August 3, 2018

The Kushner Companies has finally struck a deal to get the building that was supposed to be the centerpiece of its portfolio, but instead had weighed it down for years, off its hands.

Brookfield Properties announced Friday afternoon that it has acquired a 100% leasehold interest in the building, a 1.5 million square foot property at 666 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, for 99 years through one of its funds. The financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

As NYT reported

The deal is likely to raise further concerns about Jared Kushner’s dual role as a White House point person on the Middle East and a continuing stakeholder in the family’s company. Mr. Kushner in February lost his top-secret security clearance amid concerns that foreign governments could attempt to gain influence with the White House by doing business with his firm. In January, The Times reported that his firm last year received a $30 million investment from Menora Mivtachim, a large Israeli insurer, just a few days before Mr. Kushner flew to Israel for his first diplomatic trip to the region.

Although he resigned as chief executive of the family’s company when he joined the White House in January 2017, Mr. Kushner retained most of his stake in the firm. He shed some of the assets — including his stake in 666 Fifth Avenue — by selling them to a trust controlled by his mother. His real estate holdings and other investments are worth as much as $761 million, according to government ethics filings.

Other deals

On August 18, 2014, Jared Kushner acting on instructions from his father acquired a three-building apartment portfolio in Middle River, Maryland, for $37.9 million with Aion Partners. In 2013–14, he and his company acquired more than 11,000 units throughout New York, New Jersey, and the Baltimore area.

In May 2015, he purchased 50.1% of the Times Square Building from Africa Israel Investments Ltd. for $295 million.[25]

Observer ownership and attempt to use it to get his "enemies"

At age 25, Jared Kushner (in reality probably his father) purchased the New York Observer, a weekly New York City newspaper, for $10 million. After purchasing the Observer, Kushner published it in tabloid format. Since then, he has been credited with increasing the Observer's online presence and expanding the Observer Media Group.

With no substantial experience in journalism, Kushner could not establish a good relationship with the newspaper's veteran editor-in-chief, Peter W. Kaplan.  “This guy doesn’t know what he doesn’t know,” Kaplan remarked about Kushner, to colleagues, at the time.

As a result of his differences with Kushner, Kaplan quit his position. Kaplan was followed by a series of short-lived successors until Kushner hired Elizabeth Spiers in 2011.

In December 2011, the New York Post reported that the Observer expected to become profitable for the first time. Spiers left the newspaper in 2012. In January 2013, Kushner hired a new editor-in-chief, Ken Kurson. Kurson had been a consultant to Republican political candidates in New Jersey and one-time member of Rudy Giuliani's unsuccessful 2008 presidential primary campaign.

According to Vanity Fair, under Kushner, the "Observer has lost virtually all of its cultural currency among New York’s elite, but the paper is now profitable and reporting traffic growth ... [it] boasts 6 million unique visitors per month, up from 1.3 million in January 2013".

In April 2016, the New York Observer became one of only a handful of newspapers to officially endorse United States presidential candidate Donald Trump in the Republican primary, but the paper ended the campaign period by choosing not to back any presidential candidate at all.

Kushner stepped down from his newspaper role in January 2017 to pursue a role in President Donald Trump's administration. He was replaced by his brother-in-law, Joseph Meyer.

Connections to Netanyahu

Jared can be  described as Israeli lobbyist due to his connection to Israel and personally to Benjamin Netanyahu

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is so close with Kushner’s family that he once slept in Kushner’s childhood bedroom, according to a New York Times profile of Kushner. (Kushner, then a teenager, slept in the basement that night.) (forward.com)

Trump applointed Kushner as a Mideast peace broker. But Kushner’s family donations to West Bank settlements and ties to Netanyahu have made critics question whether he would be an impartial negotiator.

See interesting discussion about Kushner in Quora

Elimination of Chris Christie from Trump team

The sordid case behind Jared Kushner's grudge against Chris Christie by Byron York

April 16, 2017

The prosecutor-turned-governor-turned-Trump-supporter Chris Christie, has paid a price for bringing a case in which every single defendant was guilty. (AP Photo)

Who did Jared blame for what had happened? Not his father. "Charlie and Jared blamed papers in general and more specifically the Newark Star-Ledger for besmirching the family name," Gabriel Sherman wrote in 2009:

And, the crimes notwithstanding, [Jared] sees his father as a victim. "His siblings stole every piece of paper from his office, and they took it to the government," Jared maintained. "Siblings that he literally made wealthy for doing nothing. He gave them interests in the business for nothing. All he did was put the tape together and send it. Was it the right thing to do? At the end of the day, it was a function of saying 'You're trying to make my life miserable? Well, I'm doing the same.'"

Five years later, in a 2014 interview with the New York real estate publication The Real Deal, Jared called his father's treatment "obviously unjust" and said the experience had soured him on an earlier ambition to become a prosecutor. "If you're convicting murderers, it's one thing," Jared said. "It's often fairly clear. When you get into things like white-collar crime, there are often a lot of nuances. Seeing my father's situation, I felt what happened was obviously unjust in terms of the way they pursued him."

Now the pursuer, the prosecutor-turned-governor-turned-Trump-supporter Chris Christie, has paid a price for bringing a case in which every single defendant was guilty.

Both Jared Kushner and Christie deny there's a problem. "That stuff is ancient history," Christie told ABC two weeks ago, on March 29. Last November, Kushner told Forbes that, "Six months ago, Gov. Christie and I decided this election was much bigger than any differences we may have had in the past, and we worked very well together. The media has speculated on a lot of different things, and since I don't talk to the press, they go as they go, but I was not behind pushing him out or his people."

Maybe. Maybe, as Jared Kushner maintains, all the reports of "differences" between him and Christie are inaccurate. But if the case of Kushner's father, and his uncle, and his other uncle, and his aunt, and their business is any indication, putting aside differences is not the family way.

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[Jan 19, 2021] Goodbye Sheldon Adelson by Philip Giraldi

What is interesting tha casino traditionally was regarded as mafia connected business.
Jan 19, 2021 | www.unz.com

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 is https://councilforthenationalinterest.org address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected]

[Jan 13, 2021] Here is a link to an article Miriam Adelson co-authored on whether methadone maintenance treatment (at her clinic, I presume) might improve opioid addicts' cognitive abilities

Jan 13, 2021 | www.moonofalabama.org

Apartheid News Jen , Jan 12 2021 22:51 utc | 37

Sheldon Adelson, the casino oligarch who has financed far right causes as well as the political careers of Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahoo, has died . In 2013 Adelson had called for nuking Tehran (vid).

Good Riddance.

Unfortunately his money will continue to flow to the far right as his Israeli wife is the one who is now running the show .

In other news B'Tselem, the topmost Israeli human rights organization, finally describes both Israel and its control of the Palestinian territories as a single apartheid regime:

B'Tselem rejects the perception of Israel as a democracy (inside the Green Line) that simultaneously upholds a temporary military occupation (beyond it). B'Tselem reached the conclusion that the bar for defining the Israeli regime as an apartheid regime has been met after considering the accumulation of policies and laws that Israel devised to entrench its control over Palestinians.

Nothing really new there but it makes it official.

With B'Tselem finally speaking out it is much easier to refute those who falsely denounce the much justified condemnation of Zionism and Israel as anti-semitic.

This comes at a time when Israel is scheming to derail the incoming Biden administration's plan to return to the nuclear deal with Iran:

Israel will start by sending a stream of envoys on visits to Washington, the official said, requesting anonymity to discuss private deliberations. It's stated publicly that it doesn't want the U.S. to abandon sanctions on the Islamic Republic without a new deal, and that a tougher stance should be taken toward its nuclear project, ballistic missile program and regional proxy forces.

That strategy runs against the Biden team's willingness to re-enter the deal, then negotiate an expansion of its terms. It's conditioned on Iran's returning to compliance with the accord, whose limits it breached after President Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of the agreement in 2018.
...
Israel also has a higher-risk card up its sleeve: the potential to upend diplomatic efforts through covert operations against Iran.
...
Netanyahu has been open about his intention to thwart renewed U.S. participation. In a rare public split, he rebuked his envoy to Germany for supporting Berlin's push to expand the deal.

"There should be no return to the Iran nuclear agreement of 2015 -- a deal which is flawed to its foundations," Netanyahu said.

With Biden being an arch-Zionist and with a team of Zionist Jews leading the State Department the chances of a fast return to the deal can be regarded as slim.

Erik @ 22:

The sobering thought is that all known illicit drugs that are commonly used by most addicts or as recreational drugs originated as medicinal drugs. They were invented by chemists, pharmacists or medical researchers.

CHARLES ROMLEY ALDER WRIGHT – THE FOREFATHER OF HEROIN

Dr. Charles Wright, born in 1844, was a physics and chemistry researcher in London. Well respected, he helped found the Royal Institute of Chemistry of Great Britain and Ireland. With his chemist skills, he had been experimenting with morphine, combining it with various acids. He had hoped to discover a nonaddictive alternative to the medicine and soon discovered a more potent version of morphine by boiling anhydrous morphine alkaloid with acetic anhydride. Called diacetylmorphine at the time, this is the substance today known as heroin. Following Wright's discovery, the drug was marketed as an analgesic and a cough sedative in 1888. It wasn't until 1913 that its addictive qualities were officially discovered and it was swiftly taken off the market.

JOHN PEMBERTON – THE FOREFATHER OF COCAINE

Following injuries he sustained as a Colonel in the Confederate Army, John Pemberton, also a pharmacist, searched for a cure to counteract his addiction to morphine, which he had been using as a painkiller. After experimenting with coca and coca wines, he came up with what he called Pemberton's French Wine Coca, an alcoholic blend designed to reduce nervousness; stomach, bowel, and kidney irregularities; and more. Following temperance legislation, Pemberton was under pressure to create a non-alcoholic version of his medicine and invented Coca-Cola by accident in 1886. It was the result when he mistakenly blended his base syrup with carbonated water, and he decided to market it as the fountain drink we know today. Ten years later, the Coca-Cola company ran into controversy after it was discovered cocaine was an addictive and dangerous substance. A glass used to 9 mg of its primary secret – now illegal – ingredient.

...

NAGAI NAGAYOSHI – THE FOREFATHER OF METHAMPHETAMINE

Nagai Nagayoshi, who became the first doctor of pharmacy in Japan, was sponsored by the Prussia government to study at the University of Berlin and went on to receive a doctorate based on his study of eugenol. Nagayoshi later became a professor of chemistry and pharmacy in 1893, and it was this year he became the first to synthesize methamphetamine, which came from ephedrine. It was Nagayoshi's work that led pharmacologist Akira Ogata to synthesize the crystalline form of methamphetamine, which we today know as crystal meth.

FRIEDRICH SERTÜRNER – THE FOREFATHER OF MORPHINE

Born in 1783, Friedrich Sertürner, achieved a number of recognized accomplishments at a young age when he worked as a pharmacist's apprentice. He isolated morphine from opium, becoming the first person to ever extract an alkaloid from opium and thus to isolate an alkaloid from a plant. This feat made Sertürner the first person ever to isolate a medicinal plant or herb's active ingredient. He named the alkaloid "morphium," after Morpheus, the Greek god of dreams. Having morphine literally at his fingertips to examine, Sertürner investigated its effects. The drug became a widely used sedative after 1815, and Sertürner worked as a successful pharmacist until his death in 1841.

Jen , Jan 13 2021 0:26 utc | 49

James @ 39:

I take the blame for starting the thread on discussing opiate addiction @ 5. This was due to my picking up these paragraphs at the Buzzfeed News article that B linked to in connection with Miriam Adelson.

... Miriam [Adelson] married fellow physician Ariel Ochshorn in the 1970s, and had two daughters with him, Yasmin and Sivan. After they divorced in the 1980s, she came to New York to do a fellowship at Rockefeller University with Dr. Mary Jeanne Kreek. The two doctors have remained friends and collaborators to this day.

Kreek, who began her conversation with BuzzFeed News by stressing that she had gotten permission from Miriam to do the interview, said that she had been approached by an official in Israel's Ministry of Health in 1986 about sending an Israeli doctor to Rockefeller to work on addiction medicine. In short order, Adelson came over to New York with her two teenagers, who attended the Ramaz School on Manhattan's Upper East Side.

At the time, treating heroin addicts with methadone was still considered a cutting-edge treatment, and Kreek and Adelson (then Ochshorn) were on the forefront. It was also starting to become controversial; while many doctors argue that methadone maintenance is an effective harm-reduction tool that allows people to master their addiction and live normal lives, opponents say that using methadone instead of heroin is really another form of dependence. Kreek, who receives significant funding for her program from the Adelsons, decried the "stigma" surrounding methadone maintenance treatment ...

Here is a link to an article Miriam Adelson co-authored on whether methadone maintenance treatment (at her clinic, I presume) might improve opioid addicts' cognitive abilities:

Improvement in Cognitive Performance after One Year of Methadone Maintenance Treatment

More contributions by Dr Adelson at Research Gate here.

Whether the success of the treatments at Dr Adelson's clinics are actually due to the treatments themselves, and whether their success can be replicated in other clinics not owned or run by Dr Adelson, might be another issue.

William Haught , Jan 13 2021 2:09 utc | 61

Thank you very very much, as the song goes. This from 1970 applies to Adelson four or five orders of magnitude more than Scrooge:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dkq7WZTzkLQ

[Jan 10, 2021] Trump's Last Stand, by Israel Shamir

Highly recommended!
Trump run his election complain of 2016 as champion of common Americans. After he won the office the betrayed them all and governed like Bush III with his own cabal of neocons and neoliberals. \
He betrayed his followed again on Dec 6, when he first incited them for the action but did not provide organization, security and the plan needed to press Congress to appoint the commission for investigation of election "irregularities" for then days before Biden inauguration. He is now completely spent politically and his enemies and first of all, Ms Pelosi, are after him. Moreover he gave a shot in the arm for the gang of Russiagaters who were pursuing him since his inauguration.
The fact that Trump leaves the political scene is good. While useful as a wrecking ball for the neoliberal empire and neoliberal establishment he proved to be completely inept as a politician and lack courage necessary for the national leader. Which he proved again on Dec 6. Famous quote from Friedrich Schiller's play Fiesco "The Moor has done his duty. The Moor can go." is probably applicable. What is interesting is that Zionists betrayed Trump.
But the fact hat he will be replaced by neocon warmonger and staunch neoliberal Biden means that there is no light at the and of tunnel for the common people.
Like Trump, Biden was never Presidential material. He a a mediocre politician, by all accounts. And extremely corrupt in addition to that.
Notable quotes:
"... Donald Trump denounced the people whom he personally called to protest. His close political allies withdrew their support. ..."
"... The deck was stacked against President Trump from Day One. His orders were ignored. The US courts, judges, police, the whole system of law enforcement was against him; his orders were blocked or overturned, while the media made fun of him and the opposition relentlessly delegitimised him. ..."
"... On January 6, a massive demonstration in his support gathered in Washington, DC. Hundreds of thousands Americans came to the capital to demand justice after the election fraud became obvious. They hoped that the Republican representatives would refuse to certify the fraud and appoint a commission to check and recount the votes. ..."
"... The horror and outrage of the Dem politicians and media were as faked as their news. During last year, many government buildings were taken over by Dem-sponsored BLM activists, and in not one case did the police use lethal weapons or even rush the protesters out of buildings. ..."
"... For them, it was an honest and funny way to express their indignation. But the real gambit plotters intended to frame them. They even murdered four protesters hoping they would respond with violence, but in vain. ..."
"... White American protesters are exceptionally non-violent lot; as with Occupy Wall Street a few years back the January 6 Capitol protesters were timid and obedient as lambs. For this reason, BLM was invented, for Blacks are able to riot violently, as opposed to well-trained whites. It is not a race thing: lily-white French Yellow Vests and Ukrainian nationalists have fought the police all right. But US whites are not prone to riot, not since the Civil War. ..."
"... Anyway, their non-violence didn't help them. The president-elect Biden begrudged them even the name of protesters: "Don't dare call them protesters. They were a riotous mob, insurrectionists, domestic terrorists." Indeed, the name should be preserved for Deep State-authorised looters and their brethren all over the world, whether in Hong Kong or Minsk, in Seattle or Portland. ..."
"... researchers will argue whether duplicitous Biden's minions organised it or just capitalised on the Trumpers' sincere protest. ..."
"... There is no doubt that to an objective observer the 2020 elections were profoundly unfair. I won't trouble you with too many published details about the statistically impossible results, but here is one example of fraud. The city of Detroit gave 95 per cent of its vote to Biden/Kamala, a number that Mr Kim Jong-un would view with slight envy, while Mr Lukashenko would murmur, "How can it be done?" It is highly likely this mind-boggling result was achieved in the following way. ..."
"... The problem is, Trump was a poor organiser. He could win elections, if he could prevent Cynthia Stephens's kind of legislation, outlaw postal ballots, enforce obligatory IDs for voting, mobilise his people for election control. A formidable task, but not impossible, while dealing with a prone-to-cheat adversary. He could even do a revolution on January 6, tasking the right people to act, forming a revolutionary HQ, planning a strategy of takeover, but he didn't do anything of the sort. He probably thought Congress would see the vast crowds and allow for the checking of election results. ..."
"... Alternatively, he was so naïve that he believed revolutions just happen by themselves, as in the movies. They do not. Behind every successful revolution, there is a lot of planning, armed force, weapons ready for use, supply lines, logistics, media support, and communications. Trump had none of that. It was enough to turn off Twitter to make him deaf and dumb. ..."
"... There was no coup attempt, as correctly stated by Tyler Durden : "Trump has never had the concentration, organizational acumen, or ideological coherence to mount a bona fide "coup," and a mob intrusion which was swiftly dispersed by armed agents of the state doesn't change that. ..."
"... Many Trumpists believed in the QAnon and Kayfabe conspiracies; they posted reports of bad guys being arrested, of servers snatched by the FBI, of Clinton and Biden waiting for rough justice behind bars. This belief disarmed people who would otherwise have fought to achieve this very result. That is the problem with conspiracies: imaginary conspiracies prevent real action. ..."
"... He succeeded against enormous odds in improving the lot of American workers: for the first time since the 1970s, their incomes rose in relation to the other classes. He stopped mass migration to the US: legal immigration went down to a trickle. He avoided new wars; he tried to make peace with Russia. He refused to bomb Iran even in the last days of his presidency, though some pro-Israel supporters promised him a second term if he would. ..."
"... His fight against the corona madness was his great achievement. He was against the lockdowns that are about to destroy our world so completely that few things will survive. The last great US ruler who didn't wear the cowardly mask will be remembered. He could not defeat the mighty medical complex, or FAGMA, or the Masters of Discourse, but he tried. ..."
"... Israel Shamir can be reached at ..."
"... The Unz Review ..."
Jan 10, 2021 | www.unz.com

President Trump was decisively beaten, if not fair and square. The hopes of millions of American voters were squashed and extinguished. The saga of the Orange Man is over. The victors used a gambit: they sacrificed the sanctity and security of the Capitol, allowed intruders in, permitted them to take selfies in the Speaker's office, and then faked horror and outrage. The attempted calls for electoral transparency were deflated in real time as huge crowds were dispersed, electors were confirmed, and the ascendancy of Biden was assured, while Trump followers were branded 'domestic terrorists'.

Donald Trump denounced the people whom he personally called to protest. His close political allies withdrew their support. Within hours, or even minutes, this ruler of the world admired by millions became a non-person. Like a boy who posted an obscenity, he was banned by Twitter and Facebook. Time will tell whether he will go to prison, as so many Dems pray for, but his political life seems to have ended, even if his cause may live.

The deck was stacked against President Trump from Day One. His orders were ignored. The US courts, judges, police, the whole system of law enforcement was against him; his orders were blocked or overturned, while the media made fun of him and the opposition relentlessly delegitimised him. He was blocked even by Fox News. Dem-run states adjusted their laws to assure the elections' result. Trump was a lame duck from the very beginning of his presidency to its bitter end. He was kept on a short leash by the almighty Deep State, and when he tried to free himself, they pulled the leash.

On January 6, a massive demonstration in his support gathered in Washington, DC. Hundreds of thousands Americans came to the capital to demand justice after the election fraud became obvious. They hoped that the Republican representatives would refuse to certify the fraud and appoint a commission to check and recount the votes. Some of the protesters managed to break into the Capitol, or were let in by the police. This peaceful Occupy Capitol action, the exercise of a natural right to protest, was met with lethal fire, and a young female protester from San Diego, Ashli Babbitt, was murdered by the plainclothes police. The Republican representatives were cowed and surrendered; Biden was confirmed to take office.

The horror and outrage of the Dem politicians and media were as faked as their news. During last year, many government buildings were taken over by Dem-sponsored BLM activists, and in not one case did the police use lethal weapons or even rush the protesters out of buildings.

"Shortly after 8 p.m. Wednesday, hundreds of protesters gathered outside the locked King Street entrance to the Capitol, chanting "Break down the door!" and "General strike!" Moments later, police ceded control of the State Street doors and allowed the crowd to surge inside, joining thousands who had already gathered in the Capitol to protest the votes. The area outside the Assembly, which is scheduled to take the bill up at 11 a.m. today, was crowded with protesters who chanted, "We're not leaving. Not this time."

Department of Administration spokesman Tim Donovan said although protesters were being encouraged to leave, no one would be forcibly removed. Mayor Dave Cieslewicz said he had instructed Police Chief Noble Wray not to allow his officers to participate in removing demonstrators from the building."

This was what happened in Madison, Wisconsin in March 2011, as Steve Sailer reminded us. Indeed, this is what the protesters expected; some were dressed in flamboyant carnival attire; they behaved well and peacefully, within acceptable limits. It was not an insurrection; they didn't try to take over the Congress in any meaningful sense. For them, it was an honest and funny way to express their indignation. But the real gambit plotters intended to frame them. They even murdered four protesters hoping they would respond with violence, but in vain.

White American protesters are exceptionally non-violent lot; as with Occupy Wall Street a few years back the January 6 Capitol protesters were timid and obedient as lambs. For this reason, BLM was invented, for Blacks are able to riot violently, as opposed to well-trained whites. It is not a race thing: lily-white French Yellow Vests and Ukrainian nationalists have fought the police all right. But US whites are not prone to riot, not since the Civil War. Being a foreigner, I do not understand why the Americans want to keep their guns if they never use them, but that's the way they are.

Anyway, their non-violence didn't help them. The president-elect Biden begrudged them even the name of protesters: "Don't dare call them protesters. They were a riotous mob, insurrectionists, domestic terrorists." Indeed, the name should be preserved for Deep State-authorised looters and their brethren all over the world, whether in Hong Kong or Minsk, in Seattle or Portland.

Russian social networks were comparing the Washington DC events with those nearer to home and complained of 'double standards'. The US media expressed no indignation when their appointee Boris Yeltsin shelled the Russian Parliament in 1993. The New York Times and the State Department had encouraged the nationalist mob to storm Ukrainian government offices in 2014. They cheered on the opposition in Minsk in taking over their parliament after failing to win elections. The Belarus protesters claimed their country's election results were rigged, just like Trump supporters did for the US elections, but Biden didn't call them "domestic terrorists". (Actually, neither did President Lukashenko: he called them 'protesters', and their violent demos were dispersed without a single shot fired.) In such cases, Jews respond with "How can you compare?!"

The Russians compared the Capitol 'coup attempt' with their own semi-staged 'coup' of 1991, a partly pre-planned provocation. In 1991, the feeble coup organisers could not detain Yeltsin and surrendered as if on cue; the wave of indignation removed Gorbachev and the Communist party from power. In the Capitol, too, police waved the 'invaders' in, as you can see on this video forwarded by the BBC. More videos suggesting Capitol police involvement in the ostensible provocation are presented here . The orchestrated indignation allowed the victors to censor and purge the defeated Trump and his followers. Just as the USSR went down in August 1991, Trump's America went down in January 2021, and the liberal elites representing the big corporations came to power. It was achieved by a provocation, but ordinary Trump followers were really angry with the Election Steal. Likewise, 1991 was a provocation, but ordinary Russian citizens were angry at Gorbachev's perestroika, while the liberal elites used it to dismantle the Soviet state and transfer all assets to their oligarchs.

People with a good knowledge of history refer to the Reichstag Fire of February 1933, the arson contrived by the newly formed Nazi government itself to turn public opinion against its opponents and to assume emergency powers. Alternatively, other researchers have contended that there was no proof of Nazi complicity in the crime, but that Hitler merely capitalised on the Dutch Communist van der Lubbe's independent act. The fire is the subject of continued debate and research, says the Encycopaedia Britannica . Probably the same will be said about the Capitol "invasion", and researchers will argue whether duplicitous Biden's minions organised it or just capitalised on the Trumpers' sincere protest.

There is no doubt that to an objective observer the 2020 elections were profoundly unfair. I won't trouble you with too many published details about the statistically impossible results, but here is one example of fraud. The city of Detroit gave 95 per cent of its vote to Biden/Kamala, a number that Mr Kim Jong-un would view with slight envy, while Mr Lukashenko would murmur, "How can it be done?" It is highly likely this mind-boggling result was achieved in the following way.

Detroit Dems outsourced ballot harvesting to local drug lords, offering them as a prize – recreational marijuana business licenses. These licences are the best thing since a licence to print money . Having such licenses is like having your own ATM. Here you can read about their profitability and the lengths criminals will go to obtain them. Detroit Dems had changed local laws allowing the sale of marijuana in their fine city (it was forbidden until November 2020). They changed local laws prescribing the issuing of marijuana licences to drug dealers with previous convictions for drug dealing. They let drug lords out of jail . They changed local laws to allow ballot harvesting; that is, collecting postal votes and assisting with the filling in of ballots. After that, the drug dealers went around collecting postal ballots and filling them in immediately, if they were conscientious, or just filling them in at their leisure, if feeling lazy. They had a judge at their disposal, Cynthia Stephens , who single-handedly changed Michigan election laws, and then rejected Trump's claims of fraud.

Yes, Virginia, there was election fraud in many American states. They are used to gambling; they aren't surprised by a beautiful hand of four aces, as Mark Twain suggested. Usually the two parties deal in turns, and cheat in turns. Only this time, Trump convinced many people that it is different; that this is their last chance.

The problem is, Trump was a poor organiser. He could win elections, if he could prevent Cynthia Stephens's kind of legislation, outlaw postal ballots, enforce obligatory IDs for voting, mobilise his people for election control. A formidable task, but not impossible, while dealing with a prone-to-cheat adversary. He could even do a revolution on January 6, tasking the right people to act, forming a revolutionary HQ, planning a strategy of takeover, but he didn't do anything of the sort. He probably thought Congress would see the vast crowds and allow for the checking of election results.

Alternatively, he was so naïve that he believed revolutions just happen by themselves, as in the movies. They do not. Behind every successful revolution, there is a lot of planning, armed force, weapons ready for use, supply lines, logistics, media support, and communications. Trump had none of that. It was enough to turn off Twitter to make him deaf and dumb.

There was no coup attempt, as correctly stated by Tyler Durden : "Trump has never had the concentration, organizational acumen, or ideological coherence to mount a bona fide "coup," and a mob intrusion which was swiftly dispersed by armed agents of the state doesn't change that. Shortly after the breach, he released a video instructing his followers not to take Senators hostage or imprison Mike Pence, but to "go home." No factions of the federal government joined the mob on Trump's orders, because he didn't bother issuing any. The whole episode never stood the remotest chance of preventing the certification of Joe Biden, much less overthrowing the government. It was just another goofball charade, and in that sense, a fitting end to the Trump presidency."

Conspiracy theories played their disappointing part in the debacle. Many Trumpists believed in the QAnon and Kayfabe conspiracies; they posted reports of bad guys being arrested, of servers snatched by the FBI, of Clinton and Biden waiting for rough justice behind bars. This belief disarmed people who would otherwise have fought to achieve this very result. That is the problem with conspiracies: imaginary conspiracies prevent real action.

Still, I do not want to finish this piece on such a sad and disappointing note. President Trump was a great leader. He succeeded against enormous odds in improving the lot of American workers: for the first time since the 1970s, their incomes rose in relation to the other classes. He stopped mass migration to the US: legal immigration went down to a trickle. He avoided new wars; he tried to make peace with Russia. He refused to bomb Iran even in the last days of his presidency, though some pro-Israel supporters promised him a second term if he would.

His fight against the corona madness was his great achievement. He was against the lockdowns that are about to destroy our world so completely that few things will survive. The last great US ruler who didn't wear the cowardly mask will be remembered. He could not defeat the mighty medical complex, or FAGMA, or the Masters of Discourse, but he tried.

The day of his defeat, January 6, was the Epiphany, or Adoration of the Magi, of the Three Wise Men who came to worship Jesus in his cave. It was also Christmas Eve for the Eastern Church. It is the darkest time of the year; from now on, the day will increase and so will our hopes.

Israel Shamir can be reached at [email protected]

This article was first published at The Unz Review .

[Jan 07, 2021] Looks like Zionists discarded Trump

Jan 07, 2021 | www.moonofalabama.org

Grieved , Jan 7 2021 6:59 utc | 14

I've seen a lot of comments over the years calling things "theater', but I never felt compelled the use the word until this event.

I'm only just gathering pieces of the forensic deconstruction, but this thing is fishy as hell. In fact, I'm not even opening my eyes much to this one, because the smell alone gives it all away.

I learned about this a few hours ago in a Zoom business meeting, and the lady is talking about someone shot and died - she was laying this at Trump's door - and I looked up RT and got the story that the police shot her. But how do people get into the Capitol building anyway, that has to be super hardened - and of course it already looks like the security let them in, and everything else follows and falls into place from that.

[And then a guy enters my meeting and says Putin is celebrating and I had to deal with that bullshit for a minute. Lord, deliver me from brainwashed America, especially when they're my colleagues - but fuck 'em, actually, because the power has passed from their side and they don't know that, but they can feel the difference. No one needs to bother to explain to them, but even if they don't know, they can feel that you don't care, and they have no ground to stand on - so yes, we have moved on in the information space, in case you wondered.]

So the rest is pretty obvious, and pretty lame...and it's worth waiting a day or two to gather all the forensics in some reviews of this obvious false flag. I imagine b will have more in a day or two. It's a strange and pathetic brainwash here, that will undoubtedly work its way on many millions, and work its other way on many other millions. Divide and rule.

~~

And apparently the Jews have discarded Trump and thrown him to the wolves. I'm searching for the link but I guess it's from a comment in one of the Saker threads - can't find it now - but the US organization of...something or other but definitely and formally representing Jews and their political influence in the US, has said this is unacceptable and perhaps they're even standing behind impeachment or treason charges, I'm not sure.

So that's the kiss of death, and we get to watch the sacrifice now.

And this is where the CIA learned how to treat its assets. The bend-over-backwardness of Trump to appease the Israelis was so pronounced that they had to despise him for his subservience. Everyone hates a toady. They had to throw him away, being careful not to let any of him get on their shoe. Nothing says a person was appeasing the Zionists so much as how forcefully they discard that person when used up.

arata , Jan 7 2021 7:07 utc | 15

American Jewish in Congress wish to impeach Trump!

Donald Trump encouraged his supporters to protest Congress. Today's anarchy is the result. We want stable democracy. The Cabinet should consider applying the 25th amendment to immediately remove Trump from office to end this incitement against our democracy.

[Nov 26, 2020] A Trump win will make Israel more open more reckless more racist and more strongly and vaingloriously a terrorist entity.

Nov 26, 2020 | www.unz.com

Anon [241] Disclaimer , says: November 26, 2020 at 1:54 pm GMT • 5.2 hours ago

@A123 onducting unconventional warfare. That form of combat is defined by the U.S. government's National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016 as "activities conducted to enable a resistance movement or insurgency to coerce, disrupt or overthrow an occupying power or government by operating through or with an underground, auxiliary or guerrilla force in a denied area" in the pursuit of various security-related strategic objectives.

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-israel-just-admitted-arming-anti-assad-syrian-rebels-big-mistake-1.6894850

[Nov 10, 2020] Netanyahu Leaves Trump Hanging - The American Conservative

Notable quotes:
"... Sam Husseini's writings are at husseini.org . He is the founder of VotePact.org , which encourages principled left-right cooperation against the pro-war establishment. ..."
Nov 10, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Netanyahu Leaves Trump Hanging

On foreign policy, Trump accomplished little and polarized the left against him. (ShubhamSingh12345/shutterstock)

NOVEMBER 10, 2020

|

12:01 AM

SAM HUSSEINI

Why are the major media calling Joe Biden the "president-elect"? The sitting president has not yet conceded and the election results have not been certified. This effectively abrogates government function to corporate media; it's a power grab.

Certainly, President Trump may be making a fool of himself with his current course of action, but it is his right to dispute the results in court, and until the courts rule, anyone with a modicum of respect for legal process should refrain from calling Biden "president-elect" -- a term used in the Constitution. Nor should one refer to his remarks Saturday as his "acceptance speech," as major media did.

https://lockerdome.com/lad/13045197114175078?pubid=ld-dfp-ad-13045197114175078-0&pubo=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theamericanconservative.com&rid=www.theamericanconservative.com&width=838

In the view of this writer -- who has never voted for a Republican or a Democratic presidential nominee -- the process of the U.S. Supreme Court in 2000 was highly dubious, leading Gore Vidal to deride the "Cheney-Bush Junta." But it was still a procedure with set legal processes.

What we have now is effectively government of, by, and for Big Media.

At the dawn of this millennium, Time Warner CEO Gerald Levin posited that global media "will be and is fast becoming the predominant business of the 21st century." So predominant, in fact, that the media business is "more important than government. It's more important than educational institutions and non-profits."

Levin's prediction has come to pass, with Twitter and Facebook able to selectively suspend, deplatform, and shadow ban whomever they want.

me title=

00:05 / 00:59

Now, the AP, NBC, CNN, et al are attempting to usurp the power of determining when and how a future president is determined.

Certainly, given the evidence we have, it makes sense to refer to Biden as the projected winner of the election. But "president-elect" is a bridge too far.

Some Biden supporters are attempting to take the "president-elect" mantle while simultaneously claiming Trump and some of his supporters are incredibly dangerous and unstable. They apparently don't see or don't want to see that if Trump is half as dangerous as they claim, then their getting ahead of the legal process could set him and them off.

It's quite possible that William Barr and the Federalist Society majority on the Supreme Court will come to Trump's rescue, but it seems unlikely. As with Rupert Murdoch and his Fox News channel, they will likely nudge Trump out the door. For all these players, strict observance of the facts is unlikely to be a determinative factor. Rather, with a media establishment and roused liberal activists calling for Trump's head, siding against Trump grants them a sort of legitimacy, the crowning achievement of Trumpwashing.

It also guards them against Trump's unpredictability. Trump has a reputation for turning on former associates. And of course, the ever pro-war John Bolton and others who were in the administration have turned on the president.

The likely reason for this is that one often overlooked fact remains: Trump is the only president in decades (indeed, in my entire adult life) to not start an outright war. He was full of loud threats, he didn't stop any wars like he said he would, he escalated some (most notably the horrific Saudi assault on Yemen), he shredded treaties, he implemented awful sanctions on Iran and Venezuela, and he moved the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem. But again, the fact remains: Trump is the only president in my adult life to not start an outright war -- that is, a new bombing campaign (such as Yugoslavia or Libya) or invasion (Grenada, Panama, Iraq).

Yet despite his not pulling the trigger on a new war, Trump's presidency was a great success for the pro-war establishment. It made the Democratic Party even more war-like without actually ending any wars. The good it did -- a thawing with North Korea -- seems highly reversible, like the ostensibly pro-peace moves made by Obama.

Indeed, Obama and Trump seem like bookends, each perverting pro-peace impulses on their respective sides of the political spectrum and diminishing them to the wishes of the pro-war establishment.

Trump in 2016 skillfully derided Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton as associated with the Iraq invasion. But incredibly, he failed to do so with Biden, though Biden played a central role in ensuring that the Iraq invasion took place -- and repeatedly lied about it during the Democratic primaries.

So why is Trump so disliked among the pro-war crowd? It reminds me of how Israel treated Arafat. He effectively gave Israel things no one else could have, increased steps towards regional recognition, a tacit legitimizing of the occupation with the Oslo agreement, but it was never enough. Israel tossed Arafat at a time and place of its choosing, even bombing his headquarters in Ramallah.

Trump's October 23 phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu didn't involve any explosives being detonated at the White House, but Trump's near-pleading for a tacit endorsement from Netanyahu, which was not forthcoming, clearly left the president deflated. Indeed, with all the focus on Trump being "Putin's bitch" over the last four years, it's difficult to imagine how Israel continues to play such an outsized role in American political life. Would CNN have objected if Netanyahu gushed over Trump? How would the major media react if Putin were on such a call?

Indeed, the last two one-term presidents lost shortly after criticizing Israel. Jimmy Carter wrote that "Israel cast their lot with Reagan," apparently because then-prime minister Menachem Begin feared that Carter might force Israel to withdraw from the West Bank and accept a Palestinian state if he won a second term. And George H. W. Bush -- after pulverizing Iraq in 1991 -- had a highly publicized clash with Israel over loan guarantees, commenting that "there are 1,000 lobbyists up on the Hill today lobbying Congress for loan guarantees for Israel and I'm one lonely little guy down here asking Congress to delay its consideration of loan guarantees for 120 days."

Trump never said anything of this kind, but his servility to Netanyahu in the closing days of the campaign highlights a troubling set of dynamics.

Sam Husseini's writings are at husseini.org . He is the founder of VotePact.org , which encourages principled left-right cooperation against the pro-war establishment.

[Oct 20, 2020] Trump is the best U.S. president for Netanyahu but for Israel, he might be the worst

Oct 20, 2020 | www.haaretz.com

The direct benefits of his first term are outweighed by the general decline in America's global prestige and its indifference to Israel's declining democracy Share in Facebook Share in Twitter Send in e-mail Send in e-mail Zen Read Print article Chemi Shalev Chemi Shalev Get email notification for articles from Chemi Shalev Follow Published at 21:18

It has become an article of faith that whatever his other shortcomings, Donald Trump is good for Israel. Most Israelis believe that the 45th U.S. president was the best of them all, as Benjamin Netanyahu says, and many American Jews grudgingly concur. The latest American Jewish Committee poll found that only 22% of American Jews plan to vote for Trump but 42% believe he will be better for Israel than Joe Biden.

Tags:

[Oct 10, 2020] Tell me again how Trump "doesn't want to start a new war": If Trump thinks that he can win re-election by panding to Zionist lonny, he might be mistaken

It time to make him accountable at the election box. Not that it matter much as Biden is yet another neocon and Zionist, but stil...
American people are tied of sliding standard of living, permanent wars and jingoism. Trump might share Hillary fate in 2020, because any illusion that he is for common fold, who voted for him in 2016 now disappeared. So he is not better then neocon Biden and Biden is new bastard. So why vote for the old bastard if we have new, who might be slightly better in the long run
This is a very expensive foreign policy, that doesn't benefit the USA. It has potential to raise the price of oil significantly.
Notable quotes:
"... Behind the move was pressure from the Zionist lobby. President Trump is in need of campaign funds and the lobby provides those. ..."
"... I can also see this green lighting Israeli or joint American-Israeli strikes on alleged Iranian nuclear weapons development sites and other military and petro-state assets. ..."
"... It's disgusting to watch the people of the US/UK/EU go along with this. Western elites are fat, lazy, vicious, and cruel. ..."
"... Paul wrote: "Perhaps a Biden administration would be just as much a Zionist captive as the Trump administration." Yes at least as much or more zionist. Nothing about Harris or Biden (or the DNC) says they won't be. ..."
"... I nominate president Eisenhower as slightly less zionist on one occasion: during the Anglo,French, Zionist Suez invasion of 1956 Eisenhower remarked after numerous UN resolutions condemning the bandit state's aggression ' Should a nation which attacks and occupies foreign territory in the face of United Nations disapproval be allowed to impose conditions on its withdrawal?' ..."
"... "The EU is trying to prop up the US Empire in response to its decline, instead of trying to free itself. " ..."
"... Donald Trump talked up his Iran policy in a profanity-laden tirade on Friday, telling conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh that Tehran knows the consequences of undermining the United States. ..."
"... "Iran knows that, and they've been put on notice: if you fuck around with us, if you do something bad to us, we are going to do things to you that have never been done before." ..."
Oct 10, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
" Why U.S. Elections Do Not Change Its Foreign Policies | Main | The Ceasefire In Nagorno-Karabakh Is Unlikely To Hold " October 09, 2020 Europe And The New Sanctions On Iran

The U.S. has imposed new sanctions on Iran which will make ANY trade with the country very difficult:

[T]he Trump administration has decided to impose yet further sanctions on the country , this time targeting the entirety of the Iranian financial sector. These new measures carry biting secondary sanctions effects that cut off third parties' access to the U.S. financial sector if they engage with Iran's financial sector. Since the idea was first floated publicly , many have argued that sanctioning Iran's financial sector would eviscerate what humanitarian trade has survived the heavy hand of existing U.S. sanctions.

Behind the move was pressure from the Zionist lobby. President Trump is in need of campaign funds and the lobby provides those. The move is also designed to preempt any attempts by a potentially new administration to revive the nuclear agreement with Iran:

This idea appears to have first been introduced into public discourse in an Aug. 25, 2020, Wall Street Journal article by Mark Dubowitz and Richard Goldberg urging the Trump administration to "[b]uild an Iranian [s]anctions [w]all" to prevent any future Biden administration from returning to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the nuclear accord between Iran and the world's major powers on which President Donald Trump reneged in May 2018.

The new sanctions will stop all trade between the 'western' countries and Iran.

The Foreign Minister of Iran responded with defiance:

Javad Zarif @JZarif - 17:30 UTC · Oct 8, 2020

Amid Covid19 pandemic, U.S. regime wants to blow up our remaining channels to pay for food & medicine.

Iranians WILL survive this latest of cruelties.

But conspiring to starve a population is a crime against humanity. Culprits & enablers -- who block our money -- WILL face justice.

In response Iran will continue its turn to the east. Russia, China and probably India will keep payment channels with Iran open or will make barter deals.

The Europeans, who so far have not dared to counter U.S. sanctions on Iran, are likely to be again shown as the feckless U.S. ass kissers they have always been. They will thereby lose out in a market with 85 million people that has the resources to pay for their high value products. If they stop trade of humanitarian goods with Iran they will also show that their much vaunted 'values' mean nothing.

The European Union claims that it wants to be an independent actor on the world stage. If that is to be taken seriously this would be the moment to demonstrate it.

Posted by b on October 9, 2020 at 16:37 UTC | Permalink

Thomas Minnehan , Oct 9 2020 17:11 utc | 3
Unconscionable but what is new with pompass and his ghouls; treasury dept responsible for cranking up the sanctions program was formerly headed by a dual citizen woman who resigned suddenly after being exposed as an Israeli citizen-not hard to understand that sentiment in that dept has not changed.

The other aspect here is the FDD as key supporter of these severe sanctions; very virulent anti-Iranian vipers nest of ziocons with money bags from zionist oligarch funders.

karlof1 , Oct 9 2020 17:14 utc | 4
Ho-hum. As I wrote earlier, just the daily breaking of laws meaning business as usual. As noted, Russia has really upped the diplomatic heat on EU and France/Germany in particular, and that heat will be further merited if the response is as b predicts from their past, deplorable, behavior.

Much talk/writing recently about our current crisis being similar in many ways to those that led to WW1, but with the Outlaw US Empire taking Britain's role. I expect Iran's Iraqi proxies to escalate their attacks aimed at driving out the occupiers. IMO, we ought to contemplate the message within this Strategic Culture editorial when it comes to the hegemonic relationship between the Outlaw US Empire and the EU/NATO and the aims of both. The EU decided not to continue fighting against the completion of Nord Stream, but that IMO will be its last friendly act until it severs its relations with the Outlaw US Empire. With the Wall moved to Russia's Western borders, the Cold War will resume. That will also affect Iran.

james , Oct 9 2020 18:33 utc | 13
thanks b... it is interesting what a pivotal role israel plays in all of this... and why would there be concern that biden would be any different then trump in revoking the jcpoa? to my way of thinking, it is just pouring more cement and sealing the fate of the usa either way, as an empire in real decline and resorting to more of the same financial sanctions as a possible precursor to war.. frankly i can't see a war with iran, as the usa would have to contend with russia and china at this point... russia and china must surely know the game plan is exactly the same for them here as well.. as for europe, canada, australia and the other poodles - they are all hopeless on this front as i see it... lets all bow down to the great zionist plan, lol...
Daniel , Oct 9 2020 18:48 utc | 14
Yeah but at least Trump didn't start any new wars. /s

The Eurotools in Brussels are absolutely disgusting. A weaker bunch of feckless, milquetoast satraps is difficult to imagine. The EU perfectly embodies the 21st century liberal ethic: spout virtue signaling nonsense about peace, freedom, human rights and the "rules based international order" while licking the boots of Uncle Scam and the Ziofascists and going along with their war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Russia and China need to step up their game and boldly circumvent the collective punishment sanctions that are choking the life out of Iran, Syria and Venezuela. They still let the rogue states of the west get away with far too much.

augusto , Oct 9 2020 18:52 utc | 15
The Teheran men will not surrender to the yankee herds and hordes. And less so the telavivian.
It s easy to see that in the medium run this cruelly extended crime plays in chinese, russian and shia hands.
And they must start immediately a backlash handing hundreds of special forces and weapons opver to the Houthi hands.
Paco , Oct 9 2020 18:54 utc | 17
the Cold War will resume

The Cold War never ended.

Stonebird , Oct 9 2020 19:20 utc | 20
Of course there is a war on, and it has been gathering force for some time.

Iran is but one more skirmish or battle. However, Xi and Putin are using what I call the "Papou yes". You must always say "yes" as this way you avoid direct conflict, but then you go and do exactly what you were going to do in the first place . The person who does the demanding - having had his/her demands "met" has nothing further to add and will go away. (I have seen this effective technique in action).

At the moment it appears that the aim of the subversive (military/CIA/NGO) wings of the Empire are to start as many conflicts as possible. To isolate and overextend Russia, leading to it's collapse. (As they claim to have done before.)

The "Alternative axis" is just carrying on with it's own plan to overextend and eventually let the US dissolve into its own morasss. The opposition are trying to follow their own plan without giving an opening for the US/NATO to use its numerical military advantage, by not taking the bait.

The ultimate battle is for financial control of the worlds currency, or in the case of the US, to halt the loss of it's financial power. To avoid that The next step could be the introduction of a Fed. owned controlled and issued "digi-dollar", When all outstanding "dollar assets" are re-denominated into virtual misty-money which is created exclusively by the Fed. Banks become unnecessary as the Fed becomes the only "lender" available, Congress redundant, debts no longer matter and so on. Who cares about the reserves held by China and overseas "investors" if their use or even existence can be dictated by the Fed?
They have already published a "trial balloon" about introducing a digi-dollar.

Iran? the US is throwing ALL its cards into what looks like it's final battle to preserve the dollars supremacy. Why cut ALL the Iranian financial system out of their sphere of influence? Because it (thinks) it can and by doing so cower the wavering into obeying.

AtaBrit , Oct 9 2020 19:28 utc | 21
Thanks 'b', very well timed. I was actually heading to the open thread with this article until I saw your piece. This Asia Times article focuses on three key points:

- Iran has replaced the dollar with the Yuan as its main foreign currency
"This may become the east wind for the renminbi (yuan) and provide a new oil currency option for traders in oil-producing countries, including Iran," an editorial on qq.com said. "

- Several large banks in Iran are developing a gold encrypted digital currency called PayMon and had issued more than 1,000 crypto-currency mining licenses, which could promote the development of crude oil. Domestic traders use cryptocurrency to import goods and bypass American banks.

- The Iranian-Swiss Joint Chamber of Commerce
"Switzerland had received a special exemption from US supervisory authorities to allow the SHTA operations."

It remains to be seen how effective the Swiss Humanitarian Trade Agreement actually is. Some say it is nothing but a US propaganda stunt. Hopefully, that is not the case.

Richard Steven Hack , Oct 9 2020 20:37 utc | 31
Sure. Tell me again how Trump "doesn't want to start a new war." Morons.
William Gruff , Oct 9 2020 20:50 utc | 32
What does Iran need that they cannot get from China and Russia? The USA has cheap corn, and the EU has... what, cheese? Other than that I don't see why Iran needs to trade with the empire and its more servile vassals anyway.
Tollef Ås/秋涛乐 , Oct 9 2020 20:55 utc | 33
Strange, that ther is a jewish or Israeki ´ animosity agains Iran (or agains tthe Medtans -- as thy are all named in all Greek records(H, that theer is a jewish animosity against, that ther is a jewish anikisit agains Iran (or the Medtans -- as thy are old ptt in all Greek Strenge(Hellemistic) tales, Cyrur+s the Great is reported to have liberatet the Jews of Babilon end sent them back to Jerusalem . So, "PRIMO SON VENETANO, SECUNDO SON CHRISTANO" -- STILL A COMMONLY ACCEPTED SAYING INVENEZIA WHEB I VISITED ABD AKED IT IN THE THE YEAR OF 1´2917! Iran (or the Medtans -- as thy are old ptt in all Greek Strenge(Hellemistic) tales, Cyrur+s the Great is reorted to have liberatet te´he Jews of Babilon end sent them back to Jerusalem . So, "PRIMO SON VENETANO, SECUNDO SON CHRISTANO" -- STILL A COMMONLY ACCEPTED SAYING INVENEZIA WHEB I VISITED ABD AKED IT IN THE THE YEAR OF 1´2917! ellenistic) tales, Cyrur+s the Great is reorted to have liberatet te´he Jews of Babylon end sent them back to Jerusalem . So, "PRIMO SON VENETANO, SECUNDO SON CHRISTANO" -- STILL A COMMONLY ACCEPTED SAYING INVENEZIA WHEB I VISITED ABD AKED IT IN THE THE YEAR OF 2017
Paco , Oct 9 2020 21:05 utc | 34
Quite impressed with all the theories about Europe and its behavior. The answer is very simple, Europe is occupied by a foreign power, it is a colony. And all the qualifiers are quaint.
davenitup , Oct 9 2020 21:09 utc | 35
It's the world's loss that great cultures like the Persians have been suppressed for so long. The madness needs to end.
Passer by , Oct 9 2020 21:11 utc | 36
Posted by: Red Ryder | Oct 9 2020 20:06 utc | 23

I disagree. What did the EU did on Iran, compared to Russia and China? It stopped most trade with Iran, including the purchase of iranian oil, and it stopped all investment projects. INSTEX is a joke. Meanwhile Germany recently banned Hezbollah.

Yes, they did vote for the JCPOA in the UN. I look at actions rather than words though, and EU has imposed de facto sanctions on Iran.

Moreover, German FM Maas told Israel recently that efforts are underway to keep the Iran arms embargo. (He is also a big "Russia fan" - sarc off)

In other words, we "support" the JCPOA, but in practice with arms and trade embargoes on Iran continuing.

Yeah right.

Posted by: powerandpeople | Oct 9 2020 20:15 utc | 24

No, its not so simple, unless you claim that european russophobia started with the US and did not exist before it. Guy Mettan has a good book on it. It is a thousand years old issue, involving Catholicism, France, Germany, Sweden, Britain, and others.

Yes, the US wants to divide the EU and Russia. But the EU itself is rotten from within.

Politics are more important than the economy, German Chancellor Merkel said in relation to Russia.

"Drang nach Osten" - "Drive to the East".

Germany dreams of capturing Eastern Europe and using is as some sort of colonised labor pool similar to what Latin America is for the US.

And this is why the EU, without any prodding, eagerly took the lead in the attempt of colour revolution in Belarus, where it played far bigger role than the US.

m , Oct 9 2020 21:24 utc | 37
I have to disagree with your assessment.

Signing and adhearing to the JCPOA turned Europe and Iran from opponents into partners. This is a great diplomatic achievement. However, no part of the JCPOA made the two allies or obliged the European side to wage an economic war with the USA on behalf of Iran. On the contrary, the Iranians would be the first to say they are no friends of Europa. They have been complaining about "Western meddling" in their region for years. (Note that they don`t differentiate but always speak collectively of "the West").

So that`s their chance to show the world how much of a sovereign nation they are and that they can handle their problems without the "meddling" of the "despicable" Europeans. There is no obligation - neither legal nor moral - for Europe to take the side of Iran in the US-Iran conflict.

And actually it is both sides - both Iran and the USA - who are unhappy with the current European neutrality.

_K_C_ , Oct 9 2020 21:31 utc | 38
Thanks to MoA for being one of the only honest brokers of news on Iran in the English language. As an American citizen living abroad (in EU) I have a more jaded and at the same time worried feeling about this.

Along with all the other stuff, including the current threat to close the U.S. embassy in the Iraqi "Green Zone" and the accompanying military maneuvers, which would spark war in the region, I see this hardening and expansion of sanctions as yet the next clue that the U.S. and Donald Trump's regime are looking toward re-election and a hot war with/on Iran. Rattling the cage ever more and backing Iran into the corner with brutal, all-encompassing sanctions is already an act of war, usually the first prior to bombs falling. I can also see this green lighting Israeli or joint American-Israeli strikes on alleged Iranian nuclear weapons development sites and other military and petro-state assets.

I hope I'm wrong but we've all seen this before and it never ends well. If the EU shows a spine, or more likely Russia and/or China step in directly, perhaps the long desired neocon/neolib/Zionist hot war against Iran can be avoided.

Perimetr , Oct 9 2020 21:32 utc | 39
I think it is very important for the US to kill another 500,000 children via sanctions, in order to demonstrate the importance of freedom and democracy and observing international law.
AriusArmenian , Oct 9 2020 21:48 utc | 40
While reading this post I was thinking what MoA wrote in the last two paragraphs. And also that Iran will just continue to turn to China, Russia, and others in the East.

It's disgusting to watch the people of the US/UK/EU go along with this. Western elites are fat, lazy, vicious, and cruel.

claudio , Oct 9 2020 22:17 utc | 41
@17 passer by
(and others)
"Europeans can not be helped. Ironically, it is their own rejection of their WW2 past that causes them to reject the multipolar world and sovereignty as "primitive things from the past"

plus, as you point out elsewhere, there are longer histories at play: the Crusades against the Slavs, the Moors and the Turks (and the Arabs, in fact), the invention of "western civilization" in the 19th century (Arians vs Semites, Europe vs Asia, ecc) ...

plus, there is the persisting aspiration for world domination, partly frustrated by WW1 and the upheavals of the XXth century, which transformed the UK and the whole of Europe (with Japan, Australia, etc) in a junior partner of the new US Empire

(that's the other lesson learned from WW2: no single european power could dominate the continent and the world, but they could dominate as junior partners under the new young leader of the wolf pack, the US)

plus, there are is a class war that can be better fought, by national oligarchies, within globalist rethoric and rules

plus, there are the US deep state instruments of domination over european national states

but Europeans (and Usaians) do understand the language of force, and they have - at the moment - encountered a wall in their attempts at expansion, in Iran, China, Russia, Venezuela, ecc; an alternative multipolar alliance is taking shape

so they might attempt to win a nuclear war by 20 million deaths to 2 (or 200 to 20, who cares), but they might also decide to tune down their ambitions and return to reality; maybe

wj2 , Oct 9 2020 23:28 utc | 45
@m (#35)
EU promised to uphold JCPOA. They can't because of the US and they are doing next to nothing to change that. EU isn't neutral. They are stooges. Iran is right to complain about it, the US isn't.
Boss Tweet , Oct 9 2020 23:54 utc | 48
Trump is a man of peace, he hasn't started any new wars - whatever that means, lol.

As far as I know economic blocade is tantamount to war. If he wins reelection expect renewed kinetic attacks on venezuela and Iran. He's already lined up his zionist coalition with arabic satraps to launch his Iran quagmire. Trump is a deal maker, he understands the economy and will bring back manufacturing jobs to Murikkka, lol. I'm sure Boeing execs in deep trouble would love to sell plane to the Iranians but Mr. MIGA just made that impossible. Nothing to worry about, there's always the next socialist bailout for Boeing funded by taxpayers - suckers as Trump would call them. So much for winning, can't fix deplorable and stupid...

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/08/iran-deal-fallout-boeing-may-lose-20-billion-in-aircraft-deals.html

Btw b, Trump's opposition to the Iran deal has nothing to do with money or the zionist lobby. Stable genius opposed JCPOA in 2015 even before announcing his run for the presidency. It's not about the mula but all about the mollah's, lol: The Donald in his own words at a tea party event in 2015
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIDNonMDSo8

kooshy , Oct 10 2020 0:00 utc | 49
Ever since the Iranian revolution of 1979 multiple US regimes in DC have been totally successful in making majority Iranian people everywhere in the world, understand that the US is their chronic strategic enemy for decades to come. At same time, these US regimes have equally been as successful in making American people believe Iran is their enemy.
The difference between this two side's belief is, that, Iranian people by experiencing US regime' conducts have come to their belief, but the American people' belief was made by their own regime' propaganda machinery. For this reason, just like the people to people relation between the US and Russian people, Before and after the fall of USSR the relation between US and Iran in next few generations will not come to or even develop to anything substantial or meaningful. One can see this same trajectory in US Chinese relations, or US Cuban. Noticeably all these countries relation with US become terminally irreparable after their revolutions, regardless of the maturity or termination of the revolution. As much as US loves color revolutions, US hates real revolutions. The animosity no longer is just strategic it has become people to people, and the reason and blame goes to Americans since they never were ready to accept the revolutions that made nations self-servient to their interests. The bottom line truth is the US / and her poodles in europe know, ever since the revolution Iran no longer will be subservient to US interests.
Hermius , Oct 10 2020 0:23 utc | 51
This is leverage to bargain away the oil pipeline to germany. That is what is behind it. You scratch my back, the US is saying to the EU, in particular, Germany....
karlof1 , Oct 10 2020 0:25 utc | 52
It's an Economy based on Plunder! , so that's why sanctions here, there and everywhere!! But the real problem is we aren't participating in the Plunder!! Sometimes you gotta use extreme sarcasm to explain the truth of a situation, and that's what Max and Stacey do in their show at the link. 13 minutes of honest reporting about the fraudulent world in which we live. As for Jerome Powell, current Fed Chair, he's complicit in the ongoing criminal activity just as much as the high ranking politicos. Bastiat laid it out 180 years ago, but we're living what he described now. And that's all part of what I wrote @40 above. The moral breakdown occurred long ago but took time to perfect.
joey_n , Oct 10 2020 0:34 utc | 54
Patrick Armstrong did a Sitrep article last month
https://patrickarmstrong.ca/2020/09/24/russian-federation-sitrep-24-september-2020/
where he cited an article on Sputnik titled "Macron: Europe 'Will Not Compromise' With Washington on Iran Sanctions"
https://sputniknews.com/world/202009221080541258-macron-europe-will-not-compromise-with-washington-on-iran-sanctions/
Make of it what you will.
Xingu , Oct 10 2020 0:46 utc | 55
I think it is crazy that EU allows US to manage SWIFT to the point they invent new entities to sidestep SWIFT and US sanctions (which are weak and ineffective, but that is the trajectory of their weak attempts at independence). Force SWIFT to equally service all legal transactions according to EU law, and let US cut itself off from all international financial transfers if it doesn't like using EU's SWIFT. US corps won't allow that to happen, it's just that EU refuses to call US bluff. Of course they are now praying for Biden presidency, but if they can't assert themselves it is all ultimately the same thing.
dh , Oct 10 2020 1:17 utc | 58
These 'foreign policy experts' think the trade war with China has been a mistake. But they think Trump is too soft on Russia and he hasn't been tough enough on NK, Iran and Venezuela.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/foreign-policy-experts-rebuke-trump-administration-for-policies-that-emboldened-rivals-alienated-allies-135205214.html

Paul , Oct 10 2020 1:34 utc | 59
It has become a standard trick for outgoing US administrations to saddle the incoming administration with set in stone policies and judicial appointments.

"Behind the move was pressure from the Zionist lobby. President Trump is in need of campaign funds and the lobby provides those. The move is also designed to preempt any attempts by a potentially new administration to revive the nuclear agreement with Iran."

Perhaps a Biden administration would be just as much a Zionist captive as the Trump administration.

The danger for the world is the Trump administration may go even further than additional sanctions. So I refer to the previous post, US policy remains the same whatever bunch are the frontmen.

Theodore Herzl even tried to drag Kaiser Wilhelm11 into the Zionist spider web: https://middleeastrealitycheck.blogspot.com/2008/07/theodor-herzl-first-photoshopper.html

When that attempt failed they worked on convincing the Sultan of Turkey to give them someone else's homeland. The Zionist Zealot Mr Kalvariski became the administrator of the Palestine Jewish Colonization Association with the aim of establishing a jewish suprematist ghetto. Following that flop the Zionists turned to the hapless British and were rewarded by Balfour with his notorious British government double cross of the Arabs. Now it's the turn of the US and assorted captive nations to uphold and support tyranny and Talmudic violence.

Crush Limbraw , Oct 10 2020 1:59 utc | 60

I am SLOWLY coming to the conclusion that DaTrumpster understands DaDeepState better than any of us armchair pundits. His patient - and yes, perhaps faulty strategy - he's still standing after ALL DaCrap that's been thrown at him.
All the 'EXPURTS' - including MoA - can only see part of DaPicture at best.

I've been as hard on DaTrumpster as anyone on DaConservative side - but I am SLOWLY coming to understand WTF just might be going on.

Point - don't be too sure of your immediate inclinations - we ALL see through DaGlass DARKLY!

Don Bacon , Oct 10 2020 2:27 utc | 61
SWIFT is only a messaging system – SWIFT does not hold any funds or securities, nor does it manage client accounts. Behind most international money and security transfers is the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT) system. SWIFT is a vast messaging network used by banks and other financial institutions to quickly, accurately, and securely send and receive information, such as money transfer instructions.
Sunny Runny Burger , Oct 10 2020 2:29 utc | 62
Paul wrote: "Perhaps a Biden administration would be just as much a Zionist captive as the Trump administration." Yes at least as much or more zionist. Nothing about Harris or Biden (or the DNC) says they won't be.

And hasn't it always been that way from one president to the the next? Was there ever one that was less zionist than the predecessor? (Maybe they're all so close this is an impossible question to answer, that too could be the case).

The sitting executive branch gives the favors right now and anyone incoming gives the favors after they win and thus each election becomes a double windfall for the lobby group?

A zionist double dip . Maybe most US voters could grasp it like that.

I can't back this up (much like my previous comment in this thread) but it's my impression. It would probably take a lot of work to make sure it's right; one would have to scrutinize so much over so many decades.

Paul , Oct 10 2020 3:29 utc | 63
@Sunny Runny Burger 60

I nominate president Eisenhower as slightly less zionist on one occasion: during the Anglo,French, Zionist Suez invasion of 1956 Eisenhower remarked after numerous UN resolutions condemning the bandit state's aggression ' Should a nation which attacks and occupies foreign territory in the face of United Nations disapproval be allowed to impose conditions on its withdrawal?'

This could be a useful quote for todays world.

Later, in 1964, Eisenhower approved his hand picked emissary's US $150 million so called Johnston Plan to steal the waters of the Jordan River and further marginalize the Palestine Arabs and surrounding Arab states.

ARI , Oct 10 2020 3:36 utc | 64
Sanctions aren't the story. Once all the players have left the JCPOA, either Israel or the US can claim Iranians are at the point of producing a nuclear weapon. Without the JCPOA and inspections of Iranian nuclear facilities it will be impossible to prove or deny the allegations. Thus giving either the US or Israel justification it wants to conduct military strikes against Iran. The only things stopping this from happening is if the EU stays in the JCPOA...
_K_C_ , Oct 10 2020 3:53 utc | 65
Fully agree with ARI | Oct 10 2020 3:36 utc | 62

Exactly the aim. I said so in an earlier post. This is all part of the program to create a false justification to conduct military strikes inside Iran. At this point, I'm really surprised that the U.S. even tries to construct these narratives after Obama's Syria and Libya operations didn't even really bother, save for a few probably fake "chemical weapons" attack they alleged Assad committed. Libya I don't remember hearing anything. The embassy maybe? After the Soleimani strike and the shootdown of the U.S. drone, not to mention the alleged Iranian attacks on ARAMCO's oil facilities, I'm really quite surprised something more serious (not to minimize the awful acts of war which the sanctions definitely are) hasn't already happened. It will soon, especially if Trump gets re-elected. Wonder what all of his "no new wars" supporters will say then?

Everybody reading knows what SWIFT is. That's a nice attempt to circumscribe the overall sanctions regime and paint it as "no big deal."

Crush Limpbro - Checked out your site. You've got a long way to go before you can criticize MoA. Hope that comment draws a few clicks to keep you going, but I would caution other barflies to use a proxy; could be a honey trap to collect IP addresses.

El Cid , Oct 10 2020 4:10 utc | 66
This United States imposed and Zionist inspired siege on Iran and its people will only further strengthen the political and economic bonds with Russia and China. Meanwhile, the US collapses from its internal social limitations and its abandonment of public healthcare responses to the Corvid 19 pandemic. Europe it close behind the US in this respect.
ARIES , Oct 10 2020 4:17 utc | 67
IRGC Commander-In-Chief: U.S. Is Incapable Of Waging War Against Iran, Its Weapons Are Outdated:

https://toranja-mecanica.blogspot.com/2020/10/irgc-commander-in-chief-us-is-incapable.html

Paul , Oct 10 2020 4:20 utc | 68
ARI @62

What exactly is this 'Justification'.. . 'to conduct military strikes against Iran' that you refer to hasbara boy? Failure to obey foreign imposed zionist diktats?

Would this 'justification' apply to the bandit state if it refused to abide by the NNPT for example?
No double standards pass the test here.

kiwiklown , Oct 10 2020 4:42 utc | 69
Yet another proof that "Western values" and their "rules based international order" mean exactly nothing.

In the past, the West at least kept up some pretense that it was wrong to target unarmed civilians (still, they flattened Driesden; Hiroshima; North Korea, Vietnam, Laos). Today, they do not care to be seen openly, cruelly, brutally, sadistically killing civvies. These American bastards say, "... it is not killing if the victims drop dead later, like, not right now. " Or, "... it became necessary to destroy Iran in order to save Iran."

Iran is perfectly correct to call this a crime against humanity for the West to starve a population of food and medicine. This will boomerang just as the opium-pushing in China will boomerang on the West.

Meanwhile, just as those drug-pushing English bastards earned themselves lordships and knighthoods; just as presidential bastards retire to their Martha Vineyard mansions; so the current crop of bastards in American leadership will retire to yet more mansions, leaving the next couple generations to meet Persian wrath. The American way is to "win" until they are tired of winning, no?

But in truth, in objective reality, only those who have lost their human-ness are capable of crimes against humanity.

michaelj72 , Oct 10 2020 4:50 utc | 71
The US is cruising for a bruising in the middle east fucking with Iran like this. Not that the US hasn't deserved a good knockout punch the past 19 years since invading and destroying Afghanistan and Iraq, etc, etc. Regardless of their rhetoric, how the European rogues and rascals (France, Germany and the UK) can sleep at night is beyond me.
snake , Oct 10 2020 7:00 utc | 75
Yes Psychochistorian @ 1, At the nation state level, EU support for blockade terror and sanction torture (BT&ST), against reluctant nation states and non compliant individuals within those nation states, logically suggests EU nation states are not independent sovereign countries <=EU nation states exist in name only? Maybe its just like in the USA, these private monopoly powered Oligarcks (PMPO), own everything (privately owned copyrights, patents, and property) made possible by rules nation states turn into law. The citizens of those privately owned EU nation states are victims <=in condition=exploitable. Maybe PMPOs use nation states <=as profit support weapons, to be directed against <=any and all <=competition, whereever and however <=competition appears.

The hidden suspects <=capital market linked crowds through out the world..

Media is 92% owned by six private individuals, of the seven typical nation state layers of authority and power: 5 are private and two are public. Additionally, few in the international organizations have allegiance to historic cultures of the nation state governed masses. It is as if, the named nation states are <=threatened by knee breaking thugs, but maybe its not threat, its actual PMPO ownership.

If one accepts PMPO <=to be in control of all of USA and all of allied nation state, one can explain <=current BT&ST events. But private Oligarch scenarios <=raise obvious questions, why have not the PMPO challenged East eliminated <=Israel, MSM propaganda repeatedly blames or points to Israel <=to excuse the USA leaders for their BT&ST policies. Seems the PMPO are <=using the nation states, they own <=to eliminate non complying competition.

What is holding the East back? Russia and China each have sufficient oil, gas and technology to keep things functional, so why has not the competition in the East taken Israel out, if Israel is directing the USA to apply BT&ST against its competitors? Why is the white House so sure, its BT&ST policies will not end up destroying Israel? Maybe because Israel has no real interest <=in the BT&ST policy <=Israel is deceptions:fall guy? The world needs to pin the tail on the party driving USA application of BT&ST because no visible net gain to Governed Americans seems possible from BT&ST policies?

I think Passer @ 17 has hit the nail on its head. "The EU is trying to prop up the US Empire in response to its decline, instead of trying to free itself. "

Norwegian , Oct 10 2020 7:11 utc | 76
@ARI | Oct 10 2020 3:36 utc | 62
Sanctions aren't the story. Once all the players have left the JCPOA, either Israel or the US can claim Iranians are at the point of producing a nuclear weapon.

So you put that forward as a justification for attacking Iran militarily, but that means according to your logic you also have justification for attacking Israel or the US militarily. The rules are the same for all, right?

robin , Oct 10 2020 8:12 utc | 77
Economic warfare is certainly effective. However, time is running out for these weapons as America's lock on the world economy grows weaker. With a rapidly approaching expiry date, the word out may be to use em or lose em.

In a zero-sum great game, it makes sense to deploy such weapons now insofar as an opponent's loss is always a gain for oneself.

jscott , Oct 10 2020 9:26 utc | 79
Donald Trump talked up his Iran policy in a profanity-laden tirade on Friday, telling conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh that Tehran knows the consequences of undermining the United States.

"Iran knows that, and they've been put on notice: if you fuck around with us, if you do something bad to us, we are going to do things to you that have never been done before."

Uncle Samuel is setting up a provocation for war.

uncle tungsten , Oct 10 2020 9:45 utc | 81
psychohistorian #1
What a shit show we are seeing. What is the next phase of this civilization war that is not a war because there are not enough dead bodies for some I guess?...but it sure looks like war to me.

Well for the first time in history Iran's symbolic "Red Flag" is still flying above the popular Jamkaran Mosque Holy dome. Perhaps the USA and its running dogs body count has risen in Iraq and Afghanistan? How would we know. These things are disguised from the fearless press in those countries ;)

Perhaps the dead and mangled are many but we do know that the US chief killer in Afghanistan was reduced to ashes immediately following General Shahid Qassem Suleimanis murder by the USA whilst on a diplomatic mission in Iraq.

In respect of b's observation above, the illegal occupier of Palestine is more likely tipping millions into the Harris Presidency as well as the possible Trump Presidency. I doubt either Harris or the biden bait and switch stooge would restore the JCPOA. Besides they would not be invited to sit at the table any time soon IMO. They would likely refuse to any conditions of reversing the sanctions and then carry on about all that 'unreasonable demands by a terrorist state' stuff etc etc.

No, Iran will be getting on with its future in a multilateral world where the United Nations has been reduced to pile of chicken dung by the USA while most other nations go along with global lunacy.


Circe , Oct 10 2020 12:56 utc | 87
You know what's telling about the bootlickers who hem and haw about U.S. policy with the T Administration, but never mention Trump as the real source of it even when profuse Zionist shit spills from his mouth on Limbaugh's show proving he's a Ziofascist pig?

What's telling is that these usual suspects jumped all over ARI @64 for zeroing in on Trump's precise intentions with Iran but they gave a pass to the real HASBARIST in the room, Crush Limbraw @60, exposing himself, putting his HARD-ON FOR TRUMP on full display.

@60 we ALL see through DaGlass DARKLY!
Speak for yourself- you Zionist MORON!

Ahhhhhh, you can always count on the DUPLICITY of MOA'S weathervane james and friends. Me, I ain't here to win a popularity contest like weathervane; I'm here to kick ass when I witness duplicity in action. My friend here is the truth that I'll defend to the grave.

********

Noooo, dum-dums Putin will not come to Iran's rescue when he's warm in bed with his Zionist Oligarchs and Russian squatters whom he pays homage to from time to time when he visits Ziolandia thanking them for choosing the stolen West Bank over Russia.

Iran knows that, and they've been put on notice. That's Trump blowhard driving the drumbeat.

Just rescue me from my self-destructive self for 4 more years, oh kings of Zion and Wall Street, and I'll give you WAR!!! all in CAPS with three exclamation points. The GREATEST war you've ever seen.

Linda Amick , Oct 10 2020 13:07 utc | 88
When I read the Great Reset article on the World Economic Forum website it seems to me that the western Globalists, in concert align the US and EU. That accounts for the basic vassal arrangements that predominate but allow for some nonalignments on certain issues.
Paco , Oct 10 2020 13:24 utc | 89
Posted by: vk | Oct 10 2020 0:58 utc | 56

That is precisely what the Belarusian authorities announced when Tikhanovskaya left Minsk, that she was helped in her way out, but we know how the MSM acts, they stick to their own script, just like a Hollywood movie.

The Belarusians must be watching with great attention what is happening in Kirguizia, riots and complete chaos, and thinking how lucky they were to avoid the color rev that was in the menu for them, which the same methods, discredit the oncoming election, claim fraud after it, use similar symbols like the clenched fist and the heart, new flag, start transliterating family and geographical names to a mythical and spoken by a very small minority language and then nobody knows if to spell Tikhanovskaya, Tsikhanouskaya or like the politically incorrect but street wise Luka called her, Guaidikha. And that is Kirguizia, how about a shooting war in Armenia and Azerbaijan, all those conflicts were unimaginable when the USSR existed, but the empire even on his way down is insatiable.

Circe , Oct 10 2020 13:25 utc | 90
@88 Linda Amick

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=RDPIAXG_QcQNU&feature=share&playnext=1

Paco , Oct 10 2020 13:35 utc | 91
Posted by: Circe | Oct 10 2020 12:56 utc | 87

There is over a million jews of Russian origin living in Israel, 20% of the population, with deep roots in Russia, language, culture and relatives. Do not let partisanship for the Dems blind you, a true successful leader is someone that defends his country's interests while at the same time tries to have good relations with everybody else, obviously that balance is not easy to achieve in a world full of conflicting interests, but so far Putin seems to be balancing his act while not loosing sight of the main thing, Russia.

Circe , Oct 10 2020 13:52 utc | 92
Paco, strange name for a Russiabot, oh well...

Nice way of putting: Putin belongs to the Zionist Club.

FYI, I'm not blind. I'm one of those special beings who was born with two extra eyes...in the back of my head.

Jackrabbit , Oct 10 2020 13:56 utc | 93
Circe @Oct10 12:56 #87
Putin will not come to Iran's rescue when he's warm in bed with his Zionist Oligarchs

If Putin is so close to Zionists, then why does Russia block the Zionist regime-change in Syria? Why has Russia denied Israel and USA entreaties to allow them to bomb Iran?

Russia Warns U.S. and Israel That Iran Is Its 'Ally' and Was Right About Drone Shoot Down

!!

Paco , Oct 10 2020 14:03 utc | 94
Posted by: Circe | Oct 10 2020 13:52 utc | 92

Not as strange as a mythological demigoddess that turned sailors into swain and that now enjoys to plunge into the mud with her creatures. A bot, what an easy label, it has lost any meaning.

Paco , Oct 10 2020 14:12 utc | 95
special beings who was born with two extra eyes...in the back of my head.

Alaska yellow fin sole, not bad, from Bristol Bay, but the Melva -a tunafish species with more oil in its meat- I cooked for lunch, just caught, has a lot more fish oil with its rich contents of vitamin D, add sunny Mediterranean weather and that is my pill for today, trying to keep the bug at bay.

expat , Oct 10 2020 14:39 utc | 96
Circe, why don't you do what your namesake would have done and whip yourself up some meds to calm down? You're starting to lapse into excessive use of upper case, italics, exclamation points, bolding, profanity, and of course, insults.

This may help. It looks like the orange man is in fact going down, so you will soon have Joe and Kamal empowered to dismantle the evil Putin-Netanyahu-Trump axis, and put the US back on the path to truth and justice.

Circe , Oct 10 2020 14:41 utc | 97
@93 Jackrabbit

It's called... lip service.

@94,95 Fransisco

A bot by any other name will smell as fishy. 🤭
Just messing with you!

ptb , Oct 10 2020 14:44 utc | 98
The unilateral and illegal-under-JCPOA sanctions mean it's time for EU to either confront the extraterritorial US policy it has clearly rejected in principle, or (more likely) acknowlege that it remains in practice just a collection of 'client states'. A sad moment for me, but useful for clarity.
Paco , Oct 10 2020 14:48 utc | 99
Posted by: Circe | Oct 10 2020 14:41 utc | 97

Hard to understand but you guys are incapable of spelling the name of a once great US city, San Francisco. I heard it has changed a lot, got to see long time ago, before the digital craze.

juliania , Oct 10 2020 15:51 utc | 100
This is a brief but subtle post by b, with quiet but telling headline. Perhaps, just guessing, a new take on the post he was having difficulty with earlier? The question of the EU is an interesting one - not to be considered as virulent as the former Soviet Union, but somehow as tugged at by the components thereof...

Sanctions on Iran? We do know what Iran is capable of; surely we have not forgotten? Indeed, by pressing these sanctions at this late date, the Trump administration surely has not forgotten either the effect sanctions had on Russia. They were postive to that country's independent survival, though the immediate effect was demonstrably harsh. So now, sanctions on Iran? One doesn't have to be a world leader to suppose similar cause, similar effect.

Ah, Paco has a wonderful meal of a beneficial fish called the Melva! Bravo, Paco; all is not lost! But you have hooked the sea-serpent as well -- take care! That one - carefully remove the hook and set it free ;)

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[Oct 10, 2020] Neocons are addicted to regime change like narcoaddicts to heroin

Oct 10, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Originally from: Another Opinion Columnist Pushing War With Iran Who Doesn't Actually Exist - The American Conservative

Tradcon • a month ago

Not very surprising to be honest, some people simply cannot go without regime change to the point where they have to parade people about who weren't even born in Iran and who have little to no support in the country as "dissidents" to try to guilt people into supporting intervention. Of course with that comes slander against those who warn against that, which unfortunately means TAC.

dragnet20 Tradcon • a month ago

Exactly--these folks are addicted to regime change like heroin. Ignoring them is one thing Trump absolutely got right during his first term.

Clyde Schechter dragnet20 • a month ago

Trump ignored them??? Hardly. He hired John Bolton as his national security advisor, and Rudy Giuliani is his personal attorney. Both of those guys are heavily tied to this organization and advocate its line. And while he did stop short of actually invading Iran, he was on the brink of doing so recently, talked out of it only at the last minute. I'll give him credit for not going all the way with them, but he's given them far too wide a berth and much too much influence in his foreign policy if you ask me.

Blood Alcohol Clyde Schechter • a month ago

He did not go all the way with them because he was told by the military and others, who take their jobs and missions to server the American people seriously, that his attacks on Iran - invasion was not "the table" at all - would face a humiliating defeat at the same level of what happened to his efforts to extend the weapons sanctions at the UNSC. Pompeo was sent home with his tail between his legs.

dragnet20 Blood Alcohol • a month ago

The idea that Trump would have invaded if allowed doesn't pass the smell test. He spent much of the 2016 railing against regime change and foreign wars. His recent instincts on this topic have been largely correct.

Carpenter E Clyde Schechter • a month ago

Trump did not want more war, and wanted to end the existing wars, that much is clear. At the same time as he believes the Israeli line about Iran. But he did not want war with Iran - he knows they would mine the Strait of Hormuz shut, and the U.S. economy would go into a depression along with the world economy. No president would survive that.

But, he has had to appease top donor *Sheldon Adelson, in order to prevent a GOP revolt in the Congress. The threat was always that they'd join the Democrats in impeaching him, that Mike Pence would call for the same, and people would leave his cabinet. So he caved by sanctioning Iran and destroying the lives of millions of people. And he had to appease Israel by taking Syria's oil fields via the Marxist Kurd mercenaries, and let them burn the wheat fields. But he did not start a war, and did not want a war.

J Villain Tradcon • a month ago

"The list of MEK disinformation tactics"

Lets be honest here. It isn't MEK disinformation tactics it is the tactics
of the US wrapped up and packaged as MEK. Just as Falon Gong is backed
by the CIA. MEK is a bunch of backwards ass hats with terrorist
tendencies. They are not some national level intelligence agency. This
is most likely crud made up by the US intelligence agencies sold as MEK
and pushed on the American people to convince them that Iran will be
dropping nuclear weapons on their house any minute now if they can stop
eating babies long enough, so they need to push their government to go
to WAR!!!!! with Iran and kill some Muslims. The gullibility of the
American people is why there will never be a time when they are not at
war.

Blood Alcohol J Villain • a month ago

Throw in "Saudi" Arabia and Israel, and France (the home of their leader) then you've got all of them in the same room.

Carpenter E J Villain • a month ago

Possibly, but the MEK does have an online presence and such. But of course, it is all with Washington's money, and Washington's assistance.

For those who don't know: The MEK is a Marxist-Islamist group that initially supported the Revolution, but turned against Ayatollah Khomeini as they didn't get to share power. Because no one liked them. And Marxists were not allowed in revolutionary Iran - the MEK was chased out along with the Soviet-installed communist party in northern Iran.

The MEK have been killing Iranian police, bureaucrats and local administrators. This is their "revolution". They kill people mainly with bombs. The present Ayatollah's left arm is withered after one of their bomb attacks.

The MEK have been killing Iranian physics professors and technicians. They kill them with car bombs in traffic - a motorbike with two killers drive up to a car by a traffic stop and attach a bomb with magnets. Of course, you can wonder where they got the bombs, and money and transport. This is classic Mossad strategy. Likewise, dozens of technicians and professors in Iraq have been murdered. Israel hopes for a counter-reaction which the U.S. can exploit.

Rest assured, the political opposition in Iran hates the Marxist-Islamist MEK as much as the government does. Which Washington and Israel don't acknowledge.

The MEK was housed by Saddam Hussein in an old military base. They had to leave Iraq eventually after the overthrow of Hussein. The U.S. then shipped them to a brand new training base in Albania. Crazy as it might seem. Albania's government is of course as eager to be a paid Washington agent as the Kurds are.

Absurdly, this explicitly terrorist group has been taken off the terror list by Washington. While Iran is called "terrorist" for helping Hezbollah, who formed to fight back when Israel invaded Lebanon and massacred Shia villagers in the south with artillery, because they lived close to the Palestinian refugee camps. And then kept fighting when Israel occupied part of southern Lebanon, Shia land, as a "buffer zone" for many years.

Carpenter E Carpenter E • a month ago

The MEK killed thousands of people, including Americans. But the Lobby always gets what it wants.

The MEK was founded in 1965 by three Islamic leftists with the goal of toppling the U.S.-supported regime of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

In the 1970s it undertook a campaign of assassinating U.S. advisers and bombing U.S. corporations in Iran. It supported the 1979 Revolution in Iran, but in 1981 it turned its guns against the Tehran government and began a campaign of assassinations and terrorist operations that resulted in the death of thousands of Iranians, including the executions of its own supporters by government officials, soldiers, police officers, and ordinary people.

It then moved its headquarters to Iraq, made a pact with the regime of Saddam Hussein, which was fighting a ferocious war with Iran. The MEK spied on Iranian troops for Iraq, attacked Iran at the end of Iran-Iraq war with Hussein's support, and helped Hussein put down the uprisings by the Iraqi Kurds in the north and Shi'ites in the south after the Persian Gulf War of 1990-91.

The MEK is despised by the vast majority of Iranians for what they consider to be treason committed against their homeland.

disgustoo • a month ago

"As a matter of journalistic ethics any organization engaging in systematic dishonesty like this has provided a very good reason to blacklist them. ...This is not a matter of foreign policy differences: if you wish to see the U.S. pursue regime change in Iran, the MEK does not help make that case. Any publishers or think tanks who are aware of this dishonesty and still treat them like a legitimate opposition group should be considered part of a campaign not wholly different from the last time we were lied into a Mideast war."

If MEK does NOT help to make the case for regime change in Iran - & outside sponsored regime change is not ethical - then it would be unethical not to support them, in order to help prevent unethical regime change. Although that's probably not what horrible Hillary had in mind when, as Sec. of State in 2012, she de-listed them from the U.S. official list of terrorist organizations. But if anyone will lie "us" into a war with Iran, it will be AIPAC & innumerable other dishonest zionist organizations working on behalf of the Jewish terror state, & it's new Saudi terror state partner; both of whom look with favor on MEK as a bit partner in their joint effort to take out the government of Iran. MEK is pretty small potatoes compared to The Lobby, who are waging another campaign not wholly different from the last time they pushed us into a M.E. war to benefit lying israel.

Blood Alcohol Guest • a month ago

Why, do you "like" sock puppets"?!

Dodo • a month ago

Don't fall into this trap.

People tell you - You are a conservative, so do I. I support XYZ thus you should also support them.

Before the 2003 Iraqi War, Many then Bush administration officials and self-anointed "conservative opinion leaders" went on TV to lie to people to support their war. Today, we still suffer the consequence but they are preaching to us other wars.

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

Schopenhauer Dodo • a month ago • edited

In no way should the Bush administration's handling of the Iraq War be excused, nor should "conservative opinion leaders" be let off the hook, but the Congress was complicit, the Senate was complicit, the military was complicit, the intelligence community was complicit, and the majority of the electorate was complicit. Nobody cared whether the reason for the war was valid, people just wanted to vent their frustrations against terrorists on an unrelated Arab country that the US had already used as a whipping boy. What could happen?

Almost twenty years later and-- surprise! surprise!-- suddenly everyone recognizes the war for the folly it was. Some people, like Dreher, seem to have genuinely changed their stance based on what happened subsequently. But we'll all see what happens the next time the war mongers-- from both sides of the aisle and from all over the country-- start rattling their sabers.

IllinoisPatriot Schopenhauer • a month ago

Then there are the appeasers and anti-war peace-niks that would rather surrender than fight for liberty or that (if they are willing to fight) will on risk OTHER PEOPLE's (other American) lives, thus removing the need to ever put themselves at risk of learning what actually goes in in the countries they are so sympathetic to.

Charles IllinoisPatriot • a month ago • edited

"Then there are the appeasers and anti-war peace-niks that would rather surrender than fight for liberty"

Would you expound on that vis a vis current situations. Your sentence is straight out of the Vietnam era,

EliteCommInc. Charles • a month ago

The complete idiocy regarding Vietnam is the anti-war rhetoric surrounding. But has laid the framework for installing fear into anyone who doesn't tow the ridiculousness of what is argued by protesters -- which in every way has nearly every argument backwards.

Since the aggressors in Vietnam were the communists of four countries, it is very safe to say that those opposed to defending an independent S. Vietnam were in fact appeasing communist aggression and that is accurate.

The nation of Vietnam has rarely known peace and the lines during the conflict generally mark the region that separated the country's territorial history. The South Vietnamese sound reason to seek defend their territorial and political independence and we had sound reason to defend the same.

It was during that era that the liberal foundations showed their true colors. And if one doubt it --- just look at the anti-Vietnam advocates -- the managers of the Iraq and Afghanistan missteps and p[perhaps even worse their willingness to destroy the lives of anyone who challenged their rational based on the very case they made -- which was unsupportable.

There are some issues which simply are not really issues,

1. the lives of black people in the country and how they were/are socialized and the consequence

2.what the civil war was really about

3.Mexican invasion of US territory to retake territory they lost to band of squatters (lousy immigration enforcement) a war that is now taking place via our failure to enforce border protection.)

4.loss of the War of 1812
and

5. the colonial revolution and its justification

Blood Alcohol EliteCommInc. • a month ago • edited

"Since the aggressors in Vietnam were the communists of four countries, it is very safe to say that those opposed to defending an independent S. Vietnam were in fact appeasing communist aggression and that is accurate."
It's safe to say that BS like this is not hard to come by in the right wing nutjobs' circles. No Vietnamese had/has ever attempted to attack, invade, kill and spray Agent Orange anywhere in the US. So how come they became the aggressors?!
Viet Nam became truly independent AFTER expelling the American military.

Schopenhauer Blood Alcohol • a month ago

When it comes to discussing Vietnam with this guy-- it's Chinatown, there's nothing you can do.

Shiek Yerbooti Dodo • a month ago

If you're talking about Bush I think the quote is more like this:

"fool me once, shame on -- shame on you. Fool me -- you can't get fooled again."

Wallstreet Panic Dodo • a month ago

"There's an old saying in Tennessee -- I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee -- that says, fool me once, shame on -- shame on you. Fool me -- you can't get fooled again. You've got to understand the nature of the regime we're dealing with. This is a man who has delayed, denied, deceived the world." George W. Bush, September 17, 2002

chris chuba • a month ago

Bless you for writing this but you are spitting into the wind. There are too many people who want to believe this. The IRaq war analogy is apt. You have govt in exile types like MEK (remember Chalabi) who have a vested interest in lying to us. You have the hyper-pro Israel crowd and the newly accepted pro-Saudi crowd w/money to burn. I actually expect and don't begrudge foreigners for trying to get the U.S. into their fights. I resent the MSM that is simply in love with U.S. military conflicts who accuse people who oppose them of being anti-American, conspiracy theorists.

The most laughable example was CNN accepting the notion that Iran has a massive cyber presence in influencing our elections because our Intel Agencies told them so. Iran is detested by the U.S. public as we steal civilian cargo from them that would make the lives of people in other countries better. We sell the stolen goods for our benefit and call them terrorists for their trouble. To suggest that they have sway over us is laughable yet this passes for journalism.

Iran will be the next Iraq. If there is a God it will be the rock that breaks us. If not then a crime of shocking proportions.

Fletcher chris chuba • a month ago

I largely agree but I think there's room for optimism, the US military particular the army is largely a broken instrument, morale is not good except for the contractors, General maintenance is down in favor of expensive toys that largely do not work. For all of the bluster of this generation of sociopaths the military in general is a shadow of itself not to mention we live in times of a rising China and the reemergence Russia, neither of which would allow in on opposed attack on Iran.

Blood Alcohol Fletcher • a month ago

True, but the military has also been the biggest obstacle for tRump to make his Saudi/Israeli clients happy.

Fletcher Blood Alcohol • a month ago

How so? Our government seems to be providing the Saudi's with with as many bombs as they need, Air Force retirees to fly in the backseatair of Saudi planes, we have slowed down on the transfer of Thermo nuclear Technology as well as I assume the the delivery systems for them true but that was likely just a temporary Flash of Conscience it'll probably never happen again for that individual but if there something I'm missing please do tell.

Blood Alcohol Fletcher • a month ago • edited

Look at it this way. Either the Saudi/UAE themselves have to deal militarily with Iran, or the US. The US military-industrial complex is for selling weapons to these client states whole-heartedly for obvious reasons. The Saudi/UAE has always expected and often demanded the US is the one to "cut the snake's head" as "king" Abdullah of the "Saudi" Arabia demanded frequently. These states know very well neither the "version" of the weaponry they buy from the West is capable of performing in a real war with a powerful enemy like Iran, nor are their personnel capable of operating them effectively. So what they say to the US is, OK we'll buy your junk, but you need to do the job. In other words, they want to fight Iran to the last AMERICAN soldier. The Pentagon wants none of that. But happy to run the cash register. I hope I made my point clear.

Sorosh Nabi • a month ago

MEK have no support in Iran. If a MEK member would walk down the street there the people would tear them to shreds. When they started killing Iranians and cooperating with Saddam during the Iran-Iraq war they committed political suicide.

EliteCommInc. Sorosh Nabi • a month ago

You know, this really doesn't carry much weight. I am not going to dismiss the complaints of a group because the majority don't support them. That is not a case for regime change. I don't see a case for that as yet. But I don't buy this nonsense about Iran land of peace ----

They were instrumental in destabilizing any peace in Iraq and remain so. Their Islamic revolution has not passed and their ambitions are not as benign as as many including Iranians like to pretend.

Sorosh Nabi EliteCommInc. • a month ago

What does that have to do with anything that I said? If you want to come to power you need the support of the people MEK don't have that so they will never gain power. Also MEK are responsible for the revolution in the first place, they are the ones that carried out bombing and assassinations even of Americans in Iran. They are the ones that attacked the US embassy in Iran and held Americans hostage. There is a reason they were on the US terror list until 2012. As far as Iran being the land of peace not sure where you got that from, Iran has never claimed that and infact Iran will conduct foreign policy that benefits its goals, which is true of any nation. You should try to stay on topic when you reply to somebody though.

Blood Alcohol EliteCommInc. • a month ago • edited

Yes, as you know the Iranians attacked, invaded and looted Iraq's oil and cultural heritage. Had in not been for the US "rescue mission" Iranian would still be there. You must be tone deaf.

Feral Finster • a month ago

Same playbook as in the runup to the War on Iraq.

Gutbomb Feral Finster • a month ago

Mostly. They won't be bothering with the U.N. this time, though.

IllinoisPatriot Feral Finster • a month ago

... or Trump's run-up to the 2016 election.....

Thump the conspiracy theories and emphasize the hard-line approach with no idea or intent to actually go through with anything should he actually win. I see reference to Q-anon and I immediately think Trumpian conspieracy.

I'll pass.

john • a month ago

Conservatives are easy to target, they are prepared to believe all sorts of nonsense. Qanon aside they are prepared to believe that tax cuts pay for themselves and you can lose weight on a vinegar and ice cream diet.

CPT john • a month ago

As opposed to the people who believe that a man can become a "real woman" just by saying so, and nod approvingly when CNN shows the chyron "Mostly peaceful protests continue" over footage of burning buildings.

Fletcher john • a month ago

Really, that's pretty damn funny like you retards don't believe in a bunch of conspiracy nonsense and by the way don't put down Q is good fun to the geriatric Community on the other hand you clowns are playing footsie with actual Nazis in Ukraine while you accuse the right of being fascist that's beautiful congratulations it's going to be great in a couple years when this country has seceded from each other and all of you non-producers get to sort it out for yourselves, it's going to be magic.

hooly • a month ago

Fake dissident groups. Wow! Not even the Chinese are this duplicitous. And people whine and complain about Russian and Chinese 'infiltration' and 'meddling' ??

Iustitiae Semper Valet hooly • a month ago

Which fale dissident groups? I missed that. I am not being sarcastic. I see people who have been named as fake contributors all over the place. But I didn't see a reference to a fake dissident group.

IllinoisPatriot Iustitiae Semper Valet • a month ago

I'm still looking for the proof one way or the other of who the "good guys" are here.

Fake this, fake that I can get from Trump every time he opens his mouth about "fake news".

What I don't get from Trump (or from this article) is any references, documentation, or solid proof of any kind other than accusations and counter-accusations -- one side I'm supposed to believe because the author said so.

I'm not buying it without objective proof and trustworthy corroboration -- not just more sock-puppets.

PointyTailofSatan . • a month ago

I don't understand. The MEK hates the current Iranian government. Why the would the American Conservative be dissing them?

Blood Alcohol PointyTailofSatan . • a month ago • edited

They are being dissed by many smart conservatives and others, because they have become a tool of Saudi/Israel. They practically spearheaded killing Americans during the Shah, and now they are enjoying American political and financial support. In that vein the adage, my enemy's enemy is my friend, does not apply here. But if you are a money hungry Giuliani, Kennedy, Bolton or Howard Dean being a gang of killers, Saddam Husein mercenaries, and Saudi/Israeli agents don't matter.

Steve Blood Alcohol • a month ago

Bravo for this comment!! loved it!

Feral Finster PointyTailofSatan . • 19 days ago

Anyone remember Ahmad Chalabi's "Iraqi National Congress" or whatever it was called?

Same schtick, new players, same CIA..

Dyerville • a month ago

"We are especially on guard when it comes to unsolicited foreign policy commentary.""

So one would hope, but foreign meddling is rife. At least the Washington Examiner makes an effort, whereas the Washington Free Beacon functions almost openly as an Israeli organ inside the United States.

el disgustador • a month ago

Ehem...The Israelis have admitted they essentially founded, financed and thoroughly and continuously infiltrated the Palestinian revolutionary group, HAMAS to counter the PLO achieve the ongoing ethnic destruction of Palestinian land freedom and society...the MEK and their front group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran are comparable Israeli emanations whose ultimate goal is the land grab from the Nile to the Euphrates known as the Greater Israel project. This is Israeli history text book material, it is not conjecture...Read what former Israeli officials such as Brig. Gen. Yitzhak Segev, former Israeli military governor in Gaza in the early 1980s. had to say the New York Times in that he had helped finance the Palestinian Islamist movement as a "counterweight" to the secularists and leftists of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Fatah party, led by Yasser Arafat (who himself referred to Hamas as "a creature of Israel.") "The Israeli government gave me a budget," the retired brigadier
general confessed, "and the military government gives to the mosques." Moreover, "Hamas, to my great regret, is Israel's creation," said Avner Cohen, a former Israeli religious affairs official who worked in Gaza for more than two decades to the Wall Street Journal in 2009. Deliberately planned, as far back as the mid-1980s, according to Cohen in an official report to his superiors playing the divide-and-rule in the Occupied Territories, by backing Palestinian Islamists against Palestinian secularists, HAMAS was built up to become an "existential threat" fake tool of nuclear mighty Israel. In his report Cohen wrote, "I suggest focusing our efforts on finding ways to break up this monster before this reality jumps in our face," he wrote. That was the point exactly, poor victimized Israel "endowed with the right to defend itself". With Palestine now Kushnerized into oblivion, Iran is next ...Go figure...

Go figure...

chris • a month ago

propaganda is unending when isn'treal wants more war isn't it?

Billo • a month ago

Let the Israel Jews fight and die in their own war. Iran is not our enemy, Israel is.

Ram2017 Billo • a month ago

Who is funding the MEK ?

ddearborn • a month ago • edited

Hmmm
Means, motive, opportunity and who benefits spells out in no uncertain terms that the entire create a justification and then go to war with Iran originates in Israel and is being sold by the Zionists and Israel's literal army of jewish/Zionist/pro-Israel agents masquerading as "lobbyists", "activists", "think tanks" "academics", the Media, Hollywood, Congress, most of the White House Staff, etc., etc., here in the US. In other words, by an Israeli controlled army in America made up of traitors, liars and criminals.... A group who collectively ALWAYS put Israel Uber Alles.

[Sep 29, 2020] Trump Confirms U.S. is Israel's "Protector", by Philip Giraldi

Not that foreign policy is high priority for most of the USA electorate, but still it looks like some potential Trump voters do not approve this message.
That's why many of them probably will not vote for Trump in 2020, or will not vote at all because there is no difference in this area between Trump and Biden: you can call the same Zionist cutlet with two different names. but it is still the same cutlet.
People voted in Trump to be a protector of workers and lower middle class against financial oligarchy. Instead, they got "Ziotrump", a marionette of Israel lobby who is first and foremost the protector of Israel, MIC and the billionaire class.
The question is: Is Zionism an official ideology of the USA ruling elite? Zionism as any far right nationalism has it pluses and minuses, but why this important decision is not discussed?
Notable quotes:
"... I like being energy independent, don't you? I'm sure that most of you noticed when you go to fill up your tank in your car, oftentimes it's below two dollars. You say how the hell did this happen? While I'm president, America will remain the number one producer of oil and natural gas in the world. We will remain energy independent. It should be for many many years to come. The fact is, we don't have to be in the Middle East, other than we want to protect Israel. We've been very good to Israel. Other than that, we don't have to be in the Middle East." ..."
"... 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 ..."
Sep 29, 2020 | www.unz.com

For many years the security framework in the Middle East has been described as a bilateral arrangement whereby Washington gained access to sufficient Saudi Arabian oil to keep the energy market stable while the United States provided an armed physical presence through its bases in the region and its ability to project power if anyone should seek to threaten the Saudi Kingdom. The agreement was reportedly worked out in a February 1945 meeting between President Franklin D. Roosevelt and King Abdul Aziz ibn Saud, just as World War 2 was drawing to a close. That role as protector of Saudi Arabia and guarantor of stable energy markets in the region later served as part of the justification for the U.S. ouster of the Iraqi Army from Kuwait in 1991.

After 9/11, the rationale became somewhat less focused. The United States invaded Afghanistan, did not capture or kill Osama bin Laden due to its own incompetence, and, rather than setting up a puppet regime and leaving, settled down to a nineteen-years long and still running counter-insurgency plus training mission. Fake intelligence produced by the neocons in the White House and Defense Department subsequently implicated Iraq in 9/11 and led to the political and military disaster known as the Iraq War.

