusion theory, neither Wolf Blitzer nor any politician ever had to look into the camera and say, "I guess people hated us so much they were even willing to vote for Donald Trump ..."
" Russiagate became a convenient replacement explanation absolving an incompetent political establishment for its complicity
in what happened in 2016, and not just the failure to see it coming.
Because of the immediate arrival of the collusion theory, neither Wolf Blitzer nor any politician ever had to look into
the camera and say, "I guess people hated us so much they were even willing to vote for Donald Trump ."
As a peedupon all I can see is that the elite seem to be fighting amongst themselves or (IMO) providing cover for ongoing elite
power/control efforts. It might not be about private/public finance in a bigger picture but I can't see anything else that makes
sense
"... In recent years, U.S. troops were killed not only in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also Syria, Kenya, Somalia, Yemen, and Niger. Few Americans could locate these countries on a map; fewer knew its soldiers fought there. Additionally, Pentagon pilots and proxies killed people in Libya, Pakistan, and elsewhere in West Africa without losing a single soldier. ..."
"... The campaigns in Somalia and Yemen best expose the absurd casualty inequity of modern American warfare. In the former, only a few U.S. service members have been killed in an 18-year intervention. Conversely, hundreds of thousands of Somalis died or were displaced as a direct or indirect result (an exacerbated famine , for example) of a largely U.S.-catalyzed war. In Yemen, just one American soldier died in combat, compared to more than 100,000 locals -- including 85,000 children starved to death -- in a terror campaign the Saudis couldn't wage without U.S. complicity . ..."
"... With unemployment sky-rocketing to Great Depression rates, and income inequality at Gilded Age levels , both holidays now "celebrate" egregious blood and treasure disparity. For example, sifting through the Department of Labor's statistics reveals that some 8,000 contractors have been killed in America's war zones. That outnumbers U.S. military fatalities. Since Washington has progressively privatized and outsourced its wars, perhaps Americans should also observe a Mercenary Memorial Day. ..."
"... Faced with unrecognizable brands of war, most people substitute nostalgia and myth. Grappling with war's reality has implications that are too disturbing. Far simpler and more satisfying is to commemorate long past sacrifices at Normandy and Iwo Jima, rather than more confounding losses in Niger and Iraq. The temptation persists even as the last World War II veterans pass; old notions of what combat is ..."
"... The United States has lost its ethical and strategic way. Riddled with a virus that has now killed more Americans than the Revolutionary, Mexican, Spanish, Indian, Philippine, Vietnam, Persian Gulf, Iraq, and Afghan Wars combined , this nation requires serious soul-searching. Reimagining its bookended summer celebrations might be a good start; but it won't be easy. ..."
Pandemic or no, resilient Americans will celebrate Memorial Day together. Be it through Zoom
or spaced six feet apart from ten or less loved ones at backyard cookouts, folks will find a
way. In these peculiar gatherings, is it still considered cynical to wonder if people will
spare much actual thought for American soldiers still dying abroad -- or question the
utility of America's forever wars? Etiquette aside, we think it's obscene not to.
Just as the coronavirus has
exposed systemic rot, this moment also reveals how obsolete common conceptions of U.S.
warfare truly are -- raising core questions about the holiday devoted to its sacrifices. The
truth is that today's "
way of war " is so abstract, distant, and short on (at least American) casualties as to be
nearly invisible to the public. With little to
show for it, Washington still directs bloody global campaigns, killing thousands of locals.
America has no space on its calendar to memorialize these victims: even the
children among them.
"Just as the coronavirus
exposed much internal systemic rot, this moment also reveals how obsolete common
conceptions of U.S. warfare truly are."
Eighteen years ago, as a cadet and young marine officer, we celebrated the first post-9/11
Memorial Day -- both brimming with enthusiasm for the wars we knew lay ahead. In the
intervening decades, for
individual yet strikingly
similar reasons, we ultimately
chose paths of dissent. Since then, we've
penned critical editorials around Memorial Days. These challenged the wars'
prospects ,
questioned the efficacy of the volunteer military, and
encouraged citizens to honor the fallen by creating fewer of them.
Little has changed, except how America fights. But that's the point: outsourcing
combat to machines, mercenaries, and militias rendered war so opaque that Washington wages it
absent public oversight or awareness -- and empathy. That's the formula for forever war.
In recent years, U.S. troops were killed not only in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also Syria,
Kenya, Somalia, Yemen, and Niger. Few Americans could locate these countries on a map; fewer
knew its soldiers fought there. Additionally, Pentagon pilots and proxies
killed people in Libya, Pakistan, and
elsewhere in West Africa without losing a single soldier.
The campaigns in Somalia and Yemen best expose the absurd casualty inequity of modern
American warfare. In the former, only a
few U.S. service members have been killed in an 18-year intervention. Conversely,
hundreds of thousands of Somalis died or were displaced as a direct or indirect result (an
exacerbated famine , for example) of a largely U.S.-catalyzed war. In Yemen, just
one American soldier died in combat, compared to
more than 100,000 locals -- including 85,000 children
starved to death -- in a terror campaign the Saudis couldn't wage without U.S.
complicity .
No one wants to see American troops killed, but a death disparity so stark stretches classic
definitions of combat. Yet for locals, it likely feels a whole lot like "real" war on
the business end of U.S. bombs and bullets.
So this year, given the stark reality that even a deadly pandemic -- and
pleas for global ceasefire -- hasn't
slowed Washington's war machine, it's reasonable to question the very concept of Memorial
Day. There are also important parallels with Labor Day -- the holiday bookend to today's
seasonal kick off. Just as memorializing America's obscenely lopsided battle deaths is
increasingly indecent, a federal holiday devoted to a labor movement the government has
aggressively eviscerated is deeply troubling.
With unemployment
sky-rocketing to Great Depression rates, and income inequality at Gilded Age
levels , both holidays now "celebrate" egregious blood and treasure disparity. For example,
sifting through the Department of Labor's
statistics reveals that some 8,000 contractors have been killed in America's war zones.
That
outnumbers U.S. military fatalities. Since Washington has progressively privatized and
outsourced its wars, perhaps Americans should also observe a Mercenary Memorial Day.
Widening the aperture unveils thousands more "non-combat" -- but war-related -- uniformed
deaths in desperate need of memorializing. From 2006-2018
alone , 3,540 active-duty service members took their own lives -- just a fraction of the
15-20 daily veteran
suicides -- and another 640 died in accidents involving substance-abuse. Each death is
unique, but studies
demonstrate that the combined effects of PTSD and moral injury -- these wars' "
signature wound " -- contributed to this massive loss of life. On a personal level, at
least four soldiers under our commands took their own lives, as have several friends. These are
real folks who left behind real loved ones.
Faced with unrecognizable brands of war, most people substitute nostalgia and myth.
Grappling with war's reality has implications that are too disturbing. Far simpler and more
satisfying is to commemorate long past sacrifices at Normandy and Iwo Jima, rather than more
confounding losses in
Niger and Iraq. The temptation persists even as the last World War II veterans pass; old
notions of what combat is die with them.
The United States has lost its ethical and strategic way. Riddled with a virus that has now
killed more Americans than the Revolutionary, Mexican, Spanish, Indian, Philippine,
Vietnam, Persian Gulf, Iraq, and Afghan Wars
combined , this nation requires serious soul-searching. Reimagining its bookended summer
celebrations might be a good start; but it won't be easy.
In a new take on an old tradition, perhaps it's proper to not only pack away the whites, but
don black as a memorial to a republic in peril.
Matthew Hoh is a member of the advisory boards of Expose Facts, Veterans For
Peace and World Beyond War. He previously served in Iraq with a State Department team and with
the U.S. Marines. He is a Senior Fellow with the Center for International Policy.
One very plausible hypothesis is that coronavirus will probably "militarizes the United States even more than 9/11" So the escape
from a lab could be orgnized by the same forces which did 9/11 and anthrax attack.
Notable quotes:
"... Well, let me just say two of them I would call spooks with Ph.Ds, who have come out and done research on a whole very odd collection of subjects, all of which the US government has tried to cover up in the past. So I'll just name some of those things: Gulf War Syndrome, chronic fatigue syndrome, anthrax vaccine induced illnesses, autism, Ebola, and coronavirus ..."
"... And there were very effective biological weapons made and used in the period around World War 2 and subsequent to it that are documented in the literature. There are no books telling you what's been made in the last 10 years. But we know a lot about what was made 50 to 80 years ago. ..."
"... in my understanding of biological warfare, no country used a biological agent against another country if they didn't think they could control it. If they thought it might blow back onto their country, it wouldn't be used. So historically, I don't think this is the kind of agent that would deliberately be used at a nation level. ..."
"... As long as there is no huge history-changing event that radically ends this trajectory that we're on and that there's no obvious way off of, the US essentially will acquiesce to Chinese global hegemony. And that is 100 percent unacceptable, even to sensible realists like Mearsheimer, much less the neocon fanatical crazies at places like PNAC looking for a new American century. ..."
"... And those people did 9/11-anthrax and they're back in power in the Trump administration. So Mearsheimer says that the only way to stop China's rise is essentially to destroy the global economy. He says even wrecking the U.S. economy along with the global economy would would be worth it because security is more important than prosperity. And this is a relatively sensible guy writing back in 2015. ..."
"... I don't see why they would be particularly averse to it escaping, going global and doing precisely what it's doing, because it is doing exactly what they want, which is destroying the global(ized) economy, which ultimately in the long run stops China's displacing the U.S. And number two, it militarizes the United States even more than 9/11 did. And they want to bring us back to the thirties and head towards a World War 2 situation to stop China, although they hope it may not be necessary to go that far. So basically, if the neocons didn't invent coronavirus, they would have had to invent some (similar) virus or its equivalent. This is precisely what one would have predicted five years ago would happen. ..."
"... first we could go to the neocon philosophy, which is that human flourishing only occurs during extreme situations of stress, suffering, struggle and strife epitomized by warfare. So for them, the only real purpose of human life is all out war to the death. And that's where heroic qualities emerge from human beings who are otherwise lazy and worthless. That's their basic philosophy of life. And then secondly -- ..."
"... No, wait a minute. If that's the neocon philosophy of life, why were they all chickenhawks? Have any of them gone to war? ..."
"... Well, that's the point. They're projecting these fantasies in the privacy of their studies and their twisted, warped imaginations. But yeah, they're happy to inflict this suffering and struggle and death on everybody else. And they want the other guy to be the one to die, of course. And so I assume that they're planning to not be casualties of this disaster that they're setting off. But setting the philosophical thing aside, I think that strategically they are really planning for this to take down the current globalized economy, to force countries to go back to more localized manufacturing, certainly to follow Trump's and Kissinger's neocon agenda, the anti-China agenda of bringing back manufacturing to the US. ..."
Kevin Barrett:
Truth Jihad Radio
is often
the best place to go for the most important stories that the mainstream won't cover. Today I'm talking to
Meryl Nass
. She's an expert who has written a very important article
about how the propaganda push by very suspicious scientists to claim that Covid-19 couldn't possibly be bioweaponized is a red flag
that everybody should be paying attention to.
But you won't see anything about this in the corporate controlled mainstream Mockingbird media. So please help this kind of material
continue to come to light, by subscribing to
DrKevinBarrett at Patreon.com
.
Welcome to Truth Jihad Radio. I'm Kevin Barrett searching fearlessly for truth in all of the most forbidden places, bringing on people
who are also going to those kinds of places. And sometimes I find genuine experts on various subjects. And we have one of those with
us today, Meryl Nass. She is definitely one of the go-to experts on biological warfare related topics. Yet for some reason, the mainstream
media isn't going to her. I wonder why that would be. Maybe because the things she wrote about the anthrax attacks back in 2001 were
a little bit too truthful. Anyway, she's got some very interesting posts up now at
her anthrax vaccine blog
. But first, before we jump into that, let
me just say that when I say she's an expert: She has consulted for the World Bank. She's testified to Congress. She diagnosed Zimbabwe's
1978 anthrax epidemic as an episode of biological warfare. She's consulted for Cuba's Ministry of Health on its optic and peripheral
neuropathy epidemic, and on and on. So she has a pretty good, solid basis for her views.
And she recently posted what I thought was a critically important piece "
Why are some of the
US' top scientists making a specious argument about the natural origin of SARS-CoV-2?
" pointing out, why is this that the top
U.S. scientists are being trumpeted all over the media, making a specious argument about the natural origin of Sars CoV-2. So why are
they, Meryl? Why is it that they're telling us this could not possibly be a bioweapon, and yet obviously it could?
Meryl Nass:
Well, that's the $64,000 question, isn't it? Maybe we should go back and explain what I'm aware of that happened.
Sometime in late February, a group of scientists, which included the former head of the National Science Foundation and a former top
person at CDC, as well as a bunch of other people, many of whom had worked in the biological defense / biological warfare area -- possibly
all of them had -- published
a very short statement
in
The Lancet
saying they wanted to stand with the Chinese public health officials and scientists and point out that rumors
about the unnatural origin of coronavirus were a conspiracy theory and should be dismissed.
They didn't provide evidence, but they made this very strong statement in the top medical journal in the world,
The Lancet
. And so, OK. I have to say that the first author -- and it was alphabetical, so this is the first author alphabetically who signed
that -- is someone that I was told about 27 years ago when I consulted in Cuba, when they had a very severe epidemic of blindness and
other neurologic symptoms. And it turned out it was due to cyanide.
There were two. They were the first in 100 years, I think, in the Western Hemisphere. And if I remember correctly, this was a long
time ago, about 150 or more Cubans died, mostly small children, as a result of the Dengue epidemics. So I thought, that's interesting
that this bio-warrior is signing a statement saying that the core idea that the coronavirus might be due to a biological warfare construct
should be dismissed outright as a conspiracy theory.
Kevin Barrett:
Wow. What a coincidence, that that would be the guy who would do that. You say he's the first author alphabetically?
Meryl Nass:
Yes.
Kevin Barrett:
Well, we can figure out who that is then.
Meryl Nass:
A group of five scientists, and I knew of several of them. I've been in contact with at least one of them in the
past, and they too were sort of biological defense, biological warfare people.
Well, let me just say two of them I would call spooks
with Ph.Ds, who have come out and done research on a whole very odd collection of subjects, all of which the US government has tried
to cover up in the past. So I'll just name some of those things: Gulf War Syndrome, chronic fatigue syndrome, anthrax vaccine induced
illnesses, autism, Ebola, and coronavirus
.
So that's an odd group of different things that you might be researching and writing about. But oddly enough, a couple of these scientists
have chosen that obscure group of things that are somewhat unrelated to each other to comment about. And so these five scientists wrote
a piece in Nature Medicine which claimed to have found the scientific linchpin to be able to make the argument that the new coronavirus
is a natural occurrence. And the argument they made was that had it been constructed in the lab, it would have used the particular backbone
that laboratorians know about. But because it didn't have that backbone, it couldn't possibly be a lab construct.
The problem with that argument is basically it was a straw man argument. They said, well, if I were going to make the novel coronavirus,
I would have made it this way. But because it isn't made that way, it's not a lab construct. Of course, you can make the novel coronavirus
a lot of different ways. And I pointed out three different ways one might have come up with a novel coronavirus that weren't using the
method they suggested.
And I've gotten confirmation. I'm a physician, I'm not a scientist, but I did work in a lab. I went to M.I.T.. So I do know biology,
although I am not well versed in modern genetic engineering. But I do know a lot about how biological weapons used to be made, how they
were made before and during World War 2 and afterwards.
And there were very effective biological weapons made and used in the period
around World War 2 and subsequent to it that are documented in the literature. There are no books telling you what's been made in the
last 10 years. But we know a lot about what was made 50 to 80 years ago.
So I then looked at the connections between the first group of scientists who had published in
The Lancet
and the second group
that had published in
Nature Medicine
and found that well, for example, that the person I mentioned before who had been to Cuba
and looked at the Aedes mosquitoes, even though that person is now of the retirement age, is a member of the institute of one of the
second authors. And I saw other connections between these two groups.
Kevin Barrett:
Sounds like the usual suspects.
Meryl Nass:
Yes, exactly. It seemed that the second group, anyway, the guys who were trotted out to provide the last word
on all these other controversial medical subjects had been again trotted out to provide the last word. Then I thought, who else is talking
about this? And when I looked that up, I found the head of the NIH, Dr. Francis Collins, an MD-Ph.D, cited the work of these five scientists
to say basically now we've proven that this is a natural occurrence and everyone can forget about the conspiracy theory. And he further
said if you're if you're concerned about what you read about coronavirus, just go to the FEMA website where they are telling you what
is a rumor and what isn't. So I thought, well, that's interesting that the policy makers or the people who pull the strings are able
to pull Francis Collins' strings and get him to comment on this, again agreeing with an argument that he must have known to be specious.
Kevin Barrett:
You don't have to comment on this, but this sure reminds me of what's been going on post-9/11, with first the
ridiculous FEMA report on the so-called collapses of the Trade Center towers and then the NIST reports culminating in the most absurd
one of all, the NIST report on Building 7. Throughout that whole process, the usual suspect so-called scientists were putting out utter
baloney and rubber stamping it, and all the officials were rubber stamping it mindlessly, and any independent voices speaking common
sense and truth were marginalized.
Meryl Nass:
Yes. So that is of course what's happening here. And it's very helpful, it seems, to be able to identify them
as this same group, the same group who can be used over and over and over again over decades to whitewash what the system wants whitewashed.
And then you look at their grants. Ugh! Some of these people are making unbelievable grants.
Kevin Barrett:
They're probably flying on Epstein's Lolita Express and things like that, too.
Meryl Nass:
That I did not look up.
Kevin Barrett:
I wouldn't be surprised, anyway.
Meryl Nass:
There is a lot of money flowing through their laboratories. So anyway, the final point I made was that every scientist
who signed these two documents and then Francis Collins has had something to do with biological defense. If you're a top scientist in
the U.S. government, you are asked to look into pandemics and the risk that they could be due to a biological weapon. And so as far
as I could tell, virtually all these people have had some background in looking at these things. And they're all old. They all remember
the days before the last three decades of genetic engineering and they all must realize, if they have any competence as scientists,
that there are other ways to create biological agents, microorganisms. And so for them to all have signed this, knowing that, just makes
you wonder -- why did they do this?
They presumably did it because they had some sense that it was a lab organism. Perhaps it was a lab escape and perhaps they were
trying to protect the whole enterprise of biological defense, which is a multibillion dollar yearly industry that feeds many, many people,
including themselves.
Kevin Barrett:
I would argue that's a relatively innocent explanation. There are worse ones than that.
Meryl Nass:
The interesting thing is that all these countries do research together. So China, US, (former) Soviet Union, Ukraine
All different countries send people to labs in other countries to work on micro-organisms. So you can put your finger on people from
many different countries who were working on bat coronaviruses in labs around the world. And this could have been a lab escape from
many different places. I mean, it could have been a deliberate attack. But
in my understanding of biological warfare, no country
used a biological agent against another country if they didn't think they could control it. If they thought it might blow back onto
their country, it wouldn't be used. So historically, I don't think this is the kind of agent that would deliberately be used at a nation
level.
Kevin Barrett:
Let me just give you a possible opposing argument. John Mearsheimer wrote in, I believe 2015, in
a very famous article about China's
unpeaceful rise
that said, in so many words, the US is stuck between a rock and a hard place in terms of trying to contain China's
rise, which is based on its double digit growth averaging out since 1980 or so. And that that growth inevitably is pushing China to
break out of U.S. containment in Asia and become a regional hegemon, which is unacceptable to U.S. decision makers. And more likely,
it will actually "pose global challenges" meaning displace the U.S. as global hegemon as well, simply based on its economic growth,
which now has supposedly slowed to maybe 8 percent. But still, the differential between that and the U.S. and its Western allies is
such that within a decade or two, at the very most, it's a done deal.
As long as there is no huge history-changing event that radically
ends this trajectory that we're on and that there's no obvious way off of, the US essentially will acquiesce to Chinese global hegemony.
And that is 100 percent unacceptable, even to sensible realists like Mearsheimer, much less the neocon fanatical crazies at places like
PNAC looking for a new American century.
And those people did 9/11-anthrax and they're back in power in the Trump administration. So Mearsheimer says that the only way
to stop China's rise is essentially to destroy the global economy. He says even wrecking the U.S. economy along with the global economy
would would be worth it because security is more important than prosperity. And this is a relatively sensible guy writing back in 2015.
I've argued with Ron Unz about this. He he thinks it would have been a U.S. attack designed not to escape China, like previous U.S.
(bio-)attacks on China. But
I don't see why they would be particularly averse to it escaping, going global and doing precisely what
it's doing, because it is doing exactly what they want, which is destroying the global(ized) economy, which ultimately in the long run
stops China's displacing the U.S. And number two, it militarizes the United States even more than 9/11 did. And they want to bring us
back to the thirties and head towards a World War 2 situation to stop China, although they hope it may not be necessary to go that far.
So basically, if the neocons didn't invent coronavirus, they would have had to invent some (similar) virus or its equivalent. This is
precisely what one would have predicted five years ago would happen.
Meryl Nass:
That's a reasonable argument. But the economy is not being totally destroyed. It's just that factories are, closed,
people aren't going to work. Nothing's been destroyed. When we come out of this, China will still have all the factories and we will
have all the monetarists and all the play money. So it seems like China could get its engines going a lot quicker than we can when we
come out of it.
Kevin Barrett:
We won't come out of it.
Meryl Nass:
So if we don't come out of it, then it's not what the neocons chose.
Kevin Barrett:
They don't want to come out of it. They want to wreck global prosperity while the U.S. still has most of the
military hardware.
Meryl Nass:
I'm sorry. I guess I don't understand that.
Kevin Barrett
: Well, OK,
first we could go to the neocon philosophy, which is that human flourishing only occurs during extreme
situations of stress, suffering, struggle and strife epitomized by warfare. So for them, the only real purpose of human life is all
out war to the death. And that's where heroic qualities emerge from human beings who are otherwise lazy and worthless. That's their
basic philosophy of life. And then secondly --
Meryl Nass:
No, wait a minute. If that's the neocon philosophy of life, why were they all chickenhawks? Have any of them gone
to war?
Kevin Barrett
:
Well, that's the point. They're projecting these fantasies in the privacy of their studies and their twisted,
warped imaginations. But yeah, they're happy to inflict this suffering and struggle and death on everybody else. And they want the other
guy to be the one to die, of course. And so I assume that they're planning to not be casualties of this disaster that they're setting
off. But setting the philosophical thing aside, I think that strategically they are really planning for this to take down the current
globalized economy, to force countries to go back to more localized manufacturing, certainly to follow Trump's and Kissinger's neocon
agenda, the anti-China agenda of bringing back manufacturing to the US.
Meryl Nass:
And is there anything wrong with that? That seems to me a worthy goal.
Kevin Barrett:
Well, actually, yes, I would support bringing back manufacturing. I would support never having sent it to China
in the first place. However, it's in the context of their plan to stop China's rise. And China is just as committed to its rise as these
guys are to stopping it. Which means a lot of danger of war and unpleasantness. And I think this is just the first shot of what's going
to be a long round of war and unpleasantness through the next decade.
Meryl Nass:
Perhaps. Right. We don't know. Another thing I've written is that the whole reason this (pandemic) is (being)
stopped. My theory is that, I've tried to think like a politician -- and I did write this before the lockdown -- which is that what
would have happened once this coronavirus had spread widely in the US, is that had it not been halted, we would have gotten to a point
where the coronavirus had required way more medical facilities, personnel, equipment, etc. than we had, and there would be people dying
without access to any medical care. And I thought that given that in America, based on polls, the one thing Americans want from their
government is a health care system, and that the idea of people dying in the street without being able to get into a hospital was so
beyond the pale for politicians who saw that they would never be re-elected under those circumstances, that they then did everything
they could to stop that from happening. And by the point they decided to do something, the only thing that could be done was a lockdown.
And then finally attempting to get more equipment, supplies and personnel.
Kevin Barrett:
So, yeah, I agree, that's plausible.
Meryl Nass
: That's what happened. And I'm sure everybody is trying to now use this very extraordinary circumstance to their
own benefit in the near and far future.
Kevin Barrett:
Yeah, I agree. We'll see. The thing is, if if you were planning this thing, assuming that my scenario and your
scenario are both true, a very small group of people would have unleashed it, and then everybody else would be reacting according to
their own self-interest, including the politicians doing precisely what you described.
Meryl Nass:
Yeah, that's certainly possible.
Kevin Barrett:
Yeah. And I'm using as my model for this 9/11, which is what I've studied quite a lot over the past nearly
two decades. And I see parallels here between the two events in that 9/11 was about going to war with Islamic civilization, just as
this seems to be a strike against Chinese civilization -- both occurring in the wake of the Samuel Huntington -- Bernard Lewis claim
that "the clash of civilizations will be the new paradigm for us." And if it hadn't been for 9/11, that probably wouldn't have happened.
There would've been no clash of civilizations per se.
Meryl Nass:
I think, yes, you're right. And yet it looks like China is going to get out of this way more unscathed than we
are.
Kevin Barrett:
That's possible. Of course, you know, "they plot and Allah plots and Allah is the best of plotters." Ron Unz
may be right that some of this may have been unforeseen. And it's also possible that I could be wrong. It could be a coincidence. Sometimes
the coincidence theorists, even the craziest coincidence theorists, can be right once in awhile.
Meryl Nass:
Well, yes, given the fact that there are documented many hundreds of lab escapes of different organisms, going
by what's most likely, that seems to be the most likely explanation.
Kevin Barrett:
Do you think that's what happened with Lyme disease? Willy Burgdorfer, whose name was applied to the spirochete
organism that causes Lyme, is on record, filmed and recorded by Timothy Grey, confessing that he, Burgdorfer not only provided a name
for the organism, but he unleashed it on the world as a U.S. biodefense guy. So a lot of people think Lyme was an external escape. Others
hypothesize there may have been some U.S. versus Soviet element there, because Burgdorfer had a lot of money he was getting from somebody,
and he was flying to places where he might have been meeting with Russians, et cetera. So have you looked into the Lyme issue?
"Barking up a tree is more superstition then evidence unless you are a hunting dog. What about names,
fingerprints, DNA evidence, contact with someone who was actually there and willing to talk? This is the
real world, not superstitious nonsense."
They're exploring hypotheses here, not going to trial. (BTW, the U.S. "government" would tell you you're
full of shit. Things like DNA evidence, fingerprints, etc. are for suckers).
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Harold Smith
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May 30, 2020 at 4:53 am GMT
Is Francis Boyle still insisting – without any kind of evidence whatsoever – that SARS-CoV-2 came from the
Wuhan lab? If so he's just a moron whose nonsense doesn't deserve any exposure, IMO.
Is Francis Boyle still insisting – without any kind of evidence whatsoever – that SARS-CoV-2 came from
the Wuhan lab? If so he's just a moron whose nonsense doesn't deserve any exposure, IMO.
He's a lawyer, therefore he'll play the devil's advocate – an useful role to validate a legitimate
conclusion.
@ Kevin Barrett
Good on you, Ron Unz and all the cast to pursue the quest for the source of the Cv-19 pandemic and keep the
question of biowarfare alive. An event unequal in human history in its sudden appearance, global reach, social
and economic consequences, with attendant officially approved and orchestrated propaganda and a long chain of
tell-tale "coincidences", must necessarily arouse the suspicion in every thinking person that the Masters of
the Universe are up with their usual tricks of attempting to re-shape the world according to their designs and
goals.
All major historical events have arisen, apart from the rare natural cataclysms, from Man's actions, mostly
the result of a single conspiracy from which, in turn, originate predictable and unpredictable reactions and
other conspiracies. Any plan or scheme to alter the existing status quo starts as a conspiracy whether a band
of professional robbers or politicians; it is in the nature of things that any organizational project or task
involves the co-operation of individuals as a group to achieve a particular aim and, if in the prosecution of
that aim a certain amount of discretion is necessary to have an advantage over the potential opposing side, a
conspiracy takes place. Most of governments' actions are conspiracies and their legitimacy and propriety should
be probed and investigated. To counter that, most (perhaps all) governments erect "official secrets acts" walls
to hide their conspiracies and set up counter-information departments.
This pandemic has risen a conspirational stench because it stinks of malodorous human interference with the
natural order for a purpose unknown, the first characteristic of a conspiracy. The same could be said about the
World Trade Centre incident because the official explanation is at variance with the physics natural order,
hence its conspiracy credentials because the government is openly hiding the true facts, as a conspirator does.
As Barrett has noted (and so have other commenters here at UR) the US is at a cross-roads in its history
where it must set a course of its own making to counter the rise of China as an economic superpower. The US
official policy is to prevent the emergence of any rival power, even a regional one in places where the US has
no legitimate concerns, and China must be hindered, blocked and neutralized. So far, nothing has worked to stop
the Chinese economic juggernaut and the usual solution of going to war is fraught with danger. Yes, the US
could nuke China (as the only military advantage it may have over China) but at a huge cost to itself, both
militarily and reputationally. Besides, facing the opprobrium of the world and a resurgent Russia (which would
not let the opportunity to be wasted) the US would be doomed. Even the clowns and puppets that masquerade as
government in Washington know that the "military solution" is out. Meanwhile, every year China is getting
bigger and better and time is of the essence, as Barrett noted.
What can be done to stop China then? Hybrid warfare (sanctions, blockades, threats, propaganda) is not
working either, but China, for the time being, has an Achilles heel: international trade, in which it depends
for continuing its economic development. If sanctions and threats against China's trading partners don't work,
how about bringing the whole international trade edifice down a la World Trade Centre? If the world global
economy is seriously disrupted, countries won't be able to trade and there goes the Chinese trump card. Enter
Covid-19.
"Our observations suggest that by the time SARS-CoV-2 was first detected in late 2019, it was already
pre-adapted to human transmission to an extent similar to late epidemic SARS-CoV. However, no precursors or
branches of evolution stemming from a less human-adapted SARS-CoV-2-like virus have been detected. "
" and examine the environmental samples from the Wuhan Huanan seafood market. Importantly, the market
samples are genetically identical to human SARS-CoV-2 isolates and were therefore most likely from human
sources."
Where did RaTG13 come from?
Was Shi Zhengli engaging in some cover up, alibi [for whom?] constructing when she published her January
23, 2020 paper:
" on January 23, Shi Zhengli released a paper indicating that CoV2 is 96% identical to RaTG13, a strain
which her laboratory had previously isolated from Yunnan bats in 2013. However, outside of her lab, no one
knew about that strain until January 2020." – Yuri Deigin,
medium.com
The fact she revealed RaTG13 as her deus ex machina is somewhat odd, that RaTG13 which was sequenced and
analyzed was not published and not cataloged soon after its discovery in 2013 is, I would think, strange.
And supposedly there is no samples of RaTG13 in the lab. All they have is its sequence in the computer,
though, this perhaps might be normal for lab procedures, which I know nothing about.
RaTG13 is not that close to SARS-CoV-2.
https://medium.com/@yurideigin/lab-made-cov2-genealogy-through-the-lens-of-gain-of-function-research-f96dd7413748
Reports show that pangolins are potentially the intermediate host, but pangolin viruses are 88–98% identical
to SARS-CoV-2. In comparison, civet and racoon dog strains of SARS coronaviruses were 99.8% identical to
SARS-CoV from 2003. In other words, we are talking about a handful of mutations between civet strains,
racoon dog strains and human strains in 2003. Pangolins [strains of CoV2] have over 3000 nucleotide changes,
no way they are the reservoir species.
Alfred
says:
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May 30, 2020 at 10:30 am GMT
• 200 Words
@Morton's toes
Before inventing a hypothesis about powers and forces and geopolitics forming current events, you really
need a historical analog. If it has never happened before, anywhere, any time, then you are making an argument
which has a form of this time it is different.
How about Lyme Disease? Just look at a map of how it is
spreading and where it started. Humans have lived in this area for many thousands of years – without any such
infection. Don't you think that it is a little suspicious that it should start in the USA and in the 1980's?
TPTB are trying to blame it on "Climate Change". Well, the climate has changed many times in the past.
Anyway, there are areas of the USA that are warmer than New England so why did it not start there?
It is pretty obvious to anyone with the ability to think critically that Lyme Disease was created in the USA
and in a laboratory in New England – a leading research area.
There are two ways viruses mutate, replication and recombination. It seems highly unlikely that Covid 19 was
a naturally occurring replication, hence the support for some kind of man-made virus.
However, it does seem quite possible, even highly probable that this was a mutation by recombination, the
most likely candidate being a mix of bat corona virus and pangolin corona virus.
Until we get the virology nailed down, blaming governments or labs is just politics and not science.
Corvinus
says:
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May 30, 2020 at 1:09 pm GMT
• 700 Words
@SBaker
"Can we blame it on the virus, even if it was manufactured in the evil labs of the US or China, as has been
convincingly suggested by Ron Unz?"
Suggested, yes. Convincingly? No.
The Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel
#coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #China.
January 14, 2020, World Health Organization
There is no evidence that the coronavirus was created in a laboratory.
April 20, 2020, The Conversation
The World Health Organization reiterated that the coronavirus which causes COVID-19 is "natural in
origin." Scientists who are examining the genetic sequences of the virus have assured "again and again that
this virus is natural in origin."
May 1, 2020
Dr. Anthony Fauci, a renowned U.S. infectious disease expert, has said that there is no scientific
evidence to back the theory that the coronavirus was made in a Chinese laboratory. "If you look at the
evolution of the virus in bats and what's out there now, the scientific evidence is very, very strongly
leaning toward this could not have been artificially or deliberately manipulated," he said.
May 4, 2020, National Geographic
WHO says it has no evidence to support 'speculative' Covid-19 lab theory
May 5, 2020, The Guardian
The British government has not seen any evidence to suggest that the novel coronavirus that causes
COVID-19 was man-made.
May 9, 2020, UK Health Minister Matt Hancock
Scientists: 'Exactly zero' evidence COVID-19 came from a lab.
May 12, 2020, Center for Infections Disease Research and Policy
Evidence of COVID's natural origin mounts even as conspiracy theory about Chinese lab refuses to die
May 13, 2020, Cornell Alliance for Science
Mr. Unz can't have his cake and eat it, too. On one hand, he tacitly encourages readers to peddle this "Fake
News" mantra. On the other hand, he latches on to MSM stories that seemingly support his conclusions. He
inferred that we ought to trust ABC News, which cited four separate intelligence sources that a government
report
*existed*
that Covid-19 is a bioweapon. Of course that report "exists". Whether or not
that report constitutes a "smoking gun" in an entirely different matter. But I thought that ANYTHING that comes
from U.S. intelligence ought not to be trusted. Because Deep State. It would appear that those stories which
supports his predisposed narrative, he takes stock in, and for other stories that go against his truth grain,
he vigorously questions their veracity, at best, or totally discards.
Ultimately, a fine number of readers here believe the source he used is part of FAKE NEWS. I would like to
know how Mr. Unz would respond to their repeated accusation that ALL of the mainstream media reporting are
lies. Here is Anon 223 stating that we ought NOT to trust ABC News.
I wouldn't take the ABC news report at face value. Essentially, most of the Federal Government despises
Trump, and want an excuse to make him look bad. Stating that the coronavirus was known since November would
make Trump look bad since he didn't do anything(though he does look bad ). This the same organization that
states continuously that Trump had allied with Russia and that he had a hooker pee on him in a Russian
hotel.
Now, if we go by the assumption that Mr. Unz "carefully reads" several MSM publications, then would it not
be probable that other people also carry out this same course of action? Would not those people be properly
equipped to counter his line of thinking if they underwent a similar process? Or does Mr. Unz possess a unique
skillset they ultimately lack?
"The Global Lockdown is a massive worldwide reset mechanism, deliberately engineered, designed to knock over
the chessboard and scatter the pieces, forcing the players to either start over or to create new, invented
positions on the board"
This statement here personifies the descent into modern anti-intellectualism. This insistence that a
Globalist cabal will destroy the white race once and for all is predicated on the notion that the Deep State is
pulling the strings through a series of coordinated false flags, with high IQ whites being duped along the way
by a complicit media. Proof? Not required. But anyone dare to question this general Alt-Right, Q-driven
narrative, and (whallah) one is deemed a purveyor of Fake News. Hey, no need to critically think when under the
impression that ANY and ALL news from the MSM is doctored, altered, or outright lies.
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Desert Fox
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May 30, 2020 at 1:16 pm GMT
• 100 Words
The coronavirus scam was unleashed to provide trillions to bail out wall street and at the same time bring in
UN Agenda 2030 draconian, diabolical, demonic controls over humanity, using the fake coronavirus scare , which
it a total scam.
Gates and Fauci and all involved in this scam should be arrested for crimes against
humanity!
This virus is man-made, but it is not a bioweapon.
The real weapon was the fake media that is controlled by a handful of people. All the countries that went
into a national lockdown, including Russia, have a media controlled by Zionists.
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2020crazzetrain
says:
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May 30, 2020 at 2:38 pm GMT
• 100 Words
Great article, Mr. Unz. The US is the consummate propaganda machine!
Mr. Romanoff's
3 part series on Bio-Weapons
, among other things, such as
'The Untold History of the
United States'
on Netflix; opened my eyes to just how diabolical these global technocratic, psychos have
been for as long as I've been alive.
Fort Detrick was likely place of origin for
'the engineered virus'.
"Until we get the virology nailed down, blaming governments or labs is just politics and not science."
Well that makes sense, but you're preaching to the choir.
As we would expect, the problem is the corrupt U.S. "government," which is already publicly blaming the
enemy du jour, China, without any evidence to back up its claims. And the U.S. "government" is making threats
and already taking some action based on those unsupported claims.
It may be of benefit to humanity if some doubt can be immediately cast on the specious claims of the U.S.
"government."
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Robert White
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May 30, 2020 at 3:10 pm GMT
• 400 Words
Real Probability of SARS-2-nCoV-19 being a bioweaponized nCoronavirus imbued with Gain-ofFunction properties,
and Dual Use applications is in fact P=1 given pathogenicity, asymptomatic & undetectable spread, and aged
cohort fatalities in Long Term Care environments.
Epidemiologically, a Six Sigma collapse of the entirety of
all Long Term Care facilities in the world would devastate the infrastructure for Tertiary Care Hospitals
worldwide via spread & vectoring of this deadly man made Pandemic Pathogen.
To assert that SARS-2-nCoV-19 is merely yet another nCoronavirus that has manifested naturally whilst
asserting on the other hand that it could not possibly be a man made bioweaponized nCoronavirus is a lesson in
doublespeak when evidence is not forthcoming for the assertions.