During the 75 years since the end of the Second World War the Middle East has experienced dramatic change, to include the withdrawal of the imperial European powers from the region and the creation of the State of Israel. And the growth and diversification of energy resources mean that it is no longer as necessary to secure the petroleum that moves in tankers through the Persian Gulf. Lest there be any confusion over why the United States continues to be involved in Syria, Iraq, the Emirates and Saudi Arabia, President Donald Trump remarkably provided some clarity relating to the issue when on September 8 th he declared that the U.S. isn't any longer in the Middle East to secure oil supplies, but rather because we "want to protect Israel."

The comment was made by Trump during a rally in Winston-Salem, N.C . as part of a boast about his having reduced energy costs for consumers. He said " I like being energy independent, don't you? I'm sure that most of you noticed when you go to fill up your tank in your car, oftentimes it's below two dollars. You say how the hell did this happen? While I'm president, America will remain the number one producer of oil and natural gas in the world. We will remain energy independent. It should be for many many years to come. The fact is, we don't have to be in the Middle East, other than we want to protect Israel. We've been very good to Israel. Other than that, we don't have to be in the Middle East."

The reality is, of course, that U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East has been all about Israel for a very long time, at least since the presidency of Bill Clinton, who has been sometimes dubbed the first Jewish president for his deference to Israeli interests. The Iraq War is a prime example of how neoconservatives and Israel Firsters inside the United States government conspired to go to war to protect the Jewish State. In key positions at the Pentagon were Zionists Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith. Feith's Office of Special Plans developed the "alternative intelligence" linking Saddam Hussein to al-Qaeda and also to a mythical nuclear program that was used to justify war. Feith was so close to Israel that he partnered in a law firm that had an office in Jerusalem. The fake intelligence was then stove-piped to the White House by fellow neocon "Scooter" Libby who worked in the office of Vice President Dick Cheney.

After the fact, former Secretary of State Colin Powell also had something to say about the origins of the war, commenting that the United States had gone into Iraq because Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld bought into the neoconservative case made for doing so by "the JINSA crowd," by which he meant the Israel Lobby organization the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs.

And if any more confirmation about the origins of the Iraq War were needed, one might turn to Philip Zelikow, who was involved in the planning process while working on the staff of Condoleezza Rice. He said "The unstated threat. And here I criticize the [Bush] administration a little, because the argument that they make over and over again is that this is about a threat to the United States. And then everybody says: 'Show me an imminent threat from Iraq to America. Show me, why would Iraq attack America or use nuclear weapons against us?' So I'll tell you what I think the real threat is, and actually has been since 1990. It's the threat against Israel. And this is the threat that dare not speak its name, because the Europeans don't care deeply about that threat, I will tell you frankly. And the American government doesn't want to lean too hard on it rhetorically, because it's not a popular sell."

So here is the point that resonates: even in 2002-3, when the Israel Lobby was not as powerful as it is now, the fact that the U.S. was going to war on a lie and was actually acting on behalf of the Jewish State was never presented in any way to the public, even though America's children would be dying in the conflict and American taxpayers would be footing the bill. The media, if it knew about the false intelligence, was reliably pro-Israel and helped enable the deception.

And that same deception continued to this day until Trump spilled the beans earlier this month. And now, with the special security arrangement that the U.S. has entered into with Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, the ability to exit from a troublesome region that does not actually threaten American interests has become very limited. As guarantor of the agreement, Washington now has an obligation to intervene on the behalf of the parties involved. Think about that, a no-win arrangement that will almost certainly lead to war with Iran, possibly to include countries like Russia and China that will be selling it military equipment contrary to U.S. "sanctions."

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] .

geokat62 , says: September 29, 2020 at 4:10 am GMT

Trump Confirms U.S. Is Israel's "Protector"

Protector? Is that a fancy word for "Bitch"?

JWalters , says: September 29, 2020 at 4:28 am GMT

Excellent synopsis of the situation. And if we look into the founding of Israel, we find it was founded by war profiteers. This would explain why peace has been so "elusive". It has been relentlessly dodged. "War Profiteers and the Roots of the 'War on Terror'"
https://warprofiteerstory.blogspot.com/p/war-profiteers-and-roots-of-war-on.html

JWalters , says: September 29, 2020 at 4:32 am GMT
@geokat62

It means Netanyahu is the de facto president of the US.

Derer , says: September 29, 2020 at 5:13 am GMT

Trump Confirms U.S. Is Israel's "Protector"

This declaration is against the will of the American people. Hawkish policies of this nature, that endanger the American lives should be confirmed by a referendum of the people. Of course that would be logical step in a democracy but USA is not a democracy but a diktat of backroom unellected ruling clique.

sethster , says: September 29, 2020 at 6:07 am GMT

990. Jews are the scapegoats for all the deficiencies of low-IQ whites just as whites are the scapegoats for all the deficiencies of low-IQ non-whites. Let me explain how that works.

Why do we observe Jews at the forefront of many cutting-edge industries? (for example the media/arts and financial industries are indeed rife with them). The low-IQ answer is, of course, a simplistic conspiracy theory: Jews form an evil cabal that created all these industries from scratch to "destroy culture" (or at least what low-IQ people think is culture, i.e. some previous, obsolete state of culture, i.e. older, lower culture, i.e. non-culture). And, to be sure, there is a lot of decadence in these industries. But, in an advanced civilization, there is a lot of decadence everywhere anyway! It's an essential prerequisite even! So it makes perfect sense that the most capable people in such a civilization will also be the most decadent! The stereotype of the degenerate cocaine-sniffing whoremonging or homosexual Hollywood or Wall Street operative belongs here. Well, buddy, if YOU were subjected to the stresses and temptations of the Hollywood or Wall Street lifestyles, maybe you'd be a "degenerate" too! But you lack the IQ for that, so of course you'll reduce the whole enterprise to a simplistic resentful fairy tale that seems laughable even to children: a bunch of old bearded Jews gathered round a large table planning the destruction of civilization! Well I say enough with this childish nonsense! The Jews are simply some of the smartest and most industrious people around, ergo it makes sense that they'll be encountered at or near all the peaks of the dominant culture, being overrepresented everywhere in it, including therefore in its failings and excesses! This is what it means to be the best! It doesn't mean that you are faultless little angels who can do no wrong, you brainless corn-fed nitwits! There's a moving passage somewhere in Nietzsche where he relates that Europe owes the Jews for the highest sage (Spinoza), and the highest saint (Jesus), and he'd never even heard of Freud or Einstein! In view of all the immeasurable gifts the Jewish spirit has lavished on humanity, anti-semitism in the coming world order will be a capital offense, if I have anything to say on the matter. The slightest word against the Jews, and you're a marked man: I would have not only you, but your entire extended family wiped out, just to be sure. You think you know what the Devil is, but he's just the lackey taking my orders. Entire cities razed to the ground (including the entire Middle East), simply because one person there said something bad about "the Jews", that's how I would have the future! Enough with this stupid meme! To hell with all of you brainless subhumans! You've wasted enough of our nervous energy on this stupid shit! And the same goes to low-IQ non-whites who blame all their troubles on whites! And it's all true: Jews and whites upped the stakes for everybody by bringing into the world a whole torrent of new possibilities which your IQ is too low to handle! So whatcha gonna do about it? Are you all bark, or are you prepared to bite? Come on, let's see what you can do! Any of you fucking pricks bark, and we'll execute every motherfucking last one of you!

From http://orgyofthewill.net

Talha , says: September 29, 2020 at 6:46 am GMT

Honestly, I like way better out in the open like this. Now there is no reason to worry about all the other BS excuses, it's all on the table.

So now, as a public, we have been informed; so what are we going to do about it? Or are they so confident about their position that they know they can announce it to he world openly and be sure that there will be zero consequences?

GMC , says: September 29, 2020 at 9:59 am GMT

Protector, personal armies, saboteurs, financiers, assassin's, propagandists, liars, thieves, rapists, slavers, and that is just for starters – which includes inside and outside of the former country called the USA.

Oracle , says: September 29, 2020 at 10:22 am GMT
@sethster

No, you are wrong. The problem with the 'industriousness' is that it is characterized by the principle of profit before all, no matter how immoral the activity. People who do that don't care about a civilized society and should not be able to reap the benefits of one.

Also high IQ isn't exemplified by trickery, lying, subverting and eroding the morals of the host society.

Talha , says: September 29, 2020 at 10:58 am GMT
@Hess of Germans, what are those homeboys up to lately ?
Ugetit , says: September 29, 2020 at 10:59 am GMT

The US is not only the protector, but has been the enabler of the mafia from the start.

Chaim.Weizman and Nathan Sokolow approach the British with a dirty deal. The Zionists offer to use their international influence to bring the US into the war on Britain's side, while undermining Germany from within. The price that Britain must pay for U.S. entry is to steal Palestine from Ottoman Turkey (Germany's ally) and allow the Jews to settle there. Zionist agitated anti-German propaganda was unleashed in the US while the Zionists and Marxists of Germany begin to undermine Germany's war effort from within. Wilson establishes the Committee on Public Information (CPI) for the purpose of manipulating public opinion in support of the war.

-M.S. King, The Bad War, p 50.

Similar scenario for "WW2" which was little more than a continuation of the previous biggie. They really ought to be known as the One World Wars since they were obviously part of the plan for the world to be dominated by the International mafia through such creations as the League of Subjects and the United Slave Nations with the capitol at Tel Aviv.

Tommy Thompson , says: September 29, 2020 at 11:23 am GMT

Yes, Dr. Giraldi, you hit the nail on the head again.

However, the problem is that most White Middle Class Americans, are satisfied and fully compliant with this situation where the USA is a Megalethon Vassal and Servile State for the poor little Israeli state .

Also, let us be honest with ourselves, Blacks and other minorities on more occasions do dare to speak out on this issue, only to get trounced upon by the MSM and silence and snickers by the stay safe White American Middle Class. Do you ever find a Main Line White Politician speaking up for America's interests and placing them first vis a vis our best little ally ??? Only when it comes to Afro or the Hispanic – Americans sticking their heads up a little does Middle White Americana get all worked up and emotionally charged.

The White Middle Class and most certainly the well moneyed Corporate Class of America, does not mind giving away huge transfers of their tax dollars, national debt, high technologies, military hardware, and even their uniformed sons and daughter, upon command from the likes of Trump and their political opportunists managing the country (Rep and Dem alike). Serving and making America serve the Greater Zio Agenda for their ME and Global domination has become the norm and unquestionable. Try raising this issue at a dinner party and see how many people role their eyes and turn their heads away.

I doubt that the RU followers here, who seem more bent on street brawling with the false bogeymen like BLM and ANTIFA, are the ones that will stand up to the in your face take over of WDC by AIPAC and the Israel First Crowd, including front man Trump for the Kushner-Bibi WH.

Let us not forget the thieving and scamming Sunday preachers who tell them it is great to be in full service of the Zio (Jewish Talmudic based) domination agenda– as it has become a direct ticket to a Raptured Heaven . Jesus for them was been thrown under the bus long ago or strangely converted into a gun machine toting Israeli nut case extremist settler, clearing the land and villages of the indignies children and all.

Let us be frank, some elements of the America First Jewish intelligentsia are more likely to call out and the whorishness ( extremes only) of the Washington's ZOG policies than Middle Americana, who dare not risk their creature comforts, Game Time or corporate positions.

As the old adage goes, you get the Government That You Deserve .

lavoisier , says: Website September 29, 2020 at 11:29 am GMT
@sethster

Are you all bark, or are you prepared to bite? Come on, let's see what you can do! Any of you fucking pricks bark, and we'll execute every motherfucking last one of you!

Well your tribe has been incredibly effective at genocide and mass murder on an unprecedented scale of barbarism in the past, and I have no doubt you remain just as capable of such barbarity and cruelty today. Your rant makes that very clear.

Too bad the high IQ does not seem to correlate in a positive way with morality.

But thanks for the warning! Trust me, many of us are quite aware of your capabilities.

lavoisier , says: Website September 29, 2020 at 11:36 am GMT
@Talha

Germans are a totally deracinated and brainwashed people.

Germany sold Israel submarines capable of launching nuclear missiles!

A more cucked-up people are impossible to find!

It should be no mystery how Jews have gained such control over the Gentile.

It was granted to them, willingly.

lavoisier , says: Website September 29, 2020 at 11:43 am GMT
@Talha

Most Americans do not care that their country serves the unethical territorial ambitions of the Jews.

Most Americans believe Israel is a noble country filled with noble people that would never do anything unjust or immoral.

Most Americans believe Israel is our greatest ally.

This is sad, but it is true.

Hence the predicament and the peril of our fealty to Israel.

And the predicament and peril of all those who come into conflict with this rogue nation and people.

God's Fool , says: September 29, 2020 at 12:11 pm GMT

The only reason Trump "spilled the beans" about how we are in the Middle East to protect Israel and not to keep oil flowing is to get himself reelected and nothing else. As to war with China, Zuckerberg alone would be able to bribe the administration in particular, and both the parties in general, with his extra billions to keep them out of the war being that he has married a chink, er, Chan. All will be back to business as usual after the election at least, for four more years.

HallParvey , says: September 29, 2020 at 12:30 pm GMT
@JWalters

It means Netanyahu is the de facto president of the US.

Not quite. He is much more powerful than that. The entire Congress of the United States stands and applauds when he arrives to speak. They would never do that for Trump, or any president. The fear of being unpersoned keeps them in line.

Malla , says: September 29, 2020 at 12:32 pm GMT
@Ugetit endence and freedom but things actually became more messy. Also the "hated" Russian Romanovs were got rid off, Russia pushed under Communist Jewish dictatorship. Also the destruction of the Caliph, imagine a united Turko-Arab Empire, no way Israel would have survived that. Even T.E. Lawrence who helped the Arabs fight the Turks was totally disappointed with the behaviour of his own Zionist controlled government. He was going to speak to the British people about the great betrayal to the Arabs and being a war hero they would have listened to him. But before he could do so he met with an "accident" while riding his motorcycle. Yeah, very convenient.
Miville , says: September 29, 2020 at 12:35 pm GMT
@sethster re good at gathering Nobel Prizes, which is best arranged by jury-rigging and string-pulling thanks to their talent for networking, but no so good as making real inventions. In Israel proper the mean Jewish IQ, 94, is not only disappointing but a few points below even the Palestinian one. Spiritually the Jews have no longer been a chosen people for ages and most of the intellectual development they knew from about 1850 onwards was due to their being emancipated en masse from rabbinical authority, not by conforming to it : now that are falling back under an even worse collective authority with Zionism they are reversing the intellectual gains they once made.
Z-man , says: September 29, 2020 at 12:55 pm GMT

A bit off topic but RIP Steven F. Cohen.

anon [461] Disclaimer , says: September 29, 2020 at 1:14 pm GMT

Back in the second half of the 80s the big war games were all IRAQ IRAQ IRAQ!!1! There was a strong push from all the interagency pukes with their dotted-lines reports to Langley – to aim at Iraq, and to suppress any practical considerations that might interfere with this very lucrative debacle. We watched these moles countering evidence and analysis with declamatory bullshit they made up. Way back then CIA had decided. April Glaspie's headfake sprung a trap set in Kuwait by the NOCs infesting Bechtel. That horizontal-drilling rhubarb was years in preparation.

Iraq was one big war with three phases: beating up on the Iraqi armed forces; ten years of blowing shit up; the occupation.

It turned out great. CIA got money-laundering nirvana, a chaotic zone where they could ship pallets of money around. They got an arms entrepot that lasted 20 years.They got a great network of sites for the torture gulag, with secure impunity – when Iraq tried to accede to the Rome Statute in 05, the CIA torturers were on the spot to nip it in the bud. The tame jihadi boogeymen the torture camps produced were invaluable in creating Rumsfeld's "terrorist corridor" in the Sahel and justifying the P2OG and the Pan-Sahel Initiative. That put AFRICOM garrisons, US-trained warlords, and CIA torture sites in one of the most diplomatically recalcitrant regions of the world:

So turn that frown upside down! Your old bosses got a lot out of that charlie foxtrot.

Realist , says: September 29, 2020 at 1:19 pm GMT
@sethster re all conceived and started by Gentiles Henry Ford is a great example and he knew Jews quite well. The only industries , as you call them, that Jews are involved in are leech enterprises financial corporations are excellent examples of leech enterprises. The financial products they contrive are methods to extract value from productive industries.
A large percent of Jews are devoted obsessed with gaining wealth and power from the efforts of others which is the reason for their inordinate involvement in the Deep State and also for the abject loathing by many Gentiles throughout the ages.
Moi , says: September 29, 2020 at 1:29 pm GMT
@geokat62

Fact is you can fool all Americans all the time. We are a nation of ignorant people.

Moi , says: September 29, 2020 at 1:39 pm GMT
@Talha

Whether the truth is hidden or now out in the open doesn't matter to a people so stupid as to believe the Creator's offspring walked, eat and crapped on this little planet 2k years ago.

Exhibit B of their stupidity: Electing Trump (and more than a few of his predecessors).

Anonymous [311] Disclaimer , says: September 29, 2020 at 1:45 pm GMT

The NWO won't come to America as Greta Thunberg marching ahead of the Democrats in Mao suits under LGBTQ and GND banners and tumbrels of Christians headed for the guillotine, but as one transnational compliance regime after the other enacted by treaty, such as mandatory bi-annual vaccinations with largely inefficacious vaccines carrying not just behavior modifying chemicals and sterilants as adjuvants, but DNA-altering horrors. Anyone want to argue the threats posed by these DNA- or mRNA-modifying vaccines made from, among other things, insect DNA?

Some think it's over the top to talk about the NWO that's on the horizon as a Sino-Judaic, world-hegemonic NWO, but the United States government is itself already little more than a collection of compliance regimes in service to International Jewry. The 29 standing ovations from a Congress afraid to be the first to stop clapping for a kitchen cabinet salesman-turned-Caesar made that clear enough. The rest of the story, like the nonsense that Congress and DJT are voluntarily protecting Israel, is eyewash for fools when International Jewry owns them all like the trained seals who perform in the Central Park Zoo.

Old and Grumpy , says: September 29, 2020 at 2:01 pm GMT
@God's Fool

The Holy Rollers were never going to bail from Trump after the embassy move to Jerusalem. Jews on the other hand are likely not amused about such a revelation. So his words were unlikely about the election.

Old and Grumpy , says: September 29, 2020 at 2:04 pm GMT

How is this foreign policy now not a violation of the church-state separation? Especially since Israel describes itself as a Jewish state.

The Spirit of Enoch Powell , says: September 29, 2020 at 2:17 pm GMT
@lavoisier nd stern conversation, "For me, the new Germany exists only in order to ensure the existence of the State of Israel and the Jewish people." He's a brilliant intellectual and a thoughtful politician, and we don't need to worry – he won't give up his existential friendship so easily. And certainly not because of Bennett or his colleague Orit Strock, the party whip.

A very symbolic photo posted by the Israel Defence Forces' Twitter account, in the tweet linked to by user Talha

Heil Judea!

Realist

Realist , says: September 29, 2020 at 2:19 pm GMT

@lavoisier

Too bad the high IQ does not seem to correlate in a positive way with morality.

Exactly.

Gidoutahere , says: September 29, 2020 at 2:49 pm GMT
@sethster

Weinstein, Epstein, Maxwell, Maddof, –cking geniuses. I thought your principal asset was "God's chosen people". Now I see it's your penetrating mind.

anon [143] Disclaimer , says: September 29, 2020 at 2:56 pm GMT

It is time to be more honest. A foreign war that the US loses may be the only way out of the political, moral and social impasse that currently afflicts the US. The forces that control the US government need to be removed and that seems increasingly unlikely to arise from simply domestic opposition.

It took World War II to remove Adolf Hitler from power in Germany. Why should anyone expect anything less to change the government of the United States? The US wants a war with Russia and China. Perhaps it is best that it be granted one? Let's see some articles on this proposition.

The Spirit of Enoch Powell , says: September 29, 2020 at 3:24 pm GMT
@Talha

The odd thing is how so many Jews still support immigration despite the fact that a lot of the immigrants are (from the Jewish/Zionist perspective) at best indifferent to Israel and at worse outright hostile and want it gone.

Or perhaps they realise democracy is a sham and the Jewish elite have got their backs? Hence their plans to mongrelise Europeans nations don't really conflict with their Zionist ambitions.

One thing is for sure, when things start to get hairy in the West, all Jews will have a nice First World ethnocracy to move to.

anon [108] Disclaimer , says: September 29, 2020 at 3:24 pm GMT

Trump's greatest contribution to the US/World might be exposing the naked ambition and evilness of the Ziocons. Before Trump, Ziocons lurked in the background as puppet masters, with their many plans obscured behind "diplomacy" and propaganda like "freedom" and "human rights", now thanks to Trump they are showing their true colors. Trump has managed to expose to the whole world including all our allies who is really running America and the extent they will go to destroy their perceived "enemies" to achieve world domination -- the end justifies the means. It is making our allies esp. Europe think twice about their alliance with JU.S.A.

anon [108] Disclaimer , says: September 29, 2020 at 3:24 pm GMT

Trump's greatest contribution to the US/World might be exposing the naked ambition and evilness of the Ziocons. Before Trump, Ziocons lurked in the background as puppet masters, with their many plans obscured behind "diplomacy" and propaganda like "freedom" and "human rights", now thanks to Trump they are showing their true colors. Trump has managed to expose to the whole world including all our allies who is really running America and the extent they will go to destroy their perceived "enemies" to achieve world domination -- the end justifies the means. It is making our allies esp. Europe think twice about their alliance with JU.S.A.

karel , says: September 29, 2020 at 4:25 pm GMT
@lavoisier

You must have been misinformed if you think that "Germany sold Israel submarines". Not really as you can find out from the link bellow. The first two submarines were donated and the third was "hawkered" for about half the production cost.

https://rotefahne.eu/2011/01/brd-1108-mio-steuergelder-fuer-israelische-u-boote/

Harold Smith , says: September 29, 2020 at 4:26 pm GMT
@anon the empire starts WW3, e.g. the "big one" at Yellowstone, which will do so much damage as to make it impossible for the evil empire to continue it's pursuit of world domination and control.

BTW on a positive note, it looks like there is now some resistance from the private sector against the evil orange clown's self-destructive economic war against China:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-china-tariffs/some-3500-u-s-companies-sue-over-trump-imposed-chinese-tariffs-idUSKCN26G31G

Talha , says: September 29, 2020 at 4:37 pm GMT
@The Spirit of Enoch Powell a massive forward operating base for the West declined any normalization.

I do think it is game over for quite a while in the West regarding opposition to Israel. Israel may collapse or have to come to the table or something due to some game changer in the Middle East, but I don't see it happening due to lack of support from the West anytime soon.

Peace.

Note: This is a good analysis of various views:
https://news.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/265898/american-jews-politics-israel.aspx

[Sep 28, 2020] Ziocon Trump is a master of deception: has not delivered on any of his promises, hired neocons, assholes, and morons

Highly recommended!
Sep 28, 2020 | www.unz.com

Robert Dolan , says: September 26, 2020 at 7:06 pm GMT

@Realist d on him and tried to remove him from office. This is actually the greatest political scandal in American history, yet nothing will be done about it. The magic negro will never face any consequences and he and his ugly wife will remain free to race bait for another 30 years unimpeded.

Trump and the GOP allowed the covid hoax to wreck the economy and allowed massive riots to go on for many months. They allow the left to run wild while whites live under anarcho-tyranny.

If Trump wins, which is likely, he will just go right back to blabbing about how much he loves blacks and mexicans and gays and you will never hear another word about white people.

Robert Dolan , says: September 26, 2020 at 9:23 pm GMT
@restless94110 p> Obama fired many upper level military and replaced them with leftist cucks.

Besides Trump not getting rid of people he should have gotten rid of, he hired a shitload of scum, neocons, Goldman alums, etc., people who were obviously not going to promote his America First agenda.

From the looks of it he never intended to make good on any of his promises.

And as Ann Coulter says, immigration is really the only thing that matters. Trump didn't deport the 30 million illegals that don't belong here. He didn't do anything about birthright citizenship, E-verify, etc.

We still face the very same demographic disaster as before.

Realist , says: September 26, 2020 at 10:17 pm GMT
@Robert Dolan

Trump doesn't even have the balls to go after the people who spied on him and tried to remove him from office.

I agree on your points

Here is a video of Tom Fitton explaining the situation to Lou Dobbs.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/A5thJyj5I7I?feature=oembed

Realist , says: September 26, 2020 at 10:21 pm GMT
@Harold Smith

I don't think anyone was actually trying to remove him from office (they could've added his war crimes and violations of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations to the impeachment charges if they were serious about removing him). Most likely it's all political theater to fool the people who need and/or want to be fooled.

This is a charade designed by the Deep State to distract any thought that both parties are just two sides to the Deep State coin.

restless94110 , says: September 26, 2020 at 10:57 pm GMT
@Robert Dolan did get rid of some military, he clearly didn't get rid of the right people.

You seem to think it's easy. It's not obviously.

I like Ann, but she is hysterical. Yet that is ok in a journalist/editorialist. Her function is to keep pushing. And she is doing that.

But Trump is moving at his own speed based on his own instincts. Meaning it might be faster for some, slower for others. Coulter is not able to understand that. But she does not have to. I still read her. And then I analyze her as a person in fear that the wall won't be built.

Looks to me like Ann is wrong. It's just not happening quickly enough for her.

[Sep 28, 2020] Trump is a lion when it comes to defending Israel and all things Zionist. He is a mouse and totally ineffectual when it comes to defending the interests of the American people who voted for him

Sep 28, 2020 | www.unz.com

lavoisier , says: Website September 27, 2020 at 12:27 am GMT

@Harold Smith s and neocons to key positions in his government; and he is totally ineffectual in defending free speech and the rights of the historic American nation to defend itself against racist blacks and a Jewish dominated injustice system.

It is really sad that there are so many individuals who still believe Trump is on our side when he has failed so miserably to keep the promises he was elected upon.

Of course Biden is a demented corruptocrat and the Democrats are pure evil, but Trump is an unprincipled moron incapable of keeping his promises.

Sad. Very sad that our nation has deteriorated to such an extent that so many people cling to a deluded belief that Trump is somehow a great leader serving the American nation.

[Sep 21, 2020] Pompous Pompeo continues his antics: Pompeo mocked for saying 'no other state' can block MULTILATERAL sanctions US wants to impose on Iran despite UNSC pushback

Sanctions will cost money not only to Iran, but to the USA too.
Sep 21, 2020 | www.rt.com

"If at any time the United States believes Iran has failed to meet its commitments, no other state can block our ability to snap back those multilateral sanctions," Pompeo declared in a statement posted on his official Twitter account on Sunday evening.

The top US diplomat was referring to the avalanche of sanctions Washington has been hellbent on slapping on Tehran after the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) overwhelmingly rejected the US resolution to extend a 13-year arms embargo against the Islamic Republic past October earlier this week.

The humiliating defeat , which saw only one member of the 15-nation body (the Dominican Republic) siding with the US, while China and Russia opposed the resolution, and all other nations, including France and the UK, abstained, did not discourage Washington, which doubled down on its threat to hit Iran with biting sanctions.

... ... ...

"Of course other states can block America's ability to impose multilateral sanctions. The US can impose sanctions by itself, but can't force others to do it," Nicholas Grossman, teaching assistant professor at the Department of Political Science, University of Illinois, tweeted.

"That's what 'multilateral' means. Is our SecState really this dumb?" Grossman asked.

Daniel Larison, senior editor at the American Conservative, suggested that Pompeo might be having a hard time grasping the meaning of the word 'multilateral'.

Some argued that Pompeo could not be unaware of the contradictory nature of his statement. Dan Murphy, former Middle East and South Asia correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor, called it "one of the most diplomatically illiterate sentences of all time."

"I guess the end game here is [to] alienate the rest of the world even further to feed his persecution complex?" Murphy wrote.

John Twomey, 16 August, 2020

Explanation. What Pompeo understands and what many others can't grasp is that the US decides if their sanctions are "multilateral" because the USA speaks for all other countries whether they like it or not.

My Opinion, 17 August, 2020

Reminiscing of his shady past as a new CIA recruit he said. "We lied, we cheated and we stole". Apparently, Mikey didn't do all too well in his literature classes, either and that's why the most suitable candidate from zionists perspective.

[Sep 18, 2020] Middle East Peace and Trump's New Art of the Deal by Larry Johnson - Sic Semper Tyrannis

Notable quotes:
"... He thinks the Palestinians will accept permanent helot status? Maybe so... But is that something we should relish? ..."
"... And what of Syria? What of Syria? Evidently Trump considered murdering President Assad two years ago. Is he going to abandon regime change now? is he going to abandon the policy of Pompeo and Jeffries? ..."
"... My guess is that the acceptability for Helot status of Palestinians will depend on how much worse it is compared to the status of Palestinian equivalents elsewhere. Syria and Lebanon certainly look far less attractive. ..."
"... Also, from my admittedly limited experience, Palestinians aren't exactly homogenous, Gaza =! West Bank. ..."
"... If the Israelis are smart (and I think they are), they will continue to exploit Palestinian disunity by not having one helot status but several, with privileges to repress and boss around the lesser helots (perhaps even some less desirable Israelis) awarded to the higher helots. ..."
"... The neocons have been firmly ensconced in ME policy since Reagan. At least Trump made a little bit of lemonade. Nothing earth shattering IMO but moved the ball forward 10 yds and away from own goals under the so-called experts & strategists of the past decades. ..."
"... Support for Israel and its maximalist dreams has always been bipartisan. ..."
"... The colonel has a much more realistic take on this: the intention is to co-opt the Arab states into forcing the Palestinians to accept permanent helot status. Not quite slaves but closes to it. ..."
"... There would be many ways to describe that, but I suspect "peace plan" would rank amongst the less accurate ones. ..."
"... I also remember when the Trump admin killed the Gen. Suleimani late last year the same people also touted it a national security success. This is shameful pattern. ..."
"... Just because Jared Kushner, Berkowitz (Kushner's mini-me), David Friedman and the Zionist anti-American paid shills of Christians United For Israel et.al put Israel's interest first does not make it a success for American interests abroad. Trump does not know two things about the ME. He just obeys orders from this outside 'advisors' when it comes to ME policy. ..."
"... When I read that " If you look at relatively successful integration/assimilations in history, jointly overcoming something that was threatening to both typically ranked pretty highly as a cause." I think that The Islamic Republic of Iran is what is being offered or used as that cause. ..."
"... But if the present and future Israelis believe this means that the total advantage is totally theirs to press, then present and future Palestinians will continue searching for ways to make their unhappiness felt. But that outcome would not be Trump's fault. That outcome would be the majority-likudnic Israelis' choice. ..."
"... the problem with "outside in" strategy is that implies that if conditions are bad enough for the Palestinians, they will agree to any deal Trump can force down their throats. Instead, Palestinians have been offered terrible deals since 2000 (ie., a state that is never going to be a real state with permanent Israeli control over its borders, air space, and water tables ..."
"... The smarter plan is to acknowledge that the Zionists killed the Two-State Solution, and Palestinians might as well push this into an anti-Apartheid struggle. ..."
Sep 18, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

turcopolier , 16 September 2020 at 08:52 AM

All

It is clear that the heat has gone away in the fabled "Arab Street" over the issue of Israel. If that were not so, the rulers would not have dared to do this. That being so ... It will be very interesting to see how many people from these two countries go to Israel to visit holy sites like the al-Aqsa Mosque. There have not been many religious tourists from Egypt and Jordan. This is what the Israelis call pilgrims. Trump thinks that he can bring Saudi Arabia into such a deal? Good! Let's see it. He thinks that Iran can be brought into such a deal? Wonderful! Let's see it.

He thinks the Palestinians will accept permanent helot status? Maybe so... But is that something we should relish?

And what of Syria? What of Syria? Evidently Trump considered murdering President Assad two years ago. Is he going to abandon regime change now? is he going to abandon the policy of Pompeo and Jeffries?

I suggest that security should be very tight on airline flights from Bahrein and the UAE.

eakens , 16 September 2020 at 10:03 AM

I suspect this has less to do with peace and more to do with lining up a coalition against Iran. He's signing peace deals at the white house the same day he not only threatens Iran for a make believe assassination plot against our South African Ambassador, but admits he wanted to assassinate Assad.

He's making a big mistake though if he thinks Iranians will behave and respond similarly to the Arabs, and they are certainly not North Koreans.

He's being frog marched into a war with Iran while his ego is being stroked under the guise of a Nobel peace prize.

nbsp; tjfxh , 16 September 2020 at 11:17 AM

What say about Alastair Crooke's "Maintaining Pretence Over Reality: 'Simply Put, the Iranians Outfoxed the U.S. Defence Systems'" at Strategic Culture Foundation?

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/09/14/maintaining-pretence-over-reality-simply-put-iranians-outfoxed-us-defence-systems/

A.I.S. , 16 September 2020 at 11:49 AM

@ turcopolier:

Excellent questions.

My guess is that the acceptability for Helot status of Palestinians will depend on how much worse it is compared to the status of Palestinian equivalents elsewhere. Syria and Lebanon certainly look far less attractive. The other issue is the degree with which Arab elites can "reroute" Anti Israeli into Anti Iranian sentiments on the Arab street.

Also, from my admittedly limited experience, Palestinians aren't exactly homogenous, Gaza =! West Bank.

If the Israelis are smart (and I think they are), they will continue to exploit Palestinian disunity by not having one helot status but several, with privileges to repress and boss around the lesser helots (perhaps even some less desirable Israelis) awarded to the higher helots.

I think this will be fairly hard though. Various Historical, religion and cultural issues specific to the situation make it quite hard for Arabs to actually assimilate into Israeli society. There is also a lack of a unifying foe to unite against. If you look at relatively successful integration/assimilations in history, jointly overcoming something that was threatening to both typically ranked pretty highly as a cause.

Leith , 16 September 2020 at 12:01 PM

"I suggest that security should be very tight on airline flights from Bahrein and the UAE."

Bingo! I won't be flying on Gulf Air or FlyDubai.

Jack , 16 September 2020 at 02:12 PM

The neocons have been firmly ensconced in ME policy since Reagan. At least Trump made a little bit of lemonade. Nothing earth shattering IMO but moved the ball forward 10 yds and away from own goals under the so-called experts & strategists of the past decades.

The TDS afflicted media couldn't bear that some lemonade was made. Wolf Blitzer interviewing Jared Kushner was all about pandemic nothing about the implications or process to having couple gulf sheikhs recognize Israel. The fact is that these gulf sheikhs only paid lip service to the plight of the Palestinians in any case. This formalizes what was reality. The "Arab Street" have always been a manifestation of whatever were powerful manipulations. The manipulators have been coopted in the current lemonade making. In any case Bibi must be very pleased. He didn't have to give up anything in his difficult domestic political predicament.

Jack , 16 September 2020 at 02:44 PM

https://twitter.com/partynxs/status/1306015487273377792?s=21

Support for Israel and its maximalist dreams has always been bipartisan.

Serge , 16 September 2020 at 05:18 PM

The arabs simply do not care anymore, from Morocco to Oman. Their spirit totally broken by the "Arab spring", youth disillusioned and jobless. The only dream left for most is to ape the western lifestyle. The others are fighting in wars.

I can see one of two futures, a Clean Break: Securing the Realm-style one in which all of the arabs live life as helots under the thumb of a Greater Israel. This would bring relative economic prosperity to most of the helots.

Yeah, Right , 16 September 2020 at 06:03 PM

I think I see the flaw in this article: ..."If that turns out to be the case and this maneuver succeeds in ultimately bringing about a two state solution for Israel and the Palestinians,"...

Surely you don't believe that these maneuvers are intended to bring about a Palestinian state?

The colonel has a much more realistic take on this: the intention is to co-opt the Arab states into forcing the Palestinians to accept permanent helot status. Not quite slaves but closes to it.

There would be many ways to describe that, but I suspect "peace plan" would rank amongst the less accurate ones.

Polish Janitor , 16 September 2020 at 06:14 PM

One running theme that I have been seeing from the former so-called neocon critics and ME wars opponents (Michael Scheuer comes to mind) is their uncontrollable exhilaration for any terrible so-called F.P. 'success' that the Trump admin achieves in the ME.

I also remember when the Trump admin killed the Gen. Suleimani late last year the same people also touted it a national security success. This is shameful pattern.

Just because Jared Kushner, Berkowitz (Kushner's mini-me), David Friedman and the Zionist anti-American paid shills of Christians United For Israel et.al put Israel's interest first does not make it a success for American interests abroad. Trump does not know two things about the ME. He just obeys orders from this outside 'advisors' when it comes to ME policy.

It it exactly what it is. Israel normalized relations with the most notorious dictatorships and wants to implement Pegasus spying program and wide-scale surveillance (among other nefarious things) in UAE and Bahrain. How is that a success for America? America should stay out of these Israeli-first trouble making schemes and stay neutral or out of there.

Let me tell you what a F.P. success is, OK? It would have been a huge success if America was able to lure Iran into its orbit to fend of the Chinese communists out of the region and out of our lives and have a stronger alliance with regards to its upcoming Cold War with China.

It would have been successful for America to balance China out with Iran, India, Turkey and Afghanistan, and not let China to invest billions in Haifa port (close to U.S. military forces there) a major hub of its Belt and Road initiative and a huge blow to U.S. new Cold war effort against China.

Think about it.

Allow me to raise a few points: first of all , every single one of these brutal backward Arab dictatorships has had low key but crucial relations with Israel since the Cold War and they just made it open, Big deal! Second, this joyfulness for a hostile anti-american country is quite sad for two reasons:

1. that Larry touts it as a success for America, which is anything but a success for America. It is a success for Bibi and Trump's evangelical/zionist sugar daddies to cough up some Benjamins for Trump's campaign and his GOP/Likudniks. I guess nowadays our judgement is so clouded and inverted that MAGA and MIGA are considered inseparable.

2. The delusion that dems are bitterly angry and anti-Israel (because they are anti-Trump) and therefore it automatically becomes an issue of partisan support for Trump and whatever he does. This idea is so absurd that I won't get into it. Dems were the first to congratulate Israel.

I would like Larry to tell me what he thinks of H.R. 1697 Israel Anti-Boycot Act which punishes American citizens for practicing their god-given 2nd Amendment rights. or the 3.8 billion of aid, or the the gifting of Golan heights to Bibi? Are these big foreign policy success too?

What the Arab-Israeli normalization means:

*The U.S. wants out of the ME to focus on China, a wet dream that Israel favors especially post Cold War. It does not want secular, (semi) democratic sovereign states around it, and if anyone pays attention close enough they do whatever they can to prevent any kind of political reform and change of government to occur among Arab nations. Israelis are staunch supporters of Saudi, Bahraini, UAE, Jordanian, and Egyptian dictatorships in the MENA region.

Israel will now be better positioned to roll-back any kind of grassroots reform in the ME with the help of their now openly pro-Israeli Arab rulers by directing policies to these backward rulers to divest from human development and political reform and instead invest more in security, tech, surveillance.

This trend also explains Israeli constant opposition to the Iran Deal, which would have had further ramifications for political reform and accelerated weakening of Hardliners in Tehran and a better position for America to pivot to China with the help of a moderated Iran. Israel does not want a powerful democratic nation near its borders, and especially not in Iran. Just take a look at Israel's neighbors and tell me how many of them are democratic and friendly with Israel and how does Israel behave when there are secular Arab democratic states around it?

  • There is a developing coalition of powerful states as a reaction to the Arab-Israeli normalization that observers call "the rejectionists". They are, Turkey, Qatar, Pakistan (impending), Malaysia (impending), Iran, and EU (impending).
  • It is true that Iran has now a target on its back and if it were smart, it would try its best to develop some kind of alliance with the secular democratic humanists in EU to try to remove itself from isolation, save what is left of the Iran Deal, and try to isolate and condemn Israelis, Arab dictators and their cohorts internationally and through diplomacy back portraying them as illiberal and anti-democratic or similar things. Although I am not too hopeful that Iran is be able to do this for a number of obvious reasons.
  • This Arab-Israeli normalization is a MIGA (Make Israel Great Again) vision of very tightly controlled development for the MENA region and extremely' special' attention has been given to the cyber tech development (call it surveillance) to control the 'Arab Street' from social revolt and the prevention of next rounds of Arab Springs, which again goes back to Israel's long-standing regional doctrine of propping pro-U.S. and now pro-Israeli Arab dictatorships in the region.
John Merryman , 16 September 2020 at 10:17 PM

In the end, it's all just tribal superstition. Logically a spiritual absolute would be the essence of sentience, from which we rise, not an ideal of wisdom and judgement, from which we fell. The fact we are aware, than the myriad details of which we are aware.

One of the reasons we can't have a live and let live world is because everyone thinks their own vision should be universal, rather than unique. So the fundamentalists rule.

The reason nature is so diverse and dense is because it isn't a monoculture. Irrespective of our technology, we are still fairly primitive, in the grand scheme of things.

different clue , 17 September 2020 at 02:42 AM

A.I.S.,

When I read that " If you look at relatively successful integration/assimilations in history, jointly overcoming something that was threatening to both typically ranked pretty highly as a cause." I think that The Islamic Republic of Iran is what is being offered or used as that cause.

If this all ends up in the longest run leading to today's and tomorrow's Israelis accepting the lesser Israel that Rabin ended up deciding would be necessary for a lesser-but-still-real Palestine to emerge as a real country resigned with both resigned enough to that outcome that they would tolerate eachother's separate independence over the long term, then this will go somewhere good.

But if the present and future Israelis believe this means that the total advantage is totally theirs to press, then present and future Palestinians will continue searching for ways to make their unhappiness felt. But that outcome would not be Trump's fault. That outcome would be the majority-likudnic Israelis' choice.

Mathias Alexander , 17 September 2020 at 04:53 AM

To have a two state solution Israel will have to leave enough of Palestine without Jewish settlement for there to be room for another state. Their actions show that they have no intention of doing that.

Matthew , 17 September 2020 at 09:26 AM

Larry: the problem with "outside in" strategy is that implies that if conditions are bad enough for the Palestinians, they will agree to any deal Trump can force down their throats. Instead, Palestinians have been offered terrible deals since 2000 (ie., a state that is never going to be a real state with permanent Israeli control over its borders, air space, and water tables)

The smarter plan is to acknowledge that the Zionists killed the Two-State Solution, and Palestinians might as well push this into an anti-Apartheid struggle. The gerontocracy that rules the PA will soon pass away. The younger generation of Palestinians are much more sophisticated.

As a trial lawyer, I see this type of behavior all the time. If you offer someone essentially nothing, they lose nothing by rejecting it. The Arab dictators will not be around forever. And before Camp David, the Palestinians have suffered far worse than they are suffering now.

BABAK MAKKINEJAD , 17 September 2020 at 09:55 AM

Matthew:

For any kind of Peace in Palestine, Jerusalem must revert back to Muslim Sovereignty.

It is all about who calls the shots there; just as it was 800 years ago.

Artemesia , 17 September 2020 at 10:35 AM

Matthew: Your description of Trump's strategy is no different from Vladimir Jabotinsky's 1923 Iron Wall doctrine
http://www.marxists.de/middleast/ironwall/ironwall.htm
and
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/quot-the-iron-wall-quot

In short: "We Jews know that Arabs (Palestinians) will never, ever voluntarily give up hope of resisting Jewish demands, and Jews will never stop with Jewish demands: that all of Palestine become Jewish.
Since 'voluntary' will not work, only force -- an Iron Wall -- will suffice.
Jabotinsky defines "Iron Wall" as the enforcement capacity of an outside power:

"we cannot promise anything to the Arabs of the Land of Israel or the Arab countries. Their voluntary agreement is out of the question. Hence those who hold that an agreement with the natives is an essential condition for Zionism can now say "no" and depart from Zionism. Zionist colonization, even the most restricted, must either be terminated or carried out in defiance of the will of the native population. This colonization can, therefore, continue and develop only under the protection of a force independent of the local population – an iron wall which the native population cannot break through. This is, in toto, our policy towards the Arabs. To formulate it any other way would only be hypocrisy.

Not only must this be so, it is so whether we admit it or not. What does the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate mean for us? It is the fact that a disinterested power committed itself to create such security conditions that the local population would be deterred from interfering with our efforts."

Be aware that Benjamin Netanyahu's father, Benzion, was Jabotinsky's administrative assistant, then replacement, in New York; that Bibi is very much heir to the ideological fervor of Jabotinsky & of Benzion; and that Benzion and Benjamin laid out the blueprint for the GWOT at the Jerusalem Conference July 4, 1979
https://www.amazon.com/International-Terrorism-Challenge-Benjamin-Netanyahu/dp/0878558942

Trump plays only a walk-on role in this carefully scripted 150 year old zionist drama.

turcopolier , 17 September 2020 at 10:58 AM

Babak

To "Muslim Sovereignty?" No. It should be an international city.

turcopolier , 17 September 2020 at 11:30 AM

james

"there isn't a lot of difference between KSA and these fiefdoms of uae and bahrain.." A total crock. you obviously have never been to either of these places.

BABAK MAKKINEJAD , 17 September 2020 at 11:46 AM

Col. Lang:

Who or what Legitimate Authority would administer such an International City?

None has ever existed.

Artemesia , 17 September 2020 at 12:00 PM

Jews can have Jerusalem if they return Washington, DC to full USA sovereignty.

[Aug 22, 2020] Kamala is a MIC marionette

Highly recommended!
Aug 22, 2020 | www.unz.com

Realist , says: August 21, 2020 at 12:17 pm GMT

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.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/_UuJB0l1YUY?feature=oembed

[Aug 13, 2020] Trump Names Neocon Regime Changer as Iran Envoy

Notable quotes:
"... The New York Times ..."
Aug 13, 2020 | www.antiwar.com

With Elliott Abrams at the helm, the president found a way to make his Tehran policy even worse

Daniel Larison Posted on August 7, 2020 From The American Conservative :

The New York Times reports on the resignation of Brian Hook, who will be replaced by none other than Elliott Abrams:

Mr. Hook will be succeeded by Elliott Abrams, a conservative foreign policy veteran and Iran hard-liner who is currently the State Department's special representative for Venezuela.

As the administration's special envoy, Hook had no success in gaining support from other governments for the "maximum pressure" campaign against Iran. His brief stint as a negotiator with our European allies yielded nothing, and when he was trying to negotiate with them Trump famously had no idea who he was . He mostly served as one of the administration's leading propagandists .

He was responsible for lies about Yemen, cringe-inducing video messages , promoting the administration's weird fixation with Cyrus the Great , and embarrassing historical revisionism about the 1953 coup. When he wasn't trying to bribe ships' captains to steal Iranian cargo, he was insulting our intelligence with phony claims of wanting to normalize relations with Tehran.

Last year he came under fire from the State Department's Inspector General for his role in the mistreatment of Sahar Nowrouzzadeh , who was the target of political retaliation at the department on account of her support for the JCPOA and at least partly because of her Iranian heritage.

Hook is described in the Times ' report as a "survivor," but they neglect to mention that the reason he has survived so long in the Trump administration is his cowardice .

Perhaps the most bizarre thing about the coverage of Hook·s resignation is that it is framed as somehow undermining the chances of diplomacy with Iran.

[Aug 08, 2020] No Difference Between John Bolton, Brian Hook Or Elliott Abrams-- Iran FM

Why did Trump hire all these neocons, and don't forget that other warmonger, David Wurmser, who was hired by Trump, the psychopath who 'designed' the disastrous Second Iraq War
Aug 08, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Bokkenrijder , 6 hours ago

Why did Trump hire all these neocons, and don't forget that other warmonger, David Wurmser, who was hired by Trump, the psychopath who 'designed' the disastrous Second Iraq War.

https://theintercept.com/2020/01/16/david-wurmser-iran-suleimani-iraq-war/

It probably has NOTHING to do with "3-D chess" but more to do with all the Zionist money backing Trump or perhaps even bailing out Trump's failed businesses.

Trump, failed miserably in the casino business, so is it a coincidence that a neocon zionist Las Vegas casino billionaire financed Trump's election campaign, and that all those neocon zionists were hired by Trump?

Is that why Trump is so scared to death about releasing his tax returns, because those tax returns might expose a LOT of unsavoury money flows...? 😉

HedgeJunkie , 15 hours ago

I guess the swamp is draining Trump.

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.

Pliskin , 9 hours ago

You're all idiots!

Can't you see that this is just another multi-dimensional chess move to 'drain the swamp' by filling the swamp with swamp creatures!

Genius move...pure 'stable' genius move!

Bokkenrijder , 10 hours ago

"No Difference Between John Bolton, Brian Hook Or Elliott Abrams": Iran FM

Trump: "I'll hire the best people and drain the swamp." 🙄

What Trump meant was: I'll hire neocons and war criminals and continue the US Empire and funnel more money to the MIC.

Thank you Trumpturds!

saoirse1981 , 6 hours ago

America is and has been, ruled by a moronic kakistrocracy from time immemorial. Trump and the imbeciles he surrounds himself with are, all simultaneously, suffering from the "Dunning-kruger" effect, well known in psychology...( although being stupid to the point of idiocy, they imagine themselves to be the brightest stars in the universe ). They believe thay have the mental capabilities and the military might to take on Iran or China, or both. America has got accustomed to blitz-bombing defenceless countries back to the stoneage or inciting "regime change" by bribing Judas characters as their henchmen. Neither of these options will work here. Whilst engaged in perpetual war around the planet, America itself became parasitised by the biggest leech of all, the squatter in Palestine. This bringer of evil, now controls America completely and is both metaphorically and physically sucking her dry, her collapse is imminent so the threat she poses deteriorates daily.

needtoshit , 8 hours ago

It's high time the USA would cease to bully the entire world on behalf of the occupied strip of land paid for in money and blood by the USA themselves, and named israel.
5 play_arrow

To Hell In A Handbasket , 8 hours ago

I heard a statement in the early 80's, I don't know by whom, but they said "The President might change, but foreign policy stays the same" It was one of those frown of the eyes, deep thought moments, where I tried to make sense of the statement at the time, but still thought in terms of Left VS Right, where I listened and believed in words over deeds.

hugin-o-munin , 13 hours ago

How much will it take for people to realize that Trump is a puppet?

I keep hearing how he is fighting the deep state and how infinitely better he is compared to Hillary etc. Why is it so hard for people to admit they were conned? All Presidential candidates are carefully chosen to portray what the vast majority of people want to hear and Trump is no different. He was chosen to play the role of the outsider who was to clean house. Mainstream media are playing their part of the charade and people bought it hook line and sinker.

Even the current smoke and mirrors show between the Democrats and Republicans bickering endlessly seems to draw enough attention for people to stay engaged and distracted. The characters Trump appoints should be enough for most to see what he is doing - perpetuating the US Empire's push towards total global domination. He never had the intention of ending wars or locking anyone up. Draining the swamp? He is filling it yet people can't even see that which is right in front of them.

Does Trump even have a plan for how to handle a failing USD? It seems he does everything possible to distance the US from the world by acting more and more like a crazed emperor clinging on desperately to something that is nothing but a fake illusion. Die hard followers keep providing him a long list of excuses and explanations as he continues on. He is destined to finish off the US economically and unlike the calls claiming that the Democrats are going to steal the election it is the opposite way around. Joe Biden as contender is such a big joke that Trump couldn't lose even if he wanted to. The trajectory is set, the US will soon go through a financial destruction the likes of which the world has never seen and it will destroy the lives on billions.

Why is he going down this path? Partly because it is inevitable but mostly because those in power today want to remain in power when everything reboots. The same parasites calling the shots today want to be on top of whatever comes next. Using Trump is how they plan to do it. The fake outsider leading the fake battle against the 'swamp' has the perfect alibi to bring in the new dystopian system of total control that they've always wanted. There will only be a small window of time and opportunity for people to avoid this but it requires that they can see through all the smoke screens and mind games. When the USD implodes soon there will be a new currency rolled out perhaps digital but equally phony that will not last more than a year and that is when awake people need to break free. Good luck to us all.

Michael Norton , 14 hours ago

I will live long enough to watch all the old NWO guard and jackals of the establishment drop dead of old age. For that I am grateful.

Bokkenrijder , 4 hours ago

KEY ARCHITECT OF 2003 IRAQ WAR IS NOW A KEY ARCHITECT OF TRUMP IRAN POLICY

https://theintercept.com/2020/01/16/david-wurmser-iran-suleimani-iraq-war/

Taras Bulba , 4 hours ago

I would argue that no one compares with the extreme evilness of abrams-look at his record in latin america, covering up, defending, denyingm massacres of civilians which were vioe to the extreme, mass machine gunning of civilians, mass rapes by local armiess and defended by abrams. Look at his face if that does not reflect evil, I do not know what does.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/02/ilhan-omar-elliott-abrams-and-el-mozote-massacre/582889/

[Aug 02, 2020] The Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of Northeast Syria signed a deal to market oil to US-based Delta Crescent Energy LLC "with the knowledge and encouragement of the White House."

Aug 02, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Peter AU1 , Aug 2 2020 14:35 utc | 2

I put these comments on the open thread about the same time b started this one

https://twitter.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/1289724554982629377
The Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of Northeast Syria signed a deal to market oil to US-based Delta Crescent Energy LLC "with the knowledge and encouragement of the White House."

Trump a few months back "We've kept the oil". Well, he hasn't had a problem hanging onto it and getting an American company involved.

Delta Crescent Energy. Formed beginning of 2019 and nothing else on it. I guess Trump and a few mates divvying up the spoils.
https://www.bizapedia.com/de/delta-crescent-energy-llc.html

Laguerre , Aug 2 2020 15:00 utc | 6

The Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of Northeast Syria signed a deal to market oil to US-based Delta Crescent Energy LLC "with the knowledge and encouragement of the White House."

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Aug 2 2020 14:35 utc | 2

Very likely the Kurds were under pressure from Trump, and the act wasn't voluntary. It's not even the Kurds' oil to sign a deal on (except one well). We'll see whether the operation actually succeeds. At the moment, everybody is waiting to see whether Trump is re-elected in November. Signing a piece of paper now is of no significance.

[Jul 20, 2020] Riots and Trump pro-Izreal, pro-Zionist stance

Jul 20, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Deap , 19 July 2020 at 05:47 PM

Vegitius wrote: " The list is long and growing:

----his erratic response to this pandemic,
---- his pathetic non-response to this globalist/deep state color revolution,
----his continued reliance on anti-white and anti-American Israelis like Kushner,
----his apparent willingness to grant amnesty for criminal Mexicans and
----go along with idiotic GOP calls to end relief for those thrown out of work, etc, etc.

Sorry, none of these have any traction with 2020 Trump supporters. Trump is 2020 by entirely different yardsticks. The first one is Trump is not Joe Biden and he is not a Democrat. There are other positives as well. Sorry you can't see them.

But "covid" is not going to take Trump down because "covid" exposed the failings of the deep state and Democrat state leadership more than anything else. Medicare for All, after this string of Fauci and CDC stunts, is DOA.

nbsp; likbez , 20 July 2020 at 06:03 AM

----his continued reliance on anti-white and anti-American Israelis like Kushner,

Sorry, none of these have any traction with 2020 Trump supporters.


What is interesting is that why pathetic Zionist stooge Kushner really discredits and drags down Trump, Trump pro-Zionist stance is now slightly more understandable and, may be, even slightly more acceptable than before BLM/Antifa riots.

What would you do if a minority does not want to integrate and asks for an undeserved preferential treatment? And which stages riots increasing social tension and wantonly looting and destroying property (that's what "peaceful protesters" during "summer of love" actually do ) .

[Jun 29, 2020] Trump Is Losing The White Vote With Jared Kushner s Agenda by Washington Watcher II

Notable quotes:
"... Trump's problems among college-educated whites have drawn much attention during his presidency. What's new is declining support among non-college educated whites, where he holds only a 19-point lead. He won that demographic by 37 points in 2016. And his declining support among this key constituency is pronounced in six battleground states, with only 16 percent of non-college educated whites backing him. In October, his lead among them was 24 points. In 2016, Trump won these battleground voters by 26 points. ..."
Jun 29, 2020 | www.unz.com

White voters are turning away from President Trump. That assessment includes his invaluable working-class white base . But Trump has only himself and his campaign to blame for the bad news contained in the latest polls. While America burns, his campaign's only plan seems to be wooing black voters by tweeting that Joe Biden is the "real" racist. Trump seems unable to do anything about the riots or the devastation wrought by coronavirus . The latest poll numbers should knock some sense into the president. He seems to be responding a little lately, but he's going to lose the election if he sticks to Jared Kushner 's agenda and doesn't fight like the candidate we elected in 2016.

The latest polls from The New York Times poll lay bare the ugly truth.

Biden leads Trump among college-educated whites by 28 points [ Biden Takes Dominant Lead as Voters Reject Trump on Virus and Race , by Alexander Burns, Jonathan Martin and Matt Stevens, June 24, 2020]. The former vice president leads Trump by double digits among all white voters in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, three states crucial to Trump's 2016 victory, yet he is down by double digits[ In Poll, Trump Falls Far Behind Biden in Six Key Battleground States , by Nate Cohn, June 25, 2020].The same poll puts Biden 14 points ahead of Trump nationwide: 50 percent to 36 percent. That figure is no outlier either. The latest polls from Fox News and Harvard-Harris put Biden 12 points ahead nationally. The Real Clear Politics average has Biden ahead by 9.4 points.

Trump's problems among college-educated whites have drawn much attention during his presidency. What's new is declining support among non-college educated whites, where he holds only a 19-point lead. He won that demographic by 37 points in 2016. And his declining support among this key constituency is pronounced in six battleground states, with only 16 percent of non-college educated whites backing him. In October, his lead among them was 24 points. In 2016, Trump won these battleground voters by 26 points.

Funny thing is, those voters aren't defecting to Biden's camp, either; their support for him has increased by just 1 since October. The Times describes them as " white voters with more conservative attitudes on racial issues," which likely means they think Trump has not delivered the promised nationalist agenda. One voter told the Times's Cohn he's disappointed with Trump 's not cracking down on the rioters and shutting down the economy because of the Chinese Virus pandemic. He'll still vote for Trump, but without much enthusiasm.

Older whites are also jumping ship. In six battleground states, Trump and Biden are about even among whites 65 or older. Trump won them by nearly 20 points in 2016. The Times attributes that decline to the president's coronavirus response and his "tone" [ Trump Faces Mounting Defections From a Once-Loyal Group: Older White Voters , by Alexander Burns and Katie Glueck, June 28, 2020].

The likely cause? The literal chaos they see on television. People are frightened by coronavirus , the riots, the Left's cultural revolution , and the crippled economy . They don't see Trump leading. Rioters tear down statues and attack our history with neither police action nor pushback. Crime is rising significantly . The media are hyping a second wave of coronavirus as Trump pushes for reopening the country. More than 47 million Americans have applied for unemployment since March 1 [ Another 1.48 million Americans file for unemployment benefits , by Heidi Chung, Yahoo Finance, June 25, 2020].

That picture of Trump's America hardly inspires confidence.

The only positive for Trump is that Biden has roughly the same non-white support that Hillary Clinton had in 2016 . But that's not exactly great news, either, given the campaign's focus on painting Biden as the "real" racist. The message is having zero effect on non-whites. The Times : Biden leads by 74 points among blacks and by 39 points among Hispanics [ Biden Takes Dominant Lead as Voters Reject Trump on Virus and Race , by Alexander Burns, Jonathan Martin and Matt Stevens, June 24, 2020].

The black figure is particularly humiliating. Trump and his campaign flunkies can't stop talking about the great things Trump does for blacks. Record-low black unemployment ! Criminal justice reform ! Permanent funding for historically black colleges! And that non-stop message has only worsened since the Floyd hoax. "I think I've done more for the Black community than any other president," he told Fox News [ Trump suggests Lincoln's legacy is 'questionable,' brags about his own work for Black Americans , by Dan Mangan, CNBC, June 12, 2020].

A tweet from Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale last week illustrates the idiocy. Parscale attacked Biden for working with Strom Thurmond to impose harsh sentences on crack dealers. He claimed this legislation targeted blacks and Trump is fixing the "problem"

Brad Parscale ✔ @parscale

Biden once thanked segregationist Strom Thurmond for helping him pass crack cocaine laws targeting Black Americans.

Biden created the problem. @ RealDonaldTrump is fixing it.

The beginning of racial justice will be RETIRING Joe Biden from public life.

6,809 4:56 PM - Jun 22, 2020 Twitter Ads info and privacy
5,639 people are talking about this

Seriously, Brad?!

The problem is the crack dealers , not sending them to jail. It makes no sense for Trump to continue tweeting out LAW AND ORDER while his campaign manager calls law and order proposals racist.

Unhappily, Parscale is not alone. Official Republican and Trump campaign accounts regularly tweet cringeworthy statements about Confederate monuments and criminal justice reform.

Trump War Room - Text TRUMP to 88022 ✔ @TrumpWarRoom

Joe Biden once called a Confederate heritage group 'fine people'

1,015 12:24 PM - Jun 19, 2020 Twitter Ads info and privacy
773 people are talking about this
GOP ✔ @GOP

Democrats seem to have forgotten that Pres. Trump has led the way on innovative criminal justice reform.

He signed the FIRST STEP Act & established the Presidential Commission on Law Enforcement & the Admin. of Justice -- which aims to improve relations between the public & police.

2,958 4:30 PM - Jun 20, 2020 Twitter Ads info and privacy
1,782 people are talking about this

Who, exactly, are these messages for? If they're intended to win the black vote, they're failing. If they're meant to soothe white suburbanite concerns about Trump's alleged "racism," they're failing. If they're meant to excite Trump's working class white base, again, they're failing.

Parscale set out the agenda for the Trump campaign in a January interview with Lou Dobbs: the economy and healthcare. When Dobbs asked about immigration, the campaign manager replied that they didn't need to worry about it because "we already have [immigration patriots as] voters." Other issues, he claimed, will bring in new voters.

Jared Kushner, Tucker Carlson has observed , has made the similar point that "our voters aren't going anywhere. The trailer parks are rock solid. What choice do they have? They've got to vote for us." [ Tucker Carlson: "No One Has More Contempt For Donald Trump's Voters Than Jared Kushner," by Ian Schwartz, Real Clear Politics , June 1, 2020]

The Son-in-Law in Chief might wish to consult the polling data to verify that claim.

Parscale is taking a lot of heat lately for the poor messaging and the Tulsa rally's underwhelming attendance . Reports suggest Parscale is on his way out as part of a major campaign shake-up. Maybe, but he's not the ultimate problem.

Jared Kushner and the Republican establishment are setting Trump's agenda and message, Parscale merely carries it out. And frighteningly, as Politico reported, Kushner "who effectively oversees the campaign from the White House, is expected to play an even more active role" [ Trump admits it: He's losing , by Alex Isenstadt, June 27, 2020].

We can only hope that isn't true, apropos of other reports say that Trump might sideline Kushner in response to the poor polling and [ After Tulsa Catastrophe, Parscale -- And Kushner -- Is At The Top Of Trump's Hit List , by Gabriel Sherman, Vanity Fair, June 22, 2020].

Given last week's extended and expanded his immigration moratorium to include most guest-worker visas, which Kushner strongly opposed, that seems quite possible. Trump also wants to crack down on the rioters and statue destroyers, while Kushner wants the president to focus more on police reforms and appeasing the rioters [ A serious divide exists among Trump advisers over how to address nights of protests and riots in US after Floyd's death , by Kaitlan Collins and Kevin Liptak, CNN, May 31, 2020].

Trump recently tweeted an ad that suggests he might ditch the awful messaging. It pins the current chaos on Democrats and the Left and states they want to burn America to the ground.

Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump 99.6K 5:47 PM - Jun 27, 2020 Twitter Ads info and privacy
82.4K people are talking about this

It's a powerful, take-no-prisoners video with the same message that helped Trump win in 2016 and might just re-energize his base in time for Election Day.

Yet tough talk alone won't win back Trump's base. He must act . Signs are improving there, too..

Over the weekend, he tweeted several wanted pictures of statue vandals. Four leftists were hit with federal charges for attacking the Andrew Jackson statue in DC [ Justice Department Charges 4 Over Attempt to Topple Andrew Jackson Statue In D.C. , by Jason Slotkin, NPR , June 28, 2020]. Putting left-wing criminals behind bars sends the right message and might stifle the unrest. And again, he's helping unemployed Americans with the immigration ban for the rest of the year. Nearly two-thirds of Americans support it, according to the latest polling.

Trump must show Americans that the Chinese Virus threat is decreasing, the economy is recovering, and law and order is being restored. Tweets about money for black colleges, Biden's tough-on-crime bills, and or his long-ago cooperation with "segregationists" won't do.

Trump must make this election about order versus chaos and put Democrats on the side of the rioters and the radicals in Antifa and Black Lives Matter.

That, and only that, will win the white vote.

Washington Watcher II [ Email him ] is an anonymous DC insider.

Achmed E. Newman , says: Website June 29, 2020 at 4:15 am GMT

You guys at VDare are always very hopeful, and I like that. I've read of some of the moves that the President has made, such as the ones you state here (on immigration and some justice for Cult-Revolutionalists). However, these things never seem to be part of any coherent, consistent strategy of any sort.

Perhaps President Trump is not a strategist and can't think in that manner. He definitely has no specific principles or moral compass, or any kind of damn compass. This is why he listens to his son-in-law Kushner, who is out to destroy the country like the rest of them.

I agree with the one guy you mentioned (who replied to Mr. Cohn). There's no choice on who to vote for anyway, not matter how much Trump screws up. But then, all this happening is not going to be settled at the voting booth anyway

Trevor Blanc , says: June 29, 2020 at 4:26 am GMT

The White House is Israeli occupied territory. Get rid of Jar-Jar and the job of minding the goy-in-chief will just go to someone new.

jsinton , says: June 29, 2020 at 4:36 am GMT

Yeah, Trump comes off like a used car salesman with high pressure tactics. But who can vote for dugout Joe who hides in his basement avoiding complex questions? Apples Oranges ?

niteranger , says: June 29, 2020 at 4:48 am GMT

Trump is done. Kushner is nothing more than an Israeli plant. They know that Biden is just like Pelosi and she and Joe would kill every white person in America if Israel wanted. The entire Congress is owned by Israel. Trump is done. Obama's "Third Term" more accurately described as Coup d'etat setup with the Deep State and Obama's Jewish friends left from his administration destroyed Trump on the first day of his tenure.

Trump can't stop putting his foot in his mouth. He abandoned White America and no matter what he did for the Blacks including money for their universities made no difference. No matter how many jobs he created it didn't count because these mongrels don't want jobs they want free stuff. Obama did nothing for blacks except destroying many middle class blacks but it doesn't matter. Blacks are tribalistic gang bangers and as Obama their Lord taught them only see color.

Trump is done and so is America. The Jews always win no matter who is president. You better start arming yourself because you are not going to believe what is going to happen when Biden wins. In Washington D.C. today Blacks were rioting against Target because they call the police when blacks steal stuff. You can't make this up and the Jewish controlled media just laughs at us.

RichardTaylor , says: June 29, 2020 at 4:49 am GMT
@Achmed E. Newman

Ok, but what if Trump were to say Dems are the real racists ? Wouldn't that win the Black vote? Forgive me, gallows humor.

It's truly pathetic the people Trump surrounds himself with. His instincts always seemed good, but apparently he can't implement a damn thing. At least all this is showing conservatives how rotten the leadership of all their hallowed institutions are (FBI, military, police, etc).

Robert Dolan , says: June 29, 2020 at 4:57 am GMT

The kushner blame is bullshit.

Not that kushner isn't an asshole.

But that DT is the President.

Buck stops there.

[Jun 23, 2020] Roger Waters: Sheldon Adelson is 'puppet master' pulling Trump, Pompeo's strings by Stuart Winer

Notable quotes:
"... "Sheldon Adelson is the puppet master who is pulling the strings of Donald Trump, [Secretary of State] Mike Pompeo, and what's his name the ambassador, Greenberg, I think his name is," Waters said, and went on to describe Adelson as a "right-wing fascist racist bigot." ..."
"... Waters said Adelson, a major donor to Trump's Republican party and his election campaign, "believes that only Jews, only Jewish people, are completely human and everybody else on Earth is there to serve them." ..."
"... "Unfortunately this crazy, crazy, crazy guy is also incredibly rich and has the tiny little prick of Donald Trump in his pocket." ..."
Jun 21, 2020 | www.timesofisrael.com

By Stuart Winer 21 June 2020, 7:58 pm 15 Edit

Screen capture from video of Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters during an interview with Hamas-affiliated Shehab News Agency, June 20, 2020. (Twitter) Musician Roger Waters has said that US Jewish billionaire Sheldon Adelson is pulling the strings of the Trump administration, and claimed that Israel is training US police forces how to kill black people using the technique of kneeling on the necks of their victims, which he said was developed by the Israel Defense Forces as it "murders Palestinians."

Rogers, a co-founder of Pink Floyd and an outspoken critic of Israel who has been branded an anti-Semite by the ADL , told the Hamas terror group-affiliated Shehab News Agency on Saturday that Adelson believes only Jews are "completely human" and referred to US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman as "Greenberg."

Excerpts from the interview were published Sunday by the Washington-based Middle East Media Research Institute watchdog.

Get The Times of Israel's Daily Edition by email and never miss our top stories Free Sign Up

"Sheldon Adelson is the puppet master who is pulling the strings of Donald Trump, [Secretary of State] Mike Pompeo, and what's his name the ambassador, Greenberg, I think his name is," Waters said, and went on to describe Adelson as a "right-wing fascist racist bigot."

US President Donald Trump pats Las Vegas Sands Corporation Chief Executive and Republican mega donor Sheldon Adelson on the arm before speaking at the Israeli American Council National Summit in Hollywood, Florida, December 7, 2019. (Patrick Semansky/AP)

Waters said Adelson, a major donor to Trump's Republican party and his election campaign, "believes that only Jews, only Jewish people, are completely human and everybody else on Earth is there to serve them."

"I'm not saying Jewish people believe this; he does and he is pulling the strings," Waters continued, and claimed Adelson further believes that "everything will be good with the world if there is a Greater Israel which takes up the whole of historic Palestine and the Kingdom of Jordan."

"Unfortunately this crazy, crazy, crazy guy is also incredibly rich and has the tiny little prick of Donald Trump in his pocket."

Musician Roger Waters on Hamas-Affiliated News Agency: Crazy Puppet Master Adelson Has Donald Trump's Tiny Little Pr*ck in His Pocket; Israelis Teach U.S. Police How to Murder Blacks pic.twitter.com/0JUQuwsvhB

-- MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) June 21, 2020

Turning to the death of George Floyd, a black man who died in Minneapolis when a police officer kneeled on his neck after he was already in custody, Waters said it was "a technique invented by the IDF."

"The Israelis invented (the method), 'let's kill people by kneeling on their necks'," he claimed. "That is an Israeli technique taught to the militarized police forces of the USA by Israeli experts who the Americans have been flying over to the United States to teach them how to murder blacks because they've seen how efficient the Israelis have been at murdering Palestinians in the occupied territories by using those techniques, and they are proud of it. The Israelis are proud of it."

"Zionism is an ugly stain, and it needs to be gently removed by us," he said later during the interview.

Floyd's death prompted anti-racism protests across the US.

Bassist and vocalist Waters is known for publicly harassing artists scheduled to visit Israel or perform here. In 2013, the Anti-Defamation League branded Waters an anti-Semite, having previously defended him from that characterization.

Responding to comments Water made in an interview with Counterpunch magazine comparing Israeli treatment of the Palestinians to Nazi Germany, the ADL said "anti-Semitic conspiracy theories" have "seeped into the totality" of the former Pink Floyd frontman's views.

"Judging by his remarks, Roger Waters has absorbed classic anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, and these have now seeped into the totality of his views," Abraham H. Foxman, the then-National Director of the ADL, told The Times of Israel at the time. "His comments about Jews and Israel have gotten progressively worse over time. It started with anti-Israel invective, and has now morphed into conspiratorial anti-Semitism."

Added Foxman: "How sad that a creative genius could become so perverted by his own narrow-minded bigotry."

Stuart Winer is a breaking news editor at The Times of Israel.

[Jun 22, 2020] Boomerang returns: Trump is at fault for hiring Bolton to appease the Zionist lobby

Jun 22, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

DannyC , Jun 18 2020 1:17 utc | 28

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

Piotr Berman , Jun 18 2020 3:53 utc | 33

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.

jason , Jun 18 2020 3:55 utc | 34

"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.

[May 29, 2020] Who Are the Secret Puppet-Masters Behind Trump's War on Iran?

May 29, 2020 | original.antiwar.com

Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies Posted on May 29, 2020 May 28, 2020 On May 6th, President Trump vetoed a war powers bill specifying that he must ask Congress for authorization to use military force against Iran. Trump's "maximum pressure" campaign of deadly sanctions and threats of war against Iran has seen no let-up, even as the U.S., Iran and the whole world desperately need to set aside our conflicts to face down the common danger of the Covid-19 pandemic.

So what is it about Iran that makes it such a target of hostility for Trump and the neocons? There are many repressive regimes in the world, and many of them are close US allies, so this policy is clearly not based on an objective assessment that Iran is more repressive than Egypt, Saudi Arabia or other monarchies in the Persian Gulf.

The Trump administration claims that its "maximum pressure" sanctions and threats of war against Iran are based on the danger that Iran will develop nuclear weapons. But after decades of inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and despite the US's politicization of the IAEA, the Agency has repeatedly confirmed that Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program.

If Iran ever did any preliminary research on nuclear weapons, it was probably during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s, when the US and its allies helped Iraq to make and use chemical weapons that killed up to 100,000 Iranians. A 2007 US National Intelligence Estimate , the IAEA's 2015 " Final Assessment on Past and Present Outstanding Issues" and decades of IAEA inspections have examined and resolved every scrap of false evidence of a nuclear weapons program presented or fabricated by the CIA and its allies.

If, despite all the evidence, US policymakers still fear that Iran could develop nuclear weapons, then adhering to the Iran Nuclear Deal (JCPOA), keeping Iran inside the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and ensuring ongoing access by IAEA inspectors would provide greater security than abandoning the deal.

As with Bush's false WMD claims about Iraq in 2003, Trump's real goal is not nuclear non-proliferation but regime change. After 40 years of failed sanctions and hostility, Trump and a cabal of US warhawks still cling to the vain hope that a tanking economy and widespread suffering in Iran will lead to a popular uprising or make it vulnerable to another U.S.-backed coup or invasion.

United Against a Nuclear Iran and the Counter Extremism Project

One of the key organizations promoting and pushing hostility towards Iran is a shadowy group called United Against a Nuclear Iran (UANI). Founded in 2008, it was expanded and reorganized in 2014 under the umbrella of the Counter Extremism Project United (CEPU) to broaden its attacks on Iran and divert US policymakers' attention away from the role of Israel, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and other US allies in spreading violence, extremism and chaos in the greater Middle East.

UANI acts as a private enforcer of US sanctions by keeping a " business registry " of hundreds of companies all over the world – from Adidas to Zurich Financial Services – that trade with or are considering trading with Iran. UANI hounds these companies by naming and shaming them, issuing reports for the media, and urging the Office of Foreign Assets Control to impose fines and sanctions. It also keeps a checklist of companies that have signed a declaration certifying they do not conduct business in or with Iran.

Proving how little they care about the Iranian people, UANI even targets pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical-device corporations – including Bayer , Merck , Pfizer , Eli Lilly , and Abbott Laboratories – that have been granted special US humanitarian aid licenses.

Where does UANI get its funds?

UANI was founded by three former US officials, Dennis Ross, Richard Holbrooke and Mark Wallace. In 2013, it still had a modest budget of $1.7 million, nearly 80% coming from two Jewish-American billionaires with strong ties to Israel and the Republican Party: $843,000 from precious metals investor Thomas Kaplan and $500,000 from casino owner Sheldon Adelson . Wallace and other UANI staff have also worked for Kaplan's investment firms, and he remains a key funder and advocate for UANI and its affiliated groups.

In 2014, UANI split into two entities: the original UANI and the Green Light Project, which does business as the Counter Extremism Project. Both entities are under the umbrella of and funded by a third, Counter Extremism Project United (CEPU). This permits the organization to brand its fundraising as being for the Counter Extremism Project, even though it still regrants a third of its funds to UANI.

CEO Mark Wallace, Executive Director David Ibsen and other staff work for all three groups in their shared offices in Grand Central Tower in New York. In 2018, Wallace drew a combined salary of $750,000 from all three entities, while Ibsen's combined salary was $512,126.

In recent years, the revenues for the umbrella group, CEPU, have mushroomed, reaching $22 million in 2017. CEPU is secretive about the sources of this money. But investigative journalist Eli Clifton , who starting looking into UANI in 2014 when it was sued for defamation by a Greek ship owner it accused of violating sanctions on Iran, has found evidence suggesting financial ties with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

That is certainly what hacked emails between CEPU staff, an Emirati official and a Saudi lobbyist imply. In September 2014, CEPU's president Frances Townsend emailed the UAE Ambassador to the US to solicit the UAE's support and propose that it host and fund a CEPU forum in Abu Dhabi.

Four months later, Townsend emailed again to thank him , writing, "And many thanks for your and Richard Mintz' (UAE lobbyist) ongoing support of the CEP effort!" UANI fundraiser Thomas Kaplan has formed a close relationship with Emirati ruler Bin Zayed, and visited the UAE at least 24 times. In 2019, he gushed to an interviewer that the UAE and its despotic rulers "are my closest partners in more parts of my life than anyone else other than my wife."

Another email from Saudi lobbyist and former Senator Norm Coleman to the Emirati Ambassador about CEPU's tax status implied that the Saudis and Emiratis were both involved in its funding, which would mean that CEPU may be violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act by failing to register as a Saudi or Emirati agent in the US

Ben Freeman of the Center for International Policy has documented the dangerously unaccountable and covert expansion of the influence of foreign governments and military-industrial interests over US foreign policy in recent years, in which registered lobbyists are only the "tip of the iceberg" when it comes to foreign influence. Eli Clifton calls UANI, "a fantastic case study and maybe a microcosm of the ways in which American foreign policy is actually influenced and implemented."

CEPU and UANI's staff and advisory boards are stocked with Republicans, neoconservatives and warhawks, many of whom earn lavish salaries and consulting fees. In the two years before President Trump appointed John Bolton as his National Security Advisor, CEPU paid Bolton $240,000 in consulting fees. Bolton, who openly advocates war with Iran, was instrumental in getting the Trump administration to withdraw from the nuclear deal.

UANI also enlists Democrats to try to give the group broader, bipartisan credibility. The chair of UANI's board is former Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman, who was known as the most pro-Zionist member of the Senate. A more moderate Democrat on UANI's board is former New Mexico governor and UN ambassador Bill Richardson.

Norman Roule, a CIA veteran who was the National Intelligence Manager for Iran throughout the Obama administration was paid $366,000 in consulting fees by CEPU in 2018. Soon after the brutal Saudi assassination of journalist Jamal Khassoghi, Roule and UANI fundraiser Thomas Kaplan met with Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman in Saudi Arabia, and Roule then played a leading role in articles and on the talk-show circuit whitewashing Bin Salman's repression and talking up his superficial "reforms" of Saudi society.

More recently, amid a growing outcry from Congress, the UN and the European Union to ease US sanctions on Iran during the pandemic, UANI chairman Joe Lieberman, CEPU president Frances Townsend and CEO Mark Wallace signed a letter to Trump that falsely claimed, "US sanctions neither prevent nor target the supply of food, medicine or medical devices to Iran," and begged him not to relax his murderous sanctions because of COVID-19. This was too much for Norman Roule, who tossed out his UANI script and told the Nation , "the international community should do everything it can to enable the Iranian people to obtain access to medical supplies and equipment."

Two Israeli shell companies to whom CEPU and UANI have paid millions of dollars in "consulting fees" raise even more troubling questions. CEPU has paid over $500,000 to Darlink, located near Tel Aviv, while UANI paid at least $1.5 million to Grove Business Consulting in Hod Hasharon, about 10% of its revenues from 2016 to 2018. Neither firm seems to really exist, but Grove's address on UANI's IRS filings appears in the Panama Papers as that of Dr. Gideon Ginossar, an officer of an offshore company registered in the British Virgin Islands that defaulted on its creditors in 2010.

Selling a Corrupted Picture to US Policymakers

UANI's parent group, Counter Extremism Project United, presents itself as dedicated to countering all forms of extremism. But in practice, it is predictably selective in its targets, demonizing Iran and its allies while turning a blind eye to other countries with more credible links to extremism and terrorism.

UANI supports accusations by Trump and US warhawks that Iran is "the world's worst state sponsor of terrorism," based mainly on its support for the Lebanese Shiite political party Hezbollah, whose militia defends southern Lebanon against Israel and fights in Syria as an ally of the government.

But Iran placed UANI on its own list of terrorist groups in 2019 after Mark Wallace and UANI hosted a meeting at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York that was mainly attended by supporters of the Mujahedin-e-Kalqh (MEK). The MEK is a group that the US government itself listed as a terrorist organization until 2012 and which is still committed to the violent overthrow of the government in Iran – preferably by persuading the US and its allies to do it for them. UANI tried to distance itself from the meeting after the fact, but the published program listed UANI as the event organizer.

On the other hand, there are two countries where CEPU and UANI seem strangely unable to find any links to extremism or terrorism at all, and they are the very countries that appear to be funding their operations, lavish salaries and shadowy "consulting fees": Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Many Americans are still demanding a public investigation into Saudi Arabia's role in the crimes of September 11th. In a court case against Saudi Arabia brought by 9/11 victims' families, the FBI recently revealed that a Saudi Embassy official , Mussaed Ahmed al-Jarrah, provided crucial support to two of the hijackers. Brett Eagleson, a spokesman for the families whose father was killed on September 11th, told Yahoo News , "(This) demonstrates there was a hierarchy of command that's coming from the Saudi Embassy to the Ministry of Islamic Affairs [in Los Angeles] to the hijackers."

The global spread of the Wahhabi version of Islam that unleashed and fueled Al Qaeda, ISIS and other violent Muslim extremist groups has been driven primarily by Saudi Arabia, which has built and funded Wahhabi schools and mosques all over the world. That includes the King Fahd Mosque in Los Angeles that the two 9/11 hijackers attended.

It is also well documented that Saudi Arabia has been the largest funder and arms supplier for the Al Qaeda-led forces that have destroyed Syria since 2011, including CIA-brokered shipments of thousands of tons of weapons from Benghazi in Libya and at least eight countries in Eastern Europe. The UAE also supplied arms funding to Al Qaeda-allied rebels in Syria between 2012 and 2016, and the Saudi and UAE roles have now been reversed in Libya, where the UAE is the main supplier of thousands of tons of weapons to General Haftar's rebel forces. In Yemen, both the Saudis and Emiratis have committed war crimes . The Saudi and Emirati air forces have bombed schools, clinics, weddings and school buses, while the Emiratis tortured detainees in 18 secret prisons in Yemen.

But United Against a Nuclear Iran and Counter Extremism Project have redacted all of this from the one-sided worldview they offer to US policymakers and the American corporate media. While they demonize Iran, Qatar, Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood as extremists and terrorists, they depict Saudi Arabia and the UAE exclusively as victims of terrorism and allies in U.S.-led "counterterrorism" campaigns, never as sponsors of extremism and terrorism or perpetrators of war crimes.

The message of these groups dedicated to "countering extremism" is clear and none too subtle: Saudi Arabia and the UAE are always US allies and victims of extremism, never a problem or a source of danger, violence or chaos. The country we should all be worrying about is – you guessed it – Iran. You couldn't pay for propaganda like this! But on the other hand, if you're Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates and you have greedy, corrupt Americans knocking on your door eager to sell their loyalty, maybe you can.

Medea Benjamin is cofounder of CODEPINK for Peace , and author of several books, including Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran . Nicolas J. S. Davies is an independent journalist, a researcher with CODEPINK and the author of Blood On Our Hands: the American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq .

[May 26, 2020] News Stories Avoid Naming Israel by Philip Giraldi

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... 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. ..."
May 26, 2020 | www.unz.com

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 Politico report 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] .

[May 24, 2020] FBI Document Reveals That Without Direct Israeli 'Intervention' Trump Would Have Lost 2016 Election

May 24, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Mao , May 24 2020 20:56 utc | 30

FBI Document Reveals That Without Direct Israeli 'Intervention' Trump Would Have Lost 2016 Election

https://christiansfortruth.com/fbi-document-reveals-that-without-direct-israeli-intervention-trump-would-not-have-won-2016-election/

[May 24, 2020] FBI Document Reveals That Without Direct Israeli 'Intervention' Trump Would Have Lost 2016 Election

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... The explicit reference to Jerusalem appears later in the same document , in the context of communication between Stone and his unnamed contact in the Israeli capital. "On or about August 12, 2016, [NAME REDACTED] messaged STONE, "Roger, hello from Jerusalem. Any progress? He is going to be defeated unless we intervene. We have critical intell. The key is in your hands! Back in the US next week. How is your Pneumonia? Thank you. STONE replied, "I am well. Matters complicated. Pondering. R" The "he" is an apparent reference to Trump. ..."
"... Referring to the Israeli mentions in a report on the documents late Tuesday, the US website Politico noted: "The newly revealed messages often raise more questions than answers. They show Stone in touch with seemingly high-ranking Israeli officials attempting to arrange meetings with Trump during the heat of the 2016 campaign." ..."
"... Of course, this story is seen as a positive development from the Israeli (and evangelical) perspective because a Trump presidency was an essential part fulfilling an aggressive Zionist "wish list" which included moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, annexing the Golan Heights and the West Bank, and perhaps a major move against Iran in the second term. ..."
"... This story also explains why the jewish-controlled press saturated the airwaves with fake stories of "Russian" intervention in the election -- and why we will be seeing similar non-stop stories of "Chinese" intervention in the upcoming 2020 election in November. ..."
"... And Netanyahu hasn't wasted a second of Trump's presidency in expanding Israel's power, territory and influence. As one Jewish media pundit claimed , Donald Trump has been " the greatest president for Jews and for Israel in the history of the world." Trump has even bragged that he is so popular among Israelis that they would elect him Prime Minister if he ran. ..."
May 24, 2020 | christiansfortruth.com

According to recently released FBI documents, Donald Trump's longtime confidant, Roger Stone, who was convicted last year in Robert Mueller's investigation into ties between Russia and the Trump campaign, was in contact with one or more apparently well-connected Israelis at the height of the 2016 US presidential campaign, one of whom warned Stone that Trump was "going to be defeated" unless Israel intervened in the election :

The exchange between Stone and this Jerusalem-based contact appears in FBI documents made public on Tuesday. The documents -- FBI affidavits submitted to obtain search warrants in the criminal investigation into Stone -- were released following a court case brought by The Associated Press and other media organizations.

A longtime adviser to Trump, Stone officially worked on the 2016 presidential campaign until August 2015, when he said he left and Trump said he was fired. However he continued to communicate with the campaign, according to Mueller's investigation.

The FBI material, which is heavily redacted, includes one explicit reference to Israel and one to Jerusalem, and a series of references to a minister, a cabinet minister, a "minister without portfolio in the cabinet dealing with issues concerning defense and foreign affairs," the PM, and the Prime Minister . In all these references the names and countries of the minister and prime minister are redacted.

Benjamin Netanyahu was Israel's prime minister in 2016 , and the Israeli government included a minister without portfolio, Tzachi Hanegbi, appointed in May with responsibility for defense and foreign affairs. One reference to the unnamed PM in the material reads as follows:

"On or about June 28, 2016, [NAME REDACTED] messaged STONE, "RETURNING TO DC AFTER URGENT CONSULTATIONS WITH PM IN ROME. MUST MEET WITH YOU WED. EVE AND WITH DJ TRUMP THURSDAY IN NYC."

Netanyahu made a state visit to Italy at the end of June 2016 .

The explicit reference to Israel appears early in the text of a May 2018 affidavit by an FBI agent in support of an application for a search warrant, and relates to communication between Stone and Jerome Corsi, an American author, commentator and conspiracy theorist. " On August 20, 2016, CORSI told STONE that they needed to meet with [NAME REDACTED] to determine "what if anything Israel plans to do in Oct," the affidavit states .

The explicit reference to Jerusalem appears later in the same document , in the context of communication between Stone and his unnamed contact in the Israeli capital. "On or about August 12, 2016, [NAME REDACTED] messaged STONE, "Roger, hello from Jerusalem. Any progress? He is going to be defeated unless we intervene. We have critical intell. The key is in your hands! Back in the US next week. How is your Pneumonia? Thank you. STONE replied, "I am well. Matters complicated. Pondering. R" The "he" is an apparent reference to Trump.

The redacted material features numerous references to an "October surprise," apparently relating to a document dump by Wikileaks' Julian Assange, intended to harm Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign and salvage Trump's .

Referring to the Israeli mentions in a report on the documents late Tuesday, the US website Politico noted: "The newly revealed messages often raise more questions than answers. They show Stone in touch with seemingly high-ranking Israeli officials attempting to arrange meetings with Trump during the heat of the 2016 campaign."

Mueller's investigation identified significant contact during the 2016 campaign between Trump associates and Russians, but did not allege a criminal conspiracy to tip the outcome of the presidential election.

This story first appeared last month, at the height of the COVID-19 plandemic, which conveniently and not coincidentally allowed all the mainstream media in America to ignore it.

Of course, this story is seen as a positive development from the Israeli (and evangelical) perspective because a Trump presidency was an essential part fulfilling an aggressive Zionist "wish list" which included moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, annexing the Golan Heights and the West Bank, and perhaps a major move against Iran in the second term.

This story also explains why the jewish-controlled press saturated the airwaves with fake stories of "Russian" intervention in the election -- and why we will be seeing similar non-stop stories of "Chinese" intervention in the upcoming 2020 election in November.

We can only guess what further information about Israel's involvement in the election was redacted from this FBI document, but there can be little doubt that the orders to help Trump win came from the very top -- from Netanyahu himself.

And Netanyahu hasn't wasted a second of Trump's presidency in expanding Israel's power, territory and influence. As one Jewish media pundit claimed , Donald Trump has been " the greatest president for Jews and for Israel in the history of the world." Trump has even bragged that he is so popular among Israelis that they would elect him Prime Minister if he ran.

And even if the brain-dead American public found out about this Israeli intervention (i.e., "subversion of our democracy"), they would probably just shrug it off -- after all, Israel is our "most trusted friend and ally," goyim .

[May 24, 2020] Because the fight between Trump and his Democrat enemies was an internal battle among big Jews, usurers against Zionists.

May 24, 2020 | www.unz.com

sarz , says: Show Comment

Anon [348] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment May 23, 2020 at 4:50 am GMT
Here's the best scenario: Trump wins re-election, and gives the neocons what they've been egging for all along – WWIII, simultaneous war on all fronts, with Syria, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Ukraine, China, Russia, Venezuela. Let's see the empire stretched so thin it eventually craters and goes bankrupt. The only way to save America is for it to die in its present form. When the country is completely bankrupt, when the people are so sick of war, then maybe, just maybe, we will wise up, rise up and do a Mussolini on all the neocons who've been killing this country from within since the days of Woodrow Wilson.
anon [161] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment May 23, 2020 at 11:13 am GMT
@UncommonGround Joshua Landis:

Top Biden advisor says Democrats will continue Trump's policy in Syria.

Tony Blinken says Biden would:
– Keep US troops in Syria
– Deny Assad oil
– Keep Idlib for rebels
– Refuse to negotiate w Damascus until US "effectuates more positive outcome"

BannedHipster , says: Website Show Comment May 23, 2020 at 1:14 pm GMT
Donald Trump's father and grandfather were connected to Jewish organized crime. Donald Trump first got big on Twitter promoting the "birther" conspiracy theories about Obama which Trump was getting from the Israeli Jew Orly Taitz. These conspiracy theories were designed to demonize Obama for trying to end the sanctions on Iran and prevent a war.

Zionist Jews were quite aware that Donald Trump was their guy – he has always been consistently popular in Israel. Zionist Jews knew that Donald Trump could give them everything they wanted: takeover all of Jerusalem, annex the Golan Heights, and eventually annex Palestine and ethnically cleanse the Palestinians – all going on right now with the support of Trump and Jared Kushner's hand-picked Mike Pompeo.

Hey, Trump fans – Trump DID in fact "drain the swamp." He (well, Jared Kushner) fired anyone who dared to oppose anything Israel wanted and replaced them with yes-men Zionist flunkies.

How much longer till the MAGA-tard realize they were tricked?

BannedHipster , says: Website Show Comment May 23, 2020 at 1:32 pm GMT
@sarz @sarz

This is almost certainly false and confusing the issue:

" In 1927 Frederick Trump was one of seven people in KKK cap and gown arrested in a near riot."

Donald Trump's father was arrested during a riot at a Klan rally – but he almost certainly wasn't "in KKK cap and gown" – it's far more likely he was the one rioting AGAINST the Klan, as a member of the Jewish "Anti-fascist" terrorist group, which was a Jewish Communist group then in the early stages.

Trump's uncle was a member of a Jewish fraternity and often claimed that his father was Jewish, but that is probably false. Trump's grandfather supposedly owned brothels. Consider: what kind of people own brothels, houses of prostitution, basically, human trafficking? Organized crime.

Trump isn't Jewish, Trump's father wasn't Jewish and neither was his grandfather. What Trump and his family is, is non-Jewish members of Jewish organized crime.

Why confuse the issue? Half of Trump's children and grandchildren are now either Jewish, Israelis, or married to Jews and Israelis.

Trump and his entire family going back to his grandfather, are shabbos goyim.

[May 17, 2020] Papa Adelson s Emerging Tawdry Ties to the CIA by Kelley Beaucar Vlahos

Notable quotes:
"... What's worse than a Sheldon Adelson bankrolling President Trump's 2016 election, leading to big payoffs for him in U.S.-Israeli policy and his own people (John Bolton), nested in the inner sanctum? What's worse than a Sheldon Adelson influencing U.S. trade policy in China, mostly because of his titanic casino interests in Macau? ..."
"... How about a Sheldon Adelson providing his elite security team as an interlocutor for covert, illegal CIA operations overseas. ..."
"... If you are still not persuaded, recall that Adelson was accused of working with the CIA at his casinos in Macau, providing a recruiting ground for agents so they could spy on Beijing. This was back in 2015, long before Trump's entrance onto the scene. ..."
"... Read the whole thing. Considering the powerful role Adelson has played in the White House it is worth taking seriously, whether you think Assange is deserves one's sympathy or not. ..."
May 15, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Papa Adelson's Emerging Tawdry Ties to the CIA

New evidence shows nexus between the casino magnate's elite security team and U.S. targeting of Julian Assange. Chairman and chief executive officer of the Las Vegas Sands Corporation Sheldon Adelson arrives ahead of the inauguration of the US embassy in Jerusalem on May 14, 2018. (Photo credit should read MENAHEM KAHANA/AFP via Getty Images)

What's worse than a Sheldon Adelson bankrolling President Trump's 2016 election, leading to big payoffs for him in U.S.-Israeli policy and his own people (John Bolton), nested in the inner sanctum? What's worse than a Sheldon Adelson influencing U.S. trade policy in China, mostly because of his titanic casino interests in Macau?

How about a Sheldon Adelson providing his elite security team as an interlocutor for covert, illegal CIA operations overseas.

Sounds like a bad spy thriller but read this impressive deep dive by Max Blumenthal at The Grayzone this morning. It's a stomach turner as well as a page turner.

We reported here back in December that a Spanish company, UC Global, hired to provide security for the Ecuadorian embassy in London, was reportedly pulling double duty for the CIA by installing a separate surveillance system in the building that streamed and recorded Assange, his lawyers, and his visitors in every room, including the bathroom. This is clearly a breach of international law, specifically on the inviolability of diplomatic premises . The Grayzone has since obtained more court records and conducted numerous witness interviews that establish how insidious this spy operation was, and how close Adelson's massive private security apparatus was to it.

At the embassy, visitors' phones were seized by UC Global guards, with passwords, SIM cards and International Mobile Equipment Identity numbers copied. Embassy officials and at least one U.S. congressman were also secretly surveilled. More:

The ongoing investigation detailed black operations ranging from snooping on the Wikileaks founder's private conversations to fishing a diaper from an embassy trash can in order to determine if the feces inside it belonged to his son. According to witness statements obtained by The Grayzone, weeks after Morales proposed breaking into the office of Assange's lead counsel, the office was burglarized. The witnesses also detailed a proposal to kidnap or poison Assange. A police raid at the home of Morales netted two handguns with their serial numbers filed off along with stacks of cash.

One source close to the investigation told The Grayzone an Ecuadorian official was robbed at gunpoint while carrying private information pertaining to a plan to secure diplomatic immunity for Assange.

Throughout the black operations campaign, US intelligence appears to have worked through Adelson's Las Vegas Sands, a company that had previously served as an alleged front for a CIA blackmail operation several years earlier. The operations formally began once Adelson's hand-picked presidential candidate, Donald Trump, entered the White House in January 2017.

The center of this tawdry tale is a status-seeking mercenary (Morales) who was clearly bedazzled to be working in "the first division," which is what he told his team after a trip to a security expo in Las Vegas in 2016.

Morales had just signed on to guard Queen Miri , the $70 million yacht belonging to one of the most high profile casino tycoons in Vegas: ultra-Zionist billionaire and Republican mega-donor Sheldon Adelson.

This brought Morales into contact with Israeli-American named Zohar Lahav, "who personally recruited Morales, then managed the relationship between the Spanish security contractor and Sands on a routine basis. After their first meeting in Vegas, the two security professionals became close friends, visiting each other overseas and speaking frequently," according to Blumenthal.

During the spying operation, Lahav worked directly under Brian Nagel, the Director of Global Security for Las Vegas Sands. A former associate director of the US Secret Service and cyber-security expert, Nagel was officially commended by the CIA following successful collaborations with federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

After the election in 2016, newly inaugurated President Trump appointed Mike Pomeo his CIA chief. At this point Pompeo, as you remember, clearly made Assange a target for termination . The security scheme at the embassy, according to Blumenthal, kicked in from there. With meticulous reporting, including a ton of witness testimony from former UC Global employees who saw what Morales was doing as not only illegal, but selling "all the information to the enemy, the U.S.," Blumenthal pieces together a convincing case that Morales was working on behalf of the CIA with the elite Sands' security apparatus not only as the go-between, but the expert assist.

Today, Morales faces criminal charges ranging from violations of Assange's privacy and the secrecy of his client-attorney privileges, as well as misappropriation, bribing a government official, and money laundering. Morales has denied the charges.

If you are still not persuaded, recall that Adelson was accused of working with the CIA at his casinos in Macau, providing a recruiting ground for agents so they could spy on Beijing. This was back in 2015, long before Trump's entrance onto the scene.

Read the whole thing. Considering the powerful role Adelson has played in the White House it is worth taking seriously, whether you think Assange is deserves one's sympathy or not.

Kelley Beaucar Vlahos, executive editor, has been writing for TAC since 2007, focusing on national security, foreign policy, civil liberties and domestic politics. She served for 15 years as a Washington bureau reporter for FoxNews.com, and at WTOP News in Washington from 2013-2017 as a writer, digital editor and social media strategist. She has also worked as a beat reporter at Bridge News financial wire (now part of Reuters) and Homeland Security Today, and as a regular contributor at Antiwar.com. A native Nutmegger, she got her start in Connecticut newspapers, but now resides with her family in Arlington, Va.

J Villain • 2 days ago

Doesn't matter. Like Jeffery Epstein, Adelson is protected. Also the US doesn't recognize international law even exists.

I have long suspected that US tax money is sent to Israel, part of that is funnelled off and laundered through Adelson's casinos and then used to buy influence in the US both directly but also through super pacs to make sure the US money to Israel never stops. No one in Washington wants to put a stop to it because every one is getting paid.

William Burns J Villain • a day ago
Right now, I wouldn't say being "protected like Jeffrey Epstein" would really make anyone all that safe.
J Villain J Villain • 16 hours ago • edited
Just to follow up on this. While there are millions of unemployed Americans, many of who can't pay their bills. The top priority over in the senate is giving Israel $38B so every one can get paid by AIPAC in time for the elections.

https://israelpalestinenews...
https://www.congress.gov/bi...

This is while Israel is preparing to seize the rest of Palestine which will then require another massive US tax payer funded hand out to build infrastructure and put military forces in there.

Blood Alcohol • a day ago
"I'm Shocked, SHOCKED To Find There's Gambling Going On In Here!" And add to that, Spying by Israel. You know the usual.

[May 12, 2020] Israel To Annex the United States by Philip Giraldi

In reality this is vice versa -- Israel is a kind of unrecognized US state with multiple and outrageous special privileges
May 12, 2020 | www.unz.com

Over the past three years Donald J. Trump has delivered on his promise to be the "best friend in Washington that Israel has ever had."

...That Trump was willing to highlight and promote a major pander to the Israel Lobby on the very day he was inaugurated is more than just telling, it is bizarre.