Real scientists are evidenced based via Empiricism proper. Propagandists don't utilize evidenced based
argumentation as that would undermine their task to win hearts & minds one step at a time.
NIST manufactured so-called 'evidence' that was NOT peer-reviewed whatsoever. The bioweaponized SARS-2-nCoV-19
will undergo the same propagandization process utilized for the CIA Controlled Demolition of the Trade Centers
in NYC.
Most researchers continue to neglect mention of the 2014 Cambridge Working Group Call to Action on
Gain-of-Function Dual Use Pandemic Pathogen manufacturing in USA Biosafety Level Four laboratories, but it is
key to the historical patterns & USA finance of the global industry of Pandemic Pathogen manufacturing in
global BSL-4 laboratories that are primarily funded by USA taxpayers the world over.
Most researchers also fail to mention that the United States of America is a culture of death & extreme text
book Psychopathy via Central Intelligence Agency acts of genocide on a global basis.
The historiography is replete with evidence that the United States of America is funding the lion's share of
Pandemic Pathogen research in BSL-4 labs worldwide, and they are also the most likely & probable culprits for
any & all Pandemic Pathogen outbreaks whether accidental or otherwise intentional.
American is a continent of liars, thieves, and text book Psychopaths helming the political sphere and
obviously lost hegemonic status worldwide 2020. In 2016 we were led to believe that if the USA voted in a true
text book Psychopath like Trump and facilitated a bogus meme to run on like Make America Great Again-MAGA, we
would all live happily ever after until the next round of elections manifested that produced a Democrat
replacement.
Neocons & Republicans always utilize threats of war to finagle their way through terms of corruption whilst
pillaging the financial system globally. Today is no different politically from any other Republican term of
office whereby violence & threats of violence are their only tools of choice.
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Sean
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May 30, 2020 at 4:05 pm GMT
• 400 Words
'American neoconservatives' can only mean the crypto Zionist Jews of the Israel Lobby, and as they are far more
worried about Israel than America, to credibly propose US neocons as the authors of a bioweapon attack on
China, it is necessary to explain how that would benefit Israel. Or, at least how it might have been calculated
by US neocons to be in the interests of Jewish American Zionist aspirations for Israel. A continuing close
relationship between Israel and America is the prerequisite for all Zionist hopes for the future. I think the
only scenario for neocons attacking China with a bioweapon is they thought it necessary to save Israel from its
own leadership. Last December Netanyahu's son said British diplomats should be "kicked out" of Israel because
of their reference to the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Israel has clearly no fear of anything the
international community says about the West Bank Palestinians. American support is a given and while Trump is
in office Israel formally annexing the West Bank and penning its Palestinian population up in Bantustans is
something American neoconservatives can and will bring about. Unless there is something else Israel is doing
that makes sustaining the pro Israel stance geopolitically impossible.
There is such an obstacle to Trump acquicing in the annexation of the occupied territories: a burgeoning
collaboration between China and Israel. China running the Israeli port that US Navy warships dock at and China
building the world's biggest desalination plant in Israel (supposedly a key ME ally of the US) is not something
that any US president could or would accept. Trump is absolutely going to have to act to counter it, and
because the Netanyahu family will be handsomely paid off by the Chinese (valuing the Israel Lobby as a wedge
against Trump's China trade policy) there is a possibility that Israel annexing the West Bank will be the
begining of the end of the US-Israel, special relationship. It sort of makes sense for the US neoconservatives
worried about Israel to attack China in order to separate it from Israel. However from what I have read the
Israel Lobby is subservient to Israeli politicians.
One very plausible hypothesis is that coronavirus will probably "militarizes the United States even more than 9/11" So the escape
from a lab could be orgnized by the same forces which did 9/11 and anthrax attack.
Notable quotes:
"... Well, let me just say two of them I would call spooks with Ph.Ds, who have come out and done research on a whole very odd collection of subjects, all of which the US government has tried to cover up in the past. So I'll just name some of those things: Gulf War Syndrome, chronic fatigue syndrome, anthrax vaccine induced illnesses, autism, Ebola, and coronavirus ..."
"... And there were very effective biological weapons made and used in the period around World War 2 and subsequent to it that are documented in the literature. There are no books telling you what's been made in the last 10 years. But we know a lot about what was made 50 to 80 years ago. ..."
"... in my understanding of biological warfare, no country used a biological agent against another country if they didn't think they could control it. If they thought it might blow back onto their country, it wouldn't be used. So historically, I don't think this is the kind of agent that would deliberately be used at a nation level. ..."
"... As long as there is no huge history-changing event that radically ends this trajectory that we're on and that there's no obvious way off of, the US essentially will acquiesce to Chinese global hegemony. And that is 100 percent unacceptable, even to sensible realists like Mearsheimer, much less the neocon fanatical crazies at places like PNAC looking for a new American century. ..."
"... And those people did 9/11-anthrax and they're back in power in the Trump administration. So Mearsheimer says that the only way to stop China's rise is essentially to destroy the global economy. He says even wrecking the U.S. economy along with the global economy would would be worth it because security is more important than prosperity. And this is a relatively sensible guy writing back in 2015. ..."
"... I don't see why they would be particularly averse to it escaping, going global and doing precisely what it's doing, because it is doing exactly what they want, which is destroying the global(ized) economy, which ultimately in the long run stops China's displacing the U.S. And number two, it militarizes the United States even more than 9/11 did. And they want to bring us back to the thirties and head towards a World War 2 situation to stop China, although they hope it may not be necessary to go that far. So basically, if the neocons didn't invent coronavirus, they would have had to invent some (similar) virus or its equivalent. This is precisely what one would have predicted five years ago would happen. ..."
"... first we could go to the neocon philosophy, which is that human flourishing only occurs during extreme situations of stress, suffering, struggle and strife epitomized by warfare. So for them, the only real purpose of human life is all out war to the death. And that's where heroic qualities emerge from human beings who are otherwise lazy and worthless. That's their basic philosophy of life. And then secondly -- ..."
"... No, wait a minute. If that's the neocon philosophy of life, why were they all chickenhawks? Have any of them gone to war? ..."
"... Well, that's the point. They're projecting these fantasies in the privacy of their studies and their twisted, warped imaginations. But yeah, they're happy to inflict this suffering and struggle and death on everybody else. And they want the other guy to be the one to die, of course. And so I assume that they're planning to not be casualties of this disaster that they're setting off. But setting the philosophical thing aside, I think that strategically they are really planning for this to take down the current globalized economy, to force countries to go back to more localized manufacturing, certainly to follow Trump's and Kissinger's neocon agenda, the anti-China agenda of bringing back manufacturing to the US. ..."
Kevin Barrett:
Truth Jihad Radio
is often
the best place to go for the most important stories that the mainstream won't cover. Today I'm talking to
Meryl Nass
. She's an expert who has written a very important article
about how the propaganda push by very suspicious scientists to claim that Covid-19 couldn't possibly be bioweaponized is a red flag
that everybody should be paying attention to.
But you won't see anything about this in the corporate controlled mainstream Mockingbird media. So please help this kind of material
continue to come to light, by subscribing to
DrKevinBarrett at Patreon.com
.
Welcome to Truth Jihad Radio. I'm Kevin Barrett searching fearlessly for truth in all of the most forbidden places, bringing on people
who are also going to those kinds of places. And sometimes I find genuine experts on various subjects. And we have one of those with
us today, Meryl Nass. She is definitely one of the go-to experts on biological warfare related topics. Yet for some reason, the mainstream
media isn't going to her. I wonder why that would be. Maybe because the things she wrote about the anthrax attacks back in 2001 were
a little bit too truthful. Anyway, she's got some very interesting posts up now at
her anthrax vaccine blog
. But first, before we jump into that, let
me just say that when I say she's an expert: She has consulted for the World Bank. She's testified to Congress. She diagnosed Zimbabwe's
1978 anthrax epidemic as an episode of biological warfare. She's consulted for Cuba's Ministry of Health on its optic and peripheral
neuropathy epidemic, and on and on. So she has a pretty good, solid basis for her views.
And she recently posted what I thought was a critically important piece "
Why are some of the
US' top scientists making a specious argument about the natural origin of SARS-CoV-2?
" pointing out, why is this that the top
U.S. scientists are being trumpeted all over the media, making a specious argument about the natural origin of Sars CoV-2. So why are
they, Meryl? Why is it that they're telling us this could not possibly be a bioweapon, and yet obviously it could?
Meryl Nass:
Well, that's the $64,000 question, isn't it? Maybe we should go back and explain what I'm aware of that happened.
Sometime in late February, a group of scientists, which included the former head of the National Science Foundation and a former top
person at CDC, as well as a bunch of other people, many of whom had worked in the biological defense / biological warfare area -- possibly
all of them had -- published
a very short statement
in
The Lancet
saying they wanted to stand with the Chinese public health officials and scientists and point out that rumors
about the unnatural origin of coronavirus were a conspiracy theory and should be dismissed.
They didn't provide evidence, but they made this very strong statement in the top medical journal in the world,
The Lancet
. And so, OK. I have to say that the first author -- and it was alphabetical, so this is the first author alphabetically who signed
that -- is someone that I was told about 27 years ago when I consulted in Cuba, when they had a very severe epidemic of blindness and
other neurologic symptoms. And it turned out it was due to cyanide.
There were two. They were the first in 100 years, I think, in the Western Hemisphere. And if I remember correctly, this was a long
time ago, about 150 or more Cubans died, mostly small children, as a result of the Dengue epidemics. So I thought, that's interesting
that this bio-warrior is signing a statement saying that the core idea that the coronavirus might be due to a biological warfare construct
should be dismissed outright as a conspiracy theory.
Kevin Barrett:
Wow. What a coincidence, that that would be the guy who would do that. You say he's the first author alphabetically?
Meryl Nass:
Yes.
Kevin Barrett:
Well, we can figure out who that is then.
Meryl Nass:
A group of five scientists, and I knew of several of them. I've been in contact with at least one of them in the
past, and they too were sort of biological defense, biological warfare people.
Well, let me just say two of them I would call spooks
with Ph.Ds, who have come out and done research on a whole very odd collection of subjects, all of which the US government has tried
to cover up in the past. So I'll just name some of those things: Gulf War Syndrome, chronic fatigue syndrome, anthrax vaccine induced
illnesses, autism, Ebola, and coronavirus
.
So that's an odd group of different things that you might be researching and writing about. But oddly enough, a couple of these scientists
have chosen that obscure group of things that are somewhat unrelated to each other to comment about. And so these five scientists wrote
a piece in Nature Medicine which claimed to have found the scientific linchpin to be able to make the argument that the new coronavirus
is a natural occurrence. And the argument they made was that had it been constructed in the lab, it would have used the particular backbone
that laboratorians know about. But because it didn't have that backbone, it couldn't possibly be a lab construct.
The problem with that argument is basically it was a straw man argument. They said, well, if I were going to make the novel coronavirus,
I would have made it this way. But because it isn't made that way, it's not a lab construct. Of course, you can make the novel coronavirus
a lot of different ways. And I pointed out three different ways one might have come up with a novel coronavirus that weren't using the
method they suggested.
And I've gotten confirmation. I'm a physician, I'm not a scientist, but I did work in a lab. I went to M.I.T.. So I do know biology,
although I am not well versed in modern genetic engineering. But I do know a lot about how biological weapons used to be made, how they
were made before and during World War 2 and afterwards.
And there were very effective biological weapons made and used in the period
around World War 2 and subsequent to it that are documented in the literature. There are no books telling you what's been made in the
last 10 years. But we know a lot about what was made 50 to 80 years ago.
So I then looked at the connections between the first group of scientists who had published in
The Lancet
and the second group
that had published in
Nature Medicine
and found that well, for example, that the person I mentioned before who had been to Cuba
and looked at the Aedes mosquitoes, even though that person is now of the retirement age, is a member of the institute of one of the
second authors. And I saw other connections between these two groups.
Kevin Barrett:
Sounds like the usual suspects.
Meryl Nass:
Yes, exactly. It seemed that the second group, anyway, the guys who were trotted out to provide the last word
on all these other controversial medical subjects had been again trotted out to provide the last word. Then I thought, who else is talking
about this? And when I looked that up, I found the head of the NIH, Dr. Francis Collins, an MD-Ph.D, cited the work of these five scientists
to say basically now we've proven that this is a natural occurrence and everyone can forget about the conspiracy theory. And he further
said if you're if you're concerned about what you read about coronavirus, just go to the FEMA website where they are telling you what
is a rumor and what isn't. So I thought, well, that's interesting that the policy makers or the people who pull the strings are able
to pull Francis Collins' strings and get him to comment on this, again agreeing with an argument that he must have known to be specious.
Kevin Barrett:
You don't have to comment on this, but this sure reminds me of what's been going on post-9/11, with first the
ridiculous FEMA report on the so-called collapses of the Trade Center towers and then the NIST reports culminating in the most absurd
one of all, the NIST report on Building 7. Throughout that whole process, the usual suspect so-called scientists were putting out utter
baloney and rubber stamping it, and all the officials were rubber stamping it mindlessly, and any independent voices speaking common
sense and truth were marginalized.
Meryl Nass:
Yes. So that is of course what's happening here. And it's very helpful, it seems, to be able to identify them
as this same group, the same group who can be used over and over and over again over decades to whitewash what the system wants whitewashed.
And then you look at their grants. Ugh! Some of these people are making unbelievable grants.
Kevin Barrett:
They're probably flying on Epstein's Lolita Express and things like that, too.
Meryl Nass:
That I did not look up.
Kevin Barrett:
I wouldn't be surprised, anyway.
Meryl Nass:
There is a lot of money flowing through their laboratories. So anyway, the final point I made was that every scientist
who signed these two documents and then Francis Collins has had something to do with biological defense. If you're a top scientist in
the U.S. government, you are asked to look into pandemics and the risk that they could be due to a biological weapon. And so as far
as I could tell, virtually all these people have had some background in looking at these things. And they're all old. They all remember
the days before the last three decades of genetic engineering and they all must realize, if they have any competence as scientists,
that there are other ways to create biological agents, microorganisms. And so for them to all have signed this, knowing that, just makes
you wonder -- why did they do this?
They presumably did it because they had some sense that it was a lab organism. Perhaps it was a lab escape and perhaps they were
trying to protect the whole enterprise of biological defense, which is a multibillion dollar yearly industry that feeds many, many people,
including themselves.
Kevin Barrett:
I would argue that's a relatively innocent explanation. There are worse ones than that.
Meryl Nass:
The interesting thing is that all these countries do research together. So China, US, (former) Soviet Union, Ukraine
All different countries send people to labs in other countries to work on micro-organisms. So you can put your finger on people from
many different countries who were working on bat coronaviruses in labs around the world. And this could have been a lab escape from
many different places. I mean, it could have been a deliberate attack. But
in my understanding of biological warfare, no country
used a biological agent against another country if they didn't think they could control it. If they thought it might blow back onto
their country, it wouldn't be used. So historically, I don't think this is the kind of agent that would deliberately be used at a nation
level.
Kevin Barrett:
Let me just give you a possible opposing argument. John Mearsheimer wrote in, I believe 2015, in
a very famous article about China's
unpeaceful rise
that said, in so many words, the US is stuck between a rock and a hard place in terms of trying to contain China's
rise, which is based on its double digit growth averaging out since 1980 or so. And that that growth inevitably is pushing China to
break out of U.S. containment in Asia and become a regional hegemon, which is unacceptable to U.S. decision makers. And more likely,
it will actually "pose global challenges" meaning displace the U.S. as global hegemon as well, simply based on its economic growth,
which now has supposedly slowed to maybe 8 percent. But still, the differential between that and the U.S. and its Western allies is
such that within a decade or two, at the very most, it's a done deal.
As long as there is no huge history-changing event that radically
ends this trajectory that we're on and that there's no obvious way off of, the US essentially will acquiesce to Chinese global hegemony.
And that is 100 percent unacceptable, even to sensible realists like Mearsheimer, much less the neocon fanatical crazies at places like
PNAC looking for a new American century.
And those people did 9/11-anthrax and they're back in power in the Trump administration. So Mearsheimer says that the only way
to stop China's rise is essentially to destroy the global economy. He says even wrecking the U.S. economy along with the global economy
would would be worth it because security is more important than prosperity. And this is a relatively sensible guy writing back in 2015.
I've argued with Ron Unz about this. He he thinks it would have been a U.S. attack designed not to escape China, like previous U.S.
(bio-)attacks on China. But
I don't see why they would be particularly averse to it escaping, going global and doing precisely what
it's doing, because it is doing exactly what they want, which is destroying the global(ized) economy, which ultimately in the long run
stops China's displacing the U.S. And number two, it militarizes the United States even more than 9/11 did. And they want to bring us
back to the thirties and head towards a World War 2 situation to stop China, although they hope it may not be necessary to go that far.
So basically, if the neocons didn't invent coronavirus, they would have had to invent some (similar) virus or its equivalent. This is
precisely what one would have predicted five years ago would happen.
Meryl Nass:
That's a reasonable argument. But the economy is not being totally destroyed. It's just that factories are, closed,
people aren't going to work. Nothing's been destroyed. When we come out of this, China will still have all the factories and we will
have all the monetarists and all the play money. So it seems like China could get its engines going a lot quicker than we can when we
come out of it.
Kevin Barrett:
We won't come out of it.
Meryl Nass:
So if we don't come out of it, then it's not what the neocons chose.
Kevin Barrett:
They don't want to come out of it. They want to wreck global prosperity while the U.S. still has most of the
military hardware.
Meryl Nass:
I'm sorry. I guess I don't understand that.
Kevin Barrett
: Well, OK,
first we could go to the neocon philosophy, which is that human flourishing only occurs during extreme
situations of stress, suffering, struggle and strife epitomized by warfare. So for them, the only real purpose of human life is all
out war to the death. And that's where heroic qualities emerge from human beings who are otherwise lazy and worthless. That's their
basic philosophy of life. And then secondly --
Meryl Nass:
No, wait a minute. If that's the neocon philosophy of life, why were they all chickenhawks? Have any of them gone
to war?
Kevin Barrett
:
Well, that's the point. They're projecting these fantasies in the privacy of their studies and their twisted,
warped imaginations. But yeah, they're happy to inflict this suffering and struggle and death on everybody else. And they want the other
guy to be the one to die, of course. And so I assume that they're planning to not be casualties of this disaster that they're setting
off. But setting the philosophical thing aside, I think that strategically they are really planning for this to take down the current
globalized economy, to force countries to go back to more localized manufacturing, certainly to follow Trump's and Kissinger's neocon
agenda, the anti-China agenda of bringing back manufacturing to the US.
Meryl Nass:
And is there anything wrong with that? That seems to me a worthy goal.
Kevin Barrett:
Well, actually, yes, I would support bringing back manufacturing. I would support never having sent it to China
in the first place. However, it's in the context of their plan to stop China's rise. And China is just as committed to its rise as these
guys are to stopping it. Which means a lot of danger of war and unpleasantness. And I think this is just the first shot of what's going
to be a long round of war and unpleasantness through the next decade.
Meryl Nass:
Perhaps. Right. We don't know. Another thing I've written is that the whole reason this (pandemic) is (being)
stopped. My theory is that, I've tried to think like a politician -- and I did write this before the lockdown -- which is that what
would have happened once this coronavirus had spread widely in the US, is that had it not been halted, we would have gotten to a point
where the coronavirus had required way more medical facilities, personnel, equipment, etc. than we had, and there would be people dying
without access to any medical care. And I thought that given that in America, based on polls, the one thing Americans want from their
government is a health care system, and that the idea of people dying in the street without being able to get into a hospital was so
beyond the pale for politicians who saw that they would never be re-elected under those circumstances, that they then did everything
they could to stop that from happening. And by the point they decided to do something, the only thing that could be done was a lockdown.
And then finally attempting to get more equipment, supplies and personnel.
Kevin Barrett:
So, yeah, I agree, that's plausible.
Meryl Nass
: That's what happened. And I'm sure everybody is trying to now use this very extraordinary circumstance to their
own benefit in the near and far future.
Kevin Barrett:
Yeah, I agree. We'll see. The thing is, if if you were planning this thing, assuming that my scenario and your
scenario are both true, a very small group of people would have unleashed it, and then everybody else would be reacting according to
their own self-interest, including the politicians doing precisely what you described.
Meryl Nass:
Yeah, that's certainly possible.
Kevin Barrett:
Yeah. And I'm using as my model for this 9/11, which is what I've studied quite a lot over the past nearly
two decades. And I see parallels here between the two events in that 9/11 was about going to war with Islamic civilization, just as
this seems to be a strike against Chinese civilization -- both occurring in the wake of the Samuel Huntington -- Bernard Lewis claim
that "the clash of civilizations will be the new paradigm for us." And if it hadn't been for 9/11, that probably wouldn't have happened.
There would've been no clash of civilizations per se.
Meryl Nass:
I think, yes, you're right. And yet it looks like China is going to get out of this way more unscathed than we
are.
Kevin Barrett:
That's possible. Of course, you know, "they plot and Allah plots and Allah is the best of plotters." Ron Unz
may be right that some of this may have been unforeseen. And it's also possible that I could be wrong. It could be a coincidence. Sometimes
the coincidence theorists, even the craziest coincidence theorists, can be right once in awhile.
Meryl Nass:
Well, yes, given the fact that there are documented many hundreds of lab escapes of different organisms, going
by what's most likely, that seems to be the most likely explanation.
Kevin Barrett:
Do you think that's what happened with Lyme disease? Willy Burgdorfer, whose name was applied to the spirochete
organism that causes Lyme, is on record, filmed and recorded by Timothy Grey, confessing that he, Burgdorfer not only provided a name
for the organism, but he unleashed it on the world as a U.S. biodefense guy. So a lot of people think Lyme was an external escape. Others
hypothesize there may have been some U.S. versus Soviet element there, because Burgdorfer had a lot of money he was getting from somebody,
and he was flying to places where he might have been meeting with Russians, et cetera. So have you looked into the Lyme issue?
"Barking up a tree is more superstition then evidence unless you are a hunting dog. What about names,
fingerprints, DNA evidence, contact with someone who was actually there and willing to talk? This is the
real world, not superstitious nonsense."
They're exploring hypotheses here, not going to trial. (BTW, the U.S. "government" would tell you you're
full of shit. Things like DNA evidence, fingerprints, etc. are for suckers).
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Harold Smith
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May 30, 2020 at 4:53 am GMT
Is Francis Boyle still insisting – without any kind of evidence whatsoever – that SARS-CoV-2 came from the
Wuhan lab? If so he's just a moron whose nonsense doesn't deserve any exposure, IMO.
Is Francis Boyle still insisting – without any kind of evidence whatsoever – that SARS-CoV-2 came from
the Wuhan lab? If so he's just a moron whose nonsense doesn't deserve any exposure, IMO.
He's a lawyer, therefore he'll play the devil's advocate – an useful role to validate a legitimate
conclusion.
@ Kevin Barrett
Good on you, Ron Unz and all the cast to pursue the quest for the source of the Cv-19 pandemic and keep the
question of biowarfare alive. An event unequal in human history in its sudden appearance, global reach, social
and economic consequences, with attendant officially approved and orchestrated propaganda and a long chain of
tell-tale "coincidences", must necessarily arouse the suspicion in every thinking person that the Masters of
the Universe are up with their usual tricks of attempting to re-shape the world according to their designs and
goals.
All major historical events have arisen, apart from the rare natural cataclysms, from Man's actions, mostly
the result of a single conspiracy from which, in turn, originate predictable and unpredictable reactions and
other conspiracies. Any plan or scheme to alter the existing status quo starts as a conspiracy whether a band
of professional robbers or politicians; it is in the nature of things that any organizational project or task
involves the co-operation of individuals as a group to achieve a particular aim and, if in the prosecution of
that aim a certain amount of discretion is necessary to have an advantage over the potential opposing side, a
conspiracy takes place. Most of governments' actions are conspiracies and their legitimacy and propriety should
be probed and investigated. To counter that, most (perhaps all) governments erect "official secrets acts" walls
to hide their conspiracies and set up counter-information departments.
This pandemic has risen a conspirational stench because it stinks of malodorous human interference with the
natural order for a purpose unknown, the first characteristic of a conspiracy. The same could be said about the
World Trade Centre incident because the official explanation is at variance with the physics natural order,
hence its conspiracy credentials because the government is openly hiding the true facts, as a conspirator does.
As Barrett has noted (and so have other commenters here at UR) the US is at a cross-roads in its history
where it must set a course of its own making to counter the rise of China as an economic superpower. The US
official policy is to prevent the emergence of any rival power, even a regional one in places where the US has
no legitimate concerns, and China must be hindered, blocked and neutralized. So far, nothing has worked to stop
the Chinese economic juggernaut and the usual solution of going to war is fraught with danger. Yes, the US
could nuke China (as the only military advantage it may have over China) but at a huge cost to itself, both
militarily and reputationally. Besides, facing the opprobrium of the world and a resurgent Russia (which would
not let the opportunity to be wasted) the US would be doomed. Even the clowns and puppets that masquerade as
government in Washington know that the "military solution" is out. Meanwhile, every year China is getting
bigger and better and time is of the essence, as Barrett noted.
What can be done to stop China then? Hybrid warfare (sanctions, blockades, threats, propaganda) is not
working either, but China, for the time being, has an Achilles heel: international trade, in which it depends
for continuing its economic development. If sanctions and threats against China's trading partners don't work,
how about bringing the whole international trade edifice down a la World Trade Centre? If the world global
economy is seriously disrupted, countries won't be able to trade and there goes the Chinese trump card. Enter
Covid-19.
"Our observations suggest that by the time SARS-CoV-2 was first detected in late 2019, it was already
pre-adapted to human transmission to an extent similar to late epidemic SARS-CoV. However, no precursors or
branches of evolution stemming from a less human-adapted SARS-CoV-2-like virus have been detected. "
" and examine the environmental samples from the Wuhan Huanan seafood market. Importantly, the market
samples are genetically identical to human SARS-CoV-2 isolates and were therefore most likely from human
sources."
Where did RaTG13 come from?
Was Shi Zhengli engaging in some cover up, alibi [for whom?] constructing when she published her January
23, 2020 paper:
" on January 23, Shi Zhengli released a paper indicating that CoV2 is 96% identical to RaTG13, a strain
which her laboratory had previously isolated from Yunnan bats in 2013. However, outside of her lab, no one
knew about that strain until January 2020." – Yuri Deigin,
medium.com
The fact she revealed RaTG13 as her deus ex machina is somewhat odd, that RaTG13 which was sequenced and
analyzed was not published and not cataloged soon after its discovery in 2013 is, I would think, strange.
And supposedly there is no samples of RaTG13 in the lab. All they have is its sequence in the computer,
though, this perhaps might be normal for lab procedures, which I know nothing about.
RaTG13 is not that close to SARS-CoV-2.
https://medium.com/@yurideigin/lab-made-cov2-genealogy-through-the-lens-of-gain-of-function-research-f96dd7413748
Reports show that pangolins are potentially the intermediate host, but pangolin viruses are 88–98% identical
to SARS-CoV-2. In comparison, civet and racoon dog strains of SARS coronaviruses were 99.8% identical to
SARS-CoV from 2003. In other words, we are talking about a handful of mutations between civet strains,
racoon dog strains and human strains in 2003. Pangolins [strains of CoV2] have over 3000 nucleotide changes,
no way they are the reservoir species.
Alfred
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• 200 Words
@Morton's toes
Before inventing a hypothesis about powers and forces and geopolitics forming current events, you really
need a historical analog. If it has never happened before, anywhere, any time, then you are making an argument
which has a form of this time it is different.
How about Lyme Disease? Just look at a map of how it is
spreading and where it started. Humans have lived in this area for many thousands of years – without any such
infection. Don't you think that it is a little suspicious that it should start in the USA and in the 1980's?
TPTB are trying to blame it on "Climate Change". Well, the climate has changed many times in the past.
Anyway, there are areas of the USA that are warmer than New England so why did it not start there?
It is pretty obvious to anyone with the ability to think critically that Lyme Disease was created in the USA
and in a laboratory in New England – a leading research area.
There are two ways viruses mutate, replication and recombination. It seems highly unlikely that Covid 19 was
a naturally occurring replication, hence the support for some kind of man-made virus.
However, it does seem quite possible, even highly probable that this was a mutation by recombination, the
most likely candidate being a mix of bat corona virus and pangolin corona virus.
Until we get the virology nailed down, blaming governments or labs is just politics and not science.
Corvinus
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May 30, 2020 at 1:09 pm GMT
• 700 Words
@SBaker
"Can we blame it on the virus, even if it was manufactured in the evil labs of the US or China, as has been
convincingly suggested by Ron Unz?"
Suggested, yes. Convincingly? No.
The Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel
#coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #China.
January 14, 2020, World Health Organization
There is no evidence that the coronavirus was created in a laboratory.
April 20, 2020, The Conversation
The World Health Organization reiterated that the coronavirus which causes COVID-19 is "natural in
origin." Scientists who are examining the genetic sequences of the virus have assured "again and again that
this virus is natural in origin."
May 1, 2020
Dr. Anthony Fauci, a renowned U.S. infectious disease expert, has said that there is no scientific
evidence to back the theory that the coronavirus was made in a Chinese laboratory. "If you look at the
evolution of the virus in bats and what's out there now, the scientific evidence is very, very strongly
leaning toward this could not have been artificially or deliberately manipulated," he said.
May 4, 2020, National Geographic
WHO says it has no evidence to support 'speculative' Covid-19 lab theory
May 5, 2020, The Guardian
The British government has not seen any evidence to suggest that the novel coronavirus that causes
COVID-19 was man-made.
May 9, 2020, UK Health Minister Matt Hancock
Scientists: 'Exactly zero' evidence COVID-19 came from a lab.
May 12, 2020, Center for Infections Disease Research and Policy
Evidence of COVID's natural origin mounts even as conspiracy theory about Chinese lab refuses to die
May 13, 2020, Cornell Alliance for Science
Mr. Unz can't have his cake and eat it, too. On one hand, he tacitly encourages readers to peddle this "Fake
News" mantra. On the other hand, he latches on to MSM stories that seemingly support his conclusions. He
inferred that we ought to trust ABC News, which cited four separate intelligence sources that a government
report
*existed*
that Covid-19 is a bioweapon. Of course that report "exists". Whether or not
that report constitutes a "smoking gun" in an entirely different matter. But I thought that ANYTHING that comes
from U.S. intelligence ought not to be trusted. Because Deep State. It would appear that those stories which
supports his predisposed narrative, he takes stock in, and for other stories that go against his truth grain,
he vigorously questions their veracity, at best, or totally discards.
Ultimately, a fine number of readers here believe the source he used is part of FAKE NEWS. I would like to
know how Mr. Unz would respond to their repeated accusation that ALL of the mainstream media reporting are
lies. Here is Anon 223 stating that we ought NOT to trust ABC News.
I wouldn't take the ABC news report at face value. Essentially, most of the Federal Government despises
Trump, and want an excuse to make him look bad. Stating that the coronavirus was known since November would
make Trump look bad since he didn't do anything(though he does look bad ). This the same organization that
states continuously that Trump had allied with Russia and that he had a hooker pee on him in a Russian
hotel.
Now, if we go by the assumption that Mr. Unz "carefully reads" several MSM publications, then would it not
be probable that other people also carry out this same course of action? Would not those people be properly
equipped to counter his line of thinking if they underwent a similar process? Or does Mr. Unz possess a unique
skillset they ultimately lack?
"The Global Lockdown is a massive worldwide reset mechanism, deliberately engineered, designed to knock over
the chessboard and scatter the pieces, forcing the players to either start over or to create new, invented
positions on the board"
This statement here personifies the descent into modern anti-intellectualism. This insistence that a
Globalist cabal will destroy the white race once and for all is predicated on the notion that the Deep State is
pulling the strings through a series of coordinated false flags, with high IQ whites being duped along the way
by a complicit media. Proof? Not required. But anyone dare to question this general Alt-Right, Q-driven
narrative, and (whallah) one is deemed a purveyor of Fake News. Hey, no need to critically think when under the
impression that ANY and ALL news from the MSM is doctored, altered, or outright lies.
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Desert Fox
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May 30, 2020 at 1:16 pm GMT
• 100 Words
The coronavirus scam was unleashed to provide trillions to bail out wall street and at the same time bring in
UN Agenda 2030 draconian, diabolical, demonic controls over humanity, using the fake coronavirus scare , which
it a total scam.
Gates and Fauci and all involved in this scam should be arrested for crimes against
humanity!
This virus is man-made, but it is not a bioweapon.
The real weapon was the fake media that is controlled by a handful of people. All the countries that went
into a national lockdown, including Russia, have a media controlled by Zionists.
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2020crazzetrain
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May 30, 2020 at 2:38 pm GMT
• 100 Words
Great article, Mr. Unz. The US is the consummate propaganda machine!
Mr. Romanoff's
3 part series on Bio-Weapons
, among other things, such as
'The Untold History of the
United States'
on Netflix; opened my eyes to just how diabolical these global technocratic, psychos have
been for as long as I've been alive.
Fort Detrick was likely place of origin for
'the engineered virus'.
"Until we get the virology nailed down, blaming governments or labs is just politics and not science."
Well that makes sense, but you're preaching to the choir.
As we would expect, the problem is the corrupt U.S. "government," which is already publicly blaming the
enemy du jour, China, without any evidence to back up its claims. And the U.S. "government" is making threats
and already taking some action based on those unsupported claims.
It may be of benefit to humanity if some doubt can be immediately cast on the specious claims of the U.S.
"government."
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Robert White
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May 30, 2020 at 3:10 pm GMT
• 400 Words
Real Probability of SARS-2-nCoV-19 being a bioweaponized nCoronavirus imbued with Gain-ofFunction properties,
and Dual Use applications is in fact P=1 given pathogenicity, asymptomatic & undetectable spread, and aged
cohort fatalities in Long Term Care environments.
Epidemiologically, a Six Sigma collapse of the entirety of
all Long Term Care facilities in the world would devastate the infrastructure for Tertiary Care Hospitals
worldwide via spread & vectoring of this deadly man made Pandemic Pathogen.
To assert that SARS-2-nCoV-19 is merely yet another nCoronavirus that has manifested naturally whilst
asserting on the other hand that it could not possibly be a man made bioweaponized nCoronavirus is a lesson in
doublespeak when evidence is not forthcoming for the assertions.
Real scientists are evidenced based via Empiricism proper. Propagandists don't utilize evidenced based
argumentation as that would undermine their task to win hearts & minds one step at a time.
NIST manufactured so-called 'evidence' that was NOT peer-reviewed whatsoever. The bioweaponized SARS-2-nCoV-19
will undergo the same propagandization process utilized for the CIA Controlled Demolition of the Trade Centers
in NYC.
Most researchers continue to neglect mention of the 2014 Cambridge Working Group Call to Action on
Gain-of-Function Dual Use Pandemic Pathogen manufacturing in USA Biosafety Level Four laboratories, but it is
key to the historical patterns & USA finance of the global industry of Pandemic Pathogen manufacturing in
global BSL-4 laboratories that are primarily funded by USA taxpayers the world over.
Most researchers also fail to mention that the United States of America is a culture of death & extreme text
book Psychopathy via Central Intelligence Agency acts of genocide on a global basis.
The historiography is replete with evidence that the United States of America is funding the lion's share of
Pandemic Pathogen research in BSL-4 labs worldwide, and they are also the most likely & probable culprits for
any & all Pandemic Pathogen outbreaks whether accidental or otherwise intentional.
American is a continent of liars, thieves, and text book Psychopaths helming the political sphere and
obviously lost hegemonic status worldwide 2020. In 2016 we were led to believe that if the USA voted in a true
text book Psychopath like Trump and facilitated a bogus meme to run on like Make America Great Again-MAGA, we
would all live happily ever after until the next round of elections manifested that produced a Democrat
replacement.
Neocons & Republicans always utilize threats of war to finagle their way through terms of corruption whilst
pillaging the financial system globally. Today is no different politically from any other Republican term of
office whereby violence & threats of violence are their only tools of choice.
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Sean
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May 30, 2020 at 4:05 pm GMT
• 400 Words
'American neoconservatives' can only mean the crypto Zionist Jews of the Israel Lobby, and as they are far more
worried about Israel than America, to credibly propose US neocons as the authors of a bioweapon attack on
China, it is necessary to explain how that would benefit Israel. Or, at least how it might have been calculated
by US neocons to be in the interests of Jewish American Zionist aspirations for Israel. A continuing close
relationship between Israel and America is the prerequisite for all Zionist hopes for the future. I think the
only scenario for neocons attacking China with a bioweapon is they thought it necessary to save Israel from its
own leadership. Last December Netanyahu's son said British diplomats should be "kicked out" of Israel because
of their reference to the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Israel has clearly no fear of anything the
international community says about the West Bank Palestinians. American support is a given and while Trump is
in office Israel formally annexing the West Bank and penning its Palestinian population up in Bantustans is
something American neoconservatives can and will bring about. Unless there is something else Israel is doing
that makes sustaining the pro Israel stance geopolitically impossible.
There is such an obstacle to Trump acquicing in the annexation of the occupied territories: a burgeoning
collaboration between China and Israel. China running the Israeli port that US Navy warships dock at and China
building the world's biggest desalination plant in Israel (supposedly a key ME ally of the US) is not something
that any US president could or would accept. Trump is absolutely going to have to act to counter it, and
because the Netanyahu family will be handsomely paid off by the Chinese (valuing the Israel Lobby as a wedge
against Trump's China trade policy) there is a possibility that Israel annexing the West Bank will be the
begining of the end of the US-Israel, special relationship. It sort of makes sense for the US neoconservatives
worried about Israel to attack China in order to separate it from Israel. However from what I have read the
Israel Lobby is subservient to Israeli politicians.
"... In any case it looks like Flynn helped to avoid "boxing in" the new administration after the expulsion of Russian diplomats by the lame duck President? . That does not help Trump one bit, because first of all he is incompetent, and secondly he was instantly cooped by neocons, but still ..."
"... The key question here is whether Obama administration has motives to set a trap for Flynn now can be answered positively. If this was an entrapment then this is clearly a criminal offense and Strzok, Comey and possibly Brennan and Clapper, are clearly in hot water. ..."
One plausible hypothesis is that Obama administration decided to revenge Flynn
maneuver to foil Obama last move -- the expulsion of Russian diplomats, which stated
neo-McCarthyism campaign in the USA. He explicitly asked Russians not to retaliate and I
would understand why Obama did not like this move.