Wally , says: Show Comment May 11, 2020 at 11:40 pm GMT

Joe Biden:

"You don't have to be a Jew to be a Zionist – I am a Zionist, My Name is Joe Biden, and Everybody Knows I Love Israel."

geokat62 , says: Show Comment May 12, 2020 at 2:24 am GMT

Israel to Annex the United States

It was already de facto all that remains is de jure !

[Apr 10, 2020] US Department of Defense give 1 million masks to IDF for coronavirus use

From comments: "Of course, Israel is the Pentagons biggest ally in keeping the military budget up. "
Apr 10, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
Brendan , Apr 8 2020 8:49 utc | 5
April 7: Hospitals say feds are seizing masks and other coronavirus supplies without a word

bigger

April 8: US Department of Defense give 1 million masks to IDF for coronavirus use


bigger

Posted by b on April 8, 2020 at 7:43 UTC | Permalink

The Jpost article that b links to says that a million masks from China (donated by the US Department of Defense) arrived in Tel Aviv on Tuesday night. But Israel should have already had two million masks if this report from last weekend is correct:
The shipment will include two million masks, landing in Israel on Monday morning,
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog-april-4-2020/

So that appears to be three million masks from China, plus those seized from American hospitals. Or are they fiddling the figures and pretending that those seized masks were legally purchased in China?

Brendan , Apr 8 2020 9:53 utc | 8

It appears that Mossad and others have recently acquired about two surgical masks per Israeli:

"5 April 2020,
(...)Last week, the Health Ministry said that security services and government ministries had managed to obtain 27 ventilators and a hoard of other medical equipment from abroad.

Hebrew media reported that the Mossad intelligence service, which has been tasked with securing medical equipment from abroad from unspecified countries amid worldwide shortages, helped obtain 25,000 N95 respiratory masks , 20,000 virus test kits, 10 million surgical masks , and 700 overalls for ambulance workers who usually carry out the initial testing for the virus.

It was the third such shipment by the Mossad over the past few weeks, aimed at addressing shortages in Israel."
https://www.timesofisrael.com/with-11-planes-israel-airlifts-huge-quantities-of-medical-equipment-from-china/

Mao , Apr 8 2020 9:58 utc | 9
Pompeo: "America remains the world's leading light of humanitarian goodness."

https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1247559857206628354

Emily , Apr 8 2020 10:12 utc | 11
One million masks for the IDF.
Eat your heart out US Theodore Roosevelt and Guam.
US sailors right at the bottom of the Pentagon's priorities, thats for sure.
American military?.
Have one duty - die as required for Israel.
Including death by coronavirus by looks of things.....
More fool them.
Richard Steven Hack , Apr 8 2020 10:13 utc | 12
Bloody hell. The Pentagon procures a million masks from China, then gives them to Israel - when US doctors are running low in almost every city - not to mention that the military itself has soaring coronavirus cases it can't handle.

You gotta know some rich Jewish corporate billionaire was behind that crap and Kushner was just the conduit to get Trump to agree to it - probably in exchange for a big donation to Trump's campaign.

If there was ever a country that deserved to be on the end of a US bombing campaign - it's Israel - a racist, fanatical. colonialist, fascist, illegal terrorist state. Zionists - the biggest scumbags on the planet. But instead the US bombs everyone else Israel doesn't like.

But cheer up. Israel is a doomed nation. There is no way they can continue their path forever, historically speaking. I suspect they won't exist within another fifty years. They'll either be annihilated by their own nuclear weapons, or transformed into a bi-national state that is no longer primarily Jewish. And I don't particularly care which.

Mao , Apr 8 2020 12:41 utc | 17
The U.S. government's efforts to clean up Cold War-era waste from nuclear research and bomb making at federal sites around the country has lumbered along for decades, often at a pace that watchdogs and other critics say threatens public health and the environment.

Now, fallout from the global coronavirus pandemic is resulting in more challenges as the nation's only underground repository for nuclear waste finished ramping down operations Wednesday to keep workers safe.

Over more than 20 years, tons of waste have been stashed deep in the salt caverns that make up the southern New Mexico site. Until recently, several shipments a week of special boxes and barrels packed with lab coats, rubber gloves, tools and debris contaminated with plutonium and other radioactive elements were being trucked to the remote facility from South Carolina, Idaho and other spots.

That's all but grinding to a halt.

Shipments to the desert outpost will be limited for the foreseeable future while work at the country's national laboratories and defense sites shift to only those operations considered "mission critical."

Officials at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant warned state regulators in a letter Tuesday that more time would be needed for inspections and audits and that work would be curtailed or shifts would be staggered to ensure workers keep their distance from one another.

https://apnews.com/36eec1b19f113b62fa94f2f0388e240d

Ghost Ship , Apr 8 2020 12:41 utc | 18
... ... ...

BTW, the Al Quds Post (aka Jerusalem Post to Zionists) has changed the headline on that article to "Israel brings 1 million masks from China for IDF soldiers" Looks like the "New York Purchasing and Logistics Division" is part of the Israeli Ministry Of War All The Time. So the original was a nice story but fake news. Since there was no correction attached to the new version, it could be that Washington/Tel Aviv reckoned that this was a step to far even for Trump and the new version is the fake news.

Willy2 , Apr 8 2020 12:45 utc | 20
- This news simply confirms again that the US, under Trump, has become more corrupt. But this is a development that already started years, decades ago before Trump became president.
William Gruff , Apr 8 2020 13:00 utc | 22
Willy2 @20

I think the possibility should be considered that Trump just made preexisting corruption more visible rather than adding significantly to it. There are elaborate protocols and circuitous speech that professional politicians learn to use to obfuscate the corruption and make their own participation in that corruption seem not only acceptable but necessary or even in the public interest. Trump is either ignorant of these protocols or he just doesn't care.

vk , Apr 8 2020 13:26 utc | 24
This is not surprising at all. Israel's economy is completely dependent on American constant aid:

All is not what it seems: Israeli economy's relative success based on massive direct aid from the US and donations from the Jewish diaspora

Even with all this help (of which most go to the military sector), the Isreali economy can barely keep itself afloat:

[...] inequality of income and wealth is huge in Israel, the second worst in the 36 nation OECD group. The relative poverty rate for Haredim and Arabs (25% of the population) is near 50%, and even for other Israelis, it is higher than the OECD average. The gap in median wage levels from skilled to unskilled; from Haredim/Arabs to others is huge - and yet the former will constitute 50% of the population by 2060.

And this mask fiasco is the lesser problem for the American working class right now. A significant portion of its people is going hungry . That magic USD 1,200 check is not coming soon:

"the checks are not in the mail."

And the problem isn't just in the USA. The periphery of Western Civilization is also going to suffer:

Germany and France: the sharpest contractions in national output for 75 years.

Germany's economy will shrink almost 10 per cent in the three months to June, according to the country's top economic research institutes, the sharpest decline since quarterly national accounts began in 1970 and double the size of the biggest drop in the 2008 financial crisis.

The shutdown of vast swaths of economic activity to contain the spread of the pandemic is knocking 1.5 percentage points off French growth for every two weeks that it continues, the Banque de France warned on Wednesday.

After more than three weeks in lockdown, French economic output is expected to have fallen by the sharpest rate since the second world war, the central bank said, forecasting that gross domestic product contracted 6 per cent in the first three months of the year.


jared , Apr 8 2020 13:41 utc | 26
However, to the matter of Israel and the virus:
I thought they were having strangely little impact from virus.

Anyway, this is all very revealing.

You know how people always question:
Why did that woman remain in that abusive relationship?

Nathan Mulcahy , Apr 8 2020 14:18 utc | 29
"US Department of Defense give 1 million masks to IDF for coronavirus use"

MIGA

Phryne's frock , Apr 8 2020 14:23 utc | 31
Get everyone you know to read "Against Our Better Judgment" by Alison Weir. Absolutely the best short, supereasy read to open eyes of those who are unaware that they are unaware, I promise. If you can afford to, buy copies to give away.
red1chief , Apr 8 2020 14:34 utc | 32
Very brief, "b", but one of your best posts. This is an unmitigated outrage. The arrogance of the ruling class knows no bounds, and they are acting with impunity. Seems the ruling class doesn't even care anymore how widely known it is that the US has little sovereignty.
Circe , Apr 8 2020 14:41 utc | 35
Is Trump charging for the masks or are they an added bonus to the 4 billion Israel already gets annually?

In 2018 Trump cut all aid to UNRWA destined for Palestine.

Screw Trump. Palestinians have started producing their own masks; up to 50,000 per day as well as protective gowns.

[Mar 09, 2020] Don't Expect a Democratic President to Roll Back Trump's Policies by Robert Fisk America's health care, its poor, its black and Hispanic minorities and the contest between

Notable quotes:
"... Faced with Zionism at its most aggressive, most US presidents tend to mellow, discovering long-standing friendships among those who most infuriate them. But Sanders has talked of Palestinian suffering and dignity on numerous occasions – which neither Biden nor Warren have yet chosen to do on the campaign – and his contention that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) promotes "bigotry" aroused perhaps too much fury from the pro-Israeli lobby group ..."
"... Its boss, Howard Kohr, is well aware that neither Sanders nor Warren – nor, apparently, Biden, though we'll see about this -- had any interest in attending this year's AIPAC conference. His latest remarks, clearly directed at the man who could be America's first Jewish president, are worthy of serious examin ..."
"... Robert Fisk writes for the Independent , where this column originally appeared. ..."
Mar 09, 2020 | www.counterpunch.org

Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders don't amount to a hill of beans in the Middle East .

And many American voters – save for pro-Israeli lobbyists, liberal Jewish groups and disparate Muslim organisations – don't care a hill of beans about the fears of Israel and the Arabs. But both Muslims and Jews in the region have been carefully studying what the three remaining Democrat contenders have said about two-state solutions, Israeli colonies in the West Bank and the US embassy, currently in Jerusalem courtesy of Donald Trump. It's time we did the same.

First of all, despair all ye who think the Democrats are going to reverse Trump's disastrous transfer of the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Those who believe that a Democrat president will simply roll back on Trump's disastrous policies – not just over the embassy but anywhere else in the Middle East – had better shake off their illusions. History doesn't go backwards. None of the Democratic candidates would commit to reversing Trump's embassy decision when asked; only Sanders spoke vaguely of returning it to Tel Aviv. The rest chickened out by suggesting, rather outrageously, that the existence of the embassy in Jerusalem would become part of future Israeli-Palestinian negotiations – something which was never part of the original Oslo negotiations nor any UN resolution.

Elizabeth Warren announced in the South Carolina debate last month that the decision should be left up to "Israel and Palestine" – presumably suggesting that the 'capital' of a two-state solution was up to them, even though Bibi Netanyahu believes it's all wrapped up – Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, full stop. And "Palestine", Warren should have been aware, doesn't as a state actually exist.

"But it's not up to us to determine what the terms of a two-state solution are," quoth she. " The best way to do that is to encourage the parties to get to the negotiating table themselves." Repeatedly asked if she would move the embassy back to Tel Aviv, Warren equally repeatedly said that "we should let the parties determine the capital." Later she rather eerily referred to "capitals" – without explaining if she was thinking of a Palestinian "capital" in the village of Abu Dis, the grim little solution that Madeleine Albright half-heartedly supported two decades ago.

Sanders, of course, captured the imagination and fury of Arabs and Israelis (and Israel's supposed friends in America) by his characterisation of Netanyahu as a "reactionary racist" – a description he may now choose to soften. Faced with Zionism at its most aggressive, most US presidents tend to mellow, discovering long-standing friendships among those who most infuriate them. But Sanders has talked of Palestinian suffering and dignity on numerous occasions – which neither Biden nor Warren have yet chosen to do on the campaign – and his contention that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) promotes "bigotry" aroused perhaps too much fury from the pro-Israeli lobby group .

Its boss, Howard Kohr, is well aware that neither Sanders nor Warren – nor, apparently, Biden, though we'll see about this -- had any interest in attending this year's AIPAC conference. His latest remarks, clearly directed at the man who could be America's first Jewish president, are worthy of serious examin ation. "A growing and highly vocal and energised part of the electorate fundamentally rejects the value of the US-Israeli alliance," he said. " The leaders of this movement say they support Israel's right to defend herself. But every time Israel exercises that right, they condemn Israel."

Kohr wasn't referring here to BDS, the boycott, divest and sanctions movement which does frighten Israeli leaders, but the increasingly worried men and women in America – young Jewish liberals prominent among them – who are disgusted by the suffering faced by the Palestinians in Gaza. Unafraid of Sanders' unwise use of the word "socialism" – which used to be quite acceptable in Israel many years ago – they are searching, I suspect, for a morality in international politics which the US regularly suspends when confronted by Israel's colonial project in the West Bank.

"Israel cannot afford false friends," Kohr continued in a very clear assault on Sanders' condemnation of the Israeli government and its now yet-again elected prime minister, an attack he described as "demonising Israel". Last spring, Kohr spoke of the "intense hatred" of Israel which, he contended, was moving from the margins to the centre of US politics. " Israel has been able to count on its friendship with the United States," he now says.

But George W Bush and Obama "each understood that America's commitment to Israel's safety must be consistent, it must be unequivocal [sic], and it must be dependable." In reality – a quality often lost in any discussion of US-Israeli relations in Washington – Obama was angered by Netanyahu's constant interference in US politics, his lone appeals to Congress over the president's head and his absolute refusal to postpone or close down or abandon the steady theft of Palestinian Arab land for Jewish colonies between Jerusalem and the Jordan river. Kohr's reference to the necessity of America's "unequivocal" support is not quite what he meant.

The correct word – had he dared to say it – would have been "uncritical". And Sanders is not uncritical. In the strait-jacket, fearful debates which pass for serious television discussion in the United States, condemnation of Israel and its grotesque occupation of another people's land – if not splashed with accusations of antisemitism – is regarded as off-limits, unacceptable, even immoral.

Sanders has broken this silly convention. And thus he must be dismissed as a "socialist' (this is partly his fault, of course) and a "radical", a word which my elderly Dad would probably have interpreted as a 'Bolshie'. Sanders is not a Bolshevik – though he sometimes looks like one when he's on the stump – and his real threat to Israel is that in the eyes of his supporters, he is honest, and seen to be honest. The fact that Sanders is Jewish and represents the bravest of America's liberal Jewish community is all the more frightening to Israel's right-wing supporters.

And so we come to Joe Biden, a man whom Netanyahu used to run rings around when Biden was Obama's vice president. In 2010, the Netanyahu government blithely announced 1,600 new settlement houses on occupied Palestinian land shortly after Biden's arrival on an official visit to Israel. Huffily arriving 90 minutes late for dinner with Netanyahu, Biden condemned the decision – and said no more. Four years later, addressing the Saban Forum, part of the right-wing Brookings Institute, Biden spent much time condemning Iran, praising Obama's $17 billion financial support for Israel's military – which he calculated at $8.5 million a day – and referring obliquely to the grave reservations which the Obama administration had about Israel as "tactical disagreements", "tactical divides", "normal disagreements" and "different perspectives".

Only at the very end of his 2014 peroration did Biden mildly condemn "expanding settlement activity and construction and the demolition of homes of attackers [sic]" as "counterproductive". He referred to "terrorist" attacks by Palestinians and "vigilante attacks" by Jewish settlers. And that's pretty much what we can expect of a Biden presidency.

He might, conceivably, try to roll back Trump's destruction of the Iranian nuclear agreement into which Obama put so much energy – but just as he will not commit himself to reversing Trump's decision on the US embassy transfer to Jerusalem, he's likely to search for another nuclear agreement to take the place of the Obama one – which, in his perverse and hopeless way, is what Trump has been suggesting.

The trouble is that while former Democrat candidates are now ganging up to destroy Sanders' chances of nomination – along with a significant portion of the US "liberal" press – Trump, barring a virus-induced economic collapse, is unlikely to spend much time worrying about a Biden candidacy.

Just as they prefer a "safe pair of hands" to protect the party, so the Democrat elite and the "old" liberals fear the moral crusade upon which Sanders might embark – about health and human rights just as much as the Middle East. Better to avoid conflict with Israel, too. And that was Hilary Clinton's policy, wasn't it? And that's how Sanders went off the rails in the last presidential election, finally asking his supporters to give their vote to Hillary, as they shouted: "No! No! No!" Join the debate on Facebook More articles by: Robert Fisk

Robert Fisk writes for the Independent , where this column originally appeared.

[Feb 29, 2020] Rand Paul says he will oppose John Bolton and Rudy Giuliani for Secretary of State

Notable quotes:
"... "Bolton is a longtime member of the failed Washington elite that Trump vowed to oppose, hell-bent on repeating virtually every foreign policy mistake the U.S. has made in the last 15 years - particularly those Trump promised to avoid as president," ..."
"... "It's important that someone who was an unrepentant advocate for the Iraq War, who didn't learn the lessons of the Iraq War, shouldn't be the secretary of state for a president who says Iraq was ..."
Nov 20, 2016 | rare.us

Senator Rand Paul said Tuesday in an op-ed for Rare that he would oppose President-elect Donald Trump's rumored selection of former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton as Secretary of State.

"Bolton is a longtime member of the failed Washington elite that Trump vowed to oppose, hell-bent on repeating virtually every foreign policy mistake the U.S. has made in the last 15 years - particularly those Trump promised to avoid as president,"

Paul wrote citing U.S. interventions in Iraq and Libya that Trump has criticized but that Bolton strongly advocated.

Reports since have indicated that former New York City mayor and loyal Trump ally, Rudy Giuliani is being considered for the post.

The Washington Post's David Weigel reports , "Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), a newly reelected member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said this morning that he was inclined to oppose either former U.N. ambassador John Bolton or former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani if they were nominated for secretary of state."

"It's important that someone who was an unrepentant advocate for the Iraq War, who didn't learn the lessons of the Iraq War, shouldn't be the secretary of state for a president who says Iraq was a big lesson," Paul told the Post. "Trump said that a thousand times. It would be a huge mistake for him to give over his foreign policy to someone who [supported the war]. I mean, you could not find more unrepentant advocates of regime change."

Related: Rand Paul: Will Donald Trump betray voters by hiring John Bolton?

[Feb 29, 2020] Singer, Bernard Marcus, and Sheldon Adelson, together put over $250 million in pro-Trump political money. In return, they want war with Iran

Notable quotes:
"... Know what this called. Extortion .Same as Zelensky and Ukraine ..but it is going to end badly, it has to. ..."
Jan 01, 2020 | www.unz.com

mcohen , says: December 21, 2019 at 6:09 am GMT

@NoseytheDuke Lol.the fact that you looked and missed it.The devil is in the details.Joyce wrote.Mark green cheered on.I called bullshit

"Although Singer was initially anti-Trump, and although Trump once attacked Singer for his pro-immigration politics ("Paul Singer represents amnesty and he represents illegal immigration pouring into the country"), Trump is now essentially funded by three Jews -- Singer, Bernard Marcus, and Sheldon Adelson, together accounting for over $250 million in pro-Trump political money. In return, they want war with Iran"

Know what this called. Extortion .Same as Zelensky and Ukraine ..but it is going to end badly, it has to.

[Feb 29, 2020] Trump Shows Himself a Better Friend of Zionists Than Even Truman

Dec 15, 2019 | www.truthdig.com

tex • 8 hours ago ,

Don't be so quick on the "allegations of anti-Semitism against Democratic members of Congress have done no lasting damage." I've observed an increasing number of Jewish leaders recommending a further look at their support of Democrats & others recommending a switch to the R's. Rabbis from GA to a deep blue northern state have made such suggestions.

Now we have NYC's Roger L. Simon, Dartmouth, Yale, Novelist, screenwriter, who "experienced a political transformation in which he felt alienated from what he saw as the excesses of the Left." On 12/12 Simon wrote "Trump Shows Himself a Better Friend to the Jews Than Even Truman."

Excerpt:
"Most Republican presidents were better than the Democrats, although the Jews vote Democratic, one of the more perplexing ironies of our time. It's almost, though not quite, like blacks voting Democratic, although Democratic policies have helped to eviscerate the black family. Jews, at least, have done well, but in spite of, not because of, Democratic policies."

Various pro-Jew stuff "and finally, [Trump's] new adaptation of the Civil Rights Act to include the Jews. [which is criticized]. Do Jews deserve to be covered by a civil rights act? [Hitler certainly thought not]. He just wanted them dead. Trump clearly wants them to live. And thrive. Maybe it's because he has Jewish grandchildren. Who knows? But every Jew in America should thank him for it. Unfortunately, they don't. Far from it. And that's, as Trump himself would say, sad."

Realize that colleges discriminate against Jews. Standards are higher for their admission to top US Universities as well as for Asians (Asians are suing & I love it). Left leaning US universities, & most big ones are, are anti-Jewish while supporting Muslim Student Associations behaving badly, including driving Jewish speakers from Campus.

A former anti-Trump Jewish neighbor has shifted to the extent he now says he likes most of what Trump has done but complains Trump is not refined – Trump talks like a construction worker. He's not committed to vote for Trump, but to tease him, I'm getting him a "Trump 2020" Star of David Yarmulke for Xmas (He doesn't do Xmas, just a gift to a friend). Far better way to influence than the Liberals apply to the rest of us. Antifa winning friends & converts?

The success of Jews & Asians in America makes a lie of "white privilege." Asians & Jews on average both do much better economically than white non-Jews. Calculations based on white's not including Jews shows "white privilege" ain't as advantageous as presented. Our nation's 2 poorest areas are one black & one white.

Yet, the liberal beatdown of whites continues against those "deplorable" and poor "smelly Walmart shoppers" who voted for Trump. Liberal University Profs demand REQUIRED "white folks bad" courses & several Universities already do that. US universities, America's forced "Reeducation camps."

An OK white law student was kicked out of law school for posting a "It's OK to be white" sign. For liberal universities, it ain't OK to be white – shame on you for being born. It ain't OK to be Jewish. It ain't OK to be Asian.

VOTE FOR THE DEMOCRATS YOU WRETCHED WHITES! JEWS! ASIANS! Fess up your sins!

How dumb? Even our black citizens are turning away in increasing numbers. By no means a majority, but a trend. Dems/Libs bring it on themselves with all their identity politics & unrestrained hate of those unlike them.

Whiterules tex • 2 hours ago • edited ,

Excellent take down of cultural Marxism

[Feb 29, 2020] Pompeo lies and smokescreen

Pompeo has just four terms in the House of Representives befor getting postions of Director of CIA (whichsuggests previous involvement with CIA) and then paradoxically the head of the State Department, He retired from the alry in the rank of comptain and never participated in any battles. He serves only in Germany, and this can be classified as a chickenhawk. He never performed any dyplomatic duries in hs life and a large part of his adult life (1998-2006) was a greddy military contractor.
Jan 07, 2020 | www.truthdig.com

UN Special Rapporteur on Extra-Judicial Executions Agnes Callamard tweeted,

#Pentagon statement on targeted killing of #suleimani :

1. It mentions that it aimed at "deterring future Iranian attack plans". This however is very vague. Future is not the same as imminent which is the time based test required under international law. (1)

-- Agnes Callamard (@AgnesCallamard) January 3, 2020

2. Overall, the statement places far greater emphasis on past activities and violations allegedly commuted by Suleimani. As such the killing appears far more retaliatory for past acts than anticipatory for imminent self defense.

-- Agnes Callamard (@AgnesCallamard) January 3, 2020

3. The notion that Suleimani was "actively developing plans" is curious both from a semantic and military standpoint. Is it sufficient to meet the test of mecessity and proportionality?

-- Agnes Callamard (@AgnesCallamard) January 3, 2020

4. The statement fails to mention the other individuals killed alongside Suleimani. Collateral? Probably. Unlawful. Absolutely.

-- Agnes Callamard (@AgnesCallamard) January 3, 2020

[Feb 26, 2020] Why Trump will win

Feb 26, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Kooshy , Feb 26 2020 21:32 utc | 51

"This discussion is frankly irrelevant. Trump is assured of re-selection because he's appeased the only two constituencies that matter: the military industrial complex and the zionist lobby. "

No you forgot the other constituencies that will vote for him. Namely the dumb ass stupid rednecks , and the as stupid evangelist.

[Feb 23, 2020] Viva #MIGA

Feb 23, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

14 minutes ago

  • What imperialism?
  • We are spreading freedumb and dumbocracy.
  • We are saving the world from socialism and communism.
  • We are energy independent, with innate exceptionalism and #MAGA# will usher in a new era of American prosperity.
  • Any and all accusations of USSA imperialism, are made by the "woke" and those jealous of the greatest Capitalist system in the world.
  • The swamp is being drained as I speak, and therefore will continue with unwavering support for my 5x draft dodging, Zionist supporting, multiple times bankrupt, keeper of broken promises POTUS.
  • Smedley Butler's book is not worthy of reading once you have the seminal work known as "The Art Of The Deal"

    ​​​​​​​#MIGA#

[Feb 23, 2020] The shortage of manpower in the US army can be compensated by giving people like Professor of identity studies Karlan M16 and sending then into trenches to fight Iranians

Dec 04, 2019 |

[Feb 16, 2020] Presidential Election Politics are Damaging U.S. Foreign Policy by Robert E. Hunter

Actions of Trump are dictated by his handlers. He is just a marionette.
Notable quotes:
"... wealth on tap. ..."
"... There's more than an echo of McCartthism in this -- policies are championed to further the business and ideological interests of powerful individuals that don't necessarily reflect the priorities and interests of the country as a whole. People, often those who really should know better, then bandwaggon on those policies, not only to avoid being labeled unpatriotic but to also prove that they're just as or even more patriotic than the people originally promulgating them. We've seen this time and again, probably the most egregious recent example being the miasma of lies that were used to invade Iraq. Its a mindset that might appear to work but I believe that its ultimately a road to nowhere. ..."
Feb 05, 2020 | responsiblestatecraft.org

During every presidential election cycle, pundits argue that foreign policy will play a decisive role. Every time -- at least in my experience of 14 election cycles, nine in campaigns -- they have been proved wrong. This year will almost surely be no different.

On the hustings, presidential candidates rarely get questions from voters on foreign policy. However, during the televised debates , journalist-questioners looking to make news quiz candidates on what they might do in thus-and-so circumstance, although they can't possibly know until faced in the Oval Office with real-world choices.

Election Campaign Damage: Israel and Palestine

By contrast, presidential campaigns often have a serious impact on U.S. national security interests. This year, three foreign policy issues tightly linked to U.S. domestic politics stand out. First, last week, Trump joined with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House to launch the " deal of the century " on Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking. The deal is so one-sided as to be risible and is " dead on arrival." It's good politics for Trump with U.S. constituencies that are strongly pro-Israel, though with less impact with American Jews (most of whom are almost certain to vote for the Democratic nominee) than with many American evangelicals.

But does it matter that, with Trump's proposal, the United States has abandoned any pretense of being an " honest broker" in the Middle East? To be sure, keen observers rightly note that most Arab governments give no more than ritual support to the Palestinian cause. Many have joined Israel in seeing Iran as their common enemy, and the Palestinians be damned.

But most Arab leaders still must look over their shoulders: can they be sure that their populations will forget about the Palestinians' decades-long perception of humiliation by Israel, the United States, and most Arab leaders? Thus, to guard against giving a hostage to fortune, both the Arab League and the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIG) have formally rejected the Trump plan.

Still, a third Palestinian Intifada (or "uprising") has so far not started. But these are early days. In any event, U.S. chances of promoting stability in the region have been seriously damaged.

Damage: Iran

More consequential is the standoff between the Trump administration and Iran ' s clerical leadership, with the U.S. being egged on by regional partners. Trump probably does not want an open war with Iran. But heightened tensions raise doubts that either Trump or the Iranians can control the pattern of escalation/de-escalation. Little would be needed to spark a major conflict, even by accident. After the United States assassinated Iranian Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani, Iran responded only by launching pin-prick missile attacks against two Iraqi airbases used by the U.S. military, with advanced warning to keep from killing Americans. Trump -- and the world -- might not be so lucky next time.

It takes strong nerves to bet that the Trump administration ' s " maximum pressure" strategy against Iran will remain controlled , much less that Iran will accede to U.S. demands before negotiations even begin. Meanwhile, following Trump ' s amazing folly two years ago of withdrawing from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which effectively trammeled any chance that Iran could get nuclear weapons for at least a decade, Iran is now ramping up its nuclear activities. Given that Trump has pledged that " Iran will never be allowed to have a nuclear weapon," at some point a " red line" can get crossed, not just in politics-driven perceptions but in reality. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo still has on the table 12 demands that Iran must meet before any negotiations can begin. No country will accept unconditional surrender as the opening bid for talking.

Several of the Democratic candidates for president, while deeply concerned about Iran's behavior, oppose the Trump-Pompeo approach, with all of the risks of open conflict. Amid deep unease on Capitol Hill, the Democratic-controlled House has voted to repeal the 2002 Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF), originally the legal basis for the invasion of Iraq, and to prevent funding of military action against Iran without congressional authorization. (Yet neither House bill has much chance of passing the Republican-controlled Senate.) But these concerns could be swept aside if an incident in the Persian Gulf region led to Americans getting killed, provoking a national outcry. So long as Trump favors confrontation with Iran over any consideration of compromise or conciliation, the dangers will continue. "Hair trigger" continues to be an apt metaphor.

Damage: The Democrats on Russia

It's not just the White House that is doing serious damage to U.S. interests abroad during this year's election campaign. Of even greater consequence (absent a new Middle East war) is the U.S. relationship with Russia. It's currently unthinkable that Washington will try to move beyond the status quo, even if Russian President Vladimir Putin were prepared to do so. Even before Trump was inaugurated, many Democrats began calling for his impeachment . Leading Democrats laid Hillary Clinton ' s defeat at the feet of Russian interference in the U.S. election -- a claim that stretched credulity past the breaking point. Further, as Democrats looked for grounds to impeach Trump (or at least terminally to reduce his reelection chances), the " Russia factor" was the best cudgel available. Charges included the notion that " Putin has something on Trump," which presumes he would sell out the nation ' s security for a mess of pottage.

All this domestic politicking ignores a geopolitical fact: while the Soviet Union lost the Cold War and, for some time thereafter, Russia could be dismissed, it was always certain that it would again become a significant power, at least in Europe. Thus, even before the Berlin Wall fell, President George H. W. Bush proposed creating a " Europe whole and free" and at peace. Bill Clinton built on what Bush began. Both understood that a renascent Russia could embrace revanchism, and for several years their efforts seemed to have a chance of succeeding.

Then the effort went off the rails. Putin took power in Russia, which made cooperation with the West difficult if not impossible. He worked to consolidate his domestic position, in part by alleging that the West was " disrespecting" Russia and trying to encircle it. For its part, the U.S. played into the Putin narrative by abandoning the Bush-Clinton vision of taking legitimate Russian interests into account in fashioning European security arrangements. The breaking point came in 2014, when Russia seized Crimea and sent " little green men" to fight in some other parts of Ukraine. The West necessarily responded, with economic sanctions and NATO's buildup of " trip wire" forces in Central Europe.

But despite the ensuing standoff, the critical requirement remains: the United States has to acknowledge Russia's inevitable rise as a major power while also impressing on Putin the need to trim his ambitions, if he is to avoid a new era of Russian isolation. There is also serious business that the two countries need to pursue, including strategic arms control, the Middle East (especially Iran), and climate change. Despite deep disagreements, including over Ukraine and parts of Central Europe, the U.S. needs to engage in serious discussions with Russia, which means the renewal of diplomacy which has been in the deep freeze for years.

All of this has been put in pawn by the role that the "Russia factor" has been permitted to play in American presidential politics, especially by Democrats. Longer-term U.S. interests are suffering, along with those of the European allies and Middle East partners. The task has been made even more difficult by those U.S. politicians, think tanks , and journalists who prefer to resurrect the term "cold war" rather than clearly examining the nation's strategic needs because of the blinkers imposed by domestic politics. Open discussion about alternatives in dealing with Russia is thus stifled, at serious cost to the United States and others.

In all three of these areas, the U.S. is paying a high price in terms of its national interests to the games political leaders, both Republicans and Democrats, are playing. Great efforts will be needed to dig out of this mess, beginning with U.S. willingness to do so. Leaders elsewhere must also be prepared to join in -- far from a sure thing! Unfortunately, there is currently little hope that, at least in the three critical areas discussed above, pursuit of U.S. interests abroad will prevail over today's parochial domestic politics. David G. Horsman You apparently do not appreciate these sociopaths live for this crap. It keeps their juices flowing. Cackling Killary may yet get on Stop and Frisk your Bloomer's ticket and be VP. For a price of course.
This is a fantasy. Once fascism gets established it is nearly impossible to stop it if history teaches us anything.
Pseudo-religious talk about Karma is very reminiscent of the decent Christians comforting themselves that all those badies will be punished in hell for an eternity. IE. Because they won't be in this life.
It's a way of coping with total defeat after 50 years of neoliberalcon supremacy and proto fascism. After a 100 year war on labour.

It's already over. What do think this is? France 🇫🇷 ?

I don't fight fascism because I believe we will win. It's because they are fascist. And we know who has all the guns. Gezzah Potts How many human beings have now died as a result of the draconian sanctions unleashed on the Venezuelan people by this rogue terrorist state?
I also wonder how the people of Detroit are faring considering 33.4% live below the poverty line, or in Cleveland where 35% live in poverty.
And yet Trump brags of defending 'American liberty' (oxymoron) by spending $2.2 trillion dollars in maintaining the hegemony of this debauched Empire.
Yet, in the land of the free (another oxymoron) vast swathes of people live in poverty – or live in their cars, or in the burgeoning tent cities.
How's the water in Flint? Is it still undrinkable?
As if any of the creatures in Washington care about any of this. Anything to maintain control over much of the Planet. Tim Jenkins And with the highest incarcerated prison population and highest record in private prison profits in California, most recent, it seems the solution to corporate 'societal' wealth is to have 50,000 homeless on the streets in L.A. , just 'hanging' around, the corner . . .

wealth on tap.

(datsa' rap trap 😉 ) 5 0 Reply Feb 16, 2020 9:24 AM Gezzah Potts Gezzah Potts Just watched John Pilger's searing documentary 'The Dirty War On The NHS' which included segments on the wondrously caring and compassionate US 'health system' in places like Chicago and such quaint notions as 'patient dumping' where, to further save costs, and make more billions $$$$ – patients are evicted from hospitals early and dumped at homeless shelters.
My god, the barbarians are not just at the gate. They're already inside the building.
These completely dehumanised psychopathic neoliberal ideologues who only care about money and profits.
More and more for us and all you useless eaters can just fuck off and die.
That's the mentality. It's so sick.
No, that wasn't a pun. It is truly sick how warped society has become. Seamus Padraig

Despite the turmoil Trump has experienced since 2016, it has been his karmic responsibility to grow from those challenges, to use each obstacle as a path to align with a higher vibration and become a more conscious person, fully aware of his global responsibility to humanity – that has not appeared to have happened.

What appears to have happened is that Trump finally caved in to the Deep State, and that's why things are going better for him. I am starting to suspect we may see a war against Iran in Term II.

Pelosi and the Dems have also created 'bad' karma with their own abuse of power; they too will reap the results of their own behavior.

What they're gonna reap is more Trump after next November! Martin Usher There's more than an echo of McCartthism in this -- policies are championed to further the business and ideological interests of powerful individuals that don't necessarily reflect the priorities and interests of the country as a whole. People, often those who really should know better, then bandwaggon on those policies, not only to avoid being labeled unpatriotic but to also prove that they're just as or even more patriotic than the people originally promulgating them. We've seen this time and again, probably the most egregious recent example being the miasma of lies that were used to invade Iraq. Its a mindset that might appear to work but I believe that its ultimately a road to nowhere.

I'm less concerned about the current emphasis on military spending than I would have been in the past because I sincerely doubt the ability of the US to carry through on these plans. The writing's been on the wall for some time and they can certainly spend the money but the chronic shortage of engineering talent, the systematic shortchanging of education and our steady erosion of manufacturing knowhow will limit our ability to turn political wishful thinking into reality. Sure, we'll still be able to produce boutique products, eye-wateringly expensive munitions that we can use to intimidate people who can't shoot back, but we're already in an era where serious cost overruns and performance deficiencies are the rule rather than the exception. This problem has been brewing for a generation or more and it will take a generation or more to fix it. Unfortunately our politicians are still living in the reflected glory of past empires, they seem to be unable to recognize that WW2 was 75 years ago, so I expect we'll stumble along business as usual alienating more and more people until all we have left are those we can buy with our increasingly useless dollars.

[Feb 14, 2020] Trump s foreign policy in the ME is ignorant of anything but Zionist desires and ambitions.

Feb 14, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Not directly related to any of these points, but important in the mix, is the relation of both parties to AIPAC. People don't want a government whose first priority is Israel.

The first meaningful push back against AIPAC (long overdue) was by a Minnesota Democrat, Betty McCollum, yesterday. A letter worth reading: https://mccollum.house.gov/media/press-releases/mccollum-statement-hate-speech-makes-aipac-hate-group

[Feb 14, 2020] The Right-Wing Pro-Israel, Evangelical Agenda has Taken Over Trump's Middle East Policy

Notable quotes:
"... Until recently, President Donald Trump's pro-Israel policy was centered on taking steps related to fulfilling campaign promises and strengthening his standing domestically with his evangelical base. Chief among these steps was his decision to pull out of the nuclear accord with Iran, and the recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel (and at the same time announcing moving the American embassy to Jerusalem). Trump also signed a presidential proclamation recognizing "Israeli sovereignty" over the Golan Heights. ..."
"... By deciding to carry out this assassination operation, Trump has brought his pro-Israel policy to an entirely new, and dangerous level. ..."
"... Israel may have found in the Trump administration the perfect ally when it comes to the demonization of Iran and the groups it supports. ..."
Feb 14, 2020 | responsiblestatecraft.org

Until recently, President Donald Trump's pro-Israel policy was centered on taking steps related to fulfilling campaign promises and strengthening his standing domestically with his evangelical base. Chief among these steps was his decision to pull out of the nuclear accord with Iran, and the recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel (and at the same time announcing moving the American embassy to Jerusalem). Trump also signed a presidential proclamation recognizing "Israeli sovereignty" over the Golan Heights.

All of this has changed, however, with the assassination of the commander of the Quds Force in Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) General Qassem Soleimani and the deputy head of the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), Abu Mehdi Al-Muhandis.

By deciding to carry out this assassination operation, Trump has brought his pro-Israel policy to an entirely new, and dangerous level.

Targeting the IRGC and PMF: An Israeli policy

It is worth remembering that Israel set the precedent for carrying out lethal operations in Iraq by targeting elements of the IRGC and the PMF.

Israel began these operations last year, with the first taking place on July 19 near the Iraqi town of Amerli. Iranian media later reported that senior IRGC commander Abu Alfazl Sarabian had died in the attack.

Another Israeli attack on August 25 led to the death of a senior PMF commander in the Iraqi town of Al-Qaim near the border with Syria, while 21 PMF members were killed in an Israeli operation near the city of Hit in Iraq's Anbar province on September 20.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu even admitted that Israel was behind these attacks.

"We are working against Iranian consolidation in Iraq as well [as in Syria]" remarked Netanyahu on August 22.

Trump administration officials adopt the Israel line of demonizing Iran

The Israeli fingerprints on U.S. policy could also be seen in the apparent stances taken by U.S. officials following the assassination of Soleimani and Al-Muhandis.

According to the New York Times , Trump administration officials have compared the assassination of Soleimani to the killing of former ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi. Such a comparison is no doubt to Israel's liking.

Not only has Israel long sought to equate the IRGC and its allies, including the Lebanese Hezbollah and the Iraqi PMF, with terrorist groups like al-Qaida and ISIS, it has even described the latter groups as being the lesser of the two evils.

According to sources in Washington, one of the most common complaints made by visiting Israeli officials over the past years was that the U.S. was focusing too much on fighting Sunni Jihadist groups (al-Qaida, ISIS, etc.) and not enough on fighting Iran and its network of allies.

Israel's former ambassador to Washington, Michael Oren referred to this dynamic in an interview with the Jerusalem Post back in September 2013, where he summed up the Israeli policy regarding Syria. "The initial message about the Syrian issue was that we always wanted (President) Bashar Assad to go" he stated, further adding; "we always preferred the bad guys who weren't back by Iran (al-Qaida affiliates) to the bad guys who were backed by Iran".

For his part, former Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon referred to an " axis of evil ' comprising Iran, Syria, and Lebanon.

Yaalon made those remarks during a meeting with former chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Martin Dempsey in August 2013, underscoring that this "axis of evil" must not emerge victorious in Syria.

Israel may have found in the Trump administration the perfect ally when it comes to the demonization of Iran and the groups it supports.

Hard-core evangelicals like Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Vice President Mike Pence have a strong ideological affinity for Israel and its anti-Iranian agenda.

During a Senate hearing last April, Pompeo repeated the long-debunked claim that Iran and al-Qaida have cooperated for years. "There is no doubt there is a connection between the Islamic Republic of Iran and al-Qaida. Period, full stop," Pompeo asserted.

Pence, meanwhile, has even gone so far as to claim that Soleimani was involved with 9/11 . Following the assassination, Pence tweeted that Soleimani had "assisted in the clandestine travel of 10 of the 12 terrorists who carried out the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States."

American troops in danger as a result of the Israeli evangelical agenda

With the assassination of Soleimani and Al-Muhandes, Israel and its Christian evangelical allies in Washington appear to have succeeded more than any time before in steering Trump's foreign policy. Their success, however, may have placed U.S. troops in the region in grave danger.

In a speech commemorating the death of Soleimani and Al-Muhandes, the leader of the Lebanese Hezbollah Hassan Nasrallah warned that retaliation would be aimed at U.S. military assets.

In remarks which brought back the memories of the 1983 attacks on the Marine Barracks in Beirut, Nasrallah suggested that the U.S. military presence in the region would become a target for suicide bombers.

"The suicide attackers who forced the Americans to leave our region in the past are still here today and in far greater numbers," Nasrallah asserted.

[Feb 10, 2020] Stench of Netanyahu in attack on K-1 base near Kirkuk: Did Washington Use a False Pretext for Its Recent Escalation in Iraq?

Notable quotes:
"... New York Times's ..."
Feb 08, 2020 | responsiblestatecraft.org

In a key piece of actual extensive, on-the-ground reporting , the New York Times's Alissa Rubin has raised serious questions about the official US account of who it was that attacked the K-1 base near Kirkuk, in eastern Iraq, on December 27. The United States almost immediately accused the Iran-backed Ketaib Hizbullah (KH) militia of responsibility. But Rubin quotes by name Brig. General Ahmed Adnan, the chief of intelligence for the Iraqi federal police at the same base, as saying, "All the indications are that it was Daesh" -- that is, ISIS.

She also presents considerable further detailed reporting on the matter. And she notes that though U.S. investigators claim to have evidence about KH's responsibility for the attack, they have presented none of it publicly. Nor have they shared it with the Iraqi government.

KH is a paramilitary organization that operates under the command of the Iraqi military and has been deeply involved in the anti-ISIS campaigns throughout the country.

The December 27 attack killed one Iraqi-American contractor and was cited by the Trump administration as reason to launch a large-scale attack on five KH bases some 400 miles to the west which killed around 50 KH fighters. Outraged KH fighters then mobbed the US embassy in Baghdad, breaking through an outside perimeter on its large campus, but causing no casualties. On January 2, Pres. Trump decided to escalate again, ordering the assassination of Iran's Gen. Qasem Soleimani and bringing the region and the world close to a massive shooting war.

The new evidence presented by Rubin makes it look as if Trump and his advisors had previously decided on a broad-scale plan to attack Iran's very influential allies in Iraq and were waiting for a triggering event– any triggering event!– to use as a pretext to launch it. The attack against the K-1 base presented them with that trigger, even though they have not been able to present any evidence that it was KH that undertook it.

This playbook looks very similar to the one that Ariel Sharon, who was Israel's Defense Minister in summer 1982, used to launch his wide attack against the PLO's presence in Lebanon in June that year. The "trigger" Sharon used to launch his long-prepared attack was the serious (but not fatal) wounding of Israel's ambassador in London, Shlomo Argov, which the Israeli government immediately blamed on the PLO.

Regarding London in 1982, as regarding K-1 last December, the actual identity of the assailant(s) was misreported by the government that used it as a trigger for escalation. In London, the police fairly speedily established that it was not the PLO but operatives of an anti-PLO group headed by a man called Abu Nidal who had attacked Argov. But by the time they had discovered and publicized that fact, Israeli tanks were already deep inside Lebanon.

The parallels and connections between the two cases go further. If, as now seems likely, the authors of the K-1 attack were indeed Da'esh, then they succeeded brilliantly in triggering a bitter fight between two substantial forces in the coalition that had been fighting against them in Iraq. Regarding the 1982 London attack, its authors also succeeded brilliantly in triggering a lethal conflict between two forces (one substantial, one far less so) that were both engaged in bitter combat against Abu Nidal's networks.

Worth noting: Abu Nidal's main backer, throughout his whole campaign against the PLO, was Saddam Hussein's brutal government in Iraq. (The London assailants deposited their weapons in the Iraqi embassy after completing the attack.) Many senior strategists and planners for ISIS in Iraq were diehard remnants of Saddam's formerly intimidating security forces.

Also worth noting: Three months in to Sharon's massive 1982 invasion of Lebanon, it seemed to have successfully reached its goals of expelling the PLO's fighting forces from Lebanon and installing a strongly pro-Israeli government there. But over the longer haul, the invasion looked much less successful. The lengthy Israeli occupation of south Lebanon that followed 1982 served to incubate the birth and growth of the (pro-Iranian) Hizbullah there. Today, Hizbullah is a strong political movement inside Lebanon that commands a very capable fighting force that expelled Israel's last presence from Lebanon in 2000, rebuffed a subsequent Israeli invasion of the country six years later, and still exerts considerable deterrent power against Israel today

Very few people in Israel today judge the 1982 invasion of Lebanon to have been a wise move. How will the historians of the future view Trump's decision to launch his big escalation against Iran's allies in Iraq, presumably as part of his "maximum pressure" campaign against Tehran?

This article has been republished with permission from Just World News .

[Feb 09, 2020] Following the US assassination of Soleimani, the Trump administration is leading American conduct abroad into a zone of probably unprecedented lawlessness by Patrick Lawrence

Notable quotes:
"... In our late-imperial phase, we seem to have reached that moment when, whatever high officials say in matters of the empire's foreign policy, we must consider whether the opposite is in fact the case. So we have it now. ..."
"... Lawlessness begets lawlessness is the operative (and obvious) principle. In a remarkable speech at the Hoover Institution last week, Pompeo termed the Soleimani assassination "the restoration of deterrence" and appeared to promise other such operations against other nations Washington considers adversaries. Ominously enough, Pompeo singled out China and Russia. ..."
"... Against the background of the events noted above, it is clear from this speech alone that our secretary of state is a dangerously incompetent figure when it comes to judging global events, the proper responses to them, and the probable consequences of a given response. If we are going to think about costs, the heaviest will fall on Americans in months to come. ..."
"... Immediately after the U.S. drone that killed Soleimani at Baghdad International Airport, Mohammad Javad Zarif sent out a message whose importance should not be missed. "End of US's malign presence in West Asia has begun," Iran's foreign minister wrote. These few words, rendered in Twitterese, bear careful consideration given they come from an official whose nation had just sustained a critical blow. ..."
"... Gradually but rather certainly now, the community of nations is losing its patience with late-phase imperial America. With exceptions such as Japan and Israel, the Baltics and Saudi Arabia, this is so across both oceans and more or less across the non–Western world. In the Middle East, the American presence will remain for the time being, but we are now in the beginning-of-the-end phase. This was Zarif's meaning. And we now know the end will come neither peaceably nor lawfully. ..."
"... Amazing how the US government is bringing back the old days: "Slave markets" See: reuters.com/article/us-libya-security-rights/executions-torture-and-slave-markets-persist-in-libya-u-n-idUSKBN1GX1JY "Pillage", as pointed out in this article. ..."
"... To have such a person as the top diplomat in the USA shows how low the USA has sunk. For him to pretend to be some sort of Christian is sinister and extremely dangerous for everyone. There is NO reason for the US animosity towards Iran except subservience to Israel, which, again without real justification, claims to be terrified of Iran, which unlike Israel is NOT attacking others and has not for centuries. ..."
"... SecStae's remarks about deterrence befit a military commander, NOT a diplomat. Paranoia, grandiosity and violence begin with potus and cascade downward and about. Congress does its part in investing in machinery of war. ..."
"... Pompeo reminds me of the pigs in Animal Farm. He is a grotesque figure, steely-eyed, cold-blooded, fanatical, and hateful. "We lied, cheated, and stole" Pompous Maximus will get his comeuppance one of these days ..."
"... Pillage as policy. The Empire has fully embraced gangster capitalism for its modus operandi. ..."
"... Here is an interesting article that explains how governments have changed the rules so that they can justify killing anyone who they believe may at some point in time have the potential to be involved in a terrorist plot: viableopposition.blogspot.com/2020/01/the-bethlehem-doctrine-and-new.html ..."
"... This rather Orwellian move gives governments the justification that they to kill any of us just because they feel that we might pose a threat and that is a very, very scary prospect. It is very reminiscent of the movie Minority Report where crimes of the future are punished in the present. ..."
Jan 21, 2020 | consortiumnews.com

Special to Consortium News

Of all the preposterous assertions made since the drone assassination of Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad on Jan. 3, the prize for bottomless ignorance must go to the bottomlessly ignorant Mike Pompeo.

Speaking after the influential Iranian general's death, our frightening secretary of state declaimed on CBS's Face the Nation , "There was sound and just and legal reason for the actions the President took, and the world is safer as a result." In appearances on five news programs on the same Sunday morning, the evangelical paranoid who now runs American foreign policy was a singer with a one-note tune. "It's very clear the world's a safer place today," Pompeo said on ABC's Jan. 5 edition of This Week.

In our late-imperial phase, we seem to have reached that moment when, whatever high officials say in matters of the empire's foreign policy, we must consider whether the opposite is in fact the case. So we have it now.

We are not safer now that Soleimani, a revered figure across much of the Middle East, has been murdered. The planet has just become significantly more dangerous, especially but not only for Americans, and this is so for one simple reason: The Trump administration, Pompeo bearing the standard, has just tipped American conduct abroad into a zone of probably unprecedented lawlessness, Pompeo's nonsensical claim to legality notwithstanding .

This is a very consequential line to cross.

Hardly does it hold that Washington's foreign policy cliques customarily keep international law uppermost in their minds and that recent events are aberrations. Nothing suggests policy planners even consider legalities except when it makes useful propaganda to charge others with violating international statutes and conventions.

Please donate to the Winter Fund Drive.

Neither can the Soleimani assassination be understood in isolation: This was only the most reckless of numerous policy decisions recently taken in the Middle East. Since late last year, to consider merely the immediate past, the Trump administration has acted ever more flagrantly in violation of all international legal authorities and documents -- the UN Charter, the International Criminal Court, and the International Court of Justice in the Hague chief among them.

Washington is into full-frontal lawlessness now.

'Keeping the Oil'

Shortly after Trump announced the withdrawal of U.S. forces from northern Syria last October, the president reversed course -- probably under Pentagon and State Department pressure -- and said some troops would remain to protect Syria's oilfields. "We want to keep the oil," Trump declared in the course of a Twitter storm. It soon emerged that the administration's true intent was to prevent the Assad government in Damascus from reasserting sovereign control over Syrian oilfields.

The Russians had the honesty to call this for what it was. "Washington's attempt to put oilfields there under [its] control is illegal," Sergei Lavrov said at the time. "In fact, it's tantamount to robbery," the Russian foreign minister added. (John Kiriakou, writing for Consortium News, pointed out that it is a violation of the 1907 Hague Convention. It is call pillage.)

Few outside the Trump administration, and possibly no one, has argued that Soleimani's murder was legitimate under international law. Not only was the Iranian general from a country with which the U.S. is not at war, which means the crime is murder; the drone attack was also a clear violation of Iraqi sovereignty, as has been widely reported.

In response to Baghdad's subsequent demand that all foreign troops withdraw from Iraqi soil, Pompeo flatly refused even to discuss the matter with Iraqi officials -- yet another openly contemptuous violation of Iraqi sovereignty.

It gets worse. In his own response to Baghdad's decision to evict foreign troops, Trump threatened sanctions -- "sanctions like they've never seen before" -- and said Iraq would have to pay the U.S. the cost of the bases the Pentagon has built there despite binding agreements that all fixed installations the U.S. has built in Iraq are Iraqi government-owned.

At Baghdad's Throat

Trump, who seems to have oil eternally on his mind, has been at Baghdad's throat for some time. Twice since taking office three years ago, he has tried to intimidate the Iraqis into "repaying" the U.S. for its 2003 invasion with access to Iraqi oil. "We did a lot, we did a lot over there, we spent trillions over there, and a lot of people have been talking about the oil," he said on the second of these occasions.

Baghdad rebuffed Trump both times, but he has been at it since, according to Adil Abdul–Mahdi, Iraq's interim prime minister. Last year the U.S. administration asked Baghdad for 50 percent of the nation's oil output -- in total roughly 4.5 million barrels daily -- in exchange for various promised reconstruction projects.

Rejecting the offer, Abdul–Mahdi signed an "oil for reconstruction" agreement with China last autumn -- whereupon Trump threatened to instigate widespread demonstrations in Baghdad if Abdul–Mahdi did not cancel the China deal. (He did not do so and, coincidentally or otherwise, civil unrest ensued.)

U.S. Army forces operating in southern Iraq, April. 2, 2003. (U.S. Navy)

Blueprints for Reprisal

If American lawlessness is nothing new, the brazenly imperious character of all the events noted in this brief résumé has nonetheless pushed U.S. foreign policy beyond a tipping point.

No American -- and certainly no American official or military personnel -- can any longer travel in the Middle East with an assurance of safety. All American diplomats, all military officers, and all embassies and bases in the region are now vulnerable to reprisals. The Associated Press reported after the Jan. 3 drone strike that Iran has developed 13 blueprints for reprisals against the U.S.

Lawlessness begets lawlessness is the operative (and obvious) principle. In a remarkable speech at the Hoover Institution last week, Pompeo termed the Soleimani assassination "the restoration of deterrence" and appeared to promise other such operations against other nations Washington considers adversaries. Ominously enough, Pompeo singled out China and Russia.

Here is a snippet from Pompeo's remarks:

"In strategic terms, deterrence simply means persuading the other party that the costs of a specific behavior exceed its benefits. It requires credibility; indeed, it depends on it. Your adversary must understand not only do you have the capacity to impose costs but that you are, in fact, willing to do so . In all cases we have to do this."

Against the background of the events noted above, it is clear from this speech alone that our secretary of state is a dangerously incompetent figure when it comes to judging global events, the proper responses to them, and the probable consequences of a given response. If we are going to think about costs, the heaviest will fall on Americans in months to come.

Immediately after the U.S. drone that killed Soleimani at Baghdad International Airport, Mohammad Javad Zarif sent out a message whose importance should not be missed. "End of US's malign presence in West Asia has begun," Iran's foreign minister wrote. These few words, rendered in Twitterese, bear careful consideration given they come from an official whose nation had just sustained a critical blow.

24 hrs ago, an arrogant clown -- masquerading as a diplomat -- claimed people were dancing in the cities of Iraq.

Today, hundreds of thousands of our proud Iraqi brothers and sisters offered him their response across their soil.

End of US malign presence in West Asia has begun. pic.twitter.com/eTDRyLN11c

-- Javad Zarif (@JZarif) January 4, 2020

Gradually but rather certainly now, the community of nations is losing its patience with late-phase imperial America. With exceptions such as Japan and Israel, the Baltics and Saudi Arabia, this is so across both oceans and more or less across the non–Western world. In the Middle East, the American presence will remain for the time being, but we are now in the beginning-of-the-end phase. This was Zarif's meaning. And we now know the end will come neither peaceably nor lawfully.

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" (Yale). 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.

Please donate to the Winter Fund Drive.

Jeff Harrison , January 21, 2020 at 19:38

Well, there's two relevant bits here. Bullshit walks and money talks. Our money stopped talking $23T ago. What goes around, comes around. Whenever, however it comes down, it's gonna hurt.

Antiwar7 , January 21, 2020 at 13:46

Amazing how the US government is bringing back the old days: "Slave markets" See: reuters.com/article/us-libya-security-rights/executions-torture-and-slave-markets-persist-in-libya-u-n-idUSKBN1GX1JY "Pillage", as pointed out in this article.

rosemerry , January 21, 2020 at 13:28

To have such a person as the top diplomat in the USA shows how low the USA has sunk. For him to pretend to be some sort of Christian is sinister and extremely dangerous for everyone. There is NO reason for the US animosity towards Iran except subservience to Israel, which, again without real justification, claims to be terrified of Iran, which unlike Israel is NOT attacking others and has not for centuries.

Even if the USA hates Iran, it has already done inestimable damage to the Islamic Republic before this disgraceful action. Cruelty to 80 million people who have never harmed, even really threatened, the mighty USA, by tossing out a working JCPOA and installing economic "sanctions", should not be accepted by the rest of the world-giving in to blackmail encourages worse behavior, as we have already seen.

"It requires credibility; indeed, it depends on it. " This is exactly what should be rejected by us all. These "leaders" will not change their behavior without solidarity among "allies" like the European Union, which has already caved in and blamed Iran for the changes -Iran has explained clearly why it made- to the JCPOA which the USA has left.

Abby , January 21, 2020 at 20:15

The only difference between Trump and Obama is that Trump doesn't hide the US naked aggression as well as Obama did. So far Trump hasn't started any new wars. By this time in Obama's tenure we had started bombing more countries and accepted one coup.

dfnslblty , January 21, 2020 at 12:43

SecStae's remarks about deterrence befit a military commander, NOT a diplomat. Paranoia, grandiosity and violence begin with potus and cascade downward and about. Congress does its part in investing in machinery of war.

Cheyenne , January 21, 2020 at 11:49

The above comment shows exactly why bellicose adventurism for oil etc. is so stupid and dangerous. If we continually prance around robbing people, they're gonna unite to slap us down.

Hardly seems like anyone should need that pointed out but if anybody mentioned it to Trump or any other gung ho warhawk, he must not have been listening.

Dan Kuhn , January 21, 2020 at 13:08

Trump and Pompeo seem to have entered the Wild West stage of recent American history. I think they watch too many western movies, without understanding the underrlying plot of 100% of them. It is the bad guys take over a town, where they impose their will on the population, terrorizing everyone into obediance. They steal everything in sight and any who oppose them are summarily killed off. In the end a good guy ( In American parlance, " a good guy with a gun" shows up . The town`s people approach him and beg him to oppose the bad guys. He then proceeds to kill off the bad guys after the general population joins him in his crusade. it looks as though we are at the stage in the movie where the general population is ready to take up arms against the bad guys.

The moral of the story the bad guys, the bullies, Pompeo and Trump, are either killed or chased out of town. But perhaps the problem is that this plot is too difficult for Trump and Pompeo to understand. So they don`t quite get the peril that there gunmen and killers are now in. They don`t see the writing on the wall.

Caveman , January 21, 2020 at 11:30

It seems the only US considerations in the assassination were – will it weaken Iran, will it strengthen the American position? On that perspective, the answer is probably yes on both counts. Legal considerations do not seem to have carried any weight. In the UK we recently saw a chilling interview with Brian Hook, U.S. Special Representative for Iran and Senior Policy Advisor to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. It was clear that he saw the assassination as another nail in the coffin of the Iranian regime, simply furthering a policy objective.

Vera Gottlieb , January 21, 2020 at 11:19

What is even sadder is the world's lack of gonads to stand up to this bully nation – that has caused so much grief and still does.

Michael McNulty , January 21, 2020 at 11:01

The US government became a crime syndicate. Today its bootleg liquor is oil, the boys they send round to steal it are armies and their drive-by shootings are Warthog strafings using DU ammunition. Their drug rackets in the back streets are high-grade reefer, heroin and amphetamines, with pharmaceutical-grade chemicals on Main Street. They still print banknotes just as before; but this time it's legal but still doesn't make them enough, so to make up the shortfalls they've taken armed robbery abroad.

paul easton , January 21, 2020 at 12:55

The US Government is running a protection racket, literally. In return for US protection of their sources of oil, the NATO countries provide international support for US war crimes. But now that the (figurative) Don is visibly out of his mind, they are likely to turn to other protectors.

Gary Weglarz , January 21, 2020 at 10:34

One need not step back very far in order to look at the bigger longer range picture. What immediately comes into focus is that this is simply the current moment in what is now 500 plus years of Western colonialism/neocolonialism. When has the law EVER had anything to do with any of this?

ML , January 21, 2020 at 10:31

Pompeo reminds me of the pigs in Animal Farm. He is a grotesque figure, steely-eyed, cold-blooded, fanatical, and hateful. "We lied, cheated, and stole" Pompous Maximus will get his comeuppance one of these days. I hope he plans more overseas trips for himself. He is a vile person, a psychopath proud of his psychopathy. He alone would make anyone considering conversion to Christianity, his brand of it, run screaming into the night. Repulsive man.

Michael Crockett , January 21, 2020 at 09:40

Pillage as policy. The Empire has fully embraced gangster capitalism for its modus operandi. That said, IMO, the axis of resistance has the military capability and the resolve to fight back and win. Combining China and Russia into a greater axis of resistance could further shrink the Outlaw US Empire presence in West Asia. Thank you Patrick for your keen insight and observations. The Empires days are numbered.

Sally Snyder , January 21, 2020 at 07:28

Here is an interesting article that explains how governments have changed the rules so that they can justify killing anyone who they believe may at some point in time have the potential to be involved in a terrorist plot: viableopposition.blogspot.com/2020/01/the-bethlehem-doctrine-and-new.html

This rather Orwellian move gives governments the justification that they to kill any of us just because they feel that we might pose a threat and that is a very, very scary prospect. It is very reminiscent of the movie Minority Report where crimes of the future are punished in the present.

[Feb 04, 2020] Trump Jarvanka problem in 2020 elections

Feb 04, 2020 | off-guardian.org

Igor ,

"With Flynn removed, Trump never regained his footing on foreign policy – which no doubt was exactly as intended; thereby opening the door for the likes of Jared Kushner to assume the role of 'trusted adviser."
Keep in mind, that Trump's Number One daughter married the likes of Jared Kushner. Trump then brought both into the White House as Senior Advisers. Nepotism?
Note that the Anti Trumpers never go after Trump about Jared-Ivanka and real or perceived nepotism. Hands off?

lundiel ,

It does not take a poli sci major to figure out that Flynn's immediate removal from the Administration was essential to undermining Trump's entire foreign policy initiatives including no new interventionist wars, peace with Russia and US withdrawal from Syria and Afghanistan.

Sometimes off-the-cuff remarks provide a true assessment of where a country stands on foreign policy.

Michael Ledeen is freedom scholar at FDD, and is an internationally-renowned scholar on Iran, Iraq, terrorism, and international security, and a world-renowned Italianist and expert on fascism. Michael has served as a consultant to the National Security Council and the Departments of State and Defense, and as a special advisor to the Secretary of State. He's also a neocon who made the following comment that sums up American foreign policy in the middle east, whoever's the president.

"Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business".

The FBI is merely ensuring that there is no deviation to this policy.

[Feb 02, 2020] The most interesting issue is the role of NSC in this impeachment story

Highly recommended!
Edited for clarity
Notable quotes:
"... Currently they can wrap themselves into constitution defenders flag and be pretty safe from any criticism. Because charges that Schiff brought to the floor are bogus, and probably were created out of thin air by NSC plotters. Senators on both sides understand this, creating a classic Kabuki theater environment. ..."
"... In any case, it is clear that Trump is just a marionette of more powerful forces behind him, and his impeachment does not means much, if those forces are untouchable. Impeachment Kabuki theatre is an attempt of restoration of NSC (read neocons) favored foreign policy from which Trump slightly deviated. ..."
Feb 02, 2020 | angrybearblog.com

likbez , February 2, 2020 10:40 pm

Far more interesting issue is the role of NSC in this impeachment story.

Potential whistleblower (actually CIA informant) was from NSC as were Fiona Hill, Alex Vindman and a couple of other major Ukrainegate players.

In this NSC coup d'état against the President or what ? About earlier role of NSC see

https://off-guardian.org/2020/02/01/secret-wars-forgotten-betrayals-global-tyranny-who-is-really-in-charge-of-the-u-s-military/

As for "evil republican senators", they would be viewed as evil by electorate if and only only if actual crimes of Trump regime like Douma false flag, Suleimani assassination (actually here Trump was set up By Bolton and Pompeo) and other were discussed.

Currently they can wrap themselves into constitution defenders flag and be pretty safe from any criticism. Because charges that Schiff brought to the floor are bogus, and probably were created out of thin air by NSC plotters. Senators on both sides understand this, creating a classic Kabuki theater environment.

Both sides are afraid to discuss real issues, real Trump regime crimes.

Schiff proved to be patently inept in this whole story even taking into account limitations put by Kabuki theater on him, and in case of Trump acquittal *which is "highly probable" borrowing May government terminology in Skripals case :-) to resign would be a honest thing for him to do.

Assuming that he has some honestly left. Which is highly doubtful with statements like:

"The United States aids Ukraine and her people so that we can fight Russia over there so we don't have to fight Russia here."

And

"More than 15,000 Ukrainians have died fighting Russian forces and their proxies. 15,000."

Actually it was the USA interference in Ukraine (aka Nulandgate) that killed 15K Ukrainians, mainly Donbas residents and badly trained recruits of the Ukrainian army sent to fight them, as well as volunteers of paramilitary "death squads" like Asov battalion financed by oligarch Igor Kolomyskiy

In any case, it is clear that Trump is just a marionette of more powerful forces behind him, and his impeachment does not means much, if those forces are untouchable. Impeachment Kabuki theatre is an attempt of restoration of NSC (read neocons) favored foreign policy from which Trump slightly deviated.

[Feb 02, 2020] Kushner's "peace plan" is just another real estate scam

Feb 02, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

"The Arab League rejected Trump's plan, saying in a communique it would not lead to a just peace deal and adding it will not cooperate with the United States to execute the plan.
The ministers affirmed Palestinian rights to create a future state based on the land captured and occupied by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war, with East Jerusalem as capital, the final communique said.
Israeli officials expressed hope Saturday that the League's rejection could bring the U.S. closer to green-lighting unilateral annexation of parts of the West Bank, in light of the fact that Jared Kushner opposed immediate steps toward annexation because he thought the Arab League might support the plan. " Haaretz

----------

Well, pilgrims, the truth is that nobody in the States who matters gives a damn about what happens to the Palestinians and it was always thus. Kushner's "peace plan" is just another real estate scam. pl

https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/palestinians/arab-foreign-ministers-meet-in-cairo-to-discuss-trump-s-mideast-plan-1.8475812

Posted at 01:24 PM in Israel , Middle East , Palestine | Permalink | Comments (1) But..but...Jared said that he had read 25 books on the conflict!!!

King Salman called Abbas to reassure him of Saudi support on the agreed upon outline drawn up long ago. MbS thinks otherwise, and he is the one who really runs Saudi policy.

Posted by: Jane | 01 February 2020 at 02:50 PM

[Jan 31, 2020] Tucker John Bolton has always been a snake

Bolton was appointed by Adelson.
Jan 27, 2020 | www.youtube.com

Bolton's tell-all book leaks during Senate trial. #FoxNews

Yamaha Venture , 3 days ago

Mitt Romney is a joke.

Michael Harvey , 2 days ago

John Bolton wants war everywhere to line his pockets with money.

Stephen C , 1 day ago

The "right" gets the left, but doesn't agree with them. The "left" doesn't understand the "right".

Citizen Se7en , 2 days ago

"Bolton's resignation was one of the highlights of the president's first term." Truer words have never been spoken.

Jack Albright , 2 days ago

This story is also called "the scorpion and the frog".

Ragnar Lothbrok , 3 days ago

John Bolton should be given a helmet and a gun and sent to the next war. Let's see how he likes it.

Stratchona , 1 day ago

Trump.." I don't know John Bolton,never met him,don't know what he does."

Jaret Glenn , 2 days ago

Time to investigate Romney's son working for the oil company in the Ukraine.

Regan Orr , 2 days ago

Romney's Holy Underwear is Cutting off the Blood Supply to his Deep St Brain!

Marjo , 2 days ago (edited)

I never liked Bolton. I sensed he was out for himself, at anyone's expense. War monger too. He had many people fooled.

Shara Kirkby , 3 days ago

Bolton wants war anywhere and forever!

David Dorrell , 1 day ago (edited)

Frickin' Globalist peckerwoods. John Bolton and his pal, Mitt Romney.

Olivier Bolton , 2 days ago

Bolton wanted war so he got the boot...the fact he brings out his book now just looks like vengean$$

Max Liftoff , 2 days ago

2:30 Because Bolton never served in the military he truly passionately loved war :)) LMAO Tucker nailed it.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ , 1 day ago

The left's championing of John Bolton is further proof that TDS has made their minds turn to sludge.

j abe , 3 days ago

Can someone expaine to me how mit romney is still geting votes from ppl

Mark Whitley , 2 days ago

Bolton is a war mongering narcissist that wanted his war, didn't get it, & is now acting like a spoilt child that didn't get his way & is laying on the floor kicking & screaming!

Tim Fronimos , 2 days ago

Regarding John Bolton's book, is this the first book that he's colored. just curious

newuserandhiscrew 22 , 2 days ago

Everyone: Bolton: "take me in oh tender woman, take me in for heaven's sake"

Brittany Ward , 1 day ago

I can't fathom that people actually believe everything the media says!

[Jan 31, 2020] Trump excoriates Bolton in tweets this morning

Highly recommended!
Trump is lying. Bolton was appointed by Adelson and Trump can't refuse Adelson protégé.
Jan 31, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Trump excoriates Bolton in tweets this morning:
"For a guy who couldn't get approved for the Ambassador to the U.N. years ago, couldn't get approved for anything since, 'begged' me for a non Senate approved job, which I gave him despite many saying 'Don't do it, sir,' takes the job, mistakenly says 'Libyan Model' on T.V., and ... many more mistakes of judgement [sic], gets fired because frankly, if I listened to him, we would be in World War Six by now, and goes out and IMMEDIATELY writes a nasty & untrue book. All Classified National Security. Who would do this?"

IMO, Trump is a fantastic POTUS for this day and age, but he wasn't on his A game when he brought Bolton onboard. He should have known better and, was, apparently, warned. Maybe Trump thought he could control him and use him as a threatening pit bull. Mistake. Bolton is greedy as well as vindictive.

Posted by: Eric Newhill | 29 January 2020 at 09:30 AM

[Jan 31, 2020] A comment in unz.com that is a bad omen for Trump for 2020

They used to support the guy in 2016
Jan 31, 2020 | www.unz.com

anon [837] Disclaimer , says: Show Comment January 31, 2020 at 12:14 pm GMT

Fuck Trump and all his followers. They can go back to Israel where they belong.

[Jan 31, 2020] Modern US presidents don't so much set policy as sell policies that have already been approved by our real masters

Jan 31, 2020 | www.unz.com

Digital Samizdat , says: Show Comment January 28, 2020 at 12:40 pm GMT

@Nancy O'Brien Simpson Because modern US presidents don't so much set policy as sell policies that have already been approved by our real masters. In other words, modern US presidents are more like glorified salesmen than actual national rulers. The establishment's ideal president, therefore, would be someone like Barack Obama. He successfully marketed their agenda of more foreign wars and Wall Street bailouts while looking hip, slick and cool for the kiddies.

But in that regard, Trump has come up short. In the first case, he does occasionally push back, even if only rhetorically. And furthermore, even when he does happen to be on their side–think Venezuela or Iran–he's just too clumsy about it to be effective. His zionism, for example, is so completely obsequious and over the top that no one on earth can take seriously anymore the notion that the US's Middle East policy isn't controlled by Israel. And since Trump has already been dubbed the 'new Hitler' by our own media, what does it look like to the rest of the world when he himself tries to brand some other, foreign ruler (like Khamenei or Maduro) as the next Hitler? Well, confusion results! I mean, if two Hitlers are fighting each other at once, which one are the 'antifascists' supposed to back?

So that's the élite's real problem with Trump: he's bad optics. And that's also the main reason I am supporting him at the moment: if bad optics is the worst we can do to the establishment at this point in time, then let's do it! It's better than nothing

[Jan 31, 2020] Kushner: Palestinians Have Never Done Anything Right in Their Sad, Pathetic Lives

Jan 31, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Mao , Jan 31 2020 13:53 utc | 178

Kushner: Palestinians Have Never Done Anything Right in Their Sad, Pathetic Lives

The first son-in-law has warned Palestinians not to "screw up this opportunity" at peace that he's so graciously given to them.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/01/jared-kushner-peace-plan-palestinians

[Jan 30, 2020] Brits in 1812 and Kushner plan

Jan 30, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

the pair , Jan 30 2020 16:04 utc | 33

i always thought it a shame that the war of 1812 ended in a (more or less) draw. the brits had ideas for cutting up the US that would have been similar to that fake map (which was kinda amusing until i saw the "derpa derp russia" bit) and kept the settler trash from moving west and genociding everything that wasn't nailed down.

oh well...at least it's comforting to think ahead a few decades when most of the southwest will be "little mexico".

Walter , Jan 30 2020 16:12 utc | 35

BM | Jan 30 2020 15:50 utc | 29 (map)

I see Alaska and Hawaii have presumably gone back to the original owners, but it's not shown.

I assume Alaska went to Russia (which is what a pal who fishes there expects!) (there is a plan, I am told, to run a rail tunnel under Bering Strait, Canada, America, and further South all the way as part of the OBOR project.). But that can happen if the natives wish association with Ru and Chin...

(I'm not terribly serious about this, but Times do change and stuff does happen)

I assume the Monarchy is re-established in Hawaii.

In all seriousness, the DoD plans for Alaska if nukewar with USSR went against the US, was to use Gladio teams to control the natives, who were regarded as unloyal and sympathetic to the "commies"... no url, but I read this in FOIA stuff years ago.

Jackrabbit | Jan 30 2020 17:14 utc | 55

I assume that American Indians have already agreed to the North American Peace Plan (NAPP)so they can now go ahead and take 30% of the land that the NAPP grants them - just as with the Trump-Jared Plan to settle the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.

Will homes of White Americans that disagree be bulldozed like the Israelis do to Palestinians?

[Jan 30, 2020] Trump's 'Vision' Occupation Now, Occupation Forever might diminish his chances for reelection

What is interesting is that this issue is not so much about Israel and Palestinians, but about the USA (and Trump personnel) credibility. Which is by-and-large lost. Behaving like a gangster on international arena has its advantages, but also a huge disadvantages. As Trump recently have found with Soleimani assassination.
There is also connected issue of Presidential election which I think Trump now will lose, because he somehow morphed into Hillary (let's call him Hillary2020) -- the person most reasonable people hate. His base will stay with him, but that's not enough to win the elections. When people start viewing a person as midrange gangster, it does not help to win the elections. Impeachment or no impeachment.
The idea of Bantustans is an attractive solution but virtually guarantee that Syria and Egypt will remain hostile. And that the conflict between "settlers" and "natives" became more acute. Of cause, Israel will fight with Arabs till the USA stop military aid which maintains parity with neighboring states (eve superiority is certain types of weapons) . With tiny population of around 8 million against over 100 millions, so more then 1:10) maintaining parity is possible because it is fully financed by the USA. But the USA global empire is gradually crumbling, because neoliberalism is dead. In military affairs 2:1 numerical superiority is a serious matter. And the threat of using nuclear weapons is a very tricky business because it is unclear how Pakistan will react if a Muslim nations is attacked. Also major hits with conventional weapons are enough to make major cities of Israel uninhabitable and Israel state to collapse.
The plan to use jihadists to destroy secular governed in Syria and partition the country mostly (with the exception of areas occupied by the USA tropus -- "stealing opil" according to Trump) failed and being surrounded by Syria (with its hardened by fight with Jihadists army and more or less modern weapon systems) and Egypt (which is kept neutral only by the USA money) is the permanent threat that Israel probably will never able to solve. And it can keep up only by relying of the USA help and, especially money. Citizen of both countries are adamantly anti-Israel. Especially after the story of Israel support of "pocket juhadis." So I doubt that Israel can solve its problem even by just giving back Golan heights.
The tragedy is the Soviet Jews who emigrated to Israel hoping to find a "normal" country is not only the for many their qualification proved to be useless and they waited their lives working in third rate jobs, but also that they are now deeply entrenched into Gordian knot of "settler" vs natives conflict which can not be solved peacefully like in USA or Australia. That's probably why a large part of emigrants now supports Likud. They feel that their back is against the wall.
Notable quotes:
"... Like South Africa's grand apartheid, the Trump plan physically and politically separates Palestinians by placing them within a non-contiguous homeland (Areas A and B and Gaza), and declaring them citizens of that homeland. Like South Africa's grand apartheid, the Trump plan grants the Palestinian homeland autonomy over civil matters like education and healthcare, while critical areas such as trade, immigration, and security will remain under Israeli control. Like South Africa's grand apartheid, the Trump plan is political sleight of hand: a thinly veiled attempt to claim that Israel, a state that rules over roughly the same number of Jews and Palestinians, is actually a Jewish-majority state. Also like apartheid South Africa, the Trump administration claims the homelands are a temporary solution. Once the indigenous population proves itself ready for self-governance they will one day be granted something that resembles a state. ..."
"... The Trump plan, much like the decades-long peace process that it crowns, gives Israel cover to perpetuate what is known as the status quo: Israel as the sole sovereign controlling the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, depriving millions of stateless people of basic civil rights, restricting their movement, criminalizing speech that may harm "public order," jailing them in indefinite "administrative detention" without trial or charge, and dispossessing them of their land -- all while congressional leaders, the European Union and much of the rest of the world applaud and encourage this charade, solemnly expressing their commitment to the resumption of "meaningful negotiations." ..."
"... Israel's defenders like to say that Israel is being singled out, and they are right. Israel is the only state perpetuating a permanent military occupation, with discriminatory laws for separate groups living in the same territory, that self-identified liberals around the world go out of their way to justify, defend and even fund. ..."
"... there is no reason to believe that this is any thing other than another $50B gift to the Israelis. Minus what ever is skimmed off and given to the Trump and Kushner clans of course. ..."
"... I propose that the US withhold all aid to Israel and sanction the country and its government officials (Magnitsky Act) until it demonstrates that it respects universal human rights and shows that it can behave itself as a normal country. Israel and Iran can work on this study of 'how to be a normal country' together. I would expect the Iranians to graduate long before Israel does. ..."
"... Probably, Israelis must abandon their illegal settlements on Palestinian territory, and Palestinians must acknowledge that Israel exists. This will come through only by mutual exhaustion. Otherwise, both will perish in hatred. ..."
"... One thing wrong is that Israel is guilty of war crimes and apartheid and while many countries are guilty of serious crimes, there is no need to single out Israel for praise and billions of dollars of aid and diplomatic support. Just treat them as yet another country with a rotten human rights record which pretends to be better than it is. Apartheid South Africa never had it so good. ..."
"... The Bantustans of South Africa appear to be the model here. ..."
"... The U.S.A. and Israel are far too entangled for the former to continue to play the part of a peacemaker between the latter and Palestine with any credibility. Indeed, The Donald's own family - the Kushners - are far too entangled with Israel! ..."
Jan 30, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com
Sheena Anne Arackal explains very well how the Trump administration's plan formalizes a system of apartheid at the expense of the Palestinians:

Like South Africa's grand apartheid, the Trump plan physically and politically separates Palestinians by placing them within a non-contiguous homeland (Areas A and B and Gaza), and declaring them citizens of that homeland. Like South Africa's grand apartheid, the Trump plan grants the Palestinian homeland autonomy over civil matters like education and healthcare, while critical areas such as trade, immigration, and security will remain under Israeli control. Like South Africa's grand apartheid, the Trump plan is political sleight of hand: a thinly veiled attempt to claim that Israel, a state that rules over roughly the same number of Jews and Palestinians, is actually a Jewish-majority state. Also like apartheid South Africa, the Trump administration claims the homelands are a temporary solution. Once the indigenous population proves itself ready for self-governance they will one day be granted something that resembles a state.

Trump's annexation and apartheid plan destroys any remaining illusions that a "two-state solution" is still possible, and it proposes a Palestinian "state" that possesses none of the qualities of an independent state. It mockingly carves out a separate territory that would exist to contain and control the Palestinian population while denying them their political and economic rights, and this territory would remain subjugated under Israeli rule by design. This reinforces everything outrageous and unjust under the current occupation, and it seeks to make sure that the occupation never ends. To add insult to injury, the supporters of the plan disingenuously present this as a boon to the very people that it oppresses.

Nathan Thrall observes that the Trump plan is the awful but predictable conclusion to a U.S. policy that has consistently favored Israel to the detriment of Palestinians:

The Trump plan, much like the decades-long peace process that it crowns, gives Israel cover to perpetuate what is known as the status quo: Israel as the sole sovereign controlling the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, depriving millions of stateless people of basic civil rights, restricting their movement, criminalizing speech that may harm "public order," jailing them in indefinite "administrative detention" without trial or charge, and dispossessing them of their land -- all while congressional leaders, the European Union and much of the rest of the world applaud and encourage this charade, solemnly expressing their commitment to the resumption of "meaningful negotiations."

Israel's defenders like to say that Israel is being singled out, and they are right. Israel is the only state perpetuating a permanent military occupation, with discriminatory laws for separate groups living in the same territory, that self-identified liberals around the world go out of their way to justify, defend and even fund.

The only good thing that might come from the administration's obscene plan is that it will make it impossible for a growing number of Americans to accept continued U.S. enabling of Israel's illegal annexations, war crimes, and human rights abuses.

J Villain • a day ago

If any one missed it trump let slip yesterday that the $50B that is supposed to go to the Palestinians under this plan will be given to Israel to disperse to that Palestinians. The Israelis however already collect taxes for the Palestinians that they don't hand over so there is no reason to believe that this is any thing other than another $50B gift to the Israelis. Minus what ever is skimmed off and given to the Trump and Kushner clans of course.
si91 J Villain • a day ago
Fatah and Hamas steal the aid they get anyway, so why shouldn't Israel withhold it until the Palestinians behave?
Begemot si91 • a day ago
I propose that the US withhold all aid to Israel and sanction the country and its government officials (Magnitsky Act) until it demonstrates that it respects universal human rights and shows that it can behave itself as a normal country. Israel and Iran can work on this study of 'how to be a normal country' together. I would expect the Iranians to graduate long before Israel does.
si91 Begemot • a day ago
Iran stones gay people to death and rapes women before executing them. Israel has nude beaches and gay pride parades. Israel is more "normal" than the US in some ways.
Jeff Dickey si91 • 17 hours ago
Found the Likudnik.
Name si91 • 2 hours ago
As soon as US Jews accept that the US is a Christian country, with laws forbidding Christians from selling land to Jews, we can talk about how normal Israel is
si91 Name • an hour ago
It is the Palestinian Authority that makes land sale to Israelis punishable by death, not the other way around.
6stringfury Name • an hour ago
'Laws forbidding Christians from selling land to Jews'...Not sure what you're trying to say here.. In the meantime, over there, Arabs kill their own for selling land to Jews while Jews freely sell land to Arabs.
6stringfury Begemot • an hour ago
Arab terrorists in Israeli jails are earning law degrees. Most Iranians I know in N America want the mullahs gone. A Jewish friend of mine in Tel Aviv had his life saved by an Israeli Arab surgeon. Get a grip on reality.
Name si91 • 2 hours ago
May be because it is not Israel's money to hold?
si91 Name • an hour ago
Would you give money to someone using it to kill you?
Robert in Denmark • a day ago
Israel and Palaestina are, of course, modern nations. To the Christian, divine revelation was complete with the last apostle's death (probably John, at the beginning of the 2nd century C.E.), and if there was a kind of collective guilt for unbelief on the part of the Jewish nation, it was paid once and for all by 135 C.E. (cf. Exodus 20:5-6), when said people became dispersed from the holy city and the holy land. There is no reason why modern Israelis and Palaestinians should not be able to make peace on common terms that include two states with normal borders.

Probably, Israelis must abandon their illegal settlements on Palestinian territory, and Palestinians must acknowledge that Israel exists. This will come through only by mutual exhaustion. Otherwise, both will perish in hatred. This is no different from other leftovers from the WWI/WWII/cold war, e.g. North Korea / South Korea, China / Taiwan, the former Soviet Union (now fifteen independent nations), and Kurds in Turkey / Syria / Iraq / Iran (the statesman would prefer to get rid of the Kurds by giving them a nation, but the despot would prefer to cling on to them for all the trouble, which after all keeps him in power against his own people), Africa, et.c. Probably, the conservative strategy must be to avoid great plans, keep peace or low level war as well as possible, and let time only do the healing. Certainly, no more military adventures, neither on part of the U.S.A. or of Denmark. But go home.

6stringfury Robert in Denmark • 38 minutes ago
US needs to do what it can to keep troops out of the mideast. As far as Israel goes, the Israelis wish to defend themselves without an outside army. Ask any Jew on the street over there. Last time there was outside manpower help (vs the Seleucids) the results were the Roman-Jewish wars. Not good. In 135CE, Judea was renamed Palestina by Hadrian as a slap in the face to the Jewish losers.

ffwd 1920... League of Nations - San Remo Conference establishes Jewish homeland on WHAT IS NOW ISREAL+ JORDAN. Recognized by all member nations at that time. 1922- Churchill bows to Arab pressure and lops off about 70% of above territory to form Transjordan - designated for the Arabs. There's your current 'Palestine'.

Note: Up until the 1960s, the Arabs in the area referred to themselves as 'Arabs', not Palestinians.

KGB created the 'Palestine Liberation Organization" around 1964. Jordan controlled the West Bank from 48-67, yet no outcry for a Palestinian state. Hmmmm.
The Jews who lived in the area from 1920-s -to '48 considered themselves 'Palestinians'. In that time, Palestinian currency had Hebrew lettering, Jerusalem Post of today was Palestinian Post of that period, etc.

si91 • a day ago • edited
"Like South Africa's grand apartheid, the Trump plan physically and politically separates Palestinians by placing them within a non-contiguous homeland (Areas A and B and Gaza), and declaring them citizens of that homeland."

This is an arrangement that the Palestinians themselves accepted at the Oslo Accords.

"depriving millions of stateless people of basic civil rights, restricting their movement, criminalizing speech that may harm "public order," jailing them in indefinite "administrative detention" without trial or charge"

...in response to their terrorism. Seems fair to me.

"This reinforces everything outrageous and unjust under the current occupation, and it seeks to make sure that the occupation never ends."

The occupation will end when the Palestinians care more about building a state than destroying the Jewish one. The ball is in their court.

"To add insult to injury, the supporters of the plan disingenuously present this as a boon to the very people that it oppresses."

That's because it is. If the Palestinians behave, and make meaningful democratic reforms, and make peace with Israel, they get aid and a state. What wrong with that? The outrage here would be easier to take seriously if the people who are so upset suggested a peace plan that would be more "fair" in their view.

"Israel is the only state perpetuating a permanent military occupation, with discriminatory laws for separate groups living in the same territory, that self-identified liberals around the world go out of their way to justify, defend and even fund."

Aside from India, Armenia, Turkey...

Osse si91 • a day ago
One thing wrong is that Israel is guilty of war crimes and apartheid and while many countries are guilty of serious crimes, there is no need to single out Israel for praise and billions of dollars of aid and diplomatic support. Just treat them as yet another country with a rotten human rights record which pretends to be better than it is. Apartheid South Africa never had it so good.
si91 Osse • a day ago
"Apartheid" Israel is actually the only apartheid free state in the region, and treats the Arabs better than any Arab state. In our conflict with the Islamic hordes, we don't have the luxury of nitpicking about Jews building houses on disputed land. In any case, while the apartheid charge is untenable against Israel, it would be instructive to remember that we allied with Apartheid South Africa against Communism and gave them diplomatic support while also supporting equality for the black Africans.
Name si91 • 2 hours ago
Which is why, it proposes to swap Arab Israelis to the Palestinian State? May be we can swap some US Jews to some other nation?
6stringfury Name • an hour ago
Agree. Swap Schiff,Nadler, Schumer, Soros(jew in name only), Stelter, JZucker, Streisand, half of the media to Greenland. A lot of us remaining silent US Jews would be relieved.
FL_Cottonmouth si91 • 21 hours ago
Ah yes, the fearsome Indian, Armenian, and Turkish lobbies in Washington, D.C.
=marco01= si91 • 17 hours ago
I wonder how you would 'behave' if the land your ancestors lived on for untold centuries was suddenly stolen from you. So rude of the Palestinians to not just give up and move out when European Zionists immigrated and declared Palestine theirs.
si91 =marco01= • 16 hours ago • edited
I know refugees from the Partition of India, the Expulsion of Asians from Uganda, and the Fall of Saigon personally. I've also met people who've fled Venezuela and Cuba. These are people who, unlike the Palestinians, fled very long distances, actually had an established state and national identity which was lost, had no way of avoiding war through a peace deal, and didn't have 20+ states to flee to. Not a single suicide bomber among them. The Palestinians, spoiled, petulant brats that they are, could learn a thing or two from other refugees on how to behave.
Name si91 • 2 hours ago
So your point is, too bad so sad, International Law is for suckers. How Tikkun Olam of you
si91 Name • an hour ago
My point is that the Palestinian situation is no different from that of many other groups, and they should behave accordingly. What's wrong with that?
6stringfury =marco01= • 26 minutes ago
Jews have been living there continuously for over 2500 years. Back around 1099, the Crusaders were murdering Jews in Jerusalem as a sideshow for warring with the Muslims there. Jews in Safed developed the Kabbalah in the 15th century. Jews and Arabs there all along. A lot of the Jews came from across the Ottoman empire, as did the Arabs. The place was a forgotten backwater. But a lot more Arabs showed up in the early 20th C as Jews were building and cultivating the land...availability of work played a part. Read my reply to the guy from Denmark.
stephen pickard • a day ago
Did I see the proposed map correctly, because that map looks like the reservations that we permitted the sovereign indigenous people to have here in the US. What could go wrong when the Palestinians do not have a way out except through Israeli territory.
si91 stephen pickard • a day ago
Lesotho has no way out except through South Africa, Vatican City and San Marino except through Italy, etc. Not really a problem.
Sid Finster stephen pickard • 11 hours ago
The Bantustans of South Africa appear to be the model here.
Clyde Schechter • a day ago
"the Trump plan grants the Palestinian homeland autonomy over civil matters like education and healthcare, while critical areas such as trade, immigration, and security will remain under Israeli control. "

So there isn't even a pretense of an independent Palestinian homeland in this. Education and healthcare are always the purview of subordinated entities, while trade, and immigration are the perogatives of superordinate entities. Just think about the Federal government in the US vis-à-vis the states (whose sovereignty, by now, everyone agrees is a joke), or the EU vs the member states.

Except the Israel/Palestine case there isn't even an accession of the subordinate to superordinate power by consent (as when the US and EU were formed).

FL_Cottonmouth • 21 hours ago
The U.S.A. and Israel are far too entangled for the former to continue to play the part of a peacemaker between the latter and Palestine with any credibility. Indeed, The Donald's own family - the Kushners - are far too entangled with Israel!
Jens Christian • 16 hours ago
Not uncritically against Israel and its policies against the Palestinians, the settlements on the west bank was a giant mistake by Israel., and a crime against international law... but lets be realistic, Israel are not going to forcefully remove the 300.000 jews in east Jerusalem and the 400.000 in the settlements on the west bank. But you are calling israel apartheid if they don't remove them and move back to un partition plan of 1947.

And lets be honest. A sizable proportion of Palestinians will fight and never allow Israel rights to exist peacefully in any shape or form A view point im suspecting Daniel Larison share. If not, he would be more nuanced in his description of how Israel and the Palestinians got to this point.

Red brick Jens Christian • 5 hours ago
The Jews in Israel won't let what happened to the Boers in South Africa happen to them. They are not going to end their policies toward the Palestinians and they have the Nukes to tell the rest of the World to shove off.
Fatnot • 9 hours ago
Dead on arrival...and justifiably so.
Dollface • 4 hours ago • edited
Colonial scamming.

[Jan 30, 2020] Trump as a wonderfully ignorant baby for one small country

Great strategy. Especially if Trump thinks that association with Kushner and Netanyahu can help him to win 2020 election. God help him... I think he put the final nail into his defeat in 2020, especially if Sanders is his opponent.
Jan 30, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Serge | 30 January 2020 at 11:56 AM

I don't believe Trump was invited either:

"Kushner and Greenblatt have limited the plan's distribution over the two years they have been crafting it. It has been kept secret "to ensure people approach it with an open mind" when it is released, a senior administration official said.

"Only four people have regular access - Kushner, Greenblatt, U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman and Kushner aide Avi Berkowitz, the official said."
What's the common denominator among these men here? The nose knows.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-palestinian-trump/in-leaky-white-house-trump-team-keeps-middle-east-peace-plan-secret-idUSKCN1RM2GQ

Or for the Golan decision:

"Speaking at the Republican Jewish Coalition gathering in Las Vegas, Trump said he made the snap decision during a discussion with his top Middle East peace advisers, including the U.S. ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, and son-in-law Jared Kushner.

"I said, 'Fellows, do me a favor. Give me a little history, quick. Want to go fast. I got a lot of things I'm working on: China, North Korea. Give me a quickie," Trump said to laughter from the Las Vegas crowd.

"'How do you like the idea of me recognizing exactly what we're discussing?'" said Trump, recounting the conversation.

Trump, who typically demands short sharp briefings and is known for his colorful retelling of stories, said Friedman was shocked, "like a wonderful, beautiful baby," and asked the President if he would actually do it.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-israel/trump-says-he-made-golan-heights-decision-after-a-quick-history-lesson-idUSKCN1RI0N7

A wonderful, beautiful baby INDEED.

[Jan 30, 2020] Trump and son-in-law Jared's vision laid bare: cloaked as "let's legitimize stollen property and steal more"

Jan 30, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Likklemore , Jan 30 2020 14:22 utc | 19

Trump and son-in-law Jared's vision laid bare: cloaked as "let's legitimize stollen property and steal more"

it also allows Jerusalem to extend Israeli law to all the existing settlements, which is tantamount to annexation.
in a closed door meeting of the usual suspects-

Times of Israel:
Israeli Envoy to US Says Palestinians Won't Have a State in a Long Time Under Trump's Plan

WASHINGTON -- US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman told a gathering of American Jewish and Christian Evangelical leaders that it would take a long time for a Palestinian state to emerge under the White House's Middle East peace plan, according to sources in the room.

Shortly after US President Donald Trump unveiled his long-awaited proposal Tuesday, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu flanked by his side, Friedman met with a group of more than 20 Jewish and Evangelical leaders for an off-the-record briefing.[.]

and Bibi smiles. ... a long time if ever.

Kabobyak , Jan 30 2020 14:35 utc | 21

Florin @ 3

Thanks for your thoughtful post, and the Mondoweiss article was very good. It presents a useful comparison between ethnonationalism here in the US and in Israel. While one is condemned (by "woke" and almost all "unwoke"!), the other is accepted or ignored by many of the same folks. I will use this when discussing the issue with those with open minds; the challenge is finding the key to open minds, without moving into polarity which entrenches folks in their views.

As to the term "anti-semitism" it is so ingrained into usage I don't see it going away any time soon. I could see the narrative shifting as more people become aware that criticizing Israel or opposing their actions is not "anti-semitic", and maybe they could also learn the points you make about who semites actually are.

As to "Zionism", most people don't even know what it is (at least in the area where I live). They have heard the term but make little connection with it actually being Jewish ethnonationalism. I feel the term Zionism is valid for usage, but once again the challenge is shifting the narrative so that people understand what it truly entails. Years ago, the UN passed a resolution equating Zionism with Racism; of course the usual suspects voted against that.

[Jan 30, 2020] Flash! Trump has solved the Israeli-Palestinian problem. (irony)

Rephrasing Lenin: hate became a material force when it is shared by the large number of people
Now the defeat of Trump in 2020 elections looks much more probable... Being considered a puppet of Kushner and being closly associated with Natuanyhu does not look like a winning strategy. He might lose Florida.
Notable quotes:
"... Mahmoud Abbas has stated that his side will not accept this ..."
"... the optics look bad with one criminal supporting another. ..."
"... IMHO the mindset and agenda behind this is as follows: ..."
"... Offer the Palestinians something they only can refuse ..."
"... Then say those damn Palestinians dont want peace, we tried it, they dont even want to discuss our very generous terms (sic) ..."
"... Then the Nethanyahus and fellow imperial Zionists take this narrative to claim talking with Palestinians will never work ..."
"... Which then will open up the road for their long term plan to totally and forever reject any rights of the Palestinians, and go full force into annexing all they can get ..."
"... It is not some naive plan to bring peace, but to give the Likudniks what they have dreamed of for so long: To not having to give even the smallest shit about international law, to never having to be bothered with it, and just rely totally on the military force to expand their growing regional-imperial ambitions. ..."
"... ''The proposals laid out by President Trump yesterday seemingly cement "unshakeable, unbreakable" U.S. support for Israel by offering the Israeli government unconditional American support for immediate annexation of land in the West Bank, while conditioning and constraining Palestinian self-determination to meet any and all Israeli security needs.'' ..."
"... IMO the Israelis who are overwhelmingly a tribal and exclusionist people will never allow Palestinian prosperity. ..."
"... Allow prosperity for the Palestinians? They view the Palestinians as little more than chattel under their feet. It's documented that the IDF's head Rabbi said so openly. And any Jew who dares to stand up against their aggression against the Palestinians, are labeled as a self-hating Jew. ..."
"... Sheldon Adelson and prominent Zionist leaders were present for Trump Deal. But not one Palestinian. ..."
"... William Polk has a nice article by Gershon Baskin of what the future could bring. I find it a quite plausible prediction. The legislation for confiscating Palestinian property in Jerusalem is in place. "Encountering Peace: Have We No Shame?" http://www.williampolk.com/assets/israel--yesterday%2c-today-and-tomorrow.pdf ..."
Jan 30, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

The Palestinians are offered very little in this final reconciliation between the US and the forces of Zionisn within and without the US. If the sons and daughters of Ishmael (look it up) behave and cooperate with their Israeli guardians, they will be rewarded with development money intended to comfort them in their helotry. Trump did say to Bibi at the ceremony that Bibi would have the Palestinian money with which to influence future events, but perhaps that was merely clumsy. Trump also referred to "Israel's Holy Land." I suppose that still leaves open the possibility of "religious tourism" as the Israelis call pilgrimage?

In Trump's plan Israel will forever control a strip of territory along the Jordanian border as sovereign to themselves. But, in return the Palestinian "state" might receive an embassy from the US, located in "eastern" Jerusalem. I suppose that would be out in that valley to the east that the mandatory British government included as being within the boundaries of Jerusalem.

Trump seems really to think that Palestinians are like stray dogs who will lick your hand if you give them something, anything, to eat. Perhaps that is the general attitude in New York City.

Mahmoud Abbas has stated that his side will not accept this, but at least there is peace between the US and Israel. pl

the optics look bad with one criminal supporting another... someone said israel is like nazi germany... the analogy seems to fit..

james | 28 January 2020 at 07:32 PM

So Trump has elevated himself as a Muktar for Bibi as well as MBS. Hmmm...... We saw him dancing the sword dance with MBS's servants, guess we will now see him dancing the Horah for Bibi.

This whole scenario smacks of the Keystone Cops segment, without the laugh track.

J | 28 January 2020 at 08:32 PM
So this is the result of three years of effort from Jarred? At least he hasn't been working on the economy. Does Trump really think the Palestinians are going to unilaterally disarm, have their borders controlled by the IDF with future cross border inspections run by the same folks doing so now, all in exchange for some nebulous funding and promises of some land swaps? It might serve as a distraction from Bibi's troubles but I can't see anyone taking this "deal" seriously.
Fred | 28 January 2020 at 09:25 PM
I'm much taken by the two bumps of territory along the Egypt/Israel border that stick out like sore-thumbs in Trump's let's-pretend map.

Where will the Palestinians come from to inhabit those "industrial" and "residential" parcels of land?

I suspect that those two bumps of land represent the two bantustans that are going to be created (out of thin-air, apparently) specifically to house "Israeli Arabs".

If I'm right then Trump's plan is simply Apartheid on steroids.

Yeah, Right | 28 January 2020 at 09:32 PM
The possibility of a formal, however unreal, Palestinian state is being cast [so as not to anger those to the right of Netanyahu] as something for the future if all goes well. As for the money, it is to be geared towards tying the Palestinians even tighter into the economy of Israel than has been the case since the Oslo accords.