In any case it looks like Flynn helped to avoid "boxing in" the new administration
after the expulsion of Russian diplomats by the lame duck President? . That does not help
Trump one bit, because first of all he is incompetent, and secondly he was instantly
cooped by neocons, but still
The key question here is whether Obama administration has motives to set a trap for
Flynn now can be answered positively. If this was an entrapment then this is clearly a
criminal offense and Strzok, Comey and possibly Brennan and Clapper, are clearly in hot
water.
When it comes to
foreign policy, Pompeo's penchant for undermining America's credibility is top-notch
'Pompeo is a
natural Trumpist.' Donald Trump's disdain for the
people, country and values his office is supposed to represent is unmatched in recent memory.
And he has found in the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo , a kindred spirit who has
embraced his role as Trumpism's number one proselytizer to the world.
Pompeo doesn't wield nearly as much power or have the jurisdiction to inflict damage on as
wide a range of issues as the president. He's not as crass or erratic as Trump, and his Twitter
feed seems dedicated more to childish
mockery than outright attacks. But when it comes to foreign policy, Pompeo's penchant for
undermining America's credibility is top-notch.
At Pompeo's recommendation,
Trump fired the state department's inspector general, who is supposed to be an independent
investigator charged with looking into potential wrongdoing inside the department. Steve Linick
was just the latest in a series of inspectors general across
the government that Trump had fired in an attempt to hide the misconduct of his administration
– but it also shone a spotlight on how Pompeo has undermined his agency.
Watchdog was investigating Pompeo for arms deal and staff misuse
before firing
According to news reports, Pompeo was being investigated by the inspector general for
bypassing Congress and possibly breaking the law in sending weapons to Saudi Arabia, even
though his own department and the rest of the US government
advised against the decision. He was also supposedly
organizing fancy dinners – paid for by taxpayers – with influential
businesspeople and TV personalities that seemed geared more towards supporting Pompeo's
political career than advancing US foreign policy goals. And he was reportedly being
scrutinized for using department personnel to conduct personal business, such as getting
dry cleaning and walking his dog.
But these revelations merely reaffirm a pattern of activities by Pompeo unbecoming of the
nation's top diplomat. When the House of Representatives was in the process of impeaching Trump
over his attempt to extort Ukraine for personal political purposes – an act that Pompeo
was aware of – Pompeo defended Trump while throwing under the bus career state department
officials, like the ousted US ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, who spoke out. Pompeo
has regularly ignored Congress, withholding documents from lawmakers – including during
the Ukraine impeachment investigation – and refusing to appear for testimony. In 2019,
the IG released a report detailing
political retaliation against career state department officials being perpetrated by Trump
officials. And Pompeo has spent considerable time traveling to Kansas and conducting media
interviews there, fueling speculation that he has been using his position to tee up a run for
the Senate, a
violation of the Hatch Act.
Pompeo is a natural Trumpist. In her fantastic profile
of the secretary of state, Susan Glasser notes of his first congressional race: "Pompeo ran a
nasty race against the Democrat, an Indian-American state legislator named Raj Goyle, who,
unlike Pompeo, had grown up in Wichita. Pompeo's campaign tweeted praise for an article calling
Goyle a 'turban topper', and a supporter bought billboards urging residents to 'Vote American – Vote Pompeo'."
... ... ...
Facebook
Twitter Pinterest 'Trump is undermining American leadership in incalculable ways, and
Pompeo has weaponized the state department on the president's behalf.' Photograph: Kevin
Lamarque/Reuters
Next to Trump's assault on US values, Pompeo's role as top Trump lackey may seem
insignificant. But the secretary of state is often the most senior US official that other
countries and publics hear from on any number of issues. Even with Trump in the Oval Office, a
secretary of state that was committed to the constitution - not Trump - would at least be able
to fight for the values that US foreign policy should embody,
and shield the department's day-to-day business from Trump's outbursts.
The work that
department professionals conduct around the world – helping American citizens abroad get
home in the early days of the pandemic or coordinating assistance to other countries to cope
with the coronavirus – is vital to American national security, and at the core of the
image that America projects abroad.
Trump is undermining American leadership in incalculable ways, and Pompeo has weaponized
the state department on his behalf
"... In reality, the part left out of the story is that the phone call to Kislyak on December 22, 2016, was made by Flynn at the direction of Jared Kushner, who in turn had been approached by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu had learned that the Obama Administrating was going to abstain on a United Nations vote condemning the Israeli settlements policy, meaning that for the first time in years a U.N. resolution critical of Israel would pass without drawing a U.S. veto. Kushner, acting for Netanyahu, asked Flynn to contact each delegate from the various countries on the Security Council to delay or kill the resolution. Flynn agreed to do so, which included a call to the Russians. Kislyak took the call but did not agree to veto Security Council Resolution 2334, which passed unanimously on December 23 rd . ..."
"... The phone call made at the request of Israel was neither benign nor ethical as the Barack Administration was still in power and managing the nation's foreign policy. At the time, son-in-law Jared Kushner was Trump's point man on the Middle East. He and his family have extensive ties both to Israel and to Netanyahu personally, to include Netanyahu's staying at the Kushner family home in New York. The Kushner Family Foundation has funded some of Israel's illegal settlements and also a number of conservative political groups in that country. Jared has served as a director of that foundation and it is reported that he failed to disclose the relationship when he filled out his background investigation sheet for a security clearance. All of which suggests that if you are looking for possible foreign government collusion with the incoming Trumpsters, look no further. ..."
"... And it should be observed that the Israelis were not exactly shy about their disapproval of Obama and their willingness to express their views to the incoming Trump. Kushner went far beyond merely disagreeing over an aspect of foreign policy as he was actively trying to clandestinely subvert and reverse a decision made by his own legally constituted government. His closeness to Netanyahu made him, in intelligence terms, a quite likely Israeli government agent of influence, even if he didn't quite see himself that way. ..."
"... Kushner's actions, as well as those of Flynn, would most certainly have been covered by the Logan Act of 1799, which bars private citizens from negotiating with foreign governments on behalf of the United States and also could be construed as a "conspiracy against the United States." But in spite of all that the investigation went after Flynn instead of Kushner. As Kushner is Jewish and certainly could be accused of dual loyalty in extremis , that part of the story obviously makes many in the U.S. Establishment and media uncomfortable, so it was and continues to be both ignored and expunged from the record as quickly as possible. ..."
There are two stories that seem to have been under-reported in the past couple of weeks. The
first involves Michael Flynn's dealings with the Russian United Nations Ambassador Sergey
Kislyak. And the second describes yet another bit of espionage conducted by a foreign country
directed against the United States. Both stories involve the State of Israel.
The bigger story is, of course, the dismissal by Attorney General William Barr of the
criminal charges against former National Security Advisor General Michael Flynn based on
malfeasance by the FBI investigators. The curious aspect of the story as it is being related by
the mainstream media is that it repeatedly refers to Flynn as having unauthorized contacts with
the Russian Ambassador and then having lied about it. The implication is that there was
something decidedly shady about Flynn talking to the Russians and that the Russians were up to
something.
In reality, the part left out of the story is that the phone call to Kislyak on December 22,
2016, was made by Flynn at the direction of Jared Kushner, who in turn had been approached by
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu had learned that the Obama Administrating
was going to abstain on a United Nations vote condemning the Israeli settlements policy,
meaning that for the first time in years a U.N. resolution critical of Israel would pass
without drawing a U.S. veto. Kushner, acting for Netanyahu, asked Flynn to contact each
delegate from the various countries on the Security Council to delay or kill the resolution.
Flynn agreed to do so, which included a call to the Russians. Kislyak took the call but did not
agree to veto Security Council Resolution 2334, which passed unanimously on December 23
rd .
In taking the phone calls from a soon-to-be senior American official who would within weeks
be part of a new administration in Washington, the Russians did nothing wrong, but the media is
acting like there was some kind of Kremlin conspiracy seeking to undermine U.S. democracy. It
would not be inappropriate to have some conversations with an incoming government team and
Kislyak also did nothing that might be regarded as particularly responsive to Team Trump
overtures since he voted contrary to Flynn's request.
The phone call made at the request of Israel was neither benign nor ethical as the Barack
Administration was still in power and managing the nation's foreign policy. At the time,
son-in-law Jared Kushner was Trump's point man on the Middle East. He and his family have
extensive
ties both to Israel and to Netanyahu personally, to include Netanyahu's staying at the
Kushner family home in New York. The Kushner Family Foundation has funded some of Israel's
illegal settlements and also a number of conservative political groups in that country. Jared
has served as a director of that foundation and it is reported that he failed to disclose the
relationship when he filled out his background investigation sheet for a security clearance.
All of which suggests that if you are looking for possible foreign government collusion with
the incoming Trumpsters, look no further.
And it should be observed that the Israelis
were not exactly shy about their disapproval of Obama and their willingness to express
their views to the incoming Trump. Kushner went far beyond merely disagreeing over an aspect of
foreign policy as he was actively trying to clandestinely subvert and reverse a decision made
by his own legally constituted government. His closeness to Netanyahu made him, in intelligence
terms, a quite likely Israeli government agent of influence, even if he didn't quite see
himself that way.
Kushner's actions, as well as those of Flynn, would most certainly have been covered by the
Logan Act of 1799, which bars private citizens from negotiating with foreign governments on
behalf of the United States and also could be construed as a "conspiracy against the United
States." But in spite of all that the investigation went after Flynn instead of Kushner. As
Kushner is Jewish and certainly could be accused of dual loyalty in extremis , that part
of the story obviously makes many in the U.S. Establishment and media uncomfortable, so it was
and continues to be both ignored and expunged from the record as quickly as possible.
The
second story , which has basically been made to disappear, relates to spying by Israel
against critics in the United States. The revelation that Israel was again using its
telecommunications skills to spy on foreigners came from an Oakland California federal court
lawsuit initiated by Facebook (FB) against the Israeli surveillance technology company NSO
Group. FB claimed that NSO has been using servers located in the United States to infect with
spyware hundreds of smartphones being used by attorneys, journalists, human rights activists,
critics of Israel and even of government officials. NSO allegedly used WhatsApp, a messaging
app owned by FB, to hack into the phones and install malware that would enable the company to
monitor what was going on with the devices. It did so by employing networks of remote servers
located in California to enter the accounts.
NSO has inevitably claimed that they do indeed provide spyware, but that it is sold to
clients who themselves operate it with the "advice and technical support to assist customers in
setting up" but it also promotes its products as being "used to stop terrorism, curb violent
crime, and save lives." It also asserts that its software cannot be used against U.S. phone
numbers.
Facebook, which did its own extensive research into NSO activity, alleges that NSO rented a
Los Angeles-based server from a U.S. company called QuadraNet that it then used to launch 720
hacks on smartphones and other devices. It further claims in the court filing that the company
reverse-engineering WhatsApp, using an program that it developed to access WhatsApp's servers
and deploy "its spyware against approximately 1,400 targets" before " covertly transmit[ting]
malicious code through WhatsApp servers and inject[ing]" spyware into telephones without the
knowledge of the owners."
The filing goes on to assert that the "Defendants had no authority to access WhatsApp's
servers with an imposter program, manipulate network settings, and commandeer the servers to
attack WhatsApp users. That invasion of WhatsApp's servers and users' devices constitutes
unlawful computer hacking."
NSO, which is largely staffed by former (sic) Israeli intelligence officers, had previously
been in the news for its proprietary spyware known as Pegasus, which "can gather information
about a mobile phone's location, access its camera, microphone and internal hard drive, and
covertly record emails, phone calls and text messages." Pegasus was reportedly used in the
killing of Saudi dissident journalist Adnan Kashoggi in Istanbul last year and it has more
recently been suggested as a resource for tracking coronavirus distance violators. Outside
experts have accused the company of selling its technology and expertise to countries that have
used it to spy on dissidents, journalists and other critics.
Israel routinely exploits the access provided by its telecommunications industry to spy on
the host countries where those companies operate. The companies themselves report regularly
back to Mossad contacts and the technology they provide routinely has a "backdoor" for secretly
accessing the information accessible through the software. In fact, Israel conducts espionage
and influence operations both directly and through proxies against the United States more
aggressively than any other "friendly" country, which once upon a time included being able to
tap into the "secure" White House phones used by Bill Clinton to speak with Monica
Lewinsky.
Last September, it was revealed that the placement of technical surveillance devices by
Israel in Washington D.C. was clearly intended to target cellphone communications to and from
the Trump White House. As the president frequently chats with top aides and friends on
non-secure phones, the operation sought to pick up conversations involving Trump with the
expectation that the security-averse president would say things off the record that might be
considered top secret.
A Politicoreport
detailed how "miniature surveillance devices" referred to as "Stingrays" were used to imitate
regular cell phone towers to fool phones being used nearby into providing information on their
locations and identities. According to the article, the devices are referred to by technicians
as "international mobile subscriber identity-catchers or IMSI-catchers, they also can capture
the contents of calls and data use."
Over one year ago, government security agencies discovered the electronic footprints that
indicated the presence of the surveillance devices near the White House. Forensic analysis
involved dismantling the devices to let them "tell you a little about their history, where the
parts and pieces come from, how old are they, who had access to them, and that will help get
you to what the origins are." One source observed afterwards that "It was pretty clear that the
Israelis were responsible."
So two significant stories currently making the rounds have been bowdlerized and disappeared
to make the Israeli role in manipulating and spying against the United States go away. They are
only two of many stories framed by a Zionist dominated media to control the narrative in a way
favorable to the Jewish state. One would think that having a president of the United States who
is the most pro-Israel ever, which is saying a great deal in and of itself, would be enough,
but unfortunately when dealing with folks like Benjamin Netanyahu there can never be any
restraint when dealing with the "useful idiots" in Washington.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest,
a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a
more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is https://councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected] .
Regarding Madeleine Albright: "She also said that the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children
through U.S. imposed sanctions was " a very hard choice, but the price -- we think the price
is worth it." That is the basic credo of the liberal interventionists."
I think 'liberal interventionist' is a bit too weak for the 'lovely' Ms Albright and her
(in)famous quote.
Instead, let's try, "That is the basic credo of psychopathically sadistic zionist monsters
who exquisitely enjoy the thought of Arab children dying agonizingly slow deaths of
preventable diseases and starvation."
Ah, yes. That's a much more accurate assessment of the situation ..
I've long since concluded, there is no president who can withdraw the US from the Forever
Wars. Obama couldn't. Trump can't. Biden/Harris/Oprah/Gabbard/Pence won't.
There are a half-dozen permanent US policies that Americans don't get to vote on, and the
Permawar is one of them.
My God, Buchanan, I am staggered by the arrogance of this column. Where in the name of all
that's holy did you ever get the idea that America has the right to impose on anyone, from
Afghans through to Venezuelans, your (perceived) systems of thought, values and democracy?
How many American soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan can even speak the local language?
Understand the local customs? None!!! They swan around in their sunglasses and battle gear
thinking that they are they return of the Terminator and wander why the locals absolutely
hate their collective guts! It's time that you collectively learned that America is NOT the
world's sheriff and that, as Benjamin Franklin said "A man convinced against his will, is of
the same opinion still".
Pat is not entirely wrong -- he hints at the explanation for failure:
"As imperialists, we Americans are conspicuous failures.
Moreover, with us, the national interest inevitably asserts itself."
As Imperialists there has never been anything but the (Elite) "national interest".
In short, these so called "losing" wars have been wars of aggression -- ie "bad" wars.
All Pat's talk of conversion, democracy etc is just so much nonsense.
"While we can defeat our enemies in the air and on the seas and in cyberspace, we cannot
persuade them to embrace secular democracy and its values any more than we can convert them
to Christianity" although they might be better persuaded to convert to Christianity –
traditional Christianity – than to embrace secular democracy and its "values".
Why would anyone want to embrace homosexuality, transgenderism, rad-feminism, opioids,
prozac, inequality, broken homes, mass shootings, mountainous debt, corrupt media, puppet
politicians & the rest of the filth & perversion that passes for "values" in secular
democracies like America or Western Europe?
Indeed, why would anyone in these decadent countries even want to defend these venal
"values", let alone try to spread them around the world like the Chinese plague?
No, "they are not trying to change us" but maybe they should.
As the British and French ultimately found out it costs more to run an empire than to loot
it. So the long retreat ensues. One would have thought that the Americans might have learned
this from history, but no! After all they were "the exceptional people, they stood taller
than the others and saw further." Errrm, no they didn't. Like their forbears they got bogged
down as well getting into debt which was only bailed out by their insistence that they would
not convert the dollar into gold.
Human nature and stupidity has got a long track-record and it isn't going to end anytime
soon.
The writer, and most commenters' are still under the erroneous belief that AMerica goes to
war in places then AMerica wins or loses or wastes lives or kill children. This is the
saddest part of the Yankee war machine: Americans joining the Army because they think theya
re joining the fight to defend the American Dream.
You-all are corporate gunmonkeys, fighting and killing and burning and bombing, not in the
name of freedom or apple pie, but in the name of Gulf Oil, Goldman Sachs, Citicorp, JPMorgan,
Monsanto, PHBBillington, whatever Devil Rumsfeld calls his sack of shit these days .
America has not won any war anywhere, even their civil war was mostly just clearing the
land for the banks. That is because it is not America at war, she just supplies the cannon
fodder. And cannons. And radiactive scrapmetal to make bullets to mow down women and children
in the name of Investor Confidence.
But then, that is what your Zionist bible tells you to do, isn't it?
I just don't think the US has the immoral fortitude to engage in genocide, so it's
hopeless trying to "win."
If by the US you mean most of the people you may be right. But the people in the US
have no say in the actions of the US government which is controlled by psychopaths.
Afghanistan is hardly even a country as the average American might define one. There's really
nothing to "win"; we only occupy. The infrastructure is primitive so it's not cost effective
to try to take whatever natural resources they may have, if any, so there's nothing they have
that we want. The Taliban were not "ousted". In the face of massive firepower they split up
and scattered; they're still there. After all, the US has been negotiating with them for a
peace deal of some sort hasn't it? "Democracy crusades" is just a propaganda fig leaf to
bamboozle stupid Americans. It's amazing that there's people who actually believe stuff like
that but PT Barnum had it right. "Eventually, we give up and go home". That's because they
live there and we don't. "They apparently have an inexhaustible supply of volunteers" willing
to fight and die. They don't want foreign robo-soldiers pointing guns at them in their own
country. We have our own version, it's called "Remember the Alamo", men who stood their
ground against the odds.
If a country is not willing to do that, and I would hope the United States is not
willing to do that, then they (we) should go home and leave the Afghans to murder each
other without our assistance. If they return to supporting terrorism or go whole hog in
producing opium, perhaps the US should decapitate their entire government and let the next
batch of losers give governing a try. I just don't think the US has the immoral fortitude
to engage in genocide, so it's hopeless trying to "win."
The growth in opium cultivation correlates with CIA activities in the area and the $3
billion from American taxpayers which financed Mujahideen 'terrorism' against the Russians
and their local proxies just to avenge the fall of Saigon.
In 1980 Afghanistan accounted for about only 5% of total world heroin production. This was
mainly for the local market and neighbor Iran.
They refuse to surrender and submit because it is their beliefs, their values, their
faith, their traditions, their tribe, their God, their culture, their civilization, their
honor that they believe they are fighting for in what is, after all, their land, not
ours.
If I may..
another way of looking at this, and I feel a profound respect for the Afghans, and only
wish we were made of the same mettle. If only ((they)) could say of us..
They refuse to surrender and submit because it is their beliefs, their values, their
faith, their traditions, their tribe, their God, their culture, their civilization, their
honor that they believe they are fighting for in what is, after all, their land, not
(((ours)))).
They are not trying to change ((((us. We))) are trying to change them. And they wish to
remain who they are.
IOW, we white Westerners, have proved willing to surrender and submit to all of it.
Without nary a peep of protest. Even as ((they)) send us around the globe to kill people like
these Afghans, for being slightly inconvenient to their agenda. [And so the CIA can
reconstitute its global heroin trafficking operation$.]
If only history would look back on this epic moment, at the last Death throes of the West,
and say of whitey, that he refused to surrender his values and faith and traditions and tribe
and God, and culture and civilization and honor.. to ((those)) who would pervert his values,
and mock his faith, and trash his traditions, and exterminate his tribe, while mocking his
God, and poisoning his culture, and destroying his civilization and all because at the end of
the day, he had no honor.
These men may be backwater, illiterate villagers,
but at least they have enough mettle and honor, to tell the Beast that they would rather
die killing as many of the Beast's stupid goons as they're able, than ever sacrifice their
sacred honor- or lands or sovereignty, or the destinies of their children – over to the
fiend, which is more than I can say for Western "man".
They are not trying to change us. We are trying to change them. And they wish to remain
who they are.
Would that the Swedish people had a Nano-shred of the blood-honor of an Afghan, Barbara
Spectre would be pounding sand.
Historically, the Afghans are fundamentalist, tribal and impervious to foreign
intervention.
Obviously, there is a great deal we need to learn from them.
What will the Taliban do when we leave?
They will not give up their dream of again ruling the Afghan nation and people. And they
will fight until they have achieved that goal and their idea of victory: dominance.
Um.. Pat. Whose land is it anyways? Is it such a horror that Afghans should be
dominant in Afghanistan ?
The Taliban was welcomed into most of the regions it governed, because they drove out
local war lords who often treated the villager's children as their sex toys, and the foreign
(CIA) opioid growers and traffickers. And it was the Taliban that put an end to all of that.
They're harsh, but they're effective, and that is their land, not ours.
Also, the Taliban offered to turn over Osama Bin Laden, if the West could provide a shred
of proof that he had anything whatsoever to do with 9/11. (he didn't ; ) But the West had
zero proof, (as the FBI admits to this day), that they have zero proof that ties Bin Laden to
9/11.
And n0w that we all know 9/11 was an Israeli false flag, intended to use the American
military as their bitch, to burn down 'seven nations in five years' .. that the Jewish
supremacists wanted destroyed, our whole pretext for being over there has been a sham from
day one. Duh.
.
.
.
.
I remember long ago when I had a subscription to National Geographic and this photo came out,
I cut the picture out, and stuck it somewhere to look at- it was so visceral and
haunting.
Leave them alone. I don't care how many Jews at the WSJ demand whitey has to stay and die
for Israel. (Afghanistan is on Iran's border, and that's why we have to stay, to menace all
those anti-Semites over there, trying to gas all the Jews and make soap).
@paranoid
goy I very much doubt if many are joining the military to "defend the American Dream."
Most are more practical and are joining to escape poverty, even if it might cost them their
lives. Recruiters will now be inundated with volunteers since there are no jobs in the covid
depression.
If the neo-con clown car Trump has permitted to run foreign policy since his election gets us
into a war with Iran and/or Venezuela before November, will Pat still be stumping for him, or
will we see the return of non-election-year Pat?
Excellent question Pat! Unfortunately there is no answer, we've been at "forever war"
seemingly forever, and the whole point as Eisenhower so preciently warned us is THE
objective.
The thing is that the Afghan government wasn't supporting terrorism. Rather, it had no
on-going control anywhere except the cities, which made the tribal areas useful hideouts /
bases for a raft of groups.
I well remember the prelude to the invasion where the US was demanding that its government
(which merely happened to be Taliban that year) hand over OBL in 72hrs. The truth was that
the US knew Afghanistan didn't have the capability to do that and it merely wanted to use OBL
as an excuse to invade and continue the encirclement of the old soviet states.
"Foglesong's book provides a panoramic view of American popular attitudes toward Russia, one that is illustrated with many
arresting cartoons and magazine covers. It should provoke a wider debate about the rationality of evaluating Russia with reference
to an idealized view of the United States, as well as the deeper sources of this tendency." -Deborah Welch Larson, H-Diplo
"In the 21st century, the American debate on the prospects of modernizing Russia and on the Americans' role in this process is
still going strong even though it began more than a century ago. This is why David Foglesong's book aimed at elucidating the
mechanisms of misrepresentations which threaten both Russian-American relations and the world security as a whole is of equal
importance for the academic community and for the policy makers in both Russia and the United States."
-Victoria Zhuravleva, H-Diplo
"Foglesong demonstrates that powerful Americans have again and again seen the possibility, even necessity, of spreading the word
to Russia, and then, when Russia fails to transform itself into something resembling the US, have recoiled and condemned Russia's perfidious
national character or its leaders-most recently Putin. The author's singular achievement is to show that well before the cold war, Russia
served as America's dark double, an object of wishful thinking, condescension and self-righteousness in a quest for American purpose-without
much to show for such efforts inside Russia. The author thereby places in context the cold war, when pamphleteers like William F Buckley
Jr and politicians like Ronald Reagan pushed a crusade to revitalise the American spirit. Russia then was a threat but also a means
to America's end (some fixed on a rollback of the alleged Soviet "spawn" inside the US-the welfare state-while others, after the Vietnam
debacle, wanted to restore "faith in the United States as a virtuous nation with a unique historical mission"). Foglesong's exposé of
Americans' "heady sense of their country's unique blessings" helps make sense of the giddiness, followed by rank disillusionment, vis-...-vis
the post-Soviet Russia of the 1990s and 2000s." -Stephen Kotkin, Prospect Magazine -Stephen Kotkin, Prospect Magazine
Notable quotes:
"... For example, Foglesong argued that "a vital factor in the revival of the crusade in the 1970s was the need to expunge doubts about American virtue instilled by the Vietnam War, revelations about CIA covert actions, and the Watergate scandal." ..."
"... By tracing American representations of Russia over the last 130 years, Foglesong illuminated three of the strongest notions that have informed American attitudes toward Russia: (1) a messianic faith that America could inspire sweeping overnight transformation from autocracy to democracy; (2) a notion that despite historic differences, Russia and America are very much akin, so that Russia, more than any other country, is America's "dark double;" (3) an extreme antipathy to "evil" leaders who Americans blame for thwarting what they believe to be the natural triumph of the American mission. These expectations and emotions continue to effect how American journalists and politicians write and talk about Russia. "My hope," Foglesong concluded, "is that by seeing how these attitudes have distorted American views of Russia for more than a century, we may begin to be able to escape their grip." ..."
"... The usefulness of Russia as bogeyman for all that is wrong in the world - a contrasting foil to the virtues of "us" - has defined this relationship ever since the first democratic stirrings in Russia following the Emancipation of '61. In this it followed Britain, who'd long demonized Russia since imperial rivalries over the Crimea. ..."
"... This trope was also successful for reactionaries in blocking progressive legislation at home. Ronald Reagan was perhaps the most successful in this linkmanship: "socialized medicine" was the first step to the gulags. ..."
"... T he flak over Pus*y Riot following this book's publication - while ignoring the crucifixion of the Dixie Chicks - demonstrates the double standard is too convenient to be allowed to wither. The empire must always be evil, precisely because it reflects our own image like a Buddhist truth mirror. ..."
"By 1905," Foglesong stated, "this fundamental reorientation of American views of Russia had set up a historical pattern in which
missionary zeal and messianic euphoria would be followed by disenchantment and embittered denunciation of Russia's evil and oppressive
rulers." The first cycle, according to Foglesong, culminated in 1905, when the October Manifesto, perceived initially by Americans
as a transformation to democracy, gave way to a violent socialist revolt. Foglesong observed similar cycles of euphoria to despair
during the collapse of the tsarist government in 1917, during the partial religious revival of World War II, and during the dissolution
of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s
Crucial to Foglesong's analysis was how these cycles coincided with a contemporaneous need to deflect attention away from America's
own blemishes and enhance America's claim to its global mission.
For example, Foglesong argued that "a vital factor in the revival of the crusade in the 1970s was the need to expunge doubts
about American virtue instilled by the Vietnam War, revelations about CIA covert actions, and the Watergate scandal."
By tracing American representations of Russia over the last 130 years, Foglesong illuminated three of the strongest notions
that have informed American attitudes toward Russia: (1) a messianic faith that America could inspire sweeping overnight transformation
from autocracy to democracy; (2) a notion that despite historic differences, Russia and America are very much akin, so that Russia,
more than any other country, is America's "dark double;" (3) an extreme antipathy to "evil" leaders who Americans blame for thwarting
what they believe to be the natural triumph of the American mission. These expectations and emotions continue to effect how American
journalists and politicians write and talk about Russia. "My hope," Foglesong concluded, "is that by seeing how these attitudes have
distorted American views of Russia for more than a century, we may begin to be able to escape their grip."
The Adventures of Straw Man Reviewed in the United States on September 27, 2013 This has been the essential function of US
Russia policy, as David Foglesong shows in his century-long tour.
The usefulness of Russia as bogeyman for all that is wrong in the world - a contrasting foil to the virtues of "us" - has
defined this relationship ever since the first democratic stirrings in Russia following the Emancipation of '61. In this it followed
Britain, who'd long demonized Russia since imperial rivalries over the Crimea.
This trope was also successful for reactionaries in blocking progressive legislation at home. Ronald Reagan was perhaps
the most successful in this linkmanship: "socialized medicine" was the first step to the gulags.
The crusade against US civil rights - of which Reagan was also a part in his early career - as Communist-inspired tinkering
with the Constitution was much less successful. His support for free trade unions in the Soviet Bloc while crushing them at home
underscored the irony.
But Foglesong is much too generous in evaluating Reagan's human decency as a policy motive. Reagan pursued his grand rollback
strategy by any means necessary, mixing hard tactics (contras, death-squad funding, mujahadin, Star Wars) with soft (democracy-enhancement,
human rights, meeting with Gorbachev). Solidarity activists in Poland might remember his crusading fondly; survivors of the Salvadoran
civil war will not.
The "crisis" with the Putin regime currently empowered shows the missionary impulse yet alive: projecting one's reforming instincts
upon others rather than at home. T he flak over Pus*y Riot following this book's publication - while ignoring the crucifixion
of the Dixie Chicks - demonstrates the double standard is too convenient to be allowed to wither. The empire must always be evil,
precisely because it reflects our own image like a Buddhist truth mirror.
I do find it puzzling that Foglesong made no mention of Maurice Hindus, the prolific popular "explainer" of Russia in over
a dozen mid-century books; and the notorious defector Victor Kravchenko and his best-selling memoir of the 1940s (ghost-written
by Eugene Lyons, another popular anti-Soviet scribe). Both were much more influential in the public and political mind than many
of the more obscure missionary authors Foglesong does cite. Nevertheless, Foglesong has offered a generous helping of cultural/political
history that shows no signs of growing stale.
>
indah nuritasari , Reviewed in the United States on October 24, 2012
This book tells a fascinating story of American efforts to liberate and remake Russia since the 1880s. It starts with the story
of Tsar Alexander II's asasination on March 1, 1881 and how James William Buel, a Missoury Journalist wrote it in his book "Russian
Nihilism and Exile Life in Siberia."
The story continues until The Reagan era and "the Evil Empire," 1981-1989.
This book is very interesting and useful for history lovers, students, journalists, or general public. Here you can find all
the "dark and exciting stuff" about the cold war, including the involvement of the journalists, political activists, diplomats,
and even engineers.
It is really helpful for me as a new immigrant in the US to help me understand the US position and role in the Cold War Era.
The language used in this book, though, is " kind of dry". A little editing for the next edition could be really helpful!!
Yet another bombshell development emerged Thursday in the case of former National Security
Adviser Gen. Michael Flynn: the release of additional exculpatory evidence FBI officials had
withheld from the courts and the defense for three years.
Crucially, this includes evidence that the Bureau's official "302 report" filed by the lead
agent who interviewed Flynn was edited multiple times, including by an official who never
participated in the interview.
Thursday's revelations come on top of yesterday's disclosures indicating an apparent attempt
by FBI officials to trap Flynn into committing a criminal offense during an interview.
The new revelation could prove even more significant: In addition to the apparently
calculated effort to get Flynn to commit perjury or obstruction, top FBI figures, including FBI
Deputy Assistant Director Peter Strzok and FBI lawyer Lisa Page, repeatedly altered the "302
report" that was filed after the Flynn interview.
That interview was conducted under highly unusual circumstances. Ordinarily, an FBI
interview of a top West Wing official would be requested through the White House Counsel's
office, and would be conducted in the presence of legal counsel representing the official being
interviewed.
That did not occur in the case of the FBI's interview with Flynn, and Comey later stated
that under "a more organized administration" he "probably wouldn't have gotten away with
it."
Initially, when the lead FBI agent handling the case was asked whether Flynn lied during the
interview, he stated that he did not believe so.
But over the coming days Strzok and Page would edit and revise the agent's 302 report
repeatedly, according to a document providing text messages between FBI officials that the
defense counsel finally received this week.
Prosecutors and investigators are required to turn over information that might tend to
indicate a suspect's innocence to the defense counsel prior to trial and sentencing. Most legal
analysts would consider the information withheld from Flynn's legal team potentially
exculpatory.
An inside source familiar with efforts to defend Gen. Flynn tells Newsmax an unadulterated,
original 302 document exists that was created by the lead agent from his notes of the interview
with Flynn.
Jonathan Turley, the George Washington University law professor who testified before the
House during President Trump's impeachment, wrote Thursday the decision to keep the case open
occurred when "Special counsel Robert Mueller decided to bring the dubious charge."
In a column posted on TheHill.com on Thursday, Turley said the case against Flynn should be
dismissed. "Justice demands a dismissal of his prosecution," he wrote.
At the time Flynn was being prosecuted, Mueller was seeking evidence the Trump campaign
colluded with Russia in the 2016 campaign.
Critics say he was prosecuting Flynn to get him to turn state's witness against Trump, but
the general never implicated him.
Mueller eventually determined there was no evidence of a Russian-collusion conspiracy. But
by then Flynn, under intense financial pressure from the prosecution and buckling under the
threat that his son could be drawn into a legal quagmire, had pled guilty to one count of lying
to the FBI.
He has since requested to withdraw that plea, and he is awaiting sentencing.
President Trump weighed in on the controversial case Thursday morning tweeting, "What
happened to General Michael Flynn, a war hero, should never be allowed to happen to a citizen
of the United States again!"
Later the president told reporters he believes Flynn is "in the process of being
exonerated."
Former New York City Police Commissioner Bernie Kerik reacted strongly on Thursday to the
news FBI officials to altered a 302 report and reopened the case when the initial analysis
indicated no crime had been committed.
Kerik told Newsmax Thursday that if evidence or records had been unduly altered under his
watch as police commissioner, he would have referred the matter to the district attorney for
possible prosecution.
"They intentionally went back and doctored the original 302," he said. "That's because they
were not looking for the truth.
"They were looking for a mechanism to trap Gen. Flynn, to prosecute him, to get him fired in
order to go after the president. That was their motive, that was their agenda. It's absolutely
clear at this point they were not looking for the truth."
Kerik added, "This was done at the highest levels of the FBI. At the most senior level of
the FBI, they falsified records, they suppressed evidence.
"This is irresponsible, it's outrageous They used and abused their authority to deprive Gen.
Flynn of his constitutional right to freedom," he said.
According to the source, as supported by text messages also obtained by Newsmax, Stzrok, who
also participated in the Flynn interview, rewrote the 302 extensively -- although a text
message from him stated he tried not to "completely re-write it so as to save [redacted]
voice," presumably a reference to the lead agent who originally wrote it.
Stzrok then shared the document with a "pissed off" Page, who had not participated in the
interview, and who revised it significantly again, according to the Newsmax source.
The objective of the interview was to probe whether Flynn had violated the Logan Act, an
18th-century statute that has never been used in any criminal conviction. The Act makes it a
crime for a U.S. citizens to interfere with the conduct of U.S. foreign policy. Many legal
scholars find the law to be unconstitutional.
The documents received by Newsmax indicate the case had virtually been closed –
suggesting the lead agent was satisfied no crime had been committed -- prior to it being
reopened by the direct intervention of Strzok and Page.
The documents, for example, show the probe of Flynn was about to be put to bed when the lead
agent received a text from Strzok stating, "Hey, if you haven't closed [the case], don't do so
yet."
Apparently, Page was pleasantly surprised to find the matter had not yet been closed.
On Feb. 10, 2017, Page texted Strzok, "This document pisses me off. You didn't even attempt
to make this cogent and readable? This is lazy work on your part."
Strzok replied, "Lisa you didn't see it before my edits that went into what I sent you. I
was 1) trying to completely re-write the thing so as to save [the lead agent's] voice and 2)
get it out to you for general review and comment in anticipation of needing it soon."
Wednesday's revelation included notes of a meeting conducted a short time after the 2016
election between FBI Director James Comey and Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. The notes stated,
"What is our goal? Truth and admission or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him
fired?"
The notes were written by then-FBI head of counterintelligence Bill Priestap.
It is not. Forces behind Russiagate are intact and still have the same agenda. CrowdStrike
was just a tool. As long as Full Spectrum Dominance dourine is alive, Russiagate will flourish in
one form or another
Notable quotes:
"... The need for a scapegoat to blame for Hillary Clinton's snatching defeat out of the jaws victory also played a role; as did the need for the Military-Industrial-Congressional-Intelligence-Media-Academia-Think-Tank complex (MICIMATT) to keep front and center in the minds of Americans the alleged multifaceted threat coming from an "aggressive" Russia. (Recall that John McCain called the, now disproven , "Russian hacking" of the DNC emails an "act of war.") ..."
"... Though the corporate media is trying to bury it, the Russiagate narrative has in the past few weeks finally collapsed with the revelation that CrowdStrike had no evidence Russia took anything from the DNC servers and that the FBI set a perjury trap for Gen. Michael Flynn. There was already the previous government finding that there was no collusion between Trump and Russia and the indictment of a Russian troll farm that supposedly was destroying American democracy with $100,000 in Facebook ads was dropped after the St. Petersburg defendants sought discovery. ..."
"... Given the diffident attitude the Security State plotters adopted regarding hiding their tracks, Durham's challenge, with subpoena power, is not as formidable as were he, for example, investigating a Mafia family. ..."
"... Meanwhile, the corporate media have all been singing from the same sheet since Trump had the audacity a week ago to coin yet another "-gate" -- this time "Obamagate." Leading the apoplectic reaction in corporate media, Saturday's Washington Post offered a pot-calling-the-kettle-black pronouncement by its editorial board entitled "The absurd cynicism of 'Obamagate"? ..."
"... So if we dug in and found large payments from George Soros or Mrs Clinton to these 'journalists', what crime could they be accused of? No crimes, I don't think. ..."
"... There never was anything to Russiagate. It was always just politics. I knew that from the beginning. There was, however, a lot of something to the torture scandal. Obama said "We are not going to look back." And now Gina Haspel, one of the chief torturers, partly responsible for destroying the torture tapes, despite a court order to preserve them, is now head of the CIA. ..."
"... Drain the Swamp my ***. He's started by firing all the IG's? Trump "looking back," not forward. He could start by investigating Gina Haspel. ..."
"... For example, Foglesong argued that "a vital factor in the revival of the crusade in the 1970s was the need to expunge doubts about American virtue instilled by the Vietnam War, revelations about CIA covert actions, and the Watergate scandal." ..."
"... By tracing American representations of Russia over the last 130 years, Foglesong illuminated three of the strongest notions that have informed American attitudes toward Russia: (1) a messianic faith that America could inspire sweeping overnight transformation from autocracy to democracy; (2) a notion that despite historic differences, Russia and America are very much akin, so that Russia, more than any other country, is America's "dark double;" (3) an extreme antipathy to "evil" leaders who Americans blame for thwarting what they believe to be the natural triumph of the American mission. These expectations and emotions continue to effect how American journalists and politicians write and talk about Russia. "My hope," Foglesong concluded, "is that by seeing how these attitudes have distorted American views of Russia for more than a century, we may begin to be able to escape their grip." ..."
Seldom mentioned among the motives behind the persistent drumming on alleged Russian
interference was an over-arching need to help the Security State hide their tracks.
The need for a scapegoat to blame for Hillary Clinton's snatching defeat out of the jaws
victory also played a role; as did the need for the
Military-Industrial-Congressional-Intelligence-Media-Academia-Think-Tank complex (MICIMATT) to
keep front and center in the minds of Americans the alleged multifaceted threat coming from an
"aggressive" Russia. (Recall that John McCain called the, now
disproven , "Russian hacking" of the DNC emails an "act of war.")
But that was then. This is now.
Though the corporate media is trying to bury it, the Russiagate narrative has in the past
few weeks finally
collapsed with the revelation that CrowdStrike had no
evidence Russia took anything from the DNC servers and that the FBI set
a perjury trap for Gen. Michael Flynn. There was already the previous government finding that
there was no collusion between Trump and Russia and the indictment of a Russian troll farm that
supposedly was destroying American democracy with $100,000 in Facebook ads was dropped after
the St. Petersburg defendants sought discovery.
All that's left is to discover how this all happened.
Attorney General William Barr, and U.S. Attorney John Durham, whom Barr commissioned to
investigate this whole sordid mess seem intent on getting to the bottom of it. The possibility
that Trump will not chicken out this time, and rather will challenge the Security State looms
large since he felt personally under attack.
Writing on the Wall
Given the diffident attitude the Security State plotters adopted regarding hiding their
tracks, Durham's challenge, with subpoena power, is not as formidable as were he, for example,
investigating a Mafia family.
Plus, former NSA Director Adm. Michael S. Rogers reportedly is cooperating. The
handwriting is on the wall. It remains to be seen what kind of role in the scandal Barack
Obama may have played.
But former directors James Comey, James Clapper, and John Brennan, captains of Obama's
Security State, can take little solace from Barr's remarks Monday to a reporter who asked about
Trump's recent claims that top officials of the Obama administration, including the former
president had committed crimes. Barr replied:
"As to President Obama and Vice President Biden, whatever their level of involvement,
based on the information I have today, I don't expect Mr. Durham's work will lead to a
criminal investigation of either man. Our concerns over potential criminality is focused on
others."
In a more ominous vein, Barr gratuitously added that law enforcement and intelligence
officials were involved in "a false and utterly baseless Russian collusion narrative against
the president. It was a grave injustice, and it was unprecedented in American history."
Meanwhile, the corporate media have all been singing from the same sheet since Trump had the
audacity a week ago to coin yet another "-gate" -- this time "Obamagate." Leading the
apoplectic reaction in corporate media, Saturday's Washington Post
offered a pot-calling-the-kettle-black pronouncement by its editorial board entitled "The
absurd cynicism of 'Obamagate"?
The outrage voiced by the Post called to mind disgraced FBI agent Peter Strzok's indignant
response to criticism of the FBI by candidate Trump, in a Oct. 20, 2016 text exchange with FBI
attorney Lisa Page:
Strzok: I am riled up. Trump is a f***ing idiot, is unable to provide a coherent
answer.
Strzok -- I CAN'T PULL AWAY, WHAT THE F**K HAPPENED TO OUR COUNTRY
Page -- I don't know. But we'll get it back. We're America. We rock.
Strzok -- Donald just said "bad hombres"
Strzok -- Trump just said what the FBI did is disgraceful.
Less vitriolic, but incisive commentary came from widely respected author and lawyer Glenn
Greenwald on May 14, four days after Trump coined "Obamagate": ( See "System Update with Glenn
Greenwald -- The Sham Prosecution of Michael Flynn").
For a shorter, equally instructive video of Greenwald on the broader issue of Russia-gate,
see this clip from a March 2019 Democracy Now! -sponsored debate he had with David Cay Johnston
titled, "As Mueller Finds No Collusion, Did Press Overhype Russiagate? Glenn Greenwald vs.
David Cay Johnston":
(The entire
debate is worth listening to). I found one of the comments below the Democracy Now! video
as big as a bummer as the commentator did:
"I think this is one of the most depressing parts about the whole situation. In their
dogmatic pushing for this false narrative, the Russiagaters might have guaranteed Trump a
second term. They have done more damage to our democracy than Russia ever has done and will
do ." (From "Clamity2007")
In any case, Johnston, undaunted by his embarrassment at the hands of Greenwald, is still at
it, and so is the avuncular Frank Rich -- both of them some 20 years older than Greenwald and
set in their evidence-impoverished, media-indoctrinated ways.
... ... ...
Uncle Frank, 40 seconds ago
So if we dug in and found large payments from George Soros or Mrs Clinton to these
'journalists', what crime could they be accused of? No crimes, I don't think.
But when journalists are revealed to be issuing paid-for propaganda/lies mixed with their
own internal opinions, and their publisher allows it to be presented as if it were reporting
rather than opinion, said writers, editors, and publishers are relegated to obscurity and
derision.
Their work will never be taken seriously again by anyone who wasn't already
brain-washed.
They don't get that, I guess.
QABubba, 47 minutes ago (Edited)
There never was anything to Russiagate. It was always just politics. I knew that from the
beginning. There was, however, a lot of something to the torture scandal. Obama said "We are not
going to look back." And now Gina Haspel, one of the chief torturers, partly responsible for
destroying the torture tapes, despite a court order to preserve them, is now head of the
CIA.
General Flynn was so involved with Turkey he should have been registered as a foreign
agent.
And as I have said before, the real crime was laundering Russian Mafia/Heroin money
through Deutsche Bank into New York real estate. It is curious that Turkey is also a huge
transport spot for heroin into the
EU. And France and other EU nations have a migrant population that lives off the drug
trade.
Drain the Swamp my ***. He's started by firing all the IG's? Trump "looking back," not forward. He could start by investigating Gina Haspel.
The MSM disinformation campaign with consistent common talking points is not difficult to
see with a little discernment. The bigger question is has this happened organically or is there a larger agency
manipulating the public discourse?
"By 1905," Foglesong stated, "this fundamental reorientation of American views of Russia
had set up a historical pattern in which missionary zeal and messianic euphoria would be
followed by disenchantment and embittered denunciation of Russia's evil and oppressive
rulers." The first cycle, according to Foglesong, culminated in 1905, when the October
Manifesto, perceived initially by Americans as a transformation to democracy, gave way to a
violent socialist revolt. Foglesong observed similar cycles of euphoria to despair during the
collapse of the tsarist government in 1917, during the partial religious revival of World War
II, and during the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s
Crucial to Foglesong's analysis was how these cycles coincided with a contemporaneous need
to deflect attention away from America's own blemishes and enhance America's claim to its
global mission.
For example, Foglesong argued that "a vital factor in the revival of the crusade in the
1970s was the need to expunge doubts about American virtue instilled by the Vietnam War,
revelations about CIA covert actions, and the Watergate scandal."
By tracing American representations of Russia over the last 130 years, Foglesong
illuminated three of the strongest notions that have informed American attitudes toward
Russia: (1) a messianic faith that America could inspire sweeping overnight transformation
from autocracy to democracy; (2) a notion that despite historic differences, Russia and
America are very much akin, so that Russia, more than any other country, is America's "dark
double;" (3) an extreme antipathy to "evil" leaders who Americans blame for thwarting what
they believe to be the natural triumph of the American mission. These expectations and
emotions continue to effect how American journalists and politicians write and talk about
Russia. "My hope," Foglesong concluded, "is that by seeing how these attitudes have distorted
American views of Russia for more than a century, we may begin to be able to escape their
grip."
Moribundus, 3 hours ago
America's imperialism rules: Never to admit a fault or wrong; never to accept blame;
concentrate on one enemy at a time; blame that enemy for everything that goes wrong; take
advantage of every opportunity to raise a political whirlwind.
Kidbuck, 5 hours ago
Trump hasn't engaged in a fight in his life. He's a sissy at heart wants to negotiate. He
can't even do that right. He's caved on nearly every campaign promise he made. The only thing
his administration fights for is their salary and their retirement. Hillary still waddles
free and farts in his general direction.
ChaoKrungThep, 4 hours ago
Trump the Mafia punk, like his dad, and draft dodger like his German grand dad. Barr, old
CIA asset from the Clinton-Mena coke smuggling op. This crappy crew is running their masters'
game in front of the redneck rabble who are dumber than their mutts.
Save_America1st, 9 hours ago
Geez...how far behind can most of these assholes be after all these years????
For one...there was no "Russia-gate". It was all a hoax from the beginning, and anyone
with a few functioning brain cells knew that from the start.
And as of about 3 years ago we have all known this as "Obamagate" for the most part...we
all knew the corruption of the hoax totally led up to O-Scumbag.
And now as of the recent disclosures it is a total fact.
Haven't most of you been watching Dan Bongino for over 2 years now and haven't you read
his books? Haven't you been reading Sarah Carter and John Soloman among others for nearly 3
years now???
Surely, you haven't been just sitting around sucking leftist media **** for over 3 years,
right???????? I'm sure you haven't.
So why is this article even necessary on ZeroHedge?????
We already knew and have known the truth since before even the 2016 election. Drop it.
Posa, 9 hours ago
So funny. The 85 Year old "American century' is palpably disintegrating before our very
eyes. In particular the Deep State permanent bureaucracy is completely untethered and facing
what seems to be a Great Reckoning in the form of Barr- Durham. Cognitve Derangement prevails
in the press and spills overto the body politic. The country teeters a slo-mo Civil War.
Meanwhile, The dollar is disintegrating and we seem to face an economic abyss, the Terminal
Depression. Real "last Days of Rome" stuff.
BaNNeD oN THe RuN, 5 hours ago (Edited)
The Israeli dual citizens like Adelson and Mercer bought the Presidency.
Mossad was the organization handling the mole Seth Rich.
Blaming Russia also worked for those 2 groups because it deflected attention away from
(((them))).
Ray McGovern, being ex-intel, must know this to be true.
LetThemEatRand, 11 hours ago
Russiagate. The supposed target of said coup d'etat just Presided over the largest bailout
of banks ever by a factor of five or more. Trump supporters are asleep for the bailout, Trump
haters are asleep for the bailout. Let's fight about transgender bathrooms and Russiagate,
shall we?
This neocons is definitely past her shelf live. But MIC still controls the US foreign policy,
and this is that's why she is able to publish yet another second rate book.
One of the disasters that she endorsed was the Iraq war. Although not as enthusiastic about
launching an illegal, aggressive war as Sen. Hillary Clinton, Albright said at the time: "I
personally felt the war was justified on the basis of Saddam's decade-long refusal to comply
with UN Security Council resolutions on WMD." When pressed on America's alleged
indispensability, she allowed: "Vietnam clearly was a terrible disaster. The war in Iraq was a
terrible disaster. I do think that we have misunderstood the Middle East." Yet such admissions
don't appear to have tempered her enthusiasm for Washington's meddling around the globe.
She does run away from her flip answer to journalist Lesley Stahl's question about the death
of a half million Iraqi children due to sanctions: "we think the price is worth it." Albright
even claims that the Clinton administration came to recognize the human cost of sanctions and
moved to better targeted "smart" penalties. Yet there is nothing smart about America's current
economic war on Venezuela, Iran, and North Korea.
Moreover, she did not retreat from the assumption that U.S. policymakers are entitled to
decide on the life and death of foreigners. She might doubt in retrospect that the price was
worth it. But she still believes that decision was for her and other Clinton administration
officials to make.
This mindset has made the U.S. government anathema to many around the globe. Why do "they"
hate us? Because of officials like Albright. These days even the Europeans loath Washington. No
doubt, she would be horrified to be lumped with President Donald Trump and some of his aides,
such as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, but they all are swimming in hubris. Albright is simply
more polite when dealing with representatives of wealthy industrialized countries. In contrast,
Trump and Pompeo are ever ready to insult them as well.
Nor does she appear to retreat from the hubris she constantly expressed in other forms. For
instance, while declaring the U.S. to be "the indispensable nation," she also claimed: "We
stand tall and we see further than other countries into the future, and we see the danger here
to all of us." That assertion was bad enough when she made it in 1998. After Afghanistan, Iraq,
Libya, Yemen, Syria, and more it is positively ludicrous. Overweening arrogance among foreign
policy elites has cost America thousands of lives and trillions of dollars, while killing
hundreds of thousands of foreigners and ravaging foreign nations.
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However, it is not just those overseas for whom Albright has contempt. In 1992 she
famously queried Colin Powell: "What's the use of having this superb military you're always
talking about if we can't use it?" Never mind the lives of those who volunteered to defend
America. For her, they were just gambit pawns to be sacrificed in whatever global chess game
she was playing at the time. Powell, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, observed: "I
thought I would have an aneurysm." Having served in Vietnam, he knew what it was like to lose
soldiers in combat. Anyone who has family in the military, as I do, cannot help but react
similarly.
A decade later she was asked about her comment. She responded: "what I thought was that we
had -- we were in a kind of a mode of thinking that we were never going to be able to use our
military effectively again." A strange claim, since shortly before George H. W. Bush had sent
American military personnel into a limited war against Iraq, while avoiding an interminable
guerrilla war and attempt at nation-building. She well represented the sofa samurai who
dominate Washington policy-making.
Even worse, however, in 1997 she said to Gen. Hugh Shelton, also JCS chairman: "I know I
shouldn't even be asking you this, but what we really need in order to go in and take out
Saddam is a precipitous event -- something that would make us look good in the eyes of the
world. Could you have one of our U-2s fly low enough -- and slow enough -- so as to guarantee
that Saddam could shoot it down?" He appeared to react rather like Powell, indicating that it
could be done as soon as she was ready to fly.
Albright is intelligent and has a fascinating family background. But she should be kept
far away from American foreign policy.
Doug Bandow is a
Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute. A former Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan, he
is author of Foreign Follies: America's New Global Empire.
Yhe president announced on Friday that he was firing Steve Linick, the State Department's
Inspector General.
One possible reason that Linick was removed may have been that he was conducting an
investigation into the
bogus emergency declaration that the administration used to expedite arms sales to Saudi
Arabia and the UAE last year:
House Democrats have discovered that the fired IG had mostly completed an investigation
into Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's widely criticized decision to skirt Congress with an
emergency declaration to approve billions of dollars in arms sales to Saudi Arabia last year,
aides on the Foreign Affairs Committee tell me.
"I have learned that there may be another reason for Mr. Linick's firing," Rep. Eliot L.
Engel (D-N.Y.), the chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a statement sent to me.
"His office was investigating -- at my request -- Trump's phony declaration of an emergency
so he could send weapons to Saudi Arabia."
If Linick was investigating the bogus emergency declaration, he would have come across
reporting that showed how a
former Raytheon lobbyist serving at the department was instrumental in pushing through the
plan to expedite arms sales that benefited his old employer. He would have discovered that
there was no genuine emergency that justified going around Congress. Once his investigation was
concluded, it would have found that the emergency declaration was made in bad faith and that
the law was abused so that the administration could proceed with arms sales that Congress
opposed.
Another reason for the firing was to
protect Mike Pompeo from an investigation into the Secretary's abuses of government
resources for personal purposes:
The State Department inspector general fired by President Trump was looking into
allegations that a staffer for Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was performing domestic errands
and chores such as handling dry cleaning, walking the family dog and making restaurant
reservations, said a congressional official familiar with the matter.
The House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman and the ranking member of the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee released a statement immediately on Friday objecting to Linick's firing and
suggesting that it might be an illegal act of retaliation. There will now be a Congressional
investigation into the circumstances surrounding Linick's firing. If Trump hoped to reduce the
scrutiny on Pompeo by getting rid of Linick, he will be disappointed. It remains to be seen how
much of a price Pompeo will pay for this, but the price is likely higher now than it would have
been if he hadn't pushed for removing the inspector general.
Pompeo reportedly recommended
Linick's removal. This is not the first time that Pompeo has been accused of misusing
government resources. There was a report
last summer that a whistleblower alleged that Pompeo and his wife were using Diplomatic
Security agents as their personal errand boys:
Democrats on a key House congressional committee are investigating allegations from a
whistleblower within the State Department about Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his
family's use of taxpayer-funded Diplomatic Security -- prompting agents to lament they are at
times viewed as "UberEats with guns".
Congressional investigators, who asked for the committee not to be named as they carry out
their inquiries, tell CNN that a State Department whistleblower has raised multiple issues
over a period of months, about special agents being asked to carry out some questionable
tasks for the Pompeo family.
Pompeo has also repeatedly used government resources for domestic travel that seems to have
more to do with advancing the Secretary's political ambitions in Kansas. There has been
widespread speculation that he has used official trips in an attempt to lay the groundwork for
a possible
Senate campaign . If so, it would be a flagrant violation of the Hatch Act. That prompted a
call for a special counsel investigation into Pompeo's travel. If Pompeo and his wife have
been using a political appointee as a gofer, that would be more of the same abusive
behavior.
Linick has previously clashed with other Trump administration officials at State. Last year,
he released a damning
report on Brian Hook over his treatment of Sahar Nowrouzzadeh, the Iranian-American
official who was apparently
targeted for political retaliation because of her policy views and ethnic background. The
fired inspector general was well-respected at the department, and his firing at Pompeo's urging
will likely cause further demoralization at a department that has already been run into the
ground under the Secretary's dismal leadership.
The Secretary of State seems to think that government funds and personnel are at his
disposal for his personal errands and political activities. Linick was doing exactly what an
inspector general is supposed to be doing by investigating the allegations against him, and
then he was conveniently fired on Pompeo's recommendation. You could hardly ask for a more
straightforward case of a corrupt official using his influence to remove the person responsible
for scrutinizing his conduct. If Linick was also fired because he was in the process of
exposing the administration's dishonest push for more arms sales to the Saudi coalition, that
makes his removal all the more outrageous and sinister.
Hawk Elliot Abrams, reborn as a U.S. envoy, is at the spear point of recent aggressive moves
in Venezuela. US Special Representative for Venezuela Elliot Abrams addresses the Atlantic
Council on the future of Venezuela in Washington, DC, on April 25, 2019. (Photo credit NICHOLAS
KAMM/AFP via Getty Images)
Called the "neocon zombie" by officials at the State Department, Abrams is known as an
operator who doesn't let anything stand in his way. He has a long history of pursuing
disastrous policies in government.
"Everything Abrams is doing now is the same thing he was doing during the Reagan
administration. He's very adept at manipulating the levers of power without a lot of
oversight," a former senior official at the State Department told The American
Conservative. The official added that Abrams is "singularly focused" on pursuing regime
change in Venezuela.
A little background on Abrams: when he served as Reagan's assistant secretary of state for
human rights, he concealed a
massacre of a thousand men, women, and children by U.S.-funded death squads in El Salvador.
He was also involved in the Iran Contra scandal, helping to secure covert funding for Contra
rebels in Nicaragua in violation of laws passed by Congress. In 1991, he pled guilty to
lying to Congress about the America's role in those two fiascos -- twice.
But then-president George H.W. Bush pardoned Abrams. He went on to support "measures to
scuttle the Latin American peace process launched by the Costa Rican president, Óscar
Arias" and use "the agency's money to unseat the Sandinistas in Nicaragua's 1990 general
elections," according
to Brian D'Haeseleer.
Under President George W. Bush, Abrams promoted regime change in Iraq.
Abrams was initially blocked from joining the Trump administration on account of a Never
Trump op-ed he'd penned. But Secretary of State Mike Pompeo succeeded in bringing him onboard
last year, despite his history of support for disastrous regime change policies.
It's no surprise that with Abrams at the helm, U.S. rhetoric and actions towards Venezuela
are constantly "escalating," Dr. Alejandro Velasco, associate professor of Modern Latin America
at New York University, said an interview with TAC.
In just the last month, Washington has placed bounties on the heads of President
Nicolás Maduro and a dozen current and former Venezuelan officials. The U.S. also
deployed the largest fleet ever to the Southern Hemisphere.
Meanwhile, Abrams announced the " Democratic
Transition Framework for Venezuela ," which calls on Maduro's government to embrace a
power-sharing deal. The plan doesn't explain how Venezuelan leaders with bounties on their
heads are supposed to come to the table and negotiate with Juan Guaido, whom the U.S.
recognizes as Venezuela's legitimate leader. Abrams has also said that the U.S. does not
support a coup.
A few days after recommending a power-sharing arrangement, and 18 years after the U.S.
backed a putsch against Hugo Chavez, Abrams
warned that if Maduro resisted the organization of a "transitional government," his
departure would be far more "dangerous and abrupt." To many, Abrams'
aggressive rhetoric against Maduro made it sound like the U.S. was "effectively threatening
him with another assassination attempt," like the one Washington had "tacitly
supported" in 2018.
Two weeks after Abrams' warning, Operation Gideon began. Jordan Goudreau, an American
citizen, former Green Beret, and three-time Bronze Star recipient for bravery in Iraq and
Afghanistan, along with Javier Nieto, a retired Venezuelan military captain, posted a video
from an undisclosed location saying they had launched an attack that was meant to begin a
rebellion that would lead to Maduro's arrest and the installation of Juan Guaido.
In a public relations coup for Maduro, the plot was quickly foiled. Given that American
citizens were involved and have produced a contract allegedly signed by Guaido,
the incident has severely harmed the reputations of both the U.S. and the Venezuelan
opposition.
Both President Trump and Pompeo have denied that the U.S. had any "direct" involvement with
Goudreau's plot.
However, the Trump administration has given billions of dollars from USAID to Venezuela, and
that money is largely untraceable due to concerns about outing supporters of Guaido.
"With all the cash and arms sloshing around in Venezuela," it is not hard to imagine how
U.S. funding could inadvertently wind up supporting something like this, said Velasco.
There are other signs that the U.S. may have been more involved in the plot than they are
saying publicly.
For one, American mercenaries don't carry passports identifying themselves as American nor
do they return to the U.S. where they can be brought up on charges for their work, said Sean
McFate, professor of war and strategy at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service and
the National Defense University.
In order to sell weapons or training to another nation, it is necessary to receive
permission from the State Department. It's unclear whether Goudreau and his band did so. But
Goudreau's social media posts look like a pretty "clear cut" violation of the International
Convention Against the Recruitment, Financing and Training of Mercenaries and the U.S.
International Traffic in Arms Regulation (ITAR) said Peter Singer, a senior fellow at New
America.
We know that months before the fated coup, the CIA met with Goudreau in Jamaica and
allegedly warned him off the project. According to the AP, Goudreau is now under
investigation for arms trafficking . Members of Congress have asked the State Department
what they knew of Goudreau's plans. Given the illegal nature of the supposedly unauthorized
project, it's very strange that the ringleader is at present in Florida, talking to the press
and posting on social media.
Besides that warning, it seems no one in government tried to stop this calamitous
operation.
And it's not just regime change. Last year, Abrams
advocated granting special immigration status for the 70,000 Venezuelans residing illegally
in the U.S. as a way to "pressure Maduro" even though Trump ran on the promise to severely
limit the number of people granted Temporary Protected Status.
It was in pursuit of special status for Venezuelans that Abrams showed himself to be
"incredibly pompous, bull-headed, and willing to destroy anyone who opposes him, in a personal
way, including by trashing their reputations in the media," another senior State Department
official told TAC. Abrams is not above hiding policy options he doesn't like and
offering only those he favors to Pompeo to present to Trump, sources said.
Abrams ultimately prevailed and Venezuelans received refugee status from the Trump
administration, despite the fact that it betrayed Trump's campaign promises.
According to Velasco, there are some people in the administration who believe that
Venezuelans are the "new Cubans" -- that they will become a solid, loyal Republican vote in the
swing state of Florida if they're granted special status. They also believe that Venezuelan
expats want to see the U.S. remove Maduro. There are "many Cold Warriors" who believe all it
will take is a "little push" for Venezuelans to rise up and take out Maduro, said Velasco.
The State Department did not respond to a request for comment on whether Abrams is pursuing
a military confrontation in Venezuela.
"Cold Warrior" beliefs are dangerous. While "Operation Gideon" was especially clownish, had
it been more sophisticated, it could have easily sparked a world war. The Russians, Iranians,
and Chinese are all operating in Venezuela.
That specter is even more concerning now that Russia's Foreign Minister Lavrov has
said that Russian special
services are on standby to help Venezuela's investigation of the mercenaries. about the
author Barbara Boland is TAC's foreign policy and national security reporter.
Previously, she worked as an editor for the Washington Examiner and for CNS News. She is
the author of Patton Uncovered , a book about General George Patton in World War II, and
her work has appeared on Fox News, The Hill , UK Spectator , and elsewhere.
Boland is a graduate from Immaculata University in Pennsylvania. Follow her on Twitter
@BBatDC .
"... former CIA Deputy Director Mike Morell admitted in a TV interview he views that the US should be in the business of "killing Russians and Iranians covertly" ). ..."
"... Ironically, Jeffrey's official title has been Special Envoy for the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIL, but apparently the mission is now to essentially "give the Russians hell". His comments were made Tuesday during a video conference hosted by the neocon Hudson Institute : ..."
"... He also emphasized that the Syrian state would continue to be squeezed into submission as part of long-term US efforts (going back to at least 2011) to legitimize a Syria government in exile of sorts. This after the Trump administration recently piled new sanctions on Damascus. As University of Oklahoma professor and expert on the region Joshua Landis summarized of Jeffrey's remarks: "He pledged that the United States will continue to deny Syria - international funding, reconstruction, oil, banking, agriculture & recognition of government." ..."
Washington now says it's all about defeating the Russians . While it's not the first time
this has been thrown around in policy circles (recall that a year after Russia's 2015 entry
into Syria at Assad's invitation, former CIA Deputy Director Mike Morell
admitted in a TV interview he views that the US should be in the business of "killing
Russians and Iranians covertly" ).
"My job is to make it a quagmire for the Russians."
Ironically, Jeffrey's official title has been Special Envoy for the Global Coalition to
Defeat ISIL, but apparently the mission is now to essentially "give the Russians hell". His
comments were made Tuesday during a video conference hosted by the neocon Hudson Institute :
Asked why the American public should tolerate US involvement in Syria, Special Envoy James
Jeffrey points out the small US footprint in the fight against ISIS. "This isn't Afghanistan.
This isn't Vietnam. This isn't a quagmire. My job is to make it a quagmire for the
Russians."
He also emphasized that the Syrian state would continue to be squeezed into submission as
part of long-term US efforts (going back to at least 2011) to legitimize a Syria government in
exile of sorts. This after the Trump administration recently piled new sanctions on Damascus.
As University of Oklahoma professor and expert on the region Joshua Landis summarized of
Jeffrey's remarks: "He pledged that the United States will continue to deny Syria -
international funding, reconstruction, oil, banking, agriculture & recognition of
government."
"My job is to make it a quagmire for the Russians."
Special US envoy to Syria - James Jeffery
He pledged that the United States will continue to deny Syria - international funding,
reconstruction, oil, banking, agriculture & recognition of government. https://t.co/MSAkQqAmdh
But no doubt both Putin and Assad have understood Washington's real proxy war interests all
along, which is why last year Russia delivered it's lethal S-300 into the hands of Assad (and
amid constant Israeli attacks). But no doubt both Putin and Assad have understood Washington's
real proxy war interests all along, which is why last year Russia delivered it's lethal S-300
into the hands of Assad (and amid constant Israeli attacks).
As for oil, currently Damascus is well supplied by the Iranians, eager to dump their stock
in fuel-starved Syria amid the global glut. Trump has previously voiced that part of US troops
"securing the oil fields" is to keep them out of the hands of Russia and Iran.
* * *
Recall the CIA's 2016 admission of what's really going on in terms of US action in
Syria:
"... Anne Applebaum is a bitter neocon. She is furious that people no longer read the Washington Post as the authoritative voice of US foreign policy. She has apparently made a tidy fortune warning us that the Russians are coming, but she wants even more. The Washington Post still views her as an expert, but the American people, as she herself complains, are no longer interested in her worn-out fantasies. She is buried in defense industry funded think tanks and she does the bidding of her masters. Every intelligent American reader should ridicule her as the propagandist she is. ..."
"... "McMaster's dangerous China hawkishness calls to mind something that Jim Mattis said about him regarding a different issue when they served together in the Trump administration: "Oh my God, that moron is going to get us all killed." His aggressiveness towards China is not driven by an assessment of the threat from China, but comes from his tendency to advocate for aggressive measures everywhere." ..."
"... The country which spends over trillion dollars on "defense" is by definition an imperial country and its foreign policy priorities are not that difficult to discern. ..."
"... And due to well fed MIC which maintains an army of lobbyists and along with FIRE sector controls Capitol Hill this is a Catch 22 situation (we can't abandon neocon Full Spectrum Dominance doctrine and can't continue as it will bankrupt the country) which might not end well for the country. ..."
"... Note how unprepared the country was to COVID-19 epidemic. Zero strategic thinking as if the next epidemic was not in the cards at least since swine fly ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_swine_flu_pandemic_in_the_United_States ). ..."
"... Some experts now claim that this is criminal incompetence on the part of Trump administration. "So, what does it mean to let thousands die by negligence, omission, failure to act, in a legal sense under international law?" asked Gonsalves, an assistant professor of epidemiology of microbial diseases at the Yale School of Public Health, in a tweet Wednesday morning. https://twitter.com/gregggonsalves/status/1257988303443431425 ..."
"... Please note that Trump campaigned in 2016 on the idea of disengagement from foreign wars and abandoning the global neoliberal empire built by his predecessors as well as halting neoliberal globalization. ..."
"... And what we got? We got this warmonger McMaster, bombing Syria on false flag chemical attack pretext, conflict with Russia over North Stream II and Ukraine, and the assassination of Soleimani. Such a bait and switch. ..."
Neocon Anne Applebaum has never seen a bed she did not expect to find an evil
Russian lurking beneath. More than a quarter of a century after the end of the Cold
War, she cannot let go of that hysterical feeling that, "The Russians Are Coming, The
Russians Are Coming!" In screeching screed after screeching screech, Applebaum is, like
most neocons, a one trick pony: the US government needs to spend more money to counter
the threat of the month. Usually it's Russia or Putin. But it can also be China, Iran,
Assad, Gaddafi, Saddam, etc.
Nothing new, nothing interesting.
Anne Applebaum is a bitter neocon. She is furious that people no longer read the
Washington Post as the authoritative voice of US foreign policy. She has apparently
made a tidy fortune warning us that the Russians are coming, but she wants even more.
The Washington Post still views her as an expert, but the American people, as she
herself complains, are no longer interested in her worn-out fantasies. She is buried in
defense industry funded think tanks and she does the bidding of her masters. Every
intelligent American reader should ridicule her as the propagandist she is.
"McMaster's dangerous China hawkishness calls to mind something that Jim Mattis said
about him regarding a different issue when they served together in the Trump
administration: "Oh my God, that moron is going to get us all killed." His
aggressiveness towards China is not driven by an assessment of the threat from China,
but comes from his tendency to advocate for aggressive measures everywhere."
And as a China scholar McMaster is not the best choice either:
McMaster uses the same "paper tiger image" to portray China as an unstoppable
aggressor that can nonetheless be stopped at minimal risk.
I have heard from other colleagues that several CN scholars met w/ McMaster before
he wrote this (while working on his book) and corrected him on many issues. He
apparently ignored all of their views. This is what we face people: a simple,
deceptive narrative is more seductive.
-- Michael
likbez, May 7, 2020 6:22 pm
The main thrust here is the US abandoning the world to China and a much weaker Russia. I am calling for
the US to play a much broader role in the world as it has economic and strategic value
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. This is definitely above my pay grade, but the problem that I see here is that it is very unclear where "a
much broader role in the world" ends and where "imperial overstretch" starts.
The country which spends over trillion dollars on "defense" is by definition an imperial country and its
foreign policy priorities are not that difficult to discern.
And due to well fed MIC which maintains an army of lobbyists and along with FIRE sector controls Capitol
Hill this is a Catch 22 situation (we can't abandon neocon Full Spectrum Dominance doctrine and can't continue
as it will bankrupt the country) which might not end well for the country.
Some experts now claim that this is criminal incompetence on the part of Trump administration. "So, what
does it mean to let thousands die by negligence, omission, failure to act, in a legal sense under international
law?" asked Gonsalves, an assistant professor of epidemiology of microbial diseases at the Yale School of
Public Health, in a tweet Wednesday morning.
https://twitter.com/gregggonsalves/status/1257988303443431425
Please note that Trump campaigned in 2016 on the idea of disengagement from foreign wars and abandoning the
global neoliberal empire built by his predecessors as well as halting neoliberal globalization. That's how he got anti-war independents to vote for him.
And what we got? We got this warmonger McMaster, bombing Syria on false flag chemical attack pretext,
conflict with Russia over North Stream II and Ukraine, and the assassination of Soleimani. Such a bait and switch.
For any intelligence professional, especially for a person who was the head of DIA, Flynn
behaviour is unexplainably naive. The idea that he did not understand that he is dealing with
Clinton mafia, as well as that Clinton mafia will try to implicate him is just absurd. So his
behaviour is mystery. As well as the fact that he allowed them to come bypassing regular channels
in President administration.
As we do not have the whole picture we can only speculate. Probably he was already on the
hook for his Turkish lobbing and that was exploited.
"New Documents Show Strzok Countermanded Closure Of Flynn Case For Lack Of Crime" [
Jonathan Turley ]. "It was previously known that the investigators who interviewed Flynn
did not believe that he intentionally lied. That made sense. Flynn did not deny the
conversations with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
Moreover, Flynn told the investigators that he knew that the call was inevitably monitored
and that a transcript existed. However, he did not recall discussing sanctions with Kislyak.
There was no reason to hide such a discussion.
Trump had publicly stated an intent to reframe Russian relations and seek to develop a more
positive posture with them. It now appears that, on January 4, 2017, the FBI's Washington Field
Office issued a 'Closing Communication' indicating that the bureau was terminating "CROSSFIRE
RAZOR" -- the newly disclosed codename for the investigation of Flynn. That is when Strzok
intervened." • Read on for detail, which is ugly.
"... Albright's original statement was an aggressive assertion that America was both extraordinarily powerful and unusually farsighted, and that legitimized the frequent U.S. recourse to using force. ..."
"... After two decades of calamitous failures that have highlighted our weaknesses and foolishness, even she can't muster up the old enthusiasm that she once had. No one could look back at the last 20 years of U.S. foreign policy and still honestly say that "we see further" into the future than others. ..."
It was 22 years ago when then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright publicly declared the
United States to be the "indispensable nation": "If we have to use force, it is because we are
America; we are the indispensable nation. We stand tall and we see further than other countries
into the future, and we see the danger here to all of us."
In a recent
interview with The New York T imes, Albright sounded much less sure of her old
position: "There's nothing in the definition of indispensable that says "alone." It means that
the United States needs to be engaged with its partners. And people's backgrounds make a
difference." Albright's original statement was an aggressive assertion that America was
both extraordinarily powerful and unusually farsighted, and that legitimized the frequent U.S.
recourse to using force.
After two decades of calamitous failures that have highlighted our weaknesses and
foolishness, even she can't muster up the old enthusiasm that she once had. No one could look
back at the last 20 years of U.S. foreign policy and still honestly say that "we see further"
into the future than others. Not only are we no better than other countries at
anticipating and preparing for future dangers, but judging from the country's lack of
preparedness for a pandemic we are actually far behind many of the countries that we have
presumed to "lead." It is impossible to square our official self-congratulatory rhetoric with
the reality of a government that is incapable of protecting its citizens from disaster.
One of trademarks of Trump administration is his that he despises international law and
relies on "might makes right" principle all the time. In a way he is a one trick pony, typical
unhinged bully.
In a way Pompeo is the fact of Trump administration foreign policy, and it is not pretty
It is mostly, though not only, Trump related or libertarian pseudo "alt media" behind "just
the flu" theories or "China unleashed virus to attack US".
There is a small military/zionist cabal at the White House that is pushing for that
information war in order to prop up the dying US empire as well as US oligarhic business
interests, and to secure Trump reelection prospects.
It is enough to see how Zerohedge have been turned into full blown imperialist media with
many "evil China" outbursts every day.
Beware of Trumptards infiltrating alt media to prop up the dying US Empire and its
business interests.
Trump is the biggest US imperialist for the last 30 years. He made a good job at deceiving
many anti-system voices.
His WTO attacks are too part of US efforts to take over the organisation. His has no
problem with international institutions as long as they are US empire controlled (such as
OPCW, WADA, etc.)
Trump-tards and related libertarians (Zerohedge etc.) made their choice on the side
of global US imperialism (driven by their hidden racism, hence the evil "chinks" making a
good enemy) and are now the enemy of the multipolar world.
Trump is scum. He turned on Russia and Assange after he got into the White House and did
far more against Russia than even Obama. I say that as someone who initially made the mistake
to support him.
This is part of Tom's description of the Article on Pompeo, Esper and the gang of 1986
(west pointers). They are well embedded. In fact, one class from West Point, that of 1986, from which both Secretary of Defense
Mark Esper and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo graduated, is essentially everywhere in a
distinctly militarized (if still officially civilian) and wildly hawkish Washington in the
Trumpian moment.
In case you missed it the first time, I repeat this link from the beginning of April,
-----------------
Red Ryder | Apr 27 2020 17:07 utc | 14
One addition there. The EU lost "market share" in Iran due to US sanctions. (As
they did with Russia). What they would like to do is to get it back. (France was one
of the bigger losers)
The US is very good at making enemies and loosing friends, simply due to their treatment of
other nations in the same manner they treat their domestic population.
The United States announced its withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action
(JCPOA), also known as the "Iran nuclear deal" or the "Iran deal", on May 8, 2018.