No, it cannot fly and certainly not with Jordan. The King of Saudi Arabia [not MbS, I note] called Mahmoud Abbas to state that his country stands firm behind the Palestinians. Of course, the proposed "Steal of the Century" is a non-starter for Jordan. What actually is done unilaterally by Israel could actually put into jeopardy some or all of the peace agreement between Jordan and Israel.

Netanyahu made clear that the issue of the '48 refugees is not theirs to solve. There is one far out idea being shaped by the Saudis/Israelis/the US/and some Sunni leaders in Anbar as a bonus to their plan of separating Sunni territories from the Shia dominated state, using the legal methods employed by the KRG. That is to settle any stateless Palestinians looking for a place to live to move to sparsely populated Anbar. The immediate impetus for this developing plan is a way to maintain troops in Iraq even if ordered out by the Baghdad government. Anbar abuts Sunni dominated areas of Syria the US sees as critical to its policies.

The question now is just how vindictive Trump will be when the Palestinians say not. He has already taken away assistance, so it might be in the form of green-lighting more dramatic actions by Israel. And what will various other players in the region and around the globe do?

As for an "embassy" in the outer areas of Jerusalem, this is, I assume, Israel's way of saying forget about any PA capital, even if it is in Abu Dis.

Jane | 28 January 2020 at 11:41 PM
Nice plan for a change. Definitely got potential for the long term. Once the old guard hit forgetful age the youth can look forward to a peaceful coexistence. Gaza linked to the westbank is a great idea.

Politically this is the best possible scenario. The arab side should be aware after soliemani that trump and co.mean business. Probably same applies to Israeli leadership. Unless anyone has a better solution that does not involve war this is the deal worth supporting.

anon | 29 January 2020 at 02:41 AM
Only God can bring peace to that part of the world. My immediate thought after reading this post was of the last lines of Moby-Dick. It comes from the only survivor of the Pequod: "Call me Ishmael."

I'm praying that Melville was not prescient in his assessment of our society.

Diana Croissant | 29 January 2020 at 03:56 AM
IMHO the mindset and agenda behind this is as follows:
  • -Offer the Palestinians something they only can refuse
  • -Then say those damn Palestinians dont want peace, we tried it, they dont even want to discuss our very generous terms (sic)
  • -Then the Nethanyahus and fellow imperial Zionists take this narrative to claim talking with Palestinians will never work
  • -Which then will open up the road for their long term plan to totally and forever reject any rights of the Palestinians, and go full force into annexing all they can get
  • -Peace process will be officially buried forever

That is the true purpose of this charade. It is not some naive plan to bring peace, but to give the Likudniks what they have dreamed of for so long: To not having to give even the smallest shit about international law, to never having to be bothered with it, and just rely totally on the military force to expand their growing regional-imperial ambitions.

It sadly will work as intended.

DontBelieveEitherPr. | 29 January 2020 at 07:07 AM
@james - Do you not know that making such a comparison is a hate crime? You are (for now) permitted to make a comparison between contemporary Israeli policy and the creation of South Africa's colonial Bantustans. However, I'm sure the Strategic Affairs Ministry are on it and will shortly arrange for this too to be denoted as hateful expression.

I am pleased to see our visitor @anon recognize the workability of the plan. His paymasters in Tel Aviv will be happy. FYI there are many who have a better solution in mind. These groups can often be recognized by "al-Quds" somewhere in their name. All of them are perfectly happy to consider warfare as the means of implementing their plan.

Barbara Ann | 29 January 2020 at 09:39 AM
سال بعد در اورشلیم
Translation here
Per/Norway | 29 January 2020 at 11:59 AM
@barbara - laws are written by those in power.. what else is new? it is up to people to question and challenge who is lording it over them...
james | 29 January 2020 at 12:21 PM
What is telling is that with the exception of Turkey and Iran against and UK for this deal. It has been absolutely crickets chirping in the international community. All that money the US poured into building Israel up has worked. Every one including the UNSC members who voted for Obama's last stop measure at the UN are ready to trade the Palestinians lives for access to the tech in Israel.

This deal will only bring more misery on both sides.

BraveNewWorld | 29 January 2020 at 02:12 PM
Dear Colonel,

The plan also promises ports, which appear unconnected from any Palestinian territory - I guess there will be a "Palestinian building" surrounded by Israeli customs on an Israeli port?

One wonders how much whiskey (or whatever Israeli's drink) was required to come up with such an evidently lame plan (maybe it was a first year intern)? Hmm what was Jared's budget to develop it?

Transactional Trump clearly believes that the Palestinians (are naive enough) to sell out for a promise of $$ - as if such promises are worth more than the paper of Native American treaties. Funny, thing, though, with the Fed printing $16 trillion for the Repo market since Sept., the Fed could slip an extra trillion or so into the mix allowing Trump to make a real offer (which would be hard to campaign on).

ISL | 29 January 2020 at 04:47 PM
So many small minds here who cant envision a Gaza strip filled with Trump casinos and towers. With the right tax structure it could be the next Monte Carlo. Perhaps a bullet train to the West Bank.

Of course it might not work as a democracy, but a royal family could fix that. Perhaps Prince Harry, or Jared? Ivanka could make a fine queen.

HK Leo Strauss | 29 January 2020 at 04:59 PM
''The proposals laid out by President Trump yesterday seemingly cement "unshakeable, unbreakable" U.S. support for Israel by offering the Israeli government unconditional American support for immediate annexation of land in the West Bank, while conditioning and constraining Palestinian self-determination to meet any and all Israeli security needs.''

When pray tell are Americans going to find their balls and refuse to have their country used by that little outlaw country' and our treasonous Fifth Column Politicians?

Really, to think we once threw out King George and now we are reduced to being drooling eunuchs in service to a foreign and domestic cancer.

"Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius."

catherine | 29 January 2020 at 05:37 PM
HK Leo Strauss

IMO the Israelis who are overwhelmingly a tribal and exclusionist people will never allow Palestinian prosperity.

turcopolier | 29 January 2020 at 05:49 PM
The residential and industrial areas appear on the map to be in the Sinai Desert on the Israeli side. Originally, consideration was given to providing Gaza with land on what is now the Egyptian side of their mutual border, but the public reaction made Sisi rule it out. That original plan assumed that West Bankers would want to move there to work and live as well as Palestinian refugees from elsewhere.

It was to be part of the grand plan by Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia to "solve" the Palestinian problem through industrial development and employment.

This new apparition would seem to imply that Israel was willing to add a couple of additional carefully guarded bantustans to the current mix. My suggestion is that if the Israelis wanted to help someone, it might be better to allow the native Bedouin who have been forcefully uprooted from their traditional grazing lands.

Jane | 29 January 2020 at 05:51 PM
A couple of comments about this trump farce Peace Plan.

1- Trump keeps saying the Palestinian capital will be East Jerusalem. This is not true, the Palestinian capital that the plan specifies will be in Abu Dis, just outside East Jerusalem and in fact on the other side of the wall surrounding East Jerusalem.

2 - The 3 little bumps of territory along the Egyptian border allocated to the Palestinian state are now heavily populated by Israeli Arabs. If this plan goes through, they will lose their Israeli citizenship and travel rights to Israel proper. This is done to reduce the Arab portion of Israeli citizens making Israel even more Jewish.

3- The annexation of the Jordan Valley takes away the breadbasket of the Palestinians. It is far and away ther most fertile land in either Israel or the West Bank.

4 - Israsel will still have complete security control of every part of the West Bank which means Palestinian travel between their bantustans will be subject to IDF approval.

5 - The $50 billion in illusionary aid is supposed to be divided between Egypt, Lebanon, Syria etc. It is an open question how much will remain for the West Bank.

jdledell | 29 January 2020 at 06:03 PM
Allow prosperity for the Palestinians? They view the Palestinians as little more than chattel under their feet. It's documented that the IDF's head Rabbi said so openly. And any Jew who dares to stand up against their aggression against the Palestinians, are labeled as a self-hating Jew.
J | 29 January 2020 at 06:27 PM
Sheldon Adelson and prominent Zionist leaders were present for Trump Deal. But not one Palestinian. I don't believe that the Palestinians were invited.
J | 29 January 2020 at 08:13 PM
BraveNewWorld - I don't agree with you about Israeli tech being so attractive. I visit at least once a year having relatives there and am always surprised at how low tech the country actually is. My son works in that industry as well as my Wife's nephew and they are talking about stuff which is fairly out of date. Maybe they have something unseen by society but in general it is not particularly high tech at all.
OldMicrobiologist | 30 January 2020 at 05:45 AM
William Polk has a nice article by Gershon Baskin of what the future could bring. I find it a quite plausible prediction. The legislation for confiscating Palestinian property in Jerusalem is in place. "Encountering Peace: Have We No Shame?" http://www.williampolk.com/assets/israel--yesterday%2c-today-and-tomorrow.pdf
Poul | 30 January 2020 at 06:04 AM
J,

I don't believe Trump was invited either:

"Kushner and Greenblatt have limited the plan's distribution over the two years they have been crafting it. It has been kept secret "to ensure people approach it with an open mind" when it is released, a senior administration official said.

"Only four people have regular access - Kushner, Greenblatt, U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman and Kushner aide Avi Berkowitz, the official said."
What's the common denominator among these men here? The nose knows.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-palestinian-trump/in-leaky-white-house-trump-team-keeps-middle-east-peace-plan-secret-idUSKCN1RM2GQ

Or for the Golan decision:

"Speaking at the Republican Jewish Coalition gathering in Las Vegas, Trump said he made the snap decision during a discussion with his top Middle East peace advisers, including the U.S. ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, and son-in-law Jared Kushner.

"I said, 'Fellows, do me a favor. Give me a little history, quick. Want to go fast. I got a lot of things I'm working on: China, North Korea. Give me a quickie," Trump said to laughter from the Las Vegas crowd.

"'How do you like the idea of me recognizing exactly what we're discussing?'" said Trump, recounting the conversation.

Trump, who typically demands short sharp briefings and is known for his colorful retelling of stories, said Friedman was shocked, "like a wonderful, beautiful baby," and asked the President if he would actually do it.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-israel/trump-says-he-made-golan-heights-decision-after-a-quick-history-lesson-idUSKCN1RI0N7

A wonderful, beautiful baby INDEED.

[Jan 30, 2020] The foreign government that has long been most active in interfering in US politics and US elections is that of Israel by Paul R. Pillar

Jan 30, 2020 | nationalinterest.org

The misconduct for which Donald Trump has been impeached centers on an attempt to drag a foreign government into a U.S. election campaign. That caper has increased public attention to the problem of foreign interference in U.S. politics, but the problem is more extensive than discourse about the impeachment process would suggest.

[Jan 30, 2020] Kushner deal makes me think of a mobster saying Nice home you have there, be a shame if something happened to it

Jan 30, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Bubbles , Jan 30 2020 18:37 utc | 72

Posted by: Peter | Jan 30 2020 18:19 utc | 67

The so called deal makes me think of a mobster saying Nice home you have there, be a shame if something happened to it.

Watch this interview with Kushner, if you can stand it, and see what comes to mind.

https://twitter.com/BradCabana/status/1222299392574537730

[Jan 30, 2020] There is no shortage of great intellects in the Middle East to follow in his extraordinary footsteps

Notable quotes:
"... I think they were trying to start a war when they killed Soleimani, and the Iranians decided to use it against them instead. Which is smart. Neocons talk a lot but they are not smart. They are bullies and cowards. ..."
Jan 30, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

uncle tungsten , Jan 30 2020 22:27 utc | 117

Thanks b, that is a mighty good post:

This man had a mighty wish too

There is no shortage of great intellects in the Middle East to follow in his extraordinary footsteps.

Bemildred , Jan 30 2020 23:27 utc | 126

Posted by: Patroklos | Jan 30 2020 23:02 utc | 124

I think they were trying to start a war when they killed Soleimani, and the Iranians decided to use it against them instead. Which is smart. Neocons talk a lot but they are not smart. They are bullies and cowards.

At present what I notice is what you do, there is a lot going on, but you won't find it in the MSM. They are busy reducing their audience share with propaganda.

They kicked the jams out when they droned Soleiman. No more "deals".

But I expect Iran to do these things while this is going on:

1.) Annoy Trump and his minions and USG political class as much as possible, stay in their face.
2.) Watch, and help their "proxies" work on making life unbearable in the Middle East for us.

The Houthis seem to have just kicked the shit out of the Saudi coalition again. Quite a few damaged ships and down aircraft reports too, not just Afghanistan.


[Jan 29, 2020] Pompeo Iranian Proxy Mobilizing in America's Backyard

Notable quotes:
"... Yet the U.S. has little real insight into what happens in hostile regimes like Maduro's, and "Pompeo is probably the least reliable person in the world when it comes to information about Iran or its proxies," said Abrahms. "He has a terrible track record; he is an ideologue. He is the opposite of an impartial empiricist. I would never accept anything he says without corroborating sources." ..."
"... According to what we know, a Hezbollah agent conducted years of surveillance on potential targets , and alleged sleeper agents within U.S. cities have so far not been activated, even in the wake of Iranian Quds force General Soleimani's death and the series of crippling sanctions the Trump administration has put on Iran. ..."
Jan 28, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Why is Pompeo suddenly directing increasingly heated rhetoric towards Iran and its proxies in South America?

"Anti-Iran hawks like Pompeo like to emphasize that Iran is not a defensively-minded international actor, but rather that it is offensively-minded and poses a direct threat to the United States," said Max Abrahms, associate professor of political science at Northeastern and fellow of the Quincy Institute said in an interview with The American Conservative. "And so for obvious reasons, underscoring Hezbollah's international tentacles helps to sell their argument that Iran needs to be dealt with in a military way, and that the key to dealing with Iran is through confrontation and pressure."

Stories highlighting the role of Hezbollah in America's backyard "are almost always peddled by anti-Iran hawks," he said.

Like Clare Lopez, vice president for research and analysis at the Center for Security Policy, who aligns with the argument that Hezbollah has been populating South America since the days of the Islamic revolution.

"From at least the 1980s, many Lebanese fled to South America, and among that flow Hezbollah embedded themselves," she told The American Conservative in a recent interview. Their activity "really expanded throughout the continent" during the presidencies of Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez.

During that time, Lopez added, "there was a really strong relationship that developed Iranians established diplomatic facilities, enormous embassies and consulates, embedded IRGC cover positions and MOIS (intelligence services) within commercial companies and mosques and Islamic centers. This took place in Brazil in particular but Venezuela also."

Iran and Hezbollah intensified their involvement throughout the region in technical services like tunneling, money laundering, and drug trafficking. Venezuela offered Iran an international banking work-around during the period of sanctions, said Lopez.

Obviously security analysts like Lopez and even Pompeo, have been following this for years. But the timing here, as the Senate impeachment inquiry heats up, looks suspicious.

Last week, just as it looks increasingly likely that former national security advisor John Bolton and Pompeo himself will be hauled before the Senate as witnesses about the foreign aid hold-up to Ukraine, Pompeo praised Colombia, Honduras, and Guatemala for designating "Iran-backed Hezbollah a terrorist organization," and slammed Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro for embracing the terrorist group.

Hezbollah "has found a home in Venezuela under Maduro. This is unacceptable," Pompeo said when he met with Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido last week.

Asked by Bloomberg News how significant a role Hezbollah plays in the region, Pompeo responded, "too much."

From the interview:

Pompeo : " I mentioned it in Venezuela, but in the Tri-Border Area as well. This is again an area where Iranian influence – we talk about them as the world's largest state sponsor of terror. We do that intentionally. It's the world's largest; it's not just a Middle East phenomenon. So while – when folks think of Hezbollah, they typically think of Syria and Lebanon, but Hezbollah has now put down roots throughout the globe and in South America, and it's great to see now multiple countries now having designated Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. It means we can work together to stamp out the security threat in the region."

Question: "I'm struck by this, because even hearing you – what you're saying, right, now – I mean, to take a step back, an Iranian-backed terrorist organization has found a home in America's backyard."

Pompeo: "It's – it's something that we've been talking about for some time. When you see the scope and reach of what the Islamic Republic of Iran's regime has done, you can't forget they tried to kill someone in the United States of America. They've conducted assassination campaigns in Europe. This is a global phenomenon. When we say that Iran is the leading destabilizing force in the Middle East and throughout the world, it's because of this terror activity that they have now spread as a cancer all across the globe. "

Pompeo has also been publicly floating increasing sanctions on Venezuela. He called the behavior of Maduro's government "cartel-like" and "terror-like," intensifying the sense that there is a real security "threat" in our hemisphere.

Yet the U.S. has little real insight into what happens in hostile regimes like Maduro's, and "Pompeo is probably the least reliable person in the world when it comes to information about Iran or its proxies," said Abrahms. "He has a terrible track record; he is an ideologue. He is the opposite of an impartial empiricist. I would never accept anything he says without corroborating sources."

There's no question that Hezbollah has a presence in South America, said Abrahms, "but the nature of its presence has been politicized."

According to what we know, a Hezbollah agent conducted years of surveillance on potential targets , and alleged sleeper agents within U.S. cities have so far not been activated, even in the wake of Iranian Quds force General Soleimani's death and the series of crippling sanctions the Trump administration has put on Iran.

"What this underscores is that Iran could pull the trigger, it could bloody the U.S., including the U.S. homeland, but tends to avoid such violence. I think the question that needs to be asked isn't just, 'where in the world could Iran commit an attack?' but whether Iran is a rational actor that can be deterred," said Abrahms. "Interestingly, this administration as well as its hawkish supporters tend to emphasize their belief that Iran can in fact be deterred," since that is the logic behind "maximum pressure" against Iran, after all. "The main causal mechanism according to advocates of maximum pressure, is that it will force Iran as a rational actor to reconsider whether it wants to irritate the U.S By applying economic pressure through sanctions, [they hope to] succeed in coaxing Iran to restructure the nuclear deal and making additional concessions to the west and reigning in its activities in the Persian Gulf and the Levant. At least on a rhetorical level, the hawks say they believe Iran can be deterred," he said.

It would not be the first time that a president reacted to an intensifying impeachment inquiry by redirecting national focus to threats abroad. In December 1998, as the impeachment inquiry into then-President Bill Clinton heated up, Clinton launched airstrikes against Iraq. We should therefore apply some caution when we see decades-old threats amplified by administration officials.

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

[Jan 29, 2020] Pompeo about Hezbollah threat

Jan 29, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

J Villain • 19 hours ago

It leaves me yearning for the integrity of the Nixon foreign policy team and they were a certified pack of sociopaths.

[Jan 29, 2020] Trump will be kept in play for as long as the rulers decide, the voters/rabble can shout all they want, dogs barking at the Moon. Their puppet is delivering

Jan 29, 2020 | off-guardian.org

Jack_Garbo ,

Trump will be kept in play for as long as the rulers decide, the voters/rabble can shout all they want, dogs barking at the Moon. Their puppet is delivering: Most bombs dropped in Afghanistan (stock prices & divs up), racism simmering nicely on southern border, the Fed rampant with QE4 driving the NASDAQ & Dow to mythic heights before the Crash, the Impeachment Show dithering along distracting even those not brain dead from the relentless thuggery of the Trump administration. The show must go on, and it will, until the producers have pocketed their profits. Relax, folks, it's not personal it's (show) business. So smile

George Marchand ,

Amusing if the Democrats get their way and face President Pence and Vice President Ted Cruz in the fall😱

RobG ,

I haven't had time to read all the comments here (usual excuse!). This recent piece by Whitney Webb, on Mint Press News, might have been linked to before. Whatever, I feel it's worth me linking to again because it gives a very good insight into what's going on in the Middle East at the moment, and the fact that we are ruled by gangster psychopaths

https://www.mintpressnews.com/hidden-parliamentary-session-revealed-trump-motives-iraq-china-oil/264155/

Einstein ,

Sounds like a come-on for Tulsi Gabbard.

Dungroanin ,

HRC is going for some bazookas as along with a face lift?
BIll's always been a giant tit. Maybe she could get away with just one upgrade.

paul ,

No. 1 Shabbos goy Trump is currently down on his hands and knees licking Netanyahu's boots, rubber stamping each and every one of the demands of the fake Jew Khazars in Occupied Palestine.

paul ,

The Palestinians are being offered an incredibly generous deal of a Bantustan on a few acres of scruffy desert somewhere the Jews don't want. An incredible vision of peace! The deal of the century! Tremendous! Amazing!! Terrific!!! Wonderful!!! Historic!!! A Triumph!!!!

Hugh O'Neill ,

The penultimate link above was an article on CIA assassinations. It somehow elided their successful jobs on JFK, MLK and RFK. Credit where it's due. Too modest. What self effacing heroes. Not to mention Dag Hammarskjold, maybe Olof Palme, and dozens of other democratically elected leaders. So they missed Fidel. You can't win them all.

Einstein ,

And don't forget the third-worlders, like Allende and Lumumba.
And mass killing using the now default fanatical Muzzies backed up by "contractors", as happened in Indonesia in 1965. Several millions were murdered then, more than the Khmer Rouge atrocities and approaching the WWII Holocaust in magnitude. It continues in Papua.

Jihadi Colin ,

Anyone with two thinking neurons knows that 2020 Trump, unlike 2016 Trump, is completely and unequivocally a creature of the zionist lobby and the military industrial complex, and therefore guaranteed re-(s)election in November. Since he is guaranteed a second term, the duty of the Daymockratic Party is to make sure he doesn't lose by accident. This they will do by, first, making certain nobody remotely electable is put up against der Twitterführer, and, second, by making such a ludicrous spectacle of themselves that even fence sitters and those who detest Trump (not a hard thing to do) will end up voting for him out of disgust. That is all.

csc61 ,

Hey look, yet another low-information voter (who probably doesn't vote) regurgitating the hate his mainstream media overlords told him he must have for the president. Couldn't articulate a single thought on why he finds the president so distasteful or how the Trump presidency has effected his life in any way shape or form other than to lower his taxes. Still these useless bottom-feeders persist. "Orange man bad!" Look mom, I had an original thought oh, wait, no, never-mind.

Antonym ,

Even the Trump administration keeps on shielding Saudi 9/11 perp investigations : the Anglo Arab oil dollar protection pact stays paramount!

Antonym ,

Robert Mueller III buried any FBI case against HRC; he also buried any 9/11 FBI case against any Saudis!

Einstein ,

Mueller doesn't know how to wield a shovel.

paul ,

He couldn't find his own arse with both hands.

Richard Le Sarc ,

Come on Ant-everybody knows that it was the MOSSAD, allied to US sayanim and rogue elements of the US elite who did 9/11. The Saudis were just the patsies, Oswalds one and all.

Antonym ,

Did you know that even Hamas and Iran are run by the Mossad? And Xi Jinping too! Me too, you too. No more need for an Off Guardian site, all riddles solved.

paul ,

No, they don't run Hamas any more. They did create it and gave it money and guns. To undermine Yasser Arafat and his organisation. Standard dirty colonial gam of divide and rule.

paul ,

People fixate too much on Trump.
In due course he will be replaced with another trained monkey serving the same organ grinders, and the game of musical chairs will continue.
The organ grinders are fond of nothing if not variety. They will give us a black monkey, an orange monkey, a gay monkey, a monkey with a vagina, a foul mouthed oafish monkey or a polished well behaved monkey. Just so long as it rattles its tin cup for the organ grinder.
At Davos he promised more tax cuts for the rich if re elected.
He threatened 25% tariffs on the car industries of his most faithful satraps if they tried to tax Silicon Valley.
God forbid that Amazon should have to pay a cent in tax on its $11 billion profits.
You might think the organ grinders are being a bit hard on the Orange Man, trying to impeach him.
After all, he has increased the military budget to $1,134 billion, (real figure), more than the rest of the world combined. You'd think that would buy him a bit of gratitude from Lockheed and Raytheon.
And his fellow billionaires increased their wealth by 12% last year. That should stand him in good stead with Adelson, Saban and Singer.
And the people who rule the roost should be happy with his Gives to the kosher folk. Jerusalem, Golan, West Bank, ever more billions, free weapons and unlimited political cover.
And all that nonsense about Draining The Swamp and Building The Wall is just so much ancient history, though a few of the Deplorables probably still believe in it.
And Obomber deported far more illegals than he has.
So why are they so hard on poor old Donny?
He upset the apple cart. He wasn't supposed to win. And however much grovelling he does to Israel and Wall Street, it just doesn't matter. They hate him. They will take all his Gives without any gratitude.

Because he is a loose cannon, an unprincipled opportunist. He is not a true believer waiting for the Rapture like Pence and Pompeo. Or someone as corrupt and compromised and easily controlled as Clinton.

Syria was supposed to have been destroyed by now. Assad was supposed to be dead. The war with Iran was scheduled for 3 years ago. But Trump screwed up their plans, and nothing he can do will ever deflect their hatred.

So he will either be re elected in November, or replaced with some mediocrity like Creepy Joe or Pocahontas or an even more dodgy billionaire like Bloomberg.

But it is all kabuki theatre. Nothing will change. There will still be 1,000 plus military bases all over the planet. The rich will get richer and the poor 99% will get more austerity.

And the Magic Roundabout will keep on turning round and round and round till the inevitable collapse. Trump is just another Goldstein for the Woke and the Deluded to hate.

csc61 ,

That all seems rather cynical to me. But just to keep facts straight, the US currently has 900 bases in 137 countries. Close to '1000 plus' but not quite. Just thought you'd appreciate the fact checking.

paul ,

We live in a rather cynical world. If you count those in 50 African countries which aren't included, it's well in excess of 1,000. Though the Pentagon seems confused on the subject itself. It seems to have "lost" a lot of them, like it "lost" $21 trillion from the military budget.

walter hewitt ,

Meanwhile back on the Farm we're still suffering Why Trump? Why? This is not a joke or a debate. Not a possibility or a maybe. Millions of children in UK are suffering now. Millions. Families are under the cosh. We all have been for decades. You've read the headlines. Grenfall. Hillsbough etc etc. And you wanna chat about trump trump trump mr televison mr mind control meanwhile in the real world millions of children in UK are suffering now.
Fuck off.

[Jan 29, 2020] People are fixated on Trump way too much

Jan 29, 2020 | off-guardian.org

paul People fixate too much on Trump.
In due course he will be replaced with another trained monkey serving the same organ grinders, and the game of musical chairs will continue.
The organ grinders are fond of nothing if not variety. They will give us a black monkey, an orange monkey, a gay monkey, a monkey with a vagina, a foul mouthed oafish monkey or a polished well behaved monkey. Just so long as it rattles its tin cup for the organ grinder.
At Davos he promised more tax cuts for the rich if re elected.
He threatened 25% tariffs on the car industries of his most faithful satraps if they tried to tax Silicon Valley.
God forbid that Amazon should have to pay a cent in tax on its $11 billion profits.
You might think the organ grinders are being a bit hard on the Orange Man, trying to impeach him.
After all, he has increased the military budget to $1,134 billion, (real figure), more than the rest of the world combined. You'd think that would buy him a bit of gratitude from Lockheed and Raytheon.
And his fellow billionaires increased their wealth by 12% last year. That should stand him in good stead with Adelson, Saban and Singer.
And the people who rule the roost should be happy with his Gives to the kosher folk. Jerusalem, Golan, West Bank, ever more billions, free weapons and unlimited political cover.
And all that nonsense about Draining The Swamp and Building The Wall is just so much ancient history, though a few of the Deplorables probably still believe in it.
And Obomber deported far more illegals than he has.
So why are they so hard on poor old Donny?
He upset the apple cart. He wasn't supposed to win. And however much grovelling he does to Israel and Wall Street, it just doesn't matter. They hate him. They will take all his Gives without any gratitude.
Because he is a loose cannon, an unprincipled opportunist. He is not a true believer waiting for the Rapture like Pence and Pompeo. Or someone as corrupt and compromised and easily controlled as Clinton.
Syria was supposed to have been destroyed by now. Assad was supposed to be dead. The war with Iran was scheduled for 3 years ago. But Trump screwed up their plans, and nothing he can do will ever deflect their hatred.
So he will either be re elected in November, or replaced with some mediocrity like Creepy Joe or Pocahontas or an even more dodgy billionaire like Bloomberg.
But it is all kabuki theatre. Nothing will change. There will still be 1,000 plus military bases all over the planet. The rich will get richer and the poor 99% will get more austerity.
And the Magic Roundabout will keep on turning round and round and round till the inevitable collapse.
Trump is just another Goldstein for the Woke and the Deluded to hate. 19 0 Reply Jan 28, 2020 4:16 AM

csc61 ,

That all seems rather cynical to me. But just to keep facts straight, the US currently has 900 bases in 137 countries. Close to '1000 plus' but not quite. Just thought you'd appreciate the fact checking.

paul ,

We live in a rather cynical world.
If you count those in 50 African countries which aren't included, it's well in excess of 1,000. Though the Pentagon seems confused on the subject itself.
It seems to have "lost" a lot of them, like it "lost" $21 trillion from the military budget.

walter hewitt ,

Charlotte Russe ,

Trump doesn't have a thing to fear he's been a huge asset to the security state, whose Russiagate theatrics provided mainstream media news with just enough bullshit to distract the public, so that Trump could never be aggressively attacked from the Left. For the last three years, all the "resistance oxygen" was sucked up by the warmongering against Russia. Meanwhile, this enabled Trump to successfully pass a slew of reactionary legislation and fasttrack numerous lifetime appointments to the federal court without barely a whimper from the phony Dems. In fact, the Democrats unanimously voted for Trump's military budget. The same idiot they called unhinged was given the power to start WWIII.

No matter how much liberals complain–the wealthy are happy with the status quo and the right-wing Evangelicals are as pleased as punch. However, there's quite a large number of disaffected Trump voters looking at Tulsi, but could eventually come Bernie's way. Especially, if Tulsi endorses Bernie. This discontented bunch includes the working-poor, the indebted young, and all the folks who are not doing economically well under Trump's fabulous stock market. It especially includes the military families who were promised an end to the miserable foreign interventions. Bernie, has some appeal to these folks. His platform certainly resonates with all those who can barely pay their health insurance
premiums, and whose salary is NOT nearly considered a living wage. But Bernie could win hands-down and steal Trump's base, if he only had the courage to UNAPOLOGETICALLY speak out against US imperialism and connect all the dots explaining how the security state plundered the treasury for decades f–king over the working-class.

[Jan 29, 2020] Speech Donald Trump Addresses the Israeli American Council Summit in Florida

This is probably the most Pro-Israel speeches of the President. 54 min long
20:19 is an interesting "brutal killers" quote... See also 'The Biggest Thing You Did for Israel' Was Breaking Iran Deal -- Adelson Tells Trump
Dec 07, 2019 | www.youtube.com

Donald Trump delivers a speech at the Isreli American Council Summit in Hollywood, Florida on December 7, 2019. Uploaded to YouTube for archival purposes by Factba.se ( https://factba.se )

samteedum , 1 month ago (edited)

From 20:17 very funny!!! Why he's president

[Jan 29, 2020] Turkey isn't amused

Jan 29, 2020 | twitter.com

"Turkey: The goal of American peace is to destroy and plunder Palestine."

"Turkish Foreign Ministry:
The fake US plan for peace in the Middle East was born 'dead'.
We will not allow actions to legitimize Israeli occupation and oppression."

Yet another cord in the knot tying Turkey to the West is severed. Word is the Turkish convoy has turned around and will not be constructing another OP near Saraqib.

This may surprise some people :

"Denouncing Trump Plan as 'Unacceptable,' Sanders Declares It Is Time to 'End the Israeli Occupation:'

"'Trump's so-called 'peace deal,' warned the White House hopeful, 'will only perpetuate the conflict, and undermine the security interests of Americans, Israelis, and Palestinians.'"

But isn't that exactly what the plan's supposed to do?

Posted by: karlof1 | Jan 28 2020 21:12 utc | 33

Posted by: dltravers | Jan 28 2020 21:23 utc | 35 Laguerre @28--

Here's UAE's response via tweet :

"Ambassador Yousef Al Otaiba Statement on Peace Plan:

"The United Arab Emirates appreciates continued US efforts to reach a Palestine-Israel peace agreement. This plan is a serious initiative that addresses many issues raised over the years. (1/3)"

From what I've read, Egypt also favors the plan, although I've yet to read anything official from Egypt's government. But Hezbollah's correct, IMO.

"The only way to guarantee a lasting solution is to reach an agreement between all concerned parties. The UAE believes that Palestinians and Israelis can achieve lasting peace and genuine coexistence with the support of the international community. (2/3)"

"The plan announced today offers an important starting point for a return to negotiations within a US-led international framework. (3/3)"

Part of Hezbollah's response :

"This deal would not have taken place without the collusion and treason of a number of Arab regimes, both secret and public. The peoples of our nation will never forgive those rulers who forsook resistance to maintain their fragile thrones."

Posted by: karlof1 | Jan 28 2020 21:26 utc | 36
Oman and Bahrain join UAE :

"Trump greenlights Netanyahu to annex at least 1/3 of the West Bank.

"Never forget that Oman, Bahrain and the UAE were present in that room [where the speech was made]."

I'm very surprised at Oman. This indicates to me both the Iranian and Russian collective security proposals are now dead and the situation will now escalate further.

Posted by: karlof1 | Jan 28 2020 21:41 utc | 39
But isn't that exactly what the plan's supposed to do?

Posted by: karlof1 | Jan 28 2020 21:12 utc | 33

"In the remaining weeks before the March 2 Israeli elections, and the few months left until elections in the United States, Trump's peace plan will primarily serve the goal for which it was designed: election propaganda for Israel's right-wing."

https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2020/01/israel-us-palestinians-iran-donald-trump-benjamin-netanyahu.html#ixzz6CMb2xwxV

+Bonus prize = Stay out of jail card for Netanyahu if he remains Prime Minister.


"In the near term, the 80-page plan is most likely to stir up Israeli and American politics. Mr. Trump is sure to cite the plan's pro-Israel slant on the 2020 campaign trail to win support from conservative Jewish Americans in Florida and other key states, along with the Evangelical Christians who are some of his strongest backers and support Israeli expansion in the Holy Land."

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/28/world/middleeast/peace-plan.html

Let's not forget the far right Zionist money men AIPAC members who lavish millions on trump and GOP campaigns. ie Sheldon Adelson was seated in the front row when trump and netanyahu made their announcement. I would say these are the things it's intended to do.

Posted by: Bubbles | Jan 28 2020 21:44 utc | 40

[Jan 28, 2020] Pompeo's Petty Despotism

Pompeo proved to be impulsive bully. Like Bolton, he is yet another "wise" Trump choice that disqualifies Trump for running in 2020 elections.
Jan 28, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com
Nomuka • 15 hours ago • edited
Well, it looks like I'll need to start contributing to NPR again. They are a little too woke for my tastes, but Pompeo is a liar, and frankly beyond the pale. A perfect representative of the current administration by the way. Kudos to NPR for standing up to him.
TomG • 10 hours ago
One correction--instead of "by acting as if he is a petty despot" it should read "evermore blatantly showing the world the petty despot he is."
bumbershoot • 10 hours ago
The Secretary of State has all of the vanity and arrogance of a diva, but none of the talent.

Hmm, that seems to remind me of someone else in this administration...

FL_Cottonmouth • 9 hours ago
Much like U.S. foreign policy, it seems that Mike Pompeo is going to ignore the facts and keep recklessly escalating the conflict. Surely he's aware that The Washington Post published the email correspondence between Ms. Kelley and press aide. This just makes him look like a coward.
ZizaNiam • 9 hours ago
From the Trump voter perspective, this journalist should feel lucky that she wasn't sent to Guantanamo Bay. All Trump voters think this way, there is no exception.
Taras77 • 6 hours ago
Absolutely no longer any surprises about this pathetic individual!

[Jan 28, 2020] 'Mideast Peace Plan Trump Unveils His 'Deal of the Century'

Notable quotes:
"... Trump was adamant that Palestinians would be forced to accept his plan in the end. "We have the support of the prime minister, we have the support of the other parties, and we think we will ultimately have the support of the Palestinians, but we're going to see," he said on Monday. ..."
"... Trump has largely outsourced the creation of the plan to his adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner. The initial idea was to publish it after the April 2019 election in Israel, but the uncertainty hanging over the Knesset over the past year has delayed the announcement. ..."
Jan 28, 2020 | sputniknews.com

The announcement comes after Trump met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his main political rival Benjamin 'Benny' Gantz. The Palestinian authorities have repeatedly objected to the plan, as its details were trickling out, and mass protests are expected in the Palestinian territories as Israel tightens security measures. US President Donald Trump has unveiled his long-anticipated Middle East plan – effectively his administration's vision for the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Trump said that under his plan Jerusalem will remain Israel's 'undivided' capital.

Israel's West Bank settlements would be recognised by the United States.

However, Israel would freeze the construction of new settlements on Palestinian territories for four years while Palestinian statehood is negotiated. Trump said that the US will open an embassy to Palestine in East Jerusalem.

The US president said that his Palestine-Israel map would "more than double" the Palestinian territory.

"I want this deal to be a great deal for the Palestinians, it has to be. Today's agreement is a historic opportunity for the Palestinians to finally achieve an independent state of their own," Trump said. "These maps will more than double Palestinian territory and provide a Palestinian capital in Eastern Jerusalem where America will proudly open its embassy."

He added that the US and Israel would create a committee to implement the proposed peace plan.

"My vision presents a win-win opportunity for both sides, a realistic two-state solution that resolves the risk of Palestinian statehood to Israel's security," Trump said during a press conference.

On Monday, Donald Trump held separate meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and opposition leader Benny Gantz. Neither of the two managed to achieve a decisive victory in general elections in April or September last year, and a third vote is scheduled for March to break the impasse.

Benny Gantz, the leader of the centre-right Blue and White alliance, praised Trump's plan following Monday's meeting in Washington and promised to put it into practice if he wins the March election. Netanyahu has not commented publicly on it yet.

There has been some speculation in the media that Trump wants Netanyahu and Gantz to work together toward implementing the plan.

No Palestinians at the table

Trump had not met with any Palestinian representatives prior to the announcement; Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas had reportedly turned down several offers to discuss the proposal.

Palestinian leaders in the West Bank and Gaza have called for mass protests against the peace plan, prompting the Israeli military to reinforce troops in the Jordan Valley.

President Abbas reportedly greenlighted a "Day of Rage" over the Trump plan on Wednesday, paving the way for violent clashes between protesters and Israeli forces. He is currently holding an emergency meeting of the executive bodies of the Palestine Liberation Organisation and the Fatah party.

Palestinians have also floated the possibility of quitting the Oslo accords, which created the Palestinian Authority and regulate its relations with the state of Israel.

The Oslo accords, signed in the 1990s, officially created the Palestinian Authority as a structure tasked with exercising self-governance over the territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

A long path behind
Trump was adamant that Palestinians would be forced to accept his plan in the end. "We have the support of the prime minister, we have the support of the other parties, and we think we will ultimately have the support of the Palestinians, but we're going to see," he said on Monday.

Trump has largely outsourced the creation of the plan to his adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner. The initial idea was to publish it after the April 2019 election in Israel, but the uncertainty hanging over the Knesset over the past year has delayed the announcement.

Jared Kushner unveiled the economic portion of the plan this past summer at a conference in Bahrain, but failed to shore up support from Palestinians and faced widespread condemnation instead.

Israelis and Palestinians have been embroiled in a conflict ever since the State of Israel came into existence. Previous American administrations, in line with the United Nations's approach, had long favoured an arrangement that envisaged an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, with its capital in East Jerusalem.

The Trump administration reversed that policy and made a series of decidedly pro-Israel moves in the past three years. Those included moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and recognising the Golan Heights (which it annexed illegally from Syria) and Israeli settlements in the West Bank (illegal under international law) as parts of Israel.

[Jan 28, 2020] Trump's Annexation and Apartheid Plan

Jan 28, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Donate

[Jan 27, 2020] Guess Who Was In Charge Of Reviewing Bolton's Leaked Book At The NSC

Bolton is pretty dangerous neocon scum... Now he tried to backstab Trump, so Trump gets what he deserves as only complete idiot or a fully controlled puppet would appoint Bolton to his Administration.
Notable quotes:
"... Breitbart News ..."
"... Wall Street Journal ..."
Jan 27, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
Breitbart News , which would include the recently leaked manuscript of former National Security adviser John Bolton.

The report describes the reviews as a "standard process that allows the NSC to review book manuscripts, op-eds, or any other material for any classified material to be eliminated before publication."

The New York Times reported Sunday evening that Bolton's draft book manuscript, which had been submitted to the NSC for prepublication review on Dec. 30, alleged that President Trump told Bolton in August 2019 that he wanted to withhold security assistance to Ukraine until it agreed to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, among others.

It was not clear if the Times had seen the Bolton manuscript; its sources were "multiple people" who "described Mr. Bolton's account of the Ukraine affair."

Bolton's lawyer, Chuck Cooper, issued a statement in which he said: "It is clear, regrettably, from The New York Times article published today that the prepublication review process has been corrupted ." He did not confirm or deny the Times ' reporting on the content of the manuscript. - Breitbart News

What a coincidence! While Alexander Vindman at the NSC testifies against Trump at the House impeachment, the other brother (Yevgeny) appears to be in charge of clearing John Bolton's book for publication.

If you believe in coincidences. https://t.co/qtpoqeGpaj

-- Emerald Robinson ✝️ (@EmeraldRobinson) January 27, 2020

Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman famously testified against President Trump during House impeachment hearings in November, where he admitted to violating the chain of command when he reported his concerns over a July 25 phone call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky.

Nunes: Did you know that financial records show a Ukrainian natural gas company, Burisma, routed more than $ 3 million to American accounts tied to Hunter Biden?

Vindman, whose job is to handle Ukraine policy: "I'm not aware of this fact." pic.twitter.com/6yFbWkufmH

-- Nate Madden (@NateOnTheHill) November 19, 2019

Breitbart notes that the Vindman brothers have offices across from each other at the NSC , and that the Wall Street Journal describes Vindman as "an NSC lawyer handling ethics issues." Alexander Vindman, meanwhile, has said that his brother was the " lead ethics official " at the agency.

Meanwhile, looks like people are already distancing themselves from Bolton's claims that President Trump explicitly linked Ukraine aid with an investigation into the Bidens.

And now contradicted by Mick Mulvaney. https://t.co/1dhuCQ8UHZ

-- Sean Davis (@seanmdav) January 27, 2020

hooligan2009 , 39 seconds ago link

remember seth rich!

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/01/breaking-exclusive-christopher-wrays-fbi-caught-in-another-lie-and-cover-up-fbi-emails-on-seth-rich-uncovered/

"Today, January 27, 2020, we have a stunning update ==>>

After previously claiming no FBI records could be found related to Seth Rich, emails have been uncovered. These emails weren't just from anybody. These emails were between FBI lovebirds Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, the two most corrupt individuals involved in the Russia Collusion Hoax.

In a set of emails released by Judicial Watch on January 22, 2020, provided by a FOIA request on Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, two pages on emails refer to Seth Rich:"

https://www.judicialwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/JW-v-DOJ-Strzok-Page-Prod-16-00154.pdf

Moneycircus , 1 minute ago link

The Vindman brothers are being "handled" by someone.

I wager they have political "groomers", just like Obama did.

A Jewish photographer has been capturing Alexander Vindman and his twin for nearly 4 decades
https://www.jta.org/2019/11/06/culture/a-jewish-photographer-has-been-capturing-alexander-vindman-and-his-twin-for-nearly-4-decades

They were also featured in a 1985 Ken Burns documentary about immigrants.

Crush the cube , 7 minutes ago link

These guys are Ukrainian mob moles, sent here by their Ukie Jewish oligarchs when their positions of privilege went into decline with the collapse of communism. Because its typical for three first generation schmucks fresh off the immigrant boat to end up with two as officers both working in the white house, and the third brother back in Ukie Euro land controlling a major bank hip deep in all the scandal.

Think any investigative agency will touch it, don't **** with the mossad.

Attitude_Check , 7 minutes ago link

The rats are starting to tear into each other - good.

Moneycircus , 13 minutes ago link

Retired Army Officer Remembers Lt. Col. Vindman as Partisan Democrat Who Ridiculed America

https://tennesseestar.com/2019/11/05/retired-army-officer-remembers-lt-col-vindman-as-partisan-democrat-who-ridiculed-america/

Nov 5, 2019In an eye-opening thread on Twitter last week, retired U.S. Army Lt. Colonel Jim Hickman said that he "verbally reprimanded " Vindman after he heard some of his derisive remarks for himself. " Do not let the uniform fool you," Hickman wrote. "He is a political activist in uniform."

Harley Vet , 14 minutes ago link

Donald Trump is the most unqualified person ever to be elected president.

Southern_Boy , 19 minutes ago link

So why isn't Vindman doing contracts in North Alaska or deputy attache in Namibia tonight until he gets passed over 3 times for promotion and forced to retire unless Durham can find evidence of his guilt?

Obake158 , 26 minutes ago link

Speaking of Vindman, an Obama holdover, White House HR head, has prohibited Vindman's removal from the NSC. He even gets a $30k raise and is permitted to serve out his term until June. You can't make this **** up:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AV9-7R5or6w

Deep Snorkeler , 30 minutes ago link

John Bolton Trump's Sidekick

  1. manifestly guilty of the planning, preparation, initiation and execution of the crime of aggression against Iraq
  2. promoted the US withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal
  3. setting the stage for an unlawful US military intervention in Venezuela - plotting a coup against a foreign government
  4. hates the United Nations and international law
  5. protected Israel by vetoing all UN resolutions targeting Israel and supported Jerusalem as Israel's capital
  6. against the International Criminal Court

[Jan 27, 2020] The ME may yet destroy Trump

Trump outlived his shelf life. Money quote: "This may well be a fatal mistake of his. And while i have thought Trump to be the lesser evil compared to Clinton, i am now at a point where i seriously fear what his ignorance and slavery to the neocon doctrine may bring the world in 4 more years."
Notable quotes:
"... Some combination of the disasters that may emerge from these ME factors might well turn Trump's base against him and this result would be entirely of his own making ..."
"... This may well be a fatal mistake of his. And while i have thought Trump to be the lesser evil compared to Clinton, i am now at a point where i seriously fear what his ignorance and slavery to the neocon doctrine may bring the world in 4 more years. ..."
"... besides much talk and showmastery, he has not really changed anything substantial in this regard; Nothing that could seriously change the course. ..."
"... So he stripped himself of any true argument to vote for him, besides for ultra neocons and ultra fundamental evangelical Christians. And even they don't seem to trust in his intentions. ..."
"... Trump stands no chance if things get hot with Iran. He didn't win by enough to sacrifice the antiwar vote. ..."
"... Donald Trump and Mike Pompeo have got themselves in a no-win situation. NATO cannot occupy both Syria and Iraq, illegally. There are way too few troops. The bases in these nations are sitting ducks for the next precision ballistic missile attack. Any buildup would be contested. Ground travel curtailed. A Peace Treaty and Withdrawal is the only safe way out. ..."
"... Donald Trump is blessed with his opponents. Democrats who restarted the Cold War with Russia in 2014 are now using it to justify his Impeachment. If leaders cannot see reality clearly, they will keep making incredibly stupid mistakes. If Joe Biden is his opponent, I can't vote for either. Both spread chaos. ..."
"... President Trump controls part of the White House -- definitely not the NSC ..."
"... His hold elsewhere in the DC bureaucracy may be 5 - 15%. When the President decided to pull US troops out of Syria, his NSC Director flew to Egypt and Turkey to countermand the order. Facing the opposition of a united DC SWAMP, the President caved, and thereby delayed his formal impeachment by a year. ..."
"... Going out on a limb, President Trump continues to play a very weak hand and may survive to fight another day. Fortunately for the US, his tax and regulatory policies, as well as his economic negotiations with China, Japan, Korea and Mexico seem to be on target and successful. ..."
Jan 26, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

President Trump will easily be acquitted in the senate trial. This may occur this week and there will probably be no witnesses called. That will be an additional victory for him and will add to the effect of his trade deal victories and the general state of the US economy. These factors should point to a solid victory in November for him and the GOP in Congress.

Ah! Not so fast the cognoscenti may cry out. Not so fast. The Middle East is a graveyard of dreams:

1. Iraq. Street demonstrations in Iraq against a US alliance are growing more intense. There may well have been a million people in Muqtada al-Sadr's extravaganza. Shia fury over the death of Soleimani is quite real. Trump's belief that in a contest of the will he will prevail over the Iraqi Shia is a delusion, a delusion born of his narcissistic personality and his unwillingness to listen to people who do not share his delusions. A hostile Iraqi government and street mobs would make life unbearable for US forces there.

2. Syria. The handful of American troops east and north of the Euphrates "guarding" Syrian oil from the Syrian government are in a precarious position with the Shia Iraqis at their backs across the border and a hostile array of SAA, Turks, jihadis and potentially Russians to their front and on their flanks.

3. Palestine. The "Deal of the Century" is approaching announcement. From what is known of its contours, the deal will kill any remaining prospects for Palestinian statehood and will relegate all Palestinians (both Israeli citizens and the merely occupied) to the status of helots forever . Look it up. In return the deal will offer the helotry substantial bribes in economic aid money. Trump evidently continues to believe that Palestinians are untermenschen . He believe they will sell their freedom. The Palestinian Authority has already rejected this deal. IMO their reaction to the imposition of this regime is likely to be another intifada.

Some combination of the disasters that may emerge from these ME factors might well turn Trump's base against him and this result would be entirely of his own making . pl

Elora Danan , 26 January 2020 at 11:24 AM

...and his unwillingness to listen to people who do not share his delusions...

That precisely is the problem, apart from explosive shouting Pompeo, it seems he has recruited this extravanza of woman as adviser into the WH...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5w0kSkvusjI&feature=emb_title

Could it be true? If that is the case, it´s more scary than Elora thought when that of Soleimani happened....This starts to look as a frenopatic...isn´t it?

HK Leo Strauss , 26 January 2020 at 01:12 PM
With Iran and her allies holding the figurative Trump Card on escalation, will they ramp up the pressure to topple him? They could end up with a Dem who couldn't afford to "lose" Syria or Iraq.
JamesT , 26 January 2020 at 04:14 PM
I submit to you, Colonel, that the biggest threat to Trump is a Bernie/Tulsi ticket. Bernie is leading in the Iowa and NH polls, and the recent spat with Warren (in my opinion) leaves Bernie with no viable choice for VP other than Tulsi.
Barbara Ann said in reply to JamesT ... , 26 January 2020 at 05:32 PM
JamesT

Judging by what just happened at the embassy in Baghdad, the intentions of the Iraqi electorate would seem to be a more pressing concern.

EveryoneIsBiased , 26 January 2020 at 04:40 PM
Thank you Colonel; I have been waiting for your take on this. And thank you for opening the comments again. If there is a problem with my post, please point them out to me.

And i agree. This may well be a fatal mistake of his. And while i have thought Trump to be the lesser evil compared to Clinton, i am now at a point where i seriously fear what his ignorance and slavery to the neocon doctrine may bring the world in 4 more years.

Still, immigration is another important issue, but besides much talk and showmastery, he has not really changed anything substantial in this regard; Nothing that could seriously change the course.

So he stripped himself of any true argument to vote for him, besides for ultra neocons and ultra fundamental evangelical Christians. And even they don't seem to trust in his intentions.

And China? He may have changed some small to medium problems for the better, but nothing is changed in the overall trend of the US continuing to loose while China emerges as the next global superpower.

It may have been slowed for some years; It may even have been accelerated, now that China has been waken up to the extend of the threat posed by the US.

North Korea? They surely will never denuclearize. Even less after how Trump showed the world how he treats international law and even allies.

With Trump its all photo ops and showmanship. And while he senses what issues are important, it is worth a damn if he butchers the execution, or values photo ops more than substantial progress.

Not that i would see a democratic alternative. No. But at least now everyone who wants to know can see, that he is neither one.

4 years ago, democracy was corrupted, but at least there was someone who presented himself as an alternative to that rotten establishment.
Now, even that small ray of light is as dark as it gets.
And that is the saddest thing. What worth is democracy, when one does not even have a true alternative, besides Tulsi on endless wars, and Bernie for the socialist ;) ?

I just have watched again the Ken Burns documentary of the civil war. I know it is not perfect (Though i love Shelby Foote's parts), but the sense of the divided 2 Americas there, is still the same today. Today, America seems to break apart culturally, socially and economically on the fault lines that have sucked it into the civil war over 150 years ago.

And just like with seeing no real way out politically, i sadly can see no way to heal and unite this country, as it never was truly united after the civil war, if not ever before. As you Colonel said some weeks ago, the US were never a nation.

And looking at other countries, only a major national crisis may change this.
A most sad realization. But this hold true also for other western countries, including my own.

An even worse decade seems to be ahead.

turcopolier , 26 January 2020 at 05:15 PM
everyoneisbiased

The economy is actually quite good and he is NOT "a dictator." Dictators are not put on trial by the legislature. He is extremely ignorant and suffers from a life in which only money mattered.

emboil , 26 January 2020 at 05:27 PM
Once Bernie wins the nomination, it's going to be escalation time. Trump stands no chance if things get hot with Iran. He didn't win by enough to sacrifice the antiwar vote.
walrus , 26 January 2020 at 06:14 PM
I'm starting to think that Trumps weakness is believing that everyone and everything has a monetary price. I think perhaps his dealings with China may reinforce his perception, as, also, his alleged success in bullying the Europeans over Iran -- with the threat of tariffs on European car imports. His almost weekly references to Iraqi and Syrian oil, allies "not paying their way", financial threats to the Iraq Government, all suggest a fixation on finance that has served him well in business.

The trouble is that one day President Trump is going to discover there is something money can't buy, to the detriment of America.

VietnamVet , 26 January 2020 at 07:28 PM
Colonel,

Donald Trump and Mike Pompeo have got themselves in a no-win situation. NATO cannot occupy both Syria and Iraq, illegally. There are way too few troops. The bases in these nations are sitting ducks for the next precision ballistic missile attack. Any buildup would be contested. Ground travel curtailed. A Peace Treaty and Withdrawal is the only safe way out.

Donald Trump is blessed with his opponents. Democrats who restarted the Cold War with Russia in 2014 are now using it to justify his Impeachment. If leaders cannot see reality clearly, they will keep making incredibly stupid mistakes. If Joe Biden is his opponent, I can't vote for either. Both spread chaos.

My subconscious is again acting out. The mini-WWIII with Iran could shut off Middle Eastern oil at any time. The Fed is back to injecting digital money into the market. China has quarantined 44 million people. Global trade is fragile. Today there are four cases of Wuhan Coronavirus in the USA.

If confirmed that the virus is contagious without symptoms and an infected person transmits the virus to 2 to 3 people and with a 3% mortality rate and a higher 15% rate for the infirmed, the resupply trip to Safeway this summer could be both futile and dangerous.

Haralambos , 26 January 2020 at 07:48 PM
Two Greek words: "hubris" and "nemesis" come to mind.
Patrick Armstrong , 26 January 2020 at 08:19 PM
It's an old story. Mr X is elected POTUS; going to do this and that; something happens in the MENA. That's all anyone remembers. Maybe time to kiss Israel goodbye, tell SA to sell in whatever currency it wants, and realise that oil producers have to sell the stuff -- it's no good to them in the ground...
Petrel , 26 January 2020 at 08:31 PM
President Trump controls part of the White House -- definitely not the NSC -- and much of the Department of Commerce & Treasury. His hold elsewhere in the DC bureaucracy may be 5 - 15%. When the President decided to pull US troops out of Syria, his NSC Director flew to Egypt and Turkey to countermand the order. Facing the opposition of a united DC SWAMP, the President caved, and thereby delayed his formal impeachment by a year.

Going out on a limb, President Trump continues to play a very weak hand and may survive to fight another day. Fortunately for the US, his tax and regulatory policies, as well as his economic negotiations with China, Japan, Korea and Mexico seem to be on target and successful.

Godfree Roberts , 26 January 2020 at 09:19 PM
As Richard Nixon told a young Donald Rumsfeld when he asked about specializing in Latin America, "Nobody gives a shit about Latin America."

Nobody gives a shit about the Middle East.

Johnb , 26 January 2020 at 11:27 PM
We may yet see John McCains Revenge in the Senate Colonel, it only requires 4 Republican votes to move into Witnesses.
EEngineer , 26 January 2020 at 11:27 PM
Carthage must be destroyed! I don't know if Trump is going to war with Iran willingly or with a Neocon gun to his head, but if he's impeached I expect Pence to go on a holy crusade.

[Jan 27, 2020] Zionism is used as a smoke scree for Full Spectrum Dominance drive. It is effective in silencing US opponents

Jan 27, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Jackrabbit , Jan 26 2020 23:40 utc | 57

Phil @35:

Wait and see? Hope for change?

Western Democracies have fallen to the secretive Zionist Death Cult.

We need Movement(s) to restore democracy.

"Democracy Works!" propagandists will tell you that you only need YOUR VOTE. That is false. They ask for unilateral disarmament. We will never restore democracy by voting in rigged elections.

Zionist Death Cult? is no exaggeration. IMO The Zionist Movement has been hijacked by those who see ANY opposition as an existential threat. Thus, they MUST smash countries in the Middle East, and they MUST rule the world, even if that means conflict with Russia and China.

<> <> <> <> <> <>

I see Zionism not as a bad expression.... Zion and Zionism is, in my view, only a necessary expression of an oppressed people ...

Massaging Zionist egos with happy talk is counter-productive. (Yeah, I know you qualify your happy talk later, but still ...) THEY DON'T CARE. They are only interested in POWER and keeping it.

Whatever it started out as, Zionism has morphed into a Movement that has brought misery to millions and threatens the extinction of humanity via WWIII. The Doomsday Clock is now 100 seconds to midnight .

Just imagine if your culture, your tribe, was abolished and persecuted for centuries ...

Whatever was learned from that persecution seems to have been co-opted by ruthless Zionists who don't just want a homeland but the defeat of everyone that might restrict or restain them in any way - thus, the alliance with USA Empire-builders that to rule the world (NWO).

Just imagine if ... : your country has been subverted by a secretive Movement that bypasses Democratic process and corrupts your leaders via money and relentless organizing - including illegal blackmail operations that subvert anyone that doesn't approve of their goals and means of achieving them. At some point, they get to a point where their undermining is essentially more than paid for by grants from the government that they now control.

=
That the state of Israel is oppressing other people today, and is secured by the 'empire' and the holocaust emblem, is certainly a sad period of history.

You're forgetting the Christian Zionists, MIC, and others that have a financial interest in continuing the farce.

USA and Western political elites are virtually ALL corrupted by Zionist influence.

=
It inverted the role play entirely, even perverted it. There is some hope in the citizens of Israel and the Jews that live abroad to find a way to end this insanity.

We should not rely upon that faint hope. The people in the West need to take back their democracies via MOVEMENTS.

They we might see a quick rush by Israel embrace those "simple solutions" that you talked about and to be less like the belligerent rogue State that they are today.

=
[Jews are] ... a people that is suffering from finding a place to be, to find a home. Palestine is somehow their home, but it must be shared with the Arab people who also call Palestine their home. Of course there is no simple solution to that question.

Well, the "simple solutions" that have been rejected by Zionist Death Cult.

The Zionist Death Cult decided that if they gain political control of USA, then they don't need to agree to "simple solutions". And "Zionist" Empire-builders in USA decided that they could use Israel to control the region and increase MIC profits. And the Zionist Death Cult mentality applies not just to Middle East but the World.

=
We, as a global community, have to bring separated tribes together. We have no other choice. Else, there is war. Constant war. Which is of course the plan for a certain elevated upper realm that is playing the part of the bad guy.

Yeah, well hoping for the best is not a plan.

<> <> <> <> <> <>

Laguerre @40:

[Phil @35] Jews are a separate identity ... If they wish to remain a separate identity, then there are consequences.

As I see it, the problem is not Jews but Zionists, neocons, and other warmongers.

Too often, criticism of Israel or Zionism is wrongly translated into criticism of Jews.

ben , Jan 27 2020 0:38 utc | 63

Jrabbit @ 57 said;

"As I see it, the problem is not Jews but Zionists, neocons, and other warmongers."

"Too often, criticism of Israel or Zionism is wrongly translated into criticism of Jews."

Absolutely!!

[Jan 24, 2020] Martin Indyk An Important Neoliberal Defects From the Blob

Notable quotes:
"... Today Israel's IDF faces a combat hardened army in Syria, a combat hardened irregular military force in Lebanon, and increasingly hardened resistance in its own backyard with Hamas. And Iranian ground forces are not pushovers. ..."
Jan 24, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Martin Indyk: An Important Neoliberal Defects From the Blob

Let's hope the former ambassador's heresy about withdrawing from the Middle East catches fire and spreads. Then-VP of Brookings Martin Indyk in 2017. (Sharon Farmer/sfphotoworks)

January 22, 2020

|

12:01 am

Andrew J. Bacevich Within the inner precincts of the American foreign policy establishment, last names are redundant. At a Washington cocktail party, when some half-sloshed AEI fellow whispers, "Apparently, Henry is back in Beijing to see Xi," there's no need to ask, "Which Henry?" In that world, there is only one Henry, at least only one who counts.

Similarly, there is only one Martin. While Martin Indyk may not equal Henry Kissinger in star power, he has for several decades been a major player in U.S. policy regarding Israel and the Middle East more broadly. Founder of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, senior director on the National Security Council, twice U.S. ambassador to Israel, assistant secretary of state for Near East affairs, presidential envoy -- not a bad resume for someone who was born in London, raised in Australia, and became a U.S. citizen only in his 40s.

Throughout his career, Martin has been deeply invested in the Israeli-Palestinian "peace process" and in the proposition that the United States has a vital interest in pursuing that process to a successful conclusion. More broadly, he has subscribed to the view that the United States has vital interests at stake in the Middle East more generally, with regional stability and the well-being of the people living there dependent on the United States exercising what people in Washington call "leadership." In this context, of course, leadership tends to be a euphemism for the use or threatened use of military power.

These are, of course, establishment notions, to which all members of the "Blob" necessarily declare their fealty. Indeed, at least until Trump came along, to dissent from such views was to become ineligible for appointment to even a mid-level post in the State Department, the Pentagon, or the White House.

Yet Martin has now publicly recanted.

In an extraordinary op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal (of all places), he asserts that "few vital interests of the US continue to be at stake in the Middle East." Policies centered on ensuring the free flow of Persian Gulf oil and the survival of Israel have become superfluous. "The US economy no longer relies on imported petroleum," he correctly notes. "Fracking has turned the US into a net oil and natural-gas exporter." As a consequence, Persian Gulf oil "is no longer a vital interest -- that is, one worth fighting for. Difficult as it might be to get our heads around the idea, China and India need to be protecting the sea lanes between the Gulf and their ports, not the US Navy."

As for the Jewish State, Martin notes, again correctly, that today Israel has the capacity "to defend itself by itself." Notwithstanding the blustering threats regularly issued by Tehran, "it is today's nuclear-armed Israel that has the means to crush Iran, not the other way around."

Furthermore, Martin has had his fill of the peace process. "A two-state solution to the Palestinian problem is a vital Israeli interest, not a vital American one," he writes, insisting that "it's time to end the farce of putting forward American peace plans only to have one or both sides reject them."

Martin does identify one vital U.S. interest in the Middle East: averting a nuclear arms race. Yet "we should be wary of those who would rush to battle stations," he cautions. "Curbing Iran's nuclear aspirations and ambitions for regional dominance will require assiduous American diplomacy, not war."

That last sentence captures the essence of Martin's overall conclusion: he proposes not disengaging from the Middle East but demilitarizing U.S. policy. "After the sacrifice of so many American lives, the waste of so much energy and money in quixotic efforts that ended up doing more harm than good," he writes, "it is time for the US to find a way to escape the costly, demoralising cycle of crusades and retreats."

Now such sentiments appear regularly in the pages of The American Conservative and on the website of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft . Yet in establishment circles, a willingness to describe U.S. policy in the Middle East as quixotic is rare indeed. As for acknowledging that we have done more harm than good, such commonsense views are usually regarded as beyond the pale.

Martin deserves our congratulations. We must hope that his heresy catches fire and spreads throughout the Blob. In the meantime, if he's in need of office space, the Quincy Institute stands ready to help.

Welcome to the ranks of the truth tellers, comrade.

Andrew Bacevich is TAC's writer-at-large and president of the Quincy Institute. His new book, The Age of Illusions: How America Squandered Its Cold War Victory , has just been published.

Reply • Share › Show more replies Show more replies Show more replies − +

Mark Thomason • 2 days ago

"Martin has been deeply invested in the Israeli-Palestinian "peace process" and in the proposition that the United States has a vital interest in pursuing that process to a successful conclusion. More broadly, he has subscribed to the view that the United States has vital interests at stake in the Middle East more generally, with regional stability and the well-being of the people living there"

No. The only use he ever had for the peace process was as cover for what Israel was really doing.

The only interest he ever cared about was Israel, not the stability or well-being of any other people but the hawks among Israelis.

He perverted US policy from the inside, in pursuit of those ends of those Lobby partisans. He has never been anything else.

Bianca Mark Thomason • 10 hours ago • edited
And is about to pervert it AGAIN. One must be a total ignoramus not to notice American public's changing attitude towards Israel, as well as Israel's high powered lobbyists.
Before the change turns into an outright hostility, the apologists of the Empire are defusing the nascent rage. So, HE is the one to be PRAISED for being so wise, and deserving our support?
This leopard will keep on changing spots, but never his nature.
He is and will remain ardent apologist of American Empire -- for as long as this Empire serves his primary interest. And that interest is clear -- interest of Israel AND all of its citizens around the globe.
Joao Alfaiate • a day ago
It is disheartening to read Bacevich praise Indyk-who was, after all, one of the architects of our disastrous Middle East "policy". I guess the Quincy Institute wants to hew a path closer to the mainstream narrative. What will be next? An apologia for Doug Feith and Richard Perle?
liveload • 20 hours ago • edited
Indyk's comments read like a neo-con who's lost favor and power. This is not a good sign. This points to the internecine warfare within the halls of conceptual power being closer to decided. With the diplomats out, it leaves the apocalypse cult as the de-facto winner.

Expect more ludicrous demands of US vassals and more effort to attack Iran. They're not going to stop. Where the oil comes from doesn't matter, what currency is used to conduct trade does.

Bianca liveload • 9 hours ago
It is exactly so -- internecine warfare. But I do not see them loosing power. They are losing NARRATIVE both internationally and domestically. This is a beginning of crafting a new narrative to stem the rising hostility against Israel centric militaristic foreign policy orientation.

Thus switching to "diplomacy", as military posturing just brings about dead ends to defend.
He wants results, So, change the narrative, diffuse anti-Israeli tide, and become a beacon of reason and wholesomeness. Who can resist these new spots?

foodoo • 17 hours ago
Martin Indyk has already done maximal damage. His opportunity to actually help the situation has long past.
He is and always was an Israeli-firster
redsocs • 13 hours ago • edited
There was never anything Quixotic about US foreign policy in the ME. As for Israel/Palestine, the policy, and "Martin" was central to it, was to pretend to negotiate in good faith while Israel occupied "the land from the river to the sea." In Iraq, except for Cheney's oil lust, it was to carry out the neo-con chant of "the road to Iran is through Iraq." As for Iran, it has been to barely resist Israel's, and US Israel-firster's, pressure for war, though it may still happen.
Steve Naidamast • 4 hours ago
You mean to say that some establishment guy finally got fed up with all the bullshit?

In any event, Indyk is wrong to believe that Israel can defeat Iran in a conflict. Israeli nuclear weapons are really of little consequence in such a situation as the majority of them must be delivered by aircraft which Iran will simply shoot down. Those that are siloed will most likely meet the same fate. But in either case Russia will not allow any such conflict to go nuclear.

In terms of conventional capabailities, the IDF has never been a very good military unit since it basically has only entered engagements with less than equally capable opponents. However, that has all been changing since Hezbollah's defeat of the IDF in 2006.

Today Israel's IDF faces a combat hardened army in Syria, a combat hardened irregular military force in Lebanon, and increasingly hardened resistance in its own backyard with Hamas. And Iranian ground forces are not pushovers.

The Israeli navy is meaningless in this situation so it is only in the air that Israel now has any claim to fame. However, instead of increasing its Air Force with modernized F15x models, Israel has opted to acquire the F35, which no amount of avionics can make the air-frame fly better. Iran still uses the F14 as a heavy fighter, which Israel also requires for her situation making the acquisition of the F35 rather odd.

In the end, it will be Iranian missile development that places that nation in a position to deal a death blow to the Israeli state.

[Jan 24, 2020] Is Trump Offering West Bank to Bibi In His 'Deal of the Century'

Trump pro-Israel policy looks more and more like t "How to get Adelson money and lose the re-election" Pandering to Israel Likud leadership should not be the priority task for the USA. And violating UN resolutions to please Netanyahu does not get Trump any additional voters iether.
Jan 24, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

And he's bringing Netanyahu and Benny Gantz here on Tuesday, smack in the middle of impeachment. Benjamin Netanyahu stands near a photo showing him and US President Donald Trump shake hands as he speaks to supporters at a Likud Party campaign rally on January 21, 2020 in Jerusalem, Israel. (Photo by Amir Levy/Getty Images)

January 24, 2020

|

9:43 am

Kelley Beaucar Vlahos In his bid to detract from his impeachment and to help out his friend Benjamin Netanyahu, who is under indictment and facing a fierce election March 2, is Trump willing to light the Middle East on fire?

That is what the news suggests this morning. The details are vague but it appears that Trump may be planning to announce his "peace deal of the century" for Israel and the Palestinians soon, and has invited Prime Minister Netanyahu and his political rival Benny Gantz to the White House next week. He has not invited Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, who would be the other signatory if a "peace deal" would in fact be in the offing.

More importantly, reports indicate that the so-called deal might give Israel the green light to annex the Jordan Valley and illegal settlements in the West Bank. This is what Netanyahu has promised Israelis throughout this tumultuous election drama and his own indictment on charges of fraud and bribery , for which he has yet to stand trial. He is on a razor thin tightrope, but despite claims that he was finished (even from these pages!) he has managed to stay on. Trump's gambit -- -giving him everything he asked for right before the election, may be the greatest gift Trump could give.

And what does it do for Trump? On it's face, it's all upsides for him politically. He has not been hurt as he has made other brazen moves to put the American thumb on the scale for Israel's right wing throughout his three-and-a-half-year term -- including moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, recognizing Israel's annex of the Golan Heights, withdrawing aid from Palestinian refugees, and declaring that Jewish settlements in disputed Palestinian territories were not illegal.

If he can bolster his Republican hawk base -- think Senators Rubio, Cotton, and Graham -- during impeachment, all the better. High profile Democrats are unlikely to make a fuss, either, as many of them are strong supporters of Israel, too. It would be no surprise to see several of them take time from the trial for an audience with Netanyahu when he is here.

Trump was characteristically banal in his comment about the plan Thursday: "It's a great plan. It's a plan that really would work," he told reporters on Air Force One en route to a Republican Party meeting in Florida. Sure, it would work for Netanyahu and the right wing Israelis who have been praying for a U.S. president to act so boldly biased in favor of them for decades. For their part, the Palestinians under Abbas have already rejected Trump's plan in the works and have cut off all diplomatic ties with Washington, for obvious reasons. There is no "peace" in this plan, the fix was in from the start. The whole business of the deal including a huge economic plan for the Palestinians is hooey and the world knows it -- that's why Trump son-in-law and senior advisor Jared Kushner was widely panned when he announced that piece of the proposal last year.

For all the politics, even Israeli media sees the danger in the course, whether or not the people in Washington give a damn. From Haaretz this morning:

Before starting the celebrations, the officials would do well to consider the possible risks. For some three years, Military Intelligence has been warning the government about the risk of violence erupting in the West Bank. Since the last, short-lived, mini-intifada faded out in the summer of 2016, the West Bank has been mostly quiet .
But a peace deal that would be interpreted as an Israeli-American conspiracy could push the Palestinian Authority to desperate moves, like igniting a wave of protests or even, as happened after the failure of the Camp David peace conference in 2000, encourage large-scale terror acts. This would change everything.

There is a really skewed vision of "peace" in the White House and it has very little to do with foreign policy expertise, or well-informed ideas or plans. Trump has been led by members of his team with specific ideological interests from the start . He and his surrogates were very plain about this during his 2016 campaign. His vice presidential pick, plus his hiring of Pompeo, Bolton, Kushner and appointment of David "Israel is on the side of God" Friedman as U.S. ambassador only cemented it. He has been ratified by his base all the way. God help us if this latest political calculation is the one that goes too far.

Kelley Beaucar Vlahos, executive editor, has been writing for TAC for the last decade, focusing on national security, foreign policy, civil liberties and domestic politics. She served for 15 years as a Washington bureau reporter for FoxNews.com, and at WTOP News in Washington from 2013-2017 as a writer, digital editor and social media strategist. She has also worked as a beat reporter at Bridge News financial wire (now part of Reuters) and Homeland Security Today, and as a regular contributor at Antiwar.com. A native Nutmegger, she got her start in Connecticut newspapers, but now resides with her family in Arlington, Va.

Woland • 4 hours ago

Nothing goes too far for Trump. Anyone opposing this so-called deal will have to face accusations of being Israel-haters and antisemites, and whatever the Palestinians do, they'll remain an ungrateful, violent people who just can't understand the wise decisions taken for them by their betters in Washington and Jerusalem.

Not that it matters. The EU is toothless, Russia and China don't care, and Saudi Arabia will somehow find a way to make this benefit whatever scheme they're currently running. Trump wins, if only because no one knows what the game is anymore.

scottrob • 3 hours ago
Violence would be the dumbest move on the Palestinians part. The smartest would be to throw in the towel and demand full citizenship. Israel would have a choice: run an Apartheid state or become a totally secular society. Both losers for Israel in their eyes.
ZizaNiam scottrob • 3 hours ago
Agreed, there would need to be massive demonstrations but I doubt BBC, CNN, MSNBC would cover those, and would only highlight the violent reactions.
cka2nd scottrob • 3 hours ago
Israel is already an apartheid state, if not one quite as blatant as South Africa used to be, and becoming more of one every year. And many Israelis are not only fine with that, but would dearly love to expel all of the Arabs, from both the West Bank and Israel proper.
hooly scottrob • 26 minutes ago
'demand' full citizenship? You mean like all the Illegal Aliens residing in the USA? Won't some Americans object, as would some Israelis? do they have the right to say no to open borders and mass immigration?
hooly • 30 minutes ago
is Trump willing to light the Middle East on fire?

Seriously? I've been hearing this for years, ... oh please, get over it! The Middle East surely can't get any worse than it is now? I mean after the Iraq invasion, Syrian Civil War, Libyan regime change, Yemen War, growing Iranian influence, endless Color Revolutions and uprisings, etc, etc, ... do you really think a little Israeli land grab (and dispossession of Palestinians) will make things that much worse??

[Jan 21, 2020] Trump Tries Real Hard to Start a War for Israel. He Should be Impeached Because He is a War Criminal by Kurt Nimmo

Notable quotes:
"... In my last post, I said it was time to close down this blog, mostly due to its ineffectiveness, short reach, and choir preaching. I wrote that I might as well pound sand for all the good it did. ..."
"... The US began targeting Iran following the 1979 Islamic Revolution. This included "freezing" -- polite-speak for theft -- around $12 billion in Iranian assets, including gold, property, and bank holdings. After Obama agreed to return this filched property and money as part of the nuke deal (minus any real nukes), neocons said he gave away US taxpayer money to international terrorists. This warped lie became part of the narrative, yet another state-orchestrated fake news "alternative fact." ..."
Jan 06, 2020 | www.globalresearch.ca

In my last post, I said it was time to close down this blog, mostly due to its ineffectiveness, short reach, and choir preaching. I wrote that I might as well pound sand for all the good it did.

A few days later, Trump killed a high level Iranian military leader and I have decided a post is in order, never mind that a round of tiddlywinks will have about the same influence as a post here. The wars just keep on coming, no matter what we do.

Let's turn to social media where dimwits, neocon partisans, and clueless Democrats are running wild after corporate Mafia boss and numero uno Israeli cheerleader Donald Trump ordered a hit on Gen. Qasem Soleimani and others near Baghdad's international airport on Thursday.

Let's begin with this teleprompter reader and "presenter" from Al Jazeera:

"This is what happens when you put a narcissistic, megalomaniacal, former reality TV star with a thin skin and a very large temper in charge of the world's most powerful military You know who else attacks cultural sites? ISIS. The Taliban." – me on Trump/Iran on MSNBC today: pic.twitter.com/YCRARB2anv

-- Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) January 5, 2020

It is interesting how the memory of such people only goes back to the election of Donald Trump.

The US began targeting Iran following the 1979 Islamic Revolution. This included "freezing" -- polite-speak for theft -- around $12 billion in Iranian assets, including gold, property, and bank holdings. After Obama agreed to return this filched property and money as part of the nuke deal (minus any real nukes), neocons said he gave away US taxpayer money to international terrorists. This warped lie became part of the narrative, yet another state-orchestrated fake news "alternative fact."

Here's another idiot. He was the boss of the DNC for a while and unsuccessfully ran for president.

Nice job trump and Pompeo you dimwits. You've completed the neocon move to have Iraq become a satellite of Iran. You have to be the dumbest people ever to run the US government. You can add that to being the most corrupt. Get these guys out of here. https://t.co/gQHhHSeiJQ

-- Howard Dean (@GovHowardDean) January 5, 2020

Once again, history is lost in a tangle of lies and omission. Centuries before John Dean thought it might be a good idea to run for president, Persians and Shias in what is now Iraq and Iran were crossing the border -- later drawn up by invading Brits and French -- in pilgrimages to the shrines of Imam Husayn and Abbas in Karbala. We can't expect an arrogant sociopath like Mr. Dean to know about Ashura, Shia pilgrimages, the Remembrance of Muharram, and events dating back to 680 AD.

Shias from Iran pilgrimage to other Iraqi cities as well, including An-Najaf, Samarra, Mashhad, and Baghdad (although the latter is more important to Sunnis).

Corporate fake news teleprompter reader Stephanopoulos said the Geneva Conventions (including United Nations Security Council Resolution 2347) outlaw the targeting of cultural sites, which Trump said he will bomb.

Trump said there are 52 different sites; the number is not arbitrary, it is based on the 52 hostages, many of them CIA officers, taken hostage during Iran's revolution against the US-installed Shah and his brutal secret police sadists.

Pompeo said Trump won't destroy Iran's cultural and heritage sites. Pompeo, as a dedicated Zionist operative, knows damn well the US will destroy EVERYTHING of value in Iran, same as it did in Iraq and later Libya and Syria. This includes not only cultural sites, but civilian infrastructure -- hospitals, schools, roads, bridges, and mosques.

STEPHANOPOULOS: The Geneva Conventions outlaws attacks on cultural objects & places of worship. Why is Trump threatening Iran w/ war crimes?

POMPEO: We'll behave lawfully

S: So to be clear, Trump's threat wasn't accurate?

P: Every target that we strike will be a lawful target pic.twitter.com/zOGTpfYmba

Invoking the United Nations' Historic "Uniting for Peace" Resolution 377 Before Trump Embroils Us in War with Iran

-- Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 5, 2020

Although I believe Jill Stein is living in a Marxian fantasy world, I agree with her tweet in regard to the Zionist hit on Soleimani:

Now THIS is grounds for #impeachment – treachery unleashing the unthinkable for Americans & people the world over: Trump asked Iraqi prime minister to mediate with #Iran then assassinated Soleimani – on a mediation mission. https://t.co/f0F9FEMALD

-- Dr. Jill Stein 🌻 (@DrJillStein) January 5, 2020

Trump should be impeached -- tried and imprisoned -- not in response to some dreamed-up and ludicrous Russian plot or even concern about the opportunist Hunter Biden using his father's position to make millions in uber-corrupt Ukraine, but because he is a war criminal responsible for killing women and children.

As for the planned forever military occupation of Iraq, USA Today reports:

Iraq's Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi told lawmakers that a timetable for the withdrawal of all foreign troops, including U.S. ones, was required "for the sake of our national sovereignty." About 5,000 American troops are in various parts of Iraq.

The latest:
-- Iraqi lawmakers voted to oust U.S. troops
-- U.S.-led coalition fighting ISIS has paused operations
-- Hundreds of thousands mourned General Suleimani in Iran
-- President Trump said the U.S. has 52 possible targets in Iran in case of retaliation https://t.co/pmUuAQdKlc

-- The New York Times (@nytimes) January 5, 2020

No way in hell will Sec. State Pompeo and his Zionist neocon handlers allow this to happen without a fight. However, it shouldn't be too difficult for the Iraqis to expel 5,000 brainwashed American soldiers from the country, bombed to smithereens almost twenty years ago by Bush the Neocon Idiot Savant.

Never mind Schumer's pretend concern about another war. This friend of Israel from New York didn't go on national television and excoriate Obama and his cutthroat Sec. of State Hillary Clinton for killing 30,000 Libyans.

I'm concerned President Trump's impulsive foreign policy is dragging America into another endless war in the Middle East that will make us less safe.

Congress must assert itself.

President Trump does not have authority for war with Iran. pic.twitter.com/tra71uY9Ao

-- Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) January 5, 2020

Meanwhile, it looks like social media is burning the midnight oil in order to prevent their platforms being used to argue against Trump's latest Zionist-directed insanity.

It is absolutely crazy that Twitter is auto-locking the accounts of anyone who posts this "No war on Iran" image, and forcing them to delete the anti-war tweet in order to unlock their account.

Will @TwitterSupport say what's going on? Very screwed up https://t.co/zGTvVfNNqt

-- Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) January 5, 2020

More lies from The Washington Post, the CIA's crown jewel of propaganda:

Trump faces Iran crisis with fewer experienced advisers and strained relations with traditional allies https://t.co/Xi3vKw9Bw9

-- Steven Ginsberg (@stevenjay) January 5, 2020

This is complete and utter bullshit, but I'm sure the American people will gobble it down without question. Trump's advisers are neocons and they are seriously experienced in the art of promoting and engineering assassination, cyber-attacks, invasions, and mass murder.

Newsmax scribbler John Cardillo thinks he has it all figure out.

"In mid-October Soleimani instructed his top ally in Iraq, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, and other powerful militia leaders to step up attacks on U.S. targets in the country using sophisticated new weapons provided by Iran "

That's why we hit him https://t.co/56XKm9Kqwe

-- John Cardillo (@johncardillo) January 5, 2020

Imagine this, however improbable and ludicrous: Iran invades America and assassinates General Hyten or General McConville, both top members of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff. Now imagine the response by the "exceptional nation."

We can't leave out the Christian Zionist from Indiana, Mike Pence. Mike wants you to believe Iran was responsible for 9/11, thus stirring up the appropriate animosity and consensus for mass murder.

Neither Iran nor Soleimani were linked to the terror attack in the "9/11 Commission Report." Pence didn't even get the number of hijackers right. https://t.co/QtQZm2Yyh9

-- HuffPost Politics (@HuffPostPol) January 5, 2020

Finally, here is the crown jewel of propaganda -- in part responsible for the death of well over a million Iraqis -- The New York Times showing off its rampant hypocrisy.

In Opinion

The editorial board writes, "It is crucial that influential Republican senators like Lindsey Graham, Marco Rubio and Mitch McConnell remind President Trump of his promise to keep America out of foreign quagmires" https://t.co/2swusvBWbg

-- The New York Times (@nytimes) January 5, 2020

Never mind Judith Miller, the Queen of NYT pro-war propaganda back in the day, spreading neocon fabricated lies about Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction. America -- or rather the United States (the government) -- is addicted to quagmires and never-ending war. This is simply more anti-Trump bullshit by the NYT editorial board. The newspaper loves war waged in the name of Israel, but only if jumpstarted by Democrats.

Trump the fool, the fact-free reality TV president will eventually unleash the dogs of war against Iran, much to the satisfaction of Israel, its racist Zionists, Israel-first neocons in America, and the chattering pro-war class of "journalists," and "foreign policy experts" (most former Pentagon employees).

Expect more nonsense like that dispensed by the robot Mike Pence, the former tank commander now serving as Sec. of State, and any number of neocon fellow travelers, many with coveted blue checkmarks on Twitter while the truth-tellers are expelled from the conversation and exiled to the political wilderness.

*

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Kurt Nimmo writes on his blog, Another Day in the Empire, where this article was originally published. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

[Jan 21, 2020] The first term of the Trump administration has revealed that the US war empire is run by the military-intelligence apparatus, not by President administration. Trump is simply a puppet.

Notable quotes:
"... Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? ..."
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Jan 21, 2020 | www.informationclearinghouse.info

Originally from: Opinion - The Angry Arab US Violated Unspoken Rule of Engagement with Iran

As'ad AbuKhalil analyzes the Trump administration's decision

to escalate hostilities with Iran and its regional allies.

By As`ad AbuKhalil

January 21, 2020 " Information Clearing House " - S omething big and unprecedented has happened in the Middle East after the assassination of one of Iran's top commanders, Qasim Suleimani.

The U.S. has long assumed that assassinations of major figures in the Iranian "resistance-axis" in the Middle East would bring risk to the U.S. military-intelligence presence in the Middle East. Western and Arab media reported that the U.S. had prevented Israel in the past from killing Suleimani. But with the top commander's death, the Trump administration seems to think a key barrier to U.S. military operations in the Middle East has been removed.

The U.S. and Israel had noticed that Hizbullah and Iran did not retaliate against previous assassinations by Israel (or the U.S.) that took place in Syria (of Imad Mughniyyah, Jihad Mughniyyah, Samir Quntar); or for other attacks on Palestinian and Lebanese commanders in Syria.

The U.S. thus assumed that this assassination would not bring repercussions or harm to U.S. interests. Iranian reluctance to retaliate has only increased the willingness of Israel and the U.S. to violate the unspoken rules of engagement with Iran in the Arab East.

For many years Israel did perpetrate various assassinations against Iranian scientists and officers in Syria during the on-going war. But Israel and the U.S. avoided targeting leaders or commanders of Iran. During the U.S. occupation of Iraq, the U.S. and Iran collided directly and indirectly, but avoided engaging in assassinations for fear that this would unleash a series of tit-for-tat.

But the Trump administration has become known for not playing by the book, and for operating often according to the whims and impulses of President Donald Trump.

Different Level of Escalation

The decision to strike at Baghdad airport, however, was a different level of escalation. In addition to killing Suleimani it also killed Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, a key leader of Hashd forces in Iraq. Like Suleimani, al-Muhandis was known for waging the long fight against ISIS. (Despite this, the U.S. media only give credit to the U.S. and its clients who barely lifted a finger in the fight against ISIS.)

On the surface of it, the strike was uncharacteristic of Trump. Here is a man who pledged to pull the U.S. out of the Middle East turmoil -- turmoil for which the U.S and Israel bear the primary responsibility. And yet he seems willing to order a strike that will guarantee intensification of the conflict in the region, and even the deployment of more U.S. forces.

Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda?

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The first term of the Trump administration has revealed the extent to which the U.S. war empire is run by the military-intelligence apparatus. There is not much a president -- even a popular president like Barack Obama in his second term -- can do to change the course of empire. It is not that Obama wanted to end U.S. wars in the region, but Trump has tried to retreat from Middle East conflicts and yet he has been unable due to pressures not only from the military-intelligence apparatus but also from their war advocates in the U.S. Congress and Western media, D.C. think tanks and the human-rights industry. The pressures to preserve the war agenda is too powerful on a U.S. president for it to cease in the foreseeable future. But Trump has managed to start fewer new wars than his predecessors -- until this strike.

Trump's Obama Obsession

Trump in his foreign policy is obsessed with the legacy and image of Obama. He decided to violate the Iran nuclear agreement (which carried the weight of international law after its adoption by the UN Security Council) largely because he wanted to prove that he is tougher than Obama, and also because he wanted an international agreement that carries his imprint. Just as Trump relishes putting his name on buildings, hotels, and casinos he wants to put his name on international agreements. His decision, to strike at a convoy carrying perhaps the second most important person in Iran was presumably attached to an intelligence assessment that calculated that Iran is too weakened and too fatigued to strike back directly at the U.S.

Iran faced difficult choices in response to the assassination of Suleimani. On the one hand, Iran would appear weak and vulnerable if it did not retaliate and that would only invite more direct U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iranian targets.

On the other hand, the decision to respond in a large-scale attack on U.S. military or diplomatic targets in the Middle East would invite an immediate massive U.S. strike inside Iran. Such an attack has been on the books; the U.S military (and Israel, of course) have been waiting for the right moment for the U.S. to destroy key strategic sites inside Iran.

Furthermore, there is no question that the cruel U.S.-imposed sanctions on Iran have made life difficult for the Iranian people and have limited the choices of the government, and weakened its political legitimacy, especially in the face of vast Gulf-Western attempts to exploit internal dissent and divisions inside Iran. (Not that dissent inside Iran is not real, and not that repression by the regime is not real).

Nonetheless, if the Iranian regime were to open an all-out war against the U.S., this would certainly cause great harm and damage to U.S. and Israeli interests.

Iran Sending Messages

In the last year, however, Iran successfully sent messages to Gulf regimes (through attacks on oil shipping in the Gulf, for which Iran did not claim responsibility, nor did it take responsibility for the pin-point attack on ARAMCO oil installations) that any future conflict would not spare their territories.

That quickly reversed the policy orientations of both Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which suddenly became weary of confrontation with Iran, and both are now negotiating (openly and secretively) with the Iranian government. Ironically, both the UAE and Saudi regimes -- which constituted a lobby for war against Iran in Western capitals -- are also eager to distance themselves from U.S. military action against Iran . And Kuwait quickly denied that the U.S. used its territory in the U.S. attack on Baghdad airport, while Qatar dispatched its foreign minister to Iran (officially to offer condolences over the death of Suleimani, but presumably also to distance itself and its territory from the U.S. attack).

The Iranian response was very measured and very specific. It was purposefully intended to avoid causing U.S. casualties; it was intended more as a message of Iranian missile capabilities and their pin point accuracy. And that message was not lost on Israel.

Hasan Nasrallah, the leader of Hizbullah, sent a more strident message. He basically implied that it would be left to Iran's allies to engineer military responses. He also declared a war on the U.S. military presence in the Middle East, although he was at pains to stress that U.S. civilians are to be spared in any attack or retaliation.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/6yyC897UliI

Supporters of the Iran resistance axis have been quite angry in the wake of the assassination. The status of Suleimani in his camp is similar to the status of Nasrallah although Nasrallah -- due to his charisma and to his performance and the performance of his party in the July 2006 war -- may have attained a higher status.

It would be easy for the Trump administration to ignite a Middle East war by provoking Iran once again, and wrongly assuming that there are no limits to Iranian caution and self-restraint. But if the U.S. (and Israel with it or behind it) were to start a Middle East war, it will spread far wider and last far longer than the last war in Iraq, which the U.S. is yet to complete.

As'ad AbuKhalil is a Lebanese-American professor of political science at California State University, Stanislaus. He is the author of the "Historical Dictionary of Lebanon" (1998), "Bin Laden, Islam and America's New War on Terrorism (2002), and "The Battle for Saudi Arabia" (2004). He tweets as @asadabukhal

This article was originally published by " Consortium News " -

[Jan 21, 2020] Moving embassy to Jerusalem and reneging on Obama's Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (the Iran nuclear deal) were Trump's campaign promises which he delivered

Jan 21, 2020 | www.unz.com

utu , says: Show Comment January 21, 2020 at 12:35 pm GMT

@Chepo

At the time, there was minimal Zionist influence over the Trump campaign

You did not pay attention. Moving embassy to Jerusalem and reneging on Obama's Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (the Iran nuclear deal) were Trump's campaign promises which he delivered but many Trump supporters did not hear them as they were gobbling up the MAGA stuff.

Realist , says: Show Comment January 21, 2020 at 1:12 pm GMT
@Chepo

It is evident that Trump will win re-election and go to war with Iran afterwards.

Agreed.

Michael888 , says: Show Comment January 21, 2020 at 8:25 pm GMT
@utu Moving the American embassy to Jerusalem happened by Law in 1995, adopted by the Senate (93–5), and the House (374–37); Clinton, Bush and Obama (and Trump initially) played a game of "waivers" to avoid going through with the move. "On June 5, 2017, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed a resolution commemorating the 50th anniversary of reunification of Jerusalem by 90-0. The resolution reaffirmed the Jerusalem Embassy Act and called upon the President and all United States officials to abide by its provisions. On December 6, 2017, Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital" [from wiki].
Obama's (and John Kerry's) Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (the Iran nuclear deal) was dead on arrival no matter who became President in the 2016 Election. The worst part of the JCPOA was indirect, as Joe Luria reported at Consortium News; Obama bought off Saudi objections by agreeing to support the genocide in Yemen (Obama had already passed a National Emergency (SANCTIONS) against Yemen in 2012; and droned American citizens, the al-Awlaki family (including a 16 year old and an 8 year old) in multiple attacks between 2011-2017.)
Trump has prosecuted the Forever wars from Bush II and Obama viciously, but he is being played by the neocons who run DC and America. Wars no longer end. Too much money is being made.

[Jan 21, 2020] A New Definition of Warfare by Philip Giraldi

Notable quotes:
"... 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 councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is ..."
Jan 21, 2020 | www.unz.com

Supporters of Donald Trump often make the point that he has not started any new wars. One might observe that it has not been for lack of trying, as his cruise missile attacks on Syria based on fabricated evidence and his recent assassination of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani have been indisputably acts of war. Trump also has enhanced troop levels both in the Middle East and in Afghanistan while also increasing the frequency and lethality of armed drone attacks worldwide.

Congress has been somewhat unseriously toying around with a tightening of the war powers act of 1973 to make it more difficult for a president to carry out acts of war without any deliberation by or authorization from the legislature. But perhaps the definition of war itself should be expanded. The one area where Trump and his team of narcissistic sociopaths have been most active has been in the imposition of sanctions with lethal intent. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has been explicit in his explanations that the assertion of "extreme pressure" on countries like Iran and Venezuela is intended to make the people suffer to such an extent that they rise up against their governments and bring about "regime change." In Pompeo's twisted reckoning that is how places that Washington disapproves of will again become "normal countries."

The sanctions can kill. Those imposed by the United States are backed up by the U.S. Treasury which is able to block cash transfers going through the dollar denominated international banking system. Banks that do not comply with America's imposed rules can themselves be sanctioned, meaning that U.S. sanctions are de facto globally applicable, even if foreign banks and governments do not agree with the policies that drive them. It is well documented how sanctions that have an impact on the importation of medicines have killed thousands of Iranians. In Venezuela, the effect of sanctions has been starvation as food imports have been blocked, forcing a large part of the population to flee the country just to survive.

The latest exercise of United States economic warfare has been directed against Iraq. In the space of one week from December 29 th to January 3 rd , the American military, which operates out of two major bases in Iraq, killed 25 Iraqi militiamen who were part of the Popular Mobilization Units of the Iraqi Army. The militiamen had most recently been engaged in the successful fight against ISIS. It followed up on that attack by killing Soleimani, Iraqi militia general Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, and eight other Iraqis in a drone strike near Baghdad International Airport. As the attacks were not approved in any way by the Iraqi government, it was no surprise that rioting followed and the Iraqi Parliament voted to remove all foreign troops from its soil. The decree was signed off on by Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi, based on the fact that the U.S. military was in Iraq at the invitation of the country's government and that invitation had just been revoked by parliament.

That Iraq is to say the least unstable is attributable to the ill-advised U.S. invasion of 2003. The persistence of U.S. forces in the country is ostensibly to aid in the fight against ISIS, but the real reason is to serve as a check on Iranian influence in Iraq, which is a strategic demand made by Israel and not responsive to any actual American interest. Indeed, the Iraqi government is probably closer politically to Tehran than to Washington, though the neocon line that the country is dominated by the Iranians is far from true.

Washington's response to the legitimate Iraqi demand that its troops should be removed consisted of threats. When Prime Minister Mahdi spoke with Pompeo on the phone and asked for discussions and a time table to create a "withdrawal mechanism" the Secretary of State made it clear that there would be no negotiations. A State Department written response entitled "The U.S. Continued Partnership with Iraq" asserted that American troops are in Iraq to serve as a "force for good" in the Middle East and that it is "our right" to maintain "appropriate force posture" in the region.

The Iraqi position also immediately produced presidential threats and tweets about "sanctions like they have never seen," with the implication that the U.S. was more than willing to wreck the Iraqi economy if it did not get its way. The latest threat to emerge involves blocking Iraq access to its New York federal reserve bank account, where international oil sale revenue is kept, creating a devastating cash crunch in Iraq's financial system that might indeed destroy the Iraqi economy. If taking steps to ruin a country economically is not considered warfare by other means it is difficult to discern what might fit that description.

After dealing with Iraq, the Trump Administration turned its guns on one of its oldest and closest allies. Great Britain, like most of the other European signatories to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) has been reluctant to withdraw from the agreement over concern that Iran will as a result decide to develop nuclear weapons. According to the Guardian , a United States representative from the National Security Council named Richard Goldberg, had visited London recently to make clear to the British government that if it does not follow the American lead and withdraw from the JCPOA and reapply sanctions it just might be difficult to work out a trade agreement with Washington post-Brexit. It is a significant threat as part of the pro-Brexit vote clearly was derived from a Trump pledge to make up for some of the anticipated decline in European trade by increasing U.K. access to the U.S. market. Now the quid pro quo is clear: Britain, which normally does in fact follow the Washington lead in foreign policy, will now be expected to be completely on board all of the time and everywhere, particularly in the Middle East.

During his visit, Goldberg told the BBC: "The question for prime minister Johnson is: 'As you are moving towards Brexit what are you going to do post-31 January as you come to Washington to negotiate a free-trade agreement with the United States?' It's absolutely in [your] interests and the people of Great Britain's interests to join with President Trump, with the United States, to realign your foreign policy away from Brussels, and to join the maximum pressure campaign to keep all of us safe."

And there is an interesting back story on Richard Goldberg, a John Bolton protégé anti-Iran hardliner, who threatened the British on behalf of Trump. James Carden, writing at The Nation , posits "Consider the following scenario: A Washington, DC–based, tax-exempt organization that bills itself as a think tank dedicated to the enhancement of a foreign country's reputation within the United States, funded by billionaires closely aligned with said foreign country, has one of its high-ranking operatives (often referred to as 'fellows') embedded within the White House national security staff in order to further the oft-stated agenda of his home organization, which, as it happens, is also paying his salary during his year-long stint there. As it happens, this is exactly what the pro-Israel think tank the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD) reportedly achieved in an arrangement brokered by former Trump national security adviser John Bolton."

The FDD senior adviser in question, who was placed on the National Security Council, was Richard Goldberg. FDD is largely funded by Jewish American billionaires including vulture fund capitalist Paul Singer and Home Depot partner Bernard Marcus. Its officers meet regularly with Israeli government officials and the organization is best known for its unrelenting effort to bring about war with Iran. It has relentlessly pushed for a recklessly militaristic U.S. policy directed against Iran and also more generally in the Middle East. It is a reliable mouthpiece for Israel and, inevitably, it has never been required to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938.

To be sure, Trump also has other neocons advising him on Iran, including David Wurmser, another Bolton associate, who has the president's ear and is a consultant to the National Security Council. Wurmser has recently submitted a series of memos to the White House advocating a policy of "regime disruption" with the Islamic Republic that will destabilize it and eventually lead to a change of government. He may have played a key role in giving the green light to the assassination of Soleimani.

The good news, if there is any, is that Goldberg resigned on January 3rd, allegedly because the war against Iran was not developing fast enough to suit him and FDD, but he is symptomatic of the many neoconservative hawks who have infiltrated the Trump Administration at secondary and tertiary levels, where much of the development and implementation of policy actually takes place. It also explains that when it comes to Iran and the irrational continuation of a significant U.S. military presence in the Middle East, it is Israel and its Lobby that are steering the ship of state.

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 councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected] .

TG , says: Show Comment January 21, 2020 at 12:53 am GMT

Blockades are traditionally considered to be acts of war. Surely a trade embargo of sufficient degree should be considered the same thing.
onebornfree , says: Website Show Comment January 21, 2020 at 1:18 am GMT
This " just" in:

1] "war is the health of the state" Randolph Bourne https://en.m.wikiquote.org/wiki/Randolph_Bourne

2] "Because they are all ultimately funded via both direct and indirect theft [taxes], and counterfeiting [central bank monopolies], all governments are essentially, at their very cores, 100% corrupt criminal scams which cannot be "reformed"or "improved",simply because of their innate criminal nature." onebornfree http://onebornfree-mythbusters.blogspot.com/

Therefor, if you have [always criminal] governments in the first place, then, as night follows day, you must have [always criminal] government-made wars .

Regards, onebornfree

Reality Check , says: Show Comment January 21, 2020 at 2:16 am GMT
US President Donald Trump chose as the deputy chairwoman [also appointed by Trump, the current chairman is Steve Feinberg] of the intelligence advisory board a Jewish national security expert who is well known in the pro-Israel national security community.