This document discusses the legal rationale for the US withdrawal from tje JCPOA in
detail:
The gloves are now off as China has called out Pompeo quite correctly saying, "Pompeo an enemy to world
peace" --and we ought to expect more disruptions here at MoA. Here's just one of several
slaps in Pompeo's face:
"The former top intelligence official is steering the US Department of State into becoming
the Central Intelligence Agency. He is playing with fire, making the 21st century an era of
major power confrontation and undermining the foundations for peace. Despite being the chief
diplomat of the US, he totally betrayed the basic responsibility with which he is entrusted
to promote international understanding. He has become the enemy of world peace."
What's most unfortunate is few seem to consult Global Times , as I was rather
surprised this major editorial wasn't already linked. Here's yet another slap:
"Geopolitics cannot dominate the world anymore. Pompeo and his like are desperately
pulling the world backwards. They are unable to handle a diverse and complicated new century
and so they attempt to resume the Cold War. They can only 'realize their ambition' in
polarized confrontation."
And that clearly wasn't enough as yet another slap's delivered in the closing two
sentences:
"Lies may fulfill Pompeo's personal ambition, but they will never accomplish the US dreams
to be "great again." Pompeo is not only a figure harmful to world peace, but also should be
listed as the worst US secretary of state in its history."
Hmm... Don't know if he qualifies as "worst" yet as he must still top Ms. Clinton, but she
certainly didn't treat China as has Pompeo.
Dangerous pathogens are captured in the wild and made deadlier in government biowarfare labs. Did that happen here?
There has been no scientific finding that the novel coronavirus was bioengineered, but its origins are not entirely clear. Deadly
pathogens discovered in the wild are sometimes studied in labs – and sometimes made more dangerous. That possibility, and other plausible
scenarios, have been incorrectly dismissed in remarks by some scientists and government officials, and in the coverage of most major
media outlets.
Regardless of the source of this pandemic, there is considerable documentation that a global biological arms race going on outside
of public view could produce even more deadly pandemics in the future.
While much of the media and political establishment have minimized the threat from such lab work, some hawks on the American right
like Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark ., have singled out Chinese biodefense researchers as uniquely dangerous.
The current dynamics of the biological arms race have been driven by US government decisions that extend back decades. In December
2009, Reuters
reported that the Obama administration was refusing even to negotiate the possible monitoring of biological weapons.
Much of the left in the US now appears unwilling to scrutinize the origin of the pandemic – or the wider issue of biowarfare –
perhaps because portions of the anti-Chinese right have been so vocal in making unfounded allegations.
Governments that participate in such biological weapon research generally distinguish between "biowarfare" and "biodefense,"
as if to paint such "defense" programs as necessary. But this is rhetorical sleight-of-hand; the two concepts are largely indistinguishable.
"Biodefense" implies tacit biowarfare, breeding more dangerous pathogens for the alleged purpose of finding a way to fight
them. While this work appears to have succeeded in creating deadly and infectious agents, including deadlier flu strains, such "defense"
research is impotent in its ability to defend us from this pandemic.
The legal scholar who drafted the main US law on the subject, Francis Boyle, warned in his 2005 book "
Biowarfare and Terrorism " that an "illegal biological arms
race with potentially catastrophic consequences" was underway, largely driven by the US government.
For years,
many scientists have raised concerns regarding bioweapons/biodefense lab work, and specifically about the fact that huge increases
in funding have taken place since 9/11. This was especially true after the anthrax-by-mail attacks that killed five people in the
weeks after 9/11, which the FBI ultimately blamed on a US government biodefense scientist. A 2013 study found that biodefense funding
since 2001 had totaled at least $78 billion
, and more has surely been spent since then. This has led to a
proliferation of laboratories , scientists and new organisms,
effectively setting off a biological arms race.
Following the Ebola outbreak in west Africa in 2014, the US government
paused
funding for what are known as "gain-of-function" research on certain organisms. This work actually seeks to make deadly pathogens
deadlier, in some cases making pathogens airborne that previously were not. With little notice outside the field,
the pause on such research was lifted
in late 2017 .
During this pause, exceptions for funding were made for dangerous gain-of-function lab work. This included work jointly done by
US scientists from the University of North Carolina, Harvard and the Wuhan Institute of Virology. This work – which had funding from
USAID and EcoHealth Alliance not originally acknowledged – was published in
2015 in Nature Medicine .
A different Nature Medicine article about the origin of the current pandemic, authored by five scientists and
published on March 17, has been touted by major media
outlet and some officials – including current National Institutes of Health director Francis Collins – as definitively disproving
a lab origin for the novel coronavirus. That journal article, titled "The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2," stated unequivocally: "Our
analyses clearly show that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus." This is a subtly misleading
sentence. While the scientists state that there is no known laboratory "signature" in the SARS-Cov-2 RNA, their argument fails to
take account of other lab methods that could have created coronavirus mutations without leaving such a signature.
Indeed, there is also the question of conflict of interest in the Nature Medicine article. Some of the authors of that article,
as well as a February 2020
Lancet letter condemning
"conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin" – which seemed calculated to minimize outside scrutiny
of biodefense lab work – have troubling ties to the biodefense complex, as well as to the US government. Notably, neither of these
articles makes clear that a virus can have a natural origin and then be captured and studied in a controlled laboratory setting before
being let loose, either intentionally or accidentally – which is clearly a possibility in the case of the coronavirus.
Facts as "rumors"
This reporter raised questions about the subject at a news conference with a Center for Disease Control (CDC) representative
at the now-shuttered National Press Club on Feb. 11. I asked if it was a "complete coincidence" that the pandemic had started in
Wuhan, the only place in China with a declared biosafety level 4 (BSL4) laboratory. BSL4 laboratories have the most stringent safety
mechanisms, but handle the most deadly pathogens. As I mentioned, it was odd that the ostensible origin of the novel coronavirus
was bat caves in Yunnan province – more than 1,000 miles from Wuhan. I noted that "gain-of-function" lab work can results in more
deadly pathogens, and that major labs, including
some in the US, have had accidental releases .
CDC Principal Deputy Director Anne Schuchat said that based on the information she had seen, the virus was of "zoonotic origin."
She also stated, regarding gain-of-function lab work, that it is important to "protect researchers and their laboratory workers as
well as the community around them and that we use science for the benefit of people."
I followed up by asking whether an alleged natural origin did not preclude the possibility that this virus came through
a lab, since a lab could have acquired a bat virus and been working on it. Schuchat replied to the assembled journalists that "it
is very common for rumors to emerge that can take on life of their own," but did not directly answer the question. She noted that
in the 2014 Ebola outbreak some observers had pointed to nearby labs as the possible cause, claiming this "was a key rumor that had
to be overcome in order to help control the outbreak." She reiterated: "So based on everything that I know right now, I can tell
you the circumstances of the origin really look like animals-to-human. But your question, I heard."
This is no rumor. It's a fact: Labs work with dangerous pathogens. The US and China each have dual-use biowarfare/biodefense programs.
China has major facilities at Wuhan – a biosafety level 4 lab and a biosafety level 2 lab. There are leaks from labs. (See "
Preventing a Biological Arms Race ,"
MIT Press, 1990, edited by Susan Wright; also, a partial review in
Journal of International Law from October 1992.)
Much of the discussion of this deadly serious subject is marred with snark that avoids or dodges the "gain-of-function" question.
ABC
ran a story on March 27 titled "Sorry, Conspiracy Theorists. Study Concludes COVID-19 'Is Not a Laboratory Construct.'" That
story did not address the possibility that the virus could have been found in the wild, studied in a lab and then released.
On March 21, USA Today
published a piece headlined "Fact Check: Did the Coronavirus Originate In a Chinese Laboratory?" – and rated it "FALSE."
That USA Today story relied on the Washington Post, which published a widely cited article on
Feb. 17 headlined,
"Tom Cotton keeps repeating a coronavirus conspiracy theory that was already debunked." That article quoted public comments from
Rutgers University professor of chemical biology Richard Ebright, but out of context and only in part. Specifically, the story quoted
from Ebright's tweet that the coronavirus was not an "engineered bioweapon." In fact, his full quote included the clarification that
the virus could have " entered human population
through lab accident ." (An email requesting clarification sent to Post reporter Paulina Firozi was met with silence.)
Bioengineered ≠ From a lab
Other pieces in the Post since then (
some heavily sourced to
US government officials ) have conveyed Ebright's thinking, but it gets worse. In a private exchange, Ebright – who, again, has
said clearly that the novel coronavirus was not technically bioengineered using known coronavirus sequences – stated that other forms
of lab manipulation could have been responsible for the current pandemic. This runs counter to much reporting, which is perhaps too
scientifically illiterate to perceive the difference.
The genome sequence of SARS-CoV-2 has no signatures of human manipulation.
This rules out the kinds of gain-of-function (GoF) research that leave signatures of human manipulation in genome sequences
(e.g., use of recombinant DNA methods to construct chimeric viruses), but does not rule out kinds of GoF research that do not leave
signatures (e.g., serial passage in animals). [emphasis added]
Very easy to imagine the equivalent of the Fouchier's "10 passages in ferrets" with H5N1 influenza virus, but, in this case,
with 10 passages in non-human primates with bat coronavirus RaTG13 or bat coronavirus KP876546.
That last paragraph is very important. It refers to virologist Ron Fouchier of the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, who performed
research on intentionally increasing rates of viral mutation rate by spreading a virus from one animal to another in a sequence.
The New York Times wrote about this in an
editorial in January 2012,
warning of "An Engineered Doomsday."
"Now scientists financed by the National Institutes of Health" have created a "virus that could kill tens or hundreds of millions
of people" if it escaped confinement, the Times wrote. The story continued:
Working with ferrets, the animal that is most like humans in responding to influenza, the researchers found that a mere five
genetic mutations allowed the virus to spread through the air from one ferret to another while maintaining its lethality. A separate
study at the University of Wisconsin, about which little is known publicly, produced a virus that is thought to be less virulent.
The word "engineering" in the New York Times headline is technically incorrect, since passing a virus through animals is
not "genetic engineering." This same distinction has hindered some from understanding the possible origins of the current pandemic.
Fouchier's flu work, in which an H5N1 virus was made more virulent by transmitting it repeatedly between individual ferrets, briefly
sent shockwaves through the media. "Locked up in the bowels of the medical faculty building here and accessible to only a handful
of scientists lies a man-made flu virus that could change world history if it were ever set free," wrote Science magazine
in 2011 in a
story
titled "Scientists Brace for Media Storm Around Controversial Flu Studies." It continues:
The virus is an H5N1 avian influenza strain that has been genetically altered and is now easily transmissible between ferrets,
the animals that most closely mimic the human response to flu. Scientists believe it's likely that the pathogen, if it emerged in
nature or were released, would trigger an influenza pandemic, quite possibly with many millions of deaths.
In a 17th floor office in the same building, virologist Ron Fouchier of Erasmus Medical Center calmly explains why his team
created what he says is "probably one of the most dangerous viruses you can make" – and why he wants to publish a paper describing
how they did it. Fouchier is also bracing for a media storm. After he talked to ScienceInsider yesterday, he had an appointment
with an institutional press officer to chart a communication strategy.
Fouchier's paper is one of two studies that have triggered an intense debate about the limits of scientific freedom and that
could portend changes in the way U.S. researchers handle so-called dual-use research: studies that have a potential public health
benefit but could also be useful for nefarious purposes like biowarfare or bioterrorism.
Despite objections, Fouchier's article was published by Science
in June 2012 . Titled "Airborne Transmission
of Influenza A/H5N1 Virus Between Ferrets," it summarized how Fouchier's research team made the pathogen more virulent:
Highly pathogenic avian influenza A/H5N1 virus can cause morbidity and mortality in humans but thus far has not acquired the
ability to be transmitted by aerosol or respiratory droplet ("airborne transmission") between humans. To address the concern that
the virus could acquire this ability under natural conditions, we genetically modified A/H5N1 virus by site-directed mutagenesis
and subsequent serial passage in ferrets. The genetically modified A/H5N1 virus acquired mutations during passage in ferrets, ultimately
becoming airborne transmissible in ferrets.
In other words, Fouchier's research took a flu virus that did not exhibit airborne transmission, then infected a number
of ferrets until it mutated to the point that it was transmissible by air.
In that same year, 2012, a similar study by Yoshihiro
Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin was published in Nature :
Highly pathogenic avian H5N1 influenza A viruses occasionally infect humans, but currently do not transmit efficiently among
humans. Here we assess the molecular changes that would allow a virus to be transmissible among mammals. We identified a virus with
four mutations and the remaining seven gene segments from a 2009 pandemic H1N1 virus – that was capable of droplet transmission in
a ferret model.
Recent experiments that create novel, highly virulent and transmissible pathogens against which there is no human immunity
are unethical they impose a risk of accidental and deliberate release that, if it led to extensive spread of the new agent, could
cost many lives. While such a release is unlikely in a specific laboratory conducting research under strict biosafety procedures,
even a low likelihood should be taken seriously, given the scale of destruction if such an unlikely event were to occur. Furthermore,
the likelihood of risk is multiplied as the number of laboratories conducting such research increases around the globe.
Given this risk, ethical principles, such as those embodied in the
Nuremberg Code , dictate that such experiments would be
permissible only if they provide humanitarian benefits commensurate with the risk, and if these benefits cannot be achieved by less
risky means.
We argue that the two main benefits claimed for these experiments – improved vaccine design and improved interpretation of
surveillance – are unlikely to be achieved by the creation of potential pandemic pathogens (PPP), often termed "gain-of-function"
(GOF) experiments.
There may be a widespread notion that there is scientific consensus that the pandemic did not come out of a lab. But in fact many
of the most knowledgeable scientists in the field are notably silent. This includes Lipsitch at Harvard, Jonathan A. King at MIT
and many others.
Just last year, Lynn Klotz of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation wrote a
paper
in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists entitled "Human Error in High-biocontainment Labs: A Likely Pandemic Threat." Wrote
Klotz:
Incidents causing potential exposures to pathogens occur frequently in the high security laboratories often known by their
acronyms, BSL3 (Biosafety Level 3) and BSL4. Lab incidents that lead to undetected or unreported laboratory-acquired infections can
lead to the release of a disease into the community outside the lab; lab workers with such infections will leave work carrying the
pathogen with them. If the agent involved were a potential pandemic pathogen, such a community release could lead to a worldwide
pandemic with many fatalities. Of greatest concern is a release of a lab-created, mammalian-airborne-
transmissible, highly pathogenic avian influenza virus, such as the airborne-transmissible H5N1 viruses created in the laboratories
of Ron Fouchier in the Netherlands and Yoshihiro Kawaoka in Madison, Wisconsin.
"Crazy, dangerous"
Boyle, a professor of international
law at the University of Illinois , has condemned Fouchier, Kawaoka and others – including at least one of the authors of the
recent Nature Medicine article in the strongest terms, calling such work a "criminal enterprise." While Boyle has been embroiled
in numerous controversies, he's been especially dismissed by many on this issue. The "fact-checking" website
Snopes has described him as "a lawyer with
no formal training in virology" – without noting that he wrote the relevant U.S. law.
The law Boyle drafted states: "Whoever knowingly develops, produces, stockpiles, transfers, acquires, retains, or possesses any
biological agent, toxin, or delivery system for use as a weapon, or knowingly assists a foreign state or any organization to do so,
shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for life or any term of years, or both. There is extraterritorial Federal jurisdiction
over an offense under this section committed by or against a national of the United States."
Boyle also warned:
Russia and China have undoubtedly reached the same conclusions I have derived from the same open and public sources, and have
responded in kind. So what the world now witnesses is an all-out offensive biological warfare arms race among the major military
powers of the world: United States, Russia, Britain, France, China, Israel, inter alia.
We have reconstructed the Offensive Biological Warfare Industry that we had deployed in this county before its prohibition
by the Biological Weapons Convention of 1972, described by Seymour Hersh in his groundbreaking expose "
Chemical
and Biological Warfare: America's Hidden Arsenal ." (1968)
Boyle now states that he has been "blackballed" in the media on this issue, despite his having written the relevant statute. The
group he worked with on the law, the Council for Responsible Genetics, went under several years ago, making Boyle's views against
"biodefense" even more marginal as government money for dual use work poured into the field and critics within the scientific community
have fallen silent. In turn, his denunciations have grown more sweeping.
In the 1990 book " Preventing a Biological
Arms Race ," scholar Susan Wright argued that current laws regarding bioweapons were insufficient, as there were "projects in
which offensive and defensive aspects can be distinguished only by claimed motive." Boyle notes, correctly, that current law he drafted
does not make an exception for "defensive" work, but only for "prophylactic, protective or other peaceful purposes."
While Boyle is particularly vociferous in his condemnations, he is not alone. There has been irregular, but occasional media attention
to this threat. The Guardian ran a piece in 2014, "
Scientists
condemn 'crazy, dangerous' creation of deadly airborne flu virus ," after Kawaoka created a life-threatening virus that "closely
resembles the 1918 Spanish flu strain that killed an estimated 50m people":
"The work they are doing is absolutely crazy. The whole thing is exceedingly dangerous," said Lord May, the former president
of the Royal Society and one time chief science adviser to the UK government. "Yes, there is a danger, but it's not arising from
the viruses out there in the animals, it's arising from the labs of grossly ambitious people."
Boyle's
charges
beginning early this year that the coronavirus was bioengineered – allegations recently mirrored by French virologist and
Nobel laureate Luc Montagnier – have not been corroborated by any publicly produced findings of any US scientist. Boyle even
charges that scientists like Ebright, who is at Rutgers, are compromised because the university got a
biosafety level
3 lab in 2017 – though Ebright is perhaps the most vocal eminent critic of this research, among US scientists. These and other
controversies aside, Boyle's concerns about the dangers of biowarfare are legitimate; indeed, Ebright shares them.
Some of the most vocal voices to discuss the origins of the novel coronavirus have been eager to minimize the dangers of lab work,
or have focused almost exclusively on "wet markets" or "exotic" animals as the likely cause.
The media celebrated Laurie Garrett, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author and former senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations,
when she declared on Twitter on March 3 (in a since-deleted tweet) that the origin of the pandemic was discovered: "It's pangolins.
#COVID19 Researchers studied lung tissue from 12 of the scaled mammals that were illegally trafficked in Asia and found #SARSCoV2
in 3. The animals were found in Guangxi, China. Another virus+ smuggled sample found in Guangzhou."
She was swiftly corrected by Ebright:
"Arrant nonsense. Did you even read the paper? Reported pangolin coronavirus is not SARS-CoV-2 and is not even particularly close
to SARS-CoV-2. Bat coronavirus RaTG13 is much closer to SARS-CoV-2 (96.2% identical) than reported pangolin coronavirus (92.4% identical)."
He added: "No reason to invoke pangolin as intermediate. When A is much closer than B to C, in the absence of additional data, there
is no rational basis to favor pathway A>B>C over pathway A>C." When someone asked what Garrett was saying, Ebright
responded : "She is saying she is scientifically
illiterate."
The following day, Garrett corrected herself (
without acknowledging Ebright ): "I blew
it on the #Pangolins paper, & then took a few hours break from Twitter. It did NOT prove the species = source of #SARSCoV2. There's
a torrent of critique now, deservedly denouncing me & my posting. A lot of the critique is super-informative so leaving it all up
4 while."
At least one Chinese government official has
responded to the allegation that the labs in Wuhan could be the source for the pandemic by alleging that perhaps the US is responsible
instead. In American mainstream media, that has been reflexively treated as even
more ridiculous
than the original allegation that the virus could have come from a lab.
Obviously the Chinese government's allegations should not be taken at face value, but neither should US government claims – especially
considering that US government labs were the apparent source for the
anthrax attacks in 2001 . Those attacks sent panic through
the US and shut down Congress, allowing the Bush administration to enact the
PATRIOT Act and ramp up the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Indeed, in October 2001, media darlings like
Richard Butler and
Andrew Sullivan propagandized for war
with Iraq because of the anthrax attacks. (Neither Iraq nor al-Qaida was involved.)
The 2001 anthrax attacks also provided much of the pretext for the surge in biolab spending since then, even though they apparently
originated in a US or U.S.-allied lab. Indeed, those attacks remain
shrouded in
mystery .
The US government has also come up with elaborate cover stories to distract from its bioweapons work. For instance, the US government
infamously claimed the 1953 death of Frank Olson, a scientist at Fort Detrick, Maryland, was an
LSD experiment gone wrong; it now appears to have been an execution to cover up for US biological warfare.
Regardless of the cause of the current pandemic, these biowarfare/biodefense labs need far more scrutiny. The call to shut them
down by Boyle and others needs to be clearly heard – and light must be shone on precisely what research is being conducted.
The secrecy of these labs may prevent us ever knowing with certainty the origins of the current pandemic. What we do know is this
kind of lab work comes with real dangers. One might make a comparison to climate change: We cannot attribute an individual hurricane
to man-made climate disruption, yet science tells us that human activity makes stronger hurricanes more likely. That brings us back
to the imperative to cease the kinds of activities that produce such dangers in the first place.
If that doesn't happen, the people of the planet will be at the mercy of the machinations and mistakes of state actors who are
playing with fire for their geopolitical interests.
Dangerous pathogens are captured in the wild and made deadlier in government biowarfare labs. Did that happen here?
There has been no scientific finding that the novel coronavirus was bioengineered, but its origins are not entirely clear. Deadly
pathogens discovered in the wild are sometimes studied in labs – and sometimes made more dangerous. That possibility, and other plausible
scenarios, have been incorrectly dismissed in remarks by some scientists and government officials, and in the coverage of most major
media outlets.
Regardless of the source of this pandemic, there is considerable documentation that a global biological arms race going on outside
of public view could produce even more deadly pandemics in the future.
While much of the media and political establishment have minimized the threat from such lab work, some hawks on the American right
like Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark ., have singled out Chinese biodefense researchers as uniquely dangerous.
The current dynamics of the biological arms race have been driven by US government decisions that extend back decades. In December
2009, Reuters
reported that the Obama administration was refusing even to negotiate the possible monitoring of biological weapons.
Much of the left in the US now appears unwilling to scrutinize the origin of the pandemic – or the wider issue of biowarfare –
perhaps because portions of the anti-Chinese right have been so vocal in making unfounded allegations.
Governments that participate in such biological weapon research generally distinguish between "biowarfare" and "biodefense,"
as if to paint such "defense" programs as necessary. But this is rhetorical sleight-of-hand; the two concepts are largely indistinguishable.
"Biodefense" implies tacit biowarfare, breeding more dangerous pathogens for the alleged purpose of finding a way to fight
them. While this work appears to have succeeded in creating deadly and infectious agents, including deadlier flu strains, such "defense"
research is impotent in its ability to defend us from this pandemic.
The legal scholar who drafted the main US law on the subject, Francis Boyle, warned in his 2005 book "
Biowarfare and Terrorism " that an "illegal biological arms
race with potentially catastrophic consequences" was underway, largely driven by the US government.
For years,
many scientists have raised concerns regarding bioweapons/biodefense lab work, and specifically about the fact that huge increases
in funding have taken place since 9/11. This was especially true after the anthrax-by-mail attacks that killed five people in the
weeks after 9/11, which the FBI ultimately blamed on a US government biodefense scientist. A 2013 study found that biodefense funding
since 2001 had totaled at least $78 billion
, and more has surely been spent since then. This has led to a
proliferation of laboratories , scientists and new organisms,
effectively setting off a biological arms race.
Following the Ebola outbreak in west Africa in 2014, the US government
paused
funding for what are known as "gain-of-function" research on certain organisms. This work actually seeks to make deadly pathogens
deadlier, in some cases making pathogens airborne that previously were not. With little notice outside the field,
the pause on such research was lifted
in late 2017 .
During this pause, exceptions for funding were made for dangerous gain-of-function lab work. This included work jointly done by
US scientists from the University of North Carolina, Harvard and the Wuhan Institute of Virology. This work – which had funding from
USAID and EcoHealth Alliance not originally acknowledged – was published in
2015 in Nature Medicine .
A different Nature Medicine article about the origin of the current pandemic, authored by five scientists and
published on March 17, has been touted by major media
outlet and some officials – including current National Institutes of Health director Francis Collins – as definitively disproving
a lab origin for the novel coronavirus. That journal article, titled "The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2," stated unequivocally: "Our
analyses clearly show that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus." This is a subtly misleading
sentence. While the scientists state that there is no known laboratory "signature" in the SARS-Cov-2 RNA, their argument fails to
take account of other lab methods that could have created coronavirus mutations without leaving such a signature.
Indeed, there is also the question of conflict of interest in the Nature Medicine article. Some of the authors of that article,
as well as a February 2020
Lancet letter condemning
"conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin" – which seemed calculated to minimize outside scrutiny
of biodefense lab work – have troubling ties to the biodefense complex, as well as to the US government. Notably, neither of these
articles makes clear that a virus can have a natural origin and then be captured and studied in a controlled laboratory setting before
being let loose, either intentionally or accidentally – which is clearly a possibility in the case of the coronavirus.
Facts as "rumors"
This reporter raised questions about the subject at a news conference with a Center for Disease Control (CDC) representative
at the now-shuttered National Press Club on Feb. 11. I asked if it was a "complete coincidence" that the pandemic had started in
Wuhan, the only place in China with a declared biosafety level 4 (BSL4) laboratory. BSL4 laboratories have the most stringent safety
mechanisms, but handle the most deadly pathogens. As I mentioned, it was odd that the ostensible origin of the novel coronavirus
was bat caves in Yunnan province – more than 1,000 miles from Wuhan. I noted that "gain-of-function" lab work can results in more
deadly pathogens, and that major labs, including
some in the US, have had accidental releases .
CDC Principal Deputy Director Anne Schuchat said that based on the information she had seen, the virus was of "zoonotic origin."
She also stated, regarding gain-of-function lab work, that it is important to "protect researchers and their laboratory workers as
well as the community around them and that we use science for the benefit of people."
I followed up by asking whether an alleged natural origin did not preclude the possibility that this virus came through
a lab, since a lab could have acquired a bat virus and been working on it. Schuchat replied to the assembled journalists that "it
is very common for rumors to emerge that can take on life of their own," but did not directly answer the question. She noted that
in the 2014 Ebola outbreak some observers had pointed to nearby labs as the possible cause, claiming this "was a key rumor that had
to be overcome in order to help control the outbreak." She reiterated: "So based on everything that I know right now, I can tell
you the circumstances of the origin really look like animals-to-human. But your question, I heard."
This is no rumor. It's a fact: Labs work with dangerous pathogens. The US and China each have dual-use biowarfare/biodefense programs.
China has major facilities at Wuhan – a biosafety level 4 lab and a biosafety level 2 lab. There are leaks from labs. (See "
Preventing a Biological Arms Race ,"
MIT Press, 1990, edited by Susan Wright; also, a partial review in
Journal of International Law from October 1992.)
Much of the discussion of this deadly serious subject is marred with snark that avoids or dodges the "gain-of-function" question.
ABC
ran a story on March 27 titled "Sorry, Conspiracy Theorists. Study Concludes COVID-19 'Is Not a Laboratory Construct.'" That
story did not address the possibility that the virus could have been found in the wild, studied in a lab and then released.
On March 21, USA Today
published a piece headlined "Fact Check: Did the Coronavirus Originate In a Chinese Laboratory?" – and rated it "FALSE."
That USA Today story relied on the Washington Post, which published a widely cited article on
Feb. 17 headlined,
"Tom Cotton keeps repeating a coronavirus conspiracy theory that was already debunked." That article quoted public comments from
Rutgers University professor of chemical biology Richard Ebright, but out of context and only in part. Specifically, the story quoted
from Ebright's tweet that the coronavirus was not an "engineered bioweapon." In fact, his full quote included the clarification that
the virus could have " entered human population
through lab accident ." (An email requesting clarification sent to Post reporter Paulina Firozi was met with silence.)
Bioengineered ≠ From a lab
Other pieces in the Post since then (
some heavily sourced to
US government officials ) have conveyed Ebright's thinking, but it gets worse. In a private exchange, Ebright – who, again, has
said clearly that the novel coronavirus was not technically bioengineered using known coronavirus sequences – stated that other forms
of lab manipulation could have been responsible for the current pandemic. This runs counter to much reporting, which is perhaps too
scientifically illiterate to perceive the difference.
The genome sequence of SARS-CoV-2 has no signatures of human manipulation.
This rules out the kinds of gain-of-function (GoF) research that leave signatures of human manipulation in genome sequences
(e.g., use of recombinant DNA methods to construct chimeric viruses), but does not rule out kinds of GoF research that do not leave
signatures (e.g., serial passage in animals). [emphasis added]
Very easy to imagine the equivalent of the Fouchier's "10 passages in ferrets" with H5N1 influenza virus, but, in this case,
with 10 passages in non-human primates with bat coronavirus RaTG13 or bat coronavirus KP876546.
That last paragraph is very important. It refers to virologist Ron Fouchier of the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, who performed
research on intentionally increasing rates of viral mutation rate by spreading a virus from one animal to another in a sequence.
The New York Times wrote about this in an
editorial in January 2012,
warning of "An Engineered Doomsday."
"Now scientists financed by the National Institutes of Health" have created a "virus that could kill tens or hundreds of millions
of people" if it escaped confinement, the Times wrote. The story continued:
Working with ferrets, the animal that is most like humans in responding to influenza, the researchers found that a mere five
genetic mutations allowed the virus to spread through the air from one ferret to another while maintaining its lethality. A separate
study at the University of Wisconsin, about which little is known publicly, produced a virus that is thought to be less virulent.
The word "engineering" in the New York Times headline is technically incorrect, since passing a virus through animals is
not "genetic engineering." This same distinction has hindered some from understanding the possible origins of the current pandemic.
Fouchier's flu work, in which an H5N1 virus was made more virulent by transmitting it repeatedly between individual ferrets, briefly
sent shockwaves through the media. "Locked up in the bowels of the medical faculty building here and accessible to only a handful
of scientists lies a man-made flu virus that could change world history if it were ever set free," wrote Science magazine
in 2011 in a
story
titled "Scientists Brace for Media Storm Around Controversial Flu Studies." It continues:
The virus is an H5N1 avian influenza strain that has been genetically altered and is now easily transmissible between ferrets,
the animals that most closely mimic the human response to flu. Scientists believe it's likely that the pathogen, if it emerged in
nature or were released, would trigger an influenza pandemic, quite possibly with many millions of deaths.
In a 17th floor office in the same building, virologist Ron Fouchier of Erasmus Medical Center calmly explains why his team
created what he says is "probably one of the most dangerous viruses you can make" – and why he wants to publish a paper describing
how they did it. Fouchier is also bracing for a media storm. After he talked to ScienceInsider yesterday, he had an appointment
with an institutional press officer to chart a communication strategy.
Fouchier's paper is one of two studies that have triggered an intense debate about the limits of scientific freedom and that
could portend changes in the way U.S. researchers handle so-called dual-use research: studies that have a potential public health
benefit but could also be useful for nefarious purposes like biowarfare or bioterrorism.
Despite objections, Fouchier's article was published by Science
in June 2012 . Titled "Airborne Transmission
of Influenza A/H5N1 Virus Between Ferrets," it summarized how Fouchier's research team made the pathogen more virulent:
Highly pathogenic avian influenza A/H5N1 virus can cause morbidity and mortality in humans but thus far has not acquired the
ability to be transmitted by aerosol or respiratory droplet ("airborne transmission") between humans. To address the concern that
the virus could acquire this ability under natural conditions, we genetically modified A/H5N1 virus by site-directed mutagenesis
and subsequent serial passage in ferrets. The genetically modified A/H5N1 virus acquired mutations during passage in ferrets, ultimately
becoming airborne transmissible in ferrets.
In other words, Fouchier's research took a flu virus that did not exhibit airborne transmission, then infected a number
of ferrets until it mutated to the point that it was transmissible by air.
In that same year, 2012, a similar study by Yoshihiro
Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin was published in Nature :
Highly pathogenic avian H5N1 influenza A viruses occasionally infect humans, but currently do not transmit efficiently among
humans. Here we assess the molecular changes that would allow a virus to be transmissible among mammals. We identified a virus with
four mutations and the remaining seven gene segments from a 2009 pandemic H1N1 virus – that was capable of droplet transmission in
a ferret model.
Recent experiments that create novel, highly virulent and transmissible pathogens against which there is no human immunity
are unethical they impose a risk of accidental and deliberate release that, if it led to extensive spread of the new agent, could
cost many lives. While such a release is unlikely in a specific laboratory conducting research under strict biosafety procedures,
even a low likelihood should be taken seriously, given the scale of destruction if such an unlikely event were to occur. Furthermore,
the likelihood of risk is multiplied as the number of laboratories conducting such research increases around the globe.
Given this risk, ethical principles, such as those embodied in the
Nuremberg Code , dictate that such experiments would be
permissible only if they provide humanitarian benefits commensurate with the risk, and if these benefits cannot be achieved by less
risky means.
We argue that the two main benefits claimed for these experiments – improved vaccine design and improved interpretation of
surveillance – are unlikely to be achieved by the creation of potential pandemic pathogens (PPP), often termed "gain-of-function"
(GOF) experiments.
There may be a widespread notion that there is scientific consensus that the pandemic did not come out of a lab. But in fact many
of the most knowledgeable scientists in the field are notably silent. This includes Lipsitch at Harvard, Jonathan A. King at MIT
and many others.
Just last year, Lynn Klotz of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation wrote a
paper
in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists entitled "Human Error in High-biocontainment Labs: A Likely Pandemic Threat." Wrote
Klotz:
Incidents causing potential exposures to pathogens occur frequently in the high security laboratories often known by their
acronyms, BSL3 (Biosafety Level 3) and BSL4. Lab incidents that lead to undetected or unreported laboratory-acquired infections can
lead to the release of a disease into the community outside the lab; lab workers with such infections will leave work carrying the
pathogen with them. If the agent involved were a potential pandemic pathogen, such a community release could lead to a worldwide
pandemic with many fatalities. Of greatest concern is a release of a lab-created, mammalian-airborne-
transmissible, highly pathogenic avian influenza virus, such as the airborne-transmissible H5N1 viruses created in the laboratories
of Ron Fouchier in the Netherlands and Yoshihiro Kawaoka in Madison, Wisconsin.
"Crazy, dangerous"
Boyle, a professor of international
law at the University of Illinois , has condemned Fouchier, Kawaoka and others – including at least one of the authors of the
recent Nature Medicine article in the strongest terms, calling such work a "criminal enterprise." While Boyle has been embroiled
in numerous controversies, he's been especially dismissed by many on this issue. The "fact-checking" website
Snopes has described him as "a lawyer with
no formal training in virology" – without noting that he wrote the relevant U.S. law.
The law Boyle drafted states: "Whoever knowingly develops, produces, stockpiles, transfers, acquires, retains, or possesses any
biological agent, toxin, or delivery system for use as a weapon, or knowingly assists a foreign state or any organization to do so,
shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for life or any term of years, or both. There is extraterritorial Federal jurisdiction
over an offense under this section committed by or against a national of the United States."
Boyle also warned:
Russia and China have undoubtedly reached the same conclusions I have derived from the same open and public sources, and have
responded in kind. So what the world now witnesses is an all-out offensive biological warfare arms race among the major military
powers of the world: United States, Russia, Britain, France, China, Israel, inter alia.
We have reconstructed the Offensive Biological Warfare Industry that we had deployed in this county before its prohibition
by the Biological Weapons Convention of 1972, described by Seymour Hersh in his groundbreaking expose "
Chemical
and Biological Warfare: America's Hidden Arsenal ." (1968)
Boyle now states that he has been "blackballed" in the media on this issue, despite his having written the relevant statute. The
group he worked with on the law, the Council for Responsible Genetics, went under several years ago, making Boyle's views against
"biodefense" even more marginal as government money for dual use work poured into the field and critics within the scientific community
have fallen silent. In turn, his denunciations have grown more sweeping.
In the 1990 book " Preventing a Biological
Arms Race ," scholar Susan Wright argued that current laws regarding bioweapons were insufficient, as there were "projects in
which offensive and defensive aspects can be distinguished only by claimed motive." Boyle notes, correctly, that current law he drafted
does not make an exception for "defensive" work, but only for "prophylactic, protective or other peaceful purposes."
While Boyle is particularly vociferous in his condemnations, he is not alone. There has been irregular, but occasional media attention
to this threat. The Guardian ran a piece in 2014, "
Scientists
condemn 'crazy, dangerous' creation of deadly airborne flu virus ," after Kawaoka created a life-threatening virus that "closely
resembles the 1918 Spanish flu strain that killed an estimated 50m people":
"The work they are doing is absolutely crazy. The whole thing is exceedingly dangerous," said Lord May, the former president
of the Royal Society and one time chief science adviser to the UK government. "Yes, there is a danger, but it's not arising from
the viruses out there in the animals, it's arising from the labs of grossly ambitious people."
Boyle's
charges
beginning early this year that the coronavirus was bioengineered – allegations recently mirrored by French virologist and
Nobel laureate Luc Montagnier – have not been corroborated by any publicly produced findings of any US scientist. Boyle even
charges that scientists like Ebright, who is at Rutgers, are compromised because the university got a
biosafety level
3 lab in 2017 – though Ebright is perhaps the most vocal eminent critic of this research, among US scientists. These and other
controversies aside, Boyle's concerns about the dangers of biowarfare are legitimate; indeed, Ebright shares them.
Some of the most vocal voices to discuss the origins of the novel coronavirus have been eager to minimize the dangers of lab work,
or have focused almost exclusively on "wet markets" or "exotic" animals as the likely cause.
The media celebrated Laurie Garrett, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author and former senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations,
when she declared on Twitter on March 3 (in a since-deleted tweet) that the origin of the pandemic was discovered: "It's pangolins.
#COVID19 Researchers studied lung tissue from 12 of the scaled mammals that were illegally trafficked in Asia and found #SARSCoV2
in 3. The animals were found in Guangxi, China. Another virus+ smuggled sample found in Guangzhou."
She was swiftly corrected by Ebright:
"Arrant nonsense. Did you even read the paper? Reported pangolin coronavirus is not SARS-CoV-2 and is not even particularly close
to SARS-CoV-2. Bat coronavirus RaTG13 is much closer to SARS-CoV-2 (96.2% identical) than reported pangolin coronavirus (92.4% identical)."
He added: "No reason to invoke pangolin as intermediate. When A is much closer than B to C, in the absence of additional data, there
is no rational basis to favor pathway A>B>C over pathway A>C." When someone asked what Garrett was saying, Ebright
responded : "She is saying she is scientifically
illiterate."
The following day, Garrett corrected herself (
without acknowledging Ebright ): "I blew
it on the #Pangolins paper, & then took a few hours break from Twitter. It did NOT prove the species = source of #SARSCoV2. There's
a torrent of critique now, deservedly denouncing me & my posting. A lot of the critique is super-informative so leaving it all up
4 while."
At least one Chinese government official has
responded to the allegation that the labs in Wuhan could be the source for the pandemic by alleging that perhaps the US is responsible
instead. In American mainstream media, that has been reflexively treated as even
more ridiculous
than the original allegation that the virus could have come from a lab.
Obviously the Chinese government's allegations should not be taken at face value, but neither should US government claims – especially
considering that US government labs were the apparent source for the
anthrax attacks in 2001 . Those attacks sent panic through
the US and shut down Congress, allowing the Bush administration to enact the
PATRIOT Act and ramp up the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Indeed, in October 2001, media darlings like
Richard Butler and
Andrew Sullivan propagandized for war
with Iraq because of the anthrax attacks. (Neither Iraq nor al-Qaida was involved.)
The 2001 anthrax attacks also provided much of the pretext for the surge in biolab spending since then, even though they apparently
originated in a US or U.S.-allied lab. Indeed, those attacks remain
shrouded in
mystery .
The US government has also come up with elaborate cover stories to distract from its bioweapons work. For instance, the US government
infamously claimed the 1953 death of Frank Olson, a scientist at Fort Detrick, Maryland, was an
LSD experiment gone wrong; it now appears to have been an execution to cover up for US biological warfare.
Regardless of the cause of the current pandemic, these biowarfare/biodefense labs need far more scrutiny. The call to shut them
down by Boyle and others needs to be clearly heard – and light must be shone on precisely what research is being conducted.
The secrecy of these labs may prevent us ever knowing with certainty the origins of the current pandemic. What we do know is this
kind of lab work comes with real dangers. One might make a comparison to climate change: We cannot attribute an individual hurricane
to man-made climate disruption, yet science tells us that human activity makes stronger hurricanes more likely. That brings us back
to the imperative to cease the kinds of activities that produce such dangers in the first place.
If that doesn't happen, the people of the planet will be at the mercy of the machinations and mistakes of state actors who are
playing with fire for their geopolitical interests.
"... The truth is that decline was never a choice, but the U.S. can decide how it can respond to it. We can continue chasing after the vanished, empty glory of the "unipolar moment" with bromides of American exceptionalism. We can continue to delude ourselves into thinking that military might can make up for all our other weaknesses. Or we can choose to adapt to a changed world by prudently husbanding our resources and putting them to uses more productive than policing the world. ..."
"... Exit From Hegemony: The Unraveling of the American Global Order ..."
More than 10 years ago, the columnist Charles Krauthammer
asserted that American
"decline is a choice," and argued tendentiously that Barack Obama had chosen it. Yet looking back over the last decade, it has become
increasingly obvious that this decline has occurred irrespective of what political leaders in Washington want.
The truth is that decline was never a choice, but the U.S. can decide how it can respond to it. We can continue chasing after
the vanished, empty glory of the "unipolar moment" with bromides of American exceptionalism. We can continue to delude ourselves
into thinking that military might can make up for all our other weaknesses. Or we can choose to adapt to a changed world by prudently
husbanding our resources and putting them to uses more productive than policing the world.
There was a brief period during the 1990s and early 2000s when the U.S. could claim to be the world's hegemonic power. America
had no near-peer rivals; it was at the height of its influence across most of the globe. That status, however, was always a transitory
one, and was lost quickly thanks to self-inflicted wounds in Iraq and the natural growth of other powers that began to compete for
influence. While America remains the most powerful state in the world, it no longer dominates as it did 20 years ago. And there can
be no recapturing what was lost.
Alexander Cooley and Dan Nexon explore these matters in their new book,
Exit From Hegemony: The Unraveling of the American Global Order . They make a strong case for distinguishing between the
old hegemonic order and the larger international order of which it is a part. As they put it, "global international order is not
synonymous with American hegemony." They also make careful distinctions between the different components of what is often simply
called the "liberal international order": political liberalism, economic liberalism, and liberal intergovernmentalism. The first
involves the protection of rights, the second open economic exchange, and the third the form of international order that recognizes
legally equal sovereign states. Cooley and Nexon note that both critics and defenders of the "liberal international order" tend to
assume that all three come as a "package deal," but point out that these parts do not necessarily reinforce each other and do not
have to coexist.
While the authors are quite critical of Trump's foreign policy, they don't pin the decline of the old order solely on him. They
argue that hegemonic unraveling takes place when the hegemon loses its monopoly over patronage and "more states can compete when
it comes to providing economic, security, diplomatic, and other goods." The U.S. has been losing ground for the better part of the
last 20 years, much of it unavoidable as other states grew wealthier and sought to wield greater influence. The authors make a persuasive
case that the "exit" from hegemony is already taking place and has been for some time.
Many defenders of U.S. hegemony insist that the "liberal international order" depends on it. That has never made much sense. For
one, the continued maintenance of American hegemony frequently conflicts with the rules of international order. The hegemon reserves
the right to interfere anywhere it wants, and tramples on the sovereignty and legal rights of other states as it sees fit. In practice,
the U.S. has frequently acted as more of a rogue in its efforts to "enforce" order than many of the states it likes to condemn. The
most vocal defenders of U.S. hegemony are unsurprisingly some of the biggest opponents of international law -- at least when it gets
in their way. Cooley and Nexon make a very important observation related to this in their discussion of the role of revisionist powers
in the world today:
But the key point is that we need to be extremely careful that we don't conflate "revisionism" with opposition to the United
States. The desire to undermine hegemony and replace it with a multipolar system entails revisionism with respect to the distribution
of power, but it may or may not be revisionist with respect to various elements of international architecture or infrastructure.
The core of the book is a survey of three different sources for the unraveling of U.S. hegemony: major powers, weaker states,
and transnational "counter-order" movements. Cooley and Nexon trace how Russia and China have become increasingly effective at wielding
influence over many smaller states through patronage and the creation of parallel institutions and projects such as the Collective
Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). They discuss
a number of weaker states that have begun hedging their bets by seeking patronage from these major powers as well as the U.S. Where
once America had a "near monopoly" on such patronage, this has ceased to be the case. They also track the role of "counter-order"
movements, especially nationalist and populist groups, in bringing pressure to bear on their national governments and cooperating
across borders to challenge international institutions. Finally, they spell out how the U.S. itself has contributed to the erosion
of its own position through reckless policies dating back at least to the invasion of Iraq.
The conventional response to the unraveling of America's hegemony here at home has been either a retreat into nostalgia with simplistic
paeans to the wonders of the "liberal international order" that ignore the failures of that earlier era or an intensified commitment
to hard-power dominance in the form of ever-increasing military budgets (or some combination of the two). Cooley and Nexon contend
that the Trump administration has opted for the second of these responses. Citing the president's emphasis on maintaining military
dominance and his support for exorbitant military spending, they say "it suggests an approach to hegemony more dependent upon military
instruments, and thus on the ability (and willingness) of the United States to continue extremely high defense spending. It depends
on the wager that the United States both can and should substitute raw military power for its hegemonic infrastructure." That not
only points to what Barry Posen has
called "illiberal hegemony,"
but also leads to a foreign policy that is even more militarized and unchecked by international law.
Cooley and Nexon make a compelling observation about how Trump's demand for more allied military spending differs from normal
calls for burden-sharing. Normally, burden-sharing advocates call on allies to spend more so the U.S. can spend less. But that isn't
Trump's position at all. His administration pressures allied governments to increase their spending, while showing no desire to curtail
the Pentagon budget:
Retrenchment entails some combination of shedding international security commitments and shifting defense burdens onto allies
and partners. This allows the retrenching power, in principle, to redirect military spending toward domestic priorities, particularly
those critical to long-term productivity and economic growth. In the current American context, this means making long-overdue
investments in transportation infrastructure, increasing educational spending to develop human capital, and ramping up support
for research and development. This rationale makes substantially less sense if retrenchment policies do not produce reductions
in defense spending–which is why Trump's aggressive, public, and coercive push for burden sharing seems odd. Recall that Trump
and his supporters want, and have already implemented, increases in the military budget. There is no indication that the Trump
administration would change defense spending if, for example, Germany or South Korea increased their own military spending or
more heavily subsidized American bases.
The coronavirus pandemic has exposed how misguided our priorities as a nation have been. There is now a chance to change course,
but that will require our leaders to shift their thinking. U.S. hegemony is already on its way out; now Americans need to decide
what our role in the world will look like afterwards. Warmed-over platitudes about "leadership" won't suffice and throwing more money
at the Pentagon is a dead end. The way forward is a strategy of retrenchment, restraint, and renewal.
Yeah. US just happened to decline, a completely natural process, some universal constant, like gravity of which we have no control.
No. A decadent US population, informed by clueless media, put in charge incompetent and self-serving leaders, who made a series
of very poor choices for the nation, but financially beneficial for themselves.
And thus our betrayed America's version of the White Man's Burden. It's sad to think our children having to endure living in a
world where they aren't called to die in God-forsaken hellholes for reasons that have nothing to do with this nation's core principles.
Sad!
Lol. Sort of. Except the very oligarchs you speak of, on both sides, set the stage for all of it.
This is the inevitable result of voting as a right, ans they knew it. Universal suffrage is a tool of control, not liberty.
The oligarchs are really just like other Americans, who got their hands on a whole lot of money. I have no doubt the rest of the
population would behave like oligarchs if given the same resources.
We don't have universal suffrage and voting is no where named as a right in the Constitution. The most it has to say is that voting
can not be denied to people based on their membership in certain classes, nor limited based on the payment of a tax.
"it has become increasingly obvious that this decline has occurred irrespective of what political leaders in Washington want."
It isn't "irrespective of". It is because of what they wanted. They wanted and aggressively pushed for US foreign policy
to serve the narrow regional interests of client states like Israel and Saudi Arabia. They got what they wanted, in spades, and
now America's geopolitical and economic fortunes are in a tail-spin.
If America had ignored these people, with their stupid interventionism, their almost blatant service of foreign interests by
demanding "no daylight" with "allies" who did nothing but suck our blood, we would have been far better off. We would have been
far better able to anticipate, prepare for, and respond to the pandemic. It's impossible not to think ruefully of the trillions
we wasted on Middle East wars and other interventions, money now so badly needed here at home.
The US will pursue a similar path to Israel. Advantage is relative. Rather than repair the US economy it is simpler to destroy
those of one's rivals. I see war as the only attractive option for the US elite as that is the only area where they still enjoy
clear superiority (or believe they do, same thing policy-wise.)
Cooley and Nevon's book appears to be a good read - I will put it on my 'to read so buy' book list. China is the next hegemon
- this is inevitable due to design. As time goes by during this 'coronavirus pandemic' I have been waiting to hear a politician,
any politician, assert that they will support legislation to require 'essential supply lines' to be returned to the U.S. Aside
from 'murmurs', not a 'lucid' peep. Just 'sue china' legislation, or smoke and mirrors blame on those within the U.S. via the
media or politicians. This is just embarrassing and surreal.
The priority should be to bring these supply lines back to the U.S. [i.e., medical]. Too hell if I am going to be forced to
pay for 'Obamacare' or 'Medicare For All' like a Russian Serf, to the Corporations [vassals] of China [Tatars] - enforced by their
'Eunuchs', greedy politicians in Washington. {Eunuchs were castrated lackies of Emperors]. Yet Chinese slave labour on these medical
products, including pharmaceutical ingredients, and precious metals for parts for the Department of Defense, keep profit margins
very high.
Because of their cowardice one must ask: Why increase defense spending on any project - or be concerned with Iran or Venezuela
or Russia or keeping NATO afloat? Allowing China to continue to be the 'sole source' provider of essential goods is just asking
for another scenario like the one before us. If so, I am convinced that my country is nothing more than a 'dead carcass' being
ripped apart by 'Corporate Vassals of China'. This, of course, includes the Tech Companies as well.
China does not have ideal geography to be world hegemon.
For one thing, it is too easy to prevent any ships from leaving the South China Sea.
The fact that China has not gone to war with anyone since 1953, except for two sharp but short border conflicts in 1962 and
1979, should tell you something. Contrast with the peace-loving liberal democracy of the United States.
The answer of course is a functional international system--environmental protection, world health, a transparent financial system,
world court, and policing. All agreed on by at least the major players which makes it costly for others not to participate.
With good reason many 'mistrust' this int'l system given the threat to sovereignty of a country, most importantly the freedom
of its citizens. An int'l system is asymmetrical, a radical 're-distribution' program that preys on citizens of the 'pseudo-wealthy'
west. The United States will be, post-Corona Virus, potentially $30T in debt. Yet they contribute the most to the WHO. The largest
contribution to the UN comes from the United States. This fact seems to rebut your 'costly for others not to participate'.
The Paris Agreement, like the UN and WHO, will rely on most of the funds coming from the U.S. and redistributed to other countries.
And this will further destroy the standard of living in this country to the degree of crashing the economy. The expected Utopian
Outcome for this so-called 'One-World' order will be a great disappointment to those that advocate for it. Because, after all,
it is nothing more than a Utopian dream gambling on the cohesive nature of different demographic groups combined with significant
reduction in freedoms for all - based on flawed models, including so-called 'man made global warming' models. To define the Demographic
is use in the context of my response: does not = race; it equals culture. Right now this is being demonstrated in the super state
of the EU. There can be no harmony in a world like this. It is like forcing a 'square peg' into a 'round hole'.
And who are these major players? The Eunuch Politicians in Washington and Western Europe? What are their priorities? Their
wallets or their constituents? And I do not mean in a parental way. That is not the role of government.
Viewed from a global perspective at this time, there is a decline in American power and influence, but the vanity of politicians
prevents them from seeing it and they don't want to let go.
The British government makes the same mistakes as it clings to an imaginary "prestige" as a world power - a power that vanished
in 1914.
After Eden was removed as PM post-Suez the new PM Harold McMillan came in and was honest with the British ppl in explaining their
new role in the world, just 10-15 years after the triumph of WW2 a UK Prime Minister had the courage to tell the British people
that they were no longer at the top table, that the age of Empire was over and to put in place the policies required to remove
the burden of empire from Britain and adjust to its new role in the world. Do you see an American politician with the capability
to tell some uncomfortable home truths to the American people and still win an election?
i think that is why voters elected Trump. The citizens of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin have lived the decline of the
United States. At least under trump there have been no new wars but the withdrawal from Iraq, Afghanistan NATO, Japan, Korea needs
to occur with the Military-Industrial-Media Complex kicking and screaming.with each step. Also ending sanctions on Iran, Cuba,
North Korea and Venezuela.
We are in Japan because it allows us to patrol the sea lanes which is vital for our economy and it gives us a large force ready
to respond in case of Chinese or North Korean aggression. The Status of Forces Agreement and other treaties with Japan stipulate
what percentage of costs are born by Japan.
Allowing Japan to destroy consumer electronics, damage steel and automotive is vital to our economy? Could we not patrol the sea
lanes if we wanted to from Guam? Is not freedom of the sea just as vital to Japan, Europe and India? How is China or North Korea
the aggressor when Japan, Korea and Taiwan have been client states of China with the US thousands of miles away?
Imperialism has bankrupt the United States just as it did Europe. The time has come to end these treaties.
Ultra protectionism, retreat to our island and no one can find us, 'make America great again' I dare say, thinking is naive and
unrealistic.
America wil be poorer, weaker, and more vulnerable if it tried to only make its own goods and had to rely on only its own labor.
Trade is profit and profit is the ability to develop, build, and defend what we have. Where do the profits go is the question.
Who loses in the trade is another question. Does the benefit from the former outweigh the latter?
I don't see Japanese trade as making much of a dent in employment rates. The profits go to the Japanese state and industry,
who are important counterweights to Chinese ambitions in Asia, a mutual interest. So, the costs are few, and the profits are used
in significant measure to mutual benefit.
The liberal hegemon is dead, yes our imperialism is dead even if it doesn't know it, but it is essential to remain strategically
involved in the world around us. Even if we stop playing the game, the world around us does not. Did Russia have the luxury of
turning into a turtle after the Cold War? No. Nations, which are all wolves, smell weakness. Yet the Trumpian right wants to hide,
put its finger in its ear, and pretend that everything will be fine it seems.
What are these withdrawals from Iraq & Afghanistan you speak of? They just have not happened, like not even a little bit, so tired
of people pushing this completely false narrative as if it is true, just maddening. A democracy cannot function if people exist
in their own worlds with their own facts that are just not true
The Brits after WW2 offer a lesson here. Hurt badly by WW1, their whole system began teetering as that illusion of the "natural
superiority" of the British took massive hits in the various colonies of the Empire. By exposing the ordinariness of the administrators
and soldiers, it encouraged revolt (see Gandhi in India). But WW2 arguably devastated the UK. It's "win" over Germany was Pyrrhic,
as it needed both the USSR and the USA , and each took a chunk of prestige and of the "hegemon". George VI recognized this, and
British politicians encouraged the shift from Empire to Commonwealth. (Which, if they had never involved themselves in the EU
beyond trade and had kept up the Commonwealth as it was intended, would have been a better path than what they did, IMHO.) Nevertheless,
they handled it better than I think we will.
As Jefferson said, "Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations-entangling alliances with none."
But to get there, we have a lot of nonsense -- damned nonsense - - to overcome.
Excellent review and outlook on an encouraging transition from the compulsion of hegemony within a generally agreeable paradigm
of economic liberalism (rules-based international markets).
Well this present regime is actively smashing "international organizations" constructed largely by the Americans after WW2. This
makes it even easier for the Chinese to fill the vacuum we have created. It would be better to hold them in a Western biased "international
organization"
All indications are that ship has sailed. Will there be hegemons? Yes, but more than one. The US will not be the only hegemon
and the COVID-19 helped the world see the emperor has no clothes.
I think that's the likely course, unless the US remains especially incompetent in ensuring that China isn't the one cleaning up
at all the empire liquidation sales.
No nation should be entrusted with anything like the power the US has had.
Until they start shooting down our airliners, sinking our cruise ships, attacking our Naval Bases, and invading their neighbors
and committing genocide against people of other races and religions.
Then, the doves will wake up and realize that the Big Stick is what kept us safe afterall.
You mean fight people who actually threaten us rather than attack people because we dream up scenarios where it's possible or
we just don't like them? I'll take that over preemptive genocide.
If we focused on actual defense 9/11 would not have happened. We ignored Al Qaeda despite the fact the bombed us multiple times
because we were too busy bombing Serbia, blowing up their TV stations and expanding NATO to gobble up former Russian Republics.
The United States routinely ignores any international laws, whenever it sees fit. Anyway, the idea that United States hegemony
is obligatory because muh international order is an argument from consequences.
Lol, America Is what's in the rear view, not just our status as the sole superpower.
People better get ready, this empire is getting ready to collapse.
Meh, people better get ready, we're getting ready to muddle along for the next several decades.
The American state is way too tasty a prize. No one is going to dismantle it, and people will unite against any threat that
has the potential to. Eventually someone will figure out a Bernie/Trump fusion and that person will be our Peron or Putin. Radical
leftists will be crushed by the police if they try anything, and the white nationalists will all be in prison.
We're somewhere between Argentina and Russia heading forward.
Sell the empire. Ignore the Middle East outside of the oil trade lanes. Reorient our trade networks on SE Asia, India, and Latin
America - no more feeding China. End of hostile moves towards Russia - let Europe reconcile with Russia. Fully support multipolar
world order.
Militarily we don't need the plodding battleship of a force we have now. No need to occupy whole countries with 'boots on the
ground'. Maintain top notch special forces, advisor and coordination programs with allies, and anything useful for blowing up
Chinese force projection especially the PLA navy. Subs and missiles.
Lots of good ideas here. Would trading with India involve a "reorient[ation]?" (I don't know.) That is to say, would still trading
with India mean that we have to maintain our current naval position, or would that still be consistent with some sort of drawdown?
Or are you saying that since India is not a hostile force, we would not have to worry about it? Or does is that problem met with
the "anything useful for blowing up Chinese force projection especially the PLA navy. Subs and missiles." Conceivably, China could
increase its presence in the Indian Ocean to create problems, no? Overall, agree with a lot of it--I'm just curious about the
logistics.
India in the longer term could ostensibly do much of what China does for us now trade wise. Needs to finish developing its infrastructure
and its manufacturing tech. SE Asia and Mexico are closer short term.
I think due to the commercial value of the seas our navy is our most cost effective means of force projection. Patrolling the
Persian Gulf means we have our thumb on the number one petroleum artery. I would focus more on cost effective means to deny China
(and Chinese trade) access to the seas in the event of tension. Carriers are expensive targets when subs and strategic missile
emplacements can inspire even more fear due to unpredictability. But yes we still need bases and partnerships throughout the Indian
and Pacific Oceans. China can roam around in peacetime as it wishes, what matters is that it stays totally bottled up in port,
along with its maritime trade, in a conflict.
Allow these places to run up trade surpluses with us rather than China.
I think Mr. Larison is on the right track. However, even if the logic of abandoning the Liberal International Order (LIO) is accepted--and
the LIO most certainly should be abandoned--the entire story or narrative of post-World War II America narrative must be either
abandoned or refashioned. It seems that the LIO functions as some sort of purpose for American citizens, and a higher-level theology
for those who work in the United States Government, especially those who are involved in foreign policy making. Countering or
reshaping the narrative of United States foreign policy and its link with domestic policy will be a challenge, but one that needs
to be taken up, and taken up successfully. In personal conversations with those who support the LIO, they seem to take [my] criticisms
of the LIO as some sort of ad hominem attack. This reaction is obviously illogical, but it is one that those who see the
wisdom of abandoning the LIO must tactically and tactfully counter. Regrettably, supporting the LIO is conflated with being an
American, or conflated with the raison d'etre of the existence of the United States. Many think the abandonment of the
LIO cannot rationally be replaced and will necessarily be replaced with some sort of nihilism or the most cynical form of "realism,"
of which they mistakenly believe they possess understanding. For a start, reforming the educational system, insofar as it not
already dominated by incorrect-but-fashionable far-leftist ideas that advocate a narrative of American history and purpose as
false as it is pernicious, would seem to necessary. Many children grow into adulthood falsely thinking maintaining the LIO is
their responsibility. It is, at root, a theological sickness.
I hope it is over. To hell with the Europeans who have made a national sport of mocking Americans and all things America, while
we risk nuclear war on their behalf. Let them face Putin and the Islamic invasion on their own - those problems are Europe's,
not ours.
The United States is ramping up for the "Great Final War' with both Russia and China. Throw in Iran, Syria, North Korea etc. as
an afterthought. The U.S. will bring the temple down on itself rather than give up the goal of 'Full Spectrum Dominance'.that
it has been pursuing since the end of WWII.
Alexander Cooley and Dan Nexon may think the glory days are coming to an end, but I don't think Trump and the neocons got the
memo yet. I see no evidence of any intent to change.
There is no "international order." That's just rhetoric that is useful for certain economic interests. A world without american
hegemony will be divided and filled with conflict. Globalization can't work politically.
"... Because behind today's coronavirus-inspired astonishment at conditions in developing or lower income countries, and Trump's authoritarian-like thuggery, lies an actual military and political hegemon with an actual impact on the world; particularly on what was once called the "Third World." ..."
"... In physical terms, the U.S.'s military hegemony is comprised of 800 bases in over 70 nations – more bases than any other nation or empire in history. The U.S. maintains drone bases, listening posts, "black sites," aircraft carriers, a massive nuclear stockpile, and military personnel working in approximately 160 countries. ..."
"... Since then, the United States has overthrown or attempted to overthrow the governments of approximately 50 countries, many of which (e.g. Iran, Guatemala, the Congo, and Chile) had elected leaders willing to nationalize their natural resources and industries. Often these interventions took the form of covert operations. Less frequently, the United States went to war to achieve these same ends (e.g. Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq). ..."
"... In fiscal terms, maintaining American hegemony requires spending more on "defense" than the next seven largest countries combined. Our nearly $1 trillion security budget now amounts to about 15 percent of the federal budget and over half of all discretionary spending. Moreover, the U.S. security budget continues to increase despite the Pentagon's inability to pass a fiscal audit. ..."
This March, as COVID-19's capacity to overwhelm the American healthcare system was becoming
obvious, experts marveled at the scenario unfolding before their eyes. "We have Third World
countries who are better equipped than we are now in Seattle,"
noted one healthcare professional, her words echoed just a few days later by a shocked
doctor in New York who described
"a third-world country type of scenario." Donald Trump could similarly only grasp what was
happening through the same comparison. "I have seen things that I've never seen before," he
said
. "I mean I've seen them, but I've seen them on television and faraway lands, never in my
country."
At the same time, regardless of the fact that "Third World" terminology is outdated and
confusing, Trump's inept handling of the pandemic has itself elicited more than one "banana republic"
analogy, reflecting already well-worn, bipartisan comparisons of Trump to a "
third world dictator " (never mind that dictators and authoritarians have never been
confined solely to lower income countries).
And yet, while such comparisons provoke predictably nativist outrage from the right, what is
absent from any of
these responses to the situation is a sense of reflection or humility about the "Third
World" comparison itself. The doctor in New York who finds himself caught in a "third world"
scenario and the political commentators outraged when Trump behaves "like a third world
dictator" uniformly express themselves in terms of incredulous wonderment. One never hears the
potential second half of this comparison: "I am now experiencing what it is like to live in a
country that resembles the kind of nation upon whom the United States regularly imposes broken
economies and corrupt leaders."
Because behind today's coronavirus-inspired astonishment at conditions in developing or
lower income countries, and Trump's authoritarian-like thuggery, lies an actual military and
political hegemon with an actual impact on the world; particularly on what was once called the
"Third World."
In physical terms, the U.S.'s military hegemony is comprised of 800 bases in over 70
nations –
more bases than any other nation or empire in history. The U.S. maintains drone bases,
listening posts, "black sites," aircraft carriers, a massive nuclear stockpile, and military
personnel working in approximately 160 countries. This is a globe-spanning military and
security apparatus organized into regional commands
that resemble the "proconsuls of the Roman empire and the governors-general of the
British." In other words, this apparatus is built not for deterrence, but for primacy.
The U.S.'s global primacy emerged from the wreckage of World War II when the United States
stepped into the shoes vacated by European empires. Throughout the Cold War, and in the name of
supporting "free peoples," the sprawling American security apparatus helped ensure that 300
years of imperial resource extraction and wealth distribution – from what was then called
the Third World to the First – remained undisturbed, despite decolonization.
Since then, the United States
has overthrown or attempted to overthrow the governments of approximately 50 countries,
many of which (e.g. Iran, Guatemala, the Congo, and Chile) had elected leaders willing to
nationalize their natural resources and industries. Often these interventions
took the form of covert operations. Less frequently, the United States went to war to
achieve these same ends (e.g. Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq).
In fiscal terms, maintaining American hegemony requires spending more
on "defense" than the next seven largest countries combined. Our
nearly $1 trillion security budget now amounts to about 15 percent of the federal budget
and over half of all
discretionary spending. Moreover, the U.S. security budget continues to increase despite the
Pentagon's inability to pass a fiscal audit.
Trump's claim that Obama had
"hollowed out" defense spending was not only grossly untrue, it masked the consistency of the
security budget's metastasizing growth since the Vietnam War, regardless of who sits in the
White House. At $738 billion dollars, Trump's security budget was passed in December with the
overwhelming support of House Democrats.
And yet, from the perspective of public discourse in this country, our globe-spanning,
resource-draining military and security apparatus exists in an entirely parallel universe to
the one most Americans experience on a daily level. Occasionally, we wake up to the idea of
this parallel universe but only when the United States is involved in visible military actions.
The rest of the time, Americans leave thinking about international politics – and the
deaths, for instance, of 2.5 million
Iraqis since 2003 – to the legions of policy analysts and Pentagon employees who
largely accept American military primacy as an "article of faith," as Professor of
International Security and Strategy at the University of Birmingham Patrick Porter has said
.
Foreign policy is routinely the last issue Americans consider when they vote for presidents
even though the president has more discretionary power over foreign policy than any other area
of American politics. Thus, despite its size, impact, and expense, the world's military hegemon
exists somewhere on the periphery of most Americans' self-understanding, as though, like the
sun, it can't be looked upon directly for fear of blindness.
Why is our avoidance of the U.S.'s weighty impact on the world a problem in the midst of the
coronavirus pandemic? Most obviously, the fact that our massive security budget has gone so
long without being widely questioned means that one of the soundest courses of action for the
U.S. during this crisis remains resolutely out of sight.
The shock of discovering that our healthcare system is so quickly overwhelmed should
automatically trigger broader conversations about spending priorities that entail deep and
sustained cuts in an engorged security budget whose sole purpose is the maintenance of primacy.
And yet, not only has this not happened, $10.5 billion of the coronavirus aid package has been
earmarked for the Pentagon, with $2.4 billion of that
channeled to the "defense industrial base." Of the $500 billion aimed at corporate America,
$17.5 billion is
set aside "for businesses critical to maintaining national security" such as aerospace.
To make matters worse, our blindness to this bloated security complex makes it frighteningly
easy for champions of American primacy to sound the alarm when they even suspect a dip in
funding might be forthcoming. Indeed, before most of us had even glanced at the details of the
coronavirus bill, foreign policy hawks were already
issuing dark prediction s about the impact of still-imaginary cuts in the security budget
on the U.S.'s "ability to strike any target on the planet in response to hostile actions by any
actor" – as if that ability already did not exist many times over.
On a more existential level, a country that is collectively engaged in unseeing its own
global power cannot help but fail to make connections between that power and domestic politics,
particularly when a little of the outside world seeps in. For instance, because most Americans
are unaware of their government's sponsorship of fundamentalist Islamic groups in the Middle
East throughout the Cold War, 9/11 can only ever appear to have come from nowhere, or because
Muslims hate our way of life.
This "how did we get here?" attitude replicates itself at every level of political life
making it profoundly difficult for Americans to see the impact of their nation on the rest of
the world, and the blowback from that impact on the United States itself. Right now, the
outsized influence of American foreign policy is already encouraging the spread of coronavirus
itself as U.S. imposed sanctions on Iran severely hamper that
country's ability to respond to the virus at home and virtually
guarantee its spread throughout the region.
Closer to home, our shock at the healthcare system's inept response to the pandemic masks
the relationship between the U.S.'s imposition
of free-market totalitarianism on countries throughout the
Global South and the impact of free-market totalitarianism on our own welfare state .
Likewise, it is more than karmic comeuppance that the President of the United States now
resembles the self-serving authoritarians the U.S. forced on so many formerly colonized
nations. The modes of militarized policing American security experts exported to those
authoritarian regimes also contributed , on a
policy level, to both the rise of militarized policing in American cities and the rise of mass
incarceration in the 1980s and 90s. Both of these phenomena played a significant role in
radicalizing Trump's white nationalist base and decreasing their tolerance for democracy.
Most importantly, because the U.S. is blind to its power abroad, it cannot help but turn
that blindness on itself. This means that even during a pandemic when America's exceptionalism
– our lack of national healthcare – has profoundly negative consequences on the
population, the idea of looking to the rest of the world for solutions remains unthinkable.
Senator Bernie Sanders' reasonable suggestion that the U.S., like Denmark, should
nationalize its healthcare system is dismissed as the fanciful pipe dream of an aging socialist
rather than an obvious solution to a human problem embraced by nearly every other nation in the
world. The Seattle healthcare professional who expressed shock that even "Third World
countries" are "better equipped" than we are to confront COVID-19 betrays a stunning ignorance
of the diversity of healthcare systems within developing countries. Cuba, for instance,
has responded
to this crisis with an efficiency and humanity that puts the U.S. to shame.
Indeed, the U.S. is only beginning to feel the full impact of COVID-19's explosive
confrontation with our exceptionalism: if the unemployment rate really does reach 32 percent,
as has been predicted,
millions of people will not only lose their jobs but their health insurance as well. In the
middle of a pandemic.
Over 150 years apart, political commentators Edmund Burke and Aimé Césaire
referred to this blindness as the byproduct of imperialism. Both used the exact same language
to describe it; as a "gangrene" that "poisons" the colonizing body politic. From their
different historical perspectives, Burke and Césaire observed how colonization
boomerangs back on colonial society itself, causing irreversible damage to nations that
consider themselves humane and enlightened, drawing them deeper into denial and
self-delusion.
Perhaps right now there is a chance that COVID-19 – an actual, not metaphorical
contagion – can have the opposite effect on the U.S. by opening our eyes to the things
that go unseen. Perhaps the shock of recognizing the U.S. itself is less developed than our
imagined "Third World" might prompt Americans to tear our eyes away from ourselves and look
toward the actual world outside our borders for examples of the kinds of political, economic,
and social solidarity necessary to fight the spread of Coronavirus. And perhaps moving beyond
shock and incredulity to genuine recognition and empathy with people whose economies and
democracies have been decimated by American hegemony might begin the process of reckoning with
the costs of that hegemony, not just in "faraway lands" but at home. In our country.
"... Modernizing our strategic nuclear forces is a top priority for the @DeptofDefense and the @POTUS to protect the American people and our allies. ..."
"... As a pandemic ravages the nation, a sad illustration of wildly misplaced priorities ..."
I think you have the main danger (some nitwit using a "small nuke") to try to make a point
about right.
Other than that, the impression I get from Pompeo and his ilk is that the main thing is
having someone to threaten and abuse to show "leadership" and "manhood", at least one shitty
little country we can still throw up against the wall and slap around to show we mean
business. Dangerous times for Nicaragua.
Neither he nor his other West Point friends seems to have much clue about military affairs
either, which is strange. I mean we've always had our George Armstrong Custers, but they
didn't run things. Now they seem to have some sort of cult mentality. One is reminded of the
French before WWI: "De L'audace, Encore De L'audace, Et Toujours De L'audace ..." and we know
how that worked out.
With a disgusted look on his face, President Trump replied: "You should have let us
know."
Military Exercise meaning (from Wikipedia): "A military exercise or war game
is the employment of military resources in training for military operations, either exploring
the effects of warfare or testing strategies without actual combat. This also serves the
purpose of ensuring the combat readiness of garrisoned or deployable forces prior to deployment
from a home base."
What is actually going on here? Does the White House care to explain?
*Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your
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The essence of Trump's psychology is that he likes to dominate people. He accomplishes this
by hiring incompetent psychopaths who make him legitimately look good by comparison. This is
why he's constantly overruling their worst plans. But once every so often, his incompetent
underlings convince him to do something exceptionally stupid. This is because occasionally
going along with them allows him to feel like a wise, discerning ruler who occasionally
follows his advisors' guidance and occasionally overrules them.
When reading any article concerning current events (ie. Ukraine, Syria, Iran, Venezuela, or Coronavirus) consider how the The
Seven Principles of Propaganda may apply. (repost):
Avoid abstract ideas - appeal to the emotions. When we think emotionally, we are more prone to be irrational and
less critical in our thinking. I can remember several instances where this has been employed by the US to prepare the public
with a justification of their actions. Here are four examples:
The Invasion of Grenada during the Reagan administration was said to be necessary to rescue American students being held
hostage by Grenadian coup authorities after a coup that overthrew the government. I had a friend in the 82nd airborne division
that participated in the rescue. He told me the students said they were hiding in the school to avoid the fighting by the US
military, and had never been threatened by any Grenadian authority and were only hiding in the school to avoid all the fighting.
Film of the actual rescue broadcast on the mainstream media was taken out of context; the students were never in danger.
The invasion of Panama in the late 80's was supposedly to capture the dictator Manual Noriega for international crimes related
to drugs and weapons. I remember a headline covered by all the media where a Navy lieutenant and his wife were detained by
the police. His wife was sexually assaulted while in custody, according to the story. Unfortunately, it never happened. It
was intended to get the public emotionally involved to support the action.
The invasion of Iraq in the early 90's was preceded by a speech by a girl describing the Iraqi army throwing babies out
of incubators so the equipment could be transferred to Iraq. It turns out the girl was the daughter of one of the Kuwait's
ruling sheiks and the event never occurred. However, it served its purpose by getting the American public involved emotionally
supporting the war.
During the build up to the bombing campaign by NATO against Libya, a woman entered a hotel where reporters were staying
claiming she was raped by several police officers of the Gaddafi security services. The report was carried by most media outlets
as representative of the brutality of the Gaddafi regime. I was not able to verify if this story was true or not, but it fits
the usual method employed to gain public support through propaganda for military interventions.
The greatest emotion in us is fear and fear is used extensively to make us think irrationally. I remember growing up during
the cold war having the fear of nuclear war or 'The Russians are coming!' After the cold war without an obvious enemy, it was
Al Qaeda even before 911, so we had 'Al Qaeda is coming!' Now we have 'ISIS is coming!' with media blasting us with terrorist
fears. Whenever I hear a government promoting an emotional issue or fear mongering, I ignore them knowing there is a hidden
Truth behind the issue.
Constantly repeat just a few ideas. Use stereotyped phrases. This could be stated more plainly as 'Keep it simple,
stupid!' The most notorious use of this technique recently was the Bush administration. Everyone can remember 'We must fight
them over there rather than over here' or my favourite 'They hate us for our freedoms'. Neither of these phrases made any rational
sense despite 911. The last thing Muslims in the Middle East care about is American's freedoms, maybe it was all the bombs
the US was dropping on them.
Give only one side of the argument and obscure history. Watching mainstream media in the US,
you can see all the news is biased to the American view as an example. This is prevalent within Australian commercial media
and newspapers giving only a western view, but fortunately, we have the SBS and the ABC that are very good, certainly not perfect,
at providing both sides of a story. In addition, any historical perspective is ignored keeping the citizenry focused on the
here and now. Can any of you remember any news organisation giving an in depth history of Ukraine or Palestine? I cannot.
Demonize the enemy or pick out one special "enemy" for special vilification. This is obvious in politics where politicians
continuously criticise their opponents. Of course, demonization is more productively applied to international figures or nations
such as Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, Gaddafi in Libya, Assad in Syria, the Taliban and just recently Vladimir Putin over
the Ukraine, Crimea and Syria. It establishes a negative emotional view of either a nation (i.e. Iran) or a known figure (i.e.
Putin) making us again think emotionally, rather than rationally, making it easier to promote evil acts upon a nation or a
known figure. Certainly some of these groups or individuals were less than benign, but not necessarily demons as depicted in
the west.
Appear humanitarian in work and motivations. The US has used this technique often to validate foreign interventions
or ongoing conflicts where the term 'Right to Protect' is used for justification. Everyone should remember the many stories
about the abuse of women in Afghanistan or Saddam Hussein's supposed brutality toward his people. The recent attack on Syria
by the US, UK, and France was depicted as an Humanitarian intervention by the UK Government, which was far from the truth.