Ravich, a former deputy national security adviser to vice president Dick Cheney, is a senior adviser to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, an influential hawkish pro-Israel think tank. She is also a senior adviser to the Chertoff Group, founded by Michael Chertoff, a homeland security secretary in the George W. Bush administration, and has worked with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

She has also worked with the pro-Israel community helping to raise money for Israel Bonds.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/trump-names-jewish-security-expert-to-senior-intelligence-post/

Chepo , says: Show Comment January 21, 2020 at 3:31 am GMT
It is evident that Trump will win re-election and go to war with Iran afterwards. All this Impeachment mania is simply theatre created by Jews from both sides of the political spectrum in order to prepare Trump for the Zionist vs. Iran war.

The Greater Israel Project has always been the main objective of American foreign policy. Now, Israel hacked the 2016 election and selected Trump as he attains the required personality, theatre and following in order to deepen the control towards the masses.

Chepo , says: Show Comment January 21, 2020 at 3:36 am GMT
@Reality Check Trump destroyed the Republican contenders in the 2016 Primaries, easily. At the time, there was minimal Zionist influence over the Trump campaign – the Jewish factor was heavily focused on the other Republican rivals. Trump won the Primaries in a generic and motivational fashion. Afterwards, the Zionists took over Trump and related entities. The real MAGA Trump factor ended once the Primaries were won – enter the Zionists.

Israel rigged the election by fixing the actual voting numbers.
Robert Mercer and Zuckerberg rigged the election by compromising the masses on Facebook.

Tony Hall , says: Show Comment January 21, 2020 at 5:49 am GMT
For the government of one country to designate another country's armed forces as a "terrorist organization" is essentially a declaration of war. When in April of 2019 Netanyahu claimed credit for Trump's designation of the IRGC as a terrorist organization, he created the pseudo-law framework which became part of the justification for the Israeli-US war crime of 2 Jan. 2020.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-says-trump-designated-iran-guards-a-terror-group-at-his-request/

Now the pressure is being placed squarely on the NATO countries, but especially Canada, to follow the Netanyahu-Trump lead by designating the IRGC as a terrorist organization. The Canadian branch of the ADL has even gone as far as giving an ultimatum to Justin Trudeau, an ultimatum to make the designation within a month or else. Is the agenda to get NATO ensnared in a US war against Iran to serve Israel?

https://ahtribune.com/world/americas/canada/3826-act-of-war-to-designate-irgc-a-terrorist-organization.html

Ever since the misrepresentation of the events of 9/11 we have been engulfed in a massive propaganda campaign aimed at giving the appearance of legitimacy to pseudo-laws founded in major war crimes extending from Sept. of 2001 until today. The continuing reign of the ongoing lies and crimes of 9/11 has brought us to this point where the Axis of Deception, whose mascot of human degradation is Jeffrey Epstein, stands against the Axis of Resistance. In recent days a guiding spirit of the Axis of Resistance has become the martyred holy warrior, Qassem Soleimani.

mikemikev , says: Show Comment January 21, 2020 at 10:38 am GMT
Coincidentally the FDD just produced an article agreeing that sanctions are a form of war.
https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2020/1/20/war-by-other-means
Naturally they're only concerned about Israel.
peter mcloughlin , says: Show Comment January 21, 2020 at 11:31 am GMT
Sanctions can kill and cause great human suffering. Sanctions are presented as a humane alternative to war, cheaper and means to avoid military action with uncertain consequences. But history warns that sanctions aimed at bringing about capitulation or regime change lead to full-scale conflict. If they are too effective or ineffective one side must escalate.
https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/
World War Jew , says: Show Comment January 21, 2020 at 1:42 pm GMT
Right TG, traditionally, as you said up there first, and legally too, under the supreme law of the land. Economic sanctions are subject to the same UNSC supervision as forcible coercion.

UN Charter Article 41: "The Security Council may decide what measures not involving the use of armed force are to be employed to give effect to its decisions, and it may call upon the Members of the United Nations to apply such measures. These may include complete or partial interruption of economic relations and of rail, sea, air, postal, telegraphic, radio, and other means of communication, and the severance of diplomatic relations."

https://www.un.org/en/charter-united-nations/index.html

US "sanctions" require UNSC authorization. Unilateral sanctions are nothing but illegal coercive intervention, as the non-intervention principle is customary international law, which is US federal common law.

The G-192, that is, the entire world, has affirmed this law. That's why the US is trying to defund UNCTAD as redundant with the WTO (UNCTAD is the G-192's primary forum.) In any case, now that the SCO is in a position to enforce this law at gunpoint with its overwhelmingly superior missile technology, the US is going to get stomped and tased until it complies and stops resisting.

almondflake , says: Show Comment January 21, 2020 at 2:19 pm GMT
Sanctions are the modern day equivalent of laying a siege on the enemy's castle. Such tactic has been an integral part of warfare ever since the first castles were built by man.

This 21st century crusade against the muslim world is fast approaching its final climax. Everything is going as planned by the ruler-wannabes and the whole of middle earth seems destined to be theirs for once and for all.

We are all contemporary witnesses to the war campaign of the MILLENNIUM that was prescribed by the bible and the tora and few recognize the historic significance.

Will we get to see which of the New Testament and the Tora prevails, not that we want to, but because we have no choice but to see? Or will there be a rarest of rare black swan event that will produce an unanticipated course of history?

JUSA , says: Show Comment January 21, 2020 at 2:41 pm GMT
Protocol #1:
The Basic Doctrine: "Right Lies in Might"

Protocol #2:
Economic War and Disorganization Lead to International Government

Desert Fox , says: Show Comment January 21, 2020 at 3:04 pm GMT
The war on Iran is in the formative stage with sanctions and the murder of Soleimani who was helping defeat the AL CIADA aka ISIS terrorists who were created and funded and armed by the US and Israel and Britain and NATO and for that reason he was murdered...
anastasia , says: Show Comment January 21, 2020 at 3:46 pm GMT
Terrific article, but I would not use the word "infiltrate" when speaking of theneocons in the Trump administration. They are there by open invitation by the biggest neo-con of them all – Trump.
If you review newspaper articles concerning Iran from 2003 onward, you see very clearly the slow escalation to war and that that war with Iran is inevitable no matter who is in office. In my opinion, that is why Trump is in office. Maybe they thought there would be too much lag time with theother Republican or Democrat candidates when he was running in 2016, but if he gets re-elected, we will see war with Iran. That is thepurpose of the sanctions. To provoke not only thepeople to war against the gov't, but to provoke the government to war. We did it to the Japanese, we did it to Iraq during Saddam Hussein's time, and we are doing it now.

It is pretty obvious that they wish to keep the mid east in a state of complete and utter chaos,. That is what Israel wants, and that is exactly what they are going to get. Israel has been trying to help themselves to the land of other countries for many years. You cannot do that with a vialbe and unified country. You have to break it all up first – turn it tribal.

But when it is all over, and the Shia Muslims who hate us now, hate us more after their countries have been all bombedto smithereens, and when China and Russia, who are biding their time, are strong enough, we will eventually get a taste our just desserts.

I doubt I will be here for that last course.

Sir Launcelot Canning , says: Show Comment January 21, 2020 at 5:08 pm GMT
I hope that if any Iranian or English people are reading this, that they know that none of this was the idea of the average American. That we have actually lost our nation and have no control over it anymore. And that the only Americans left supporting this foreign "policy" are Evangelical holy rollers from the South and Midwest, dinosaur Baby Boomers who still think it is civil defense, dupes and suckers who buy into the "support the troops" cult of military, and the slowly decreasing number of misinformed and brainwashed Americans who get their "news" from the (((corporate media))).
9/11 Inside job , says: Show Comment January 21, 2020 at 6:55 pm GMT
@anastasia Agree that "It is pretty obvious that they wish to keep the mid east in a state of complete and utter chaos ." In "Greater Israel and the Balkanization of the Middle East : Oded Yinon's Strategy for
Israel " globalresearch.ca , Adeyinke Makinde argues that balkanization has always formed a part of the rationalization of political Zionism stating "After the establishment of Israel in 1948 , a national policy of weakening Arab and Muslim states , balkanising them, or keeping them under a neo-colonial state of affairs has persisted . The prevailing logic was and always has been that any stable , nationalist government in the Arab world poses an existential threat to Israel ."

[Jan 21, 2020] Iran, Trump, and the neoliberal/neoconservative compact by Bill Martin

Notable quotes:
"... In the larger global picture, if the U.S. is to find its own balance in the contemporary world, Friedman argues that the seemingly-endless instability in the Middle East is the first and foremost problem that must be solved. Iran is a major problem here, but so is Israel, and Friedman argues that the US must find the path toward "quietly distanc[ing] itself from Israel" (p.6). ..."
"... This course of action regarding Iran and Israel (and other actors in the Muslim world, including Pakistan and Turkey) is, in Friedman's geopolitical perspective, not so much a matter of supporting U.S. global hegemony as it is recognizing the larger course that the U.S. will be compelled to take. ..."
"... So, it's back to Plan A for the Democrats and the "Left" that would be laughably absurd if it wasn't so reactionary, to get the neoliberal/ neoconservative endless-war agenda back on track, so that the march toward Iran can continue sooner rather than later. For now, the more spectacular the failure of this impeachment nonsense, the better! ..."
Jan 19, 2020 | off-guardian.org

Let's be clear, there is a difference between substituting geopolitical power calculations for a universal perspective on the good of humanity, and, on the other hand, recognizing that the existing layout of the world has to be taken into account in attempts to open up a true politics. (My larger perspective on the problem of "opening" is presented in the long essay, "The Fourth Hypothesis," at counterpunch.org.)

Personally, I find the geopolitical analyses of George Friedman very much worthwhile to consider, especially when he is looking at things long-range, as in his books The Next 100 Years and The Next Decade. The latter was published at the beginning of 2012, and so we are coming to the close of the ten-year period that Friedman discusses.

One of the major arguments that Friedman makes in The Next Decade is that the United States will have to reach some sort of accommodation with Iran and its regional ambitions. The key to this, Friedman argues, is to bring about some kind of balance of power again, such as existed before Iraq was torn apart.

This is the key in general to continued U.S. hegemony in the world, in Friedman's view -- regional balances that keep regional powers tied up and unable to rise on the world stage. (An especially interesting example here is that Friedman says that Poland will be built up as a bulwark between Russia and Germany.)

In the larger global picture, if the U.S. is to find its own balance in the contemporary world, Friedman argues that the seemingly-endless instability in the Middle East is the first and foremost problem that must be solved. Iran is a major problem here, but so is Israel, and Friedman argues that the US must find the path toward "quietly distanc[ing] itself from Israel" (p.6).

This course of action regarding Iran and Israel (and other actors in the Muslim world, including Pakistan and Turkey) is, in Friedman's geopolitical perspective, not so much a matter of supporting U.S. global hegemony as it is recognizing the larger course that the U.S. will be compelled to take.

(As the founder, CEO, and "Chief Intelligence Officer" of Stratfor, Friedman aimed to provide "non-ideological" strategic intelligence. My understanding of "non-ideological" is that the analysis was not formulated to suit the agendas of the two mainstream political parties in the U.S. However, my sense is that Friedman does believe that U.S. global hegemony is on the whole good for the world.)

In his book that came out before The Next Decade (2011), The Next 100 Years (2009), Friedman makes the case that the U.S. will not be seriously challenged globally for decades to come -- in fact, all the way until about 2080!

Just to give a different spin to something I said earlier, and that I've tried to emphasize in my articles since March 2016: questions of mere power are not questions of politics. Geopolitics is not politics, either -- in my terminology, it is "anti-politics."

For my part, I am not interested in supporting U.S. hegemony, not in the present and not in the future, and for the most part not in the past, either.

For the moment, let us simply say that the historical periods of the U.S. that are more supportable -- because they make some contribution, however flawed, to the greater, universal, human project -- are either from before the U.S. entered the road of seeking to compete with other "great powers" on the world stage, or quite apart from this road.

In my view, the end of U.S. global hegemony and, for that matter, the end of any "great nation-state" global hegemony, is a condition sine qua non of a human future that is just and sustainable. So, again, the brilliance that George Friedman often brings to geopolitical analysis is to be understood in terms of a coldly-realistic perspective, not a warmly-normative one.)

Of course, this continued U.S. hegemony depends on certain "wise" courses of action being taken by U.S. leaders (Friedman doesn't really get into the question of what might be behind these leaders), including a "subtle" approach to the aforementioned questions of Israel and Iran.

Obviously, anything associated with Donald Trump is not going to be overly subtle! On the other hand, here we are almost at the end of Friedman's decade, so perhaps the time for subtlety has passed, and the U.S. is compelled to be a bit heavy-handed if there is to be any chance of extricating itself from the endless quagmire.

However, there's a certain fly, a rather large one, in the ointment that seems to have eluded Friedman's calculations: "the rise of China."

It isn't that Friedman avoids the China question, not at all; Friedman argues, however, that by 2020 China will not only not be contending with the United States to have the largest economy in the world, but instead that China will fragment, perhaps even devolve into civil war, because of deep inequalities between the relatively prosperous coastal urban areas, and the rural interior.

Certainly I know from study, and many conversations with people in China, this was a real concern going into the 2010s and in the first half of the decade.

The chapter dealing with all this in The Next 100 Years (Ch. 5) is titled, "China 2020: Paper Tiger," the latter term being one that Chairman Mao used regarding U.S. imperialism. Friedman writes of another "figure like Mao emerg[ing] to close the country off from the outside, [to] equalize the wealth -- or poverty " (p.7).

Being an anti-necessitarian in philosophy, I certainly believe anything can happen in social matters, but it seems as though President Xi Jinping and the current leadership of the Communist Party of China have, at least for the time being, managed to head off fragmentation at the pass, so to speak.

Friedman argued that the "pass" that China especially had to deal with is unsustainable growth rates; but it appears that China has accomplished this, by purposely slowing its economy down.

One of the things that Friedman is especially helpful with, in his larger geopolitical analysis, is understanding the role that naval power plays in sustaining U.S. hegemony. (In global terms, such power is what keeps the neoliberal "free market" running, and this power is far from free.)

*

... ... ...

Two of the best supporters of Trump's stated agenda are Tucker Carlson and Steve Hilton. Neither of them pull any punches on this issue when it comes to Republicans, and both of them go some distance beyond Trump in stating an explicitly anti-war agenda.

They perhaps do not entirely fit the mold of leftist anti-imperialism as it existed from the 1890s through the Sixties (as in the political decade, perhaps 1964-1974 or so) and 1970s, but they do in fact fit this mold vastly better than almost any major figure of the Democratic Party, with the possible exceptions of Bernie Sanders, Tulsi Gabbard, and Andrew Yang. (But none of them has gone as far as Trump on this question!)

Certainly Elizabeth Warren is no exception, and at the moment of this writing she has made the crucial turn toward sticking the knife back into Bernie's back. That is her job, in my view, and part of it is to seem close to Bernie's positions (whatever their defects, which I'll discuss elsewhere), at least the ones that are more directly "economic," while winking at the ruling class.

There are a few things Carlson and Hilton say on the Iran situation and the Middle East in general that I don't agree with. But in the main I think both are right on where these issues are concerned.

As I've quoted Carlson a number of times previously, and as I also want to put forward Hilton as an important voice for a politics subservient to neither the liberal nor the conservative establishments, here let me quote what Hilton said in the midst of the Iran crisis, on January 5, 2020:

The best thing America can do to put the Middle East on a path that leads to more democracy, less terrorism, human rights and economic growth is to get the hell out of there while showing an absolute crystal clear determination to defend American interests with force whenever they are threatened.

That doesn't mean not doing anything, it means intervening only in ways that help America.

It means responding only to attacks on Americans disproportionately as a deterrent, just as we saw this week and it means finally accepting that it's not our job to fix the Middle East from afar.

The only part of this I take exception to is the "intervening only in ways that help America"-bit -- that opens the door to exactly the kinds of problems that Hilton wants the U.S. to avoid, besides the (to me, more important) fact that it is just morally wrong to think it is acceptable to intervene if it is in one's "interests."

My guess is that Hilton thinks that there is some built-in utilitarian or pragmatic calculus that means the morally-problematic interventions will not occur. I do not see where this has ever worked, but more importantly, this is where philosophy is important, theoretical work and abstract thinking are important.

It used to be that the Left was pretty good at this sort of thing, and there were some thoughtful conservatives who weren't bad, either. (A decent number of the latter, significantly, come from the Catholic intellectual tradition.) Now there are still a few of the latter, and there are ordinary people who are "thoughtful conservatives" in their "unschooled way" -- which is often better! -- but the Left has sold its intellectual soul along with its political soul.

That's a story for elsewhere (I have told parts of it in previous articles in this series); the point here is that the utilitarianism and "pragmatism" of merely calculating interests is not nearly going to cut it. (I have partly gone into this here because Hilton also advocates "pragmatism" in his very worthwhile book, Positive Populism -- it is the "affirmative" other side to Tucker Carlson's critical, "negative" expose, Ship of Fools.)

The wonderful philosophical pragmatism of William James is another matter; this is important because James, along with his friend Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), were leading figures of the Anti-Imperialist League back in the 1890s, when the U.S. establishment was beating the drums loudly to get into the race with Europeans for colonies.

They were for never getting "in" -- and of course they were not successful, which is why "get the hell out" is as important as anything people can say today.

What an insane world when the U.S. president says this and the political establishment opposes him, and "progressives" and "the Left" join in with the denunciations!

It has often been argued that the major utilitarian philosophers, from Bentham and Mill to Peter Singer, have implicit principles that go beyond the utilitarian calculus; I agree with this, and I think this is true of Steve Hilton as well.

In this light, allow me to quote a little more from the important statement he made on his Fox News Channel program, "The Next Revolution," on January 5; all of this is stuff I entirely agree with, and that expresses some very good principles:

The West's involvement in the Middle East has been a disaster from the start and finally, with President Trump, America is in a position to bring it to an end. We don't need their oil and we don't need their problems.

Finally, we have a U.S. president who gets that and wants to get out. There are no prospects for Middle East peace as long as we are there.

We're never going to defeat the ideology of Islamist terror as long as these countries are basket cases and one of the reasons they are basket cases is that our preposterous foreign policy establishment with monumental arrogance have treated the middle east like some chess game played out in the board rooms in Washington and London.

– [foxnews.com, transcribed by Yael Halon]

So then there is the usual tittering about this and that regarding Carlson and Hilton from liberal and progressive Democrats and leftists who support the Democrats, and it seems to me that there is one major reason why there is this foolish tittering: It is because these liberals and leftists really don't care about, for example, the destruction of Libya, or the murder of Berta Caceres.

Or, maybe they do care, but they have convinced themselves that these things have to swept under the rug in the name of defeating the pure evil of Trump. What this amounts to, in the "nationalist" discourse, is that Trump is some kind of nationalist (as he has said numerous times), perhaps of an "isolationist" sort, while the Democrats are in fact what can be called "nationalists of the neoliberal/neoconservative compact."

My liberal and leftist friends (some of them Maoists and post-Maoists and Trotskyists or some other kinds of Marxists or purported radicals -- feminists or antifa or whatever) just cannot see, it simply appears to be completely beyond the realm of their imaginations, that the latter kind of nationalism is much worse and qualitatively worse than what Trump represents, and it completely lacks the substantial good elements of Trump's agenda.

But hey, don't worry my liberal and leftist friends, it is hard to imagine that Joe Biden's "return to normalcy" won't happen at some point -- it will take not only an immense movement to even have a chance of things working out otherwise, but a movement that likes of which is beyond everyone's imagination at this point -- a movement of a revolutionary politics that remains to be invented, as all real politics are, by the masses.

Liberals and leftists have little to worry about here, they're okay with a Deep State society with a bullshit-democratic veneer and a neoliberal world order; this set-up doesn't really affect them all that much, not negatively at any rate, and the deplorables can just go to hell.

*

The Left I grew up with was the Sixties Left, and they used to be a great source of historical memory, and of anti-imperialism, civil rights, and ordinary working-people empowerment.

The current Left, and whatever array of Democratic-Party supporters, have received their marching orders, finally, from commander Pelosi (in reality, something more like a lieutenant), so the two weeks or so of "immense concern" about Iran has given way again to the extraordinarily-important and solemn work of impeachment.

But then, impeachment is about derailing the three main aspects of Trump's agenda, so you see how that works. Indeed, perhaps the way this is working is that Trump did in fact head off, whatever one thinks of the methods, a war with Iran (at this time! – and I do think this is but a temporary respite), or more accurately, a war between Iran and Israel that the U.S. would almost certainly be sucked into immediately.

So, it's back to Plan A for the Democrats and the "Left" that would be laughably absurd if it wasn't so reactionary, to get the neoliberal/ neoconservative endless-war agenda back on track, so that the march toward Iran can continue sooner rather than later. For now, the more spectacular the failure of this impeachment nonsense, the better!

Bill Martin is a philosopher and musician, retired from DePaul University. He is completing a book with the title, "The Trump Clarification: Disruption at the Edge of the System (toward a theory)." His most recent albums are "Raga Chaturanga" (Bill Martin + Zugzwang; Avant-Bass 3) and "Emptiness, Garden: String Quartets nos. 1 and 2 (Ryokucha Bass Guitar Quartet; Avant-Bass 4). He lives in Salina, Kansas, and plays bass guitar with The Radicles.

Dungroanin ,

I have read through finally. And comments too.

My opinion is Bill Martin is on the ball except for one personage- Hilton. If he is Camerons Hilton and architect of the Brexit referendum – for which he is rewarded with a 'seat at the table' of the crumbling Empire. The Strafor man too is just as complicit in the Empires wickedness.

But I'll let Bill off with that because he mentioned the Anti-Imperialist Mark Twain – always a joy to be reminded of Americas Dickens.

On Trump – he didn't use the Nuclear codes 10 minutes after getting them as warned by EVERYONE. Nor start a war with RocketMan, or Russia in Syria, or in Ukraine or with the Chinese using the proxy Uighars, or push through with attempted Bay of Pigs in Venezuela or just now Hong Kong. The Wall is not built and the ineffectual ripoff Obamacare version of a NHS is still there.
Judge by deeds not words.

Soleimani aside – He may have stopped the drive for war. Trumps direct contact with fellow world leaders HAS largely bypassed the war mongering State Department and also the Trillion dollar tax free Foundations set up last century to deliver the world Empire, that has so abused the American peoples and environment. He probably wasn't able to stop Bolivia.
The appointments of various players were not necessarily in his hands as Assad identified- the modern potus is merely a CEO/Chair of a board of directors who are put into place by the special interests who pour billions, 10's of billions into getting their politicians elected. They determine 'National Interests'. All he can do is accept their appointment and give them enough rope to hang themselves – which most have done!
These are that fight clubs rules.

On the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation – after 20 full years of working towards cohesion- they have succeeded. Iran is due to become a full member – once it is free of UN sanctions, which is why Trump was forced into pulling the treaty with them, so that technicality could stop that membership. China is not having it nor is Russia – Putins clear statement re the 'international rules' not being mandatory for them dovetails with the US position of Exceptionality. Checkmate.

As for the Old Robber Baron Banker Pirates idea that they should be allowed a Maritime Empire as consolation- ha ha ha, pull the other one.

The ancient sea trading routes from Africa to China were active for thousands of years before the Europeans turned up and used unequal power to disrupt and pillage at their hearts content.

What made that possible was of course explained in the brilliant Guns, Germs and Steel.

These ancients have ALL these and are equal or advanced in all else including Space, Comms and AI. A navy is not so vital when even nuclear subs are visible from low orbit satellites except in the deepest trenches – not a safe place to hide for months and also pretty crowded with all the other subs trying to hide there. As for Aircraft carrier groups – just build an island! Diego Garcia has a rival.

Double Checkmate.

The Empire is Dead. Long live the Empire.

Dungroanin ,

And this is hilarious about potus turning the tables on the brass who tried to drag him into the 'tank'.

https://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2020/01/the-betrayal-of-trump-by-larry-c-johnson.html

'Grab the damn fainting couch. Trump told the assembled military leaders who had presided over a military stalemate in Afghanistan and the rise of ISIS as "losers." Not a one of them had the balls to stand up, tell him to his face he was wrong and offer their resignation. Nope. They preferred to endure such abuse in order to keep their jobs. Pathetic.

This excerpt in the Washington Post tells the reader more about the corruption of the Deep State and their mindset than it does about Trump's so-called mental state. Trump acted no differently in front of these senior officers and diplomats than he did on the campaign trail. He was honest. That is something the liars in Washington cannot stomach. '

Rhys Jaggar ,

I am not an expert on US Constitutional Law, but is there any legal mechanism for a US President to hold a Referendum in the way that the UK held a 'Brexit Referendum' and Scotland held an 'Independence Referendum'?

How would a US Referendum in 'Getting the hell out of the Middle East, bringing our boys and girls home before the year is out' play out, I wonder?

That takes the argument away from arch hawks like Bolton et al and puts it firmly in the ambit of Joe Schmo of Main Street, Oshkosh

wardropper ,

Great idea.
Main problem is that most Americans are brought up to think their government is separate from themselves, and should not be seriously criticized.
By "criticized", I mean, taken to task in a way which actually puts them on a playing field where they are confronted by real people.
Shouting insults at the government from the rooftops is simply greeted with indulgent smiles from the guilty elite.

Richard Le Sarc ,

George Friedman is a bog standard Zionist, therefore, out of fear, a virulent Sinophobe, because the Zionists will never control China as they do the Western slave regimes. China surpassed the USA as the world' s largest economy in 2014, on the PPP calculus that the CIA,IMF and just about everyone uses. It' s growing three times as fast as the USA, too. The chance of China fragmenting by 2020 is minuscule, certainly far less than that of the USA. The Chinese have almost totally eliminated poverty, and will raise the living standard of all to a ' middle income' by 2049. It is, however, the genocidal policy of the USA, on which it expend billions EVERY year, to do its diabolical worst to attempt to foment and foster such a hideous fate inside China, by supporting vermin like the Hong Kong fascist thugs, the Uighur salafist terrorist butchers, the medieval theocrats of the Dalai clique and separatist movements in Inner Mongolia, ' Manchuria', Taiwan, even Guandong and Guangxi. It takes a real Western thug to look forward to the ghastly suffering that these villainous ambitions would unleash.

Antonym ,

In RlS's nut shell: China can annex area but Israel: no way!

Dungroanin ,

Which area is China looking to annex?

Richard Le Sarc ,

Ant is a pathological Zionist liar, but you can see his loyalty to ' Eretz Yisrael' , ' ..from the Nile to the Euphrates', and ' cleansed' of non-Jews, can' t you.

alsdkjf ,

I'm surprised that this author can even remember the counter culture of the 60s given his Trump love.

Yet more Trumpism from Off Guardian. One doesn't have to buy into the politics of post DLC corporate owned DNC to know Trump for what he is. A fascist.

It's just amazing this Trump "left". Pathetic.

Antonym ,

Trump .. better than HRC but the guy is totally hypnotized by the level of the New York stock exchanges: even his foreign policy is improvised around that. He simply thinks higher is a proof of better forgetting that 90% of Americans don't own serious quantity of stock and that levels are manipulated by big players and the FED. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/08/business/economy/stocks-economy.html

Look at his dealing with China: tough as much as the US stock market stays benign in the short term. Same for Iran etc.

Sure, he is crippled by Pelosi & the FBI / CIA, but he is also by his own stock dependent mind. Might be the reason he is still alive ???

alsdkjf ,

Trump crippled by the CIA? Trump?

I mean the fascist jerk appointed ex CIA torture loving Pompeo to replace swamp creature oil tycoon as Secretary of State, no?

He appointed torture queen within the CIA to become CIA Director, no?

He went to the CIA headquarters on day one of his Administration to lavish praise, no?

He took on ex CIA Director Woolsey as advisor on foreign policy during his campaign, no?

I tell ya that Trump is a real adversary of the CIA!

Gall ,

Roger that. Trump appoints a dominatrix as DCI. Only a masochist or a sadist would Dream of Gina..you know the head of the torture squad under Bush. Otherwise nice girl. PompAss is a total clown but a dangerous one who even makes John Bolton look sane. Now that's scary!

This guy is Hilary Clinton in drag. The only thing missing is the evil triumphalist cackle after whacking Soleimani. Maybe it wasn't recorded.

So much for "draining the swamp". The Whitehouse has become an even bigger swamp.

Antonym ,

Forgot about John Brennan ex- CIA head or James Clapper ex-DNI honcho?
John Brennan On 'All Roads With Trump Lead To Putin' | The Last Word | MSNBC
They practically too Trump hostage in his first year.

one ,

my take from this article:
There are, among the murderers and assassins in Washington, a couple of characters who appear to have 2% of human DNA.
They author may confirm.

two ,

"israel is right in the cen "
sorry, the muderous regime israel has repeatedly proven, it's never never right . please avoid this usage.

three ,

There are 53 or 54 'I's in the article, including his partner's Is. The author may confirm.

Dungroanin ,

Phew!

That is a lot of words mate. Fingers must be sore. I won't comment more until trying to re-read again except quote this:

"Being an anti-necessitarian in philosophy,.."

I must say i had a wtf moment at that point see ya later.

paul ,

The idea that Trump's recent actions in the Middle East were part of some incredibly cunning plan to avoid war with Iran, strikes me as somewhat implausible, to put it (very) charitably.

Even Hitler didn't want war. He wanted to achieve his objectives without fighting. When that didn't work, war was Plan B. Trump probably has very little actual control over foreign policy. He is surrounded by people who have been plotting and scheming against him from long before he was elected. He heads a chaotic and dysfunctional administration of billionaires, chancers, grifters, conmen, superannuated generals, religious nut jobs, swamp creatures, halfwits and outright criminals, lurching from one crisis and one fiasco to the next. Some of these people like Bolton were foisted upon him by Adelson and various other backers and wire pullers, but that is not to absolve Trump of personal responsibility.

Competing agencies which are a law unto themselves have been free to pursue their own turf wars at the expense of anything remotely resembling a rational and coherent strategy. So have quite low level bureaucrats, formulating and implementing their own policies with little regard for the White House. In Syria, the Pentagon, the CIA, and the State Department went their own way, each supporting competing and mutually antagonistic factions and terrorist groups. Agreements that were reached with Russia over Syria, for example, were deliberately sabotaged by Ashton Carter in 24 hours. Likewise, Bolton did everything he could to wreck Trump's delicate negotiations with N. Korea.

paul ,

Seen in this light, US policy (or the absence of any coherent policy) is more understandable. What passes for US leadership is the worst in its history, even given a very low bar. Arrogant, venal, corrupt, delusional, irredeemably ignorant, and ideologically driven. The only positive thing that can be said is that the alternative (Clinton) would probably have been even worse, if that is possible.

That may also be the key to understanding the current situation. For all his pandering to Israel, Trump is more of a self serving unprincipled opportunist than a true Neocon/ Zionist believer in the mould of Pence, Bolton and Pompeo. For that reason he is not trusted by the Zionist Power Elite. He is too much of a loose cannon. They will take all his Gives, like Jerusalem and the JCPOA, but without any gratitude.

It has taken them a century of plotting, scheming and manoeuvring to achieve their political, financial, and media stranglehold over the US. but America is a wasting asset and they are under time pressure. It is visibly declining and losing its influence. And the parasite will find it difficult to find a similar host. Who else is going to give Israel billions a year in tribute, unlimited free weaponry and diplomatic cover? Russia? Are Chinese troops "happy to die for Israel" asUS ones are (according to their general)?

paul ,

And they are way behind schedule. Assad was supposed to be dead by now, and Syria another defenceless failed state, broken up into feuding little cantons, with Israel expanding into the south of the country. The main event, the war with Iran, should have started lond ago.

That is the reason for the impeachment circus. This is not intended to be resolved one way or the other. It is intended to drag on indefinitely, for months and years, to distract and weaken Trump and make it possible to extract what they want. One of the reasons Trump agreed to the murder of Soleimani and his Iraqi opposite number was to appease some Republican senators like Graham whose support is essential to survive impeachment. They were the ones who wanted it, along with Bolton and Netanyahu.

paul ,

It is instructive that all the main players in the impeachment circus are Jews, under Sanhedrin Chief Priests Schiff and Nadler, apart from a few token goys thrown in to make up the numbers. That even goes for those defending Trump.

Richard Le Sarc ,

Don' t forget that Lebanon up to the Litani is the patrimony of the Jewish tribes of Asher and Naphtali, and, as Smotrich, Deputy Speaker of the Knesset, said on Israeli TV a few years ago, ' Damascus belongs to the Jews'.

bevin ,

" China will fragment, perhaps even devolve into civil war, because of deep inequalities between the relatively prosperous coastal urban areas, and the rural interior."

This is not Bill, but Bill's mate the Stratcor geopolitical theorist for hire.

What is happening in the world is that the only empire the globe, as a whole, has ever seen- the pirate kingdom that the Dutch, then the British and finally the US, leveraged out of the plunder and conquest of America -the maritime empire, of sea routes and navies is under challenge by a revival of the Eurasian proto-empires that preceded it and drove its merchants and princes on the Atlantic coast, to sea.

We know who the neo-liberals are the current iteration of the gloomy philosophies of the Scots Enlightenment, (Cobbett's 'Scotch Feelosophy') utilitarianism in its crudest form and the principles of necessary inequalities, from the Austrian School back to the various crude racisms which became characteristic of the C19th.
The neo-cons are the latest expression of the maritime powers' fear of Eurasia and its interior lines of communication. Besides which the importance of navies and of maritime agility crumble.
Bill mentions that China has not got much of a navy. I'm not so sure about that, but isn't it becoming clear that navies-except to shipyards, prostitutes and arms contractors- are no longer of sovereign importance? There must be missile commanders in China drooling over the prospect of catching a US Fleet in all its glory within 500 miles of the mainland. Not to mention on the east coast of the Persian Gulf.
The neo-cons are the last in a long line of strategists, ideologists and, for the most part, mercenary publicists defying the logic of Halford Mackinder's geo-strategy for a lot more than a penny a line. And what they urge, is all that they can without crossing the line from deceitfulness to complete dishonesty: chaos and destabilisation within Eurasia, surrounding Russia, subverting Sinkiang and Tibet, employing sectarian guerrillas, fabricating nationalists and nationalisms.. recreate the land piracy, the raiding and the ethnic explosions that drove trade from the land to the sea and crippled the Qing empire.
The clash is between war, necessary to the Maritime Empire and Peace, vital to the consolidation and flowering of Eurasia.

As to Israel, and perhaps we can go into this later: it looms much larger in the US imagination (and the imaginations the 'west' borrows from the US) than anywhere else. It is a tiny sliver of a country. Far from being an elephant in any room, it is simply a highly perfumed lapdog which also serves as its master's ventriloquist's dummy. Its danger lies in the fact that after decades of neglect by its idiotic self indulgent masters, it has become an openly fascist regime, which was definitely not meant to happen, and, misled by its own exotic theories of race, has come to believe that it can do what it wants. It can't-and this is one reason why Bill misjudges the reasoning behind the Soleimani killing- but it likes to act, or rather threaten to act, as if it could.

(By the way-note to morons across the web-Bill's partner quotes Adorno and writes about him too: cue rants about Cultural Marxism.)

Hugh O'Neill ,

Thanks, Bevin. The article was so long, I had quite forgotten that he laid too much emphasis on the Stratcor Unspeakable. Clever he may be, but not much use without a moral compass. Talking of geo-strategists, you will doubtless be aware of the work of A.T. Mahan whose blueprint for acquisition of inspired Teddy Roosevelt and leaders throughout Europe, Russia, Japan.

Richard Le Sarc ,

Friedman is a snake oil peddler. He tells the ruling psychopaths what they want to hear, like ' China crumbling', their favourite wet-dream.

bevin ,

I agree about Mahan's importance. He understood what lay behind the Empire on which the sun never set but he had enough brains to have been able to realise that current conditions make those fleets obsolete. In fact the Germans in the last War realised that too- their strategy was Eurasian, it broke down over the small matter of devouring the USSR. The expiry date on the tin of Empire has been obvious for a long time- there is simply too much money to be made by ignoring it.
Russia has always been the problem, either real (very occasionally) or latent for the Dutch/British/US Empire because it is just so clear that the quickest and most efficient communications between Shanghai and Lisbon do not go through the Straits of Malacca, the Suez Canal, or round the cape . Russia never had to do a thing to earn the enmity of the Empire, simply existing was a challenge. And that remains the case- for centuries the Empire denounced the Russians because of the Autocracy, then it was the anarchism of the Bolsheviks, then it was the autocracy again, this time featuring Stalin, then it was the chaos of the oligarchs and now we are back with the Tsar/Stalin Putin.

Hugh O'Neill ,

Phenomenal diagnosis, Bevin. However, one suspects that there is still too much profit to be made by the MIC in pursuing useless strategies. I imagine Mahan turning in his grave in his final geo-strategic twist.

Richard Le Sarc ,

Yes-Zionist hubris will get Israel into a whole world of sorrow.

MASTER OF UNIVE ,

More USA Deep State conspiracy theorizing which makes the author American paternalism posing as authorship that is revenue neutral when it ain't.

Any article with mention of mother-'Tucker' Carlson is one that is pure propagandistic tripe in the extreme. Off-G is a UK blog yet this Americanism & worn out aged propaganda still prevails in the minds of US centric myopics writ large across all states in the disunity equally divided from cities to rural towns all.

MOU

johny conspiranoid ,

"More USA Deep State conspiracy theorizing which makes the author American paternalism posing as authorship that is revenue neutral when it ain'"
Is this even a sentence?

MASTER OF UNIVE ,

It was a sentence when I was smoking marijuana yesterday, Johnny C. Today it is still a sentence IMHO, but you transcribed it incorrectly, and forgot the end of the sentence.

NOTE: When I smoke marijuana I am allowed to write uncoordinated sentences. These are the rules in CANADA. If you don't like it write to your local politician and complain bitterly.

MOU

Charlotte Russe ,

Bush, Obama, and Clinton are despicable. In fact, they're particularly disgusting, inasmuch, as they were much more "cognizant" than Trump of how their actions would lead to very specific insidious consequences. In addition, they were more able to cleverly conceal their malevolent deeds from the public. And that's why Trump is now sitting in the Oval Office–he won because of public disgust for lying politicians.

However, Trump is "dangerous" because he's a "misinformed idiot," and as such is extremely malleable. Of course, ignorance is no excuse when the future of humanity is on the line

In any event, Trump is often not aware of the outcome of his actions. And when you're surrounded and misinformed by warmongering neoconservative nutcases, especially ones who donated to your campaign chances are you'll do stupid things. And that's what they're counting on.

alsdkfj ,

Trump is some virtuous example of a truth teller? Trump?

The biggest liar to every occupy the White House and that is saying a lot.

Swamp Monster fascist Trump. So much to love, right?

He could murder one of your friends and you'd still apologize for him, is my guess.

Hugh O'Neill ,

It was a long read, but I got there. In essence, I agreed with 99%, but I hesitate to share too much praise for Trump's qualities as a Human Being – though he may be marginally more Human than the entire US body politic. I was walking our new puppy yesterday when he did his usual attempt to leap all over other walkers. I pleaded their forgiveness and explained that his big heart was in inverse proportion to his small brain. It occurred to me later that the opposite would be pure evil i.e. a small heart but big brain. Capitalism as is now infects the Human Experiment, has reduced both brains and hearts: propagandists believe their own lies, and too few trust their own instincts and innate compassion, ground down by the relentless distractions of lies and 'entertainment' (at least the Romas gave you free bread!).
I get the impression that Trump's world view hasn't altered much since he was about 11 years old. I do not intend to insult all eleven-year-olds, but his naivety is not a redeeming feature of his spoilt brat bully personality. He has swallowed hook, line and sinker every John Wayne cowboy movie and thinks the world can be divided into good guys and bad guys depending on what colour hat they wear. In the days of Black & White TV, it was either black or white. The world seemed so much simpler aged 11 .(1966).

Dungroanin ,

Yet I have yet to see one photo of Trump with a gun or in uniform.

MASTER OF UNIVE ,

The Duck learned to dress appropriately for business, I'll give him that. As a New York Real Estate scion you will never see him dress otherwise. Protocol in business is a contemporary business suit. No other manner of dress is allowed for the executive class in North America or UK.

[Jan 21, 2020] The Middle East Strategic "Balance" Shredded -- Strategic Culture

Jan 21, 2020 | www.strategic-culture.org

The U.S. was having some success with turning protest messaging against Iran – until, that is – its killing and wounding of so many Iraqi security force members last week (Ketaib Hizbullah is a part of Iraq's armed forces).

Escalation of maximum-pressure was one thing (Iran was confident of weathering that); but assassinating such a senior official on his state duties, was quite something else. We have not observed a state assassinating a most senior official of another state before.

And the manner of its doing, was unprecedented too. Soleimani was officially visiting Iraq. He arrived openly as a VIP guest from Syria, and was met on the tarmac by an equally senior Iraqi official, Al-Muhandis, who was assassinated also, (together with seven others). It was all open. General Soleimani regularly used his mobile phone as he argued that as a senior state official, if he were to be assassinated by another state, it would only be as an act of war.

This act, performed at the international airport of Baghdad, constitutes not just the sundering of red lines, but a humiliation inflicted on Iraq – its government and people. It will upend Iraq's strategic positioning. The erstwhile Iraqi attempt at balancing between Washington and Iran will be swept away by Trump's hubristic trampling on the country's sovereignty. It may well mark the beginning of the end of the U.S. presence in Iraq (and therefore Syria, too), and ultimately, of America's footprint in the Middle East.

Trump may earn easy plaudits now for his "We're America, Bitch!", as one senior White House official defined the Trump foreign policy doctrine; but the doubts – and unforeseen consequences soon may come home to roost.

Why did he do it? If no one really wanted 'war', why did Trump escalate and smash up all the crockery? He has had an easy run (so far) towards re-election, so why play the always unpredictable 'wild card' of a yet another Mid-East conflict?

Was it that he wanted to show 'no Benghazi'; no U.S. embassy siege 'on my watch' – unlike Obama's handling of that situation? Was he persuaded that these assassinations would play well to his constituency (Israeli and Evangelical)? Or was he offered this option baldly by the Netanyahu faction in Washington? Maybe.

Some in Israel are worried about a three or four front war reaching Israel. Senior Israeli officials recently have been speculating about the likelihood of regional conflict occurring within the coming months. Israel's PM however, is fighting for his political life, and has requested immunity from prosecution on three indictments – pleading that this was his legal right, and that it was needed for him to "continue to lead Israel" for the sake of its future. Effectively, Netanyahu has nothing to lose from escalating tensions with Iran -- but much to gain.

Opposition Israeli political and military leaders have warned that the PM needs 'war' with Iran -- effectively to underscore the country's 'need' for his continued leadership. And for technical reasons in the Israeli parliament, his plea is unlikely to be settled before the March general elections. Netanyahu thus may still have some time to wind up the case for his continued tenure of the premiership.

One prime factor in the Israeli caution towards Iran rests not so much on the waywardness of Netanyahu, but on the inconstancy of President Trump: Can it be guaranteed that the U.S. will back Israel unreservedly -- were it to again to become enmeshed in a Mid-East war? The Israeli and Gulf answer seemingly is 'no'. The import of this assessment is significant. Trump now is seen by some in Israel – and by some insiders in Washington – as a threat to Israel's future security vis à vis Iran. Was Trump aware of this? Was this act a gamble to guarantee no slippage in that vital constituency in the lead up to the U.S. elections? We do not know.

So we arrive at three final questions: How far will Iran absorb this new escalation? Will Iran confine its retaliation to within Iraq? Or will the U.S. cross another 'red line' by striking inside Iran itself, in any subsequent tit for tat?

Is it deliberate (or is it political autism) that makes Secretary Pompeo term all the Iraqi Hash'd a-Sha'abi forces – whether or not part of official Iraqi forces – as "Iran-led"? The term seems to be used as a laissez-passer to attack all the many Hash'd a-Sha'abi units on the grounds that, being "Iran-linked", they therefore count as 'terrorist forces'. This formulation gives rise to the false sequitur that all other Iraqis would somehow approve of the killings. This would be laughable, if it were not so serious. The Hash'd forces led the war against ISIS and are esteemed by the vast majority of Iraqis. And Soleimani was on the ground at the front line, with those Iraqi forces.

These forces are not Iranian 'proxies'. They are Iraqi nationalists who share a common Shi'a identity with their co-religionists in Iran, and across the region. They share a common zeitgeist, they see politics similarly, but they are no puppets (we write from direct experience).

But what this formulation does do is to invite a widening conflict: Many Iraqis will be outraged by the U.S. attacks on fellow Iraqis and will revenge them. Pompeo (falsely) will then blame Iran. Is that Pompeo's purpose: casus belli?

But where is the off-ramp? Iran will respond Is this affair simply set to escalate from limited military exchanges and from thence, to escalate until what? We understand that this was not addressed in Washington before the President's decision was made. There are no real U.S. channels of communication (other than low level) with Iran; nor is there a plan for the next days. Nor an obvious exit. Is Trump relying on gut instinct again?

[Jan 21, 2020] The Many Matryoska Dolls to America's Way of Imagining Iran -- Strategic Culture

Notable quotes:
"... The Open Society and its Enemies ..."
"... "Since President Donald Trump ordered the drone strike that killed [Soleimani – justified in terms of deterrence, and allegedly halting an attack] a handful of Trump's advisers, however, [espied another] strategic benefit to killing Soleimani: Call it regime disruption ..."
"... "The case for disruption is outlined in a series of unclassified memos sent to [John Bolton]in May and June 2019 their author, David Wurmser, is a longtime adviser to Bolton who then served as a consultant to the National Security Council. Wurmser argues that Iran is in the midst of a legitimacy crisis. Its leadership, he writes, is divided between camps that seek an apocalyptic return of the Hidden Imam, and those that favour of the preservation of the Islamic Republic. All the while, many Iranians have grown disgusted with the regime's incompetence and corruption. ..."
"... "Wurmser's crucial insight [is that] – were unexpected, rule-changing actions taken against Iran, it would confuse the regime. It would need to scramble," he writes. Such a U.S. attack would "rattle the delicate internal balance of forces and the control over them upon which the regime depends for stability and survival." Such a moment of confusion, Wurmser writes, will create momentary paralysis -- and the perception among the Iranian public that its leaders are weak. ..."
"... "Wurmser's memos show that the Trump administration has been debating the blow against Soleimani since the current crisis began, some seven months ago After Iran downed a U.S. drone [in June], Wurmser advised Bolton that the U.S. response should be overt and designed to send a message that the U.S. holds the Iranian regime, not the Iranian people, responsible. "This could even involve something as a targeted strike on someone like Soleimani or his top deputies," Wurmser wrote in a June 22 memo. ..."
"... In these memos, Wurmser is careful to counsel against a ground invasion of Iran. He says the U.S. response "does not need to be boots on the ground (in fact, it should not be)." Rather, he stresses that the U.S. response should be calibrated to exacerbate the regime's domestic legitimacy crisis. ..."
"... Coping with Crumbling States ..."
"... Clean Break ..."
Jan 21, 2020 | www.strategic-culture.org

lastair Crooke January 20, 2020 © Photo: Flickr / DonkeyHotey On the 17 September 1656, Oliver Cromwell, a Protestant Puritan, who had won a civil war, and had the English king beheaded in public, railed against England's enemies. There was, he told Parliament that day, an axis of evil abroad in the world. And this axis – led by Catholic Spain – was, at root, the problem of a people that had placed themselves at the service of 'evil'. This 'evil', and the servitude that it beget, was the evil of a religion – Catholicism – that refused the English peoples' desire for simple liberties: " [an evil] that put men under restraint under which there was no freedom and under which, there could be 'no liberty of individual consciousness'".

That was how the English protestant leader saw Catholic Spain in 1656. And it is very close to how key orientations in the U.S. sees Iran today : The evil of religion – of Shi'ism – subjecting (they believe) Iranians to repression, and to serfdom. In Europe, this ideological struggle against the 'evil' of an imposed religious community (the Holy 'Roman' Axis, then) brought Europe to 'near-Armageddon', with the worst affected parts of Europe seeing their population decimated by up to 60% during the conflict.

Is this faction in the U.S. now intent on invoking a new, near-Armageddon – on this occasion, in the Middle East – in order, like Cromwell, to destroy the religious 'community known' as the Shi'a Resistance Axis, seen to stretch across the region, in order to preserve the Jewish "peoples' desire for simple liberties"?

Of course, today's leaders of this ideological faction are no longer Puritan Protestants (though the Christian Evangelicals are at one with Cromwell's 'Old Testament' literalism and prophesy). No, its lead ideologues are the neo-conservatives, who have leveraged Karl Popper's hugely influential The Open Society and its Enemies – a seminal treatise, which to a large extent, has shaped how many Americans imagine their 'world'. Popper's was history understood as a series of attempts, by the forces of reaction, to smother an open society with the weapons of traditional religion and traditional culture:

Marx and Russia were cast as the archetypal reactionary threat to open societies. This construct was taken up by Reagan, and re-connected to the Christian apocalyptic tradition (hence the neo-conservative coalition with Evangelists yearning for Redemption , and with liberal interventionists, yearning for a secular millenarianism). All concur that Iran is reactionary, and furthermore, the posit, poses a grave threat to Israel's self-proclaimed 'open society'.

The point here is that there is little point in arguing with these people that Iran poses no threat to the U.S. (which is obvious) – for the 'project' is ideological through and through. It has to be understood by these lights. Popper's purpose was to propose that only liberal globalism would bring about a "growing measure of humane and enlightened life" and a free and open society – period.

All this is but the outer Matryoshka – a suitable public rhetoric, a painted image – that can be used to encase the secret, inner dolls. Eli Lake, writing in Bloomberg , however, gives away the next doll:

"Since President Donald Trump ordered the drone strike that killed [Soleimani – justified in terms of deterrence, and allegedly halting an attack] a handful of Trump's advisers, however, [espied another] strategic benefit to killing Soleimani: Call it regime disruption

"The case for disruption is outlined in a series of unclassified memos sent to [John Bolton]in May and June 2019 their author, David Wurmser, is a longtime adviser to Bolton who then served as a consultant to the National Security Council. Wurmser argues that Iran is in the midst of a legitimacy crisis. Its leadership, he writes, is divided between camps that seek an apocalyptic return of the Hidden Imam, and those that favour of the preservation of the Islamic Republic. All the while, many Iranians have grown disgusted with the regime's incompetence and corruption.

"Wurmser's crucial insight [is that] – were unexpected, rule-changing actions taken against Iran, it would confuse the regime. It would need to scramble," he writes. Such a U.S. attack would "rattle the delicate internal balance of forces and the control over them upon which the regime depends for stability and survival." Such a moment of confusion, Wurmser writes, will create momentary paralysis -- and the perception among the Iranian public that its leaders are weak.

"Wurmser's memos show that the Trump administration has been debating the blow against Soleimani since the current crisis began, some seven months ago After Iran downed a U.S. drone [in June], Wurmser advised Bolton that the U.S. response should be overt and designed to send a message that the U.S. holds the Iranian regime, not the Iranian people, responsible. "This could even involve something as a targeted strike on someone like Soleimani or his top deputies," Wurmser wrote in a June 22 memo.

In these memos, Wurmser is careful to counsel against a ground invasion of Iran. He says the U.S. response "does not need to be boots on the ground (in fact, it should not be)." Rather, he stresses that the U.S. response should be calibrated to exacerbate the regime's domestic legitimacy crisis.

So there it is – David Wurmser is the 'doll' within: no military invasion, but just a strategy to blow apart the Iranian Republic. Wurmser, Eli Lake reveals, has quietly been advising Bolton and the Trump Administration all along. This was the neo-con, who in 1996, compiled Coping with Crumbling States (which flowed on from the infamous Clean Break policy strategy paper, written for Netanyahu, as a blueprint for destructing Israel's enemies). Both these papers advocated the overthrow of the Secular-Arab nationalist states – excoriated both as "crumbling relics of the 'evil' USSR" (using Popperian language, of course) – and inherently hostile to Israel (the real message).

Well ( big surprise ), Wurmser has now been at work as the author of how to 'implode' and destroy Iran. And his insight? "A targeted strike on someone like Soleimani"; split the Iranian leadership into warring factions; cut an open wound into the flesh of Iran's domestic legitimacy; put a finger into that open wound, and twist it; disrupt – and pretend that the U.S. sides with the Iranian people, against its government.

Eli Lake seems, in his Bloomberg piece, to think that the Wurmser strategy has worked. Really? The problem here is that narratives in Washington are so far apart from the reality that exists on the ground – they simply do not touch at any point. Millions attended Soleimani's cortege. His killing gave a renewed cohesion to Iran. Little more than a dribble have protested.

Now let us unpack the next 'doll': Trump bought into Wurmser's 'play', albeit, with Trump subsequently admitting that he did the assassination under intense pressure from Republican Senators. Maybe he believed the patently absurd narrative that Iranians would 'be dancing in the street' at Soleimani's killing. In any event, Trump is not known, exactly, for admitting his mistakes. Rather, when something is portrayed as his error, the President adopts the full 'salesman' persona: trying to convince his base that the murder was no error, but a great strategic success – "They like us", Trump claimed of protestors in Iran.

Tom Luongo has observed : "Trump's impeachment trial in the Senate begins next week, and it's clear that this will not be a walk in the park for the President. Anyone dismissing this because the Republicans hold the Senate, simply do not understand why this impeachment exists in the first place. It is [occurring because it offers] the ultimate form of leverage over a President whose desire to end the wars in the Middle East is anathema to the entrenched powers in the D.C. Swamp." Ah, so here we arrive at another inner Matryoshka.

This is Luongo's point: Impeachment was the leverage to drive open a wedge between Republican neo-conservatives in the Senate – and Trump. And now the Pelosi pressure on Republican Senators is escalating . The Establishment threw cold water over Trump's assertion of imminent attack, as justification for murdering Soleimani, and Trump responds by painting himself further into a corner on Iran – by going the full salesman 'monte'.

On the campaign trail, the President goes way over-the-top, calling Soleimani a "son of a b -- -", who killed 'thousands' and furthermore was responsible for every U.S. veteran who lost a limb in Iraq. And he then conjures up a fantasy picture of protesters pouring onto the streets of Tehran, tearing down images of Soleimani, and screaming abuse at the Iranian leadership.

It is nonsense. There are no mass protests (there have been a few hundred students protesting at one main Tehran University). But Trump has dived in pretty deep, now threatening the Euro-Three signatories to the JCPOA, that unless they brand Iran as having defaulted on JCPOA at the UNSC disputes mechanism, he will slap an eye-watering 25% tariff on their automobiles.

So, how will Trump avoid plunging in even deeper to conflict if – and when – Americans die in Iraq or Syria at the hands of militia – and when Pompeo or Lindsay Graham will claim, baldly, 'Iran's proxies did it'? Sending emollient faxes to the Swiss to pass to Tehran will not do. Tehran will not read them, or believe them, even if they did.

It all reeks of stage-management; a set up: a very clever stage-management, designed to end with the U.S. crossing Iran's 'red line', by striking at a target within Iranian territory. Here, finally, we arrive at the innermost doll.

Cui bono ? Some Senators who never liked Trump, and would prefer Pence as President; the Democrats, who would prefer to run their candidate against Pence in November, rather than Trump. But also, as someone who once worked with Wurmser observed tartly: when you hear that name (Wurmser), immediately you think Netanyahu, his intimate associate.

Matryoshka herself?

[Jan 19, 2020] Friedman s Hapless Fear-mongering

Notable quotes:
"... They have promoted dishonest claims about the JCPOA and made unfounded claims about Iran's so-called "nuclear ambitions" in order to make it seem as if the Iranian government is trying to acquire nuclear weapons. They have done this to justify their hard-line policies and to lay the groundwork for pursuing regime change and war. Every time that someone repeats false claims about a non-existent "nuclear weapons program" in Iran, it creates unnecessary fear and plays into the administration's hands. ..."
"... The administration is already working overtime to propagandize the public and scare Americans into supporting aggressive and destructive policies against Iran, and no one should be giving them extra help. ..."
"... "Friedman's claim that Iran restarted a "nuclear weapons program" is completely false. That isn't what the Iranian government did, and it is irresponsible to say this when it is clearly untrue." ..."
"... Friedman isn't usually thought of as a devotee of Truth, and the chance of him correcting even the most egregious falsehoods you point out is approximately zero. At heart he's a propaganda guy, not a fact-based analyst. ..."
"... Friedman does it for Israel. It is their line, their constant foreign policy push. The NYT lets him, seems to encourage it, due to its own complex ties to Israel. ..."
"... The Israel Lobby is behind vast wars, killing, and waste. It has become an endless evil. ..."
"... Friedman seems to forget that Iran is a signatory of the NPT and inspectors come and monitor activities, all outside JPCOA. But hey, Iraq had WMD at the time the international inspectors were saying that it didn't and their message and activities were obstructed and blocked by the US. Same as with the alleged gas attacks in Syria and the OPCW "mishandling" the reporting... US has learned since Iraq and wanted compliance from these types of organizations. ..."
theamericanconservative.com

Friedman's latest column obviously wasn't fact-checked before it was published:

And then, a few weeks later, Trump ordered the killing of Suleimani, an action that required him to shift more troops into the region and tell Iraqis that we're not leaving their territory, even though their Parliament voted to evict us. It also prompted Iran to restart its nuclear weapons program [bold mine-DL], which could well necessitate U.S. military action. And then, a few weeks later, Trump ordered the killing of Suleimani, an action that required him to shift more troops into the region and tell Iraqis that we're not leaving their territory, even though their Parliament voted to evict us. It also prompted Iran to restart its nuclear weapons program [bold mine-DL], which could well necessitate U.S. military action.
Friedman's claim that Iran restarted a "nuclear weapons program" is completely false. That isn't what the Iranian government did, and it is irresponsible to say this when it is clearly untrue. Iran has no nuclear weapons program, and it hasn't had anything like that for more than sixteen years. The Iranian government took another step in reducing its compliance with the JCPOA in the days following the assassination, but contrary to other misleading headlines their government did not abandon the nuclear deal. Iran has not repudiated its commitment to keep its nuclear program peaceful, and it doesn't help in reducing tensions to suggest that they have. Trump's recent actions are reckless and dangerous, but it is wrong to say that those actions have caused Iran to start up a nuclear weapons program. That isn't the case, and engaging in more threat inflation when tensions are already so high is foolish.

Friedman is not the only one to make this blunder, but it is the sort of sloppy mistake we expect from him. If this were just another error from Friedman, it would be annoying but it wouldn't matter very much. This has to do with the nature of our debate over Iran policy and the nuclear issue in particular. This matters because there is a great deal of confusion in this country about Iran's nuclear program that the Trump administration has deliberately encouraged. They have promoted dishonest claims about the JCPOA and made unfounded claims about Iran's so-called "nuclear ambitions" in order to make it seem as if the Iranian government is trying to acquire nuclear weapons. They have done this to justify their hard-line policies and to lay the groundwork for pursuing regime change and war. Every time that someone repeats false claims about a non-existent "nuclear weapons program" in Iran, it creates unnecessary fear and plays into the administration's hands.

The administration is already working overtime to propagandize the public and scare Americans into supporting aggressive and destructive policies against Iran, and no one should be giving them extra help. The second part of Friedman's sentence is also quite dangerous, because it encourages his readers to think that the U.S. would somehow be justified in attacking Iran in the unlikely event that they started developing a nuclear weapon. He suggests that an Iranian nuclear weapons program might "necessitate" military action, but any attack on Iran under those circumstances would be illegal and a war of choice just like the invasion of Iraq that Friedman supported almost 17 years ago. Even when Friedman seems to be skeptical of something that the government has done, he can't help but indulge in threat inflation and lend support to the idea of preventive war.

Friedman's claim that Iran restarted a "nuclear weapons program" is completely false. That isn't what the Iranian government did, and it is irresponsible to say this when it is clearly untrue. Iran has no nuclear weapons program, and it hasn't had anything like that for more than sixteen years. The Iranian government took another step in reducing its compliance with the JCPOA in the days following the assassination, but contrary to other misleading headlines their government did not abandon the nuclear deal. Iran has not repudiated its commitment to keep its nuclear program peaceful, and it doesn't help in reducing tensions to suggest that they have. Trump's recent actions are reckless and dangerous, but it is wrong to say that those actions have caused Iran to start up a nuclear weapons program. That isn't the case, and engaging in more threat inflation when tensions are already so high is foolish.

... ... ...

He suggests that an Iranian nuclear weapons program might "necessitate" military action, but any attack on Iran under those circumstances would be illegal and a war of choice just like the invasion of Iraq that Friedman supported almost 17 years ago. Even when Friedman seems to be skeptical of something that the government has done, he can't help but indulge in threat inflation and lend support to the idea of preventive war. The second part of Friedman's sentence is also quite dangerous, because it encourages his readers to think that the U.S. would somehow be justified in attacking Iran in the unlikely event that they started developing a nuclear weapon. He suggests that an Iranian nuclear weapons program might "necessitate" military action, but any attack on Iran under those circumstances would be illegal and a war of choice just like the invasion of Iraq that Friedman supported almost 17 years ago. Even when Friedman seems to be skeptical of something that the government has done, he can't help but indulge in threat inflation and lend support to the idea of preventive war.

Gospel Free • 3 days ago

"Friedman's claim that Iran restarted a "nuclear weapons program" is completely false. That isn't what the Iranian government did, and it is irresponsible to say this when it is clearly untrue."

Friedman isn't usually thought of as a devotee of Truth, and the chance of him correcting even the most egregious falsehoods you point out is approximately zero. At heart he's a propaganda guy, not a fact-based analyst.

Mark Thomason • 2 days ago
Friedman does it for Israel. It is their line, their constant foreign policy push. The NYT lets him, seems to encourage it, due to its own complex ties to Israel.

The Israel Lobby is behind vast wars, killing, and waste. It has become an endless evil.

Donna • 2 days ago
Friedman's readers are the choir, and he's just singing to them. People who have seen through his fabrications stopped reading him years ago. Friedman will always have his little clique of deluded pseudo-intellectuals, but truly intelligent people don't waste their time with him.
blimbax • 2 days ago
I think the picture of Friedman that accompanies this article tells a big part of the story. His furrowed brow, the intensity of his studied gaze, his penetrating and knowing look into the the complexities that only someone of his intelligence can unravel. It is really the picture of a stuffed shirt.

Friedman represents something really wrong with our society and culture: The incompetent, the ignorant, and the arrogant ones are given positions of power and influence, and the wise and knowledgeable are marginalized.

Taras77 • 2 days ago
It is difficult to name a more odious shill for Israel war mongering than friedman but than he does have competition in the NYT staff. NYT is a bugle for Israel.
FL_Cottonmouth • 2 days ago • edited
Mr. Friedman recently called Gen. Soleimani "the dumbest man in Iran" for sponsoring terrorist forces in Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen backing paramilitary forces fighting terrorism in Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen.

Mr. Friedman is one of the dumbest pundits in the media class and almost certainly the dumbest ever to work for The New York Times. He just can't help himself...

kouroi • a day ago
Friedman seems to forget that Iran is a signatory of the NPT and inspectors come and monitor activities, all outside JPCOA. But hey, Iraq had WMD at the time the international inspectors were saying that it didn't and their message and activities were obstructed and blocked by the US. Same as with the alleged gas attacks in Syria and the OPCW "mishandling" the reporting... US has learned since Iraq and wanted compliance from these types of organizations.

[Jan 19, 2020] The Empire strikes back. Netanyahu, Trump and the Neocons by Dimitris Konstantakopoulos

Nov 01, 2020 | www.defenddemocracy.press

For the time being it seems we avoided the global disaster of an all-out confrontation between US, Israel and their allies on the one hand, Iran and its allies. Going to the edge of the precipice and then backpedaling has become a quite usual pattern as far as the Iranian question is concerned, since 2006, the first time the Neocon Party of War pushed hard for an attack on Iran, most probably with "tactical" nuclear arms .

Is this sui generis truce the end of the story? No, it is not. As experience proved time and again, the forces promoting this war are very strong to accept defeat, as for the deep underlying causes pushing to such a confrontation remain very much at work. This is what makes a near certainty the return, sooner or later, in one form or another, of the war scenario. And it is hard to imagine that this situation of oscillation between a pseudo-peace and an open war can last forever. Only very deep and very radical changes in the world system can ban for good the war perspective.

The article that follows was written just before the recent Iranian missile attack to the US bases in Iraq. But we believe everything said here is still valid and maybe more valid after the attacks.

A world in chock

"Cry 'Havoc!' And let's slip the dogs of war". It is Marcus Antonius who says that in front of the assassinated Ceasar (Act 3, Scene 1, line 273 of William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar). And it is Richard Haas, president of the CFR, the most prestigious, bipartisan US think tank on foreign policy, who is using this phrase to begin his article in the Financial Times . Haas grasps well the dramatic nature of the moment. He also warns the scope of the conflict is the whole world. But then, his analysis degenerates, and could not be otherwise, into a rather deplorable attempt to discuss a legal basis justifying General Soleimani's assassination in Baghdad and a not-so-convincing search for a place for diplomacy after a murder which probably took place exactly to wipe out any such place. The article is absolutely indicative of the embarrassment, despair and shock of a large part of the international establishment.

Die Zeit , perhaps the most serious newspaper in Germany, compares General Soleimani's murder with that of Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo, back in 1914, by which WWI was launched. The same analogy is adopted by Mediapart, one of the few remaining media outlets in France with some element of credibility and seriousness.

In the meantime, the Israeli PM Netanyahu has used a supposed "tongue lapsus" to remind that Israel is a "nuclear power" .

We urge our readers to study very carefully New York Times ' shocking reportage on Israeli and American extremists' decades-long effort to wage war on Iran, the fierce conflict over this issue for years, between Obama and Netanyahu, and the equally fierce battle inside Israel, between Netanyahu on the one hand, Israeli army and services on the other. You must read it if you want to know what is happening in the Middle East and what can happen to you tomorrow .

The war with Iran has come much closer, but it will not be conventional, says Soraya Lennie of London's SOAS University, Britain's "colonial school".

First but also the Second World War

The unprecedented shock of the international system is also reflected in the astonishing lack of any serious reaction of the "international community" to one of the most serious and dangerous crises humanity is facing. They speak saying nothing or they put on the same footage the offender and the victim of the offense.

But shocks you suffer only if you have made very wrong assessments of the situation and of the the forces in action, or if you take your wishes as realities.

Unfortunately, there is no analogy only with the outbreak of World War I. It can also be established with the situation prevailing during the period preceding World War II in Europe, between 1933 and 1939-41. Then, as it happens now, the world was in front of the emergence of an extremist core in the center of the Western system, but it sharply underestimated its dynamics and its potential. European capitals believed they can handle the situation by maneuvering, appeasing, compromising. Some, who understood nothing of the force they were facing and of its project, were even believing it is possible to cooperate or even ally with it. We know too well where all that has finally led.

Anyway, the analogy with WWI seems to have crossed simultaneously a lot of minds after Soleimani's assassination. Many former senior US intelligence officials, now critical of the policy of their government, adopted also this analogy, in a memorandum addressed to President Trump with the plea not to double the Iraqi "madness" in Iran .

The memorandum is signed, among others, by Graham Fuller, former vice president of the National Intelligence Council, Daniel Ellsberg, known in particular for his Pentagon Papers , the former technical director of the NSA Edward Loomis, the senior CIA analyst Ray McGovern, daily briefer on USSR of five US Presidents. Our readers can watch a debate of this writer with Ray McGovern on Iran and Trump, three years ago, just after Trump's election.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/t9ppwjpC8vY

In the memorandum, the intelligence veterans criticize the President and his son in law Kushner for pursuing blindly Netanyahu's policy on Iran, as Bush and Cheney followed blindly Ariel Sharon's policy by invading Iraq. They also recall Netanyahu's own confession of the way he fooled President Clinton to make him believe he was working on implementing the Oslo agreements with the Palestinians, while he was working to destroy them.

The period ahead is very critical, not only for the factors we know but also because of the possibility of the War camp launching a second provocation as the first, Soleimani's murder, did not suffice for the launching of an all-out war.

Read more at https://uwidata.com/7039-the-empire-strikes-back-netanyahu-trump-and-the-neocons/

[Jan 16, 2020] Trump is working hand in hand with Netanyahu, Adelson and the rest of the far far right weirdos, he's their bum boy.

Jan 16, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Bubbles , Jan 15 2020 20:35 utc | 182

Bedrock of American Conservative ideology The National Review recently expressed concerns regarding trump's behaviour, and were not inclined to praise Caesar. Choosing to speak to his state of mind instead.

"And there's the larger fact that since America's withdrawal from the Iran deal, the nation's policy toward Iran seems to be one of drifting toward war lazily and thoughtlessly. Making unreasonable demands, imposing sanctions, and then watching Iranian provocations roll in.

But most important, we don't live in a vacuum. And perhaps you've noticed that since the news of this assassination broke,

the president has sounded out of his mind.

He has returned to his idea of vandalism, blasphemy, and outrage as strategy. Contradicting his own secretary of state, Trump promised that the United States would respond to further Iranian provocation by deliberately bombing cultural sites in Iran. "They're allowed to kill our people. They're allowed to torture and maim our people. They're allowed to use roadside bombs and blow up our people. And we're not allowed to touch their cultural sites," he said. "It doesn't work that way."

This disgusting threat is in many ways worse than his promises of "fire and fury" in North Korea. The punishment would fall not on the government, or on the military that tortures and maims, but on the whole Iranian people -- and really all of humanity that has an interest in the preservation of great treasures of antiquity, of which there are many in Iran. These are jewels of ancient civilization that ought to outlast Iran's current government, and that deserve a better custodian than the mullahs. That aside, the threat carries zero strategic value for us while offering infinite propaganda value for the Iranian regime."

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/01/qasem-soleimani-killing-trump-rhetoric-dangerous-unproductive/

Again, from the above: "the president has sounded out of his mind."

However, to trump's base his actions may not appear to be those of a madman, and I sincerely doubt the National Review is on their reading list. If they read at all that is. Case in point, why go to all the effort to attend his weird rallies just to hear the same lies they could have read at multiple sources from the comfort of their homes?

Oui , Jan 15 2020 20:37 utc | 183

Threat has been hanging over relations with Europe for over a year. What's changed? Brexit, GE2019 and new ally Boris Johnson.

Trump has threatened to impose the 25% car tariffs by invoking "Section 232" national security tariffs under 1962 Cold War trade law.

Russ , Jan 15 2020 20:38 utc | 184
Posted by: b | Jan 15 2020 19:40 utc | 175

"WaPo: Days before Europeans warned Iran of nuclear deal violations, Trump secretly threatened to impose 25% tariff on European autos if they didn't...The U.S. effort to coerce European foreign policy through tariffs, a move one European official equated to "extortion," represents a new level of hardball tactics with the United States' oldest allies...
U.S. officials conveyed the threat directly to officials in London, Berlin and Paris rather than through their embassies in Washington, said a senior European official."

Good! Couldn't happen to a more deserving mob of bootlicks. Their compliance proves they want and deserve it.

I agree with those who say, This is exactly the kind of thing I hoped for from Trump.

On the other hand this is exactly why the likes of the WaPo hate him - although not a fascist, he's too directly thuggish for the neoliberal formula. Too much stick, not enough (poisoned) carrot.

Russ , Jan 15 2020 20:45 utc | 185
Posted by: Bubbles | Jan 15 2020 20:35 utc | 182

"He has returned to his idea of vandalism, blasphemy, and outrage as strategy. Contradicting his own secretary of state, Trump promised that the United States would respond to further Iranian provocation by deliberately bombing cultural sites in Iran...

This disgusting threat is in many ways worse than his promises of "fire and fury" in North Korea. The punishment would fall not on the government, or on the military that tortures and maims, but on the whole Iranian people -- and really all of humanity that has an interest in the preservation of great treasures of antiquity, of which there are many in Iran."

Here too Trump is only the most openly thuggish face and voice of relentless general practice.

I'll make a rare link to my own blog since this was the subject of my most recent post.

https://attempter.wordpress.com/2020/01/11/cultural-genocide-is-as-american-as-poison-apple-pie/

In modern times the destruction has become less overtly religious, more secularized, mundane, assembly-line and industrial. Therefore it is vastly more comprehensive and horrific.

Capitalism, productionism, "Progress", the economic civilization devour and eradicate vastly more historic sites and sacred lands, by many orders of magnitude, than all the religious and nationalistic hatreds thruout history put together...

In these ways, as always, Trump is nothing but the more openly scabrous and brutish incarnation of the essence of the US and especially of all US economic and political activity. He is by far the most typical and characteristic of all US presidents. He is the most logical production of the US to date.

Looking at a president Americans look at themselves in a mirror. With the likes of Obama, the Clintons, George Bush, plus scammers like Sanders, they see skillfully idealized, romanticized, flattering fake reflections of themselves...

james , Jan 15 2020 20:55 utc | 186
@ 182 bubbles... that quote you highlight show you just how sick trump and the usa is at present to try to pass off that type of lie to the public to be broadcast wide and far..

"They're allowed to kill our people. They're allowed to torture and maim our people. They're allowed to use roadside bombs and blow up our people. And we're not allowed to touch their cultural sites."

no - usa invaded iraq and some of ''your'' people were killed actively invading another country. blame it on yourselves, but don't try to pass off this shit on the public.. it is the worst form of propaganda you can generate...

i am speaking generally here to the usa public.. obviously the americans here are aware of this, but i am not following who in the usa has challenged this outrageous propaganda...

and, i agree with others here - trump - for just how ugly he is, is really highlighting just how bad things in the usa has gotten.. and it will get worse if they can't figure out a way to get their shit together too..

dh , Jan 15 2020 20:59 utc | 187
@182 "Case in point, why go to all the effort to attend his weird rallies just to hear the same lies they could have read at multiple sources from the comfort of their homes?"

That's easy. They go to the rallies because they like the solidarity. It is comforting to hear their leader speaking surrounded by thousands of like-minded people. Plus it's a great opportunity to wear their MAGA hats and wave flags.

james , Jan 15 2020 20:59 utc | 188
@185 russ.. i went to the article you posted and read it.. - keep on speaking out and get your message out far and wide russ... i agree with your viewpoint expressed...
DFC , Jan 15 2020 21:19 utc | 189
Posted by: kooshy | Jan 15 2020 18:22 utc | 173

Yes, in fact one of the big "advantages" of the Trump presidency is that everyone for sure knows that US is an Empire, so every Storm Trooper knows that they are not fighting "to defend" nothing, they are pawns, cannon fodder of an Empire fighting in other lands to grab resources and impose "tax" (in a subtle way through the financial system) fot he global "Wealth Pump" from all the world to send it to the center of the Empire in exchange of "protection" (Vito Corleone) and to spread "freedom", "democracy", "human rights", "prosperity", and all that vacuous BS.

Now the Storm Troopers fully know they are in Syria and Iraq to "protect our oil" (from the Iraqis) and to fight those who oppose the grabbing (Iraqis, Iranians, Syrians, etc...).
But they will have a hard time in the future, this will not be Desert Storm 2.0 or Iraqi Freedom 2.0, this will be like Lebanon 2006 but against a kind of Hezbollah x100 more powerful and they are so far far far away from home...

Bubbles , Jan 15 2020 21:23 utc | 190
Posted by: Russ | Jan 15 2020 20:45 utc | 185

Dehumanizing. By order of the Overlords, who of course know better than all those folks they view as inferior. Messianic is one applicable term.

George Soros once subtly agreed he had Messianic tendencies in an interview that used to be available on utube.

Benjamin Netanyahu has been accused of having the same flaw by some learned persons. He of course follows the 'admit nothing' doctrine. But his actions speak for themselves. Including his 'alleged' criminal activities.

The United States doesn't have a culture, unless by some queer assessment consumerism could be called a culture. That is the basis for it's disrespect.

Clearly you're a thinker but I don't follow your opinion on Sanders. He seems a decent sort to me. Thanks for you reply btw and I will go to your site and explore your thoughts.


Bubbles , Jan 15 2020 21:49 utc | 191
That's easy. They go to the rallies because they like the solidarity. It is comforting to hear their leader speaking surrounded by thousands of like-minded people. Plus it's a great opportunity to wear their MAGA hats and wave flags.

Posted by: dh | Jan 15 2020 20:59 utc | 187


Some decades ago, there were other's who posed as Nationalists, and they caused a world of hurt.

Descendant's of those people who were sent off to defend Democracy understand the sacrifice. What some don't understand, is that sacrifice being grossly abused and has the enemy they were sent to defeat actually been defeated? Or were they simply pawns in a rich mans contest, where the rich men threw trinkets their way after the War was won?

Who was the enemy then? Who is the enemy now? Are they the same?

Was there a man dismay'd?
Not tho' the soldier knew
Some one had blunder'd:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why


dh , Jan 15 2020 22:13 utc | 192
@191 I get what your saying but I think comparing Trump with Hitler is a bit of a stretch. Circe will vehemently disagree but I think Trump is smart enough to know that his supporters don't like being called Nazis. They are the 'good guys'. They really want to 'make America great again' whatever that means.
Bubbles , Jan 15 2020 22:47 utc | 193
@191 I get what your saying but I think comparing Trump with Hitler is a bit of a stretch.

True, Hitler was smarter. And even more insane than trump. But, let's look at some clear differences.. Hitler wasn't a pampered boy whose father worked all the angles of corruption to make a lot of money.

Hitler was a combat veteran. A veteran of the trench wars of WW1. A Veteran of the horrors of that ugly war of attrition.

Trump sought 5 deferments to avoid serving in ANY capacity in America's war in Vietnam. FIVE DEFERMENTS.


His father faced inquiries about his abusive behaviour related to war profiteering and he proudly defended his right to use levers afforded to him to use local officials so he could profit on the backs of WW2 Veterans and their families.

Little wonder he maintained his father's relationship with Benjamin Netanyahu.

james , Jan 15 2020 23:04 utc | 194
hell of a guy that trump.. has the ancestry to go with it too..
dh , Jan 15 2020 23:12 utc | 195
@193 Hitler was evil. That seems to be generally agreed. But he won elections. He was popular with ordinary people in pre-war Germany. Obviously the Versailles Treaty was a big factor.

I can see a few similarities. Trump was elected on a nationalist platform too. How far can Trump push it? The Wall hasn't been a huge success so far. ICE has started rounding up illegal immigrants. Trumpists approve of that. Would people feel OK if he started gassing them? That would be the logical outcome of MAGA. But I like to think it would be step too far for most Americans. He's on fairly safe ground beating up on furriners though.

Bubbles , Jan 15 2020 23:59 utc | 196
195 "I can see a few similarities. "

Read this, think Treaty of Versailles.

" "First, Iran must declare to the IAEA a full account of the prior military dimensions of its nuclear program, and permanently and verifiably abandon such work in perpetuity."
"Second, Iran must stop uranium enrichment and never pursue plutonium reprocessing. This includes closing its heavy water reactor."
"Third, Iran must also provide the IAEA with unqualified access to all sites throughout the entire country."
"Iran must end its proliferation of ballistic missiles and halt further launching or development of nuclear-capable missile systems."
"Iran must release all U.S. citizens, as well as citizens of our partners and allies, each of them detained on spurious charges."
"Iran must end support to Middle East terrorist groups, including Lebanese Hizballah [Hezbollah], Hamas, and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad."
"Iran must respect the sovereignty of the Iraqi Government and permit the disarming, demobilization, and reintegration of Shia militias."
"Iran must also end its military support for the Houthi militia and work towards a peaceful political settlement in Yemen."
"Iran must withdraw all forces under Iranian command throughout the entirety of Syria."
"Iran, too, must end support for the Taliban and other terrorists in Afghanistan and the region, and cease harboring senior Al Qaida leaders."
"Iran, too, must end the IRG [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] Qods Force's [Quds Force's] support for terrorists and militant partners around the world."
"And too, Iran must end its threatening behavior against its neighbors – many of whom are U.S. allies. This certainly includes its threats to destroy Israel, and its firing of missiles into Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. It also includes threats to international shipping and destructive – and destructive cyberattacks."

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/20989/pompeos-12-demands-for-iran-read-more-like-a-declaration-of-war-than-a-path-to-peace

The trump Regime, who clearly covet AIPAC $ and hope to take away the dems primary spot, dance to the Nethanyahu / far right tune. It's as obvious as the sun rising in the east and setting in the west.

dh , Jan 16 2020 0:11 utc | 197
@196 The Allied Powers were dictating terms to a defeated Germany in Versailles. Trump is dictating terms to an undefeated Iran on behalf of Israel. The act of dictation is certainly similar. Are we arguing about something?
Bubbles , Jan 16 2020 0:28 utc | 198
Are we arguing about something?

Posted by: dh | Jan 16 2020 0:11 utc | 197

No we aren't, you got the point.

Trump is dictating terms as if his adversary was already vanquished. Clearly it ain't over, but the bloviator in Chief and his Lobbyist appointed advisors would very much like people to believe their goading Iran will result in capitulation, Versailles style. But who in their right mind would believe the foreign affairs neophyte and tabloid princeling, donald trump?

trump is working hand in hand with Netanyahu, Adelson and the rest of the far far right weirdos, he's their bum boy. Their agenda is clear, provoke Iran to retaliate to US and Israeli provocations so the Cabal can howl at the top of their lungs and demand Vengance. On American tax payers dime, not Israeli taxpayers dime. Heck, when did they ever pay for all those aggression's dating back to Desert Storm?

dh , Jan 16 2020 0:47 utc | 199
@198 Yes all of that about Trump and Netanyahu, Adelson, provoking Ira etc. is well known here at MOA. I was more interested in the similarities between Trump and Hitler. I find it hard to imagine the US slipping into full blown Nazism. Maybe some kind of happy-face fascism is a possibility.
bevin , Jan 16 2020 0:55 utc | 200
"Hitler was evil. That seems to be generally agreed. But he won elections."
dh195
No he didn't. The only elections that he won were after he had taken power and put his opponents in jail. Then he campaigned, using the Storm Troopers and the police forces of the various states-Prussia most notably where Goering was Minister-President and controlled the police- to intimidate any opposition.
It is an old Conservative talking point and a prime argument of enemies of democracy to insist that Hitler won elections. In fact he lost lots of them. It was this unpopularity that gave the militarist/industrialist coterie surrounding Hindenburg confidence that they could control the Bohemian corporal they despised.

[Jan 15, 2020] Democracy in action: voters choice in 2016 was limited to the choice between brain cancer and leprosy

Jan 08, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Trailer Trash , Jan 8 2020 16:32 utc | 105

Trump is such a douchebag. He claims there were no lives lost due to their "early warning system" -- no mention that the "early warning system" was a phone call!

Now he's once again justifying assassination, etc.

pretzelattack , Jan 8 2020 16:39 utc | 110

there was no "better choice" between trump and clinton. i still think clinton represented a greater danger than trump of getting into a war with russia, but they are both warmongers first class. for our next election, we may have a choice between ebola and flesh eating bacteria, or brain cancer and leprosy. if the game is rigged there's no winning it playing by the game's "rules".

[Jan 15, 2020] Just Trust Us, Says the Most Dishonest Administration Ever

Notable quotes:
"... On Sunday, the Washington Post, citing a senior U.S official, reported that "Pompeo first spoke with Trump about killing Suleimani months ago but neither the president nor Pentagon officials were willing to countenance such an operation." On Thursday, CNN's Nicole Gaouette and Jamie Gangel reported that "Pompeo was a driving force behind President Donald Trump's decision to kill" the Iranian general. The CNN story said that Pompeo, who was the director of the Central Intelligence Agency under Trump before he moved to the State Department, viewed Suleimani as the mastermind of myriad operations targeting Americans and U.S interests. It also quoted an unnamed source close to Pompeo, who recalled the Secretary of State telling friends, "I will not retire from public service until Suleimani is off the battlefield." ..."
theamericanconservative.com
One of the new bogus explanations that the administration has been offering up is that there was a threat to one or more U.S. embassies that led to the assassination. Rep. Justin Amash notes this morning that they have presented no evidence to Congress to back up any of this or their original claim of an "imminent" attack:
The administration didn't present evidence to Congress regarding even one embassy. The four embassies claim seems to be totally made up. And they have never presented evidence of imminence -- a necessary condition to act without congressional approval -- with respect to any of this. The administration didn't present evidence to Congress regarding even one embassy. The four embassies claim seems to be totally made up. And they have never presented evidence of imminence -- a necessary condition to act without congressional approval -- with respect to any of this. https://t.co/Eg0vaCnqFd -- Justin Amash (@justinamash) -- Justin Amash (@justinamash) -- Justin Amash (@justinamash) January 12, 2020
The administration's story keeps changing, because they are just making up unconvincing justifications for what they did. The president invents new excuses for the illegal assassination, and his subordinates feel obliged to follow his lead because they are implicated in his decision. The strange thing is that this administration still expects to be believed on something as important as this despite their constant lying to Congress and the public about everything else. The president and Secretary of State have trashed their credibility long ago, so there is no chance that we would give them the benefit of the doubt now. As a result, there is much more healthy and appropriate skepticism about the administration's claims since January 2nd than there usually is. We are still piecing together what happened at the start of this year in the days leading up to the assassination, but the picture we are getting is one of a push by determined hard-line ideologues to take military action against a government they hate. Pompeo was the leading advocate for doing this. John Cassidy The administration's story keeps changing, because they are just making up unconvincing justifications for what they did. The president invents new excuses for the illegal assassination, and his subordinates feel obliged to follow his lead because they are implicated in his decision. The strange thing is that this administration still expects to be believed on something as important as this despite their constant lying to Congress and the public about everything else. The president and Secretary of State have trashed their credibility long ago, so there is no chance that we would give them the benefit of the doubt now. As a result, there is much more healthy and appropriate skepticism about the administration's claims since January 2nd than there usually is. We are still piecing together what happened at the start of this year in the days leading up to the assassination, but the picture we are getting is one of a push by determined hard-line ideologues to take military action against a government they hate. Pompeo was the leading advocate for doing this. John Cassidy We are still piecing together what happened at the start of this year in the days leading up to the assassination, but the picture we are getting is one of a push by determined hard-line ideologues to take military action against a government they hate. Pompeo was the leading advocate for doing this. John Cassidy We are still piecing together what happened at the start of this year in the days leading up to the assassination, but the picture we are getting is one of a push by determined hard-line ideologues to take military action against a government they hate. Pompeo was the leading advocate for doing this. John Cassidy reports :
On Sunday, the Washington Post, citing a senior U.S official, reported that "Pompeo first spoke with Trump about killing Suleimani months ago but neither the president nor Pentagon officials were willing to countenance such an operation." On Thursday, CNN's Nicole Gaouette and Jamie Gangel reported that "Pompeo was a driving force behind President Donald Trump's decision to kill" the Iranian general. The CNN story said that Pompeo, who was the director of the Central Intelligence Agency under Trump before he moved to the State Department, viewed Suleimani as the mastermind of myriad operations targeting Americans and U.S interests. It also quoted an unnamed source close to Pompeo, who recalled the Secretary of State telling friends, "I will not retire from public service until Suleimani is off the battlefield."
Pompeo has Pompeo has lied constantly about Iran and the nuclear deal before and after he became Secretary of State, so it is not surprising that he has been the administration's public face as they lie to Congress and the public about this illegal assassination. No wonder he doesn't want to appear before Congress to testify.

kouroi • 32 minutes ago

Add to this the concomitant attempt made in Yemen, where there is no American presence other than the bombs dropping from the sky, against an Iranian operative, and it shows the push of the administration to go for the kill as the main factor. The US is becoming more and more like Israel: kill first, no excuses, we are the chosen ones - The "revenge" of Dinah's brothers, Genesis 34:25. This is The US of A's diplomacy nowadays. The world has really been put on notice. And the world will be reacting, see the visit of Chancellor Merkel to Moscow immediately after that.

The question is what the American citizens are going to do? What are they going to vote for?

JSC2397 • 18 minutes ago • edited
Why shouldn't Trump and his Administration's creatures "expect to be believed"? He and his toadies have misstated, misled, BS-ed and outright lied to the public for three years now; and - despite a "credibility gap" of Vallis Marineris proportions - have gotten no appreciable pushback from the media.
The right-wing media simply cheerlead him, as usual: and everybody else just sort of nods, grunts, and moves on.

[Jan 12, 2020] The petrodollar is the way in which the US gets the rest of the world to fund its wars

Notable quotes:
"... Economic growth is more about financialising goods and services that were previously free or are/were social goods. There is no real growth; just taxing the living. ..."
"... So, in my view, the only restraint on destroying Iran is capability, is the cost and the risk of retaliation (not just from Iran) - not the destruction of Iran's capital - better for Iran's capital to be destroyed than for Iran to be independent or a competitor. ..."
Jan 12, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

ADKC , Jan 12 2020 2:10 utc | 359

vk @334

My comment @342 should have read: "The petrodollar is the way in which the US gets the rest of the world to fund its wars,"

---------

Your comment about capitalist accumulation doesn't hold (as a motivator for the US) when we have a capitalist monopolist situation. Rate of profit is not about growth (of real goods); it is about reducing competition and scarcity. When you are the monopolist you can charge what you like but profit becomes meaningless - the monopolist power comes from the control of resources - the monopolistic capitalist becomes a ruler/monarch. You no longer need ever-increasing customers so you can dispense with them if you so chose (by reducing the population). One bottle of water is far more valuable and a lot less trouble to produce that 100 millions bottles of water. There is no point in AI to provide for the needs of "the many"; AI becomes a means to dispense with "the many" altogether.

Economic growth is more about financialising goods and services that were previously free or are/were social goods. There is no real growth; just taxing the living.

So, in my view, the only restraint on destroying Iran is capability, is the cost and the risk of retaliation (not just from Iran) - not the destruction of Iran's capital - better for Iran's capital to be destroyed than for Iran to be independent or a competitor.

[Jan 12, 2020] Luongo Fears "An Abyss Of Losses" As Iraq Becomes MidEast Battleground

Highly recommended!
Jan 12, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Tom Luongo via Gold, Goats, 'n Guns blog,

The future of the U.S.'s involvement in the Middle East is in Iraq. The exchange of hostilities between the U.S. and Iran occurred wholly on Iraqi soil and it has become the site on which that war will continue.

Israel continues to up the ante on Iran, following President Trump's lead by bombing Shia militias stationed near the Al Bukumai border crossing between Syria and Iraq.

The U.S. and Israel are determined this border crossing remains closed and have demonstrated just how far they are willing to go to prevent the free flow of goods and people across this border.

The regional allies of Iran are to be kept weak, divided and constantly under harassment.

Iraq is the battleground because the U.S. lost in Syria. Despite the presence of U.S. troops squatting on Syrian oil fields in Deir Ezzor province or the troops sitting in the desert protecting the Syrian border with Jordan, the Russians, Hezbollah and the Iranian Quds forces continue to reclaim territory previously lost to the Syrian government.

Now with Turkey redeploying its pet Salafist head-choppers from Idlib to Libya to fight General Haftar's forces there to legitimize its claim to eastern Mediterannean gas deposits, the restoration of Syria's territorial integrity west of the Euphrates River is nearly complete.

The defenders of Syria can soon transition into the rebuilders thereof, if allowed. And they didn't do this alone, they had a silent partner in China the entire time.

And, if I look at this situation honestly, it was China stepping out from behind the shadows into the light that is your inciting incident for this chapter in Iraq's story.

China moving in to sign a $10.1 billion deal with the Iraqi government to begin the reconstruction of its ruined oil and gas industry in exchange for oil is of vital importance.

It doubles China's investment in Iraq while denying the U.S. that money and influence.

This happened after a massive $53 billion deal between Exxon-Mobil and Petrochina was put on hold after the incident involving Iran shooting down a U.S. Global Hawk drone in June.

With the U.S balking over the Exxon/Petrochina big deal, Iraqi Prime Minster Adel Abdul Mahdi signed the new one with China in October. Mahdi brought up the circumstances surrounding that in Iraqi parliaments during the session in which it passed the resolution recommending removal of all foreign forces from Iraq.

Did Trump openly threaten Mahdi over this deal as I covered in my podcast on this? Did the U.S. gin up protests in Baghdad, amplifying unrest over growing Iranian influence in the country?

And, if not, were these threats simply implied or carried by a minion (Pompeo, Esper, a diplomat)? Because the U.S.'s history of regime change operations is well documented. Well understood color revolution tactics used successfully in places like Ukraine , where snipers were deployed to shoot protesters and police alike to foment violence between them at the opportune time were on display in Baghdad.

Mahdi openly accused Trump of threatening him, but that sounds more like Mahdi using the current impeachment script to invoke the sinister side of Trump and sell his case.

It's not that I don't think Trump capable of that kind of threat, I just don't think he's stupid enough to voice it on an open call. Donald Trump is capable of many impulsive things, openly threatening to remove an elected Prime Minister on a recorded line is not one of them.

Mahdi has been under the U.S.'s fire since he came to power in late 2018. He was the man who refused Trump during Trump's impromptu Christmas visit to Iraq in 2018 , refusing to be summoned to a clandestine meeting at the U.S. embassy rather than Trump visit him as a head of state, an equal.

He was the man who declared the Iraqi air space closed after Israeli air attacks on Popular Mobilization Force (PMF) positions in September.

And he's the person, at the same time, being asked by Trump to act as a mediator between Saudi Arabia and Iran in peace talks for Yemen.

So, the more we look at this situation the more it is clear that Abdul Madhi, the first Iraqi prime minister since the 2003 U.S. invasion push for more Iraqi sovereignty, is emerging as the pivotal figure in what led up to the attack on General Soleimani and what comes after Iran's subsequent retaliation.

It's clear that Trump doesn't want to fight a war with Iran in Iran. He wants them to acquiesce to his unreasonable demands and begin negotiating a new nuclear deal which definitively stops the possibility of Iran developing a nuclear weapon, and as P atrick Henningsen at 21st Century Wire thinks ,

Trump now wants a new deal which features a prohibition on Iran's medium range missiles , and after events this week, it's obvious why. Wednesday's missile strike by Iran demonstrates that the US can no longer operate in the region so long as Iran has the ability to extend its own deterrence envelope westwards to Syria, Israel, and southwards to the Arabian Peninsula, and that includes all US military installations located within that radius.

Iraq doesn't want to be that battlefield. And Iran sent the message with those two missile strikes that the U.S. presence in Iraq is unsustainable and that any thought of retreating to the autonomous Kurdish region around the air base at Erbil is also a non-starter.

The big question, after this attack, is whether U.S. air defenses around the Ain al Assad airbase west of Ramadi were active or not. If they were then Trump's standing down after the air strikes signals what Patrick suggests, a new Middle East in the making.

If they were not turned on then the next question is why? To allow Iran to save face after Trump screwed up murdering Soleimani?

I'm not capable of believing such Q-tard drivel at this point. It's far more likely that the spectre of Russian electronics warfare and radar evasion is lurking in the subtext of this story and the U.S. truly now finds itself after a second example of Iranian missile technology in a nascent 360 degree war in the region.

It means that Iran's threats against the cities of Haifa and Dubai were real.

In short, it means the future of the U.S. presence in Iraq now measures in months not years.

Because both China and Russia stand to gain ground with a newly-united Shi'ite Iraqi population. Mahdi is now courting Russia to sell him S-300 missile defense systems to allow him to enforce his demands about Iraqi airspace.

Moqtada al-Sadr is mobilizing his Madhi Army to oust the U.S. from Iraq. Iraq is key to the U.S. presence in the region. Without Iraq the U.S. position in Syria is unsustainable.

If the U.S. tries to retreat to Kurdish territory and push again for Masoud Barzani and his Peshmerga forces to declare independence Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will go ballistic.

And you can expect him to make good on his threat to close the Incerlik airbase, another critical logistical juncture for U.S. force projection in the region.

But it all starts with Mahdi's and Iraq's moves in the coming weeks. But, with Trump rightly backing down from escalating things further and not following through on his outlandish threats against Iran, it may be we're nearing the end of this intractable standoff.

Back in June I told you that Iran had the ability to fight asymmetrically against the U.S., not through direct military confrontation but through the after-effects of a brief, yet violent period of war in which all U.S., Israeli and Arab assets in the Middle East come under fire from all directions.

It sent this same message then that by attacking oil tankers it could make the transport of oil untenable and not insurable. We got a taste of it back then and Trump, then, backed down.

And the resultant upheaval in the financial markets creating an abyss of losses, cross-asset defaults, bank failures and government collapses.

Trump has no real option now but to negotiate while Iraq puts domestic pressure on him to leave and Russia/China come in to provide critical economic and military support to assist Mahdi rally his country back towards some semblance of sovereignty

* * *

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MalteseFalcon , 3 minutes ago link

OK kids,

Play time is over.

China needs Iraqi oil to build the BRI.

Last one into Africom is a rotten egg!!!!

daveeemc2 , 14 minutes ago link

This is the most delicious of irony

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

The american imperial style of intervention is dead.

China debt trap model of belt and road is the path forward.

They will win hearts and minds, and not a single shot fired.

USA gets debt from paying war machine and killed and maimed soldiers whose personal psychiatry will haunt them for an entire lifetime.

In the end, Americans get nothing but debt and risk their own soverignty as a population ages and infrastructure crumbles....kinda like now.

MalteseFalcon , 1 minute ago link

The last 30 years of American foreign policy has been an unmitigated disaster.

yerfej , 26 minutes ago link

How about "what is the goal?" There is none of course. The assholes in the Washington/MIC just need war to keep them relevant. What if the US were to closed down all those wars and foreign bases? THEN the taxpayer could demand some accounting for the trillions that are wasted on complete CRAP. There are too many old leftovers from the cold war who seem to think there is benefit to fighting wars in shithole places just because those wars are the only ones going on right now. The stupidity of the ****** in the US military/MIC/Washington is beyond belief. JUST LEAVE you ******* idiots.

Rusticus2.0 , 22 minutes ago link

Your comment should have been directed at Trump, the commander in chief.

I guess that's still a bridge too far, but sooner than later you're going to have to cross it.

BobEore , 29 minutes ago link

Excellent Smithers, excellent:

Sometimes, in treading thru the opaque, sandstorm o ******** swept wastes of the ' desert of the really real '...

one must rely upon a marking... some kind of guidepost, however tenuous, to show you to be still... on the trail, not lost in the vast haunted reaches of post-reality. And you know, Tommy is that sort of guide; the sort of guy who you take to the fairgrounds, set him up with the 'THROW THE BALL THRU THE HOOP... GUARANTEED PRIZE TO SCOOP' kiosk...

and he misses every time. Just by watching Tom run through his paces here... zeroing in on the exact WRONG interpretation of events ... every dawg gone time... one resets their compass to tru course and relaxes into the flow agin! Thanks Tom! Let's break down ... the Schlitzy shopping list of sloppy errors:

  • Despite the presence of U.S. troops squatting on Syrian oil fields in Deir Ezzor province or the troops sitting in the desert protecting the Syrian border with Jordan, the Russians, Hezbollah and the Iranian Quds forces continue to reclaim territory previously lost to the Syrian government. / umm Tom... the Russkies just ONCE AGIN... at Ankaras request .. imposed a stop on the IDLIB CAMPAIGN. Which by the way... is being conducted chiefly by the SAA. Or was that's to say. To the east... the Russkies have likewise become the guarantors of .... STATIS... that is a term implying no changes on the map. Remember that word Tom... "map" ... I recommend you to find one... and learn how to use it!
  • Now with Turkey redeploying its pet Salafist head-choppers from Idlib to Libya to fight General Haftar's forces there to legitimize its claim to eastern Mediterannean gas deposits, the restoration of Syria's territorial integrity west of the Euphrates River is nearly complete. See above... with gravy Tom. Two hundred jihadists moving to Libya has not changed the status quo... except in dreamland.

Israel continues to up the ante on Iran, f ollowing President Trump's lead by bombing Shia militias stationed near the Al Bukumai border crossing between Syria and Iraq. Urusalem.. and its pathetically obedient dogsbody USSA ... are busy setting up RIMFISTAN Tom.. you really need to start expanding your reading list; On both sides of that border you mention .. they will be running - and guarding - pipeline running to the mothership. Shia miitias and that project just don't mix. Nobody gives a frying fluck bout your imaginary 'land bridge to the Med'... except you and the gomers. And you and they aren't ANYWHERES near to here.

  • Abdul Madhi, the first Iraqi prime minister since the 2003 U.S. invasion push for more Iraqi sovereignty, is emerging as the pivotal figure in what led up to the attack on General Soleimani and what comes after Iran's subsequent retaliation.
  • Ok... this is getting completely embarrassing. The man is a 'caretaker' Tom... that's similar to a 'janitor' - he's on the way out. If you really think thats' being pivotal... I'm gonna suggest that you've 'pivoted' on one of your goats too many times.

Look, Tom... I did sincerely undertake to hold your arm, and guide you through this to a happier place. But you... are underwater my man. And that's quite an accomplishment, since we be traveling through the deserts of the really real. You've enumerated a list of things which has helped me to understand just how completely distorted is the picture of the situation here in mudded east.. is... in the minds of the myriad victims of your alt-media madness. And I thank you for that. But its time we part company.

These whirring klaidescope glasses I put on, in order to help me see how you see things, have given me a bit of a headache. Time to return to seeing the world... as it really works!

simpson seers , 14 minutes ago link

says the yankee chicken ******......

Fireman , 32 minutes ago link

Like Ukraine, everything the anglozionazi empire of **** smear$...turns to ****.

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

https://theduran.com/ukranian-whistleblower-reveals-mh-17-tragedy-was-orchestrated-by-poroshenko-and-british-secret-service/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=wR1NFI6TBH0

BGO , 39 minutes ago link

The whole *target and destroy* Iran (and Iraq) clusterfuck has always been about creating new profit scenarios, profit theaters, for the MIC.

If the US govt was suddenly forced to stop making and selling **** designed to kill people... if the govt were forced to stopping selling **** to other people so they can kill people... if the govt were forced to stop stockpiling **** designed to kill people just so other people would stop building and stockpiling **** designed to kill people... first the US then the world would collapse... everyone would finally see... the US is a nation of people that allows itself to be propped up by the worst sort of people... an infinitesimally small group of gangsters who legally make insane amounts of money... by creating in perpetuity... forever new scenarios that allow them to kill other people.

Jesus ******* Christ ZeroHedge software ******* sucks.

Fireman , 40 minutes ago link

Understanding why Agent Orange is a meat puppet.

The following has been known to cure T.D.S.

https://www.bitchute.com/video/NJF06yjvdErM/

Wantoknow , 44 minutes ago link

Why has Trump no real option? What do you believe are the limits of Trump's options that assure he must negotiate? Perhaps all out war is not yet possible politically in the US, but public sentiment has been manipulated before. Why not now?

One must not yet reject the idea that the road to Moscow and Beijing does not run through Iran. Throwing the US out of the Middle East would be a grievous failure for the deep state which has demonstrated itself to be absolutely ruthless. It is hard to believe the US will leave without a much more serious war forcing the issue.

So far Trump has appeared artless and that may continue but that artlessness may well bring a day when Trump will not back down.

Fireman , 39 minutes ago link

Why has Trump no real option?

Ask the towel girls at Maralago and Jeffrey Pedovore.

Rusticus2.0 , 49 minutes ago link

The motivation behind Trump pulling out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action wasn't because, after careful analytical study of the plan, he decided it was a bad deal. It was because Israel demanded it as it didn't fit into their best interests and, as with the refreezing of relationships with Cuba, it was a easier way to undo Obama policy rather than tackling Obamacare. Hardly sound judgement.

The war will continue in Iraq as the Shia majority mobilize against an occupying force that has been asked to leave, but refuse. What will quickly become apparent is that this war is about to become far more multifaceted with Iraqi and Iranian proxies targeting American interests across numerous fronts.

Trump is the head of a business empire; Downsizing is not a strategy that he's ever employed; His business history is a case study in go big or go bust.

not-me---it-was-the-dog , 32 minutes ago link

so it will work like this....

trump's zionist overlords have demanded he destroy iran.

as a simple lackey, he agreed, but he does need political cover to do so.

thus the equating of any attack or threat of attack by any group of any political persuasion as originating from iran.

any resistance by the shia in iraq will be considered as being directed from iran, thus an attack on iran is warranted.

any resistance by the currect governement of iraq will be considered as being directed from iran, thus an attack on iran is warranted.

any resistance by the sunni in iraq will be considered subversion by iran, or a false flag by iran, thus an attack on iran is warranted.

trump's refusal to follow the SOFA agreement, and heed the call of the democratic government we claim to have gone in to install, is specifically designed to lead to more violence, which in turn can be blamed on iran's "malign" influence, which gives the entity lackeys cover to spread more democracy.

MIGA!

Brazen Heist II , 55 minutes ago link

America is a nation of imbeciles. They have meddled in Iraq since the 1980s and still can't subdue the place to their content.

Dey hate us for our freedumbs!

Ghost who Walks , 54 minutes ago link

I'm more positive that Iraq can resolve its issues without starting a Global War.

The information shared by the Iraqi Prime Minister goes part way to awakening the population as to what is happening and why.

Once more information starts to leak out (and it will from those individuals who want to avoid extinction) the broad mass of the global population can take action to protect themselves from the psychopaths.

new game , 1 hour ago link

This is what empires in decline do. Hubris...

meanwhile China rises with Strategic economic investment.

And the econ hitmen aren't done yet...

moar war...

Arising , 1 hour ago link

China moving in to sign a $10.1 billion deal with the Iraqi government to begin the reconstruction of its ruined oil and gas industry in exchange for oil is of vital importance.

Come on Tom, you should know better than that: the U.S will destroy any agreements between China and the people of Iraq.

The oil will continue to be stolen and sent to Occupied Palestine to administer and the people of Iraq will be in constant revolt, protest mode and subjugation- but they will never know they are being manipulated by the thieving zionists in D.C and Tel aviv.

Ms No , 1 hour ago link

Agreed. It will take nothing short of a miracle to stop this. Time isnt on their side though so they better get on it. They will do something big to get it going.

RoyalDraco , 14 minutes ago link

This isn't "humanity." Few people are psychopathic killers. It is being run by a small cliche of Satanists who are well on their way to enslaving humanity in a dystopia even George Orwell could not imagine. They control most of the levers of power and influence and have done so for centuries.

Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.

- Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring's testimony before the Nuremberg tribunal on crimes against humanity

[Jan 11, 2020] 'Brought to Jesus' the evangelical grip on the Trump administration US news The Guardian

Jan 11, 2020 | www.theguardian.com

'Brought to Jesus': the evangelical grip on the Trump administration The influence of evangelical Christianity is likely to become an important question as Trump finds himself dependent on them for political survival

Julian Borger in Washington

Fri 11 Jan 2019 02.00 EST Last modified on Fri 18 Jan 2019 16.51 EST Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share via Email Donald Trump at the Republican national convention in Cleveland, Ohio, on 18 July 2016. Photograph: Mike Segar/Reuters I n setting out the Trump administration's Middle East policy, one of the first things Mike Pompeo made clear to his audience in Cairo is that he had come to the region as "as an evangelical Christian".

In his speech at the American University in Cairo, Pompeo said that in his state department office: "I keep a Bible open on my desk to remind me of God and his word, and the truth."

The secretary of state's primary message in Cairo was that the US was ready once more to embrace conservative Middle Eastern regimes, no matter how repressive, if they made common cause against Iran.

His second message was religious. In his visit to Egypt, he came across as much as a preacher as a diplomat. He talked about "America's innate goodness" and marveled at a newly built cathedral as "a stunning testament to the Lord's hand".

ss="rich-link"> 'Toxic Christianity': the evangelicals creating champions for Trump Read more

The desire to erase Barack Obama's legacy, Donald Trump's instinctive embrace of autocrats, and the private interests of the Trump Organisation have all been analysed as driving forces behind the administration's foreign policy.

The gravitational pull of white evangelicals has been less visible. But it could have far-reaching policy consequences. Vice President Mike Pence and Pompeo both cite evangelical theology as a powerful motivating force.

Just as he did in Cairo, Pompeo called on the congregation of a Kansan megachurch three years ago to join a fight of good against evil.

"We will continue to fight these battles," the then congressman said at the Summit church in Wichita. "It is a never-ending struggle until the rapture. Be part of it. Be in the fight."

For Pompeo's audience, the rapture invoked an apocalyptical Christian vision of the future, a final battle between good and evil, and the second coming of Jesus Christ, when the faithful will ascend to heaven and the rest will go to hell.

For many US evangelical Christians, one of the key preconditions for such a moment is the gathering of the world's Jews in a greater Israel between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River. It is a belief, known as premillenial dispensationalism or Christian Zionism – and it has very real potential consequences for US foreign policy .

It directly colours views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and indirectly, attitudes towards Iran, broader Middle East geopolitics and the primacy of protecting Christian minorities. In his Cairo visit, Pompeo heaped praise on Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, for building the new cathedral, but made no reference to the 60,000 political prisoners the regime is thought to be holding, or its routine use of torture.

Pompeo is an evangelical Presbyterian, who says he was "brought to Jesus" by other cadets at the West Point military academy in the 1980s.

https://www.theguardian.com/email/form/plaintone/4300

"He knows best how his faith interacts with his political beliefs and the duties he undertakes as secretary of state," said Stan van den Berg, senior pastor of Pompeo's church in Wichita in an email. "Suffice to say, he is a faithful man, he has integrity, he has a compassionate heart, a humble disposition and a mind for wisdom."

As Donald Trump finds himself ever more dependent on them for his political survival, the influence of Pence, Pompeo and the ultra-conservative white Evangelicals who stand behind them is likely to grow.

"Many of them relish the second coming because for them it means eternal life in heaven," Andrew Chesnut, professor of religious studies at Virginia Commonwealth University said. "There is a palpable danger that people in high position who subscribe to these beliefs will be readier to take us into a conflict that brings on Armageddon."

Chesnut argues that Christian Zionism has become the "majority theology" among white US Evangelicals, who represent about a quarter of the adult population . In a 2015 poll , 73% of evangelical Christians said events in Israel are prophesied in the Book of Revelation. Respondents were not asked specifically whether their believed developments in Israel would actually bring forth the apocalypse.

The relationship between evangelicals and the president himself is complicated.

Trump himself embodies the very opposite of a pious Christian ideal. Trump is not churchgoer. He is profane, twice divorced, who has boasted of sexually assaulting women. But white evangelicals have embraced him.

Eighty per cent of white evangelicals voted for him in 2016, and his popularity among them is remains in the 70s. While other white voters have flaked away in the first two years of his presidency, white evangelicals have become his last solid bastion.

Some leading evangelicals see Trump as a latterday King Cyrus, the sixth-century BC Persian emperor who liberated the Jews from Babylonian captivity.

The comparison is made explicitly in The Trump Prophecy , a religious film screened in 1,200 cinemas around the country in October, depicting a retired firefighter who claims to have heard God's voice, saying: "I've chosen this man, Donald Trump, for such a time as this."

Lance Wallnau , a self-proclaimed prophet who features in the film, has called Trump "God's Chaos Candidate" and a "modern Cyrus".

"Cyrus is the model for a nonbeliever appointed by God as a vessel for the purposes of the faithful," said Katherine Stewart , who writes extensively about the Christian right.

She added that they welcome his readiness to break democratic norms to combat perceived threats to their values and way of life.

"The Christian nationalist movement is characterized by feelings of persecution and, to some degree, paranoia – a clear example is the idea that there is somehow a 'war on Christmas'," Stewart said. "People in those positions will often go for authoritarian leaders who will do whatever is necessary to fight for their cause."

Trump was raised as a Presbyterian, but leaned increasingly towards evangelical preachers as he began contemplating a run for the presidency.

Trump's choice of Pence as a running mate was a gesture of his commitment, and four of the six preachers at his inauguration were evangelicals, including White and Franklin Graham, the eldest son of the preacher Billy Graham, who defended Trump through his many sex scandals, pointing out: "We are all sinners."

Having lost control of the House of Representatives in November, and under ever closer scrutiny for his campaign's links to the Kremlin, Trump's instinct has been to cleave ever closer to his most loyal supporters.

Almost alone among major demographic groups, white evangelicals are overwhelmingly in favour of Trump's border wall, which some preachers equate with fortifications in the Bible.

Evangelical links have also helped shape US alliances in the Trump presidency. As secretary of state, Pompeo has been instrumental in forging link with other evangelical leaders in the hemisphere, including Guatemala's Jimmy Morales and the new Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro . Both have undertaken to follow the US lead in moving their embassies in Israel to Jerusalem .

Trump's order to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv – over the objections of his foreign policy and national security team – is a striking example of evangelical clout.

ss="rich-link"> Sheldon Adelson: the casino mogul driving Trump's Middle East policy Read more

The move was also pushed by Las Vegas billionaire and Republican mega-donor, Sheldon Adelson, but the orchestration of the embassy opening ceremony last May, reflected the audience Trump was trying hardest to appease.

The two pastors given the prime speaking slots were both ardent Christian Zionists: Robert Jeffress, a Dallas pastor on record as saying Jews, like Muslims and Mormons, are bound for hell ; and John Hagee, a televangelist and founder of Christians United for Israel (Cufi), who once said that Hitler and the Holocaust were part of God's plan to get Jews back to Israel , to pave the way for the Rapture.

For many evangelicals, the move cemented Trump's status as the new Cyrus, who oversaw the Jews return to Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple.

The tightening of the evangelical grip on the administration has also been reflected in a growing hostility to the UN, often portrayed as a sinister and godless organisation.

Since the US ambassador, Nikki Haley, announced her departure in October and Pompeo took more direct control, the US mission has become increasingly combative, blocking references to gender and reproductive health in UN documents.

Some theologians also see an increasingly evangelical tinge to the administration's broader Middle East policies, in particular its fierce embrace of Binyamin Netanyahu's government, the lack of balancing sympathy for the Palestinians – and the insistent demonisation of the Iranian government.

ss="rich-link"> US will expel every last Iranian boot from Syria, says Mike Pompeo Read more

Evangelicals, Chesnut said, "now see the United States locked into a holy war against the forces of evil who they see as embodied by Iran".

In a speech at the end of a regional tour on Thursday, Pompeo reprised the theme, describing Iran as a "cancerous influence".

This zeal for a defining struggle has thus far found common cause with more secular hawks such as the national security adviser, John Bolton, and Trump's own drive to eliminate the legacy of Barack Obama, whose signature foreign policy achievement was the 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran, which Trump abrogated last May.

In conversations with European leaders such as Emmanuel Macron and Theresa May, Trump has reportedly insisted he has no intention of going to war with Iran. His desire to extricate US troops from Syria marks a break with hawks, religious and secular, who want to contain Iranian influence there.

But the logic of his policy of ever-increasing pressure, coupled with unstinting support for Israel and Saudi Arabia, makes confrontation with Iran ever more likely.

One of the most momentous foreign policy questions of 2019 is whether Trump can veer away from the collision course he has helped set in motion – perhaps conjuring up a last minute deal, as he did with North Korea – or instead welcome conflict as a distraction from his domestic woes, and sell it to the faithful as a crusade.

Topics Donald Trump Evangelical Christianity Trump administration US foreign policy Religion US politics Christianity features

[Jan 11, 2020] Sheldon Adelson the casino mogul driving Trump's Middle East policy by Chris McGreal

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... The Las Vegas billionaire gave Republicans $82m for the 2016 elections and his views, notably staunch support for Netanyahu's Israel, are now the official US line ..."
"... Adelson's considerable support for Republicans is in no small part motivated by what he regards as their more reliable support for the policies of Benjamin Netanyahu , which appear intent on preventing the creation of an independent Palestinian state. ..."
"... Adelson gave $82m toward Trump's and other Republican campaigns during the 2016 election cycle – more than three times the next largest individual donor, according to Open Secrets . ..."
"... That commitment bought him an attentive hearing from the new administration as he pushed for the appointment of Bolton as national security adviser knowing that he would be an important ally in getting the White House to kill the Iran nuclear deal. The New York Times reported that Adelson is a member of a " shadow National Security Council " advising Bolton. ..."
"... The day after Trump announced that the US was pulling out of the Iran agreement, Adelson was reported to have held a private meeting at the White House with the president, Bolton and Vice-President Mike Pence. ..."
"... Adelson was so enthusiastic about the move that he offered to pay for some of the costs and provided a jet to fly Guatemala's official delegation to Israel for the ceremony. (The Central American country has also announced plans to follow Trump and move its own embassy .) ..."
"... "Adelson is a linchpin in bringing together the radical extremists on the Israeli right and this group of hardliners on Israel and neoconservatives," said Levy, who is now president of the US-based Middle East Project. ..."
"... He paid for a new headquarters for the most powerful pro-Israel lobby group in Washington (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee), spent $100m to fund "birthright" trips for young Jewish Americans to Israel, and funds a group opposing criticism of the Jewish state at US universities. ..."
"... In 2015 he secretly bought the Las Vegas newspaper, the Review-Journal , which had led the way in critical coverage of the billionaire's business dealings. Several reporters subsequently left the paper complaining of editorial interference and curbs on reporting of the gambling industry. ..."
"... Right now, Adelson is concentrated on ensuring the Republicans remain in control of Congress, and is pouring $30m into funding the GOP's midterm elections campaign. ..."
"... Adelson is no less active in Israel where he owns the country's largest newspaper, a publication so closely linked with Netanyahu's administration it has been dubbed the "Bibipaper" after the prime minister's nickname. ..."
"... In 2014, he told a conference during a discussion about the implications for democracy of perpetual occupation or annexation of parts of the West Bank without giving Palestinians the right to vote in Israeli elections: "Israel isn't going to be a democratic state. So what?" ..."
Jun 08, 2018 | www.theguardian.com

The Las Vegas billionaire gave Republicans $82m for the 2016 elections and his views, notably staunch support for Netanyahu's Israel, are now the official US line

Sheldon Adelson has spent millions on backing Israel and attacking supporters of Palestinian rights in the US. Photograph: Kin Cheung/AP In 2015, the billionaire casino owner and Republican party funder Sheldon Adelson spent days in a Las Vegas courtroom watching his reputation torn apart and wondering if his gambling empire was facing ruin.

An official from Nevada's gaming control board sat at the back of the court listening to mounting evidence that Adelson bribed Chinese officials and worked with organised crime at his casinos in Macau – allegations that could have seen the magnate's Las Vegas casinos stripped of their licenses.

The case, a civil suit by a former manager of the Macau gaming operations who said he was fired for curbing corrupt practices, was another blow in a bad run for Adelson.

He had thrown $150m into a futile effort to unseat the "socialist" and "anti-Israel" Barack Obama in the 2012 election. His credibility as a political player was not enhanced by his backing of Newt Gingrich for president.

But three years on from the court case, Adelson's influence has never been greater.

The imprint of the 84-year-old's political passions is seen in an array of Donald Trump's more controversial decisions, including violating the Iran nuclear deal , moving the American embassy in Israel to Jerusalem , and appointing the ultra-hawkish John Bolton as national security adviser .

"Adelson's established himself as an influential figure in American politics with the amount of money that he has contributed," said Logan Bayroff of the liberal pro-Israel group, J Street. "There's no doubt that he has very strong, very far-right dangerous positions and that – at very least – those positions are really being heard and thought about at the highest levels of government."

As the 2015 court hearing unfolded, the billionaire swallowed his considerable pride and paid millions of dollars to settle the lawsuit, heading off the danger of the graft allegations being tested at a full trial.

The casinos stayed in business and continued to contribute to a vast wealth that made Adelson the 14th richest person in America last year with a net worth of $35bn, according to Forbes.

Adelson has put some of that money toward pushing an array of political interests ranging from protecting his business from online gambling to opposition to marijuana legalisation.

But nothing aligns more closely with his world view than the intertwining of the Republican party and Israel .

Adelson's considerable support for Republicans is in no small part motivated by what he regards as their more reliable support for the policies of Benjamin Netanyahu , which appear intent on preventing the creation of an independent Palestinian state.

Adelson gave $82m toward Trump's and other Republican campaigns during the 2016 election cycle – more than three times the next largest individual donor, according to Open Secrets .

That commitment bought him an attentive hearing from the new administration as he pushed for the appointment of Bolton as national security adviser knowing that he would be an important ally in getting the White House to kill the Iran nuclear deal. The New York Times reported that Adelson is a member of a " shadow National Security Council " advising Bolton.

The day after Trump announced that the US was pulling out of the Iran agreement, Adelson was reported to have held a private meeting at the White House with the president, Bolton and Vice-President Mike Pence.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Sheldon Adelson attends the opening ceremony of the new US embassy in Jerusalem in May. Photograph: Sebastian Scheiner/AP

The casino magnate also pushed hard to see the US embassy moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem – an action previous presidents had shied away from because of the diplomatic ramifications.

Adelson was so enthusiastic about the move that he offered to pay for some of the costs and provided a jet to fly Guatemala's official delegation to Israel for the ceremony. (The Central American country has also announced plans to follow Trump and move its own embassy .)

Daniel Levy, a former member of Israeli negotiating teams with the Palestinians and policy adviser to the then Israeli prime minister, Ehud Barak, said that Adelson's money had helped resurface neoconservative policies which had been discredited after the US invasion of Iraq.

"Adelson is a linchpin in bringing together the radical extremists on the Israeli right and this group of hardliners on Israel and neoconservatives," said Levy, who is now president of the US-based Middle East Project.

The billionaire is also deeply committed to protecting Israel within the US.

An example of an anti-BDS poster funded by Sheldon Adelson. Photograph: Courtesy of Robert Gardner

He paid for a new headquarters for the most powerful pro-Israel lobby group in Washington (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee), spent $100m to fund "birthright" trips for young Jewish Americans to Israel, and funds a group opposing criticism of the Jewish state at US universities.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz recently revealed that Adelson funded an investigation by an Israeli firm with ties to the country's police and military into the American activist Linda Sarsour, a co-chair of the Women's March movement who campaigns for Palestinian rights and supports a boycott of the Jewish state.

Adelson also funds Rabbi Shmuley Boteach and his World Values Network which published a full-page personal attack in the New York Times on the actor Natalie Portman for refusing an award from Israel because of its government's policies.

For his part, the casino magnate does not take criticism well.

In 2015 he secretly bought the Las Vegas newspaper, the Review-Journal , which had led the way in critical coverage of the billionaire's business dealings. Several reporters subsequently left the paper complaining of editorial interference and curbs on reporting of the gambling industry.

Right now, Adelson is concentrated on ensuring the Republicans remain in control of Congress, and is pouring $30m into funding the GOP's midterm elections campaign.

Adelson is no less active in Israel where he owns the country's largest newspaper, a publication so closely linked with Netanyahu's administration it has been dubbed the "Bibipaper" after the prime minister's nickname.

Personal relations with Netanyahu have soured but Adelson remains committed to the prime minister's broader "Greater Israel" political agenda and to strengthening ties between the Republicans' evangelical base and Israel.

It's not always a welcome involvement by a man who is not an Israeli citizen – not least because Adelson's vision for the Jewish state does not represent how many of its people see their country.

In 2014, he told a conference during a discussion about the implications for democracy of perpetual occupation or annexation of parts of the West Bank without giving Palestinians the right to vote in Israeli elections: "Israel isn't going to be a democratic state. So what?"

[Jan 10, 2020] Trump decided to play the role of Benjamin Netanyahu Santa Claus again

Jan 08, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

DFC , Jan 8 2020 19:20 utc | 198

Probably in the medium term the situation for the US in ME will be worse, but in the short term (in an electoral year) the people I talked, with some knowledge of the recent history of the ME, and me, we think:

a) Trump dares to do what at least 3 former administration did not dare to do: kill the first "terrorist" on the list (as ex-admiral William J. Fallon has said, Suleimani was the Nº 1 in his list for 12 years), so for the American people is the more resolute and brave POTUS of at least 10 administration (somebody says from Lincoln times). Obama was a coward.

b) The fact that Suleimani was a national hero for a nation of 82 million people and also for 150 million of shia around the world, mourned by millions in the streets, make a bigger Trump "victory" over the Iranian "regime", and it is a powerful advice to the others leaders and commanders in the world that try to fight or oppose to USA.

c) People say that after killing Al-Bagdadi, Suleimani, Muhandis, the next in the list is Nasralah (pure wishful thinking but right now, why not thinking that?)

d) The USA did no use their AA system to shut-down the incoming missiles to not give a clue to the Iranians of their real effectiveness in combat situation and because the Russians have many SIGINT platforms following the events to capture the signals, methods, tactics and technology of the US anti-ballistic missiles systems. So now the Iranians are blind of the real effectiveness of their missiles in a real combat situation and the Russians do not have a clue also. For sure USA can take down at least some modified SCUD C missiles, simply it was not worth to do.

e) The fact that Trump did not retaliate is not a symptom of weakness, simply no American was hurt after killing Suleimani (an act of war), only some holes in the sand.

f) In the speech of today Trump is defiant with the killing of Suleimani and with more economic sanctions to Iran, that will be more crippling than now. He does not want to escalate (more). There will be a deal in the future, but much less good for the Iranians than the Obama's JCPOA (it was an electoral promise).

g) The retaliation of the PMU, they say, "will be similar than that of Iran", translating it : "lob some katyusha rockets in the backyard of few US bases giving advice to the Americans do not go out". No risks at all, the se-escalation is complete.

h) Trump is defiant about not leaving Iraq, I think at the end they will go but after they have a very good deal. Of course it is all about the Iraqi oil, in exchange for the American blood and money wasted in Iraq. Iraq has the biggest oil reserves in the world and USA want a good chunk of them, they never ever leave "giving" all of them to the Chinese or Iranians or anybody else. Trump does not want US soldiers in Iraq, but he wants the oil above anything else (it is condition "sine qua non" to maintain the Empire)

i) Trump has now the full enthusiastic support of the AIPAC and all the others powerful Israeli lobby he will have more money than required for the election. He has demonstrated he is the best possible POTUS for Israel

j) In the short term USA will leave Syria and in the medium term Iraq, OK, but they never ever leave "all the region", they need to be there to maintain the "American Way of Live" (US $ as reserve currency)

If nothing dramatically change, I expect a crushing victory of Trump in the coming US election, he has all the cards now in his hand, and he will not waste them.

Petri Krohn , Jan 8 2020 19:22 utc | 199

The 5 lightweight hangars at the Ain al-Asad airbase that were destroyed in the Iranian bullseye hit housed US drones. Possibly the very one used to assassinate General Qassem Soleimani.

See this tweet by Babak Taghvaee from yesterday with photos:

#BREAKING: It is now confirmed that the #IRGC backed Kataib Hezbollah (45th Brigade of #PMU) launched 40 unguided rockets at Ain Al Asad Air Base where the #USArmy's MQ-1Cs are based. At-least one of them participated in the operation for elimination of #Soleimani in #Baghdad!

arby , Jan 8 2020 19:22 utc | 200
The US contractor that was killed worked for Valiant Integrated Services.

https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article239053173.html

valiant

[Jan 10, 2020] Pompous killer

Notable quotes:
"... Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has been revealed to be the puppet master behind POTUS Trump's motion to liquidate a top Iranian commander, CNN reported citing sources inside and around the White House, with the revelation indicating Pompeo's influential status in the Trump administration. ..."
"... The sources suggested that the Iranian general was Pompeo's fixation, so that he even sought to get a visa to Iran in 2016 when he represented Kansas in Congress, before assuming the role of CIA director and then his current one. ..."
"... Despite winning the moniker of "Trump whisperer" over the ties he has developed with POTUS, Pompeo's ability to sell an aggressive Iran strategy to Trump, who has commonly opposed any military confrontation, has caused a certain sway, the sources implied. ..."
"... "He's the one leading the way", according to the source in Pompeo's inner circle, discussing the showdown with Iran. "It's the president's policy, but Pompeo has been the leading voice in helping the president craft this policy. There is no doubt Mike is the one leading it in the Cabinet". ..."
"... While bragging about Washington's "big and accurate" missiles as well as US achievements during his tenure, he separately praised the "new powerful economic sanctions" aimed at Iran, promising that they would be in place until Tehran "changes its behaviour". Also, he invited NATO to get more deeply involved in what is going on in the Middle East, with the Transatlantic bloc reacting favorably to the suggestion. ..."
Jan 10, 2020 | sputniknews.com

Mike Pompeo has reportedly long cherished plans to take the Iranian general off the Middle East battlefield, as he is said to have for quite a while seen late Commander Soleimani as the one behind the spiralling tensions with Tehran. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has been revealed to be the puppet master behind POTUS Trump's motion to liquidate a top Iranian commander, CNN reported citing sources inside and around the White House, with the revelation indicating Pompeo's influential status in the Trump administration.

According to several sources, taking Iranian General Qasem Soleimani – the leader of the elite Quds Force, a powerful military group with vast leverage in the region - "off the battlefield" has been Pompeo's goal for a decade.

Pompeo "was the one who made the case to take out Soleimani, it was him absolutely", a source said, adding he apparently floated the idea when debating the US Embassy raid over New Year with Trump.

According to a number of sources close to Pompeo, the secretary of state has at all times believed that Iran is the root cause of the woes in the Middle East, and Soleimani in particular - the mastermind of terrorism raging across the region. This point of view is notably in tune with how Pompeo commented on the commander's assassination:

"We took a bad guy off the battlefield", Pompeo told CNN on 5 January. "We made the right decision". The same day, Pompeo told ABC that killing Soleimani was important "because this was a fella who was the glue, who was conducting active plotting against the United States of America, putting American lives at risk".

The sources suggested that the Iranian general was Pompeo's fixation, so that he even sought to get a visa to Iran in 2016 when he represented Kansas in Congress, before assuming the role of CIA director and then his current one.

Despite winning the moniker of "Trump whisperer" over the ties he has developed with POTUS, Pompeo's ability to sell an aggressive Iran strategy to Trump, who has commonly opposed any military confrontation, has caused a certain sway, the sources implied.

"He's the one leading the way", according to the source in Pompeo's inner circle, discussing the showdown with Iran. "It's the president's policy, but Pompeo has been the leading voice in helping the president craft this policy. There is no doubt Mike is the one leading it in the Cabinet".

Regardless of who inspired the drone attack that killed Soleimani, the two countries are indeed going through a stint of severe tensions, but no direct military confrontation. After Tehran's retaliatory attack, Trump announced a slew of more stringent economic limitations to be slapped on Iran.

While bragging about Washington's "big and accurate" missiles as well as US achievements during his tenure, he separately praised the "new powerful economic sanctions" aimed at Iran, promising that they would be in place until Tehran "changes its behaviour". Also, he invited NATO to get more deeply involved in what is going on in the Middle East, with the Transatlantic bloc reacting favorably to the suggestion.

[Jan 08, 2020] Soleimani and Al-Muhandis are being mourned in Aleppo churches

Jan 08, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

StSarkiscathedraltehran2016

(Tehran Armenian Cathedral)

Mike Pompeo was on the TeeVee today scoffing at those who do not agree with him and the Ziocon inspired "maximum pressure" campaign against Iran. It must be a terrible thing for intelligence analysts of integrity and actual Middle East knowledge and experience to have to try to brief him and Trump, people who KNOW, KNOW from some superior source of knowledge that Iran is the worst threat to the world since Nazi Germany, or was it Saddam's Iraq that was the worst threat since "beautiful Adolf?"

The "maximum pressure" campaign is born of Zionist terrors, terrors deeply felt. It is the same kind of campaign that has been waged by the Israelis against the Palestinians and all other enemies great and small. This approach does not seem to have done much for Israel. The terrors are still there.

Someone sent me the news tape linked below from Aleppo in NW Syria. I have watched it a number of times. You need some ability in Arabic to understand it. The tape was filmed in several Christian churches in Aleppo where these two men (Soleimani and al-Muhandis) are described from the pulpit and in the street as "heroic martyr victims of criminal American state terrorism." Pompeo likes to describe Soleimani as the instigator of "massacre" and "genocide" in Syria. Strangely (irony) the Syriac, Armenian Uniate and Presbyterian ministers of the Gospel in this tape do not see him and al-Muhandis that way. They see them as men who helped to defend Aleppo and its minority populations from the wrath of Sunni jihadi Salafists like ISIS and the AQ affiliates in Syria. They see them and Lebanese Hizbullah as having helped save these Christians by fighting alongside the Syrian Army, Russia and other allies like the Druze and Christian militias.

It should be remembered that the US was intent on and may still be intent on replacing the multi-confessional government of Syria with the forces of medieval tyranny. Everyone who really knows anything about the Syrian Civil War knows that the essential character of the New Syrian Army, so beloved by McCain, Graham and the other Ziocons was always jihadi and it was always fully supported by Wahhabi Saudi Arabia as a project in establishing Sunni triumphalism. They and the self proclaimed jihadis of HTS (AQ) are still supported in Idlib and western Aleppo provinces both by the Saudis and the present Islamist and neo-Ottoman government of Turkey.

Well pilgrims, there are Christmas trees in the newly re-built Christian churches of Aleppo and these, my brothers and sisters in Christ remember who stood by them in "the last ditch."

"Currently there are at least 600 churches and 500,000–1,000,000 Christians in Iran." wiki below. Are they dhimmis? Yes, but they are there. There are no churches in Saudi Arabia, not a single one and Christianity is a banned religion. These are our allies?

Mr. Jefferson wrote that "he feared for his country when he remembered that God is just." He meant Virginia but I fear in the same way for the United States. pl

https://twitter.com/i/status/1214223383635857409

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

Posted at 02:13 PM in As The Borg Turns , Borg Wars , Current Affairs , Iran , Iraq , Israel , Middle East , Pakistan , Religion , Saudi Arabia , Syria , Yemen | Permalink

[Jan 08, 2020] Three major Trump accomplishments

Jan 08, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Bubbles , Jan 8 2020 16:29 utc | 103

arby @90

Trump has accomplished 3 things in 3 years.

1. Being Santa Claus to Netanyahu, the far right and the very rich (Generous donors)
2. Doing the impossible, making Hillary look like the better of 2 terrible choices
3. Proving 42% of the American public aren't too swift.


[Jan 08, 2020] Iraqi Journalist: Killing Soleimani "Ended An Era In Which Iran And The United States Coexisted In Iraq" by Tim Hains

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Now, he told "Democracy Now!", it will be hard for the Iraqi public to see the bases as anything but "a force that is driving them into a war between Iran and the United States." ..."
"... "Qassem Soleimani could travel openly in Iraq. I mean, remember, Qassem Soleimani arrived in Baghdad airport, where half of it is an American base. Qassem Soleimani could travel openly in Iraq. He took selfies. People took his pictures. That didn't happen in secret. Qassem Soleimani was not Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi hiding in a cave or moving stealthily through the country. He stayed in the Green Zone. So, all this happened because there was an understanding between the Americans and the Iranians. So, if the Americans wanted to keep their bases in Iraq, the Iranians would have the freedom to move. And with the killing of Soleimani, the rules of the game have totally changed," he said. ..."
Jan 06, 2020 | www.realclearpolitics.com

https://www.youtube.com/embed/TKvE-nIsj1Y?enablejsapi=1&origin=https:%2F%2Fwww.realclearpolitics.com

"The Guardian" journalist Ghaith Abdul-Ahad says that before the attack on Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad last week "there was an understanding between the Americans and the Iranians" that allowed officials from Iran and the U.S. to move freely within Iraq and maintained relative goodwill toward American bases.

"The killing of Qassem Soleimani ended an era in which both Iran and the United States coexisted in Iraq," he said.

Now, he told "Democracy Now!", it will be hard for the Iraqi public to see the bases as anything but "a force that is driving them into a war between Iran and the United States."

"Qassem Soleimani could travel openly in Iraq. I mean, remember, Qassem Soleimani arrived in Baghdad airport, where half of it is an American base. Qassem Soleimani could travel openly in Iraq. He took selfies. People took his pictures. That didn't happen in secret. Qassem Soleimani was not Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi hiding in a cave or moving stealthily through the country. He stayed in the Green Zone. So, all this happened because there was an understanding between the Americans and the Iranians. So, if the Americans wanted to keep their bases in Iraq, the Iranians would have the freedom to move. And with the killing of Soleimani, the rules of the game have totally changed," he said.

AMY GOODMAN: Ghaith, can you comment on this new information that's come to light about the timing of Soleimani's assassination Friday morning? Iraq's caretaker Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi has revealed he had plans to meet with Soleimani on the day he was killed to discuss a Saudi proposal to defuse tension in the region. Mahdi said, quote, "He came to deliver me a message from Iran responding to the message we delivered from Saudi Arabia to Iran" -- Saudi Arabia, obviously, a well-known enemy of Iran. Was he set up? Talk about the significance of this.

GHAITH ABDUL-AHAD: Well, it is very significant if it's actually General Qassem Soleimani came to Iraq to deliver this message, if it was actually there was a process of negotiations in the region. We know that Abdul-Mahdi and the Iraqi government, in general, over the last year had been trying to position Iraq as this middle power, as this power where both -- you know, as a country that has a relationship with both Iran and the United States. In that awkward place Iraq found itself in, Iraq has tried to maximize on this. So they started back in summer and fall, when there was an escalation between Iran and the United States, when Iran shot down an American drone. We've seen Adel Abdul-Mahdi fly to Iran, try to mediate. We've seen Adel Abdul-Mahdi open channels of communications with the Gulf, with Saudi Arabia.

So, if it actually, the killing of General Soleimani, ended that peace initiative, it will be kind of disastrous in the region, because, as Narges was saying earlier, it is -- you know, Pompeo is speaking about Iran being this ultimate evil in the region, as this crescent of Shias, as if they just arrived in the past 10 years in the region. The fact if we see Iran's reactions, it's always a reaction to an American provocation. You've seen the occupation of Iraq in 2003. You've seen Iran declared as an "axis of evil." So, if you see it from an Iranian perspective, it's always this existential threat coming from the United States. And I don't think there is a more existential threat than in past year. So, yes, I know -- I mean, I think Adel Abdul-Mahdi and the Iraqi government were trying to find this middle ground, which I think is totally lost, because even Adel Abdul-Mahdi, the person who was trying to find this middle ground, was the person who proposed this law yesterday in the Parliament to expel all American troops from the country.

And I would like to add like another thing. The killing of Qassem Soleimani ended an era in which both Iran and the United States coexisted in Iraq. So, from 2013, '14, we, as journalists, we've seen on the frontlines how the proxies of each power have been helping each other. So we've seen Iranian advisers helping the American-trained Iraqi Army unit or counterterrorism unit in the fight against ISIS. In the same sense, we've seen American airstrikes on threats to these -- kind of to ISIS when it was threatening these militias. That coexistence, it didn't only come from both having a -- sharing an enemy, which is ISIS, or Daesh, but also these were the rules of the game. These were the rules in which Qassem Soleimani could travel openly in Iraq. I mean, remember, Qassem Soleimani arrived in Baghdad airport, where half of it is an American base. Qassem Soleimani could travel openly in Iraq. He took selfies. People took his pictures. That didn't happen in secret. Qassem Soleimani was not Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi hiding in a cave or moving stealthily through the country. He stayed in the Green Zone. So, all this happened because there was an understanding between the Americans and the Iranians. So, if the Americans wanted to keep their bases in Iraq, the Iranians would have the freedom to move. And with the killing of Soleimani, I think the rules of the game have totally changed.

So now I think the first victim of the assassination will be the American bases in Iraq. I don't see any way where the Americans can keep their presence as they did before the assassination of Soleimani. And even the people in the streets, even the people who opposes Iran, who opposes the presence of Iranian militias in power and politics, the corruption of these pro-Iranian parties, even those people would look at these American bases now as not as a force that came to help them in the fight against ISIS, but a force that's dragging them into a war between Iran and the United States.

[Jan 08, 2020] If Dems play their cards right Trump might well be one time president

Two helicopters and several fixed wing aircraft destroyed in Kenia, several buildings demolished by Iran rockets. For what? For the the guy who was instumental in driving ISIS out of Syria and Iraq?
Jan 08, 2020 | www.theguardian.com
Democratic 2020 candidate Cory Booker just tweeted about the Capitol Hill briefing on the US-Iran crisis.
Cory Booker (@CoryBooker)

Just stepped out of a 75-minute briefing regarding President Trump's military actions in Iraq -- we were provided no evidence of an imminent threat. I remain deeply skeptical that he had justification for this attack.

[Jan 08, 2020] Trump: The American Netanyahu by Marwan Bishara

Jan 08, 2020 | www.aljazeera.com

https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/trump-american-netanyahu-200107145858311.html

On Iran and the Middle East, the Trump administration is following Israel's playbook.

US President Donald Trump and Israel's PM Benjamin Netanyahu hold up a proclamation recognising Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights on March 25, 2019 [File: Reuters/Leah Millis]
more on Soleimani assassination
Supporters of Donald Trump think of the US president as an exceptional one-of-a-kind force of nature - a sui generis leader. His detractors like to compare him to Russian President Vladimir Putin or describe him as a Putin stooge, and since he ordered the "vengeful" or "reckless" assassination of Iranian General Qassim Solemani, some have likened him to a Middle Eastern despot. But a more pertinent comparison lies elsewhere.

Since taking office in January 2017, Trump's dramatic positions and pronouncements on the Middle East and beyond have shocked and dismayed much of the US foreign policy establishment, especially on three main challenges facing the US in the region: security, diplomacy and democracy and human rights.

Trump has not only undone much of his predecessor's legacy, both domestically and internationally, he also trashed Barack Obama's doctrine and policies in favour of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu 's. For the past three years, he has been re-coupling US and Israeli strategies, especially towards Iran and the global "war on terror" which Obama spent eight years decoupling.

This is not to say, Obama was not a staunch supporter of Israel and defender of its "security" or was not trigger happy with the US drone assassination programme. He certainly was. He just did not like Netanyahu and did not appreciate his deceit.

Obama tried to pursue an independent US policy free from Israel's narrow constraints and considerations, after eight years of the Bush administration's wars and blunders in the region.

By contrast, Trump embraced all things Netanyahu as soon as he stepped into the White House.

It helped that the two men have far more in common than meets the eye.

Eerie similarities

Both men are thrice married with a history of adultery, are facing charges for misusing their office for personal gain, and have a problematic relationship with the truth.

And yet, both Netanyahu and Trump remain all too popular with their right-wing base.

Even religious fanatics, both in Israel and the US, consider these two secular, undevout, and morally challenged leaders as God's vessels on earth.

Both are able showmen , who have pursued, and mastered, populist, theatrical and divisive policies that have rallied their rightist constituencies around their populist personas.

But most importantly in this context, Trump has pursued the same ultra-nationalist securitarian, some say racist, agendas that Netanyahu has long championed in Israel and the Middle East.

This is especially important today, as both commanders-in-chief are exploiting foreign policy to deflect attention from their domestic troubles with the law.

Embracing Netanyahu's positions

Trump's knowledge of the Middle East was dismal prior to taking office. He was an empty page ready to be filled, but only with the ideas which helped guide and propel his presidential campaign towards victory, such as infringements on rights of immigrants and minorities, a ban on Muslims travelling to the US, and all things anti-Obama.

A number of Middle Eastern despots like those of Egypt and the UAE did try to fill in some of the blanks. But no one had the ability, style, record, and diligence of Netanyahu, who also enjoyed unfiltered access to the president-elect through his three ultra-Zionist lieutenants, Jared Kushner, Jason Greenblatt and David Friedman.

First among these ideas, was the radical departure from a quarter of a century of US policy towards Israel and Palestine , namely moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, accepting the legitimacy of the illegal Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian lands, abandoning the two-state solution, and recognising Israel's sovereignty over the occupied Syrian Golan Heights.

It is Netanyahu's dream come true.

Trump also embraced Netanyahu's view on the Arab world in support of friendly despots and dictators and against democracy and human rights. He aligned US policy toward the Gulf and Arab affairs with the interests of Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt and embraced Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman despite his reckless policies domestically and regionally - all in the hope of paving the way for Arab normalisation of relations with "colonial" Israel.

Another Netanyahu dream come true.

Attacking Iran

Nowhere was Netanyahu's influence on Trump more pronounced than on Iran.

The Trump administration abandoned the Iran nuclear deal against the advice and urging of its NATO allies, Russia and China.

It then pursued a punitive policy of containment through tough economic sanctions, an option unavailable to Israel, in order to strong-arm Iran into a humiliating new deal that not only bans all its nuclear activity, but also curtails its military and regional outreach.

When maximum pressure did not produce the desired results, as Iran continued its bellicose regional policies, Trump adopted both Netanyahu's means and endgame, starting with the assassination of Soleimani, widely seen as a "declaration of war" with untold consequences for the region.

Israel has been carrying out targeted killings and preemptive strikes against Iranian targets in Syria; in 2013, it was accused of being behind the killing of another Revolutionary Guard general, Hassan Shateri .

To be clear, Trump did not order the assassination to avenge the killings of countless Syrians and Iraqis; he did so to deter Iran from escalating its attacks on US interests and allies.

Although Netanyahu tried to distance himself from the targeted assassination of the Iranian general in Iraq, make no mistake, this is a third Netanyahu dream come true, in a span of three years. He is said to have been the only world leader with prior knowledge of the planned assassination.

Regional crisis

Nothing is more satisfying for an Israeli leader than having the US embrace Israel's strategy and fight Israel's wars in the region. And nothing is more dangerous for the rest of the world - we all know how the last conflict Tel Aviv incited ended in disaster in Iraq.

The last thing any Israeli leader wants is for the US to withdraw from the region, leaving Israel to fend for itself in a hostile environment. Same goes for Saudi Arabia .

That is why it is important to underline that while the Trump administration may seek to reposition its forces out of the hotspots of the Middle East, including Iraq (just as Israel redeployed out of Lebanon and Gaza) the US will still maintain formidable projection of forces throughout the region.

The question is, will this strategy enable future US diplomacy, which also served Israel's interests during the so-called "peace process", or lead to the further escalation of violence and war?

Alas, the ongoing bluster about imminent attacks, counter-attacks, and disproportionate responses and bombings of cultural sites do not bode well for diplomacy.

With naval fleets, military bases and some 60,000 troops deployed around Iran and throughout the Middle East, the Trump administration could pursue an Israel-like air-land-sea strategy of drones, fighter jets, guided missiles, cyber and Special Forces attacks and targeted assassinations that exhaust its enemies and destabilises the region as a whole.

That would be another Netanyahu dream and another Middle East nightmare come true.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Marwan Bishara Marwan Bishara

Marwan Bishara is the senior political analyst at Al Jazeera.

[Jan 08, 2020] Pompeo's Falsehood-Laden Briefing Echoed Uncritically by Media Outlets

Jan 08, 2020 | news.antiwar.com

Antiwar.com Regional News

Unbacked allegations and plain contradictions drive anti-Iran narrative Jason Ditz Posted on January 7, 2020 Categories News Tags Iran , Pompeo

As the Trump Administration continues to barrel toward a war with Iran, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo gave a press conference in which he once again claimed that every dubious accusation made by the administration was true, and the internally inconsistent comments among top officials are all somehow in agreement.

Pompeo's comments, even the ones that made no sense or were obviously untrue, were echoed across US media outlets as absolute facts following the briefing. Everyone was clearly more comfortable just reporting " Pompeo says " than analyzing it.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) was very critical of some of the worst claims Pompeo made , saying one would have to be brain-dead to believe them. He noted it made no sense to attack Iran to "preempt" attacks when the attack just made attacks even more likely.

Pompeo was largely dismissive of questions about the US attack, and rejected claims that Gen. Qassem Soleimani was working on Saudi diplomacy, saying nobody believed Soleimani was engaged in diplomacy and that Iranian FM was lying about that. In reality, Iraq's PM Adel Abdul Mahdi was the one who broke the story of why Soleimani was in Iraq. Instead of evidence to the contrary, Pompeo just denied.

On the question of the US barring Zarif from the UN in violation of the headquarters agreement, Pompeo said the US doesn't comment on why they deny people entrance, and insisted that the US always complies with the headquarters agreement, despite it flat out saying you can't block officials from speaking at the UN, and the US doing exactly that.

The closest anyone at the briefing came to calling Pompeo on his contradictions was on the matter of the US attacking cultural sites. President Trump threatened to attack Iranian cultural sites on Saturday, Pompeo said Trump never said that on Sunday, and Trump said it again on Sunday evening. Pompeo was asked to address this.

Pompeo said that what he said, that Trump never said there would be attacks on cultural sites, was "completely consistent with what the President has said," which repeatedly was that he intends to attack cultural sites. This was a bit too glaring, and one of the press said "No, but the President has -" before being interrupted by Pompeo.

At this point, Pompeo went off on a tangent claiming that the ayatollah is the "real threat" to Iranian culture. When asked if that meant US attacks on cultural sites are "ruled out," despite Trump's comments, Pompeo promptly ended the briefing and left.

Secretary of Defense Mark Esper also claimed on Tuesday that Soleimani was planning to attack Americans "within days" if the US hadn't killed him. As with Pompeo, his claim did not include any evidence, and ask with Pompeo's claims, the press is echoing it.

[Jan 08, 2020] Assassination of Soleimani was done on false pretences much like Bush II Iraq war justification. Trump abused his power and now needs to be impeached

The neocon cabal of Pompeo, Ester and O'bian needs to be fired immediately and investigated by FBI.
Notable quotes:
"... As for the war powers resolution justification provided by the administration, that legislation was not designed to alter the fundamental constitutional balance, but to restore it, Healy says. Critically, it does not give presidents a free pass to carry out military action for 60 days without congressional approval, as some have suggested. ..."
"... The war powers resolution itself was introduced after Congress discovered Nixon's secret war in Cambodia in 1973. It was designed to allow Congress to terminate any unauthorized actions taken by the executive branch and to require transparency. If the president responds to any "imminent threat" not covered by an existing statute or law authorizing use of force, then the president must within 48 hours report to Congress what actions have been taken. ..."
"... "With the Soleimani strike, the administration is saying they're responding to an imminent threat, but they have not publicly stated what that threat is," said Kate Kizer, policy director at Win Without War, in an interview with TAC. "From reporting, there's not a lot of evidence of an imminent attack. So they should have come to Congress first and said what they were going to do." ..."
"... The Constitution clearly gives the power to declare war to Congress. Article II states that the president can act without Congress only when it is necessary to do so against imminent threats to U.S. territories, possessions, or citizens.​ ..."
Jan 08, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com
claims the strike was "authorized" in part by the 2002 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), which provided the legal basis for the war in Iraq. ​

"Unless Trump is using his presidential sharpie, it's not at all clear how this 17-year-old statute authorizes what seems to be a major escalation that could start a whole new war," said Gene Healy, vice president of the Cato Institute, in an interview with The American Conservative. ​

As for the war powers resolution justification provided by the administration, that legislation was not designed to alter the fundamental constitutional balance, but to restore it, Healy says. Critically, it does not give presidents a free pass to carry out military action for 60 days without congressional approval, as some have suggested.

The war powers resolution itself was introduced after Congress discovered Nixon's secret war in Cambodia in 1973. It was designed to allow Congress to terminate any unauthorized actions taken by the executive branch and to require transparency. If the president responds to any "imminent threat" not covered by an existing statute or law authorizing use of force, then the president must within 48 hours report to Congress what actions have been taken.

In the case of Soleimani, "the Pentagon statement doesn't mention any imminent attacks," notes Healy . Secretary of State Mike ​ "Pompeo says Soleimani was planning an attack that could have killed hundreds of lives, but he's provided no evidence for that. I think it's hardly cynical to verify, instead of blindly trusting, given the track record of this administration and recent past administrations."

"With the Soleimani strike, the administration is saying they're responding to an imminent threat, but they have not publicly stated what that threat is," said Kate Kizer, policy director at Win Without War, in an interview with TAC. "From reporting, there's not a lot of evidence of an imminent attack. So they should have come to Congress first and said what they were going to do."

​That's because there's ​simply ​ " no viable argument " that the 2002 AUMF authorizes force against Iran ​, according to ​ Brian Egan, a former legal adviser to both the State Department ​ and the NSC, and ​Tess Bridgeman, a senior fellow at NYU School of Law and former a ssociate ​c​ ounsel to the ​p​ resident. ​ ​

The 2002 AUMF allows the president to "defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq " and "enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions against Iraq " ​ ( e mphasis added ).

"Those are plainly not relevant to the situation" today, Egan and Bridgeman write.​

The ​Trump administration also said it does not ​"​ need congressional sign off from a legal standpoint" for the Soleimani strike because ​of the president's authority​ as​ commander-in-chief under Article II of the Constitution ​, CNN reported.

The Constitution clearly gives the power to declare war to Congress. Article II states that the president can act without Congress only when it is necessary to do so against imminent threats to U.S. territories, possessions, or citizens.​

That's why Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Pentagon chief Mark Esper, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley were so emphatic Monday that the U.S. was responding to an "imminent threat."​ But so far, no evidence of that has been provided.

​While a 2018 Office of Legal Council (OLC) opinion offers a very liberal definition of executive authority and provides ​ " very little constraint on modern presidential uses of force," it appears to classify the Soleimani strike as an act of war, since Iran is a nation state that will likely escalate its military retaliation in response to the killing of their uniformed military member.

Indeed, the U.S. has already said it will send 3,500 additional troops to the Middle East "after Iran vowed to exact 'severe revenge.'" ​The U.S. has warned its citizens to leave Iraq​, and Iran has already begun firing at housing for American forces in Iraq: all signs that point to escalation.

Moreover, targeted political assassinations, like the kind used against Soleimani, have been banned by executive order since the Ford administration. Ronald Reagan signed Executive Order 12333, which reads: "No person employed by or acting on behalf of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, assassination."

Soleimani was "not a rogue outlaw, but a military official of a sovereign government we were not at war with, making his killing an assassination," writes Ben Friedman, policy director at Defense Priorities. "His actions, however evil, served Iranian policy."

"The idea that the president can, without going to Congress, take out a top level official of a country we're not in an authorized war with, is crossing a Rubicon," said Healy.

So what happens now?

Congress has several choices to make in the days ahead. It can pass empty, non-binding resolutions, that require the president's sign-off, like the kind suggested by Kaine and Pelosi. Or it can repeal the decades-old AUMFs that have been used to justify continuing U.S. escalations in the Middle East. Congress could also pass bills like those by Representative Khanna and Senator Sanders to strip funding for offensive military action against Iran from the NDAA.

It remains to be seen if Congress will choose substantive actions, like defunding unauthorized wars, over window dressing.

[Jan 08, 2020] "Debt Wish 2020" Did Iran strike affects dollar status as the world reserve currency, because it is a clear sign the the period of the USA absolute hegemony after the dissolution of the USSR came the end?

Jan 08, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

karlof1 , Jan 8 2020 0:02 utc | 110

psychohistorian @88--

What was your take on "Debt Wish 2020"?

Jezabeel @82--

"U.S. Economic Warfare and Likely Foreign Defenses" provides numerous methods besides simply the cessation of dollar use for international commercial transactions. Along with watching the "Debt Wish 2020" vid linked above, I also suggest reading/watching this program . And lastly, I suggest reading this analysis here , although it only tangentially deals with your question.

[Jan 08, 2020] Trump: The American Netanyahu

Jan 08, 2020 | www.aljazeera.com

https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/trump-american-netanyahu-200107145858311.html

https://twitter.com/Tweeterist_

On Iran and the Middle East, the Trump administration is following Israel's playbook.

Marwan Bishara by Marwan Bishara 11 hours ago
US President Donald Trump and Israel's PM Benjamin Netanyahu hold up a proclamation recognising Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights on March 25, 2019 [File: Reuters/Leah Millis]
US President Donald Trump and Israel's PM Benjamin Netanyahu hold up a proclamation recognising Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights on March 25, 2019 [File: Reuters/Leah Millis]
more on Soleimani assassination
Supporters of Donald Trump think of the US president as an exceptional one-of-a-kind force of nature - a sui generis leader. His detractors like to compare him to Russian President Vladimir Putin or describe him as a Putin stooge, and since he ordered the "vengeful" or "reckless" assassination of Iranian General Qassim Solemani, some have likened him to a Middle Eastern despot. But a more pertinent comparison lies elsewhere.

Since taking office in January 2017, Trump's dramatic positions and pronouncements on the Middle East and beyond have shocked and dismayed much of the US foreign policy establishment, especially on three main challenges facing the US in the region: security, diplomacy and democracy and human rights.

Trump has not only undone much of his predecessor's legacy, both domestically and internationally, he also trashed Barack Obama's doctrine and policies in favour of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu 's. For the past three years, he has been re-coupling US and Israeli strategies, especially towards Iran and the global "war on terror" which Obama spent eight years decoupling.

This is not to say, Obama was not a staunch supporter of Israel and defender of its "security" or was not trigger happy with the US drone assassination programme. He certainly was. He just did not like Netanyahu and did not appreciate his deceit.

Obama tried to pursue an independent US policy free from Israel's narrow constraints and considerations, after eight years of the Bush administration's wars and blunders in the region.

By contrast, Trump embraced all things Netanyahu as soon as he stepped into the White House.

It helped that the two men have far more in common than meets the eye.

Eerie similarities

Both men are thrice married with a history of adultery, are facing charges for misusing their office for personal gain, and have a problematic relationship with the truth.

And yet, both Netanyahu and Trump remain all too popular with their right-wing base.

Even religious fanatics, both in Israel and the US, consider these two secular, undevout, and morally challenged leaders as God's vessels on earth.

Both are able showmen , who have pursued, and mastered, populist, theatrical and divisive policies that have rallied their rightist constituencies around their populist personas.

But most importantly in this context, Trump has pursued the same ultra-nationalist securitarian, some say racist, agendas that Netanyahu has long championed in Israel and the Middle East.

This is especially important today, as both commanders-in-chief are exploiting foreign policy to deflect attention from their domestic troubles with the law.

Embracing Netanyahu's positions

Trump's knowledge of the Middle East was dismal prior to taking office. He was an empty page ready to be filled, but only with the ideas which helped guide and propel his presidential campaign towards victory, such as infringements on rights of immigrants and minorities, a ban on Muslims travelling to the US, and all things anti-Obama.

A number of Middle Eastern despots like those of Egypt and the UAE did try to fill in some of the blanks. But no one had the ability, style, record, and diligence of Netanyahu, who also enjoyed unfiltered access to the president-elect through his three ultra-Zionist lieutenants, Jared Kushner, Jason Greenblatt and David Friedman.

First among these ideas, was the radical departure from a quarter of a century of US policy towards Israel and Palestine , namely moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, accepting the legitimacy of the illegal Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian lands, abandoning the two-state solution, and recognising Israel's sovereignty over the occupied Syrian Golan Heights.

It is Netanyahu's dream come true.

Trump also embraced Netanyahu's view on the Arab world in support of friendly despots and dictators and against democracy and human rights. He aligned US policy toward the Gulf and Arab affairs with the interests of Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt and embraced Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman despite his reckless policies domestically and regionally - all in the hope of paving the way for Arab normalisation of relations with "colonial" Israel.

Another Netanyahu dream come true.

Attacking Iran

Nowhere was Netanyahu's influence on Trump more pronounced than on Iran.

The Trump administration abandoned the Iran nuclear deal against the advice and urging of its NATO allies, Russia and China.

It then pursued a punitive policy of containment through tough economic sanctions, an option unavailable to Israel, in order to strong-arm Iran into a humiliating new deal that not only bans all its nuclear activity, but also curtails its military and regional outreach.

When maximum pressure did not produce the desired results, as Iran continued its bellicose regional policies, Trump adopted both Netanyahu's means and endgame, starting with the assassination of Soleimani, widely seen as a "declaration of war" with untold consequences for the region.

Israel has been carrying out targeted killings and preemptive strikes against Iranian targets in Syria; in 2013, it was accused of being behind the killing of another Revolutionary Guard general, Hassan Shateri .

To be clear, Trump did not order the assassination to avenge the killings of countless Syrians and Iraqis; he did so to deter Iran from escalating its attacks on US interests and allies.

Although Netanyahu tried to distance himself from the targeted assassination of the Iranian general in Iraq, make no mistake, this is a third Netanyahu dream come true, in a span of three years. He is said to have been the only world leader with prior knowledge of the planned assassination.

Regional crisis

Nothing is more satisfying for an Israeli leader than having the US embrace Israel's strategy and fight Israel's wars in the region. And nothing is more dangerous for the rest of the world - we all know how the last conflict Tel Aviv incited ended in disaster in Iraq.

The last thing any Israeli leader wants is for the US to withdraw from the region, leaving Israel to fend for itself in a hostile environment. Same goes for Saudi Arabia .

That is why it is important to underline that while the Trump administration may seek to reposition its forces out of the hotspots of the Middle East, including Iraq (just as Israel redeployed out of Lebanon and Gaza) the US will still maintain formidable projection of forces throughout the region.

The question is, will this strategy enable future US diplomacy, which also served Israel's interests during the so-called "peace process", or lead to the further escalation of violence and war?

Alas, the ongoing bluster about imminent attacks, counter-attacks, and disproportionate responses and bombings of cultural sites do not bode well for diplomacy.

With naval fleets, military bases and some 60,000 troops deployed around Iran and throughout the Middle East, the Trump administration could pursue an Israel-like air-land-sea strategy of drones, fighter jets, guided missiles, cyber and Special Forces attacks and targeted assassinations that exhaust its enemies and destabilises the region as a whole.

That would be another Netanyahu dream and another Middle East nightmare come true.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Marwan Bishara Marwan Bishara

Marwan Bishara is the senior political analyst at Al Jazeera.

[Jan 07, 2020] a popular figure

Notable quotes:
"... Naturally, we learned soon after from the Iraqi PM himself that Soleimani was in Iraq as part of a diplomatic effort to de-escalate tensions. In other words, he was apparently lured to Baghdad under false pretenses so he'd be a sitting duck for a U.S. strike. Never let the truth get in the way of a good story. ..."
"... As you'd expect, some of the most ridiculous propaganda came from Mike Pompeo, a man who genuinely loves deception and considers it his craft.. For example: ..."
"... Moving on to the really big question: what does this assassination mean for the future role of the U.S. in the Middle East and American global hegemony generally? A few important things have already occurred. For starters, the Iraqi parliament passed a resolution calling for U.S. troops to leave. Even more important are the comments and actions of Muqtada al-Sadr. ..."
"... Unmentioned in the above tweet, but extremely significant, is the fact al-Sadr has been a vocal critic of both the American and Iranian presence in Iraq. He doesn't want either country meddling in the affairs of Iraqis, but the Soleimani assassination clearly pushed him to focus on the U.S. presence. This is a very big deal and ensures Iraq will be far more dangerous for U.S. troops than it already was. ..."
Jan 07, 2020 | twitter.com

Before discussing what happens next and the big picture implications, it's worth pointing out the incredible number of blatant lies and overall clownishness that emerged from U.S. officials in the assassination's aftermath. It started with claims from Trump that Soleimani was plotting imminent attacks on Americans and was caught in the act. Mass media did its job and uncritically parroted this line, which was quickly exposed as a complete falsehood.

CNN anchor uncritically repeating government lies.
This is what mass media does to get wars going. https://t.co/QK1JET7TIj

-- Michael Krieger (@LibertyBlitz) January 6, 2020

It's incredibly telling that CNN would swallow this fact-free claim with total credulity within weeks of discovering the extent of the lies told about Syrian chemical attacks and the Afghanistan war . Meanwhile, when a reporter asked a state department official for some clarification on what sorts of attacks were imminent, this is what transpired.

When asked by a reporter for details about what kinds of imminent attacks Soleimani was planning, the State Dept. responds with:

"Jesus, do we have to explain why we do these things?"

Totally normal. pic.twitter.com/FDWtpfItEp

-- Michael Krieger (@LibertyBlitz) January 6, 2020

Naturally, we learned soon after from the Iraqi PM himself that Soleimani was in Iraq as part of a diplomatic effort to de-escalate tensions. In other words, he was apparently lured to Baghdad under false pretenses so he'd be a sitting duck for a U.S. strike. Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.

Iraqi Prime Minister AbdulMahdi accuses Trump of deceiving him in order to assassinate Suleimani. Trump, according to P.M. lied about wanting a diplomatic solution in order to get Suleimani on a plane to Baghdad in the open, where he was summarily executed. https://t.co/HKjyQqXNqP

-- Joshua Landis (@joshua_landis) January 5, 2020

As you'd expect, some of the most ridiculous propaganda came from Mike Pompeo, a man who genuinely loves deception and considers it his craft.. For example:

Pompeo on CNN says US has "every expectation" that people "in Iran will view the American action last night as giving them freedom."

-- Josh Lederman (@JoshNBCNews) January 3, 2020

Then there's what actually happened.

Absolutely massive crowds on the streets of Mashhad awaiting the arrival of Qassem Suleimani.

"We are ready for war." pic.twitter.com/ZK4O8KQB17

-- Sam (@sonofnariman) January 5, 2020

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Qassem Soleimani's daughter Zeinab were among the hundreds of thousands mourning Soleimani in Tehran today. Iranian state TV put the crowd size at 'millions,' though that number could not be verified. https://t.co/R6EbKh6Gow

-- CBC News Alerts (@CBCAlerts) January 6, 2020

Moving on to the really big question: what does this assassination mean for the future role of the U.S. in the Middle East and American global hegemony generally? A few important things have already occurred. For starters, the Iraqi parliament passed a resolution calling for U.S. troops to leave. Even more important are the comments and actions of Muqtada al-Sadr.

WOW,

Iraqi Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr orders the return of "Mahdi Army" in response the American strike that killed Suleimani.

Mahdi Army fought against the US troops during the invasion in 2003. Sadr disbanded the group in 2008.

-- Ragıp Soylu (@ragipsoylu) January 3, 2020

Unmentioned in the above tweet, but extremely significant, is the fact al-Sadr has been a vocal critic of both the American and Iranian presence in Iraq. He doesn't want either country meddling in the affairs of Iraqis, but the Soleimani assassination clearly pushed him to focus on the U.S. presence. This is a very big deal and ensures Iraq will be far more dangerous for U.S. troops than it already was.

Going forward, Iran's response will be influenced to a great degree by what's already transpired. There are three things worth noting. First, although many Trump supporters are cheering the assassination, Americans are certainly nowhere near united on this , with many including myself viewing it as a gigantic strategic blunder. Second, it ratcheted up anti-American sentiment in Iraq to a huge degree without Iran having to do anything, as highlighted above. Third, hardliners within Iran have been given an enormous gift. With one drone strike, the situation went from grumblings and protests on the ground to a scene where any sort of dissent in the air has been extinguished for the time being.

Exactly right, which is why Iran will go more hardline if anything and more united.
If China admitted to taking out Trump even Maddow wouldn't cheer. https://t.co/zqaEDIoWH1

-- Michael Krieger (@LibertyBlitz) January 6, 2020

Iranian leadership will see these developments as important victories in their own right and will likely craft a response taking stock of this much improved position. This means a total focus on making the experience of American troops in the region untenable, which will be far easier to achieve now.

If that's right, you can expect less shock and awe in the near-term, and more consolidation of the various parties that were on the fence but have since shifted to a more anti-American stance following Soleimani's death. Iran will start with the easy pickings, which consists of consolidating its stronger position in Iraq and making dissidents feel shameful at home. That said, Iran will have to publicly respond with some sort of a counterattack, but that event will be carefully considered with Iran's primary objective in mind -- getting U.S. troops out of the region.

This means no attacks on U.S. or European soil, and no attacks targeting civilians either. Such a move would be as strategically counterproductive as Assad gassing Syrian cities after he was winning the war (which is why many of us doubted the narrative) since it would merely inflame American public opinion and give an excuse to attack Iran in Iran. There is no way Iranian leadership is that stupid, so any such attack must be treated with the utmost skepticism.

[Jan 07, 2020] The neocon foreign policy brings only bankruptcy moral and financial by Ron Paul

Jan 06, 2020 | www.unz.com

President Trump and his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told us the US had to assassinate Maj. Gen. Qassim Soleimani last week because he was planning "Imminent attacks" on US citizens. I don't believe them.

Why not? Because Trump and the neocons – like Pompeo – have been lying about Iran for the past three years in an effort to whip up enough support for a US attack. From the phony justification to get out of the Iran nuclear deal, to blaming Yemen on Iran, to blaming Iran for an attack on Saudi oil facilities, the US Administration has fed us a steady stream of lies for three years because they are obsessed with Iran.

And before Trump's obsession with attacking Iran, the past four US Administrations lied ceaselessly to bring about wars on Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Serbia, Somalia, and the list goes on.

At some point, when we've been lied to constantly and consistently for decades about a "threat" that we must "take out" with a military attack, there comes a time where we must assume they are lying until they provide rock solid, irrefutable proof. Thus far they have provided nothing. So I don't believe them.

President Trump has warned that his administration has already targeted 52 sites important to Iran and Iranian culture and the US will attack them if Iran retaliates for the assassination of Gen. Soleimani. Because Iran has no capacity to attack the United States, Iran's retaliation if it comes will likely come against US troops or US government officials stationed or visiting the Middle East. I have a very easy solution for President Trump that will save the lives of American servicemembers and other US officials: just come home. There is absolutely no reason for US troops to be stationed throughout the Middle East to face increased risk of death for nothing.

In our Ron Paul Liberty Report program last week we observed that the US attack on a senior Iranian military officer on Iraqi soil – over the objection of the Iraq government – would serve to finally unite the Iraqi factions against the United States. And so it has: on Sunday the Iraqi parliament voted to expel US troops from Iraqi soil. It may have been a non-binding resolution, but there is no mistaking the sentiment. US troops are not wanted and they are increasingly in danger. So why not listen to the Iraqi parliament?

Bring our troops home, close the US Embassy in Baghdad – a symbol of our aggression – and let the people of the Middle East solve their own problems. Maintain a strong defense to protect the United States, but end this neocon pipe-dream of ruling the world from the barrel of a gun. It does not work. It makes us poorer and more vulnerable to attack. It makes the elites of Washington rich while leaving working and middle class America with the bill. It engenders hatred and a desire for revenge among those who have fallen victim to US interventionist foreign policy. And it results in millions of innocents being killed overseas.

There is no benefit to the United States to trying to run the world. Such a foreign policy brings only bankruptcy – moral and financial. Tell Congress and the Administration that for America's sake we demand the return of US troops from the Middle East! (Republished from The Ron Paul Institute by permission of author or representative)

[Jan 06, 2020] But they could always find an un-scorched Iranian passport in mint condition among the debris of the explosion.

Jan 06, 2020 | www.unz.com

Commentator Mike , says: Show Comment January 5, 2020 at 9:08 pm GMT

@Bookish1

Not only Mossad but probably many others would like to see a suicide bomber blow himself up somewhere in the US killing alot of people. That makes it difficult to figure out who did it and maybe impossible to figure it out. It would be a mess.

But they could always find an un-scorched Iranian passport in mint condition among the debris of the explosion.

[Jan 06, 2020] Whether he is eating ice cream or not, Trump appears to be on a rampage to recreate the end of The Godfather.

Jan 06, 2020 | www.unz.com

Cloak And Dagger , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 12:16 am GMT

Doubling down on stupid:

Whether he is eating ice cream or not, Trump appears to be on a rampage to recreate the end of The Godfather.

Less than 24 hours after a US drone shockingly killed the top Iranian military leader, Qasem Soleimani, resulting in equity markets groaning around the globe in fear over Iranian reprisals (and potentially, World War III), the US has gone for round two with Reuters and various other social media sources reporting that US air strikes targeting Iraq's Popular Mobilization Units umbrella grouping of Iran-backed Shi'ite militias near camp Taji north of Baghdad, have killed six people and critically wounded three, an Iraqi army source said late on Friday.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/round-two-us-drone-airstrikes-kill-six-pro-iran-militia-commanders

Gleimhart Mantooso , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 12:55 am GMT
Now would be the perfect time for the Mossad to do its false flag shtick. They wouldn't even have to try very hard to pin it on Iran. I'll bet that when the news came out that the Iranian guy had been killed, every neocon on the planet popped a boner that will last for days. Michael Ledeen is probably mazel tov-ing his ass off.

I don't care about the dead Muslim who got killed, since that's the only kind of "good Muslim" you're ever going to find, but I would still prefer for the U.S. to get out of the Middle East altogether. Let those two warring anti-Christ peoples kill each other to their hearts' content.

[Jan 06, 2020] Adam Schiff Demands Public Hearings on Soleimani Strike and suggested Secretary of State Mike Pompeo misrepresented intelligence indicating that killing Soleimani saved American lives.

Jan 06, 2020 | www.breitbart.com

"I think there should be open hearings on this subject," Schiff told the Washington Post in an interview published Monday. "The president has put us on a path where we may be at war with Iran. That requires the Congress to fully engage."

Asked for his thoughts on President Trump warning Iran that the U.S. will hit 52 sites, including cultural sites, if Tehran retaliates the California Democrat said: "None of that could come out of the Pentagon. Absolutely no way."

... ... ...

Schiff 's comments to the Post come after he suggested Secretary of State Mike Pompeo misrepresented intelligence indicating that killing Soleimani saved American lives.

"It was a reckless decision that increased the risk to America all around the world, not decreased it. When Secretary Pompeo says that this decision to take out Qasem Soleimani saved American lives, saved European lives, he is expressing a personal opinion, not an intelligence conclusion," he told CNN State of the Union host Jake Tapper. "I think it will increase the risk to Americans around the world. I have not seen the intelligence that taking out Soleimani was going to either stop the plotting that is going on or decrease other risks to the United States."

[Jan 06, 2020] Warren Questions if Soleimani Strike Linked to Impeachment -- Look at the Timing Breitbart

Notable quotes:
"... Follow Pam Key On Twitter @pamkeyNEN ..."
Jan 06, 2020 | www.breitbart.com

On Sunday's broadcast of CNN's "State of the Union," 2020 Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) questioned if President Donald Trump's reasons for the Qasem Soleimani assassination was to distract from impeachment.

Warren said, "I think that the question that we ought to focus on is why now? Why not a month ago, and why not a month from now? And the answer from the administration seems to be that they can't keep their story straight on this. They pointed in all different directions. And you know, the last time that we watched them do this was the summer over Ukraine. As soon as people started asking about the conversations between Donald Trump and the president of Ukraine and why aid had been held up to Ukraine, the administration did the same thing. They pointed in all directions of what was going on. And of course, what emerged then is that this is Donald Trump just trying to advance Donald Trump's own political agenda. Not the agenda of the United States of America. So what happens right now? Next week, the president of the United States could be facing an impeachment trial in the Senate. We know that he is deeply upset about that. I think that people are reasonably asking why this moment? Why does he pick now to take this highly inflammatory, highly dangerous action that moves us closer to war? We have been at war for 20 years in the Middle East, and we need to stop the war this the Middle East and not expand it."

Tapper asked, "Are you suggesting that President Trump pulled the trigger and had Qasem Soleimani killed as a distraction from impeachment?"

Warren said, "Look, I think that people are reasonably asking about the timing and why it is that the administration seems to have all kinds of different answers. In the first 48 hours after this attack, what did we hear? Well, we heard it was for an imminent attack, and then we heard, no, no, it is to prevent any future attack, and then we heard that it is from the vice president himself and no, it is related to 9/11, and then we heard from president reports of people in the intelligence community saying that the whole, that the threat was overblown. You know, when the administration doesn't seem to have a coherent answer for taking a step like this. They have taken a step that moves us closer to war, a step that puts everyone at risk, and step that puts the military at risk and puts the diplomats in the region at risk. And we have already paid a huge price for this war. Thousands of American lives lost, and a cost that we have paid domestically and around the world. At the same time, look at what it has done in the Middle East, millions of people who have been killed, who have been injured, who have been displaced. So this is not a moment when the president should be escalating tensions and moving us to war. The job of the president is to keep us safe, and that means move back from the edge."

Tapper pressed, "Do you believe that President Trump pulled the trigger on this operation as a way to distract from impeachment? Is that what you think?"

Warren said, "I think it is a reasonable question to ask, particularly when the administration immediately after having taken this decision offers a bunch of contradictory explanations for what is going on."

She continued, "I think it is the right question to ask. We will get more information as we go forward but look at the timing on this. Look at what Donald Trump has said afterward and his administration. They have pointed in multiple directions. There is a reason that he chose this moment, not a month ago and not a month from now, not a less aggressive and less dangerous response. He had a whole range of responses that were presented to him. He didn't pick one of the other ones. He picked the most aggressive and the one that moves us closer to war. So what does everybody talk about today? Are we going to war? Are we going to have another five years, tens, ten years of war in the Middle East, and dragged in once again. Are we bringing another generation of young people into war? That is every bit of the conversation right now. Donald Trump has taken an extraordinarily reckless step, and we have seen it before, he is using foreign policy and uses whatever he can to advance the interests of Donald Trump."

Follow Pam Key On Twitter @pamkeyNEN

[Jan 06, 2020] Trump's Cartoon Imperialism and War Crimes by Daniel Larrison

Notable quotes:
"... Such a move could be considered a war crime under international laws, but Mr. Trump said Sunday that he was undeterred. ..."
Jan 06, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

he Iraqi parliament approved a measure that called for an end to the U.S. military presence in Iraq. The prime minister spoke in favor of a departure of U.S. forces, and it seems very likely that U.S. forces will be required to leave the country in the near future. The president's response to this was in keeping with his cartoon imperialist attitudes about other countries:

Trump threatens Iraq with sanctions if they expel US troops: "If they do ask us to leave, if we don't do it in a very friendly basis. We will charge them sanctions like they've never seen before ever. It'll make Iranian sanctions look somewhat tame."

-- Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) January 6, 2020

Trump doesn't see other countries as genuinely sovereign, and he doesn't respect their decisions when they run counter to what he wants, so his first instinct when they choose something he dislikes is to punish them. Economic war has been his preferred method of punishment, and he has applied this in the form of tariffs or sanctions depending on the target. Iraq's government is sick of repeated U.S. violations of Iraqi sovereignty, and the U.S. strikes over the last week have strengthened the existing movement to remove U.S. forces from the country. One might think that Trump would jump at the chance to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq and Syria that the Iraqi parliament's action gives him. It would have been better to leave of our own accord before destroying the relationship with Baghdad, but it might be the only good thing to come out of this disaster. It is telling that Trump's reaction to this news is not to seize the opportunity but to threaten Iraq instead. Needless to say, there is absolutely no legitimate basis for imposing sanctions on Iraq, and if Trump did this it would be one more example of how the U.S. is flagrantly abusing its power to bully and attack smaller states.

In another instance of the president's crude cartoon imperialism, he repeated his threat to target Iran's cultural heritage sites:

President Trump on Sunday evening doubled down on his claim that he would target Iranian cultural sites if Iran retaliated for the targeted killing of one of its top generals, breaking with his secretary of state over the issue.

Aboard Air Force One on his way back from his holiday trip to Florida, Mr. Trump reiterated to reporters traveling with him the spirit of a Twitter post on Saturday, when he said that the United States government had identified 52 sites for retaliation against Iran if there were a response to Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani's death. Some, he tweeted, were of "cultural" significance.

Such a move could be considered a war crime under international laws, but Mr. Trump said Sunday that he was undeterred.

OrthoAnabaptist • 19 hours ago

When o when will this man leave the stage? Who oh who will stand up against him and save the world from this man? God have mercy on us all and deliver us from this anti-christ.
Brandon Falusi • 18 hours ago
Trump really really enjoyed telling his "Black Jack Pershing's bullets dipped in pig's blood" fairy tales during the campaign, and so did the rallygoers. He loves reveling in the amoral gutter, and his base loves him unconditionally. Ailes, Limbaugh, O'Reilly, Hannity, and now Trump: their aggresive, barbaric, venal leaders and spokesmen. Whaddayagonnado? They can't help it. They follow the guy who calls the opposition within his own party "human scum." Takes one to know one, right? That's right. Trump is a visceral hedonist, so yes, he likes aggression.
Clyde Schechter • 17 hours ago
Bravo, Mr. Larison! Well said!

As reactions are emerging around the world, it seems pretty clear that the US will be almost completely isolated in this situation. Europe may finally be growing a spine.

Most interesting is the reaction from the UK. Dominic Raab initially made some "balanced" remarks pointing out that Soleimani was a bad actor but counseling restraint. The next day, presumably under directions from Boris Johnson, he retracted that and said that the UK is on the same page as the US. This is a portent of things to come. I think that most people who voted for Brexit did so because they wanted to take back their sovereignty from Brussels. But this weekend is probably the first step in the UK's march towards becoming, in practical terms, a US colony. The UK's economy and other influence are simply not large enough to stand alone against those of the US, the EU, and China. They will be in something of a beggars can't be choosers position when negotiating trade deals with these larger entities. They can expect the EU to do them no favors given their chaotic dealings with them. China will probably take a pragmatic approach to them. Their best hope for favorable treatment is with the United States, and Johnson has fawned over Trump enough to have reason to believe it might happen. But it also entails that the UK will not be free to dissent from US foreign policy in the slightest way. In fact, if we end up in a conventional war with Iran, I suspect that the UK will be the only nation in the world that sends troops there with us. (The UAE, Israel and the Saudis will, of course, cheer us on, even goad us, but will not risk any of their own blood.) I wonder how Brexit supporters will feel about that. At least Brussels never dragged them into any stupid wars.

Remember this date. It marks the date the UK began its journey from the frying pan into the fire.

SFBay1949 • 15 hours ago
At this point the question is, can Trump have even a vaguely normal conversation about anything? Certainly not foreign policy. Just how much of this manure can he spew before the Republican Party responds? My guess is they've gone so far past the point of normal that there's no coming back This is both sad and frightening.
Begemot • 15 hours ago
One common response to Trump's threat to attack Iranian cultural sites is that the military would not carry out such obviously illegal orders

I wouldn't put any hope in the US military disobeying such orders. It's not what they are really trained for. They may pay lip service to having respect for laws of war but they won't actually pay any attention to them. Respect for culture? Remember Dresden? The crude barbarism of Sherman and Sheridan is the spirit of the US military.

Daniel (not Larrison) • 9 hours ago
As a conservative (not a Republican, but certainly not a Democrat) who cannot abide thinking of any of the democratic candidates as President, I would love to see impeachment. Mike Pence would be infinitely preferable as President to this little psychopathic bully.

Seriously, the last few days should principled non-interventionists know that Trump is empjatically not one of us. He'd gladly sabotage the future of the United States on the alter of his own ego.

K squared • 8 hours ago
Vandal
Fran Macadam • 7 hours ago
"He sees war only in the crudest terms of plunder and atrocity."

It's a blunt but true observation. We spend most of our time justifying wars as noble and moral, using euphemism to disguise the reality to ourselves and others. Two cheers for being truthful.

I also note that destroying cultural monuments is claimed to be a war crime, while inevitable civilian deaths are just acceptable collateral damage.

Let's not pretend that the long history of the imperial coveting of either Iraq's or Iran's resources has ever been much more than plunder, often making use of atrocity. What doesn't qualify as that, is great game imperialist jockeying for geostrategic advantage against commercial rivals.

Of course "things" would be sacrosanct, while human lives are not, in the wholly materialist calculus of warmongering.o

FL_Cottonmouth • 7 hours ago
Attacking cultural-heritage sites, Pres. Trump? Like what the Taliban did to the Buddhas of Bamyan? Or what ISIS did to ancient art, architecture, and artifacts in Mosul, Palmyra, Raqqa, and more? What a barbarian!
Fuzzy • 6 hours ago
I think he has finally crossed the line. There really IS something wrong with him and he should be removed from office.
kouroi • 6 hours ago
Will Congress dare to eliminate funds for the occupation of Iraq and for attacking Iran? Will all those that would vote for continuation of funding will be removed from office through elections, in the very gerrymandered locales, in a FPTP system, with no ability to leave work early to go to vote, with so many disenfranchised? The system is fully rigged to be a dictatorship all but in name...
Daniel (not Larrison) • 6 hours ago
Another thing: Trump's decrying of the Iraqi war was merely a way he could rail at the other Republican candidates. If the establishment was for it, he was against it. That's how he works.

Maybe he fools himself into thinking he's got principles. Maybe he even thinks he has a coherent foreign policy (or policy of any kind). But no, he's just narcissism and id all the way down.

There's still no border wall. Still troops in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Planned Parenthood is still funded.

Oh, but he waves the flag, doesn't he? That makes up for everything...right?

[Jan 06, 2020] How To Avoid Swallowing War Propaganda by Nathan J. Robinson

Highly recommended!
Jan 05, 2020 | www.currentaffairs.org
The Trump administration has assassinated Iran's top military leader, Qassim Suleimani, and with the possibility of a serious escalation in violent conflict, it's a good time to think about how propaganda works and train ourselves to avoid accidentally swallowing it.

The Iraq War, the bloodiest and costliest U.S. foreign policy calamity of the 21 st century, happened in part because the population of the United States was insufficiently cynical about its government and got caught up in a wave of nationalistic fervor. The same thing happened with World War I and the Vietnam War. Since a U.S./Iran war would be a disaster, it is vital that everyone make sure they do not accidentally end up repeating the kinds of talking points that make war more likely.

Let us bear in mind, then, some of the basic lessons about war propaganda.

Things are not true because a government official says them.

I do not mean to treat you as stupid by making such a basic point, but plenty of journalists and opposition party politicians do not understand this point's implications, so it needs to be said over and over. What happens in the leadup to war is that government officials make claims about the enemy, and then those claims appear in newspapers ("U.S. officials say Saddam poses an imminent threat") and then in the public consciousness, the "U.S. officials say" part disappears, so that the claim is taken for reality without ever really being scrutinized. This happens because newspapers are incredibly irresponsible and believe that so long as you attach "Experts say" or "President says" to a claim, you are off the hook when people end up believing it, because all you did was relay the fact that a person said a thing, you didn't say it was true. This is the approach the New York Times took to Bush administration allegations in the leadup to the Iraq War, and it meant that false claims could become headline news just because a high-ranking U.S. official said them. [UPDATE: here's an example from Vox, today, of a questionable government claim being magically transformed into a certain fact.]

In the context of Iran, let us consider some things Mike Pence tweeted about Qassim Suleimani:

"[Suleimani] assisted in the clandestine travel to Afghanistan of 10 of the 12 terrorists who carried out the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States Soleimani was plotting imminent attacks on American diplomats and military personnel. The world is a safer place today because Soleimani is gone."

It is possible, given these tweets, to publish the headline: "Suleimani plotting imminent attacks on American diplomats, says Pence." That headline is technically true. But you should not publish that headline unless Pence provides some supporting evidence, because what will happen in the discourse is that people will link to your news story to prove that Suleimani was plotting imminent attacks.

To see how unsubstantiated claims get spread, let's think about the Afghanistan hijackers bit. David Harsanyi of the National Review defends Pence's claim about Suleimani helping the hijackers. Harsanyi cites the 9/11 Commission report, saying that the 9/11 commission report concluded Iran aided the hijackers. The report does indeed say that Iran allowed free travel to some of the men who went on to carry out the 9/11 attacks. (The sentence cut off at the bottom of Harsanyi's screenshot, however, rather crucially says : "We have no evidence that Iran or Hezbollah was aware of the planning for what later became the 9/11 attack.") Harsanyi admits that the report says absolutely nothing about Suleimani. But he argues that Pence was "mostly right," pointing out that Pence did not say Iran knew these men would be the hijackers, merely that it allowed them passage.

Let's think about what is going on here. Pence is trying to convince us that Suleimani deserved to die, that it was necessary for the U.S. to kill him, which will also mean that if Iran retaliates violently, that violence will be because Iran is an aggressive power rather than because the U.S. just committed an unprovoked atrocity against one of its leaders, dropping a bomb on a popular Iranian leader. So Pence wants to link Suleimani in your mind with 9/11, in order to get you blood boiling the same way you might have felt in 2001 as you watched the Twin Towers fall.

There is no evidence that either Iran or Suleimani tried to help these men do 9/11. Harsanyi says that Pence does not technically allege this. But he doesn't have to! What impression are people going to get from helped the hijackers? Pence hopes you'll conflate Suleimani and Iran as one entity, then assume that if Iran ever aided these men in any way, it basically did 9/11 even if it didn't have any clue that was what they were going to do.

This brings us to #2:

Do not be bullied into accepting simple-minded sloganeering

Let's say that, long before Ted Kaczynski began sending bombs through the mail, you once rented him an apartment. This was pure coincidence. Back then he was just a Berkeley professor, you did not know he would turn out to be the Unabomber. It is, however, possible, for me to say, and claim I am not technically lying, that you "housed and materially aided the Unabomber." (A friend of mine once sold his house to the guy who turned out to be the Green River Killer, so this kind of situation does happen.)

Of course, it is incredibly dishonest of me to characterize what you did that way. You rented an apartment to a stranger, yet I'm implying that you intentionally helped the Unabomber knowing he was the Unabomber. In sane times, people would see me as the duplicitous one. But the leadup to war is often not a sane time, and these distinctions can get lost. In the Pence claim about Afghanistan, for it to have any relevance to Suleimani, it would be critical to know (assuming the 9/11 commission report is accurate) whether Iran actually could have known what the men it allowed to pass would ultimately do, and whether Suleimani was involved. But that would involve thinking, and War Fever thrives on emotion rather than thought.

There are all kinds of ways in which you can bully people into accepting idiocy. Consider, for example, the statement "Nathan Robinson thinks it's good to help terrorists who murder civilians." There is a way in which this is actually sort of true: I think lawyers who aid those accused of terrible crimes do important work. If we are simple-minded and manipulative, we can call that "thinking it's good to help terrorists," and during periods of War Fever, that's exactly what it will be called. There is a kind of cheap sophistry that becomes ubiquitous:

I remember all this bullshit from my high school years. Opposing the invasion of Iraq meant loving Saddam Hussein and hating America. Thinking 9/11 was the predictable consequence of U.S. actions meant believing 9/11 was justified. Of course, rational discussion can expose these as completely unfair mischaracterizations, but every time war fever whips up, rational discussion becomes almost impossible. In World War I, if you opposed the draft you were undermining your country in a time of war. During Vietnam, if you believed the North Vietnamese had the more just case, you were a Communist traitor who endorsed every atrocity committed in the name of Ho Chi Minh, and if you thought John McCain shouldn't have been bombing civilians in the first place then clearly you believed he should have been tortured and you hated America.

"If you oppose assassinating Suleimani you must love terrorists" will be repeated on Fox News (and probably even on MSNBC). Nationalism advocate Yoram Hazony says there is something wrong with those who do not "feel shame when our country is shamed" -- presumably those who do not feel wounded pride when America is emasculated by our enemies are weak and pitiful. We should refuse to put up with these kind of cheap slurs, or even to let those who deploy them place the burden of proof on us to refute them. (In 2004, Democrats worried that they did appear unpatriotic, and so they ran a decorated war veteran, John Kerry, for president. That didn't work.)

Scrutinize the arguments

Here's Mike Pence again:

"[Suleimani] provided advanced deadly explosively formed projectiles, advanced weaponry, training, and guidance to Iraqi insurgents used to conduct attacks on U.S. and coalition forces; directly responsible for the death of 603 U.S. service members, along with thousands of wounded."

I am going to say something that is going to sound controversial if you buy into the kind of simple-minded logic we just discussed: Saying that someone was "responsible for the deaths of U.S. service members" does not, in and of itself, tell us anything about whether what they did was right or wrong. In order to believe it did, we would have to believe that the United States is automatically right, and that countries opposing the United States are automatically wrong. That is indeed the logic that many nationalists in this country follow; remember that when the U.S. shot down an Iranian civilian airliner, causing hundreds of deaths, George H.W. Bush said that he would never apologize for America, no matter what the facts were. What if America did something wrong? That was irrelevant, or rather impossible, because to Bush, a thing was right because America did it, even if that thing was the mass murder of Iranian civilians.

One of the major justifications for murdering Suleimani is that he "caused the deaths of U.S. soldiers." He was thus an aggressor, and could/should have been killed. That is where people like Pence want you to end your inquiry. But let us remember where those soldiers were. Were they in Miami? No. They were in Iraq. Why were they in Iraq? Because we illegally invaded and seized a country. Now, we can debate whether (1) there is actually sufficient evidence of Suleimani's direct involvement and (2) whether these acts of violence can be justified, but to say that Suleimani has "American blood on his hands" is to say nothing at all without an examination of whether the United States was in the right.

We have to think clearly in examining the arguments that are being made. Here 's the Atlantic 's George Packer on the execution:

"There was a case for killing Major General Qassem Soleimani. For two decades, as the commander of the Revolutionary Guards' Quds Force, he executed Iran's long game of strategic depth in the Middle East -- arming and guiding proxy militias in Lebanon and Iraq that became stronger than either state, giving Bashar al-Assad essential support to win the Syrian civil war at the cost of half a million lives, waging a proxy war in Yemen against the hated Saudis, and repeatedly testing America and its allies with military actions around the region for which Iran never seemed to pay a military price."

The article goes on to discuss whether this case is outweighed by the pragmatic case against killing him. But wait. Let's dwell on this. Does this constitute a case for killing him? He assisted Bashar al-Assad. Okay, but presumably then killing Assad would have been justified too? Is the rule here that our government is allowed unilaterally to execute the officials of other governments who are responsible for many deaths? Are we the only ones who can do this? Can any government claim the right?

He assisted Yemen in its fight against "the hated Saudis." But is Saudi Arabia being hated for good reason? It is not enough to say that someone committed violence without analyzing the underlying justice of the parties' relative claims.

Moreover, assumptions are made that if you can prove somebody committed a heinous act, what Trump did is justified. But that doesn't follow: Unless we throw all law out the window, and extrajudicial punishment is suddenly acceptable, showing that Suleimani was a war criminal doesn't prove that you can unilaterally kill him with a drone. Henry Kissinger is a war criminal. So is George W. Bush. But they should be captured and tried in a court, not bombed from the sky. The argument that Suleimani was planning imminent attacks is relevant to whether you can stop him with violence (and requires persuasive proof), but mere allegations of murderous past acts do not show that extrajudicial killings are legitimate.

It's very easy to come up with superficially persuasive arguments that can justify just about anything. The job of an intelligent populace is to see whether those arguments can actually withstand scrutiny.

Keep the focus on what matters

"The main question about the strike isn't moral or even legal -- it's strategic." -- The Atlantic

"The real question to ask about the American drone attack that killed Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani was not whether it was justified, but whether it was wise" -- The New York Times

"I think that the question that we ought to focus on is why now? Why not a month ago and why not a month from now?" -- Elizabeth Warren

They're going to try to define the debate for you. Leaving aside the moral questions, is this good strategy? And then you find yourself arguing on those terms: No, it was bad strategy, it will put "our personnel" in harms way, without noticing that you are implicitly accepting the sociopathic logic that says "America's interests" are the only ones in the world that matters. This is how debates about Vietnam went: They were rarely about whether our actions were good for Vietnamese people, but about whether they were good or bad for us , whether we were squandering U.S. resources and troops in a "fruitless" "mistake." The people of this country still do not understand the kind of carnage we inflicted on Vietnam because our debates tend to be about whether things we do are "strategically prudent" rather than whether they are just. The Atlantic calls the strike a "blunder," shifting the discussion to be about the wisdom of the killing rather than whether it is a choice our country is even permitted to make. "Blunder" essentially assumes that we are allowed to do these things and the only question is whether it's good for us.

There will be plenty of attempts to distract you with irrelevant issues. We will spent more time talking about whether Trump followed the right process for war, whether he handled the rollout correctly, and less about whether the underlying action itself is correct. People like Ben Shapiro will say things like :

"Barack Obama routinely droned terrorists abroad -- including American citizens -- who presented far less of a threat to Americans and American interests than Soleimani. So spare me the hysterics about 'assassination."

In order for this to have any bearing on anything, you have to be someone who defends what Obama did. If you are, on the other hand, someone who belives that Obama, too, assassinated people without due process (which he did), then Shapiro has proved exactly nothing about whether Trump's actions were legitimate. (Note, too, the presumption that threatening "America's interests" can get you killed, a standard we would not want any other country using but are happy to use ourselves.)

Emphasis matters

Consider three statements:

These are statements made by Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren, and Bernie Sanders, respectively. Note that each of them is consistent with believing Trump's decision was the wrong one, but their emphasis is different. Buttigieg says Suleimani was a "threat" but that there are "questions," Warren says Suleimani was a "murderer" but that this was "reckless," and Sanders says this was a "dangerous escalation." It could be that none of these three would have done the same thing themselves, but the emphasis is vastly different. Buttigieg and Warren lead with condemnation of the dead man, in ways that imply that there was nothing that unjust about what happened. Sanders does not dwell on Suleimani but instead talks about the dangers of new wars.

We have to be clear and emphatic in our messaging, because so much effort is made to make what should be clear issues appear murky. If, for example, you gave a speech in 2002 opposing the Iraq War, but the first half was simply a discussion of what a bad and threatening person Saddam Hussein was, people might actually get the opposite of the impression you want them to get. Buttigieg and Warren, while they appear to question the president, have the effect of making his action seem reasonable. After all, they admit that he got rid of a threatening murderer! Sanders admits nothing of the kind: The only thing he says is that Trump has made the world worse. He puts the emphasis where it matters.

I do not fully like Sanders' statement, because it still talks a bit more about what war means for our people , but it does mention destabilization and the total number of lives that can be lost. It is a far more morally clear and powerful antiwar statement. Buttigieg's is exactly what you'd expect of a Consultant President and it should give us absolutely no confidence that he would be a powerful voice against a war, should one happen. Warren confirms that she is not an effective advocate for peace. In a time when there will be pressure for a violent conflict, we need to make sure that our statements are not watery and do not make needless concessions to the hawks' propaganda.

Imagine how everything would sound if the other side said it.

If you're going to understand the world clearly, you have to kill your nationalistic emotions. An excellent way to do this is to try to imagine if all the facts were reversed. If Iraq had invaded the United States, and U.S. militias violently resisted, would it constitute "aggression" for those militias to kill Iraqi soldiers? If Britain funded those U.S. militias, and Iraq killed the head of the British military with a drone strike, would this constitute "stopping a terrorist"? Of course, in that situation, the Iraqi government would certainly spin it that way, because governments call everyone who opposes them terrorists. But rationality requires us not just to examine whether violence has been committed (e.g., whether Suleimani ordered attacks) but what the full historical context of that violence is, and who truly deserves the "terrorist" label.

Is there anything Suleimani did that hasn't also been done by the CIA? Remember that we actually engineered the overthrow of the Iranian government, within living people's lifetimes . Would an Iranian have been justified in assassinating the head of the CIA? I doubt there are many Americans who think they would. I think most Americans would consider this terrorism. But this is because terrorism is a word that, by definition, cannot apply to things we do, and only applies to the things others do. When you start to actually reverse the situations in your mind, and see how things look from the other side, you start to fully grasp just how crude and irrational so much propaganda is.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/hPOy-LutJQg?feature=oembed

Watch out for euphemisms

Our access to much of the world is through language alone. We only see our tiny sliver of the world with our own eyes, much of the rest of it has to be described in words or shown to us through images. That means it's very easy to manipulate our perceptions. If you control the flow of information, you can completely alter someone's understanding of the things that they can't see firsthand.

Euphemistic language is always used to cover atrocities. Even the Nazis did not say they were "mass murdering innocent civilians." They said they were defending themselves from subversive elements, guaranteeing sufficient living space for their people, purifying their culture, etc. When the United States commits murder, it does not say it is committing murder. It says it is engaging in a stabilization program and restoring democratic rule. We saw during the recent Bolivian coup how easy it is to portray the seizure of power as "democracy" and democracy as tyranny. Euphemistic language has been one of the key tools of murderous regimes. In fact, many of them probably believe their own language; their specialized vocabulary allows them to inhabit a world of their own invention where they are good people punishing evil.

Assassination sounds bad. It sounds like something illegitimate, something that would call into question the goodness of the United States, even if the person being assassinated can be argued to have "deserved it." Thus Rothman and Bloomberg will not even admit that what the U.S. did here was an assassination, even though we literally targeted a high official from a sovereign country and dropped a bomb on him. Instead, this is " neutralization ." (Read this fascinatingly feeble attempt by the Associated Press to explain why it isn't calling an obvious assassination an assassination, just as the media declined to call torture torture when Bush did it.)

Those of us who want to resist marches to war need to insist on calling things exactly what they are and refuse to allow the country to slide into the use of language that conceals the reality of our actions.

Remember what people were saying five minutes ago

Five minutes ago, hardly anybody was talking about Suleimani. Now they all speak as if he was Public Enemy #1. Remember how much you hated that guy? Remember how much damage he did? No, I do not remember, because people like Ben Shapiro only just discovered their hatred for Suleimani once they had to justify his murder.

During the buildup to a war there is a constant effort to make you forget what things were like a few minutes ago. Before World War I, Americans lived relatively harmoniously with Germans in their midst. The same thing with Japanese people before World War II. Then, immediately, they began to hate and fear people who had recently been their neighbors.

Let us say Iran responds to this extrajudicial murder with a colossal act of violent reprisal, after the killing unifies the country around a demand for vengeance. They kill a high-ranking American official, or wage an attack that kills our civilians. Perhaps it will attack some of the soldiers that are now being moved into the Middle East. The Trump administration will then want you to forget that it promised this assassination was to " stop a war ." It will then want you to focus solely on Iran's most recent act, to see that as the initial aggression. If the attack is particularly bad, with family members of victims crying on TV and begging for vengeance, you will be told to look into the face of Iranian evil, and those of us who are anti-war will be branded as not caring about the victims. Nobody wants you to remember the history of U.S./Iran relations, the civilians we killed of theirs or the time we destabilized their whole country and got rid of its democracy. They want you to have a two-second memory, to become a blind and unthinking patriot whose sole thought is the avenging of American blood. Resisting propaganda requires having a memory, looking back on how things were before and not accepting war as the "new normal."