One thing that always amazes me is when the US sends humanitarian aid to a country it is accompanied by the US military. In
Haiti some years back, the US sent troops with no other country doing so. The recent Ebola outbreak in Africa saw US troops
sent to the area. How are troops going to fight a medical outbreak? No doubt, they are there for other reasons.
Obscure one's economic interests. Who believes the invasion of Iraq was for weapons of mass destruction? Or the
constant threats against Iran are for their nuclear program? Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction and no one has presented
firm evidence Iran intends to produce nuclear weapons. The West has been interfering in the Middle East since the British in
the late 19th century. It is all about oil and the control over the resources. In fact, if one researches the cause of wars
over the last hundred years, you will always find economics was a major component driving the rush to war for most of them.
Monopolize the flow of information. This is the most important principle and mainly entails setting the narrative
by which all subsequent events can be based upon or interpreted in such a way as to reinforce the narrative. The narrative
does not need to be true; in fact, it can be anything that suits the monopoliser as long as it is based loosely on some event.
It is critical to have at least majority control of media and the ability to control the message so the flow of information
is consistent with the narrative. This has been played out on mainstream media concerning the Ukrainian conflict, Syrian conflict,
and the Skirpal affair. Just over the last couple of years, we have all been subjected to propaganda in one form or another.
Remember the US wanting to bomb Syria because of the sarin gas attack, it was later determined to be false (see Seymour Hersh
'Whose Sarin'). The shoot down of MH17 was immediately blamed on Russia by the west without any convincing proof (setting the
narrative). It amazes me just how fast the story died after the initial saturation in the media. When I awoke that morning
in July, I heard on the news PM Tony Abbot blaming Russia for the incident only hours afterward. How could he know Russia shot
down the plane? The investigation into the incident had not even begun, so I suspect he was singing from the West's hymnbook
in a standard setting the narrative scenario.
Recently, I was watching the old Looney Tunes Cartoons with my Grandchild and we were
watching, "Duck Dodges in the 21st and a Half Century"
I don't know if you've watched this cartoon starring Daffy Duck. You can view it here https://vimeo.com/76668594
This cartoon was made in 1953 and like many Looney Tune cartoon's, they are an extreme
parody of life. But while watching this cartoon, it dawned on me that this cartoon is an
almost perfect description of US Military policy and action.
I could write an article on this but I think we'll leave it as a note with a snide laugh to
be had by all.
Trump does not have a party with the program that at least pretends to pursue "socialism for a given ethnic group". He is
more far right nationalist then national socialist. But to the extent neoliberalism can be viewed as neofascism Trump is
neo-fascist, he definitly can be called a "national neoliberal."
Notable quotes:
"... I am nothing if not a realist. The idea that Sanders might have become the Democratic candidate was always a fantasy, not unlike my youthful dreams of one day becoming an NFL quarterback. Even after Sanders' triumph in the Nevada caucuses, I never thought the party establishment would ever allow a socialist -- even a mild social democratic one, such as Sanders -- to head its ticket. ..."
"... Of the two campaigns, Trump's will be decidedly more toxic. The "Make America Great Again" slogan that propelled Trump to victory in 2016 and the "Keep America Great" slogan he will try to sell this time around are neo-fascist in nature, designed to invoke an imaginary and false state of mythical past national glory ..."
"... The fascist designation is not a label I apply to Trump cavalierly. I use it, as I have before in this column , because Trump meets many of the standard and widely respected definitions of the term. ..."
"... Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion. ..."
"... An appeal to a frustrated middle class that is suffering from an economic crisis of humiliation and fear of the pressure exerted by lower social groups. ..."
"... Joe Biden is not a fascist. He is, instead, a standard-bearer of neoliberalism. As with fascism, there are different definitions of neoliberalism, prompting some exceptionally smug mainstream commentators like New York Magazine's Jonathan Chait to claim that the concept is little more than a left-wing insult. In truth, however, the concept describes an all-too-real set of governing principles. ..."
"... Neoliberalism , by contrast, deemphasizes federal economic intervention in favor of initiatives calling for deregulation, corporate tax cuts, private-public partnerships, and international trade agreements that augment the free flow of capital while undermining the power and influence of trade unions. ..."
"... Until the arrival of Trump and his brand of neo-fascism, both major parties since Reagan had embraced this ideology. And while neoliberals remain more benign on issues of race and gender than Trump and Trumpism ever will be, neoliberalism offers little to challenge hierarchies based on social class. Indeed, income inequality accelerated during the Obama years and today rivals that of the Gilded Age . ..."
Now that the Michigan Democratic primary is over and Joe Biden has been
declared the
winner , it's time to read the handwriting on the political wall: Biden will be the
Democratic nominee for president, and Bernie Sanders will be the runner-up once again come the
party's convention in July. Sanders might influence the party's platform, but platforms are
never binding for the nominee. Sanders has lost, and so have his many progressive supporters,
myself included.
I am nothing if not a realist. The idea that Sanders might have become the Democratic
candidate was always a fantasy, not unlike my youthful dreams of one day becoming an NFL
quarterback. Even after Sanders' triumph in the Nevada caucuses, I never thought the party
establishment would ever allow a socialist -- even a mild social democratic one, such as
Sanders -- to head its ticket.
Funded by wealthy donors, run by Beltway insiders and aided and abetted by a corporate media
dedicated to promoting the notion that Sanders was "
unelectable ," the Democratic Party never welcomed Sanders as a legitimate contender. Not
in 2016 and not in 2020. In several instances, it even resorted to some good old-fashioned
red-baiting
to frighten voters; the party is, after all, a capitalist institution. Working and middle-class
families support the Democrats largely because they have no other place to go on Election Day
besides the completely corrupt and craven GOP.
Now we are left with Donald Trump and Biden to duke it out in the fall. Yes, it has come to
that.
In terms of campaign rhetoric and party policies, the general election campaign will be a
battle for America's past far more than it will be a contest for its future. The battle will be
fueled on both sides by narratives and visions that are illusory, regressive and, in important
respects, downright dangerous.
Of the two campaigns, Trump's will be decidedly more toxic. The "Make America Great Again"
slogan that propelled Trump to victory in 2016 and the "Keep America Great" slogan he will try
to sell this time around are neo-fascist in nature, designed to invoke an imaginary and false
state of mythical past national glory that ignores our deeply entrenched history of patriarchal
white supremacy and brutal class domination.
The fascist designation is not a label I apply to Trump cavalierly. I use it, as I have
before in this
column , because Trump meets many of the standard and widely respected definitions of the
term.
As the celebrated Marxist playwright Bertolt Brecht wrote in 1935 , fascism
"is a historic phase of capitalism the nakedest, most shameless, most oppressive and most
treacherous form of capitalism." Trumpism, along with its international analogs in Brazil,
India and Western Europe, neatly accords with Brecht's theory.
Trumpism similarly meets the definition of fascism offered by Robert Paxton in his classic
2004 study, "
The Anatomy of Fascism ":
Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation
with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy,
and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy
but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues
with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing
and external expansion.
Trump and Trumpism similarly embody the 14 common factors of fascism identified by the great
writer Umberto Eco in his 1995 essay, Ur Fascism :
A cult of traditionalism.
The rejection of modernism.
A cult of action for its own sake and a distrust of intellectualism.
The view that disagreement or opposition is treasonous.
A fear of difference. Fascism is racist by definition.
An appeal to a frustrated middle class that is suffering from an economic crisis of
humiliation and fear of the pressure exerted by lower social groups.
An obsession with the plots and machinations of the movement's identified enemies.
A requirement that the movement's enemies be simultaneously seen as omnipotent and weak,
conniving and cowardly.
A rejection of pacifism.
Contempt for weakness.
A cult of heroism.
Hypermasculinity and homophobia.
A selective populism, relying on chauvinist definitions of "the people" that the movement
claims to represent.
Heavy usage of "newspeak" and an impoverished discourse of elementary syntax and
resistance to complex and critical reasoning.
Joe Biden is not a fascist. He is, instead, a standard-bearer of neoliberalism. As with
fascism, there are different definitions of neoliberalism, prompting some exceptionally smug
mainstream commentators like New York Magazine's
Jonathan Chait to claim that the concept is little more than a left-wing insult. In truth,
however, the concept describes an all-too-real set of governing principles.
To grasp what neoliberalism means, it's necessary to understand that it does not refer to a
revival of the liberalism of the New Deal and New Society programs of the 1930s and 1960s. That
brand of liberalism advocated the active intervention of the federal government in the economy
to mitigate the harshest effects of private enterprise through such programs as Social
Security, the National Labor Relations Act, the Fair Labor Standards Act, Medicare, and the
Civil Rights Act of 1964. That brand of liberalism imposed high taxes on the wealthy and
significantly mitigated income inequality in America.
Neoliberalism
, by contrast, deemphasizes federal economic intervention in favor of initiatives calling for
deregulation, corporate tax cuts, private-public partnerships, and international trade
agreements that augment the free flow of capital while undermining the power and influence of
trade unions.
Until the arrival of Trump and his brand of neo-fascism, both major parties since Reagan had
embraced this ideology. And while neoliberals remain more benign on issues of race and gender
than Trump and Trumpism ever will be, neoliberalism offers little to challenge hierarchies
based on social class. Indeed, income inequality accelerated during the
Obama years and today rivals that of the Gilded Age .
As transformational a politician as Barack Obama was in terms of race, he too pursued a
predominantly neoliberal agenda. The Affordable Care Act, Obama's singular domestic legislative
achievement, is a perfect example of neoliberal private-public collaboration that left intact a
health industry dominated by for-profit drug manufacturers and rapacious insurance companies,
rather than setting the stage for Medicare for All, as championed by Sanders.
Biden never tires of reminding any audience willing to put up with his gaffes, verbal ticks
and miscues that he served as Obama's vice president. Those ties are likely to remain the
centerpiece of his campaign, as he promises a return to the civility of the Obama era and a
restoration of America's standing in the world.
History, however, only moves forward. As charming and comforting as Biden's imagery of the
past may be, it is, like Trump's darker outlook, a mirage. If Trump has taught us anything
worthwhile, it is that the past cannot be replicated, no matter how much we might wish
otherwise.
"... Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion. ..."
Now that the Michigan Democratic primary is over and Joe Biden has been
declared the
winner , it's time to read the handwriting on the political wall: Biden will be the
Democratic nominee for president, and Bernie Sanders will be the runner-up once again come the
party's convention in July. Sanders might influence the party's platform, but platforms are
never binding for the nominee. Sanders has lost, and so have his many progressive supporters,
myself included.
I am nothing if not a realist. The idea that Sanders might have become the Democratic
candidate was always a fantasy, not unlike my youthful dreams of one day becoming an NFL
quarterback. Even after Sanders' triumph in the Nevada caucuses, I never thought the party
establishment would ever allow a socialist -- even a mild social democratic one, such as
Sanders -- to head its ticket.
Funded by wealthy donors, run by Beltway insiders and aided and abetted by a corporate media
dedicated to promoting the notion that Sanders was "
unelectable ," the Democratic Party never welcomed Sanders as a legitimate contender. Not
in 2016 and not in 2020. In several instances, it even resorted to some good old-fashioned
red-baiting
to frighten voters; the party is, after all, a capitalist institution. Working and middle-class
families support the Democrats largely because they have no other place to go on Election Day
besides the completely corrupt and craven GOP.
Now we are left with Donald Trump and Biden to duke it out in the fall. Yes, it has come to
that.
In terms of campaign rhetoric and party policies, the general election campaign will be a
battle for America's past far more than it will be a contest for its future. The battle will be
fueled on both sides by narratives and visions that are illusory, regressive and, in important
respects, downright dangerous.
Of the two campaigns, Trump's will be decidedly more toxic. The "Make America Great Again"
slogan that propelled Trump to victory in 2016 and the "Keep America Great" slogan he will try
to sell this time around are neo-fascist in nature, designed to invoke an imaginary and false
state of mythical past national glory that ignores our deeply entrenched history of patriarchal
white supremacy and brutal class domination.
The fascist designation is not a label I apply to Trump cavalierly. I use it, as I have
before in this
column , because Trump meets many of the standard and widely respected definitions of the
term.
As the celebrated Marxist playwright Bertolt Brecht wrote in 1935 , fascism
"is a historic phase of capitalism the nakedest, most shameless, most oppressive and most
treacherous form of capitalism." Trumpism, along with its international analogs in Brazil,
India and Western Europe, neatly accords with Brecht's theory.
Trumpism similarly meets the definition of fascism offered by Robert Paxton in his classic
2004 study, "
The Anatomy of Fascism ":
Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation
with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy,
and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy
but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues
with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing
and external expansion.
Trump and Trumpism similarly embody the 14 common factors of fascism identified by the great
writer Umberto Eco in his 1995 essay, Ur Fascism :
A cult of traditionalism.
The rejection of modernism.
A cult of action for its own sake and a distrust of intellectualism.
The view that disagreement or opposition is treasonous.
A fear of difference. Fascism is racist by definition.
An appeal to a frustrated middle class that is suffering from an economic crisis of
humiliation and fear of the pressure exerted by lower social groups.
An obsession with the plots and machinations of the movement's identified enemies.
A requirement that the movement's enemies be simultaneously seen as omnipotent and weak,
conniving and cowardly.
A rejection of pacifism.
Contempt for weakness.
A cult of heroism.
Hypermasculinity and homophobia.
A selective populism, relying on chauvinist definitions of "the people" that the movement
claims to represent.
Heavy usage of "newspeak" and an impoverished discourse of elementary syntax and
resistance to complex and critical reasoning.
Joe Biden is not a fascist. He is, instead, a standard-bearer of neoliberalism. As with
fascism, there are different definitions of neoliberalism, prompting some exceptionally smug
mainstream commentators like New York Magazine's
Jonathan Chait to claim that the concept is little more than a left-wing insult. In truth,
however, the concept describes an all-too-real set of governing principles.
To grasp what neoliberalism means, it's necessary to understand that it does not refer to a
revival of the liberalism of the New Deal and New Society programs of the 1930s and 1960s. That
brand of liberalism advocated the active intervention of the federal government in the economy
to mitigate the harshest effects of private enterprise through such programs as Social
Security, the National Labor Relations Act, the Fair Labor Standards Act, Medicare, and the
Civil Rights Act of 1964. That brand of liberalism imposed high taxes on the wealthy and
significantly mitigated income inequality in America.
Neoliberalism
, by contrast, deemphasizes federal economic intervention in favor of initiatives calling for
deregulation, corporate tax cuts, private-public partnerships, and international trade
agreements that augment the free flow of capital while undermining the power and influence of
trade unions.
Until the arrival of Trump and his brand of neo-fascism, both major parties since Reagan had
embraced this ideology. And while neoliberals remain more benign on issues of race and gender
than Trump and Trumpism ever will be, neoliberalism offers little to challenge hierarchies
based on social class. Indeed, income inequality accelerated during the
Obama years and today rivals that of the Gilded Age .
As transformational a politician as Barack Obama was in terms of race, he too pursued a
predominantly neoliberal agenda. The Affordable Care Act, Obama's singular domestic legislative
achievement, is a perfect example of neoliberal private-public collaboration that left intact a
health industry dominated by for-profit drug manufacturers and rapacious insurance companies,
rather than setting the stage for Medicare for All, as championed by Sanders.
Biden never tires of reminding any audience willing to put up with his gaffes, verbal ticks
and miscues that he served as Obama's vice president. Those ties are likely to remain the
centerpiece of his campaign, as he promises a return to the civility of the Obama era and a
restoration of America's standing in the world.
History, however, only moves forward. As charming and comforting as Biden's imagery of the
past may be, it is, like Trump's darker outlook, a mirage. If Trump has taught us anything
worthwhile, it is that the past cannot be replicated, no matter how much we might wish
otherwise.
"... Under Trump, NATO has strengthened and held its largest war games since the cold war. The Trump administration withdrew from the Reagan-era nuclear arms treaty, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), an arms control agreement that prohibited Russia and the US from developing medium-range nuclear and ballistic missiles. Shortly after tearing up the treaty, the Pentagon began developing and testing missiles that were banned under the INF. ..."
"... Despite all the drama over military aid to Ukraine, Trump never actually delayed it, and the new National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) includes $300 million in lethal aid to Ukraine , $50 million more than the previous year. The NDAA also calls for mandatory sanctions against any companies working on completing the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, a natural gas pipeline that connects Russia and Germany. Of all Trump's hawkish policies, his effort to kill the Nord Stream 2 and the pressure he puts on Germany not to buy gas from Russia can do the most damage to Russia's economy. ..."
"... The policies listed above are just a few examples of Trump's hostility towards Russia. Others include attempting to overthrow Russia's ally in Venezuela, maintaining a troop presence in Syria to "secure the oil," sanctioning Russian officials and businessman, and much more . ..."
"... Despite all these provocations towards Russia, Trump is still accused of being a "puppet" of Vladimir Putin. No matter how much the president moves the US closer to direct confrontation with Russia, the talking heads and pundits of the mainstream media take superficial examples – like the 2018 Helsinki conference – as proof of Trump's loyalty to Putin. Trump's words are put under a microscope, while his policies that make nuclear war more possible are largely ignored. ..."
Another presidential election year is upon us, and the
intelligence agencies are hard at work stoking fears of Russian meddling. This time it looks
like the Russians do not only like the incumbent president but also favor who appears to be
the Democratic front-runner, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.
On Thursday, The New York Timesran
a story titled , "Lawmakers Are Warned That Russia Is Meddling to Re-elect Trump." The
story says that on February 13 th US lawmakers from the House were briefed by
intelligence officials who warned them, "Russia was interfering in the 2020 campaign to try
to get President Trump re-elected."
The story provides little detail into the briefing and gives no evidence to back up the
intelligence officials' claims. It mostly rehashes old claims from the 2016 election, such as
Russians are trying to "stir controversy" and "stoke division." The intelligence officials
also said the Russians are looking to interfere with the 2020 Democratic primaries.
It looks like other intelligence officials are already undermining the leaked briefing.
CNN ran a story on Sunday titled "US intelligence briefer appears to have overstated
assessment of 2020 Russian interference." The CNN article reads, "The US intelligence
community has assessed that Russia is interfering in the 2020 election and has separately
assessed that Russia views Trump as a leader they can work with. But the US does not have
evidence that Russia's interference this cycle is aimed at re-electing Trump, the officials
said."
According to The Times, President Trump was upset with acting Director of National
Intelligence Joseph Maguire for letting the briefing happen, and Republican lawmakers did not
agree with the conclusion since Trump has been "tough" on Russia. In his three years in
office, Trump certainly has been tough on Russia, and it is hard to believe that Putin would
work to reelect such a Russia hawk.
Under Trump, NATO has strengthened and held its
largest war games since the cold war. The Trump administration withdrew from the
Reagan-era nuclear arms treaty, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), an arms
control agreement that prohibited Russia and the US from developing medium-range nuclear and
ballistic missiles. Shortly after tearing up the treaty, the Pentagon began
developing and testing missiles that were banned under the INF.
The Trump Administration might let another nuclear arms treaty lapse. The New Strategic
Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) limits the number of nuclear warheads that Russia and the
US can have deployed. The US does not want to re-sign the treaty and is using the excuse that
it wants to include China in the deal. China's nuclear arsenal is
estimated to be around 300 warheads , which is just one-fifth of the amount that Russia
and the US are allowed to have deployed under the New START. It makes no sense for China to
limit its deployment of nuclear warheads when its arsenal is nothing compared to the other
two superpowers. China appears to be a scapegoat for the US to blame if the treaty does not
get renewed. Without the New START, there will be nothing limiting the number of nukes the US
and Russia can deploy, making the world a much more dangerous place.
Despite all the drama over military aid to Ukraine, Trump never actually delayed it,
and the new National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) includes $300
million in lethal aid to Ukraine , $50 million more than the previous year. The NDAA also
calls for mandatory sanctions against any companies working on completing the Nord Stream 2
pipeline, a natural gas pipeline that connects Russia and Germany. Of all Trump's hawkish
policies, his effort to kill the Nord Stream 2 and the pressure he puts on Germany not to buy
gas from Russia can do the most damage to Russia's economy.
The policies listed above are just a few examples of Trump's hostility towards Russia.
Others include attempting to overthrow Russia's ally in Venezuela, maintaining a troop
presence in Syria to "secure the oil," sanctioning Russian officials and businessman, and
much more .
Despite all these provocations towards Russia, Trump is still accused of being a
"puppet" of Vladimir Putin. No matter how much the president moves the US closer to direct
confrontation with Russia, the talking heads and pundits of the mainstream media take
superficial examples – like the 2018 Helsinki conference – as proof of Trump's
loyalty to Putin. Trump's words are put under a microscope, while his policies that make
nuclear war more possible are largely ignored.
The leaked briefing harkens back to an intelligence assessment that came out in January
2017 during the last days of the Obama administration. The assessment concluded that Vladimir
Putin himself ordered the election interference to help Trump get elected. At first,
a falsehood
spread through the media that all 17 US intelligence agencies agreed with the conclusion.
But later testimony from Obama-era intelligence officials revealed the assessment was
prepared by hand-picked analysts from the CIA, FBI, and NSA. The assessment offered no
evidence for the claim and mostly focused on media coverage of the presidential candidates on
Russian state-funded media.
On Friday, The Washington Post piled on to the Russia hysteria and ran a story titled "Bernie Sanders briefed by
US officials that Russia is trying to help his campaign." The story says Sanders received a
briefing on Russian efforts to boost his campaign. The details are again scant and The
Post admits that "It is not clear what form that Russian assistance has taken."
The few progressive journalists that have been right on Russiagate all along had the
foresight to see how accusations of Russian meddling would ultimately be used to hurt
Sanders' campaign. Unfortunately, Sanders did not have that same foresight and frequently
played into the Russiagate narrative.
Last week, during a Democratic primary debate in Las Vegas, when criticized for his
supporters' behavior on social media, Sanders pointed the finger at Russia . "All of us remember
2016, and what we remember is efforts by Russians and others to try to interfere in our
elections and divide us up. I'm not saying that's happening, but it would not shock me,"
Sanders said.
In
comments after The Post story was published, Sanders said he was briefed on
Russian interference "about a month ago." Sanders raised the issue with the timing of the
story, having been published on the eve of the Nevada caucus. But the story did not slow down
Sanders' momentum in the polls, and he came out the clear victor of the Nevada caucus.
Sanders' victory seemed to rattle the Democratic establishment, and some wild accusations
were thrown around during coverage of the caucus.
Political analyst James Carville
appeared on MSNBC as Sanders took an early and substantial lead in Nevada. Carville said,
"Right now, it's about 1:15 Moscow time. This thing is going very well for Vladimir Putin. I
promise you. He's probably staying up watching this right now." What could be played off as a
joke was followed up with some serious accusations from Carville, "I don't think the Sanders
campaign in any way is collusion or collaboration. I think they don't like this story, but
the story is a fact, and the reason that the story is a fact is Putin is doing everything
that he can to help Trump, including trying to get Sanders the Democratic nomination."
This delusional attitude about the Russians rigging the Democratic primary is underpinned
by claims of meddling from the 2016 election. Central to
Robert Mueller's claim that Russia engaged in "multiple, systematic efforts to interfere
in our election" is the St. Petersburg based company, the Internet Research Agency (IRA).
The IRA is accused of running a troll farm that sought to interfere in the 2016 election
in favor of Trump over Hillary Clinton. Mueller failed to tie the IRA directly to the
Kremlin, and further research into their social media campaign shows most of the posts had
nothing to do with the election. A study on the
IRA by the firm New Knowledge found just "11 percent" of the IRA's content "was related
to the election."
Many believe the Russian government is responsible for hacking the DNC email server and
providing the emails to WikiLeaks. But there are many holes in Mueller's story to support
this claim. And WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange – who Mueller did not interview
–
has said the Russian government was not the source of the emails.
Regardless of who leaked the DNC emails to WikiLeaks, they show that DNC leadership had a
clear bias against Bernie Sanders back in 2016. The emails' contents were never disputed, and
Democratic voters had every right to see the corruption within the DNC. With the release of
the DNC emails, and later the Podesta emails, the American people were able to make a more
informed choice in the presidential election. This type of transparency provided by WikiLeaks
would be celebrated in a healthy democracy, not portrayed as the work of a foreign power.
Sanders would be wise to keep a watchful eye on how the DNC operates over the next few
months. The debacle that was the Iowa caucus shows the Democrats can "stoke division" and
"stir controversy" just fine on their own.
These claims of Russian meddling will continue throughout the election season. President
Trump's defense that he is "tough" on Russia is nothing to be proud of, but that is
inevitably where these accusations lead. Trump is encouraged to be more hawkish towards
Russia in an effort to quiet the claims of Putin's preference for him. And if Bernie Sanders
plays into this narrative now, can we believe that he will make any real foreign policy
change towards Russia if he gets the nomination and beats Trump?
Dave DeCamp is assistant editor at Antiwar.com and a freelance journalist based in
Brooklyn NY, focusing on US foreign policy and wars. He is on Twitter at @decampdave .
The article is mostly junk. But it contains some important insights into the rise of Trympism (aka "national neoliberalism") --
nationalist oligarchy. Including the following " the governments that have emerged from the new populist moment are, to date, not
actually pursuing policies that are economically populist."
The real threat to liberal democracy isn't authoritarianism -- it's nationalist oligarchy. Here's how American foreign policy should
change. The real threat to liberal democracy isn't authoritarianism -- it's nationalist oligarchy. Here's how American foreign policy
should change.
Notable quotes:
"... Fascism: A Warning ..."
"... Can it Happen Here? Authoritarianism in America ..."
"... the governments that have emerged from the new populist moment are, to date, not actually pursuing policies that are economically populist. ..."
"... The better and more useful way to view these regimes -- and the threat to democracy emerging at home and abroad because of them -- is as nationalist oligarchies. Oligarchy means rule by a small number of rich people. In an oligarchy, wealthy elites seek to preserve and extend their wealth and power. In his definitive book titled Oligarchy ..."
"... Oligarchies remain in power through two strategies: first, using divide-and-conquer tactics to ensure that a majority doesn't coalesce, and second, by rigging the political system to make it harder for any emerging majority to overthrow them. ..."
"... Rigging the system is, in some ways, a more obvious tactic. It means changing the legal rules of the game or shaping the political marketplace to preserve power. Voting restrictions and suppression, gerrymandering, and manipulation of the media are examples. The common theme is that they insulate the minority in power from democracy; they prevent the population from kicking the rulers out through ordinary political means. ..."
"... Classical Greek Oligarchy ..."
"... Framing today's threat as nationalist oligarchy not only clarifies the challenge but also makes clear how democracy is different -- and what democracy requires. Democracy means more than elections, an independent judiciary, a free press, and various constitutional norms. For democracy to persist, there must also be relative economic equality. If society is deeply unequal economically, the wealthy will dominate politics and transform democracy into an oligarchy. And there must be some degree of social solidarity because, as Lincoln put it, "A house divided against itself cannot stand." ..."
"... We see a number of disturbing signs the United States is breaking down along these dimensions. ..."
"... The view that money is speech under the First Amendment has unleashed wealthy individuals and corporations to spend as much as they want to influence politics. The "doom loop of oligarchy," as Ezra Klein has called it, is an obvious consequence: The wealthy use their money to influence politics and rig policy to increase their wealth, which in turn increases their capacity to influence politics. Meanwhile, we're increasingly divided into like-minded enclaves, and the result is an ever-more toxic degree of partisanship. ..."
"... The Counterinsurgent's Constitution: Law in the Age of Small Wars ..."
"... The Crisis of the Middle-Class Constitution: Why Economic Inequality Threatens our Republic ..."
Ever since the 2016 election, foreign policy commentators and practitioners have been engaged in a series of soul-searching exercises
to understand the great transformations taking place in the world -- and to articulate a framework appropriate to the challenges
of our time. Some have looked backwards, arguing that the liberal international order is collapsing, while others question whether
it ever existed. Another group seems to hope the current messiness is simply a blip and that foreign policy will return to normalcy
after it passes. Perhaps the most prominent group has identified today's great threat as the rise of authoritarianism, autocracy,
and illiberal democracy. They fear that constitutional democracy is receding as norms are broken and institutions are under siege.
Unfortunately, this approach misunderstands the nature of the current crisis. The challenge we face today is not one of authoritarianism,
as so many seem inclined to believe, but of nationalist oligarchy. This form of government feeds populism to the people, delivers
special privileges to the rich and well-connected, and rigs politics to sustain its regime.
... ... ..
Authoritarianism or What?
Across the political spectrum, commentators and scholars have identified -- and warned of -- the global rise of autocracies and
authoritarian governments. They cite Russia, Hungary, the Philippines, and Turkey, among others. Distinguished commentators are increasingly
worried. Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright recently published a book called Fascism: A Warning . Cass Sunstein
gathered a variety of scholars for a collection titled, Can it Happen Here? Authoritarianism in America .
The authoritarian lens is familiar from the heroic narrative of democracy defeating autocracies in the twentieth century. But
as a framework for understanding today's central geopolitical challenges, it is far too narrow. This is mainly because those who
are worried about the rise of authoritarianism and the crisis of democracy are insufficiently focused on economics. Their emphasis
is almost exclusively political and constitutional -- free speech, voting rights, equal treatment for minorities, independent courts,
and the like. But politics and economics cannot be dissociated from each other, and neither are autonomous from social and cultural
factors. Statesmen and philosophers used to call this "political economy." Political economy looks at economic and political relationships
in concert, and it is attentive to how power is exercised. If authoritarianism is the future, there must be a story of its political
economy -- how it uses politics and economics to gain and hold power. Yet the rise-of-authoritarianism theorists have less to say
about these dynamics.
To be sure, many commentators have discussed populist movements throughout Europe and America, and there has been no shortage
of debate on the extent to which a generation of widening economic inequality has been a contributing factor in their rise. But whatever
the causes of popular discontent, the policy preferences of the people, and the bloviating rhetoric of leaders, the governments
that have emerged from the new populist moment are, to date, not actually pursuing policies that are economically populist.
The better and more useful way to view these regimes -- and the threat to democracy emerging at home and abroad because of
them -- is as nationalist oligarchies. Oligarchy means rule by a small number of rich people. In an oligarchy, wealthy elites seek
to preserve and extend their wealth and power. In his definitive book titled Oligarchy , Jeffrey Winters calls it "wealth
defense." Elites engage in "property defense," protecting what they already have, and "income defense," preserving and extending
their ability to hoard more. Importantly, oligarchy as a governing strategy accounts for both politics and economics. Oligarchs use
economic power to gain and hold political power and, in turn, use politics to expand their economic power.
Those who worry about the rise of authoritarianism and fear the crisis of democracy are insufficiently focused on economics.
The trouble for oligarchs is that their regime involves rule by a small number of wealthy elites. In even a nominally
democratic society, and most countries around the world today are at least that, it should be possible for the much larger majority
to overthrow the oligarchy with either the ballot or the bullet. So how can oligarchy persist? This is where both nationalism and
authoritarianism come into play. Oligarchies remain in power through two strategies: first, using divide-and-conquer tactics
to ensure that a majority doesn't coalesce, and second, by rigging the political system to make it harder for any emerging majority
to overthrow them.
The divide-and-conquer strategy is an old one, and it works through a combination of coercion and co-optation. Nationalism --
whether statist, ethnic, religious, or racial -- serves both functions. It aligns a portion of ordinary people with the ruling oligarchy,
mobilizing them to support the regime and sacrifice for it. At the same time, it divides society, ensuring that the nationalism-inspired
will not join forces with everyone else to overthrow the oligarchs. We thus see fearmongering about minorities and immigrants, and
claims that the country belongs only to its "true" people, whom the leaders represent. Activating these emotional, cultural, and
political identities makes it harder for citizens in the country to unite across these divides and challenge the regime.
Rigging the system is, in some ways, a more obvious tactic. It means changing the legal rules of the game or shaping the political
marketplace to preserve power. Voting restrictions and suppression, gerrymandering, and manipulation of the media are examples. The
common theme is that they insulate the minority in power from democracy; they prevent the population from kicking the rulers out
through ordinary political means. Tactics like these are not new. They have existed, as Matthew Simonton shows in his book
Classical Greek Oligarchy , since at least the time of Pericles and Plato. The consequence, then as now, is that nationalist
oligarchies can continue to deliver economic policies to benefit the wealthy and well-connected.
It is worth noting that even the generation that waged war against fascism in Europe understood that the challenge to democracy
in their time was not just political, but economic and social as well. They believed that the rise of Nazism was tied to the concentration
of economic power in Germany, and that cartels and monopolies not only cooperated with and served the Nazi state, but helped its
rise and later sustained it. As New York Congressman Emanuel Celler, one of the authors of the Anti-Merger Act of 1950, said, quoting
a report filed by Secretary of War Kenneth Royall, "Germany under the Nazi set-up built up a great series of industrial monopolies
in steel, rubber, coal and other materials. The monopolies soon got control of Germany, brought Hitler to power, and forced virtually
the whole world into war." After World War II, Marshall Plan experts not only rebuilt Europe but also exported aggressive American
antitrust and competition laws to the continent because they believed political democracy was impossible without economic democracy.
Framing today's threat as nationalist oligarchy not only clarifies the challenge but also makes clear how democracy is different
-- and what democracy requires. Democracy means more than elections, an independent judiciary, a free press, and various constitutional
norms. For democracy to persist, there must also be relative economic equality. If society is deeply unequal economically, the wealthy
will dominate politics and transform democracy into an oligarchy. And there must be some degree of social solidarity because, as
Lincoln put it, "A house divided against itself cannot stand."
We see a number of disturbing signs the United States is breaking down along these dimensions. Electoral losers in places
like North Carolina seek to entrench their power rather than accept defeat. The view that money is speech under the First Amendment
has unleashed wealthy individuals and corporations to spend as much as they want to influence politics. The "doom loop of oligarchy,"
as Ezra Klein has called it, is an obvious consequence: The wealthy use their money to influence politics and rig policy to increase
their wealth, which in turn increases their capacity to influence politics. Meanwhile, we're increasingly divided into like-minded
enclaves, and the result is an ever-more toxic degree of partisanship.
Addressing our domestic economic and social crises is critical to defending democracy, and a grand strategy for America's future
must incorporate both domestic and foreign policy. But while many have recognized that reviving America's middle class and re-stitching
our social fabric are essential to saving democracy, less attention has been paid to how American foreign policy should be reformed
in order to defend democracy from the threat of nationalist oligarchy.
The Varieties of Nationalist Oligarchy
Just as there are many variations on liberal democracy -- the Swedish model, the French model, the American model -- there
are many varieties of nationalist oligarchy. The story is different in every country, but the elements of nationalist oligarchy
are trending all over the world.
... ... ...
... the European Union funds Hungary's oligarchy, as Orbán draws on EU money to fund about 60 percent of the state projects
that support "the new Fidesz-linked business elite." Nor do Orbán and his allies do much to hide the country's crony capitalist
model. András Lánczi, president of a Fidesz-affiliated think tank, has boldly stated that "if something is done in the national
interest, then it is not corruption." "The new capitalist ruling class," one Hungarian banker comments, "make their money from
the government."
The commentator Jan-Werner Müller captures Orbán's Hungary this way: "Power is secured through wide-ranging control of the
judiciary and the media; behind much talk of protecting hard-pressed families from multinational corporations, there is crony
capitalism, in which one has to be on the right side politically to get ahead economically."
Crony capitalism, coupled with resurgent nationalism and central government control, is also an issue in China. While some
commentators have emphasized "state capitalism" -- when government has a significant ownership stake in companies -- this phenomenon
is not to be confused with crony capitalism. Some countries with state capitalism, like Norway, are widely seen as extremely non-corrupt
and, indeed, are often held up as models of democracy. State capitalism itself is thus not necessarily a problem. Crony capitalism,
in contrast, is an "instrumental union between capitalists and politicians designed to allow the former to acquire wealth, legally
or otherwise, and the latter to seek and retain power." This is the key difference between state capitalism and oligarchy.
... ... ...
Ganesh Sitaraman is a professor of law
and Chancellor's faculty fellow at Vanderbilt Law School, and the author of The Counterinsurgent's Constitution: Law in the
Age of Small Wars and The Crisis of the Middle-Class Constitution: Why Economic Inequality Threatens our Republic
.
"... the American-led takedown of the post-World War II international system has shattered long-standing rules and norms of behavior. ..."
"... The combination of disorder at home and abroad is spawning changes that are increasingly disadvantageous to the United States. With Congress having essentially walked off the job, there is a need for America's universities to provide the information and analysis of international best practices that the political system does not. ..."
I think this would be very informative for anybody seriously interested in the USA foreign
policy. Listening to him is so sad to realize that instead of person of his caliber we have
Pompous Pompeo, who forever is frozen on the level of a tank repair mechanical engineer, as
the Secretary of State.
Published on Feb 24, 2020
In the United States and other democracies, political and economic systems still work in
theory, but not in practice. Meanwhile, the American-led takedown of the post-World War II
international system has shattered long-standing rules and norms of behavior.
The combination of disorder at home and abroad is spawning changes that are increasingly
disadvantageous to the United States. With Congress having essentially walked off the job,
there is a need for America's universities to provide the information and analysis of
international best practices that the political system does not.
Ambassador Chas W. Freeman, Jr. is a senior fellow at Brown University's Watson
Institute for International and Public Affairs, a former U.S. Assistant Secretary of
Defense, ambassador to Saudi Arabia (during operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm),
acting Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, and Chargé d'affaires at
both Bangkok and Beijing. He began his diplomatic career in India but specialized in
Chinese affairs. (He was the principal American interpreter during President Nixon's visit
to Beijing in 1972.)
Ambassador Freeman is a much sought-after public speaker (see http://chasfreeman.net ) and the author of several
well-received books on statecraft and diplomacy. His most recent book, America's Continuing
Misadventures in the Middle East was published in May 2016. Interesting Times: China,
America, and the Shifting Balance of Prestige, appeared in March 2013. America's
Misadventures in the Middle East came out in 2010, as did the most recent revision of The
Diplomat's Dictionary, the companion volume to Arts of Power: Statecraft and Diplomacy. He
was the editor of the Encyclopedia Britannica entry on "diplomacy."
Chas Freeman studied at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and in
Taiwan, and earned an AB magna cum laude from Yale University as well as a JD from the
Harvard Law School.
He chairs Projects International, Inc., a Washington-based firm that for more than three
decades has helped its American and foreign clients create ventures across borders,
facilitating their establishment of new businesses through the design, negotiation,
capitalization, and implementation of greenfield investments, mergers and acquisitions,
joint ventures, franchises, one-off transactions, sales and agencies in other
countries.