Listen to the Chomsky on your shoulder.

"It is perfectly insane to suggest the U.S. was the aggressor here." -- Ben Shapiro

They are going to try to convince you that you are insane for asking questions, or for not accepting what the government tells you. They will put you in topsy-turvy land, where thinking that assassinating foreign officials is "aggression" is not just wrong, but sheer madness. You will have to try your best to remember what things are, because it is not easy, when everyone says the emperor has clothes, or that Line A is longer than Line B, or that shocking people to death is fine, to have confidence in your independent judgment.

This is why I keep a little imaginary Noam Chomsky sitting on my shoulder at all times. Chomsky helps keep me sane, by cutting through lies and euphemisms and showing things as they really are. I recommend reading his books, especially during times of war. He never swallowed Johnson's nonsense about Vietnam or Bush's nonsense about Iraq. And of course they called him insane, anti-American, terrorist-loving, anti-Semitic, blah blah blah.

What I really mean here though is: Listen to the dissidents. They will not appear on television. They will be smeared and treated as lunatics. But you need them if you are going to be able to resist the absolute barrage of misinformation, or to hear yourself think over the pounding war drums. Times of War Fever can be wearying, because there is just so much aggression against dissent that your resistance wears down. This is why a community is so necessary. You may watch people who previously seemed reasonable develop a pathological bloodlust (mild-mannered moderate types like Thomas Friedman and Brian Williams going suck on our missiles ). Find the people who see clearly and stick close to them.

Someday peace will prevail. If you enjoyed this article, please consider subscribing to our magnificent print edition or making a donation . Current Affairs is 100% reader-supported. Nathan J. Robinson

[Jan 06, 2020] Trump voters will not be pleased to see the price of oil jump way over a hundred dollars a barrel.

Jan 06, 2020 | www.unz.com

Charles Pewitt , says: Show Comment January 3, 2020 at 7:46 pm GMT

The oil producing states in the USA -- such as Alaska, Texas, North Dakota, New Mexico and others -- will be happy to see hostilities between the American Empire and Iran, and the Russians and Mexicans and Brazilians and Canadians and other oil producing nations will be similarly pleased to see the price of oil jump way over a hundred dollars a barrel.

The Saudi Arabians are most likely trying to bribe the Iranians so that the Iranians don't bomb the living Hell out of Saudi Arabian oil installations but maybe the bribe won't be big enough or the Iranian strategists want to pop the price of oil before they do anything else. The Iranians might be enticed by Saudi Arabian offers of dollars or other hard currencies in large quantities and the Iranians might hold off on pulverizing the Hell out of any and all oil facility targets in Saudi Arabia. The bribery negotiations might be highly civilized with the Iranians and Saudi Arabians sitting around eating figs and caviar and mulling over bribery figures.

Meanwhile, the greedy oil interests in the USA and globally are licking their frigging chops at the thought of oil jumping to 150 dollars a barrel and staying there. The human factor must be considered without considerations of whether or not the niceties of proper behaviour are in play. The oil money grubber people want more loot and they don't give a damn how they get it.

The Iranians might split the difference and take half the bribe money from the Saudi Arabians and then bomb the Hell out of half the targets they originally planned to hit. The Saudi Arabians could helpfully point out some aging oil installations that were due for refurbishment anyhow and tell the Iranians they could hit them. I guess the oil business is murderous up to a point, and then the negotiations kick in.

If the Iranians don't partially pop the Saudi Arabian oil installations, then maybe the Iranians and Saudi Arabians have a sneaky prior deal on that.

The Iranians have to play the public relations game and the best way to do that would be to jump up the price of oil while telling the Iranian people that they will get their revenge but not just yet, and the Iranians will tell their people that the long game is the way to go.

Don't tell me that the oil people money grubbers ain't licking their chops like ravenous wolves at the thought of the Iranians pounding all kinds of Hell out of Saudi Arabian oil installations!

[Jan 06, 2020] Roger Stone: I'm HARDCORE Zionist and so is president Trump

Jan 06, 2020 | www.unz.com

geokat62 , says: Show Comment January 4, 2020 at 7:38 pm GMT

@Cloak And Dagger

This is out of control!

I took Roger Stone at his word when he revealed:

"I'm HARDCORE Zionist and so is president Trump!"

We're all going to see just how HARDCORE Zionist Trumpstein really is!

[Jan 06, 2020] Mike Pompeo- Killing Qasem Soleimani disrupted an imminent attack

Looks like Pompeo a gifted liar...
Jan 06, 2020 | www.youtube.com

James Shaw , 2 days ago

THE PEOPLE OF BOTH COUNTRIES DO NOT WANT WAR...ITS THE LEADERS THAT WANT WAR, NOT THE PEOPLE

Moses Tekper , 2 days ago

The world is a safer place there but all American civilians should get out of the region. What a joke.

Fi Vongphachanh , 2 days ago

Trump screwed up that why need to move American people's.

Sidra Irfan , 1 day ago

Trump try to open door of third [world] war He is really sick man.

Bhai Log , 1 day ago

Shameless act by trump. World need peace but Donald trump doesn't want

WADA FAKA , 2 days ago

Now those who fought ISIS with blood and swear are systematically eliminated by the USA😎

Manny M , 2 days ago

Your asking the wrong people for the strikes, ask Israel 🇮🇱 you'll get little more then here!!

delonix regia , 1 day ago

Mike Pompeo? " We lie , cheat and steal " . That's all we have to know about this guy .

Fix News , 2 days ago

Done our level best under the direct guidance of the president. Oh boy.

Aldemar Delapuy , 2 days ago

Who wants a jeep ride with an Iranian general?

G.E. B. , 2 days ago

As soon as he opened his mouth he started to glorify Trump.....

Captain1 Jones , 1 day ago

What's different is that Trump got impeached.

A Warrior of Christ , 2 days ago

Puppet Pompeo, Trump's hand is behind his back and manipulating his lips!

Green Orange , 2 days ago

There is No justice, if there was , most of the USA politicians would be sentenced for War Crimes.

Sherry Osinga , 2 days ago

... you don't understand, we don't trust you.

Muntadher Alqrashie , 2 days ago

Think of us the Iraqi people before you start a war. We're tired from wars.. enough

Hadzra Hatta , 2 days ago

Does Mike Pompeo know what he's talking about?

Sandy Phelps , 1 day ago

Pompeo is a traitor and a liar. We are letting liars lead us into a terrible war.

Elizabeth Klimas , 2 days ago

have weapon of mass destruction being found yet other than CHEMTRAILS in the USA?????

BARTETMEDIA , 2 days ago

Trump stuck his right foot way up his a$$ this time. Now the left foot it's coming.

[Jan 06, 2020] Neocon Pompeo pushed Trump to kill Soleimani; Looks like West Point educated military contactor mafia to which Pompeo and Esper belongs controls the President, although Trump malleability and recklessness are inexcusable

Highly recommended!
So Trump instead of draining the swamp brought swamp creatures like Pompeo into his Administration; now he can pay the price.
Notable quotes:
"... The greenlighting of the airstrike near Baghdad airport represents a bureaucratic victory for Pompeo ..."
"... "We took a bad guy off the battlefield. We made the right decision," Pompeo told CNN. "I'm proud of the effort that President Trump undertook." ..."
"... On Dec. 29, Pompeo, Esper and Milley traveled to the president's private club in Florida, where the two defense officials presented possible responses to Iranian aggression, including the option of killing Soleimani, senior U.S. officials said. ..."
"... One significant factor was the "lockstep" coordination for the operation between Pompeo and Esper, both graduates in the same class at the U.S. Military Academy, who deliberated ahead of the briefing with Trump, senior U.S. officials said. Pence also endorsed the decision, but he did not attend the meeting in Florida. ..."
"... Some defense officials said Pompeo's claims of an imminent and direct threat were overstated, and they would prefer that he make the case based on the killing of the American contractor and previous Iranian provocations. ..."
"... On Sunday, Iran announced that it was suspending all limits of the nuclear deal, including on uranium enrichment, research and development, and enlarging its stockpile of nuclear fuel. Britain, France and Germany, as well as Russia and China, were original signatories of that deal with the United States and Iran, and all opposed Trump's decision to withdraw from the pact. ..."
"... "No one trusts what Trump will do next, so it's hard to get behind this," said the European diplomat. ..."
"... Since his time as CIA director, Pompeo has forged a friendship with Yossi Cohen, the director of the Israeli intelligence service Mossad, said a person familiar with their meetings. The men have spoken about the threat posed by Iran to both Israel and the United States. In a prescient interview in October, Cohen said Soleimani "knows perfectly well that his elimination is not impossible." ..."
"... At every step of his government career, Pompeo has tried to stake out a maximalist position on Iran that has made him popular among two critical pro-Israel constituencies in Republican politics: conservative Jewish donors and Christian evangelicals. ..."
"... After Trump tapped Pompeo to lead the CIA, Pompeo quickly set up an Iran Mission Center at the agency to focus intelligence-gathering efforts and operations, elevating Iran's importance as an intelligence target. ..."
Jan 06, 2020 | www.washingtonpost.com

The secretary also spoke to President Trump multiple times every day last week, culminating in Trump's decision to approve the killing of Iran's top military commander, Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, at the urging of Pompeo and Vice President Pence, the officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

Pompeo had lost a similar high-stakes deliberation last summer when Trump declined to retaliate militarily against Iran after it downed a U.S. surveillance drone, an outcome that left Pompeo "morose," according to one U.S. official. But recent changes to Trump's national security team and the whims of a president anxious about being viewed as hesitant in the face of Iranian aggression created an opening for Pompeo to press for the kind of action he had been advocating.

The greenlighting of the airstrike near Baghdad airport represents a bureaucratic victory for Pompeo, but it also carries multiple serious risks: another protracted regional war in the Middle East; retaliatory assassinations of U.S. personnel stationed around the world; an interruption in the battle against the Islamic State; the closure of diplomatic pathways to containing Iran's nuclear program; and a major backlash in Iraq, whose parliament voted on Sunday to expel all U.S. troops from the country.

For Pompeo, whose political ambitions are a source of constant speculation , the death of U.S. diplomats would be particularly damaging given his unyielding criticisms of former secretary of state Hillary Clinton following the killing of the U.S. ambassador to Libya and other American personnel in Benghazi in 2012.

But none of those considerations stopped Pompeo from pushing for the targeted strike, U.S. officials said, underscoring a fixation on Iran that spans 10 years of government service from Congress to the CIA to the State Department.

"We took a bad guy off the battlefield. We made the right decision," Pompeo told CNN. "I'm proud of the effort that President Trump undertook."

Pompeo first spoke with Trump about killing Soleimani months ago, said a senior U.S. official, but neither the president nor Pentagon officials were willing to countenance such an operation.

For more than a year, defense officials warned that the administration's campaign of economic sanctions against Iran had increased tensions with Tehran, requiring a bigger and bigger share of military resources in the Middle East when many at the Pentagon wanted to redeploy their firepower to East Asia.

How the siege of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad unfolded On Jan. 1, the siege on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad appeared to come to an end after supporters of the Iranian-backed Kataib Hezbollah militia retreated. (Liz Sly, Joyce Lee, Mustafa Salim/The Washington Post)

Trump, too, sought to draw down from the Middle East as he promised from the opening days of his presidential campaign. But that mind-set shifted on Dec. 27 when 30 rockets hit a joint U.S.-Iraqi base outside Kirkuk, killing an American civilian contractor and injuring service members.

On Dec. 29, Pompeo, Esper and Milley traveled to the president's private club in Florida, where the two defense officials presented possible responses to Iranian aggression, including the option of killing Soleimani, senior U.S. officials said.

Trump's decision to target Soleimani came as a surprise and a shock to some officials briefed on his decision, given the Pentagon's long-standing concerns about escalation and the president's aversion to using military force against Iran.

One significant factor was the "lockstep" coordination for the operation between Pompeo and Esper, both graduates in the same class at the U.S. Military Academy, who deliberated ahead of the briefing with Trump, senior U.S. officials said. Pence also endorsed the decision, but he did not attend the meeting in Florida.

"Taking out Soleimani would not have happened under [former secretary of defense Jim] Mattis," said a senior administration official who argued that the Mattis Pentagon was risk-averse. "Mattis was opposed to all of this. It's not a hit on Mattis, it's just his predisposition. Milley and Esper are different. Now you've got a cohesive national security team and you've got a secretary of state and defense secretary who've known each other their whole adult lives."

Mattis declined to comment.

In the days since the strike, Pompeo has become the voice of the administration on the matter, speaking to allies and making the public case for the operation. Trump chose Pompeo to appear on all of the Sunday news shows because he "sticks to the line" and "never gives an inch," an administration official said.

But critics inside and outside the administration have questioned Pompeo's justification for the strike based on his claims that "dozens if not hundreds" of American lives were at risk.

[ Trump faces Iran crisis with fewer experienced advisers and strained relations with allies ]

Lawmakers left classified briefings with U.S. intelligence officials on Friday saying they heard nothing to suggest that the threat posed by the proxy forces guided by Soleimani had changed substantially in recent months.

When repeatedly pressed on Sunday about the imminent nature of the threats, whether it was days or weeks away, or whether they had been foiled by the U.S. airstrike, Pompeo dismissed the questions.

"If you're an American in the region, days and weeks -- this is not something that's relevant," Pompeo told CNN.

Some defense officials said Pompeo's claims of an imminent and direct threat were overstated, and they would prefer that he make the case based on the killing of the American contractor and previous Iranian provocations.

Critics have also questioned how an imminent attack would be foiled by killing Soleimani, who would not have carried out the strike himself.

"If the attack was going to take place when Soleimani was alive, it is difficult to comprehend why it wouldn't take place now that he is dead," said Robert Malley, the president of the International Crisis Group and a former Obama administration official.

Following the strike, Pompeo has held back-to-back phone calls with his counterparts around the globe but has received a chilly reception from European allies, many of whom fear that the attack puts their embassies in Iran and Iraq in jeopardy and has now eliminated the chance to keep a lid on Iran's nuclear program.

"We have woken up to a more dangerous world," said France's Europe minister, Amelie de Montchalin.

Two European diplomats familiar with the calls said Pompeo expected European leaders to champion the U.S. strike publicly even though they were never consulted on the decision.

"The U.S. has not helped the Iran situation, and now they want everyone to cheerlead this," one diplomat said.

"Our position over the past few years has been about defending the JCPOA," said the diplomat, referring to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

On Sunday, Iran announced that it was suspending all limits of the nuclear deal, including on uranium enrichment, research and development, and enlarging its stockpile of nuclear fuel. Britain, France and Germany, as well as Russia and China, were original signatories of that deal with the United States and Iran, and all opposed Trump's decision to withdraw from the pact.

"No one trusts what Trump will do next, so it's hard to get behind this," said the European diplomat.

Pompeo has slapped back at U.S. allies, saying "the Brits, the French, the Germans all need to understand that what we did -- what the Americans did -- saved lives in Europe as well," he told Fox News.

Israel has stood out in emphatically cheering the Soleimani operation, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praising Trump for "acting swiftly, forcefully and decisively."

"Israel stands with the United States in its just struggle for peace, security and self-defense," he said.

Since his time as CIA director, Pompeo has forged a friendship with Yossi Cohen, the director of the Israeli intelligence service Mossad, said a person familiar with their meetings. The men have spoken about the threat posed by Iran to both Israel and the United States. In a prescient interview in October, Cohen said Soleimani "knows perfectly well that his elimination is not impossible."

Though Democrats have greeted the strike with skepticism, Republican leaders, who have long viewed Pompeo as a reassuring voice in the administration, uniformly praised the decision as the eradication of a terrorist who directed the killing of U.S. soldiers in Iraq after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

"Soleimani made it his life's work to take the Iranian revolutionary call for death to America and death to Israel and turn them into action," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said.

A critical moment for Pompeo is nearing as he faces growing questions about a potential Senate run, though some GOP insiders say that decision seems to have stalled. Pompeo has kept in touch with Ward Baker, a political consultant who would probably lead the operation, and others in McConnell's orbit, about a bid. But Pompeo hasn't committed one way or the other, people familiar with the conversations said.

Some people close to the secretary say he has mixed feelings about becoming a relatively junior senator from Kansas after leading the State Department and CIA, but there is little doubt in Pompeo's home state that he could win.

At every step of his government career, Pompeo has tried to stake out a maximalist position on Iran that has made him popular among two critical pro-Israel constituencies in Republican politics: conservative Jewish donors and Christian evangelicals.

After Trump tapped Pompeo to lead the CIA, Pompeo quickly set up an Iran Mission Center at the agency to focus intelligence-gathering efforts and operations, elevating Iran's importance as an intelligence target.

At the State Department, he is a voracious consumer of diplomatic notes and reporting on Iran, and he places the country far above other geopolitical and economic hot spots in the world. "If it's about Iran, he will read it," said one diplomat, referring to the massive flow of paper that crosses Pompeo's desk. "If it's not, good luck."

[Jan 06, 2020] Democrats demand answers on Soleimani killing - This is not a game

Most probably Pompeo was cheating and deceived Trump to get the approval of this asssasination. now with his head on the block he is trying to avoid the responsibility.
Notable quotes:
"... Speaking on "Fox News Sunday," Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., said public assurances from the Trump administration that such a threat was "imminent" were simply not enough. ..."
"... Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg said on CNN's "State of the Union" that until the administration provides answers on "how this decision was reached ... then this move is questionable , to say the least." ..."
"... "I still worry about whether this president really understands that this is not a show, this is not a game," he said. "Lives are at stake right now." ..."
"... the administration has yet to make public its evidence that Soleimani was acting out of step in comparison with his years of similar planning as a leader in Iran's proxy wars and other covert operations, which have led to U.S. deaths . ..."
Jan 06, 2020 | www.nbcnews.com

Democrats on Sunday demanded answers about the killing of top Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani as tensions mounted with Iran and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo insisted that the United States had faced an imminent threat.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said on ABC's "This Week" that he worried that President Donald Trump's decision "will get us into what he calls another endless war in the Middle East ." He called for Congress to "assert" its authority and prevent Trump from "either bumbling or impulsively getting us into a major war."

Speaking on "Fox News Sunday," Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., said public assurances from the Trump administration that such a threat was "imminent" were simply not enough.

"I think we learned the hard way ... in the Iraq War that administrations sometimes manipulate and cherry-pick intelligence to further their political goals," he said.

"That's what got us into the Iraq War. There was no WMD," or weapons of mass destruction, he said. "I'm saying that they have an obligation to present the evidence."

Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg said on CNN's "State of the Union" that until the administration provides answers on "how this decision was reached ... then this move is questionable , to say the least."

"I still worry about whether this president really understands that this is not a show, this is not a game," he said. "Lives are at stake right now."

Booker: 'All Americans should be concerned right now' JAN. 5, 2020 04:18

The fraught relationship with Iran has significantly deteriorated in the days since Soleimani's death, which came days after rioters sought to storm the U.S. Embassy compound in Baghdad and a U.S. contractor was killed in a rocket attack on an Iraqi military base in Kirkuk.

The Defense Department said Soleimani, the high-profile commander of Iran's secretive Quds Force, who was accused of controlling Iranian-linked proxy militias across the Middle East, orchestrated the attacks on bases in Iraq of the U.S.-led coalition fighting the Islamic State militant group, including the strike that killed the U.S. contractor. In addition, the Defense Department said Soleimani approved attacks on the embassy compound in Baghdad.

" We took action last night to stop a war ," Trump said Friday in a televised address, referring to the airstrike that killed Soleimani. "We did not take action to start a war."

But the administration has yet to make public its evidence that Soleimani was acting out of step in comparison with his years of similar planning as a leader in Iran's proxy wars and other covert operations, which have led to U.S. deaths .

Iran and its allies vowed to retaliate for the general's death, and Trump has since escalated his language in response.

Download the NBC News app for breaking news and politics

[Jan 06, 2020] Now I know for sure that the US government spreads shameless lies, so you can't believe anything it says.

Notable quotes:
"... So, I did not see it as a war crime back then, but I do now. ..."
Jan 06, 2020 | www.unz.com

AnonFromTN , says: Show Comment January 5, 2020 at 10:22 pm GMT

@ChuckOrloski At the time I thought that it might be justified, if Al Qaida actually did 9/11. Now I know that Al Qaida was and is a CIA operation and have my doubts regarding its involvement in 9/11.

Even if it was, that was on direct orders of its American handlers.

What's more, now I know for sure that the US government spreads shameless lies, so you can't believe anything it says. In fact, you can safely assume that everything it says is a lie and be right 99.9% of the time.

So, I did not see it as a war crime back then, but I do now.

[Jan 05, 2020] The USA is now at war, de-facto and de-jure, with BOTH Iraq and Iran (UPDATED 6X) The Vineyard of the Saker

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... work to end the presence of any foreign troops on Iraqi soil and prohibit them from using its land, airspace or water for any reason ..."
"... Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr said the parliamentary resolution to end foreign troop presence in the country did not go far enough, calling on local and foreign militia groups to unite . I also have confirmation that the Mehdi Army is being re-mobilized . ..."
"... The United States just spent Two Trillion Dollars on Military Equipment. We are the biggest and by far the BEST in the World! If Iran attacks an American Base, or any American, we will be sending some of that brand new beautiful equipment their way…and without hesitation! ..."
Jan 05, 2020 | thesaker.is
The blowback has begun

First, let’s begin by a quick summary of what has taken place (note: this info is still coming in, so there might be corrections once the official sources make their official statements).

  1. Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdl Mahdi has now officially revealed that the US had asked him to mediate between the US and Iran and that General Qassem Soleimani to come and talk to him and give him the answer to his mediation efforts. Thus, Soleimani was on an OFFICIAL DIPLOMATIC MISSION as part of a diplomatic initiative INITIATED BY THE USA .
  2. The Iraqi Parliament has now voted on a resolution requiring the government to press Washington and its allies to withdraw their troops from Iraq.
  3. Iraq’s caretaker PM Adil Abdul Mahdi said the American side notified the Iraqi military about the planned airstrike minutes before it was carried out. He stressed that his government denied Washington permission to continue with the operation.
  4. The Iraqi Parliament has also demanded that the Iraqi government must “ work to end the presence of any foreign troops on Iraqi soil and prohibit them from using its land, airspace or water for any reason “
  5. The Iraqi Foreign Ministry said that Baghdad had turned to the UN Security Council with complaints about US violations of its sovereignty .
  6. Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr said the parliamentary resolution to end foreign troop presence in the country did not go far enough, calling on local and foreign militia groups to unite . I also have confirmation that the Mehdi Army is being re-mobilized .
  7. The Pentagon brass is now laying the responsibility for this monumental disaster on Trump (see here ). The are now slowly waking up to this immense clusterbleep and don’t want to be held responsible for what is coming next.
  8. For the first time in the history of Iran, a Red Flag was hoisted over the Holy Dome Of Jamkaran Mosque , Iran. This indicates that the blood of martyrs has been spilled and that a major battle will now happen . The text in the flag say s “ Oh Hussein we ask for your help ” (u nofficial translation 1) or “ Rise up and avenge al-Husayn ” (unofficial translation 2)
  9. The US has announced the deployment of 3’000 soldiers from the 82nd Airborne to Kuwait .
  10. Finally, the Idiot-in-Chief tweeted the following message , probably to try to reassure his freaked out supporters: “ The United States just spent Two Trillion Dollars on Military Equipment. We are the biggest and by far the BEST in the World! If Iran attacks an American Base, or any American, we will be sending some of that brand new beautiful equipment their way…and without hesitation! “. Apparently, he still thinks that criminally overspending for 2nd rate military hardware is going to yield victory…
Analysis

Well, my first though when reading these bullet points is that General Qasem Soleimani has already struck out at Uncle Shmuel from beyond his grave . What we see here is an immense political disaster unfolding like a slow motion train wreck. Make no mistake, this is not just a tactical "oopsie", but a major STRATEGIC disaster . Why?

For one thing, the US will now become an official and totally illegal military presence in Iraq. This means that whatever SOFA (Status Of Forces Agreement) the US and Iraq had until now is void.

Second, the US now has two options:

Fight and sink deep into a catastrophic quagmire or Withdraw from Iraq and lose any possibility to keep forces in Syria

Both of these are very bad because whatever option Uncle Shmuel chooses, he will lost whatever tiny level of credibility he has left, even amongst his putative "allies" (like the KSA which will now be left nose to nose with a much more powerful Iran than ever before).

The main problem with the current (and very provisional) outcome is that both the Israel Lobby and the Oil Lobby will now be absolutely outraged and will demand that the US try to use military power to regime change both Iraq and Iran.

Needless to say, that ain't happening (only ignorant and incurable flag-wavers believe the silly claptrap about the US armed forces being "THE BEST").

Furthermore, it is clear that by it's latest terrorist action the USA has now declared war on BOTH Iraq and Iran.

This is so important that I need to repeat it again:

The USA is now at war, de-facto and de-jure , with BOTH Iraq and Iran.

I hasten to add that the US is also at war with most of the Muslim world (and most definitely all Shias, including Hezbollah and the Yemeni Houthis).

Next, I want to mention the increase in US troop numbers in the Middle-East. An additional 3'000 soldiers from the 82nd AB is what would be needed to support evacuations and to provide a reserve force for the Marines already sent in. This is NOWHERE NEAR the kind of troop numbers the US would need to fight a war with either Iraq or Iran.

Finally, there are some who think that the US will try to invade Iran. Well, with a commander in chief as narcissistically delusional as Trump, I would never say "never" but, frankly, I don't think that anybody at the Pentagon would be willing to obey such an order. So no, a ground invasion is not in the cards and, if it ever becomes an realistic option we would first see a massive increase in the US troop levels, we are talking several tens of thousands, if not more (depending on the actual plan).

No, what the US will do if/when they attack Iran is what Israel did to Lebanon in 2006, but at a much larger scale. They will begin by a huge number of airstrikes (missiles and aircraft) to hit:

Iranian air defenses Iranian command posts and Iranian civilian and military leaders Symbolic targets (like nuclear installations and high visibility units like the IRGC) Iranian navy and coastal defenses Crucial civilian infrastructure (power plants, bridges, hospitals, radio/TV stations, food storage, pharmaceutical installations, schools, historical monuments and, let's not forget that one, foreign embassies of countries who support Iran). The way this will be justified will be the same as what was done to Serbia: a "destruction of critical regime infrastructure" (what else is new?!)

Then, within about 24-48 hours the US President will go on air an announce to the world that it is "mission accomplished" and that "THE BEST" military forces in the galaxy have taught a lesson to the "Mollahs". There will be dances in the streets of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem (right until the moment the Iranian missiles will start dropping from the sky. At which point the dances will be replaced by screams about a "2nd Hitler" and the "Holocaust").

Then all hell will break loose (I have discussed that so often in the past that I won't go into details here).

In conclusion, I want to mention something more personal about the people of the US.

Roughly speaking, there are two main groups which I observed during my many years of life in the USA.

Group one : is the TV-watching imbeciles who think that the talking heads on the idiot box actually share real knowledge and expertise. As a result, their thinking goes along the following lines: " yeah, yeah, say what you want, but if the mollahs make a wrong move, we will simply nuke them; a few neutron bombs will take care of these sand niggers ". And if asked about the ethics of this stance, the usual answer is a " f**k them! they messed with the wrong guys, now they will get their asses kicked ".

Group two : is a much quieter group. It includes both people who see themselves as liberals and conservatives. They are totally horrified and they feel a silent rage against the US political elites. Friends, there are A LOT of US Americans out there who are truly horrified by what is done in their name and who feel absolutely powerless to do anything about it. I don't know about the young soldiers who are now being sent to the Middle-East, but I know a lot of former servicemen who know the truth about war and about THE BEST military in the history of the galaxy and they are also absolutely horrified.

I can't say which group is bigger, but my gut feeling is that Group Two is much bigger than Group One. I might be wrong.

I am now signing off but I will try to update you here as soon as any important info comes in.

The Saker

UPDATE1 : according to the Russian website Colonel Cassad , Moqtada al-Sadr has officially made the following demands to the Iraqi government:

Immediately break the cooperation agreement with the United States. Close the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. Close all U.S. military bases in Iraq. Criminalize any cooperation with the United States. To ensure the protection of Iraqi embassies. Officially boycott American products.

Cassad (aka Boris Rozhin) also posted this excellent caricature:

UPDATE2: RT is reporting that " One US service member, two contractors killed in Al-Shabaab attack in Kenya, two DoD personnel injured ". Which just goes to prove my point that spontaneous attacks are what we will be seeing first and that the retaliation promised by Iran will only come later.

UPDATE3 : al-Manar reports that two rockets have landed near the US embassy in Baghdad.

UPDATE4 : Zerohedge is reporting that Iranian state TV broadcasted an appeal made during the funeral procession in which a speaker said that each Iranian ought to send one dollar per person (total 80'000'000 dollars) as a bounty for the killing of Donald Trump. I am trying to get a confirmation from Iran about this.

UPDATE5 : Russian sources claim that all Iranian rocket forces have been put on combat alert.

UPDATE6 : the Russian heavy rocket cruiser "Marshal Ustinov" has cross the Bosphorus and has entered the Mediterranean.

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63 Comments

Anonymous on January 05, 2020 , · at 2:39 pm EST/EDT

Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdl Mahdi has now officially revealed that the US had asked him to mediate between the US and Iran and that General Qassem Soleimani to come and talk to him and give him the answer to his mediation efforts. Thus, Soleimani was on an OFFICIAL DIPLOMATIC MISSION as part of a diplomatic initiative INITIATED BY THE USA.

If this is true, it makes America's murder of General Soleimani even more outrageous. This would be like the USA sending an American regime official to some other country for a negotiation only to have him/her drone striked in the process!

America reveals its malign character as even more sick that even its opponents have thought possible.

Perhaps, Iran should request that Mike Pompeo come to Baghdad for a negotiation about General Soleimani 's murder and then "bug splat" Pompeo's fat ass from a drone!

Anonymous on January 05, 2020 , · at 3:08 pm EST/EDT
"For one thing, the US will now become an official and totally illegal military presence in Iraq. This means that whatever SOFA (Status Of Forces Agreement) the US and Iraq had until now is void."

-I actually read somewhere that the Iraqi government is just a caretaker government and even thought it voted to remove foreign forces, it is not actually legally binding.

Anyone that can conform or deny?

Lysander on January 05, 2020 , · at 4:18 pm EST/EDT
I'm no lawyer. I don't see why that would matter. If a caretaker government is presented with a crisis, why would it not have the authority to act?

That said, It could be the line the US government chooses to use to insist its presence is still legal. If course the MSM will repeat and repeat and make it seem real.

Serbian girl on January 05, 2020 , · at 4:42 pm EST/EDT
Not the entire government. Only the PM Mahdi as far as I understand. He resigned after some protests. The parliament approved his resignation on Dec 2019. He is the caretaker until they appoint another PM.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/29/iraq-pm-resign-protests-abdul-mahdi-al-sistani
Pamela on January 05, 2020 , · at 4:59 pm EST/EDT
Couldn't agree more. When I read that my jaw dropped and I'm sure my eyes went huge. I just couldn't believe they could be that stupid, or that immoral, that sunk in utter utter depravity. They truly are those who have not one shred of decency, and thus have no way of recognising or understanding what decency is. Pure psychopath – an inability to grasp the emotions, values, and world view of those who are normal. This truly is beyond the pale, and this above everything else will ensure the revenge the heartbroken people of Iran are seeking. May God bless them.
Mark on January 05, 2020 , · at 2:45 pm EST/EDT
Well, this is going to be interesting for sure. I for one cannot see any way out for the Yankees, so I expect them to do their usual doubling down .

Assassinate some more people, airstrikes etc.

Hans on January 05, 2020 , · at 2:51 pm EST/EDT
The US Armed Forces do not need to be 'THE BEST". All they need is mountains of second rate ordinance to re-bury Iraq bury Iran under rubble. They can then keep their forces in tightly fortified compounds and bomb the c**p out of any one who wants to 'steal their oil', or any one who wants to 'steal the land promised by God to the Chosen People'. The U.S. has always previously been limited in their avarice for destruction by their desire to be viewed as the 'good guy'. This limitation has now been stripped away. There is now nothing to stop the AngloZionist entity except naked force in return.

As the Saker says, 'all hell will break loose '.

Anonymous on January 05, 2020 , · at 3:09 pm EST/EDT
"realistic option we would first see a massive increase in the US troop levels, we are talking several tens of thousands, if not more (depending on the actual plan)."

-There is an interesting article on colonal cassad about this, USA actually has around 100k troops in ME spread out over various bases.
https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/5543349.html

Yes, but these are not part of a single force, many of these are more a target than a threat. Besides, they need to be concentrated into a a few single forces to actually participate in an invasion.
The Saker

Anonymouse on January 05, 2020 , · at 4:15 pm EST/EDT
To understand troop size and relevance think along these lines. For every US front line soldier there will be 5 others in support roles, logistics etc. So for every front line fighting Marine there will be 5 others who got him there and who support him in his work. 10,000 front line fighting troops means 50,000 troops shipping out to the borders of Iran. I think perhaps you would need 100,000 US front line troops for an invasion AND occupation (because we all know if they go in they aren't going to leave quickly) We're talking about half a million US troops, this simply isn't going to happen for multiple reasons, not least they need to amass at some form of base (probably Iraq – yeah right) maybe Kuwait? They'd just be a constant sitting target. Saker is correct in that if this goes down it's going to be an air campaign (will the Iranians use the S300s they have?) and possibly Navy supported. the Israelis will help out but in turn make themselves targets at home for rocket attacks. Again I can't see it happening, it would take too long to arrange plus from the moment it kicks off every US base, individual is just a target to the majority of anti US forces spread across the whole middle east. I expect back door diplomacy, probably to little effect, and a ham fisted token blitz of cruise missiles and drone bombs at Iranian infrastructure, sadly this will not work for the Americans, we will have a long running campaign on ME ground but also mass terrorist activity across the US and some of its allies. Its a best guess scenario but if that plays out whatever happens to Iran this war will be another long running death by a 1000 cuts for the US and will guarantee Trump does not get re-elected.
Whoever sold this to Trump (Bolton via Pompeo? Bibi?) has really lit the touch paper of ruin. Yes it stinks of Netanyahoo but it also reaks of full strength neocon, Bolton style. Trump is dumb enough to fall for it and obviously did.
Cosimo on January 05, 2020 , · at 5:38 pm EST/EDT
1. To read the Colonel Cassad website in English or any other language, just go to https://translate.yandex.com/ and then paste in the Cassad URL, which is given above but again, it's https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/ The really nice thing is that when you click on links, Yandex Translate automatically translates those links. Two problems, though. 1. For some unknown reason, Yandex always first translates Cassad as English-to-Russian, and then you have to click on a little window near the top left, to again request Russian-to-English and then it translates everything fine. I do not experience this problem when using Yandex on any other website. 2. Unlike what Benders-Lee intended when he invented the web browser, the "back button" almost doesn't work on Yandex Translate. So always right-click to open links in a new tab.

2. The US could probably carry out a large number of air attacks, but the Iranian response would be to destroy all the Gulf oil facilities AND everything worth bombing in Israel. This potential for offense is Iran's best defense, and, I think, the main reason why there hasn't been a war. Iran's air defense missiles are probably more effective than the lying MSM will admit, and might shoot down a large percentage of the humans and aluminum the US would throw at Iran, but it's a matter of attrition, and Iran would suffer grave damage. We can't rule out that that might be the plan since the Empire is run by psychopaths. A US Army elite training manual, from 2012 in Kansas, implied that by 2020, Europe would not be a major power. Perhaps they were thinking that Europe would go out of business from a lack of Persian Gulf oil.

3. As for a ground war against Iran, I don't think the US or even the US with the former NATO coalition, would have any hope and they know it. A real invasion force would require at least 250,000 troops, probably 500,000, maybe more. 80 million very determined and united Iranians, many of whom who don't fear martyrdom, would make the Vietnam War look like a bad picnic with fire ants . Yes, Vietnam had jungle for guerillas to hide behind, but South Vietnamese society was divided and many supported the Americans. Iran has no such division. Even the Arab province of Khuzestan would stand united, knowing how the Shiite Arabs are mistreated in the Eastern Province and in Kuwait.

Tom Welsh on January 05, 2020 , · at 5:31 pm EST/EDT
"They can then keep their forces in tightly fortified compounds "

eating and drinking what? When no Iraqi will even speak to them, let alone do anything for them.

Greifenburg on January 05, 2020 , · at 2:52 pm EST/EDT
Count me in as part of group two. As a former U.S. Army service member I can assure anyone reading this that this action is an historic strategic mistake. What the Saker has outlined above is very likely. There is most probably no way to walk back now. Who in the ME would negotiate with the U.S. Government? Their perfidy is well known. Many citizen in this country feel like they are held hostage by a government that doesn't represent their interests or feelings. I hope the people in the ME know this.
The Saker on January 05, 2020 , · at 2:57 pm EST/EDT
Since the folks in the ME know that the US is a "pretend democracy" they also realize that the people of the USA are just as oppressed by the AngloZionist regime as the people abroad. Frankly, I have traveled on a lot of countries and I have never come across anything like real hostility towards the US American people. The very same people who hate Uncle Shmuel very much enjoy US music, literature, movies, novel ideas, etc. I believe that the Empire is truly hated across the globe, but not the people of the USA.
Kind regards
The Saker
Melotte 22 on January 05, 2020 , · at 3:23 pm EST/EDT
As long as people of the USA tolerate their government criminal activities around the world, and this is happening for last 70 years, I don't agree with your comment. These crimes are commited in the name of people of the USA, who are doing nothing to prevent them. As for movies coming from US, most of them are propaganda about 'exceptional nation'. No thanks.
Auslander on January 05, 2020 , · at 4:09 pm EST/EDT
The United States of America is not a democracy, it is a constitutional republic. That being said, the fall elections are going to be of significant interest.

With kindest regards
Auslander

Nachtigall on January 05, 2020 , · at 4:18 pm EST/EDT
Couldn't agree with you less Saker. They share the spoils of war, generation after generation. From the killing of indigenous population to neocolonial resource extraction today, they get their cut. You cannot have it both ways, enjoying the spoils of war and hiding behind invalid rationalizations, pretending you have no-thingz to do with that.
The Saker on January 05, 2020 , · at 3:12 pm EST/EDT
Russian TV says that there were anti-war demonstrations in 80 (!) US cities.
I don't have the time to check whether this is true, but it sure sounds credible to me.
The Saker
Anonymous on January 05, 2020 , · at 3:24 pm EST/EDT
Greetings Mr. Saker,

This information is true. I personally took part in the march in Denver, Colorado. I would estimate we had about 500 people, which is a lot more than most anti-war protests have ever gotten in recent memory.

Do not count out the possibility of a sudden large and massive anti-war movement suddenly springing out of nowhere.

Unfortunately, I do not see how "peaceful" protests will accomplish anything on their own. Rioting may be necessary. The system needs to be shut down and commerce slow to a crawl so that nobody may ignore this.

The Saker on January 05, 2020 , · at 3:32 pm EST/EDT
Thank you for this precious confirmation!
And keep up the good fight!
Kind regards
The Saker
durlin on January 05, 2020 , · at 4:25 pm EST/EDT
anonymous, fellow Coloradoan here, would appreciate some info on where I need to look for the next one,. I will be there
Richard Sauder on January 05, 2020 , · at 2:55 pm EST/EDT
Yes. I am thinking about the Deagel.com numbers again. They're starting to come into better focus.

http://www.deagel.com/country/forecast.aspx

I agree that there will first be a period of violent confusion, followed by -- well, what sane person even wants to think about what possible horrors lie ahead?

The threat of one or more spectacular false flag attacks to further fan the flames would also appear to be a possibility.

Real evil has been unleashed, that is clear. The empire has decided to fight, and to fight very dirty.

Nikolai on January 05, 2020 , · at 3:08 pm EST/EDT
Wasn't the Saker working in the employ of the US or NATO when they attacked Srbija without cause? Because that was my understanding.

Actually, no. I was working at the UN Institute for Disarmament Research.
But thanks for showing everybody how ugly, petty and clueless ad hominem using trolls can be!
The Saker

Marko on January 05, 2020 , · at 4:20 pm EST/EDT
Looks like our Nikolai is a Canvas Otpor Belgrade troll.
Serbian girl on January 05, 2020 , · at 4:46 pm EST/EDT
Or perhaps not Serbian at all
Flabbergasted on January 05, 2020 , · at 3:11 pm EST/EDT
"I can't say which group is bigger, but my gut feeling is that Group Two is much bigger than Group One. I might be wrong."

My personal observation is unfortunately the opposite. I think the population that is over 40 is probably leans 80% toward the TV-watching imbecile category with zero critical thinking abilities and exposure to four plus decades of propaganda. The population under 40 is largely too apathetic to have an opinion and unwilling to engage in research.

History will most likely play out in disaster resulting from a corrupt ruling class, systemic institutional rot, and brain-washed public not realizing what's happened.

Nikolai on January 05, 2020 , · at 3:23 pm EST/EDT
I will hazard a guess and say there are far more men than women in Group 1, and many more draft-age young adults of both sexes in Group 2.

But by and large a disturbing number of people in America regard world events as being akin to a football game, with Team A and Team B and a score to be kept. If things don't appear to be going well for their "team," they speak and behave irrationally, with crass statements like "nuke the whole place and turn it into a glass parking lot." Impressive, isn't it? Grown adults, comporting themselves like overindulged little children, always accustomed to getting their way – and displaying a terrifying willingness to set the whole house on fire when they don't.

It is a spiritual illness which pollutes the USA. Terrible things will have to happen before the society can become well, again

Anonymous on January 05, 2020 , · at 3:26 pm EST/EDT
Even if only 20% of the population join us, that will be enough. Because guess what? The TV-watching imbeciles are fat, lazy, and they won't do anything to support the government either, and they definitely aren't brave enough to get in the way of an angry mob
JJ on January 05, 2020 , · at 5:08 pm EST/EDT
About 50% of UK people opposed the UK intervention into Iraq .1 m people held marches on London and cities ..made no difference.
cdvision on January 05, 2020 , · at 3:39 pm EST/EDT
Its not just the US that's braindead. This from a once reputable newspaper in the UK

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/01/05/boris-johnson-calls-de-escalation-iran-us-killing-ofgeneral/

Its behind a paywall so you only get the first few paragraphs – frankly all you need. BUT its the comments that tell the story!

Pamela on January 05, 2020 , · at 5:11 pm EST/EDT
It's interesting to me, this comment of Sakers'. I have been thinking, with these revelations of the utter depravity and total lack of what was once called "honour " and treating the enemy with respect, of a few instances which seemed to show me that not all of America was like this.

There is a scene in the much loved but short lived** TV series "Firefly" in which the rebel "outsider" spaceship Captain offers a doctor on the run a berth with them. The Doctor says "but you dont like me. You could kill me in my sleep" to which the Captain replies "Son, you dont know me yet, So let me tell you know, If i ever try to kill you, you will be awake, you will be facing me, and you will be armed"

Exactly I thought. There is a Code of Honour by which battles used to be fought. This latest by US has shown how low it's Ruling Regime is, that is doesn't not see that. But from examples like the above, I gathered that there are people in America who still hold to it closely – and that's good to know.

** Short lived because it showed as it's heroes a group of people who lived outside the Ruling Tyrannical Regime, who had fought for Independence and lost, and now lived "by their wits" and not always according to law. Not surprising that the rulers of US weren't going to allow that to go to air!!

Nikolai on January 05, 2020 , · at 3:13 pm EST/EDT
Wasn't the Saker working in the employ of the US and NATO when they attacked and bombed Srbija without cause? Because that was my understanding.

Thanks, now we all know how good your "understanding" is!
The Saker :-P

Rufus Palmer on January 05, 2020 , · at 3:32 pm EST/EDT
Unfortunately I believe the largest group in the USA is the "nuke 'em group". All of my friends watch Fox and none have an understanding of the empire.

Sake thank you as always for your excellent work. What do you think Iran will attack first?

teranam13 on January 05, 2020 , · at 3:19 pm EST/EDT
Thanks Saker for this discussion/information space you provide when nothing is very trustworthy and on what is a holiday week end for you.

Two points:
Never underestimate the perfidy of the Kurds. They held back on the censure/withdrawal vote in the Iraqi\
parliament and are probably offering withdrawal airport space for US military.

And Agreed, about most Americans being absolutely horrified and ashamed.Even Alex Jones had to put Syrian Girl on and to post her on video.banned. One of his callers demanded that Alex apologize to his listening audience on "bended knee" for his support of Trump's attack on Iran. When Alex tried to schmooze
the irate caller -- The man started yelling -- "Who cares, Alex, who cares about Iran my neighbors have no jobs
and are dying from drug overdoses. who cares about Israel? Let them take care of themselves."

Trump has sealed his own fate on many levels and ours her in looneylandia. It is said that a nation gets the leadership it deserves. We are about to become a nation of the yard-sale.

Craig Mouldey on January 05, 2020 , · at 3:27 pm EST/EDT
Whew, this is something to chew on and try to digest. That first point jumped right off the page. General Soleimani was on an official diplomatic mission, requested by the U.S.! They set him up and were waiting for him to get in his car at the airport and go onto the road.
The entire world will know there is no way to justify this. It is just as ugly as the public murder of JFK. They have zero credibility in all they say and do. It will be interesting to see who supports what is coming and who have gotten the message from this murder and have decided they cannot support this beast.
Clarence on January 05, 2020 , · at 3:33 pm EST/EDT
How many missiles does the us have in the middle east?
How many air defense missiles does have iran?
Does iran have the ability to destroy us airbases to prevent aircraft from attacking iranian territory? That would be my first move: destroying the ennemy s fighter jets while they are still on the ground.
How many missiles does iran can launch ? How far can they hit?
I think these are important questions if we want to make a good assessment of the situation
One Tribe on January 05, 2020 , · at 3:36 pm EST/EDT
Thank you for the continuing courageous, fact-based reporting.

All as-yet-unenslaved-minds of the oppressed people living under the auspices of the empire share the horror of what has happened, made worse so, for I personally, learning the evil duplicity of the 'fake' diplomacy of the masters of the U.S.A. administration.
If there had been any credibility whatsoever, left for the U.S.A. diplomatic integrity, it is now completely murdered.

I should like to point out, yet again, the perverse obviousness of the utter subordination of the utterly testiclesless america n ' leadership ' by the affiliates, dually loyal extra-nationals, aligned to the quasi-nation of pychopathic hatred against humanity.

In spite of, and now increasingly because of, the absurd perception management/propaganda agencies, completely controlled by this aforementioned affiliation, and their ongoing absurd efforts, people are becoming aware of the ultimate source of the hatred and agenda we re witnessing in the ME, and indeed, in ever country under the auspices of the empire.
It is becoming impossible to cover, even for the most timid followers of the citizens of empire-controlled nation states.
The war continues against the non-subliminated citizens, and will certainly escalate as the traction of the perception-management techniques have been pushed way over their best-before date.

Even not wanting to know this, people are becoming aware of it.

I urge all those self-identifying with this affiliation of secretive hatred against humanity to disavow either publicly, or privately, this collective of hatred.
The recusement of the fifth-column will undermine these machinations.

It is now the time to realize that no promise of superior upward mobility, in exchange for activities supporting the affiliation, is worth the stark prospect of complete destruction of the biosphere.

Paul23 on January 05, 2020 , · at 3:38 pm EST/EDT
Saker: what makes you think it will just be a couple of days of bombing? I would have thought they would set up a no fly zone then fly over that country permanently blowing the shit out of any military thing on the ground until the gov collapses.

Iran doesn't have the ability to prevent this & running a country under these conditions is impossible.

Randy Brady on January 05, 2020 , · at 4:10 pm EST/EDT
Set up a no-fly zone over Iran? Iran is well aware of American air-power. They have a multi-layer air defense. And I wouldn't be surprised that the Iranian's are capable of taking out U.S. satellites.

Iran knows their enemy. They have been preparing for conflict with the U.S. for 40 years. This is a sophisticated, and highly advanced nation, with brilliant leadership. They understand what their weaknesses are, and what their strengths are.

The wild cards are threefold: Russia. China. North Korea. If one wants to think about the possible asymmetrical capabilities of those three, let alone the pure power their militaries, it boggles the mind.

Prediction: The U.S. stands down on orders of their own military. People like John Bolton quietly pass away in their sleep.

Kilombo Zumbi on January 05, 2020 , · at 5:02 pm EST/EDT
The only no fly zone to be implemented will be on all american warplanes over Iran and Iraq. Do you remember the multimillion drone that went down? Multipliy it by hundreds of manned planes. God, how delusional can you be?!!!
You have a fighting force that is a disgrace composed by little girls that start screeming once they get bullets flying over their heads. You have aircraft battle groups that are sitting ducks waitng to go to the bottom of the sea. Wake up and get your pills, man!
Tom Welsh on January 05, 2020 , · at 5:39 pm EST/EDT
Paul23, from where will the aircraft take off to implement your "no-fly zone"? Any air base within 2,000 km would be destroyed by a shower of cruise missiles and possibly drones.

Any aircraft carrier within 2,000 km likewise.

Mike from Jersey on January 05, 2020 , · at 3:45 pm EST/EDT
File this next article under "Just when you thought that things couldn't get any crazier."

Pompeo is slamming Europe for not being supportive of the American murders in the Middle East.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/europeans-havent-been-helpful-after-suleimani-killing-pompeo-slams-allies-not

Nussiminen on January 05, 2020 , · at 3:48 pm EST/EDT
It is Group 1 -- loud, reactionary, extremely vulgar, militant parasites -- which defines the US national character. Exceptional and indispensable simply mean "entitled to other peoples' natural resources and labour output". Trying to reason with these lowlives is a waste of time. Putin understands this; hence the new Russian weapons. The latter will be needed very soon.
Mike from Jersey on January 05, 2020 , · at 4:08 pm EST/EDT
I am an American and I am not sure that is true.

Americans are a good people but America is one of the most heavily propagandized nations in the world. The media is corrupt. The educational systems teach a sanitized version of history. But that is only a part of it.

Pro-Military propaganda is everywhere. Even before the Superbowl, jet bombers fly over the stadium – as if Militarism constituted a basic American value. At Airports, "Military Personnel" are given preferential boarding. At retail stores customers are asked to make donations to "military families." College football games are dedicated to "Military Appreciation Day." High Schools work in unison with Military Recruiters to steer students into the Military. Even playground facilities for children that have video displays display pro military messages. And that is just the tip of the iceberg.

Most of this propaganda is paid for out of the obscene military budget. The average citizen doesn't have a chance.

Americans are a good people, if they really knew what was being done in their name, they would put a stop to it.

Nussiminen on January 05, 2020 , · at 4:37 pm EST/EDT
Militant parasites do live in a world of total lies, deception, and delusion but never at the expense of their survival instincts. US imperial coercion, mayhem, and murder globally are absolutely crucial to the American way of life, and the 99% know it. Their living standards would drop enormously without the imperial loot. Thus, they dearly yearn for all the repression, war, and chauvinism they vote for and more.
Steki on January 05, 2020 , · at 3:53 pm EST/EDT
One thing is telling, at least for me. Who the f in the right state of mind kills other state's official and then admits of doing it?!? The common sense sense tells me that you do something and to avoid bigger consequences you stay quet and deny everything. Just like CIA is doing. Trump just put US military personnel in grave danger. We know how they accused Manning for showing the to the world US war crimes. They put him in the jail for what Trump just did. But, I cannot believe that they are that much stupid. If US does not want war, as Trump is saying, they could have done this and then blame someone else because now it has been shown that they wanted to "talk" to Iran, as Iraqis PM said. At least, US brought new meaning to the word "talk"
Rostislav_Velka_Morava on January 05, 2020 , · at 3:56 pm EST/EDT
Russia will not allow this, and will put their foot down.
Hussan Carim on January 05, 2020 , · at 4:00 pm EST/EDT
The most damaging, no most devestating, assymetrical attack on the US would be a 'non violent' attack.

Let me quickly explain.

It has been well known since the exposure of the man behind the curtain during the great financial crisis of 2007-08 that all Human operations – all Human life in fact – is financialised in some way.

Some ways being so sophisticated or 'subtle' that barely 1 person in 1000 is even aware, much less capable of understanding them, much less the financial control grid (and state / deepstate power base) which empoverishs them and enslaves them to an endless cycle of aquiring and spending 'money'.

Look deeply and the wise will see how 'Human resources' (as opposed to Human Beings) are herded like cattle to be worked on the farm, 'fleeced', or slaughtered as appropriate to the money masters.

We have been programmed, trained, and conditioned to call 'currency units' (dollar/euro/pound/yuan, etc) 'money', when they are actually nothing of the sort, they are state or bank issued money substitutes.

In the middle east and north africa some leaders recognised this determined how to escape slavery and subjegation. They attempted to field this knowledge like an economic-nuke, but without the massive protection required, and they were destroyed by the empire – Sadam Hussain with his oil for Gold (and oil for Euros) program, and Col. Gadaffi of Libya with his North African 'Gold Dinar' and 'Silver Durham' Islamic money program.

To cut a very long story short – the evil empire depends upon all nations and peoples excepting thier pieces of paper currency units as 'real' money – which the empire print / create in unlimited quantities to fund thier war machine and global progrram of domination.

All financial markets are either denominated or settled in US Dollars (or are at least convertable).

All Nations Central Banks (except Irans I believe) are linked via various US Dollar exchange / liquidity mechanisms, and all 'settle' in US Dollars.

Currently all nations use US controlled electronic banking communications / exchange / tranfer systems (swift being the most well known).

Would it therefore not make sence to go for the very beating heart of the Beast – the US financial system?

The most powerful attack against the empire would therefore be against this power base – the global reserve currency – the US dollar – and the US ability to print any quantity of it (or create digits on a screen and call them 'Dollar Units').

It would be pointless trying to fight an emnemy capable of printing for free enough currency to buy every resource (including peoples lives) – unless that super ability was destroyed or disrupted.

Example of a massive nuclear equivilent attack on the beast would be an internal and major disrruption of interbank electronic communications (at all levels from cash machine operation and card payment readers up to interbank transfers and federal banking operations).

Shut down the US banking system and you shut down the US war machine.

Not only that you shut down the US ability to buy resources and bribe powerful leaders – which means they wont be able to recover from such a blow quickly.

Shutting down banking and electronic payments of all kinds would cause the US people – particularly those currently enjoying bread and circus distraction and pacification – to tear appart thier own communities, and each other, as the spoiled and gready fight for the remaining resources, including food and fuel.

The 'grid' has been studied in great depth by both Russia and China (and Israel as part of thier neo-sampson option) and we can therefore deduce that Iran has some knowledge of how it works and where the weak links are (and not just the undersea optical cables and wireless nodes).

I, and a thousand other people have always said, the best, perhaps only way to defeat the US and end its reign of terror on this Earth is to take away its ability to create out of thin air the Worlds global reserve currency – the US Dollar.

Reducing the US to an empoverished 3rd world state by taking its check book away would be a worthy and lasting revenge and humiliation.

Amon Ra on January 05, 2020 , · at 4:09 pm EST/EDT
" I, and a thousand other people have always said, the best, perhaps only way to defeat the US and end its reign of terror on this Earth is to take away its ability to create out of thin air the Worlds global reserve currency – the US Dollar. "

No, the best way would be for each nation to ditch the intertwined, privately ( Rothschild ) controlled central banks, and to return to printing their own money. Anything, short of that will just perpetuate the same system from a different home base ( nation ), most likely China next. This virus can jump hosts and it will given a chance.

Auslander on January 05, 2020 , · at 4:03 pm EST/EDT
Who knows what will happen, but an actual boots on the ground invasion of Iran will not happen. Iran is not Irak and things have changed since that war.

US does not have 6 to 12 months to gather it's forces and logistics for an invasion (remember, the election is coming), plus US no longer has the heavy lift assets to do this. Toss in the fact that Iran is now on a war footing and has allies in the general AO, hired RoRo's and other logistics and supply assets will be targets before they get anywhere near the ports or beaches to off load. Plus, you can kiss oil goodbye, Iran will close the straights a nanosecond after the first bomb is in the air.

An air assault such as Serbia will be very expensive, Iran will fight back from the first bomb if not before, and Iran has a pretty viable air defense system and the missiles to make life miserable for any cluster of troops and logistics within roughly 300 kilometers of the borders if not longer. Look at a map. There is a long border between Iran and Irak, but as such and considering the terrain, any viable ground attack has to come from Irak territory. With millions of Iraki's seething at what Uncle Sugar just did and millions of Iranians seething at what Uncle Sugar just did, any invading troops will not be greeted with showers spring blossoms. To paraphrase a quote, 'You will be safe nowhere, our land will be your grave.'

Toss in the fact that an invasion of Irak, if even half successful, will put American troops on a war footing perilously close to Russian territory and possibly directly on the Russian Lake, aka Caspian Sea, and sovereign territory of Russia. Won't happen, VVP will not allow it.

Ergo, in spite of all the bluster and chest beating, at best all Foggy Bottom can do is bomb, bomb some more and bomb again. The cost in airframes and captured pilots will be a disaster and if RoRo's and other logistic heavy lift assets or bases are hit, the body bags coming back to Dover will be of numbers that can not be hidden as they are today with explanations that the dead are victims of training accidents or air accidents.

Foggy Bottom, and Five Points with Langley, have painted themselves in to a corner and unfortunately for them, (and it's within the realm of possibility that Five Points egged Trump on for this deal regardless of their protestations of innocence and surprise) they are now in a case of put up or shut up. As a point of honor they will continue down the spiral path of open warfare and war is like a cow voiding it's watery bowels, it splatters far beyond the intended target.

As my friend said a few years ago, damn you, damn your eyes, damn your souls, damn you back to Satan whose spawn you are. Go back to your fetid master and leave us in peace.

Auslander
Author http://rhauslander.com/

Never The Last One, paper back edition. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1521849056 A deep look in to Russia, her culture and her Armed Forces, in essence a look at the emergence of Russian Federation.

An Incident On Simonka. paperback edition. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1696160715 NATO Is Invited To Leave Sevastopol, One Way Or The Other.

Auslander on January 05, 2020 , · at 4:19 pm EST/EDT
"Toss in the fact that an invasion of Irak, if even half successful," should read:

"Toss in the fact that an invasion of Iran, if even half successful,"

It's late and this old man is tired. More tomorrow.

Auslander

Anonymous on January 05, 2020 , · at 4:04 pm EST/EDT
"UPDATE2: RT is reporting that "One US service member, two contractors killed in Al-Shabaab attack in Kenya, two DoD personnel injured". Which just goes to prove my point that spontaneous attacks are what we will be seeing first and that the retaliation promised by Iran will only come later."

-Al-Shabaab is a salafist terror group

Observer on January 05, 2020 , · at 4:17 pm EST/EDT
Saker, Some of us might be curious to know what your experience with the UN Institute for Disarmament Research informs you about the imminent Virginia gun bans and confiscations planned for this year and next. Can Empire afford to fight an actual shooting war on two fronts, one externally against Iraq/Iran and the second internally against its own people, some of whom will paradoxically be called away to fight on the first front? Perhaps the two conflicts could become conjoined as Uncle Shmuel mislabels every peaceful gun owner who just wants to be left alone as a foreign enemy-sympathizer and combatant by default, thereby turning brother against brother in a bloody prolonged hell in the regions immediately around Washington DC? Could the Empire *truly* be that suicidal?
Hajduk on January 05, 2020 , · at 4:20 pm EST/EDT
'Mr. Trump, the Gambler! Know that we are near you, in places that don't come to your mind. We are near you in places that you can't even imagine. We are a nation of martyrdom. We are the nation of Imam Hussein You are well aware of our power and capabilities in the region. You know how powerful we are in asymmetrical warfare You know that a war would mean the loss of all your capabilities. You may start the war, but we will be the ones to determine its end '
Gen. Soleimani (2018)
Bikkin on January 05, 2020 , · at 4:31 pm EST/EDT
Hello Saker,
I would like to ask you a question.
According to the Russian nuclear doctrine "The Russian Federation reserves the right to use nuclear weapons in response to the use of nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction against itself or its allies and also in response to large-scale aggression involving conventional weapons in situations that are critical for the national security of the Russian Federation and its allies."
In your opinion does Russia consider Iran such an ally? Will Russia shield Iran against USAn / Israeli nuclear strikes? In case of an imminent nuclear strike on Iran is Russia (and possibly others) going to issue a nuclear ultimatum to the would-be aggressor? And in case an actual nuclear attack on Iran happens is Russia going to retaliate / deter further attacks with its own nukes?
What is your opinion?
One thing: please do not start explaining why the above scenario is completely unthinkable, unrealistic and why it would never ever happen. I need your opinion on the possible events if such an attack does take place or it is about to happen. I do not need reasons why it would not happen; I need your opinion what might take place if it does happen. If you cannot answer my question, have no opinion or simply do not want to answer it please let me know it.
In case there is a formal commitment by Russia – one I know not of – when, where was it made?
Thanks in advance.
Nachtigall on January 05, 2020 , · at 5:27 pm EST/EDT
2nd that, but be polite to the Saker. Ask nicely next time, like someone who is civilized.

Thanks you for your indispensable work, dear Saker!

Marko on January 05, 2020 , · at 4:32 pm EST/EDT
I think USA still has nuclear option.
They will not hesitate to use it on Iran if Israel is in danger.
So, I think Iran shall be defeated anyway, as USA is much stronger.

Wrong. If the US uses nukes, then this will secure the total victory of Iran.
The Saker

Nachtigall on January 05, 2020 , · at 5:31 pm EST/EDT
How does this secure a total victory, dear Saker? Please help my to understand this: Nukes on every major city, industrial site, infrastructure with pos. millions dead – how is this a victory?
robert on January 05, 2020 , · at 4:41 pm EST/EDT
So, how many hostages for Iran are in Iraq now?
Petro-G on January 05, 2020 , · at 4:44 pm EST/EDT
I think that if Iran were to launch some devastating missiles into Israel, either a US ship/submarine or Israel will launch a nuclear bomb into Iran. The US knows there is nothing to be gained by a ground invasion. If we [the US] were to start launching missiles into Iran, Iran would rightfully be launching sophisticated arms back toward US ships and Israel and the US can't stand for that. We are good at dishing it out, but lousy at receiving it.

I can only believe we assassinated Solieman [apologies] because it is the writhing of a dying petrodollar. The US is desperate. But I don't understand how going to war is supposed to help?

Stand Easy on January 05, 2020 , · at 4:56 pm EST/EDT
Some short comments on the strategic blunder made by US.

Meantime, global ramifications are being felt. View from China, one of the biggest consumers of ME oil:

https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1175782.shtml

and some mind-reading from a HK based rag:

"Beijing's ties with Tehran are crucial to its energy and geopolitical strategies, and with Moscow also in the mix, a broader conflagration is a real possibility"

https://www.asiatimes.com/2020/01/article/could-china-take-irans-side-in-a-war-with-us/

Japan had planned to send some military hardware to the ME just before the new year but Gen Soleimani's murder may change the calculus.

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/01/03/national/japan-sdf-assassination-iran-qassem-soleimani/#.XhJYxfLmjN4

Last but not least, Happy Nativity to all Orthodox Christians (thanks for the beautifully illustrated Orthodox calendar, The Saker.)
Let us all pray for peace.

Kent on January 05, 2020 , · at 5:33 pm EST/EDT
"(thanks for the beautifully illustrated Orthodox calendar, The Saker.)"

Credits for the calendar(s) should go to one of our in house Artists and poets Ioan.

You obviously do not visit the Cafe' very often, do you?

Regards
Kent

Wendy on January 05, 2020 , · at 5:24 pm EST/EDT
Trump is the King of the South. Killing under a flag of parley is a rare thing these days and is the reason why Trump will end up going to war with no allies by his side just like the path mapped oit for him in Daniel.

Analysis sans eschatology is Onism.

Tom on January 05, 2020 , · at 5:32 pm EST/EDT
It's not a blunder.
Trump's goals pre-assassination:
1) withdraw US troops from the ME ("Fortress America") and
2) placate Israel
This is how it is done. Not a direct "hey guys, we have to bring the boys home." Trump tried that and got smashed by the Deep State and Israel. Instead, he is going to force the Islamic world to do the talking for him by refusing to host our pariah army (that's all they have to do, not destroy a major US base or two). Then even the Deep State will admit it's a lost cause. He can say he did all he could while achieving his goals.
As The Saker pointed out, the troops being sent now are to evacuate, not to conquer Tehran. Next time this year the US will have its troops home and Trump will be reelected

[Jan 04, 2020] Trump threatens to bomb 52 sites in Iran

Notable quotes:
"... It is time b and the others admit that they made a mistake. b has been supportive of keeping Trump in power and his reelection. This is a mistake. karlo1 also expressed some support for Trump, which is naive, and inexcusable, for such an intelligent person. ..."
"... Let's make a bet that all of those who somehow supported Trump here will eat their words this year. ..."
"... It is time for people to think very carefully and deeply about things. Do not be naive. Think very carefully. Get your brains working, please. ..."
Jan 04, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Passer by , Jan 5 2020 0:36 utc | 132

Trump threatens to bomb Iran.

So what happened to the naive people who were putting their peace hopes in Trump? He just said he will strike important sites in Iran, including cultural sites.

It is time b and the others admit that they made a mistake. b has been supportive of keeping Trump in power and his reelection. This is a mistake. karlo1 also expressed some support for Trump, which is naive, and inexcusable, for such an intelligent person.

Let's make a bet that all of those who somehow supported Trump here will eat their words this year.

It is time for people to think very carefully and deeply about things. Do not be naive. Think very carefully. Get your brains working, please.

psychohistorian , Jan 5 2020 0:44 utc | 133

Asymmetrical warfare may come from China.

If I were China at this point, watching the schoolyard bully beating up on a fellow citizen, I might just want to take the Bully's focus off the fellow citizen and, with Russia's backing, tell the bully to pick on someone their own size.

Given the brazenness of the threats and provoking going on to start some military conflict, maybe China needs to play the "I won't sign the trade deal and I want to cash in my US Treasuries." cards to redirect the narrative and focus.

I like the silence of nations watching the bully trying to goad the world into military war. It speaks volumes that Trump is being the biggest bully he can to incite military warfare which they would lose if they don't go nuclear.

I find it saddening that so many commenters here don't seem to grasp that asymmetrical warfare that is needed now is not the eye for eye type. Military warfare is the problem, not the solution.

Really?? , Jan 5 2020 0:47 utc | 134
"Trump: "We targeted 52 Iranian sites (representing the 52 American hostages taken by Iran many years ago), some at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture, and those targets, and Iran itself, WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD. The USA wants no more threats!"

Threats! I.e., Trump to Iran: If you don't let us off the hook for what we did to you, you will be sorry!! Wouldn't this also be a war crime per . . . Geneva? Nuernberg? Destruction of cultural sites?

The man is really a terrifying nutter who thinks nothing of destroying ancient cultures while sitting in his gauge, glitzy digs in the Trump Tower or Mar-a Lago.

chu teh , Jan 5 2020 0:48 utc | 135
Son of Daddy Warbucks
Raised by liars
Surrounded by minders
His spark a prisoner
Trapped.
div> Come Monday, Iran can wait a day, a week, 10 months. Meanwhile Trump will wither away of fear.

Posted by: bjd , Jan 5 2020 0:55 utc | 137

Come Monday, Iran can wait a day, a week, 10 months. Meanwhile Trump will wither away of fear.

Posted by: bjd | Jan 5 2020 0:55 utc | 137

juliania , Jan 5 2020 0:57 utc | 138
Thanks to Really @ 124 - Yes, I do know that Iran is not Arabic - the interview I was remembering was in Qatar in October after a meeting that Zahir had addressed concerning his HOPE initiative, and that interview had been posted on twitter - I could not find it in my search just now, but my confusion was due to, I believe, his mentioning Arabic countries at one point. Apologies for the misstatement. You are correct that the initiative is aimed more widely than that.
PavewayIV , Jan 5 2020 1:00 utc | 139
Lozion@62 - Re: Your Magnier quote, "The US did not plan to kill the vice commander of the Iraqi Hashd al-Shaabi brigade Abu Mahdi al-Muhandes when it assassinated Iranian Brigadier General Qassem Soleiman"

The light bulb above my chimpanzee brain just flickered (briefly). Somewhere on SST (maybe Lang?): something to the effect of 'Never underestimate US gov/mil incompetence'. Maybe it was the opposite of what Magnier thought really took place.

Treasonous, dual-citizen chickenhawks of the US possibly targeted Hashd al-Shaabi vice-commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandes . They were trying to kill him because they found out from some snitch that he just showed up at the airport for some reason. The all-seeing US didn't realize Soleimani was even there . I guess because the sneaky Soleimani flew commercial into Baghdad and probably carried his bags to the waiting SUVs. Who would have expected that ? How devious!

This seems entirely plausible to me. Soleimani was too expensive a target - end of the State of Israel, Saudi Arabia and the UAE and all. But whacking a vice-commander of Hashd al-Shaabi with a quarter-million dollar JAGM? Hell YEAH! We live for this kind of preventative assassination heroism in the US. Especially if accompanied by colorful graphics.

The awkward and delayed response of the usual US mil/gov mouthpieces makes this ridiculous scenario even more believable. I have thoroughly convinced myself that this was a US screw-up of EPIC proportions. In case the US government is reading MoA, this was all Lozion's doing. I'm an innocent conspiracy primate.

Really?? , Jan 5 2020 1:05 utc | 140
Really?? 134
"gauge, glitzy digs"

Uh, that was supposed to be "gauche."

Jackrabbit , Jan 5 2020 1:10 utc | 141
I don't trust Magnier's reporting about an offer made by USA to Iran and his speculation that Trump "offering the life of a 4-star general" is as nonsensical as it is irresponsible.

In the past I've found Magnier to be unreliable - like when he has lauded Israel and hinted that Iran was behind the tanker attacks. It sometimes seems to me that Magnier relishes the possibility of a war with Iran.

Magnier's reporting is inconsistent with Trump Administration actions now and in the past. Trump was "locked and loaded" for war with Iran in September! So why would Trump offer to lift sanctions and strike a nuclear deal now EXCEPT AS A RUSE.

We should also be mindful that the Iranians have refused to negotiate while sanctions are in place. This has been Iran's position for quite some time. Reporting about an rebuffed offer without noting this is irresponsible and a disservice to readers.

PS Why does Magnier's site track users via graph.facebook?

<> <> <> <> <> <>

I find it highly doubtful that Iran brought down PanAm 103 .

Such speculation only plays into USA's depiction of Iran as a terrorist state.

!!

juliania , Jan 5 2020 1:10 utc | 142
I know we are not to feed the trolls, but this is a meme worth commenting on:

"...So what happened to the naive people who were putting their peace hopes in Trump?..."

Many here are emphasizing this doubtful implication (even Circe, whom I praised for a stellar observation on the subject of Iran - and it even crept into my own cut and paste of Suilimani's attributes.

We do not know (and I'm grateful to Pepe for entering this into his recent article) how much of this is being orchestrated by Trump of his own unadulterated initiative. We agree it's a mafia operating. Is he the boss of it? That's speculation. What is important is that those (and we've seen how they operate) in 'power' are calling the shots.

So I'm viewing with suspicion any post (including mine) that accidentally or not inserts this meme.

Patroklos , Jan 5 2020 1:12 utc | 143
Posted by: bevin | Jan 4 2020 23:17 utc | 97

Bin Laden, Al Baghdadi, etc were not beloved state officials or state actors of any kind. Qaddafi, like Saddam, was toppled in actions that were designed to look like regime change from below -- but I agree to some extent that his death comes close, but was Qaddafi singled out by a precision hit in the precise fashion we are seeing here. But my point is that a bridge has been crossed here in terms of scale, brazenness, and the extent to which no attempt was made to conceal that it was a hit ordered directly by POTUS. It is an unprecedented shift in international relations where a host of other covert tactics were fully available and would have achieved the same outcome.

A User , Jan 5 2020 1:15 utc | 144
I guess I'm the only human round here who finds the child like refusal by so many to believe that Iran played a payback card with Lockerbie, a very small stunt that didn't require much at all in the way of participants, while they lap up lurid (& frequently white supremacist at heart) nonsense conspiracies such as that 911 was a deliberate strategy (one that would have required a cast of hundreds if not thousands, all staying schtum for evermore) - f++king ludicrous.
The Iranians had to teach amerika that shooting down a passenger jet had major consequences. They did that while benefiting from real world politics where amerika needed to have Iran & Syria (who had assisted) onside for gulf war 1. Libya got stitched up because they were convenient mugs who lacked friends in the ME because the colonel had no time for pretty much every other ME leader - his interest had always been Africa.
This is pretty typical of people who have a need to see everything in black or white. Don't say anything bad about Iran or Syria because they are enemies of fukasi eh. What use are nations such as Iran or Syria if they are not prepared to get their hands dirty once in a while? No use.
The fact that Iran got just the right payback in a just way then stopped is something people should be proud of Iran for, rather than squealing "No No they wouldn't they couldn't do that."
I can remember celebrating down the workers' club on the day news of the Lockerbie bombing came out. What had occurred was obvious, sure a few innocents died, that happens in war, the war amerika had kicked off and if that plane hadn't gone down most of the passengers would have been sitting in a coffee shop today with half a chubbie in their pants at the thought amerika had showed that 'Sullymanny' who was the boss.

b is correct to bring up that action because it encapsulates exactly how Iran is, truth and justice are at the heart of everything Iran's leadership believes & does. It wasn't Iran who fitted up Libya - amerika & england did that. Iran had merely insisted that the entire plane saga be buried if amerika wanted any assistance with Saddam Hussein, who let's face as far as Iran was concerned deserved everything he got. George H Bush showed himself to be at least as silly as his son - neither had any comprehension of what would happen should Ba'ath be removed from power in Iraq, that Iran would be the major beneficiary.
That I reckon is a major part of why amerikan leaders & their zionist proxies get so hot on Iran. Iran played them like a bitch and now they know it.

arata , Jan 5 2020 1:22 utc | 145
@130

If Lockerbie incident substantiated with Rober Fisk stories or world powers intelligence evidences, Iran definitely would be sanctioned and would pay very high price, would be tried in international criminal court.
Why they did not brought Gadhafy to the court? Because they did not have clear evidence.
Look other works of Robert Fisk, how is Independent now? What color is it now?

Passer by , Jan 5 2020 1:25 utc | 146
Posted by: juliania | Jan 5 2020 1:10 utc | 142

My view about Trump is based on my psychological portrait of Trump. He is a US supremacist, plus a military (see their presence around him and the large increase in mil budgets) and a zionist (see his family) puppet.

I see him as an aggressive animal. He will start a war if he can get away with it. He also likes to grandstand, so he hates the US decline in the world. He wants to brag how great he (and by proxy the US) is. It is also known that he does not like muslims. No way for him to have good relations with Iran.

He is a gambler. He will push and push, as long as he could get away with it. In international relations though, especially in the relations with some countries, who have strong grievances against the US, this could lead to war.

Trump said that he could nuke Afghanistan is necessary. Sorry, but i do not see in this talk his advisors behind him, but only his own animalistic nature.

Truth is, i was supportive of Trump in the past, but with time i changed my opinion. After careful observation. And i'm glad i did. It shows that my mind is still flexible, and will accept even the unpleasant truth, as long as it is the truth.

If i'm calling now a person that i was relatively supportive in the past "an animal" you can imagine my disappointment.

Patroklos , Jan 5 2020 1:27 utc | 147
Addendum to @143
Unless of course the lack of concealment was a deliberate provocation to incite a real war. In which case Iran must choose asymmetry. Hit KSA and close the Gulf. The world will sideline the US in a panicked scramble to quieten everything down. But I don't see evidence that the markets believe this will happen. Oil not really moving up that much. A good analysis of the financial markets' view on this would shed some light.

Also, does anybody have an accurate summary of the current structure of the Iraqi parliament, someone who can crunch the numbers? The US would surely have been preparing well in advance to prevent a spill to evict them, but is it in the bag or is it fluid? I wonder what the bookies are offering...

Really?? , Jan 5 2020 1:33 utc | 148
Paveway IV 139

An "Oh, shit" moment, big-time.

Canthama , Jan 5 2020 1:37 utc | 149
Too much noise from the US, as usual, threats blah blah, there are simply not enough fire power in the Gulf to go to war against Iran, just recall what took from many countries to invade Iraq, so no WWIII, no major confrontation is expected. The Orange Man is clearly agitated, his few TV appearances, are showing a very disturbed person, not the usual Trumpest we know about.
The backstage is intense, Iran has to retaliate, the US gets that, but it is trying to reduce the impact, this is definitively what is being dealt in the Swiss, Oman and Qatar meetings in the past 24 hrs. There will be more contacts until this whole mess is done.
Iranians and Iraqis are not afraid, they want confrontation, it will be hard for their leaders to hold them at bay, but I believe the payback is coming slowly, in pieces, not once, but in several blows, a masterpiece could be against American allies in the region, since the US will have hard time re retaliate, and the damage to the US will be done as it was with the tankers, agains KSA etc... We should also expect IEDs to kill many soldiers and US mercenaries, the later will be focused for sure, and that means in Iraq and Syria.

Would like to share with the SyrPers visiting MoA, that until the site is not back on line, we are trying to gather at Platosgun.com, at Taxi's place, so far we managed to some Syrpers there and get out comment section back to live in a different address, at least for while. See you there SyrPers.

chu teh , Jan 5 2020 1:41 utc | 150
Have we missed an obvious explanation for shocking behavior?

That control of Iran is needed to enable the Crown to do Brexit and flourish? That middle-east oil/gas and the politics of global availability are crucial to the Crown's survival as elitist Royalty.

The US.gov has acted as the Crown's proxy for a very long time, knowingly or unknowingly.

Look at a global map of Planet Earth. Look at England [if you can find it]. And don't confuse it with Japan, which also knows something about needing/wanting proxies...knowingly or not.

Now, go do Brexit without guaranteed [under control] sources of energy and other plunder.

Beibdnn , Jan 5 2020 1:49 utc | 151
People have lost their fear of Nuclear weapons. If the U.S. use Nukes against Iran, the radioactive cloud will be blown across the Atlantic Ocean and land where?
Quite apart from the fact that if the U.S. use Nukes without a serious retaliation, nowhere is safe. Putin has been quoted that any form of nuclear weapon used on any of it's allies will be considered as a nuclear attack on Russia itself and will be responded to by a full scale retaliatory strike.
As the U.S. has no defense against the latest Russian weaponry, they will realize that indeed, the living will envy the dead.
I have no idea as to what the attack strategy of Russia will be but I doubt it will be to kill millions of people. Far more effective Is to wipe out major infrastructure, transport, water and energy systems and then see what 340 million people do to survive.
Patroklos , Jan 5 2020 1:53 utc | 152
jadan | Jan 4 2020 23:48 utc | 112

Well put. We in Australia have a mini-Trump for PM (an embarrassing fawning dog licking Trump's balls on his recent visit to the US) who is currently mismanaging our bushfire catastrophe due to a total lack of empathy. A former marketing manager, Scott Morrison is a sociopath who makes bullies look like Mother Teresa. The combination of self-righteous evangelism with fanatical neoliberal ideology, when wedded to a lust for power at all costs and the crushing of any dissent (usually through awful marketing-school cynicism), makes for extreme social and political toxicity. He adores Trump and actually took notes at an Ohio rally (I kid you not). As the east coast burns like never before (a region the size of Texas gone, 1500 homes, 20+ lives lost) he went on holiday to Hawaii (staying in a Trump hotel). When he returned he was greeted by visceral hostility (enormously satisfying to watch here ). His instinct was to make an ad explaining how great his leadership is(n't). His position is owed to his commitment to Australia's only three sources of wealth: selling coal and iron ore to China, real estate (ponzi scheme), banking (even bigger ponzi scheme). I would drone strike him and Trump in a New York minute

AntiSpin , Jan 5 2020 1:56 utc | 153
@ Helmut | Jan 4 2020 20:30 utc | 65

"A new California law fines you $1,000 if you shower and do 1 load of laundry in the same day. And if the Gov declares a drought, the fine goes up to *$10,000*."

That is completely and utterly false. Here is the truth:
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/correct-information-california-water-efficiency-222625943.html?guccounter=1

Lozion , Jan 5 2020 1:58 utc | 154
@139 PWIV. My take here from before Magnier's post:

Posted by: Lozion | Jan 4 2020 2:25 utc | 363

"Killing Mohandes was not part of the plan imo. Note how he is never mentioned in Western press? The US will now have to contend with an extraordinary parliament session this Sunday and likely a vote for US troop ousting will be made. Surely that's not what the US wanted though it had to be anticipated if Mohandes got hit. Either they ignored he was present or decided it was worth the risk. Now its blowback time. Lets see what Sadr's block will vote. He will finally reveal is true colors by making or breaking the vote (53 MP's).."

You may be right though and it is the opposite but I think IL leaked the info on Soleimani going to Baghdad for the funeral of the martyred PMU soldiers and the hit was greenlighted..

Sasha , Jan 5 2020 1:59 utc | 155
@Posted by: Really?? | Jan 5 2020 0:47 utc | 134

And this way we already can test who inspired the US/Israel sponsored terrorists in Syria and Iraq to destory all the cultural heritage there...sicne The Donals just confess this was in their strategic manuals....The Syrian government should keep a capture of that Twitt for further claims on compensations at ICC...

Obviously, nobody swallowed that was an ingenious occurence of those brutes to the eyebrows of Captagon...Someon wanted those treasure destroyed and payed to smugle those able to be so..

Robert Snefjella , Jan 5 2020 1:59 utc | 156
Iran has already been under attack: And much lied about:

From Oct. 2019 Iran claims two explosions on board the Iranian Sabiti oil tanker were caused by a missile attack in the Red Sea

Sept 2018 At least 29 people, including children, have been killed in a terrorist attack on a military parade in south-west Iran, responsibility claimed by Islamic State and a separatist group.

Aug 2015 "Israel's defense minister hinted on Friday that the Jewish state's intelligence services were behind the rash of killings of Iranian nuclear scientists."


And then there are the false accusations: June 2019 Hours after the U.S. released video footage that 'showed' an Iranian boat removing an unexploded mine from the side of an oil tanker, the Japanese owner of that vessel said that the ship was likely damaged by a "flying object" and dismissed claims of a mine attack as "false."

arata , Jan 5 2020 2:09 utc | 157
@141 Jackrabbit

The news was distorted and interpreted, hand-to-hand differently.
Swiss Ambassador in Tehran was summoned for Solaimani assassination, he went to Iran foreign ministry, yesterday morning ( Swiss is represent and protect USA affairs in Iran). At the same visit he delivered a letter from USA to Iran. What is the content of the letter is not known to public. The Sepah commander in his speech hinted that American ( through a country) has requested to set a limit ( or ceiling) for retaliation and Iran has reject the request. ( who was the third country? Nobody knows, many countries are trying to mediate every hour).
In an interview Zarif explained that Swiss ambassador was summoned, he came in the morning, in the same session he delivered an indecent letter from USA. He was summoned in the afternoon, came and received our sturdy an tough written response.
A 4 star general or like that are logical interpenetration. Why you do not look Chris Morphy's speeches?
He ( Morphy) said equivalent to Solaimani is American secretary of defense. Would you satisfy with Morphy interpretation?

Passer by , Jan 5 2020 2:09 utc | 158
Posted by: Patroklos | Jan 5 2020 1:27 utc | 147

>>Also, does anybody have an accurate summary of the current structure of the Iraqi parliament, someone who can crunch the numbers? The US would surely have been preparing well in advance to prevent a spill to evict them, but is it in the bag or is it fluid? I wonder what the bookies are offering...

In the iraqi parliament, sunnis and kurds are against expelling the US. They are a minority though. There are also two small shia factions who are against that.

But the expellers will have the majority if Muqtada al Sadr supports them. So by the coming vote, it will become clear who is a US agent in Iraq, and who is not.

My bet is a 70 % probability for a vote to expell the US from Iraq.

CogintiveDissonance , Jan 5 2020 2:14 utc | 159
@Moon
Fitst, as others have pointed out, it is unclear who was responsible for the downing of Pan AM 103 . Many took credit for it and ultimately it may have been the CIA itself.

Second, Iran has always been of strategic interest to great powers even before Israel existed or oil was discovered there. To suggest that the US would have no strategic interest in controlling Iran if it were not for Israel is ridiculous. The US deep state has been trying to reclaim Iran since Carter lost it. Also, note that Israel supplied weapons to the Islamic Republic of Iran during the the Iran-Iraq war.

If want to look to past history of what Iran will do, you only need to look back to the Iran-Iraq war. After the US wiped out all Iranian oil platforms and the Iranian navy in operation Praying Mantis, a ceasefire and peace was negotiated soon afterwords. Trump and Lindsey Graham have warned Iran that they will lose all their oil refineries if they attempt retaliation. Iran no longer has any doubts that Trump will make good on that threat. To suggest that Iran will act irrationally and retaliate regardless of US consequences is the height of racism.

Also to think that China or Russia will somehow defend Iran against US attacks is wishful thinking,


dltravers , Jan 5 2020 2:16 utc | 160
Trump is the perfect man, in the perfect position, at the perfect time, to finally get their wish and attempt to smash up Iran. He is no more than a front man. Every president is backed by some interests and competing interests back various candidates.

If he (they) think he (they) can play the "rocket man" game against the Persian he (they) are sadly mistaken. Obviously Obama took a much different tack with Iran while smashing up some of the old Arab secular countries at the same time. I would not know how to begin to think through this madness of Empire regime planning.

psychohistorian , Jan 5 2020 2:16 utc | 161
Below is a Reuters article, so you know it is low balling the numbers but, admitting that not ALL Americans are on board with the Iran/Iraq attack

"
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Groups of protesters took to the streets in Washington and other U.S. cities on Saturday to condemn the air strike in Iraq ordered by President Donald Trump that killed Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani and Trump's decision to send about 3,000 more troops to the Middle East.

"No justice, no peace. U.S. out of the Middle East," hundreds of demonstrators chanted outside the White House before marching to the Trump International Hotel a few blocks away.

Similar protests were held in New York, Chicago and other cities. Organizers at Code Pink, a women-led anti-war group, said protests were scheduled on Saturday in numerous U.S. cities and towns.

Protesters in Washington held signs that read "No war or sanctions on Iran!" and "U.S. troops out of Iraq!"

Speakers at the Washington event included actress and activist Jane Fonda, who last year was arrested at a climate change protest on the steps of the U.S. Capitol.

"The younger people here should know that all of the wars fought since you were born have been fought over oil," Fonda, 82, told the crowd, adding that "we can't anymore lose lives and kill people and ruin an environment because of oil."

"Going to a march doesn't do a lot, but at least I can come out and say something: that I'm opposed to this stuff," said protestor Steve Lane of Bethesda, Maryland. "And maybe if enough people do the same thing, he (Trump) will listen."

Soleimani, regarded as the second most powerful figure in Iran, was killed in the U.S. strike on his convoy at Baghdad airport on Friday in a dramatic escalation of hostilities in the Middle East between Iran and the United States and its allies.

Public opinion polls show Americans in general have been opposed to U.S. military interventions overseas. A survey last year by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs found 27% of Americans believe military interventions make the United States safer, and nearly half said they make the country less safe.
"

Richard Steven Hack , Jan 5 2020 2:18 utc | 162
One point: Since Iran now knows that it will be blamed for *anything* that happens in the Middle East - witness the Houthis attack on the Saudi oil fields, it does not have much incentive to keep its retaliation "plausibly deniable." So I suspect Iran will make it clear that it is responsible for whatever retaliation it conducts. It will only keep such retaliation at a level below a direct strike against senior US officials such as Pence, Pompeo, or the Joint Chiefs.

My guess would be a strike against a division level or regional US military officer in the region - possibly via car bomb in the UAE or even Europe. Or an equivalent strike against an Israeli officer or diplomat via Hezbollah - although that might difficult due to limited access. That will make it obvious that is was Iran, but Iran may still use a cut-out such as Hezbollah or Shia elsewhere so no Quds Force operative can be identified as being involved.

"Military security" is an oxymoron, as SEAL Richard Marcinko demonstrated with his Red Cell team decades ago. Every US military member in the world is now at increased risk for assassination and every US base in the world is at risk for a serious attack similar to the Marine Barracks bombing.

I'd hate to be any US official flying into any airport in the Middle East - given that an equivalent drone strike can be done by almost every militant group in the Middle East, now that the Houthis have demonstrated how.

psychohistorian , Jan 5 2020 2:19 utc | 163
Below is another Reuters article, this one about the lying, boot licking and obfuscating UK

"
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain urged all parties to show restraint on Saturday after the United States killed Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani in an air strike, but said its closest ally was entitled to defend itself against an imminent threat.

Defence minister Ben Wallace said in a statement that he had spoken to his U.S. counterpart Mark Esper, adding: "We urge all parties to engage to de-escalate the situation.

"Under international law the United States is entitled to defend itself against those posing an imminent threat to their citizens," he added.
"

Cyrus Safdari , Jan 5 2020 2:28 utc | 164
LYSSANDER the only suspect for the bombing of Capt William Roger's wife's van was a former family friend involved in some sort of personal dispute over a divorce.

> Grudge, not terrorism, seen in Rogers bombing
> Joe Hughes
> Tribune Staff Writer
>
> 10/02/1989
> The San Diego Union-Tribune
>
> TRIBUNE; 1,2,3,4,5
> A-1:1,2,3,4; B-1:5
> (Copyright 1989)
>
>
>
> Federal investigators have turned away from
> terrorism as a motive for the
> pipe-bombing of a van driven by the wife of Navy
> Capt. Will C. Rogers III
> and are looking at an American believed to have a
> grudge against Rogers,
>

Patroklos , Jan 5 2020 2:31 utc | 165
@158 Passer By

Thanks for the succinct summary. That seems to accord with the balance across the country. It's hard to tell in Iraq whether religion (Sunni v Shi'a) means more than ethnicity (Arab v Persian). Like all these artificial nations created after the collapse of the Ottoman empire the ethno-tribal, religious and class breakdown is impenetrable and mercurial. It always reminds me of Frank Herbert's masterpiece Dune. 70% eh? I like those odds.

In passing, it reached 49 degrees celsius where I live in western Sydney yesterday (a Sydney record) and the smoke haze is now so bad from multiple fire fronts on the edges of the city that driving is dangerous and motorways are closing. With heavy water restrictions in place my garden is dead. All my capsicums burnt on the stem yesterday as the road bitumen melted outside. This is the case from Queensland to South Australia, a coastline 2000km long. Plus Australia currently has the worst air quality in the world. And this is only one month into a 3 month fire season. Very depressing.

[Jan 04, 2020] VIPS MEMO Doubling Down Into Yet Another 'March of Folly,' This Time on Iran by Ray McGovern

This was an act of war. Unilateral, unprovoked and illegal.
Notable quotes:
"... For the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity: ..."
Jan 04, 2020 | consortiumnews.com

T he drone assassination in Iraq of Iranian Quds Force commander General Qassem Soleimani evokes memory of the assassination of Austrian Archduke Ferdinand in June 1914, which led to World War I. Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was quick to warn of "severe revenge." That Iran will retaliate at a time and place of its choosing is a near certainty. And escalation into World War III is no longer just a remote possibility, particularly given the multitude of vulnerable targets offered by our large military footprint in the region and in nearby waters.

What your advisers may have avoided telling you is that Iran has not been isolated. Quite the contrary. One short week ago, for example, Iran launched its first joint naval exercises with Russia and China in the Gulf of Oman, in an unprecedented challenge to the U.S. in the region.

Cui Bono?

It is time to call a spade a spade. The country expecting to benefit most from hostilities between Iran and the U.S. is Israel (with Saudi Arabia in second place). As you no doubt are aware, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is fighting for his political life. He continues to await from you the kind of gift that keeps giving. Likewise, it appears that you, your son-in-law, and other myopic pro-Israel advisers are as susceptible to the influence of Israeli prime ministers as was former President George W. Bush. Some commentators are citing your taking personal responsibility for providing Iran with a casus belli as unfathomable. Looking back just a decade or so, we see a readily distinguishable pattern.

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon payed a huge role in getting George W. Bush to destroy Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Usually taciturn, Gen. Brent Scowcroft, national security adviser to Presidents Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush, warned in August 2002 that "U.S. action against Iraq could turn the whole region into a cauldron." Bush paid no heed, prompting Scowcroft to explain in Oct. 2004 to The Financial Times that former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had George W. Bush "mesmerized"; that Sharon has him "wrapped around his little finger." (Scowcroft was promptly relieved of his duties as chair of the prestigious President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board.)

In Sept. 2002, well before the attack on Iraq, Philip Zelikow, who was Executive Secretary of the 9/11 Commission, stated publicly in a moment of unusual candor, "The 'real threat' from Iraq was not a threat to the United States. The unstated threat was the threat against Israel." Zelikow did not explain how Iraq (or Iran), with zero nuclear weapons, would not be deterred from attacking Israel, which had a couple of hundred such weapons.

Zombie Generals

When a docile, Peter-principle, "we-are-still-winning-in-Afghanistan" U.S. military leadership sends more troops (mostly from a poverty draft) to be wounded and killed in hostilities with Iran, Americans are likely, this time, to look beneath the equally docile media for answers as to why. Was it for Netanyahu and the oppressive regime in Israel? Many Americans will wake up, and serious backlash is likely.

Events might bring a rise in the kind of anti-Semitism already responsible for domestic terrorist attacks. And when bodybags arrive from abroad, there may be for families and for thinking Americans, a limit to how much longer the pro-Israel mainstream media will be able to pull the wool over their eyes.

Those who may prefer to think that Gen. Scowcroft got up on the wrong side of the bed on Oct. 13, 2004, the day he gave the interview to The Financial Times may profit from words straight from Netanyahu's mouth. On Aug. 3, 2010, in a formal VIPS Memorandum for your predecessor, we provided some "Netanyahu in his own words." We include an excerpt here for historical context:

"Netanyahu's Calculations

Netanyahu believes he holds the high cards, largely because of the strong support he enjoys in our Congress and our strongly pro-Israel media. He reads your [Obama's] reluctance even to mention controversial bilateral issues publicly during his recent visit as affirmation that he is in the catbird seat in the relationship.

During election years in the U.S. (including mid-terms), Israeli leaders are particularly confident of the power they and the Likud Lobby enjoy on the American political scene.

Netanyahu's attitude comes through in a video taped nine years ago and shown on Israeli TV, in which he bragged about how he deceived President Clinton into believing he (Netanyahu) was helping implement the Oslo accords when he was actually destroying them.

The tape displays a contemptuous attitude toward -- and wonderment at -- an America so easily influenced by Israel. Netanyahu says:

" America is something that can be easily moved. Moved in the right direction. They won't get in our way Eighty percent of the Americans support us. It's absurd."

Israeli columnist Gideon Levy wrote that the video shows Netanyahu to be "a con artist who thinks that Washington is in his pocket and that he can pull the wool over its eyes," adding that such behavior "does not change over the years."

Recommendation

We ended VIPS' first Memorandum For the President (George W. Bush) with this critique of Secretary of State Colin Powell's address at the UN earlier that day:

"No one has a corner on the truth; nor do we harbor illusions that our analysis is "irrefutable or undeniable" [as Powell claimed his was]. But after watching Secretary Powell today, we are convinced that you would be well served if you widened the discussion beyond the circle of those advisers clearly bent on a war for which we see no compelling reason and from which we believe the unintended consequences are likely to be catastrophic."

We are all in a limina l moment. We write with a sense of urgency suggesting you avoid doubling down on catastrophe.

For the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity:

William Binney, former Technical Director, World Geopolitical & Military Analysis, NSA; co-founder, SIGINT Automation Research Center (ret.)

Marshall Carter-Tripp, Foreign Service Officer and Division Director, State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research (ret.)

Graham Fuller, former Chairman, National Intelligence Council (ret.)

Philip Giraldi, CIA, Operations Officer (ret.)

Mike Gravel, former Adjutant, top secret control officer, Communications Intelligence Service; special agent of the Counter Intelligence Corps and former United States Senator

Matthew Hoh, former Capt., USMC Iraq; Foreign Service Officer, Afghanistan (associate VIPS)

Michael S. Kearns, Captain, USAF (ret.); ex-Master SERE Instructor for Strategic Reconnaissance Operations (NSA/DIA) and Special Mission Units (JSOC)

John Kiriakou, former CIA Counterterrorism Officer and former Senior Investigator, Senate Foreign Relations Committee

Karen Kwiatkowski, Lt. Col., US Air Force (ret.), at Office of Secretary of Defense watching the manufacture of lies on Iraq, 2001-2003

Edward Loomis, NSA Cryptologic Computer Scientist and Technical Director (ret.)

Ray McGovern, former US Army infantry/intelligence officer & CIA presidential briefer (ret.)

Elizabeth Murray, former Deputy National Intelligence Officer for the Near East & CIA political analyst (ret.)

Todd E. Pierce, MAJ, US Army Judge Advocate (ret.)

Scott Ritter, former MAJ., USMC, former UN Weapon Inspector, Iraq

Coleen Rowley, FBI Special Agent and former Minneapolis Division Legal Counsel (ret.)

Sarah Wilton, Commander, U.S. Naval Reserve (ret.) and Defense Intelligence Agency (ret.)

Robert Wing, former U.S. Department of State Foreign Service Officer (Associate VIPS)

[Jan 04, 2020] Will Trump welcome the ejection of the US from Iraq - He should by Colonel Lang

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Somehow the Ziocons around Trump have forgotten that the present state of Iraq refused to yield to Obama's demands for a SOFA and in effect expelled the US from the country. ..."
"... The Iraqi parliament is going to vote in emergency session over the issue of the death of al-Muhandis. Will they vote to expel the US from their country? ..."
"... What a lot of commentators seem to overlook is that America has basically declared war on Iraq, while our soldiers are hosted on joint bases with Iraqi soldiers. ..."
"... "We need to get out of Iraq and Syria now. That is the only way that we're going to prevent ourselves from being dragged into this quagmire, deeper and deeper into a war with Iran." Tulsi Gabbard. ..."
"... Assassination of generals, one from an allied country, one from a country with which we have no declared war, and both assassinations performed on the territory of an allied, sovereign country without permission? This is piracy. Why should anyone trust the word of a country which does not honor the most basic of international law? ..."
"... Will we go if they vote that way? I'll go with no. The Neocons desperately want us in Iraq to protect Israel and stick it to Iran as much as possible. They have a laundry list of prepared arguments and we have the dumbest, most compliant, state media in recorded history. We also have a President who believes that intnl law is for weaklings and loves saying 'take the oil'. ..."
"... Take a look at this interview to David Petraeus by FP on yesterday´s summary executions...What you make of this? https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/03 He sounds as if he were the brain behind this operation on summary executions..along some other think tankers.. ..."
"... Whoever is President we will have war. The President is just a feckless puppet controlled by the Zionist. I'll never vote again. It's a waste of time and a farce. Hillary or Donald no different just a matter of timing. Obama destroyed Libya and Syria. Bush II the simpleton and his fairy tale WMD lie. I've lost all respect for whatever "the republic" is suppose to be. On top of that the masses are too stupid for democracy to work. ..."
Jan 03, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Qasem Soleimani was an Iranian soldier. He lived by the sword and died by the sword. He met a soldier's destiny. It is being said that he was a BAD MAN. Absurd! To say that he was a BAD MAN because he fought us as well as the Sunni jihadis is simply infantile. Were all those who fought the US BAD MEN? How about Gentleman Johhny Burgoyne? Was he a BAD MAN? How about Sitting Bull? Was he a BAD MAN? How about Aguinaldo? Another BAD MAN? Let us not be juvenile.

The Iraqi PMU commander who died with Soleimani was Abu Mahdi al Muhandis. He was a member of a Shia militia that had been integrated into the Iraqi armed forces. IOW, we killed an Iraqi general. We killed him without the authorization of the supposedly sovereign state of Iraq.

We created the present government of Iraq through the farcical "purple thumb" elections. That government holds a seat in the UN General Assembly and is a sovereign entity in international law in spite of Trump's tweet today that said among other things that we have "paid" Iraq billions of US dollars. To the Arabs, this statement that brands them as hirelings of the US is close to the ultimate in insult.

Somehow the Ziocons around Trump have forgotten that the present state of Iraq refused to yield to Obama's demands for a SOFA and in effect expelled the US from the country.

The Iraqi parliament is going to vote in emergency session over the issue of the death of al-Muhandis. Will they vote to expel the US from their country?

Will we go if they vote that way? We should. If we do not, then we will be exposed as imperialist hypocrites.

Trump should welcome such a vote. He wants to get out of the ME? What greater opportunity could we have to do so?