He is the author of several books including the most recent
Interesting times: China, America, and the shifting balance of prestige
(2013)
"... "Bolton is a longtime member of the failed Washington elite that Trump vowed to oppose, hell-bent on repeating virtually every foreign policy mistake the U.S. has made in the last 15 years - particularly those Trump promised to avoid as president," ..."
"... "It's important that someone who was an unrepentant advocate for the Iraq War, who didn't learn the lessons of the Iraq War, shouldn't be the secretary of state for a president who says Iraq was ..."
Senator Rand Paul said Tuesday in an
op-ed for Rare
that he would oppose President-elect Donald Trump's rumored selection of former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton as Secretary of State.
"Bolton is a longtime member of the failed Washington elite that Trump vowed to oppose, hell-bent on repeating virtually
every foreign policy mistake the U.S. has made in the last 15 years - particularly those Trump promised to avoid as president,"
Paul wrote citing U.S. interventions in Iraq and Libya that Trump has criticized but that Bolton strongly advocated.
Reports since have indicated that former New York City mayor and loyal Trump ally, Rudy Giuliani is being considered for the post.
The Washington Post's David Weigel
reports , "Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), a newly reelected member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said this morning that
he was inclined to oppose either former U.N. ambassador John Bolton or former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani if they were nominated
for secretary of state."
"It's important that someone who was an unrepentant advocate for the Iraq War, who didn't learn the lessons of the Iraq
War, shouldn't be the secretary of state for a president who says Iraq was a big lesson," Paul told the Post. "Trump
said that a thousand times. It would be a huge mistake for him to give over his foreign policy to someone who [supported the war].
I mean, you could not find more unrepentant advocates of regime change."
"... Thus, it should be no surprise to anyone in the world at this point in history, that the CIA holds no allegiance to any country. And it can be hardly expected that a President, who is actively under attack from all sides within his own country, is in a position to hold the CIA accountable for its past and future crimes ..."
"There is a kind of character in thy life, That to the observer doth thy history, fully unfold."
– William Shakespeare
Once again we find ourselves in a situation of crisis, where the entire world holds its breath all at once and can only wait to
see whether this volatile black cloud floating amongst us will breakout into a thunderstorm of nuclear war or harmlessly pass us
by. The majority in the world seem to have the impression that this destructive fate totters back and forth at the whim of one man.
It is only normal then, that during such times of crisis, we find ourselves trying to analyze and predict the thoughts and motives
of just this one person. The assassination of Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, a true hero for his fellow countrymen and undeniably an
essential key figure in combating terrorism in Southwest Asia, was a terrible crime, an abhorrently repugnant provocation. It was
meant to cause an apoplectic fervour, it was meant to make us who desire peace, lose our minds in indignation. And therefore, that
is exactly what we should not do.
In order to assess such situations, we cannot lose sight of the whole picture, and righteous indignation unfortunately causes
the opposite to occur. Our focus becomes narrower and narrower to the point where we can only see or react moment to moment with
what is right in front of our face. We are reduced to an obsession of twitter feeds, news blips and the doublespeak of 'official
government statements'.
Thus, before we may find firm ground to stand on regarding the situation of today, we must first have an understanding as to what
caused the United States to enter into an endless campaign of regime-change warfare after WWII, or as former Chief of Special Operations
for the Joint Chiefs of Staff Col. Prouty stated, three decades of the Indochina war.
An Internal Shifting of Chess Pieces in the Shadows
It is interesting timing that on Sept 2, 1945, the very day that WWII ended, Ho Chi Minh would announce the independence of Indochina.
That on the very day that one of the most destructive wars to ever occur in history ended, another long war was declared at its doorstep.
Churchill would announce his "Iron Curtain" against communism on March 5th, 1946, and there was no turning back at that point. The
world had a mere 6 months to recover before it would be embroiled in another terrible war, except for the French, who would go to
war against the Viet Minh opponents in French Indochina only days after WWII was over.
In a previous paper I wrote titled
"On Churchill's Sinews
of Peace" , I went over a major re-organisation of the American government and its foreign intelligence bureau on the onset of
Truman's de facto presidency. Recall that there was an attempted military coup d'état, which was
exposed by General Butler in a public address in 1933,
against the Presidency of FDR who was only inaugurated that year. One could say that there was a very marked disapproval from shadowy
corners for how Roosevelt would organise the government.
One key element to this reorganisation under Truman was the dismantling of the previously existing foreign intelligence bureau
that was formed by FDR, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) on Sept 20, 1945 only two weeks after WWII was officially declared
over. The OSS would be replaced by the CIA officially on Sept 18, 1947, with two years of an American intelligence purge and the
internal shifting of chess pieces in the shadows. In addition, de-facto President Truman would also found the United States National
Security Council on Sept 18, 1947, the same day he founded the CIA. The NSC was a council whose intended function was to serve as
the President's principal arm for coordinating national security, foreign policies and policies among various government agencies.
" In 1955, I was designated to establish an office of special operations in compliance with National Security Council (NSC)
Directive #5412 of March 15, 1954. This NSC Directive for the first time in the history of the United States defined covert operations
and assigned that role to the Central Intelligence Agency to perform such missions , provided they had been directed to do so
by the NSC, and further ordered active-duty Armed Forces personnel to avoid such operations. At the same time, the Armed Forces
were directed to "provide the military support of the clandestine operations of the CIA" as an official function . "
What this meant, was that there was to be an intermarriage of the foreign intelligence bureau with the military, and that the
foreign intelligence bureau would act as top dog in the relationship, only taking orders from the NSC. Though the NSC includes the
President, as we will see, the President is very far from being in the position of determining the NSC's policies.
An Inheritance of Secret Wars
" There is no instance of a nation benefitting from prolonged warfare. "
– Sun Tzu
On January 20th, 1961, John F. Kennedy was inaugurated as President of the United States. Along with inheriting the responsibility
of the welfare of the country and its people, he was to also inherit a secret war with communist Cuba run by the CIA.
JFK was disliked from the onset by the CIA and certain corridors of the Pentagon, they knew where he stood on foreign matters
and that it would be in direct conflict for what they had been working towards for nearly 15 years. Kennedy would inherit the CIA
secret operation against Cuba, which Prouty confirms in his book, was quietly upgraded by the CIA from the Eisenhower administration's
March 1960 approval of a modest Cuban-exile support program (which included small air drop and over-the-beach operations) to a 3,000
man invasion brigade just before Kennedy entered office.
This was a massive change in plans that was determined by neither President Eisenhower, who warned at the end of his term of the
military industrial complex as a loose cannon, nor President Kennedy, but rather the foreign intelligence bureau who has never been
subject to election or judgement by the people. It shows the level of hostility that Kennedy encountered as soon as he entered office,
and the limitations of a President's power when he does not hold support from these intelligence and military quarters.
Within three months into JFK's term, Operation Bay of Pigs (April 17th to 20th 1961) was scheduled. As the popular revisionist
history goes; JFK refused to provide air cover for the exiled Cuban brigade and the land invasion was a calamitous failure and a
decisive victory for Castro's Cuba. It was indeed an embarrassment for President Kennedy who had to take public responsibility for
the failure, however, it was not an embarrassment because of his questionable competence as a leader. It was an embarrassment because,
had he not taken public responsibility, he would have had to explain the real reason why it failed. That the CIA and military were
against him and that he did not have control over them. If Kennedy were to admit such a thing, he would have lost all credibility
as a President in his own country and internationally, and would have put the people of the United States in immediate danger amidst
a Cold War.
What really occurred was that there was a cancellation of the essential pre-dawn airstrike, by the Cuban Exile Brigade bombers
from Nicaragua, to destroy Castro's last three combat jets. This airstrike was ordered by Kennedy himself. Kennedy was always against
an American invasion of Cuba, and striking Castro's last jets by the Cuban Exile Brigade would have limited Castro's threat, without
the U.S. directly supporting a regime change operation within Cuba. This went fully against the CIA's plan for Cuba.
Kennedy's order for the airstrike on Castro's jets would be cancelled by Special Assistant for National Security Affairs McGeorge
Bundy, four hours before the Exile Brigade's B-26s were to take off from Nicaragua, Kennedy was not brought into this decision. In
addition, the Director of Central Intelligence Allen Dulles, the man in charge of the Bay of Pigs operation was unbelievably out
of the country on the day of the landings.
Col. Prouty, who was Chief of Special Operations during this time, elaborates on this situation:
" Everyone connected with the planning of the Bay of Pigs invasion knew that the policy dictated by NSC 5412, positively prohibited
the utilization of active-duty military personnel in covert operations. At no time was an "air cover" position written into the
official invasion plan The "air cover" story that has been created is incorrect. "
As a result, JFK who well understood the source of this fiasco, set up a Cuban Study Group the day after and charged it with the
responsibility of determining the cause for the failure of the operation. The study group, consisting of Allen Dulles, Gen. Maxwell
Taylor, Adm. Arleigh Burke and Attorney General Robert Kennedy (the only member JFK could trust), concluded that the failure was
due to Bundy's telephone call to General Cabell (who was also CIA Deputy Director) that cancelled the President's air strike order.
Kennedy had them.
Humiliatingly, CIA Director Allen Dulles was part of formulating the conclusion that the Bay of Pigs op was a failure because
of the CIA's intervention into the President's orders. This allowed for Kennedy to issue the National Security Action Memorandum
#55 on June 28th, 1961, which began the process of changing the responsibility from the CIA to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. As Prouty
states,
" When fully implemented, as Kennedy had planned, after his reelection in 1964, it would have taken the CIA out of the covert
operation business. This proved to be one of the first nails in John F. Kennedy's coffin. "
If this was not enough of a slap in the face to the CIA, Kennedy forced the resignation of CIA Director Allen Dulles, CIA Deputy
Director for Plans Richard M. Bissell Jr. and CIA Deputy Director Charles Cabell.
In Oct 1962, Kennedy was informed that Cuba had offensive Soviet missiles 90 miles from American shores. Soviet ships with more
missiles were on their way towards Cuba but ended up turning around last minute. Rumours started to abound that JFK had cut a secret
deal with Russian Premier Khrushchev, which was that the U.S. would not invade Cuba if the Soviets withdrew their missiles. Criticisms
of JFK being soft on communism began to stir.
NSAM #263, closely overseen by Kennedy, was released on Oct 11th, 1963, and outlined a policy decision " to withdraw 1,000
military personnel [from Vietnam] by the end of 1963 " and further stated that " It should be possible to withdraw the bulk of
U.S. personnel [including the CIA and military] by 1965. " The Armed Forces newspaper Stars and Stripes had the headline U.S.
TROOPS SEEN OUT OF VIET BY '65. Kennedy was winning the game and the American people.
This was to be the final nail in Kennedy's coffin.
Kennedy was brutally shot down only one month later, on Nov, 22nd 1963. His death should not just be seen as a tragic loss but,
more importantly, it should be recognised for the successful military coup d'état that it was and is . The CIA showed what lengths
it was ready to go to if a President stood in its way. (For more information on this coup refer to District Attorney of New Orleans
at the time, Jim Garrison's
book . And the excellently
researched Oliver Stone movie "JFK")
Through the Looking Glass
On Nov. 26th 1963, a full four days after Kennedy's murder, de facto President Johnson signed NSAM #273 to begin the change of
Kennedy's policy under #263. And on March 4th, 1964, Johnson signed NSAM #288 that marked the full escalation of the Vietnam War
and involved 2,709,918 Americans directly serving in Vietnam, with 9,087,000 serving with the U.S. Armed Forces during this period.
The Vietnam War, or more accurately the Indochina War, would continue for another 12 years after Kennedy's death, lasting a total
of 20 years for Americans.
Scattered black ops wars continued, but the next large scale-never ending war that would involve the world would begin full force
on Sept 11, 2001 under the laughable title War on Terror, which is basically another Iron Curtain, a continuation of a 74 year Cold
War. A war that is not meant to end until the ultimate regime changes are accomplished and the world sees the toppling of Russia
and China. Iraq was destined for invasion long before the vague Gulf War of 1990 and even before Saddam Hussein was being backed
by the Americans in the Iraq-Iran war in the 1980s. Iran already suffered a CIA backed regime change in 1979.
It had been understood far in advance by the CIA and US military that the toppling of sovereignty in Iraq, Libya, Syria and Iran
needed to occur before Russia and China could be taken over. Such war tactics were formulaic after 3 decades of counterinsurgency
against the CIA fueled "communist-insurgency" of Indochina. This is how today's terrorist-inspired insurgency functions, as a perfect
CIA formula for an endless bloodbath.
Former CIA Deputy Director (2010-2013) Michael Morell, who was supporting Hillary Clinton during the presidential election campaign
and vehemently against the election of Trump, whom he claimed was being manipulated by Putin, said in a 2016 interview with Charlie
Rose that Russians and Iranians in Syria should be killed covertly
to 'pay the price' .
Therefore, when a drone stroke occurs assassinating an Iranian Maj. Gen., even if the U.S. President takes onus on it, I would
not be so quick as to believe that that is necessarily the case, or the full story. Just as I would not take the statements of President
Rouhani accepting responsibility for the Iranian military shooting down 'by accident' the Boeing 737-800 plane which contained 176
civilians, who were mostly Iranian, as something that can be relegated to criminal negligence, but rather that there is very likely
something else going on here.
I would also not be quick to dismiss the timely release, or better described as leaked, draft letter from the US Command in Baghdad
to the Iraqi government that suggests a removal of American forces from the country. Its timing certainly puts the President in a
compromised situation. Though the decision to keep the American forces within Iraq or not is hardly a simple matter that the President
alone can determine. In fact there is no reason why, after reviewing the case of JFK, we should think such a thing.
One could speculate that the President was set up, with the official designation of the IRGC as "terrorist" occurring in April
2019 by the US State Department, a decision that was strongly supported by both Bolton and Pompeo, who were both members of the NSC
at the time. This made it legal for a US military drone strike to occur against Soleimani under the 2001 AUMF, where the US military
can attack any armed group deemed to be a terrorist threat. Both Bolton and Pompeo made no secret that they were overjoyed by Soleimani's
assassination and Bolton went so far as to tweet "Hope this is the first step to regime change in Tehran." Bolton has also made it
no secret that he is eager to testify against Trump in his possible impeachment trial.
Former CIA Director Mike Pompeo was recorded at an unknown
conference recently, but judging from the gross laughter of the audience it consists of wannabe CIA agents, where he admits that
though West Points' cadet motto is "You will not lie, cheat, or steal, or tolerate those who do.", his training under the CIA was
the very opposite, stating " I was the CIA Director. We lied, we cheated, we stole. It was like we had entire training courses. (long
pause) It reminds you of the glory of the American experiment. "
Thus, it should be no surprise to anyone in the world at this point in history, that the CIA holds no allegiance to any country.
And it can be hardly expected that a President, who is actively under attack from all sides within his own country, is in a position
to hold the CIA accountable for its past and future crimes .
". . . the CIA holds no allegiance to any country." But they sure kiss the *** of the financial sociopaths who write their
paychecks and finance the black ops.
Fletcher Prouty's book The Secret Team is a must read... he was on the inside and watched the formation of the permanent team
established in the late 50s that assumed the power of the president.
Look at who the OSS recruited - Ivy League Skull and Bones types from rich families that made their fortunes in often questionable
ventures.
If you're the patriarch of some super wealthy family wouldn't you be thrilled to have younger family members working for the
nation's intelligence agencies? Sort of the ultimate in 'inside information'. Plus these families had experience in things like
drug smuggling, human trafficking and anything else you can imagine..... While the Brits started the opium trade with China, Americans
jumped right in bringing opium from Turkey.
Didn't take long before the now CIA became owned by the families whose members staffed it.
One major aspect pertaining American involvment in Veitnam was something like 90% of the rubber produced Globally came from
the region.
It is more diverse now, being 3rd, with the association revealing that in 2017, Vietnam earned US$2.3 billion from export of
1.4 million tonnes of natural rubber, up 36% in value and 11.4% in volume year on year.
Rockfellers formed the OSS then the CIA which is the brute force for the CFR which they also run and own. The bankers run y
our country and bought and blackmailed all your politicians... Only buttplug and pedo's get to be in charge now folks.... and
some 9th circle witches of course...
I think everybody should listen the initial 47 minutes
Notable quotes:
"... Wanted to add that the malaise that is gripping the U.S. institutions is completely visible, it is not the opaque and obsequies portrait drawn by the punditry, news organizations, and elites. Seems most obvious to those of us outside the beltway that can clearly delineate between the failure of DC and the projections and marketing to the population that passes as wonky prose. Stupidity lacks the clarity, but brings the temerity making the facade not so subtle. ..."
"... Literally the only endorsement I've heard of Tulsi Gabbard - and a strikingly convincing one ..."
"... Isn't it just a question of the profits in the military business? ..."
In the United States and other democracies, political and economic systems still work in
theory, but not in practice. Meanwhile, the American-led takedown of the post-World War II
international system has shattered long-standing rules and norms of behavior. The combination
of disorder at home and abroad is spawning changes that are increasingly disadvantageous to the
United States. With Congress having essentially walked off the job, there is a need for
America's universities to provide the information and analysis of international best practices
that the political system does not.
Ambassador Chas W. Freeman, Jr. is a senior fellow at Brown University's Watson Institute
for International and Public Affairs, a former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense, ambassador
to Saudi Arabia (during operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm), acting Assistant Secretary
of State for African Affairs, and Chargé d'affaires at both Bangkok and Beijing. He
began his diplomatic career in India but specialized in Chinese affairs. (He was the principal
American interpreter during President Nixon's visit to Beijing in 1972.)
Ambassador Freeman is a much sought-after public speaker (see
http://chasfreeman.net ) and the author of several well-received books on statecraft and
diplomacy. His most recent book, America's Continuing Misadventures in the Middle East was
published in May 2016. Interesting Times: China, America, and the Shifting Balance of Prestige,
appeared in March 2013. America's Misadventures in the Middle East came out in 2010, as did the
most recent revision of The Diplomat's Dictionary, the companion volume to Arts of Power:
Statecraft and Diplomacy. He was the editor of the Encyclopedia Britannica entry on
"diplomacy."
Chas Freeman studied at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and in
Taiwan, and earned an AB magna cum laude from Yale University as well as a JD from the Harvard
Law School. He chairs Projects International, Inc., a Washington-based firm that for more than
three decades has helped its American and foreign clients create ventures across borders,
facilitating their establishment of new businesses through the design, negotiation,
capitalization, and implementation of greenfield investments, mergers and acquisitions, joint
ventures, franchises, one-off transactions, sales and agencies in other countries.
Well worth the watch and hope more see it, especially the presentation in the initial 47
minutes. We Americans take our deficits and the $ as the reserve currency far too
lightly.
Wanted to add that the malaise that is gripping the U.S. institutions is completely
visible, it is not the opaque and obsequies portrait drawn by the punditry, news
organizations, and elites. Seems most obvious to those of us outside the beltway that can
clearly delineate between the failure of DC and the projections and marketing to the
population that passes as wonky prose. Stupidity lacks the clarity, but brings the temerity
making the facade not so subtle.
No, not mercenaries, this is a protection racket. The U.N. address in late 2018 by the
President (the laughter spoke volumes) was about as insightful as a "goodfellas" scene where
the shakedown of the little guy is highlighted. It was the speeches by other countries at the
meeting that was most informative.
A definitive pullback from U.S. hegemony was palpable, real, and un-moderated. Large and
small countries all expressed an unwillingness to be held under the thumb of the global
bully. This is the result of having an over abundance of a particle within D.C.; not the
electron, photon, or neutron...but the moron.
These demented human beings are miserable, self seeking failures by any measurement of
dignity. In a way they are possessed with "Full Spectrum Dominance" delution.
tone-deaf, arrogant speech in Munich this
weekend in which he proclaimed that "the West is winning." In the most hypocritical and absurd
section of the speech, Pompeo railed against other states' violations of sovereignty:
Look, this matters. This matters because assaults on sovereignty destabilize. Assaults on
sovereignty impoverish. Assaults on sovereignty enslave. Assaults on sovereignty are, indeed,
assaults on the very freedom that anchors the Western ideal.
Trump administration officials like talking about the importance of sovereignty almost as
much as they enjoy trampling on the sovereignty of other states. The problem with Pompeo's
sovereignty talk is that the U.S. obviously doesn't respect the sovereignty of many countries,
and almost every criticism that he levels against someone else can be turned around against the
U.S. The U.S. daily violates Syrian sovereignty with an illegal military presence. U.S. forces
remain in Iraq against the wishes of the Iraqi government, and our military has repeatedly
carried out attacks inside Iraq over their government's objections in just the last two months.
The Trump administration respects sovereignty and territorial integrity so much that it has
endorsed illegal Israeli annexation of Syrian territory and it has given a green light to more
annexations in the future. It is now supporting an illegal Turkish incursion into Syria.
Pompeo said at one point:
Respect for sovereignty of nations is a secret of and central to our success. The West is
winning.
As we look back on the record of how the U.S. and our allies have behaved over the last 30
years, respect for other nations' sovereignty is not what we see. On the contrary, there has
been a series of unnecessary and sometimes illegal wars that the U.S. and its allies have waged
either to overthrow a foreign government, or to take sides in an internal conflict, or both.
The U.S. and our allies and the other countries certainly would have been better off if that
hadn't happened. Our recent record is nothing to boast about. It is typical of Pompeo that he
celebrates successes where there aren't any. He says that "the West is winning," but what
exactly have we won? The U.S. is still involved in multiple desultory conflicts, and relations
with many of our most important allies are more strained than at any time since the start of
the Iraq war. If "the West is winning," what would repeated failures look like?
Pompeo calls out economic coercion as one of the harmful things that other states do, but he
is part of an administration that has used economic warfare more than anyone else against more
targets than ever before. If the U.S. refrained from using economic coercion as one of its main
tools in trying to compel other states to do what Washington wants, the attacks on other
states' use of economic coercion might carry some weight. As things stand, Pompeo's words are
just so much wind.
The theme of Pompeo's speech is refuting criticism from allies about how the U.S. is
conducting its foreign policy, but I doubt that many Europeans in the audience were reassured
by his hectoring, triumphalist tone. It doesn't help when he is accusing many of our allies of
being fools and dupes:
When so-called Iranian moderates play the victim, remember their assassination and terror
campaigns against innocent Iranian civilians and right here on European soil itself.
When Russia suggests that Nord Stream 2 is purely a commercial endeavor, don't be fooled.
Consider the deprivations caused in the winters of 2006 and 2008 and 2009 and 2015.
When Huawei executives show up at your door, they say you'll lose out if you don't buy in.
Don't believe the hype.
Needless to say, many of our European allies have very different views on all of these
issues, and berating their position isn't going to make them agree with the Trump
administration's unreasonable demands. Pompeo wants to tout the virtues of sovereignty, but as
soon as our allies take decisions that displease him and Trump he castigates them for it.
Respecting the sovereignty and independence of other states includes respecting their right to
make decisions on policy that our government doesn't like. Of course, Pompeo would rather have
our allies behave like vassals and expects other partners to obey as if they are colonies.
Behind all the sovereignty rhetoric is an unmistakable desire to dictate terms and force others
to do the administration's bidding. The countries that are on the receiving end of this
insufferable arrogance can see through Pompeo's words. All three of those issues touch on areas
where the U.S. insists that our allies abandon their own interests because Washington tells
them to. That is exactly the sort of heavy-handed "leadership" that our allies resent, and
Pompeo's speech will just remind them why they hate it.
The Trump administration's
legal justification for the Soleimani assassination is as preposterous as you would expect it to be:
The White House delivered its legal justification for the January airstrike that killed Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, arguing
that President Donald Trump was authorized to take the action under the Constitution and 2002 legislation authorizing the Iraq
war.
The administration is no longer pretending that the assassination had anything to do with stopping an "imminent" attack. They
no longer claim that this is why the assassination was ordered. That by itself is a remarkable admission of the illegality of the
strike. If there was no "imminent" attack, the U.S. was taking aggressive action against a high-ranking official from another country.
There is no plausible case to be made that this was an act of self-defense. Not only did the president lack the authority to do this
on his own, but it would have been illegal under international law even if he had received approval from Congress before doing it.
The administration spent weeks hiding behind the "imminent" attack lie because without it there was no justification for what they
did.
Abandoning the "imminent" attack claim also means that the administration is trying to lower the bar for carrying out future strikes
against Iran and its proxies. Ryan Goodman points this out in his
analysis of the administration's statements:
The absence of an imminent threat is relevant not only to the legal and policy basis for the strike on Jan. 2. It is also relevant
for potential future military action. The administration's position appears to boil down to an assertion that it can use military
force against Iran without going to Congress even if responding to a threat from Iran that is not urgent or otherwise imminent.
In short, Trump and his officials want to make it easier for them to commit acts of war against both Iran and Iraqi militias.
Trying to distort the 2002 Iraq war AUMF to cover the assassination of an Iranian official just because he happened to be in Iraq
at the time is ridiculous. Congress passed the disgraceful 2002 AUMF to give George W. Bush approval to attack and overthrow the
Iraqi government. That did not and does not give later presidents carte blanche to use force in Iraq in perpetuity whenever they
feel like it. The fact that they are resorting to such an obviously absurd argument shows that they know they don't have a leg to
stand on. The Soleimani strike was illegal and unconstitutional, and there is not really any question about it. The administration's
own justification condemns them.
The president's lawlessness in matters of war underscores why it is necessary for Congress to reassert its proper constitutional
role. The Senate
passed S.J.Res. 68, the Tim Kaine-sponsored war powers resolution, by a vote of 55-45 to make clear that the president does not
have authorization for any further military action against Iran:
In a bipartisan rebuke of President Trump on Thursday, a Senate majority voted 55 to 45 to block the president from taking
further military action against Iran -- unless first authorized by Congress. Eight GOP senators joined every Democrat to protest
the president's decision to kill a top Iranian commander without complying with the War Powers Resolution of 1973.
The president has already said that he will veto the resolution, just as he vetoed the antiwar Yemen resolution last year. He
is proving once again beyond a shadow of a doubt that he has no respect for the Constitution or Congress' role in matters of war.
What is the role of the Supreme Court in this and why nobody is taking that route, given that the US has signed the UN Charter,
to get a judicial review and sanction of president's actions?
Looks like the end of Full Spectrum Dominance the the USA enjoyed since 1991. Alliance of Iran, Russia and China (with Turkey
and Pakistan as two possible members) is serious military competitor and while the USA has its set of trump cards, the military
victory against such an alliance no longer guaranteed.
Days after the assassination of General Qasem Soleimani, new and important information is
coming to light from a speech given by the Iraqi prime minister. The story behind Soleimani's
assassination seems to go much deeper than what has thus far been reported, involving Saudi
Arabia and China as well the US dollar's role as the global reserve currency .
The Iraqi prime minister, Adil Abdul-Mahdi, has revealed details of his interactions with
Trump in the weeks leading up to Soleimani's assassination in a speech to the Iraqi parliament.
He tried to explain several times on live television how Washington had been browbeating him
and other Iraqi members of parliament to toe the American line, even threatening to engage in
false-flag sniper shootings of both protesters and security personnel in order to inflame the
situation, recalling similar modi operandi seen in Cairo in 2009, Libya in 2011, and Maidan in
2014. The purpose of such cynicism was to throw Iraq into chaos.
Here is the reconstruction of the story:
[Speaker of the Council of Representatives of Iraq] Halbousi attended the parliamentary
session while almost none of the Sunni members did. This was because the Americans had
learned that Abdul-Mehdi was planning to reveal sensitive secrets in the session and sent
Halbousi to prevent this. Halbousi cut Abdul-Mehdi off at the commencement of his speech and
then asked for the live airing of the session to be stopped. After this, Halbousi together
with other members, sat next to Abdul-Mehdi, speaking openly with him but without it being
recorded. This is what was discussed in that session that was not broadcast:
Abdul-Mehdi spoke angrily about how the Americans had ruined the country and now refused
to complete infrastructure and electricity grid projects unless they were promised 50% of oil
revenues, which Abdul-Mehdi refused.
The complete (translated)
words of Abdul-Mahdi's speech to parliament:
This is why I visited China and signed an important agreement with them to undertake the
construction instead. Upon my return, Trump called me to ask me to reject this agreement.
When I refused, he threatened to unleash huge demonstrations against me that would end my
premiership.
Huge demonstrations against me duly materialized and Trump called again to threaten that
if I did not comply with his demands, then he would have Marine snipers on tall buildings
target protesters and security personnel alike in order to pressure me.
I refused again and handed in my resignation. To this day the Americans insist on us
rescinding our deal with the Chinese.
After this, when our Minister of Defense publicly stated that a third party was targeting
both protestors and security personnel alike (just as Trump had threatened he would do), I
received a new call from Trump threatening to kill both me and the Minister of Defense if we
kept on talking about this "third party".
Nobody imagined that the threat was to be applied to General Soleimani, but it was difficult
for Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi to reveal the weekslong backstory behind the terrorist
attack.
I was supposed to meet him [Soleimani] later in the morning when he was killed. He came to
deliver a message from Iran in response to the message we had delivered to the Iranians from
the Saudis.
We can surmise, judging by Saudi Arabia's reaction , that some kind of
negotiation was going on between Tehran and Riyadh:
The Kingdom's statement regarding the events in Iraq stresses the Kingdom's view of the
importance of de-escalation to save the countries of the region and their people from the
risks of any escalation.
Above all, the Saudi
Royal family wanted to let people know immediately that they had not been informed of the
US operation:
The kingdom of Saudi Arabia was not consulted regarding the US strike. In light of the
rapid developments, the Kingdom stresses the importance of exercising restraint to guard
against all acts that may lead to escalation, with severe consequences.
And to emphasize his reluctance for war, Mohammad bin Salman
sent a delegation to the United States.
Liz Sly , the Washington Post Beirut bureau chief, tweated:
Saudi Arabia is sending a delegation to Washington to urge restraint with Iran on behalf
of [Persian] Gulf states. The message will be: 'Please spare us the pain of going through
another war'.
What clearly emerges is that the success of the operation against Soleimani had nothing to
do with the intelligence gathering of the US or Israel. It was known to all and sundry that
Soleimani was heading to Baghdad in a diplomatic capacity that acknowledged Iraq's efforts to
mediate a solution to the regional crisis with Saudi Arabia.
It would seem that the Saudis, Iranians and Iraqis were well on the way towards averting a
regional conflict involving Syria, Iraq and Yemen. Riyadh's reaction to the American strike
evinced no public joy or celebration. Qatar, while not seeing eye to eye with Riyadh on many
issues, also immediately expressed solidarity with Tehran, hosting a meeting at a senior
government level with Mohammad Zarif Jarif, the Iranian foreign minister. Even Turkey
and
Egypt , when commenting on the asassination, employed moderating language.
This could reflect a fear of being on the receiving end of Iran's retaliation. Qatar, the
country from which the drone that killed Soleimani took off, is only a stone's throw away from
Iran, situated on the other side of the Strait of Hormuz. Riyadh and Tel Aviv, Tehran's
regional enemies, both know that a military conflict with Iran would mean the end of the Saudi
royal family.
When the words of the Iraqi prime minister are linked back to the geopolitical and energy
agreements in the region, then the worrying picture starts to emerge of a desperate US lashing
out at a world turning its back on a unipolar world order in favor of the emerging multipolar
about which
I have long written .
The US, now considering itself a net energy exporter as a result of the shale-oil revolution
(on which the jury is still out), no longer needs to import oil from the Middle East. However,
this does not mean that oil can now be traded in any other currency other than the US
dollar.
The petrodollar is what ensures that the US dollar retains its status as the global reserve
currency, granting the US a monopolistic position from which it derives enormous benefits from
playing the role of regional hegemon.
This privileged position of holding the global reserve currency also ensures that the US can
easily fund its war machine by virtue of the fact that much of the world is obliged to buy its
treasury bonds that it is simply able to conjure out of thin air. To threaten this comfortable
arrangement is to threaten Washington's global power.
Even so, the geopolitical and economic trend is inexorably towards a multipolar world order,
with China increasingly playing a leading role, especially in the Middle East and South
America.
Venezuela, Russia, Iran, Iraq, Qatar and Saudi Arabia together make up the overwhelming
majority of oil and gas reserves in the world. The first three have an elevated relationship
with Beijing and are very much in the multipolar camp, something that China and Russia are keen
to further consolidate in order to ensure the future growth for the Eurasian supercontinent
without war and conflict.
Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, is pro-US but could gravitate towards the Sino-Russian camp
both militarily and in terms of energy. The same process is going on with Iraq and Qatar thanks
to Washington's numerous strategic errors in the region starting from Iraq in 2003, Libya in
2011 and Syria and Yemen in recent years.
The agreement between Iraq and China is a prime example of how Beijing intends to use the
Iraq-Iran-Syria troika to revive the Middle East and and link it to the Chinese Belt and Road
Initiative.
While Doha and Riyadh would be the first to suffer economically from such an agreement,
Beijing's economic power is such that, with its win-win approach, there is room for
everyone.
Saudi Arabia provides China with most of its oil and Qatar, together with the Russian
Federation, supply China with most of its LNG needs, which lines up with Xi Jinping's 2030
vision that aims to greatly reduce polluting emissions.
The US is absent in this picture, with little ability to influence events or offer any
appealing economic alternatives.
Washington would like to prevent any Eurasian integration by unleashing chaos and
destruction in the region, and killing Soleimani served this purpose. The US cannot contemplate
the idea of the dollar losing its status as the global reserve currency. Trump is engaging in a
desperate gamble that could have disastrous consequences.
The region, in a worst-case scenario, could be engulfed in a devastating war involving
multiple countries. Oil refineries could be destroyed all across the region, a quarter of the
world's oil transit could be blocked, oil prices would skyrocket ($200-$300 a barrel) and
dozens of countries would be plunged into a global financial crisis. The blame would be laid
squarely at Trump's feet, ending his chances for re-election.
To try and keep everyone in line, Washington is left to resort to terrorism, lies and
unspecified threats of visiting destruction on friends and enemies alike.
Trump has evidently been convinced by someone that the US can do without the Middle East,
that it can do without allies in the region, and that nobody would ever dare to sell oil in any
other currency than the US dollar.
Soleimani's death is the result of a convergence of US and Israeli interests. With no other
way of halting Eurasian integration, Washington can only throw the region into chaos by
targeting countries like Iran, Iraq and Syria that are central to the Eurasian project. While
Israel has never had the ability or audacity to carry out such an assassination itself, the
importance of the Israel Lobby to Trump's electoral success would have influenced his decision,
all the more so in an election year .
Trump believed his drone attack could solve all his problems by frightening his opponents,
winning the support of his voters (by equating Soleimani's assassination to Osama bin Laden's),
and sending a warning to Arab countries of the dangers of deepening their ties with China.
The assassination of Soleimani is the US lashing out at its steady loss of influence in the
region. The Iraqi attempt to mediate a lasting peace between Iran and Saudi Arabia has been
scuppered by the US and Israel's determination to prevent peace in the region and instead
increase chaos and instability.
Washington has not achieved its hegemonic status through a preference for diplomacy and calm
dialogue, and Trump has no intention of departing from this approach.
Washington's friends and enemies alike must acknowledge this reality and implement the
countermeasures necessary to contain the madness.
Very good article, straight to the point. In fact its much worse. I know is hard to
swallow for my US american brother and sisters.
But as sooner you wake up and see the reality as it is, as better chances the US has to
survive with honor. Stop the wars around the globe and do not look for excuses. Isnt it
already obvious what is going on with the US war machine? How many more examples some people
need to wake up?
Not all said in video above is accurate but the recent events in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan,
Africa are all related to prevent China from overtaking the zionist hegemonic world and to
recolonize China (at least the parasite is trying to hop to China as new host).
Trade war, Huawei, Hong Kong, Xinjiang, Tibet ..... the concerted efforts from all zionist
controlled media (ZeroHedge included) to slander, smearing, fake news against China should
tell you what the Zionists agenda are :)
The American President's threatened the Iraqi Prime Minister to liquidate him directly
with the Minister of Defense. The Marines are the third party that sniped the demonstrators
and the security men:
Abdul Mahdi continued:
"After my return from China, Trump called me and asked me to cancel the agreement, so I
also refused, and he threatened me with massive demonstrations that would topple me. Indeed,
the demonstrations started and then Trump called, threatening to escalate in the event of
non-cooperation and responding to his wishes, so that the third party (Marines snipers) would
target the demonstrators and security forces and kill them from the highest structures and
the US embassy in an attempt to pressure me and submit to his wishes and cancel the China
agreement, so I did not respond and submitted my resignation and the Americans still insist
to this day on canceling the China agreement and when the defense minister said that who
kills the demonstrators is a third party, Trump called me immediately and physically
threatened me and defense minister in the event of talk about the third party."
.........
The Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission found George W. Bush guilty of war crimes in absentia
for the illegal invasion of Iraq. Bush, **** Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and their legal advisers
Alberto Gonzales, David Addington, William Haynes, Jay Bybee and John Yoo were tried in
absentia in Malaysia.
Unfortunately, this article makes a lot of sense. The US is losing influence and lashing
out carelessly. I hope the rest of the world realizes how detached majority of the citizens
within the states are from the federal government. The Federal government brings no good to
our nation. None. From the mis management of our once tax revenues to the corrupt Congress
who accepts bribes from the highest bidder, it's a rats best that is not only harmful to its
own people, but the world at large. USD won't go down without a fight it seems... All empires
end with a bang. Be ready
NSC Russia expert freshly appointed Andrew Peek, who was walked out like Vindman,
with him only freshly appointed after Fiona Hill and the Tim Morrioson resigned.
There is a big problems with "experts" in NSC -- often they represent interests of the
particular agency, or a think tank, not that of the country.
Look at former NSC staffer Fiona Hill. She can be called "threat inflation"
specialist.
NSC tries to usurp the role of the State Department and overly militarize the USA
foreign policy, while having much lower class specialists. It is a kind of CIA backdoor
into defining the USA foreign policy.
I would advocate creating "shadow NSC" by the party who is in opposition, so that it
can somehow provide countervailing opinions. But with both parties being now war parties,
this is no that effective.
Cutting NSC staff to the bones, so that such second rate personalities like Fiona Hill
and Vindman are automatically excluded might also help a little bit.
One common explanation is that the NSC mission creep results from the NSC staff
growing too large and the easy solution is to limit the size of the staff. I am
sympathetic to that feeling because we don't want it to
be too large and we don't want it to be usurping things that the State Department or
the Agency should do.
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