Let us leave if invited to go. Let the oh, so clever locals deal with their own hatreds and rivalries. pl

phodges , 03 January 2020 at 02:20 PM

What a lot of commentators seem to overlook is that America has basically declared war on Iraq, while our soldiers are hosted on joint bases with Iraqi soldiers.
Elora Danan , 03 January 2020 at 02:39 PM
Thank you, Pat!

But...Elora guesses you are being rhetorical here...because... if he would have died by the sword...would not have he had the opportunity to defend himself against his enemy/opponent?
Instead...he was caught on surprise...unarmed...and hit by an overwhelming force...he was going to some funerals...

Cameron Kelley , 03 January 2020 at 02:56 PM
Thank you, Colonel. We don't know, we don't care, but we can kill - that's not a recipe for success.
Jack , 03 January 2020 at 04:09 PM
"We need to get out of Iraq and Syria now. That is the only way that we're going to prevent ourselves from being dragged into this quagmire, deeper and deeper into a war with Iran." Tulsi Gabbard.

https://twitter.com/tulsigabbard/status/1213168223127949313?s=21

Would we get out if Iraq asks us to do so? I don't think so. There will be a hue & cry about appeasement of terror!

ex PFC Chuck -> Jack... , 03 January 2020 at 05:25 PM
It took Tulsi about 18 hours to get that brief statement out. Can't help but wonder what that delay was all about.
Elora Danan , 03 January 2020 at 04:14 PM
Some impressive images worth thousands words...just to remember everybody that this man was an appreciated human being...doing his duty....for his motherland...and his God....
Elora Danan said in reply to Elora Danan... , 03 January 2020 at 05:07 PM
To better understand the pain of that elderly yazidi woman in the video, some testimony by Rania Khalek on the role of Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis ( the other militia commander killed who is being as well slandered as terrorist along Soleimani ...) in stopping yazidi genocide in Iraq when nobody else was giving a damn, less any help, for this people...

https://twitter.com/RaniaKhalek/status/1213198497668833280

divadab , 03 January 2020 at 04:17 PM
Assassination of generals, one from an allied country, one from a country with which we have no declared war, and both assassinations performed on the territory of an allied, sovereign country without permission? This is piracy. Why should anyone trust the word of a country which does not honor the most basic of international law?

And am I alone to be disgusted to see the senior members of our government lie blatantly and constantly, when they're not fellating the nearest likudnik....

Elora Danan , 03 January 2020 at 04:20 PM
Tulsi...may be our last hope...

https://twitter.com/TulsiGabbard/status/1213168223127949313

Tulsi for president!

ISL , 03 January 2020 at 04:27 PM
Dear Colonel, seems you find yourself in Tulsi's (good) company.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=28&v=kToUJaOVgTA&feature=emb_logo

prawnik , 03 January 2020 at 04:32 PM
Trump should, but he won't. Might as well quote Bible verses to a robber.
turcopolier , 03 January 2020 at 04:38 PM
ISL

I have been giving her money every month.

Factotum , 03 January 2020 at 04:57 PM
We go where we are wanted and appreciated. We have no skin in Iraq. Build the Wall and protect our own borders. Concentrate our resources on cyber-security.
A. Pols , 03 January 2020 at 05:48 PM
Tulsi makes a lot of sense. Unfortunately that disqualifies her for the presidency, not because she couldn't execute the functions of the presidency, but because neither the party apparatchiks nor the voters would give her the chance. These days either nationalistic claptrap or promises of more freebies are what carry the day. Quelle domage, eh?

As for the Iraqi parliament voting to expel U.S. forces? That's an interesting question. If they did, they'd better vote to expel the "den of spies" at the embassy and insist on our having a normal sized legation (as all countries would be well advised to do). But if they do, would we leave? I personally doubt it even though it would be best if we did and let the Iraqis do what they will, which would probably be reverting back to some sort of strongman govt, of a type more suited to their cultural traditions and inclinations. It's high time we afforded the rest of the world the type of cultural and political autonomy we claim to revere so much.

So, we leave? A good thing for us and for them and the world at large.

Or, we don't? Then we expose the truth the rest of the world already knows, but we at least expose the truth to our own people who have been fed a steady diet of mendacious BS about what we've been doing over there all these years.

That attack on the "airport limo" vehicles leaving Baghdad airport sure took some nerve on our part to think that we could sell something like that...

And, did Trump actually order it, or did someone else in the MIC order it first and Trump laid claim to it afterwards? Uncle Joe, if he had ordered it, would have afterwards announced the execution of a fall guy and denied any complicity! If Trump didn't order it, he should throw whoever did under the bus instead of crowing and wrapping himself in the flag. I wonder about what actually happened in planning this hit job on prominent military people on their way to a funeral for 31 people who may or may not have had anything whatsoever to do with the death of a single American mercenary in Iraq in an attack by persons unknown on a small outpost.

J , 03 January 2020 at 06:01 PM
It's times like this I wish I was a fly on the wall, listening to what the Russian General Staff conversations regarding this assassination are at this moment.

Trump IMHO would do well to seek Putin's counsel on how to exit the corner that Trump has backed US into. While this spells problems for our US, it also creates additional problems for Russia in the ways that could cause them MAJOR problem as well as in a full blown Mideast War with many players in the mix. Not a good mix either.

Israel can't handle a full blown Mideast War, no matter how much their narcissistic national psyche thinks they can. Israel is a mere postage stamp in a sea of rage, which tsunami waves could very easily consume them. Sheldon Adelson and his Likud/NEOCON blowhards have no concept of what is on the short horizon, that can go one way or the other.

I'm glad I'm retired in this instance. My glass of bourbon is more palatable than the grains of Mideast sand that fixing to get stirred up.

God help us all.

Pat, why does the US military always get left with the shit-storms to clean up after? Why?

Christian J Chuba , 03 January 2020 at 06:32 PM
Will we go if they vote that way? I'll go with no. The Neocons desperately want us in Iraq to protect Israel and stick it to Iran as much as possible. They have a laundry list of prepared arguments and we have the dumbest, most compliant, state media in recorded history. We also have a President who believes that intnl law is for weaklings and loves saying 'take the oil'.

I can hear the talking points already ...
1. 'Obama made the same mistake and it created ISIS.'
2. 'Iran has taken over Iraq, it's not a legitimate request' (look at how we selectively recognize govts in South America and no one blinks).
3. 'Iran will use Iraq as a base to attack us' (yeah, its about 100 miles closer).

I can't stand what we have become, the jackals have taken over and the MSM attacks the very few who are not jackals.

turcopolier , 03 January 2020 at 07:05 PM
A Pols

OK. Who do you think would have had the power to order the strike? Not the CIA, the military would not accept such an order. Not the chairman of the JCS, he is not in the chain of command. That leaves Esper, SECDEF. Really? He looks like a putschist to you? You are ignorant of the American government.

Elora Danan , 03 January 2020 at 07:18 PM
Take a look at this interview to David Petraeus by FP on yesterday´s summary executions...What you make of this? https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/03 He sounds as if he were the brain behind this operation on summary executions..along some other think tankers..
Harlan Easley , 03 January 2020 at 07:20 PM
Whoever is President we will have war. The President is just a feckless puppet controlled by the Zionist. I'll never vote again. It's a waste of time and a farce. Hillary or Donald no different just a matter of timing. Obama destroyed Libya and Syria. Bush II the simpleton and his fairy tale WMD lie. I've lost all respect for whatever "the republic" is suppose to be. On top of that the masses are too stupid for democracy to work.

[Jan 04, 2020] Looks like Israel requested this hit. And iether Trump or Pentagon chief or both were stupid enough to oblige.

Notable quotes:
"... Trump's closeness to Benjamin Netanyahu also plays into this scenario. I won't fall-off my bar stool in shock and surprise should such a joint operation prove to be true. ..."
"... "America is something that can be easily moved. Moved in the right direction. They won't get in our way Eighty percent of the Americans support us. It's absurd." Benjamin Netanyahu ..."
"... CNN is desperately pushing the trope that 'Trump and his military commanders hastily assembled a situation room at Mar-a-Lago.' No evidence, no eye witnesses, no communique with WADC, no confirmation from Trump himself. Check, and mate. ..."
"... The Neocons did it. They really did it! Any cogent political world analysis is drawn into a cauldron and destroyed. Everything devolves to 'Trump, Russia and Iran' now. Deep State wins! ..."
"... Maybe the Israelis/neocons fear that Trump might lose in November and want to start the war while Bibi's favorite lapdog is still P0TUS. Not, that the Democrats are peacelovers (except for Sanders and Gabbard). But they might be more afraid of a negative reaction by the electorate. Murdering Suleimani NOW was not some hasty decision without a plan. I am afraid, it was done to get THE ultimate war in the middle east going, no matter if and how much restraint Iran will show. ..."
Jan 04, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

GeorgeV , Jan 4 2020 18:33 utc | 24

When President Trump announced the assassination of General Qassim Soleimani, he said that there was "unambiguous" information that Soleimani was planning attacks on US forces in Iraq and Syria. My first thought was what were the sources of that "unambiguous" information?

I'll bet dollars to donuts that it was Israel's Mossad. The sheer precision and timing of that "hit" had all the smell and feel of a Mossad operation. While the US did the actual killing, the Israelis did the 'fingering.'

Trump's closeness to Benjamin Netanyahu also plays into this scenario. I won't fall-off my bar stool in shock and surprise should such a joint operation prove to be true.

joetv , Jan 4 2020 18:36 utc | 25

"America is something that can be easily moved. Moved in the right direction. They won't get in our way Eighty percent of the Americans support us. It's absurd." Benjamin Netanyahu

This bold statement of Israeli/Jewish hubris remains as true today as it was when he said it, over 20 years ago. This fact is only understood by examining 'who' controls the media.

Jose Garcia , Jan 4 2020 18:43 utc | 26
Israel requested this hit. And the Americans were stupid enough to oblige.
Joerg , Jan 4 2020 18:49 utc | 31 Paul Leibowitz , Jan 4 2020 18:51 utc | 32
CNN is desperately pushing the trope that 'Trump and his military commanders hastily assembled a situation room at Mar-a-Lago.' No evidence, no eye witnesses, no communique with WADC, no confirmation from Trump himself. Check, and mate.

Having 'beheaded' Trump and launched what will be enormous death and destruction, the PNAC pesharim and their Neocon noodniks are desperate to deflect responsibility onto Trump, essentially they are 'necklacing' Trump and the Republican administration using the compliant poodled MSM.

This allows the DNC WarHogs to pretend to be the 'People's Populist Party of Peace' at their Convention in July, and bring about the final Bolshevik takeover that Brexit and Hong Kong and a 1,000,000 man Deplorable march on Milwaukee had threatened to defeat.

The high crimes of the Biden's, Kerry's and Pelosi's in Ukraine, and the genocidal crimes against humanity of Maidan itself, are now ink-blotted out of history.

The Neocons did it. They really did it! Any cogent political world analysis is drawn into a cauldron and destroyed. Everything devolves to 'Trump, Russia and Iran' now. Deep State wins!

Zanon , Jan 4 2020 18:52 utc | 34
David

Ridiculous attempt to protect the israelis,

Trump puts Israel first,

Congress did not get advance notice of the assassination of Suleimani, but Israel did:
https://twitter.com/mattdpearce/status/1213209701321719811
Zico , Jan 4 2020 19:42 utc | 53

The Iranians know who the real enemy is. The US(Trump) is just the dumb executioner - they'll get their response in due time. In the mean time, the 1st response will be felt in Tel Aviv.

Since coming to office, pompous Pompeo's been tripping back-n-forth between Tel Aviv and DC, taking his mad orders from Bibi.

One thing for sure, US presence in the ME is on borrowed time.

Zico , Jan 4 2020 19:42 utc | 53
The Iranians know who the real enemy is. The US(Trump) is just the dumb executioner - they'll get their response in due time. In the mean time, the 1st response will be felt in Tel Aviv.

Since coming to office, pompous Pompeo's been tripping back-n-forth between Tel Aviv and DC, taking his mad orders from Bibi.

One thing for sure, US presence in the ME is on borrowed time.

Oriental Voice , Jan 4 2020 19:50 utc | 56
Israel wanted USA to go to war with Iran even well before the Syria debacle. Consequential considerations of such an event caused the US to hesitate, especially after UK parliament voted against being a partner to such a shenanigan. Now a US-Iran War may well be at hand. Whether this would conflagrate the whole ME, and later the whole world, remain to be seen.
RST , Jan 4 2020 20:05 utc | 58
US soldiers ready to die for Israeli interests under Israeli command:

"The United States and Israel enjoy a strong and enduring military-to-military partnership built on a trust that has been developed over decades of cooperation," said USAF Third Air Force commander Lt.-Gen. Richard Clark, who also serves as the commander for the deploying Joint Task Force – Israel.

...

According to Clark, the US and Israeli troops will work side-by-side under each other's relevant chain of command.

"As far as decision-making, it is a partnership," he continued, stressing nonetheless that "at the end of the day it is about the protection of Israel – and if there is a question in regards to how we will operate, the last vote will probably go to Zvika [Haimovitch]."

Washington and Israel have signed an agreement which would see the US come to assist Israel with missile defense in times of war and, according to Haimovitch, "I am sure once the order comes we will find here US troops on the ground to be part of our deployment and team to defend the State of Israel."

And those US troops who would be deployed to Israel, are prepared to die for the Jewish state, Clark said.

"We are ready to commit to the defense of Israel and anytime we get involved in a kinetic fight there is always the risk that there will be casualties. But we accept that – as every conflict we train for and enter, there is always that possibility," he said.

https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Juniper-Cobra-begins-with-US-and-IDF-troops-simulating-missile-attacks-544598

Curtis , Jan 4 2020 20:40 utc | 70
George V 24
Same here. A drone/missile strike to take out a leader, claim he's responsible for many deaths ("millions" DJT), and then claim innocence at any response is a classic Israeli tactic. They did this to test Iron Dome. There had been a ceasefire with Hamas, Israel killed a Hamas leader they claimed responsible for an attack 6 months earlier, and then pointed out Hamas when the usual rockets were launched.
arata , Jan 4 2020 20:42 utc | 71 Circe , Jan 4 2020 20:46 utc | 72
First I want to express admiration of Iranian courage in resisting the corrupting influence of Zionist expansionism and condolences for the immense loss of a brave hero and unparalleled military leader, Soleimani, who was not a general's general, but a soldier's general admired by many.

Iran is a bastion of resistance against Zionism and therefore the number one target and enemy of Zionists. Despite, the invasion of Iraq, Israeli assault on Lebanon, proxy invasions of Syria and Yemen, and the severest of sanctions, the Iran domino remains standing. For this reason, Zionist Trump came into power guns blazing against Iran, intent on its destruction. There was no doubt on that, and his assassination of Iran's most revered general removes all doubt on his intent. The murder of Soleimani represents a cowardly act typical of a coward like Trump not to have to face a foreign opponent and military leader like Soleimani leading the Iranian offensive against Zionism and the looming war on Iran. But mark my words, Soleimani's spirit will be there on the battlefield of any war initiated by Trump and his cabal.

Trump, the jackass liar that he is, justifies his barbaric act as a response to an imminent threat against U.S. forces and personnel. THIS IS A BALD-FACED LIE. If the threat were imminent then the logical urgent step would have been to sabotage the ACTUAL threat mounted as Soleimani did not arrive in Iraq to carry out any attack himself. This proves Trump is lying when he bragged this lie to the crowd at yesterday's rally. The truth is really that Trump wanted a shrewd Iranian general and formidable opponent out of the way to facilitate the Zionist goal to take on Iran. Trump resorted, as usual, to his con way of fooling everyone with this fabrication. Also, Soleimani had the stature to become the next President of Iran, and this was a sobering thought feared by the Zionist Trump cabal. Imagine a man of strength and intelligence, feared by many but loved by more, ruling Iran. Gutless, crass Trump killed that potential. As I wrote previously, Trump killed the albatross and misery will follow him for it. All said, Iran did have every right to avenge the killing of numerous militia by the U.S.; the funeral of which Soleimani was to attend in Iraq, making the act perpetrated on him from a drone all the more repulsive and dishonorable. It was as if yellow-belly Trump shot Soleimani in the back robbing him of the dignity of death in battle he deserved as a warrior of his calibre, albeit not of the glory that will never be Trump's.

IMHO, Iran should first and most importantly, ferret out TRAITORS not loyal to the cause of resistance who delivered Soleimani to the enemy. Iran needs to tighten its security and scrutinize, clean up and enhance its intelligence network especially in view of escalating momentum towards war. It must use this time of mourning to rally public sentiment both in Iran and Iraq and strengthen its alliances great and small to the cause of resistance to imperial domination and, regionally, OCCUPATION--Zionist U.S. OCCUPATION in the Middle East. Unifying, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen, even Palestine to the cause of ending ZIONIST U.S. OCCUPATION and ousting America from the Middle East and derailing corrupt Zionist expansion and influence should be PRIORITY NUMBER ONE. This means decrying high and low the monumental destruction, corruption and evil that this occupation has wrought on the entire Middle East and the hardship of massive displacement suffered and being suffered by millions.

That is the fundamental goal, however, ending the occupation in Iraq by U.S. forces first is Iran's domino to victory . As far as retaliation, in my view, the multi-pronged strategy (death by a thousand cuts) I hear and read Iran might be contemplating would be more effective than one spectacular event, because it would make clear the ubiquitous nature of Iran's reach, and make the Zionist American opponent think twice about attacking Iran with deadly tentacles that will activate and mobilize anywhere to the detriment of its enemy.

frances , Jan 4 2020 22:22 utc | 85
My first thought with all of this has been, why now? After reading I have a possible answer.
Background:1. The Russians have been building up in Syria for a major assault on remaining ISIS on the Syrian/Iraq border, the Iraqi/Iran forces announced that the planned assault would begin hours before the five Iraq/Iran military bases were hit. 2. Israel just suffered a defeat when they launched six missiles at Syria and five were taken out by Syria using Russian supplied weaponry. The sixth missile fell in the desert, was recovered by Syria and given to Russia.
These two events are key; the US/Israeli ISIS teams in Syria and on the Iraqi border were about to be wiped out and control of the border by Syria leaving the US northern Syria installations without a supply line. The Israeli failed attacked showed that the Syrian defense systems were now fulling integrated with Russia and that the upcoming attack on ISIS would probably end them as well as Israel's ability to destroy Syrian/Iranian sites in Syria.
I think the US military and Pompeo panicked, they came up with a quick casus belli by having one of their proxies lob missiles at a US encampment with the intent of killing a US citizen. They then hit the Iraqi/Iran teams that were part of the planned Russian assault shutting down the planned Russian attack. Pompeo and the Generals immediately flew to Fla to tell Trump what they had done. Silence from Trump,why? Because he knew that this decision was a trap to damage his reelection, he saw the plot which is why he stayed in Florida.
Then things really went sideways IMO. Israel seeing it's chance in the confusion, used it's pawn Pompeo to order a hit on the airport killing the General, you will note that Israel says it was told before the hit, my guess is no, they told Pompeo to take the hit and he did.
Israel immediately said it had nothing to do with the decision, Pompeo immediately said Trump ordered it. Trump was forced to say it was his decision and defend it IMO.
Yes it is possible that Trump was told of an opportunity to take out the General but the MIC/Pompeo know Trump historically pulls back from attacks, remember the Bolton fiasco with the tankers, with the drone, they couldn't get Trump to attack then, why would he now attack a Iraqi airbase when the attack on the Iraq/Iran bases was such a disaster for US Iraqi relations? Why would they bother to ask him now after having put him in a box with the first strikes?
Now there is talk that Trump has sent a Qatar rep to Iran to cut a deal. THAT is his initiative, none of the prior events are his initiatives. Could be wrong, and for all that is not to like about Trump he is not stupid, his goal is to win a Pulitzer prize as the peace president.
Yes he rants about Iran, the guys who finance his campaign demand that, but push come to shove, who the hell wants to be remembered as the guy who started a nuclear war...and lost??


Veritas X- , Jan 4 2020 22:28 utc | 86
Told you all it's Nutandyahoo who is in charge of jUSA. The Tronald is only his stooge:

Patriot Ali
‏ @LogicalAnalys1s

Viral video shows official from SaudiArabia congratulating Israel pm Netanyahu over the death of #Qasem_Suleimani . Video is spreading like wildfire in pro #Iran accounts 😡
World OSINT
/>
1:04
8:44 AM - 4 Jan 2020
https://twitter.com/LogicalAnalys1s/status/1213501484790407171

X-

SharonM , Jan 4 2020 22:33 utc | 87
Superior analysis! Thank you:)
jared , Jan 4 2020 23:05 utc | 94
@ Posted by: psychohistorian | Jan 4 2020 22:18 utc | 84

Thank you. Someone making sense.
Most are talking about this like it's halftime in a sporting match - completely juvenile.
Iran needs to pull back and focus on making themselves stronger in economy and technology and for strong ties with other responsible players. They have opportunities with many countries which are increasingly disenchanted with the west. And the west is headed for an economic beating - which explains the desperate behavior.
Even if Iran is very careful in their behavior Irael is going to continue to press for war - the psychotic fears most those that he has attacked.
But maybe with careful behavior and planning and efforts to repair and maintain ties the Iraninans could be ready for that eventuality.

juliania , Jan 4 2020 23:08 utc | 95
In all of this, and the many comments, I must praise Circe for this final one @ 72. It strikes a definitive chord:

"...That is the fundamental goal, however, ending the occupation in Iraq by U.S. forces first is Iran's domino to victory. As far as retaliation, in my view, the multi-pronged strategy (death by a thousand cuts) I hear and read Iran might be contemplating would be more effective than one spectacular event, because it would make clear the ubiquitous nature of Iran's reach, and make the Zionist American opponent think twice about attacking Iran with deadly tentacles that will activate and mobilize anywhere to the detriment of its enemy."

It is clear that Qasseem Soleimani was of a stature for Iran that his legacy will be part of the determination for what follows in the eyes of his dedicated compatriots. I agree with Circe here - what will immediately follow is important. It might even include the extraction from Syria of American influence, which would require the cooperation of Assad. I am remembering that Iraq's foreign minister recently gave a speech concerning the unification of Arabic countries toward a peaceful end. That now must include the departure of US troops and is the antithesis to war, something that would make a commendable legacy for both generals who have now had their funeral at an important spiritual center.

War is not on. The fall of the black domino is. But this is not retribution; that will come. Bravo Circe; good post.

bevin , Jan 4 2020 23:17 utc | 97
" I cannot recall an act of this kind in the last 50 years especially in the extent to which it seems to take for granted an underlying legitimacy and thus an naive openness, almost childlike in its self-belief..."
patroklos @77
Doesn't Osama bin Laden count? Obama ordered and took open credit for the assassination of dozens of individuals, many of them later shown to have been totally innocent of any involvement in politics, many children etc.
And then, of course there was one Colonel Ghadaffi publicly assassinated, after his surrender, with extreme brutality.
The only new thing about this is that the victim was a person of power and eminence.
Thom Prentice , Jan 4 2020 23:19 utc | 99
Pepe Escobar: "According to my best Southwest Asia intel sources, "Israel gave the US the coordinates for the assassination of Qasem Soleimani as they wanted to avoid the repercussions of taking the assassination upon themselves."
https://thesaker.is/us-starts-the-raging-twenties-declaring-war-on-iran/
max , Jan 4 2020 23:27 utc | 104
Espen and Trump have made it clear that they will hold Iran responsible for whatever may happen in the region and that they will strike in response or preemptively. Essentially, that makes the real Iranian reaction largely irrelevant. And Israel could create a false flag incident #a la USS Liberty. Or some rogue groups that Iran cannot control might attack US troops or installations. Whether by design or accident, there will be a pretext to base another military strike against Iran on. And then another, until a full blown US-Iran war erupts which Bibi, Lieberman & co so desperately want.
Years of relentless demonization of Iran in the US and the UK have brainwashed large swaths of the population. They will accept a war against Iran, albeit reluctantly, as long as not too many Americans get killed in its wake.

I don't believe for a second that the US would "accept" a limited retaliation. They will jump at any opportunity. Lindsey Graham stands between Trump and impeachment and that warmonger is on record for seeking to bomb Iran's oil refineries. Incidentally, he was the only senator who Trump consulted prior to the murder. Could well be that Graham is right now the real P0TUS , at least until the senate has voted on impeachment. Conveniently, pelosi has put the impeachment on hold, thereby prolonging that situation. Coincidence? I don't think so.

Maybe the Israelis/neocons fear that Trump might lose in November and want to start the war while Bibi's favorite lapdog is still P0TUS. Not, that the Democrats are peacelovers (except for Sanders and Gabbard). But they might be more afraid of a negative reaction by the electorate.
Murdering Suleimani NOW was not some hasty decision without a plan. I am afraid, it was done to get THE ultimate war in the middle east going, no matter if and how much restraint Iran will show.

I do think, btw that Trump blew his reelection by killing Suleimani. Another warmonger will assuredly take his place.

Really?? , Jan 4 2020 23:39 utc | 109
"CNN is desperately pushing the trope that 'Trump and his military commanders hastily assembled a situation room at Mar-a-Lago.' "

Leibowitz # 32

Why would they do this *after* the strike?
That sounds kind of silly. And "hastily" sounds as though they were taken unawares . . . They were surprised to hear that Solameini had been taken out?????

PavewayIV , Jan 5 2020 1:00 utc | 139
Lozion@62 - Re: Your Magnier quote, "The US did not plan to kill the vice commander of the Iraqi Hashd al-Shaabi brigade Abu Mahdi al-Muhandes when it assassinated Iranian Brigadier General Qassem Soleiman"

The light bulb above my chimpanzee brain just flickered (briefly). Somewhere on SST (maybe Lang?): something to the effect of 'Never underestimate US gov/mil incompetence'. Maybe it was the opposite of what Magnier thought really took place.

Treasonous, dual-citizen chickenhawks of the US possibly targeted Hashd al-Shaabi vice-commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandes . They were trying to kill him because they found out from some snitch that he just showed up at the airport for some reason. The all-seeing US didn't realize Soleimani was even there . I guess because the sneaky Soleimani flew commercial into Baghdad and probably carried his bags to the waiting SUVs. Who would have expected that ? How devious!

This seems entirely plausible to me. Soleimani was too expensive a target - end of the State of Israel, Saudi Arabia and the UAE and all. But whacking a vice-commander of Hashd al-Shaabi with a quarter-million dollar JAGM? Hell YEAH! We live for this kind of preventative assassination heroism in the US. Especially if accompanied by colorful graphics.

The awkward and delayed response of the usual US mil/gov mouthpieces makes this ridiculous scenario even more believable. I have thoroughly convinced myself that this was a US screw-up of EPIC proportions. In case the US government is reading MoA, this was all Lozion's doing. I'm an innocent conspiracy primate.

[Jan 03, 2020] If you previously have doubts that Trump is senile warmonger, not you have a definite proof

Bombing a civilian airport in another country in order to assassinate Iranian and Iraq leaders is a very bad diplomacy ;-)
It might well be that today this idiot blow up his chances fro reelection because revenge is dish that should be served cold and Iran can postpone it for 11 months or so.
What is interesting is that neoliberal MSM are glad and still talking about Zelensky and impeachment. What a country ! It looks like the decade of the twenties can be the decade of another World War. "In every war the first casualty is truth."
Jan 03, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Trump think that the war with Iran will be another cake walk, like in Afghanistan and Iraq. This is a proof that he is a senile idiot.

[Jan 03, 2020] I guess Trump decided had to make the 1914-vintage Hapsburgs look relatively competent

Bombing a civilian airport in another country in order to assassinate Iranian and Iraq leaders is a very bad diplomacy ;-)
It might well be that today this idiot blow up his chances fro reelection because revenge is dish that should be served cold and Iran can postpone it for 11 months or so.
What is interesting is that neoliberal MSM are glad and still talking about Zelensky and impeachment. What a country ! It looks like the decade of the twenties can be the decade of another World War. "In every war the first casualty is truth."
Jan 03, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

I guess somebody had to make the 1914-vintage Hapsburgs look relatively competent,

Trump think that the war with Iran will be another cake walk, like in Afghanistan and Iraq. This is a proof that he is a senile idiot.

[Jan 03, 2020] Trump assassination of General Suleimani was worse than a crime. It was a mistake

Jan 03, 2020 | nationalinterest.org

Talleyrand remarked that Napoleon's assassination of the Duke of Enghien was worse than a crime. It was a mistake. Donald Trump's decision to target Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, for destruction brings to mind the French diplomat's lapidary verdict. Iran is likely to unleash its fearsome Shia proxy militias, wherever and whenever it can. Nor is support from Europe, which is on the frontlines of Iranian blowback, likely to be forthcoming. Quite the contrary.

[Jan 03, 2020] Killing Soleimani Pushes the U.S. and Iran Towards War

Notable quotes:
"... Soleimani is a senior Iranian military commander, and he also happens to be one of the more popular public figures inside Iran. Killing him isn't just a major escalation that guarantees reprisals and further destabilizes the region, but it also strengthens hard-liners in Iran enormously. Trump claimed not to want war with Iran, but his actions have proven that he does. No one who wants to avoid war with Iran would order the assassination of a high-ranking Iranian officer. Trump has signaled his willingness to plunge the U.S. into a new war that will be disastrous for our country, Iran, and the entire region. American soldiers, diplomats, and citizens throughout the region are all in much greater danger tonight than they were this morning, and the president is responsible for that. ..."
Jan 03, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

ran hawks have been agitating for open conflict with Iran for years. Tonight, the Trump administration obliged them by assassinating the top IRGC-Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani and the head of Kata'ib Hezbollah in a drone strike in Baghdad:

Hard to understate how big this is

• Qassem Suleimani is Iran's most powerful mil figure in Region
• He runs Iran's proxies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq
• Both men designated by US as Terrorist
• Muhandis was at US embassy attack protest, calls himself "Suleimani soldier"

-- Joyce Karam (@Joyce_Karam) January 3, 2020

Source in #Iran tells me:
Senior Iranian diplomats are sharing Gen. Qasem Sulaimani's photo along w/death prayers for him. #Iraq

-- Farnaz Fassihi (@farnazfassihi) January 3, 2020

Confirmed officially on Iraq state TV. Both killed pic.twitter.com/toaBJyEcxe

-- Feras Kilani فراس كيلاني (@FerasKilaniBBC) January 3, 2020

U.S. officials tell Reuters that strikes have been carried in Baghdad on Friday out against two targets linked to Iran.

-- Idrees Ali (@idreesali114) January 3, 2020

Reuters reports that a spokesman for the Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq also confirmed the deaths:

Iranian Major-General Qassem Soleimani, head of the elite Quds Force, and Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis were killed late on Thursday in an air strike on their convoy in Baghdad airport, an Iraqi militia spokesman told Reuters.

Soleimani is a senior Iranian military commander, and he also happens to be one of the more popular public figures inside Iran. Killing him isn't just a major escalation that guarantees reprisals and further destabilizes the region, but it also strengthens hard-liners in Iran enormously. Trump claimed not to want war with Iran, but his actions have proven that he does. No one who wants to avoid war with Iran would order the assassination of a high-ranking Iranian officer. Trump has signaled his willingness to plunge the U.S. into a new war that will be disastrous for our country, Iran, and the entire region. American soldiers, diplomats, and citizens throughout the region are all in much greater danger tonight than they were this morning, and the president is responsible for that.

It is hard to convey how irrational and destructive this latest action is. The U.S. and Iran have been dangerously close to war for months, but the Trump administration has made no effort to deescalate tensions. All that it would take to push the two governments over the brink into open conflict is a reckless attack that the other side cannot ignore. Now the U.S. has launched just such an attack and dared Iran to respond. The response may not come immediately, but we have to assume that it is coming. Killing Soleimani means that the IRGC will presumably consider it open season on U.S. forces all across the region. The Iran obsession has led the U.S. into a senseless new war that it could have easily avoided, and Trump and the Iran hawks own the results.

Trump supporters have often tried to defend the president's poor foreign policy record by saying that he hadn't started any new wars. Well, now he has, and he will be responsible for the consequences to follow.

[Jan 03, 2020] Deconstructing Yearend Trump Regime Big Lies About Iran by Stephen Lendman

Jan 01, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org
Deconstructing Yearend Trump Regime Big Lies About Iran

by Stephen Lendman ( stephenlendman.org – Home – Stephen Lendman )

When US politicians comment about the country's adversaries, a an official narrative harangue of disinformation and Big Lies follows so often these figures likely no longer can distinguish between truth and fiction.

Washington's hostility toward Iran has gone on with nary a letup since its 1979 revolution ended a generation of US-installed tyranny, the country regaining its sovereignty, free from vassal state status.

On Monday, White House envoy for regime change in Iran Brian Hook stuck to the fabricated official narrative in discussing Iran at the State Department.

He falsely called Sunday's Pentagon terror-bombing strikes on Iraqi and Syrian sites "defensive."

They had nothing to do with "protect(ing) American forces and American citizens in Iraq" or Syria, nothing to do with "deterr(ing) Iranian aggression" that doesn't exist and never did throughout Islamic State history -- how the US and its imperial allies operate, not Iran, the region's leading proponent of peace and stability.

Hook lied saying Iraqi Kata'ib Hezbollah paramilitaries (connected to the country's Popular Mobilization Forces) don't serve "the interests of the Iraqi people."

That's precisely what they do, including their earlier involvement in combatting US-supported ISIS.

Hook turned truth on its head, accusing Iran of "run(ning) an expansionist foreign policy" -- what US aggression is all about, not how Tehran operates.

Like other Trump regime officials, he threatened Iran, a nation able to hit back hard against the US and its regional imperial partners if attacked -- why cool-headed Pentagon commanders want no part of war with the country.

Kata'ib Hezbollah, other Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces, and the vast majority of Iraqi civilians want US occupation of their country ended.

For decades, US direct and proxy aggression, including sanctions war, ravaged the country, killing millions of its people, causing appalling human suffering.

Hook: "(T)he last thing the (US) is looking for is (war) in the Middle East "

Fact: It's raging in multiple theaters, notably Syria and Yemen, once again in Iraq after last Sunday's US aggression, more of the same virtually certain ahead.

State Department official David Schenker participated in Monday's anti-Iran propaganda exercise with Hook.

Claiming the US wants regional de-escalation, not escalation, is polar opposite reality on the ground in all its war theaters and in other countries where it conducts subversion against their governments and people.

The best way the US could protect its citizens worldwide is by ending aggressive wars, bringing home its troops, closing its empire of bases used as platforms for hostilities against other nations, and declaring a new era of peace and cooperative relations with other countries.

Based on its belligerent history throughout the 19th and 20th centuries to the present day, this change of policy, if adopted, would be un-American.

Hook: "Iran has been threatening the region for the last 40 years" -- what's true about US aggression, not how Tehran operates anywhere.

Hook: Iran "is facing its worst financial crisis and its worst political crisis in its 40-year history."

Fact: US war on the country by other means, economic terrorism, bears full responsibility for its economic hardships, intended to harm its people, including Trump regime efforts to block exports of food, drugs and medical equipment to Iran.

Fact: Hostile US actions toward Iran and countless other nations are flagrant international law breaches -- the world community doing nothing to counter its hot wars and by other means.

Fact: The Iranian "model" prioritizes peace and stability. Endless war on humanity is how the US operates globally -- at home and abroad.

Fact: Iran isn't an "outlaw regime," the description applying to the US, its key NATO allies, Israel, the Saudis, and their rogue partners in high crimes.

Hostile US actions are all about offense, unrelated to defense at a time when Washington's only enemies are invented as a pretext for endless wars of aggression.

The US under both right wings of its war party poses an unparalleled threat to everyone everywhere.

As long as its aggression goes unchallenged, the threat of humanity-destroying nuclear war exists.

It could start anywhere -- in the Middle East, the Indo-Pacific, or against Russia by accident or design.

On New Year's day 2020, I'd love to be optimistic about what lies ahead.

As long as Republican and Dem hardliners pursue dominance over other nations by brute force and other hostile means, hugely dangerous tinderbox conditions could ignite an uncontrollable firestorm anywhere.

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

My newest book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."

www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html Stephen Lendman

Stephen Lendman
Stephen Lendman was born in 1934 in Boston, MA. In 1956, he received a BA from Harvard University. Two years of US Army service followed, then an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 1960. After working seven years as a marketing research analyst, he joined the Lendman Group family business in 1967. He remained there until retiring at year end 1999. Writing on major world and national issues began in summer 2005. In early 2007, radio hosting followed. Lendman now hosts the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network three times weekly. Distinguished guests are featured. Listen live or archived. Major world and national issues are discussed. Lendman is a 2008 Project Censored winner and 2011 Mexican Journalists Club international journalism award recipient.

[Jan 03, 2020] In killing General Suleimani, Mr. Trump took an action that Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama had rejected, fearing it would lead to war between the United States and Iran.

Jan 03, 2020 | www.nytimes.com

Iran's foreign minister, Javad Zarif, called the killing of General Suleimani an act of "international terrorism" and warned it was "extremely dangerous & a foolish escalation."

"The US bears responsibility for all consequences of its rogue adventurism," Mr. Zarif tweeted.

... ... ...

"From Iran's perspective, it is hard to imagine a more deliberately provocative act," said Robert Malley, the president and chief executive of the International Crisis Group. "And it is hard to imagine that Iran will not retaliate in a highly aggressive manner."

"Whether President Trump intended it or not, it is, for all practical purposes, a declaration of war," added Mr. Malley, who served as White House coordinator for the Middle East, North Africa and the gulf region in the Obama administration.

Some United States officials and Trump administration advisers offered a less dire scenario, arguing that the show of force might convince Iran that its acts of aggression against American interests and allies have grown too dangerous, and that a president the Iranians may have come to see as risk-averse is in fact willing to escalate.

One senior administration official said the president's senior advisers had come to worry that Mr. Trump had sent too many signals -- including when he called off a planned missile strike in late June -- that he did not want a war with Iran.

Tracking Mr. Suleimani's location at any given time had long been a priority for the American and Israeli spy services and militaries. Current and former American commanders and intelligence officials said that Thursday night's attack, specifically, drew upon a combination of highly classified information from informants, electronic intercepts, reconnaissance aircraft and other surveillance.

The strike killed five people, including the pro-Iranian chief of an umbrella group for Iraqi militias, Iraqi television reported and militia officials confirmed. The militia chief, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, was a strongly pro-Iranian figure.

The public relations chief for the umbrella group, the Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq, Mohammed Ridha Jabri, was also killed.

American officials said that multiple missiles hit the convoy in a strike carried out by the Joint Special Operations Command.

American military officials said they were aware of a potentially violent response from Iran and its proxies, and were taking steps they declined to specify to protect American personnel in the Middle East and elsewhere around the world.

Two other people were killed in the strike, according to a general at the Baghdad joint command, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the news media.

... ... ...

The United States and Iran have long been involved in a shadow war in battlegrounds across the Middle East -- including in Iraq, Yemen and Syria. The tactics have generally involved using proxies to carry out the fighting, providing a buffer from a direct confrontation between Washington and Tehran that could draw America into yet other ground conflict with no discernible endgame.

The potential for a regional conflagration was a basis of the Obama administration's push for a 2015 agreement that froze Iran's nuclear program in return for sanctions relief.

Mr. Trump withdrew from the deal in 2018, saying that Mr. Obama's agreement had emboldened Iran, giving it economic breathing room to plow hundreds of millions of dollars into a campaign of violence around the region. Mr. Trump responded with a campaign of "maximum pressure" that began with punishing new economic sanctions, which began a new era of brinkmanship and uncertainly, with neither side knowing just how far the other was willing to escalate violence and risk a wider war. In recent days, it has spilled into the military arena.

General Suleimani once described himself to a senior Iraqi intelligence official as the "sole authority for Iranian actions in Iraq," the official later told American officials in Baghdad.

In a speech denouncing Mr. Trump, General Suleimani was even less discreet -- and openly mocking.

"We are near you, where you can't even imagine," he said. "We are ready. We are the man of this arena."

[Jan 03, 2020] Sheldon Adelson the rest of neocons got their wish. Now they will face consequnces

Jan 03, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Qasem Suleimani, Assassinated In US Airstrike By Walrus. - Sic Semper Tyrannis

Multiple news sources are reporting the assassination, near Baghdad Airport, of Suliemani, the leader of Irans Quds force. Some commentators are saying that this is "bigger than killing Bin Laden". According to the Pentagon, the assassination was at the direct command of President Trump. I am afraid this event, allegedly taken to forestall further attacks on US forces in Iraq, may have unintended consequences.

To me, the logic of Trump in doing this is unfathomable. Did he intend to provoke Iran and the Russians? What did he expect to achieve? Clearly the stress on the Iraqi Government is going to be extreme. How has this assassination improved the security of U.S. forces in the region? What does the Committee think?

Posted at 02:12 AM | Permalink

Reblog (0) Comments

Dom , 03 January 2020 at 02:27 AM

Well, it look that Israel will have a war with Iran.
Garcia , 03 January 2020 at 02:31 AM
God Bless his Soul, Trump is a coward
blue peacock , 03 January 2020 at 02:59 AM
Walrus

I agree the stress on the Iraqi government will be intense. Will they force the US out? Did Trump order this expecting that to happen? Or did he order this at the behest of Bibi, MbS and the neocon contingent (Pompeo, Haspel, Esper, Kushner) he has surrounded himself with, not really thinking through the implications.

The one scenario that I speculate that took place is the low-level "warfare" between US forces and the various Iraqi/Iranian/Syrian militias got escalated. And Trump was being "briefed" that it was all Iranian "influenced". That would have fit his generally anti-Iran mindset and then he was presented with this "target of opportunity" and given seconds to decide and he went with the flow to pull the trigger.

My sense is that while Iran will heat up the rhetoric, they won't retaliate militarily in a direct and open manner. Instead they'll pile the pressure on the Iraqi government to expel US forces.

MisanthropicUSA , 03 January 2020 at 03:13 AM
The Mahdi Army is reportedly being reactivated, presumably they have some more combat experience now thanks to the ISIS war. We have some 5,000 troops in the country and God knows how many citizens there along with whatever we have in Syria. The Iranians are pissed and want their revenge. The Iraqis are pissed too as is Hezbollah I'd imagine. I fear that this is going to be bad.

What the hell was Trump thinking...

LondonBob , 03 January 2020 at 03:27 AM
Who is driving US policy in the region now, who is Trump listening to?

Once again the neocons have pulled off the seemingly impossible, imagine have the power and cunning to have a country use their own servicemen as bait and cannon fodder to serve the interests of a foreign country. Another nail in the American coffin, unfortunately.

Amir , 03 January 2020 at 03:29 AM
I guess all Col. Lang's effort for the past 2 decades have been undermined. There is no way that the assassination of a member of an Iranian equivalent of JCS will be tolerated. The Iranian government will consider a lack of response to be interpreted as an invitation for more adventurism by Trump admin. The whole talk about covert action is ignorant as the Iranian foreign minister has already stated that there will be consequences.
The dice has been cast and at this point it really doesn't matter which faction within Trump's entourage managed to start a conflict: the king-of-gamblers, Sheldon Adelson & the rest of NeoConLibs, got their wish.
Not happy about it but nothing to do to reverse course.
jonst , 03 January 2020 at 05:08 AM
I could it see it playing out in two general ways. Clearly, this could make things much worse, across the entire Middle East. That's a given. On the other hand.....

It MIGHT be so that there are a lot of people in Iraq, Iran (yes, Iran) silently (for now, if they know what is good for them in the short run) celebrating this hit. A lot of Iraqis and Iranians have been killed by this guy's forces in the last few months. Alone. Who do we think the people in Iraq and Iran have been protesting against? Al Quds. And there might even be a few people in the Iranian govt who think now is the time to reduce, dramatically, the influence of Al Quds. These facts should not be dismissed out of hand. But again, on the other hand....
it may be deemed unholy and unpatriotic to celebrate taking out this SOB...as the lament might go, 'he's an SOB but he;s our SOB!'.

I know this...I would be tempted to evacuate our embassy. Now. Like starting yesterday.

We'll see. But I shed no tears for this guy. Nor do I celebrate it. Because either way...it is grim. Now, if there was someone like the Col exploiting the vacuum and shock waves certain to come in the wake of this...I would see opportunities. I repeat, a lot of people in the Middle East did not like this guy or his organization...even if they don't like the US too. But that kind of thing requires a mind that plays chess. And can kill, too. And I don't see too many minds, and souls, like that in DC anymore.

[Jan 01, 2020] Has any point in time a US president ever said "My daughter has wonderful Christian babies" ??

Jan 01, 2020 | www.unz.com

whattheduck , says: December 24, 2019 at 8:49 am GMT

@Thomasina

the point, he gave speech in front of AIPAC. His AIPAC speech reinforced my belief that trump is nothing but a wolf in a sheep's clothing. It was at that moment trump showed who is in charge and who owns him.

Trump doesn't believe in endless war? Why did he give jared to chalk up middle east peace plan? Why are trumps children either married to or engaged to jews? Every one of them! His pride daughter ivanka converted to judaism and he kept saying during in AIPAC speech "My daughter ivanka has three little wonderful jewish babies".

Has any point in time a US president ever said "My daughter has wonderful Christian babies" ??

[Jan 01, 2020] "I'm HARDCORE Zionist and so is president Trump!" Roger Stone

Jan 01, 2020 | www.unz.com

geokat62 , says: December 20, 2019 at 1:24 pm GMT

@Thomasina

If he gets elected again, which I think he will, we might see a different Trump. Who knows.

"I'm HARDCORE Zionist and so is president Trump!" – Roger Stone

What more do we need to know?

[Jan 01, 2020] The day after Trump in inaugurated for his second term -- will Iran be in his crosshairs? We need to think very seriously about that!

Jan 01, 2020 | www.unz.com

Art , says: December 19, 2019 at 10:03 pm GMT

Trump is now essentially funded by three Jews -- Singer, Bernard Marcus, and Sheldon Adelson, together accounting for over $250 million in pro-Trump political money. In return, they want war with Iran.

Hmm -- The day after Trump in inaugurated for his second term -- will Iran be in his crosshairs? We need to think very seriously about that!

[Jan 01, 2020] Trump and the Republican Party puppets are nothing more than nasty politician whores for billionaires such as Seth Klarman, Paul Singer, Shelly Adelson, Les Wexner and Bernie Marcu

Jan 01, 2020 | www.unz.com

Charles Pewitt , says: December 19, 2019 at 9:04 pm GMT

Trump and the Republican Party puppets are nothing more than nasty politician whores for billionaire Jews such as Seth Klarman and Paul Singer and Shelly Adelson and Les Wexner and Bernie Marcus and many other money-grubber Jew donors.

The Republican Party Jew donors want to continue to flood the USA with mass legal immigration and mass illegal immigration and the Jew donors want to continue to use the US military as muscle to fight unnecessary wars and endless wars on behalf of Israel.

The Republican Party Jew donors also want to have all their shady money-grubber scams protected by the Republican Party politician whores.

I wrote this in October of 2017 about Seth Klarman and Puerto Rican government debt:

Puerto Rico must be allowed to go belly up. The bond owners who own Puerto Rican debt must go tits up. The US government must not bail out the investors who purchased Puerto Rican government debt, or any debt whatsoever connected to Puerto Rico. Seth Klarman has been revealed as a person who has bought Puerto Rican bonds in hopes of cashing out big.

SETH KLARMAN must be given a salt shaker to sprinkle salt on his worthless Puerto Rican bonds before he eats them. Klarman must lose 100 cents on the dollar for his greedy purchase of Puerto Rican debt. Klarman has loads of loot, and the Puerto Rican government debt was purchased for one of his funds. I am sure his investors won't mind getting soaked by Seth for a bit of money -- it is not even a whole billion dollars, only close to it.

David Dayen says:

Klarman, who has been described as the Oracle of Boston, has a history of buying unpopular or distressed assets on the cheap in hopes of a payday. Baupost manages over $30 billion in assets. He is known as the top campaign contributor in New England and has been a major donor in Republican politics in Massachusetts, including largely secret support for 2016's Question 2, an ultimately unsuccessful effort to lift a state cap on charter schools.

Klarman supported Hillary Clinton in 2016, calling Donald Trump "completely unqualified for the highest office in the land."

Klarman's involvement in Puerto Rican debt will surely come as a surprise to activists in Massachusetts and Puerto Rico, who have never mentioned him among the "vultures" who are causing undue pain for the island's U.S. citizens.

https://theintercept.com/2017/10/03/we-can-finally-identify-one-of-the-largest-holders-of-puerto-rican-debt/

NO BAILOUT FOR PUERTO RICO BOND INVESTORS

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

Dec 29, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

yaridanjo , 21 minutes ago link

Congress' constitutional duty is putting Israel first!

  • House Dems Unanimously Vote to Condemn Withdrawal From Syria - Oct 16, 2019
    In a Wednesday vote, the House overwhelmingly backed a resolution expressing opposition to the end of the US war in Syria, and calling on the US to protect the Syrian Kurds from Turkey. The vote was 354-60, with the majority of Republicans supporting it, and unanimous support from Democrats who cast votes .
  • Positions from Democrat leaders suggested an unconditional opposition to Trump ending any war and withdrawing any troops under any circumstances. They also objected to the notion that a president could end a war without their permission .
  • Translation: 85.5% of the USA Congress opted to take 'bribes' from the Rothschild Banking Cartel instead of stopping the death and bloodshed in Syria. What is worse, they 'objected to the notion that a president could end a war without their permission (a war that they had not voted for to begin with).
    H.J.Res. 77: Opposing The Decision To End Certain United States Efforts To Prevent Turkish Military Operations Against Syrian Kurdish Forces In Northeast Syria. - Oct 16, 2019
    Yea 86% (354) Nay 14% (60)
Reality_checkers , 18 minutes ago link

MIGA!

yaridanjo , 11 minutes ago link

You can find here who the warmongers in congress are:

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

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

[Dec 21, 2019] The US strategy is based on two core principles: (1) Maintain – extend hegemony over whole world. (Resources, military etc etc) (2) Act as Israel's Golom

Notable quotes:
"... Erster General-Quartiermeister ..."
"... The US strategy is based on two core principles: (1) Maintain – extend hegemony over whole world. (Resources, military etc etc) (2) Act as Israel's Golom. ..."
"... Of course this (very abbreviated) view of US "strategy" is open to the criticisms that it's both dumb & evil. As if US establishment cares. Compared to cost of traditional "war" it's pretty cheap ..."
Jun 13, 2018 | www.unz.com

In truth, infinite war is a strategic abomination, an admission of professional military bankruptcy. Erster General-Quartiermeister Ludendorff might have endorsed the term, but Ludendorff was a military fanatic.

Check that. Infinite war is a strategic abomination except for arms merchants, so-called defense contractors, and the " emergency men " (and women) devoted to climbing the greasy pole of what we choose to call the national security establishment. In other words, candor obliges us to acknowledge that, in some quarters, infinite war is a pure positive, carrying with it a promise of yet more profits, promotions, and opportunities to come. War keeps the gravy train rolling. And, of course, that's part of the problem.

Who should we hold accountable for this abomination? Not the generals, in my view. If they come across as a dutiful yet unimaginative lot, remember that a lifetime of military service rarely nurtures imagination or creativity. And let us at least credit our generals with this: in their efforts to liberate or democratize or pacify or dominate the Greater Middle East they have tried every military tactic and technique imaginable. Short of nuclear annihilation, they've played just about every card in the Pentagon's deck -- without coming up with a winning hand. So they come and go at regular intervals, each new commander promising success and departing after a couple years to make way for someone else to give it a try.

... ... ...

Congressional midterm elections are just months away and another presidential election already looms. Who will be the political leader with the courage and presence of mind to declare: "Enough! Stop this madness!" Man or woman, straight or gay, black, brown, or white, that person will deserve the nation's gratitude and the support of the electorate.

Until that occurs, however, the American penchant for war will stretch on toward infinity. No doubt Saudi and Israeli leaders will cheer, Europeans who remember their Great War will scratch their heads in wonder, and the Chinese will laugh themselves silly. Meanwhile, issues of genuinely strategic importance -- climate change offers one obvious example -- will continue to be treated like an afterthought. As for the gravy train, it will roll on.

Anon [323] Disclaimer , June 7, 2018 at 9:57 pm GMT

"The United States of Amnesia."

That's actually a universal condition.

unseated , June 7, 2018 at 11:00 pm GMT
@Andrei Martyanov

1. WW1 had total casualties (civilian and military) of around 40M. WW2 had total casualties of 60M. So yes WW2 was more deadly but "pales in comparison" is hardly justified, especially relative to population.

2. Marshal Foch, 28 June, 1919: "This is not a peace. It is an armistice for 20 years."
WW1 inevitably led to WW2.

c matt , June 8, 2018 at 1:18 pm GMT
"Enough! Stop this madness!"

The only politician with a modest national stage to have said that (and meant it) in the last 50 years was Ron Paul, who was booed and mocked as crazy. Trump made noises in that direction, but almost as soon as the last words of his oath echoed off into the brisk January afternoon, he seemed to change his tune. Whether he never meant it, or decided to avoid the JFK treatment, who knows.

No, as I believe Will Rogers said, democracy is that form of government where the people get what they want, good and hard.

anonymous [340] Disclaimer , June 8, 2018 at 2:08 pm GMT
@c matt

Yes.

I supported Ron Paul in 2012. But after his candidacy was crookedly subverted by the Establishment (cf., Trump's) I vowed never to vote again for anyone that I believe unworthy of the power wielded through the public office. I haven't voted since, and don't expect to until the Empire collapses.

Carlton Meyer , Website June 8, 2018 at 4:02 pm GMT
Kirk Douglas starred in a great film about fighting in World War I: "Paths of Glory." I highly recommend the film for its accuracy, best described in Wiki by the reaction of governments:

Controversy

On its release, the film's anti-military tone was subject to criticism and censorship.

In France, both active and retired personnel from the French military vehemently criticized the film -- and its portrayal of the French Army -- after it was released in Belgium. The French government placed enormous pressure on United Artists, (the European distributor) to not release the film in France. The film was eventually shown in France in 1975 when social attitudes had changed.[17]

In Germany, the film was withdrawn from the Berlin Film Festival to avoid straining relations with France;[18] it was not shown for two years until after its release.

In Spain, Spain's right-wing government of Francisco Franco objected to the film. It was first shown in 1986, 11 years after Franco's death.

In Switzerland, the film was censored, at the request of the Swiss Army, until 1970.[18]

At American bases in Europe, the American military banned it from being shown.[18]

Mike P , June 8, 2018 at 4:33 pm GMT

No, it's not the generals who have let us down, but the politicians to whom they supposedly report and from whom they nominally take their orders.

I'd say both. The generals have greatly assisted in stringing along the trusting public, always promising that victory is just around the corner, provided the public supports this or that final effort. Petraeus in particular willingly played his part in misleading the public about both Iraq and Afghanistan. His career would be a great case study for illuminating what is wrong with the U.S. today.

As to the apparent failure of the Afghanistan war – one must be careful to separate stated goals from real ones. What kind of "lasting success" can the U.S. possibly hope for there? If they managed to defeat the Taliban, pacify the country, install a puppet regime to govern it, and then leave, what would that achieve? The puppet regime would find itself surrounded by powers antagonistic to the U.S., and the puppets would either cooperate with them or be overthrown in no time. The U.S. are not interested in winning and leaving – they want to continue disrupting the peaceful integration of East, West, and South Asia. Afghanistan is ideally placed for this purpose, and so the U.S. are quite content with dragging out that war, as a pretext for their continued presence in the region.

TG , June 8, 2018 at 7:44 pm GMT
An interesting and thoughtful piece.

I would disagree on one point though: "Today, Washington need not even bother to propagandize the public into supporting its war. By and large, members of the public are indifferent to its very existence."

This is an error. A majority of the American public think that wasting trillions of dollars on endless pointless foreign wars is a stupid idea, and they think that we would be better off spending that money on ourselves. It's just that we don't live in a democracy, and the corporate press constantly ignores the issue. But just because the press doesn't mention something, doesn't mean that it does not exist.

So during the last presidential election Donald Trump echoed this view, why are we throwing away all this money on stupid wars when we need that money at home? For this he was attacked as a fascist and "literally Hitler" (really! It's jaw-dropping when you think about it). Despite massive propaganda attacking Trump, and a personal style that could charitably be called a jackass, Trump won the election in large part because indeed most American don't like the status quo.

After the election, Trump started to deliver on his promises – and he was quickly beaten down, his pragmatist nationalist advisors purged and replaced with defense-industry chickenhawks, and now we are back to the old status quo. The public be damned.

No, the American people are not being propagandized into supporting these wars. They are simply being ignored.

Left Gatekeeper Dispatch , June 8, 2018 at 9:10 pm GMT
When are you going to stop insulting our intelligence with this Boy's State civics crap? You're calling on political leaders to stop war, like they don't remember what CIA did to JFK, RFK, Daschle, or Leahy. Or Paul Wellstone.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/tribute-to-the-last-honorable-us-senator-the-story-of-paul-wellstones-suspected-assassination-2/5643200

Your national command structure, CIA, has impunity for universal jurisdiction crime. They can kill or torture anyone they want and get away with it. That is what put them in charge. CIA kills anybody who gets in their way. You fail to comprehend Lenin's lesson: first destroy the regime, then you can refrain from use of force. Until you're ready to take on CIA, your bold phrases are silent and odorless farts of feckless self-absorption. Sack up and imprison CIA SIS or GTFO.

James Kabala , June 9, 2018 at 11:24 pm GMT
@Carlton Meyer

Since Spain was smart enough to stay out of both World Wars (as was Switzerland, of course), I wonder what Franco was thinking when he banned the film. Anyway, the final scene may be the best final scene in the history of movies.

exiled off mainstreet , June 10, 2018 at 1:15 am GMT
This writer, a retired military officer whose son died in service to the yankee imperium seems to have as good a grasp as any if not a better grasp than any about the nature of the yankee system of permanent war.
smellyoilandgas , June 13, 2018 at 4:48 am GMT
@TG

While I agree the slave-American is ignored, I think the elected, salaried members of the elected government are also ignored.. The persons in charge are Pharaohs and massively powerful global in scope corporations.
Abe Lincoln, McKinnley, Kennedy discovered that fact in their fate.

Organized Zionism was copted by the London bankers and their corporations 1897, since then a string of events have emerged.. that like a Submarine, seeking a far off target, it must divert to avoid being discovered, but soon, Red October returns to its intended path. here the path is to take the oil from the Arabs.. and the people driving that submarine are extremely wealthy Pharaohs and very well known major corporations.

I suggest to quit talking about the nation states and their leaders as if either could beat their way out of a wet paper sack. instead starting talking about the corporations and Pharaohs because they are global.

Mr. Anon , June 13, 2018 at 4:49 am GMT
The yawning silence accompanying the centennial of the Great War is baffling to me. It was the pivotal event of the 20th century. It was the beginning of the unmanning, the demoralization of Western Civilization. It was the calamity that created the World we inhabit today.

I've heard nary a peep about it in the U.S. over the last four years. It's as if it were as remote in people's consciousness as the Punic Wars.

MarkinPNW , June 13, 2018 at 5:49 am GMT
The World Wars (I and II) can be seen as an increasingly desperate attempt of a fading British Empire to hold on to and maintain its power and hegemony, with the material, human, and moral cost of the wars actually accelerating the empire's demise.

Likewise, the current endless "War on Terra" can be seen as an increasingly desperate attempt of a fading American Empire to hold on to and maintain its power and hegemony, again with the material, human, and moral cost of this war actually accelerating its demise.

But in the meantime, in both examples, the Bankers and the MIC just keep reaping their profits, even at the expense of the empires they purportedly support and defend.

animalogic , June 13, 2018 at 8:14 am GMT
@Mike P

Good points Mike P.

Author says: "strategy has ceased to exist".

In a traditional sense the author is right. Strategy is the attainment of political goals, within existing constraints. (diplomatic, political, resources etc)
"Goals" traditionally means "victories". (WWI is a great example of the sometimes dubious idea of victory)
Has the US ceased to have a strategy ? No. (Their strategy is myopic & self destructive – ie it's not a "good" strategy)

The US strategy is based on two core principles: (1) Maintain – extend hegemony over whole world. (Resources, military etc etc) (2) Act as Israel's Golom. Afghanistan, at (relatively) minimal cost, US controls key land mass (& with possible future access to fantastic resources). Threaten, mess up Russian – Chinese ambitions in this area. Iraq: Israeli enemy, strategic location, resource extraction. Syria: Israeli enemy, strategic location, key location for resource transfer to markets (EU esp). Deny Russia an ally. Libya: who cares ? Gaddafi was a pain in the arse. Iran: Israeli enemy, fantastic resources, hate them regardless.

Of course this (very abbreviated) view of US "strategy" is open to the criticisms that it's both dumb & evil. As if US establishment cares. Compared to cost of traditional "war" it's pretty cheap ( which is funny, because it's such a yummy gravy train for the 1% sorry, actually, forgot the FIRST core principle of US strategy: enrich all the "right" people)

Tom Welsh , June 13, 2018 at 10:05 am GMT
'There has never been a just [war], never an honorable one–on the part of the instigator of the war. I can see a million years ahead, and this rule will never change in so many as half a dozen instances. The loud little handful–as usual–will shout for the war. The pulpit will– warily and cautiously–object–at first; the great, big, dull bulk of the nation will rub its sleepy eyes and try to make out why there should be a war, and will say, earnestly and indignantly, "It is unjust and dishonorable, and there is no necessity for it." Then the handful will shout louder. A few fair men on the other side will argue and reason against the war with speech and pen, and at first will have a hearing and be applauded; but it will not last long; those others will outshout them, and presently the anti-war audiences will thin out and lose popularity.

Before long you will see this curious thing: the speakers stoned from the platform, and free speech strangled by hordes of furious men who in their secret hearts are still at one with those stoned speakers–as earlier– but do not dare to say so. And now the whole nation–pulpit and all– will take up the war-cry, and shout itself hoarse, and mob any honest man who ventures to open his mouth; and presently such mouths will cease to open. Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception'.

- Satan, in Mark Twain's "The Mysterious Stranger" (1908)

annamaria , June 13, 2018 at 2:06 pm GMT
@Carlton Meyer

European politicians, the war on terror, and the triumph of Bankers United: https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2018/06/12/europe-brainwashed-normalize-relations-russia/
"Europe has not had an independent existence for 75 years. European countries do not know what it means to be a sovereign state. Without Washington European politicians feel lost, so they are likely to stick with Washington .

Russian hopes to unite with the West in a war against terrorism overlook that terrorism is the West's weapon for destabilizing independent countries that do not accept a unipolar world."

The world is ripe for barter exchange. Screw the money changers.

[Dec 18, 2019] With impeachment imminent, Kushner has pushed out his enemies, installed allies, and taken control of the campaign and large swaths of policy -- only Kellyanne Conway is still pushing back.

Dec 18, 2019 | www.unz.com

renfro , says: December 18, 2019 at 2:39 am GMT

"Jared Treats Mick Like the Help": It's Jared's White House Now (Trump's Just Living in It)

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/12/with-impeachment-imminent-jared-kushner-white-house-takeover-finally-complete

"With impeachment imminent, Kushner has pushed out his enemies, installed allies, and taken control of the campaign and large swaths of policy -- only Kellyanne Conway is still pushing back.

Inside the West Wing, Kushner has both eliminated opponents and installed acquiescent officials. "Jared was very frustrated with [Reince] Priebus and John Kelly," a Republican close to the White House, said. Acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney "was Jared's pick," the source said, and has allowed Kushner to function as de facto chief of staff. "Mick has decided not to be in control," a former West Wing official said. "Jared treats Mick like the help. There's no pushback," a prominent Republican said. John Bolton, who recently mocked Kushner in a private speech, has been replaced by Robert O'Brien, a Kushner ally. Sources say that Vice President Mike Pence and his advisers don't challenge Kushner after a string of leaks that Kushner wanted to replace Pence on the ticket with Nikki Haley. "Pence people look at Jared apprehensively. Pence treats Jared as a peer," said former Trump aide Sam Nunberg. (The White House did not respond to a request for comment.)"

Jared the Jew Prince is the number one reason not to reelect Trump.

[Dec 18, 2019] Trump Creates a New Nation by Philip Giraldi

Looks like Trump lost many votes of independents.
Notable quotes:
"... The Jerusalem Post ..."
Dec 18, 2019 | www.unz.com

The pandering by Donald Trump and those around him to Israel and to some conservative American Jews is apparently endless. Last Wednesday the president signed an executive order that is intended to address alleged anti-Semitism on college campuses by cutting off funds to those universities that do not prevent criticism of Israel. To provide a legal basis to defund, the administration is relying on title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits any discrimination based on race, color or national origin. Since the Act does not include religion, Trump's order is declaring ipso facto that henceforth "Jewishness" is a nationality.

The executive order does not mention Israel by name, but it does state that its assumptions are based on "the non-legally binding working definition of anti-Semitism adopted on May 26, 2016, by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), which states, 'Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities'; and (ii) the 'Contemporary Examples of Anti-Semitism' identified by the IHRA, to the extent that any examples might be useful as evidence of discriminatory intent."

The IHRA "contemporary examples" supplementing the basic description are important. They considerably broaden the definition of anti-Semitism, to include "Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations" and "claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor." The examples also included holding Israel to a higher standard than other nations when criticizing it, and IHRA offers no possible mitigation even if the accusations are, in the case of the behavior of some Jews and of Israel, accurate.

Those who are confused because in the past expressions like "Italian" or "Irish" or "British" meant actual countries should recognize that Trump-speak never respects any connection with reality when there is political advantage just sitting out there waiting to be snatched and exploited. And that imperative is considerably multiplied when one is referring to either the state of Israel or of Jews in general, particularly as seen by the Trump White House, which clearly and repeatedly sends the message that it reveres both. Trump's order will in effect constitute a government-promoted argument that Jews are a people or a race with a collective national origin, like Italian or Polish Americans, an assertion that clearly is untrue.

In fact, suppressing criticism of Israel on college campuses using a "weaponized" claim of anti-Semitism has long been a major foreign policy objective of the Israeli government even though nonviolent assembly and free speech are guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. Congress has several times considered a comprehensive Anti-Semitism Awareness Act, though it has not passed due to legitimate free speech concerns. The nonviolent Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (B.D.S.), which is very active on American campuses, has been particularly targeted and criticism of it is frequent in the media and from Congress while also emanating from the White House. As most accredited colleges receive federal funding, which can be considerable at a major research university, the executive order will create a major dilemma over how to respond, particularly for those schools that have Middle East study programs.

Work on the presidential executive order was initiated in the summer inside the White House by a team led by Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser, together with his close aide special assistant to the president Avi Berkowitz. They sought to develop a formula whereby government policy would equate anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism, and Donald Trump both agreed with that assessment and followed through on it. On December 8 th he promised to take action against B.D.S. and other critics in a speech delivered before the Israeli-American Council. The speech is worth reading in full by anyone who is concerned that the United States now has a government that favors one already privileged, wealthy and powerful constituency in particular and is not committed to upholding the civil liberties of all Americans.

Israel is an apartheid state. Covering up for its crimes against humanity as well as its war crimes is something of a growth industry in the United States, with Zionist billionaire oligarchs launching new foundations on a regular basis. Jewish power in the U.S. means that Israel always has been given a pass, even when it deliberately attacked and sought to sink the U.S.S. Liberty, an American Naval vessel in international waters in 1967. Thirty-four crewman died in the assault. The subsequent investigation of the attack was whitewashed by the president, secretary of state and the Navy department while the survivors were threatened with imprisonment if they revealed what had occurred. That is how a powerful and ruthless Israel acting through its traitorous domestic proxies operates and it illustrates how feeble the Establishment is in standing up to it.

This latest outrage, in which free speech and association will be denied to benefit one group on the basis of its claimed perpetual victimhood, had its genesis earlier this year when the federal government's Education Department ordered Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to reorganize the Consortium for Middle East Studies program run jointly by the two colleges in part based on their failure to include enough "positive" content relating to Judaism. The demand came with a threat to suspend federal funding of Title VI Higher Education Act international studies and foreign language grants to the two schools if the curriculum were not changed.

The Education Department was particularly irate over a conference in March called "Conflict Over Gaza: People, Politics and Possibilities." A Republican congressman was outraged by the development and asked Secretary DeVos to investigate because the gathering was full of "radical anti-Israel bias."

Coverage of the story revealed that "Betsy DeVos, the education secretary, has become increasingly aggressive in going after perceived anti-Israel bias in higher education." Her deputy who has served as a focal point for the effort to root out anti-Israel sentiment is Assistant Secretary of Civil Rights Kenneth L. Marcus, who might reasonably be described as "a career pro-Israel advocate," the founder and president of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, which he has used to exclusively defend the rights of Jewish groups and individuals against BDS and other manifestations of Palestinian pushback against the Israeli occupation of their country. He has not hesitated to call opponents anti-Semites and has worked with Jewish students to file civil rights complaints against college administrations, including schools in Wisconsin and California. In an op-ed that appeared, not surprisingly, in The Jerusalem Post , he observed that even when student complaints were rejected, they created major problems for the institutions involved. "If a university shows a failure to treat initial complaints seriously, it hurts them with donors, faculty, political leaders and prospective students."

Last year Kenneth Marcus reopened an investigation into alleged anti-Jewish bias at Rutgers University that the Obama Administration had closed after finding that the charges were baseless. Marcus indicated that the re-examination was called for as his office in the Education Department would henceforth be using the IHRA-derived State Department definition of anti-Semitism that also includes "denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination," making virtually all criticism of Israel a civil rights violation or even a hate crime.

Critics of the Trump move, many of whom are themselves Jewish , are uncomfortable with being placed by government into one category, noting inter alia that ALL students are de facto already protected by Title VI, which has been interpreted as making all forms of discrimination illegal. And they also note that the law was never intended to protect individuals whose feelings were hurt or who claim to be unwelcome or even threatened by someone saying something that they disapprove of. Since such protection is clearly the intention of the executive order, it is undeniable that the Trump's latest ploy is little more than a mechanism to pressure colleges into effectively banning B.D.S. and other groups critical of Israel.

And the order itself raises at least one unpleasant thought: if "Jewishness" is a nation even though it is demonstrably not one, what is the alleged Jewish nationality all about? Is this just one more example of the politics of Jewish identity or is it really some form of dual loyalty, with American Jews divided between those who are loyal to the U.S. and those who are loyal to some supra-nationality or allegiance? The fact is, that Donald Trump himself has several times expressed the view that American Jews, particularly those who are politically liberal, should be more loyal to Israel.

Trump's maneuver is unfortunately part of a well-funded and highly coordinated federal and state campaign to pass laws to criminalize critics of Israel . And the issue has also surfaced within the Democratic Party among those campaigning for the presidential nomination . Speaker Nancy Pelosi forced Representative Ilhan Omar to apologize after she criticized proposed anti-boycott legislation. More recently Bernie Sanders is being smeared as an anti-Semite even though he is Jewish because he associates with critics of Israel and has spoken out in favor of defending free speech while also supporting Palestinian rights.

There is a certain irony in all of this political theater, that the wealthiest and most powerful identifiable group in the United States should yet again be playing the victim is in itself astonishing. And making it a crime to deny Israel legitimacy while at the same time denying the same thing to Palestinians should give anyone pause.

And there is also considerable hypocrisy in that pro-Israel groups on campus have been if anything better funded and more aggressive in promoting their point of view than B.D.S. has been without any consequences. Canary Mission , for example, claims to "document people and groups that promote hatred of the U.S.A., Israel and Jews on North American college campuses" by posting their names, photos and personal information on its website. Israeli-American real estate investor and billionaire Adam Milstein is reported to be its principal funder while the site's listings have been allegedly used by the Israeli border security officials to deny entry to pro-B.D.S. American citizens and also with potential employers to deny applicants jobs.

The Lawfare Project's Campus Civil Rights Project meanwhile helps aggrieved Zionist students to "take legal action to ensure that schools live up to their legal obligations to protect Jewish students from anti-Semitic harassment, intimidation, and discrimination."

So here we are again. Special privileges for the perpetual victims. And no one in the media is willing to tell it like it is, while the handful of meek voices in congress have been effectively silenced. So sad, particularly as an election year is coming up and there will undoubtedly be much more of this. When the Israelis occupy nearly all of the West Bank with Donald Trump's approval and start "relocating" the existing population, who will be around to speak up? No one, as by that time saying nay to Israel will be a full-fledged hate crime and you can go to jail for doing so.

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 councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected] .

Rebel0007 , says: December 17, 2019 at 2:39 am GMT

This is a case of extreme 1st amendment rights abuse, not solely for violating freedom of speech, the press, the right to assemble, and redress the government with greivances, but it is also making both an establishment of religion, and prohibiting the free exercise thereof.

If this anti-Semetic definition is to be claimed to allow for the free exercise of Judaism, then it would only be fitting that it is anti-Islamic to Boycott, Sanction, and Divest from the Islamic Republic of Iran, which again, proves that this has made Judaism the established religion in America, where most Americans are Christians.

There are no equal protection laws passed for Christianity, Islam, Buddism, Hinduism, Taoism, Zoroastrianism, Seiks, or any other religion.

This is totally insane! I know that Ivanka converted to Judaism, and Trump loves his daughter, but this is disgusting!

geokat62 , says: December 17, 2019 at 5:04 am GMT
With this incredible speech, Pastor Chuck Baldwin gives Rick Wiles of TruNews a run for his money.

Chuck Baldwin Exposes Donald Trump's
Tyrannical Executive Order

https://www.youtube.com/embed/LPby6C6BSrU?feature=oembed

Description:

Donald Trump's so-called "antisemitism" Executive Order Is abominable, reprehensible & downright tyrannical. It is a blatant attack against the First Amendment protection of free speech and for all intents and purposes elevates all things Jewish to royalty status in America -- being granted official government protection against any kind of criticism.
In this video, Chuck Baldwin exposes the fact that not only is Donald Trump a hack for Zionism; he is also a wanna-be tyrant -- and this Executive Order proves it.

Here's the full transcript:

[MORE]

Donald Trump's Executive Order this past week will empower the federal Department of Education to withhold funding to campuses that do not squash anti-Israel rhetoric. In other words, it is now official government policy to deny college students and faculty members their natural and constitutional right to criticize, especially and primarily, if they criticize any and all things Israel. This will also, doubtless, include speech that supports Palestinian rights. Trump also declared that the religion of Judaism is a nationality or ethnicity, and is beyond criticism. Can you imagine the outcry if he had declared Christianity to be a nationality. Plus, by issuing this Executive Order, Donald Trump has made every Christian and non-Jew in the United States a second class citizen. But don't expect Robert Jeffress and his gaggle of Christian Zionists to figure that out. I have said repeatedly that Donald Trump is America's first Zionist president. And Trump's actions continue to prove that statement right. Trump's latest attack against the constitution – specifically the First Amendment – is just his latest sellout to Israel. I'll say it straight out: Donald Trump is not trying to make America great. He's trying to make Israel great. By the way, I'm glad to see the rabid Jewish Zionist, Mark Levin, agree with me. At the signing ceremony of this draconian Executive Order, Levin called Trump "America's first Jewish president." Even casual research will easily discover that Trump's family is dominated by Jewish Zionists, as is his circle of friends and business associates. What a coincidence! Trump says his EO is protecting free speech on college campuses. That's a lie. His EO is squashing free speech specifically, speech that criticizes Israel or Zionism. Donald Trump is a pathetic puppet of the likes of the ultra Zionist billionaire, Sheldon Adelson. Even worse is the fact that the Christian Zionist preachers and churches in this country are as much Adelson's puppet as is Trump, which is why they love Trump so much. And all of this hypnotic support for faux Israel can be traced directly to the false teachings of John Darby and CI Scofield and the thousands of Christian Zionist churches and scores of Christian Zionist colleges that those two men created. Now, the Zionist, Donald Trump, is trying to prohibit colleges from criticizing Zionism. If you were looking for an impeachable offence, this blatant abridgement of the First Amendment by the president of United States is it. But, don't expect Democrats in Congress to challenge Trump's unconscionable EO that officially elevates Jewishness to royalty status. Because the same Israeli Lobby that controls the Republicans in Washington DC also controls the Democrats. Trump's EO will deny funding for colleges and universities unless they prohibit the right of faculty and students to exercise their First Amendment freedom of speech to criticize Israel. How long will it be before Donald Trump decides to criminalize anyone who criticizes Israel? Donald Trump is not only a Zionist hack, he is a wannabe tyrant, and this Executive Order proves it! [loud applause]

Colin Wright , says: Website December 17, 2019 at 5:18 am GMT
@Bragadocious 'Obama considered something similar to this. He also signed two major international trade agreements with anti-BDS language. Giraldi said nothing about this; I checked. He did mention the trade agreements but forgot the punchline: Obama signed them into law! Why one standard for President Zero, another for Orange man?'

We'll have to revisit this if Obama becomes president again.

Colin Wright , says: Website December 17, 2019 at 5:20 am GMT
@Robert Dolan 'Trump has lost his mind.

I sort of wish they would impeach the stupid cuck bastard.'

They very well may. Unless you can explain how the Senate would convict, it means nothing.

Truth , says: December 17, 2019 at 5:23 am GMT
@Robert Dolan Bro, 2 years ago you were wearing a MIGA hat (Israel).
22pp22 , says: December 17, 2019 at 5:35 am GMT
Silly on the part of Jews. If they are counted separately, it becomes even harder to hide that they are absurdly overrepresented in all the desirable professions.
Yaakov , says: December 17, 2019 at 5:38 am GMT
The Enemy is now in plain sight
One Tribe , says: December 17, 2019 at 5:39 am GMT
Thank you again for your courageous reporting, Mr. Giraldi.

This is a very interesting situation!

I am seeing it with a double-vision.

If this so, and passed into law?!
Then, what possible legal excuse still exists for not declaring AIPAC, and all of the other 'special interest extra-governmental agencies', foreign agents of a foreign 'nation'?

We shall see.

Z-man , says: December 17, 2019 at 6:33 am GMT
@geokat62 Thank you for the clip geokat62 . Chuck Baldwin simply speaks the truth.
But here is where I diverge from the conclusions of the good pastor. Trump has now stated the obvious, Jews are a race and a religious cult. Besides this truth he is, hopefully, forming an irreparable wedge between secular and Zionist Jews. This only helps the majority in this nation. Unfortunately this majority also includes Christian Zionists, a heretic group even more revolting than Zionist Jews.
I still believe that Trump is cynically doing this to protect his flanks from the rabid Zionists, who with the rest of that Jew Cabal, who hate him more than anything, would all attack Trump and make him a one term POTUS.
Because, believe it or not, Trump is still better than any of the Demo'krat candidates out there for, as the 'good pastor' said, both political parties are owned .
As far as the exec. order itself it is unconstitutional and will be shot down in the courts. But if this power isn't checked and destroyed now it will become a crime to even think anti I z rael thoughts (Orwell, Huxley et al).
A pox on that most artificial of nation states, BDS now but in a conflict 4 more years of Donald because I can see him going to war with the NEOCONS over Russia and other Satanic goals of the Cabal. Time will tell and hopefuly Trump will do the right thing.
Rebel0007 , says: December 17, 2019 at 6:44 am GMT
@Anon

What you stayed is not equal protection. The law prohibits the criticism and boycott of a Jewish state. The government has a double standard. It is a rock solid case of an establishment of Judaism as the religion of America.

The government has boycotted, sanctioned, and divested from the Islamic Republic of Iran, which is an Islamic state, but not the terrorist group, and in fact the adversary of the terrorist group IS.

The Israeli government has waged war on every religion, and so has our own government by refusing Christians and Muslims to criticize the barbaric racial holocaust, precisely as Hitler refused to allow Catholics and Protestants to criticize his racist policies, the Nazis raided the Catholic and Protestant churche, seized assets, and placed clergy in concentration camps.

This anti-Semetic law is an affront to all religions because it has nothing to due with the Jewish religion and everything to do with the Israeli government. It has nothing to do with Jewish people and everything to do with the Israeli government.

This is simply an effort to silence any criticism of murderous regimes and the holocaust against Islam, precisely as Hitler had done in Germany towards those who criticized his insane racist policies and barbaric holocausts.

thotmonger , says: December 17, 2019 at 7:02 am GMT
How would it fly if Trump's EO instead forbade criticism of Russia in schools and colleges in USA?

Very strange that something like this could ever be written and signed. A fast budding and explicit "Judeo lese majetse" is unfolding before our eyes. And if it is meant to protect Jews as a race and nation, then that will naturally induce people to see them as exactly that: a separate nation. Will this quell concern about loyalty or raise more doubt?

p.s. In 2018, Israeli army expert snipers made a turkey shoot of Palestinians marching on the 70th anniversary of their people being ethnically cleansed from their ancestral homeland. A "shoot to cripple" policy only murdered several score but, with high speed dum dum bullets, they blasted bloody wreckage through the flesh and bones of many thousands of unarmed people. You may not see them on your porno channels and game shows, but a large number will be crippled for the rest of their lives.

This is a good example of a very recent state sponsored atrocity on a large scale. Students in our schools and colleges might want to examine this in a variety of ways. The history, legality, ethics, demographic dilemmas etc. Sure, it might roll over into some criticism and activism, e.g. DBS Israel, but is that to be prohibited by our government? What sort of citizens are our schools and colleges supposed to be cultivating if students are not permitted to exercise their freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and freedom of conscience?

https://ahtribune.com/world/north-africa-south-west-asia/palestine/2297-israel-shoot-to-cripple-policy-in-gaza.html

Miro23 , says: December 17, 2019 at 7:27 am GMT

Critics of the Trump move, many of whom are themselves Jewish, are uncomfortable with being placed by government into one category, noting inter alia that ALL students are de facto already protected by Title VI, which has been interpreted as making all forms of discrimination illegal.

A positive side of this is that even the most dopey university students now understand the situation

EliteCommInc. , says: December 17, 2019 at 9:42 am GMT
executive order:

"Combating Anti-Semitism

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows:
Section 1. Policy. My Administration is committed to combating the rise of anti-Semitism and anti-Semitic incidents in the United States and around the world. Anti-Semitic incidents have increased since 2013, and students, in particular, continue to face anti-Semitic harassment in schools and on university and college campuses.

Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VI), 42 U.S.C. 2000d et seq., prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin in programs and activities receiving Federal financial assistance. While Title VI does not cover discrimination based on religion, individuals who face discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin do not lose protection under Title VI for also being a member of a group that shares common religious practices. Discrimination against Jews may give rise to a Title VI violation when the discrimination is based on an individual's race, color, or national origin.

It shall be the policy of the executive branch to enforce Title VI against prohibited forms of discrimination rooted in anti-Semitism as vigorously as against all other forms of discrimination prohibited by Title VI.

Sec. 2. Ensuring Robust Enforcement of Title VI. (a) In enforcing Title VI, and identifying evidence of discrimination based on race, color, or national origin, all executive departments and agencies (agencies) charged with enforcing Title VI shall consider the following:

(i) the non-legally binding working definition of anti-Semitism adopted on May 26, 2016, by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), which states, "Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities"; and

(ii) the "Contemporary Examples of Anti-Semitism" identified by the IHRA, to the extent that any examples might be useful as evidence of discriminatory intent.

(b) In considering the materials described in subsections (a)(i) and (a)(ii) of this section, agencies shall not diminish or infringe upon any right protected under Federal law or under the First Amendment. As with all other Title VI complaints, the inquiry into whether a particular act constitutes discrimination prohibited by Title VI will require a detailed analysis of the allegations.

Sec. 3. Additional Authorities Prohibiting Anti-Semitic Discrimination. Within 120 days of the date of this order, the head of each agency charged with enforcing Title VI shall submit a report to the President, through the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, identifying additional nondiscrimination authorities within its enforcement authority with respect to which the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism could be considered.

Sec. 4. Rule of Construction. Nothing in this order shall be construed to alter the evidentiary requirements pursuant to which an agency makes a determination that conduct, including harassment, amounts to actionable Start Printed Page 68780discrimination, or to diminish or infringe upon the rights protected under any other provision of law.

Sec. 5. General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:

(i) the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or

(ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.

(b) This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.

(c) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person."

9/11 Inside job , says: December 17, 2019 at 11:25 am GMT
theguardian.com : "Believe it or not , Barack Obama had Israel's best interests at heart " By Avi Shlaim :
"Obama's actual record during his eight years in office make him one of the most pro-Israeli American presidents since Harry S. Truman . Obama has given Israel considerably more money and arms than any of his predecessors ."

[Dec 17, 2019] The Israel Lobby's Hidden Hand in the Theft of Iraqi and Syrian Oil by Agha Hussain and Whitney Webb

Notable quotes:
"... The outsized role of U.S. Israel lobby operatives in abetting the theft of Syrian and Iraqi oil reveals how this powerful lobby also facilitates more covert aspects of U.S.-Israeli cooperation and the implementation of policies that favor Israel. ..."
"... Israel imported massive amounts of oil from the Kurds during this period, all without the consent of Baghdad. Israel was also the largest customer of oil sold by ISIS, who used Kurdish-controlled Kirkuk to sell oil in areas of Iraq and Syria under its control. To do this in ISIS-controlled territories of Iraq, the oil was sent first to the Kurdish city of Zakho near the Turkey border and then into Turkey, deceptively labeled as oil that originated from Iraqi Kurdistan. ISIS did nothing to impede the KRG's own oil exports even though they easily could have given that the Kirkuk-Ceyhan export pipeline passed through areas that ISIS had occupied for years ..."
"... This arrangement orchestrated by Jeffrey, served the long-time neoconservative-Israeli agenda of empowering the Kurds, selling Iraqi oil to Israel and weakening Iraq's Baghdad-based government. ..."
"... The WINEP connection to the KRG-Israel oil deal demonstrates the key role played by the U.S. pro-Israel Lobby, not only in terms of sustaining U.S. financial aid to Israel and ratcheting up tensions with Israel's adversaries but also in facilitating the more covert aspects of U.S.-Israeli cooperation and the implementation of policies that favor Israel. ..."
"... Yet the role played by the U.S. Israel lobby in this capacity, particularly in terms of orchestrating oil sale agreements for Israel's benefit, is hardly exclusive to Iraq and can accurately be described as a repeated pattern of behavior. ..."
Dec 17, 2019 | www.unz.com

The outsized role of U.S. Israel lobby operatives in abetting the theft of Syrian and Iraqi oil reveals how this powerful lobby also facilitates more covert aspects of U.S.-Israeli cooperation and the implementation of policies that favor Israel.

Kirkuk, Iraq -- "We want to bring our soldiers home. But we did leave soldiers because we're keeping the oil," President Trump stated on November 3, before adding, "I like oil. We're keeping the oil."

Though he had promised a withdrawal of U.S. troops from their illegal occupation of Syria, Trump shocked many with his blunt admission that troops were being left behind to prevent Syrian oil resources from being developed by the Syrian government and, instead, kept in the hands of whomever the U.S. deemed fit to control them, in this case, the U.S.-backed Kurdish-majority militia known as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

Though Trump himself received all of the credit -- and the scorn -- for this controversial new policy, what has been left out of the media coverage is the fact that key players in the U.S.' pro-Israel lobby played a major role in its creation with the purpose of selling Syrian oil to the state of Israel. While recent developments in the Syrian conflict may have hindered such a plan from becoming reality, it nonetheless offers a telling example of the covert role often played by the U.S.' pro-Israel lobby in shaping key elements of U.S. foreign policy and closed-door deals with major regional implications.

Indeed, the Israel lobby-led effort to have the U.S. facilitate the sale of Syrian oil to Israel is not an isolated incident given that, just a few years ago, other individuals connected to the same pro-Israel lobby groups and Zionist neoconservatives manipulated both U.S. policy and Iraq's Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) in order to allow Iraqi oil to be sold to Israel without the approval of the Iraqi government. These designs, not unlike those that continue to unfold in Syria, were in service to longstanding neoconservative and Zionist efforts to balkanize Iraq by strengthening the KRG and weakening Baghdad.

After the occupation of Iraq's Nineveh Governorate by ISIS (June 2014-October 2015), the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) took advantage of the Iraqi military's retreat and, amidst the chaos, illegally seized Kirkuk on June 12. Their claim to the city was supported by both the U.S. and Israel and, later, the U.S.-led coalition targeting ISIS. This gave the KRG control, not only of Iraq's export pipeline to Turkey's Ceyhan port, but also to Iraq's largest oil fields.

Israel imported massive amounts of oil from the Kurds during this period, all without the consent of Baghdad. Israel was also the largest customer of oil sold by ISIS, who used Kurdish-controlled Kirkuk to sell oil in areas of Iraq and Syria under its control. To do this in ISIS-controlled territories of Iraq, the oil was sent first to the Kurdish city of Zakho near the Turkey border and then into Turkey, deceptively labeled as oil that originated from Iraqi Kurdistan. ISIS did nothing to impede the KRG's own oil exports even though they easily could have given that the Kirkuk-Ceyhan export pipeline passed through areas that ISIS had occupied for years.

In retrospect, and following revelations from Wikileaks and new information regarding the background of relevant actors, it has been revealed that much of the covert maneuvering behind the scenes that enabled this scenario intimately involved the United States' powerful pro-Israel lobby. Now, with a similar scenario unfolding in Syria, efforts by the U.S.' Israel lobby to manipulate U.S. foreign policy in order to shift the flow of hydrocarbons for Israel's benefit can instead be seen as a pattern of behavior, not an isolated incident.

"Keep the oil" for Israel

After recent shifts in the Trump administration in its Syria policy, U.S. troops have controversially been kept in Syria to " keep the oil ," with U.S. military officials subsequently claiming that doing so was "a subset of the counter-ISIS mission." However, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper later claimed that another factor behind U.S. insistence on guarding Syrian oil fields was to prevent the extraction and subsequent sale of Syrian oil by either the Syrian government or Russia.

One key, yet often overlooked, player behind the push to prevent a full U.S. troop withdrawal in Syria in order to "keep the oil" was current U.S. ambassador to Turkey, David Satterfield. Satterfield was previously the assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern Affairs, where he yielded great influence over U.S. policy in both Iraq and Syria and worked closely with Brett McGurk, the former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Iraq and Iran and later special presidential envoy for the U.S.-led "anti-ISIS" coalition.

Over the course of his long diplomatic career, Satterfield has been known to the U.S. government as an Israeli intelligence asset embedded in the U.S. State Department. Indeed, Satterfield was named as a major player in what is now known as the AIPAC espionage scandal, also known as the Lawrence Franklin espionage scandal, although he was oddly never charged for his role after the intervention of his superiors at the State Department in the George W. Bush administration.

David Satterfield, left, arrives in Baghdad with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, right, and Joey Hood, May 7, 2019. Mandel Ngan | AP

In 2005, federal prosecutors cited a U.S. government official as having illegally passed classified information to Steve Rosen, then working for AIPAC, who then passed that information to the Israeli government. That classified information included intelligence on Iran and the nature of U.S.-Israeli intelligence sharing. Subsequent media reports from the New York Times and other outlets revealed that this government official was none other than David Satterfield, who was then serving as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Near East Affairs.

Charges against Rosen, as well as his co-conspirator and fellow AIPAC employee Keith Weissman, were dropped in 2009 and no charges were levied against Satterfield after State Department officials shockingly claimed that Satterfield had "acted within his authority" in leaking classified information to an individual working to advance the interests of a foreign government. Richard Armitage, a neoconservative ally with a long history of ties to CIA covert operations in the Middle East and elsewhere, has since claimed that he was one of Satterfield's main defenders in conversations with the FBI during this time when he was serving as Deputy Secretary of State.

The other government official named in the indictment, former Pentagon official Lawrence Franklin, was not so lucky and was charged under the Espionage Act in 2006. Satterfield, instead of being censured for his role in leaking sensitive information to a foreign government, was subsequently promoted in 2006 to serve as the Coordinator for Iraq and Senior Adviser to then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

In addition to his history of leaking classified information to AIPAC, Satterfield also has a longstanding relationship with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a controversial spin-off of AIPAC also known by its acronym WINEP. WINEP's website has long listed Satterfield as one of its experts and Satterfield has spoken at several WINEP events and policy forums, including several after his involvement with the AIPAC espionage scandal became public knowledge. However, despite his longstanding and controversial ties to the U.S. pro-Israel lobby, Satterfield's current relationship with some elements of that lobby, such as the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), is complicated at best.

While Satterfield's role in yet another reversal of a promised withdrawal of U.S. troops from Syria has largely escaped media scrutiny, another individual with deep ties to the Israel lobby and Syrian "rebel" groups has also been ignored by the media, despite his outsized role in taking advantage of this new U.S. policy for Israel's benefit.

US Israel Lobby secures deal with Kurds

Earlier this year, well before Trump's new Syria policy of "keeping the oil" had officially taken shape, another individual with deep ties to the U.S. Israel lobby secured a lucrative agreement with U.S.-backed Kurdish groups in Syria. An official document issued earlier this year by the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC), the political arm of the Kurdish majority and U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a New Jersey-based company, founded and run by U.S.-Israeli dual citizen Mordechai "Motti" Kahana, was given control of the oil in territory held by the SDC.

Per the document, the SDC formally accepted the offer from Kahana's company -- Global Development Corporation (GDC) -- to represent SDC in all matters pertaining to the sale of oil extracted in territory it controls and also grants GDC "the right to explore and develop oil that is located in areas we govern."

The SDC's formal acceptance of Global Development Corporation's offer to develop Syrian oil fields. Source | Al-Akhbar

The document also states that the amount of oil then being produced in SDC-controlled areas was 125,000 barrels per day and that they anticipated that this would increase to 400,000 barrels per day and that this oil is considered a foreign asset under the control of the United States by the U.S. Department of the Treasury.

After the document was made public by the Lebanese outlet Al-Akhbar , the SDC claimed that it was a forgery, even though Kahana had separately confirmed its contents and shared the letter itself to the Los Angeles Times as recently as a few weeks ago. Kahana previously attempted to distance himself from the effort and told the Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom in July that he had made the offer to the SDC as means to prevent the "Assad regime" of Syria from obtaining revenue from the sale of Syrian oil.

The Kurds currently hold 11 oil wells in an area controlled by the [Syrian] Democratic Forces. The overwhelming majority of Syrian oil is in that area. I don't want this oil reaching Iran, or the Assad regime."

At the time, Kahana also stated that "the moment the Trump administration gives its approval, we can begin to export this oil at fair prices."

Given that Kahana has openly confirmed that he is representing the SDC's oil business shortly after Trump's adoption of the controversial "keep the oil policy," it seems plausible that Kahana has now received the approval needed for his company to export the oil on behalf of the SDC. Several media reports have speculated that, if Kahana's efforts go forward unimpeded, the Syrian oil will be sold to Israel.

However, considering Turkey's aversion to engaging in any activities that may benefit the PKK-SDF – there are considerable obstacles to Kahana's plans. While the SDF -- along with assistance from U.S. troops -- still controls several oil fields in Syria, experts assert that they can only realistically sell the oil to the Syrian government. Not even the Iraqi Kurds are a candidate, considering Baghdad's firm control over the Iraq-Syria border and the KRG's weakened state after its failed independence bid in late 2017.

Regardless, Kahana's involvement in this affair is significant for a few reasons. First, Kahana has been a key player in the promotion and funding of radical groups in Syria and has even been caught hiring so-called "rebels" to kidnap Syrian Jews and take them to Israel against their will. It was Kahana, for instance, who financed and orchestrated the now infamous trip of the late Senator John McCain to Syria, where he met with Syrian "rebels" including Khalid al-Hamad – a "moderate" rebel who gained notoriety after a video of him eating the heart of a Syrian Army soldier went viral online . McCain had also admitted meeting with ISIS members, though it is unclear if he did so on this trip or another trip to Syria.

In addition, Kahana was also the mastermind behind the "Caesar" controversy, whereby a Syrian using the pseudonym "Caesar" was brought to the U.S. by Kahana and went on to make claims regarding torture and other crimes allegedly committed by the Assad-led government Syria, claims which were later discredited by independent analysts. He was also very involved in Israel's failed efforts to establish a "safe zone" in Southern Syria as a means of covertly expanding Israel's territory from the occupied Golan Heights and into Quneitra.

Notably, Kahana has deep ties -- not just to efforts to overthrow the Syrian government -- but also to U.S. Israel lobby, including the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) where Satterfield is as an expert. For instance, Kahana was a key player in a 2013 symposium organized by WINEP along with Syrian opposition groups intimately involved in the arming of so-called "rebels." One of the other participants in the symposium alongside Kahana was Mouaz Moustafa, director of the "Syrian Emergency Task Force" who assisted Kahana in bringing McCain to Syria in 2013. Moustafa was listed as a WINEP expert on the organization's website but was later mysteriously deleted.

Kahana is also intimately involved with the Israeli American Council (IAC), a pro-Israel lobby organization, as a team member of its national conference. IAC was co-founded and is chaired by Adam Milstein , a multimillionaire and convicted felon who is also on the boards of AIPAC, StandWithUs, Birthright and other prominent pro-Israel lobby organizations. One of IAC's top donors is Sheldon Adelson, who is also the top donor to President Trump as well as the entire Republican Party.

Though the machinations of both Kahana and Satterfield to guide U.S. policy in order to manipulate the flow of Syria's hydrocarbons for Israel's benefit may seem shocking to some, this same tactic of pro-Israel lobbyists using the Kurds to illegally sell a country's oil to Israel was developed a few years prior, not in Syria, but Iraq. Notably, the individuals responsible for that policy in Iraq shared connections to several of the same pro-Israel lobby organizations as both Satterfield and Kahana, suggesting that their recent efforts in Syria are not an isolated event, but a pattern.

War against ISIS is a war for oil

In an email dated June 15, 2014, James Franklin Jeffrey (former Ambassador to Iraq and Turkey and current U.S. Special Representative for Syria) revealed to Stephen Hadley, a former George Bush administration advisor then working at the government-funded United States Institute of Peace, his intent to advise the KRG in order to sustain Kirkuk's oil production. The plan, as Jeffery described it, was to supply both the Kurdistan province with oil and allow the export of oil via Kirkuk-Ceyhan to Israel, robbing Iraq of its oil and strengthening the country's Kurdish region along with its regional government's bid for autonomy.

Jeffrey, whose hawkish views on Iran and Syria are well-known , mentioned that Brett McGurk, the U.S.' main negotiator between Baghdad and the KRG, was acting as his liaison with the KRG. McGurk, who had served in various capacities in Iraq under both Bush and Obama, was then also serving Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Iraq and Iran. A year later, he would be made the special presidential envoy for the U.S.-led "anti-ISIS" coalition and, as previously mentioned, worked closely with David Satterfield.

James Jeffrey, left, meets with Kurdish Regional Government President Massoud Barzani, April 8, 2011, at an airport in Irbil, Iraq. Chip Somodevilla | AP

Jeffrey was then a private citizen not currently employed by the government and was used as a non-governmental channel in the pursuit of the plans described in the leaked emails published by WikiLeaks. Jeffrey's behind-the-scenes activities with regards to the KRG's oil exports were done clandestinely, largely because he was then employed by a prominent arm of the U.S.' pro-Israel lobby.

At the time of the email, Jeffrey was serving as a distinguished fellow (2013-2018) at WINEP. As previously mentioned, WINEP is a pro-Israel foreign policy think-tank that espouses neoconservative views and was created in 1985 by researchers that had hastily left AIPAC to escape investigations against the organization that were related to some of its members conducting espionage on behalf of Israel. AIPAC, the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, is the largest registered Israel lobbyist organization in the US (albeit registration under the Foreign Agents Registration Act would be more suitable), and, in addition to the 1985 incident that led to WINEP's creation, has had members indicted for espionage against the U.S. on Israel's behalf.

WINEP's launch was funded by former President of the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles, Barbara Weinberg, who is its founding president and constant Chairman Emerita. Nicknamed 'Barbi', she is the wife of the late Lawrence Weinberg who was President of AIPAC from 1976-81 and who JJ Goldberg, author of the 1997 book Jewish Power, referred to as one of a select few individuals who essentially dominated AIPAC regardless of its elected leadership. Co-founder alongside Weinberg was Martin Indyk. Indyk, U.S. Ambassador to Israel (1995-97) and Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs (1997-99), led the AIPAC research time that formed WINEP to escape the aforementioned investigations.

WINEP has historically received funding from donors who donate to causes of special interest for Zionism and Israel. Among its trustees are extremely prominent names in political Zionism and funders of other Israel Lobby organizations, such as Charles and Edgar Bronfman and the Chernicks . Its membership remains dominated by individuals who have spent their careers promoting Israeli interests in the U.S.

WINEP has become more well-known, and arguably more controversial, in recent years after its research director famously called for false-flag attacks to trigger a U.S. war with Iran in 2012, statements well-aligned with longstanding attempts by the Israel Lobby to bring about such a war.

A worthy partner in crime

Stephen Hadley, another private citizen who Jeffrey evidently considered as a partner in his covert dealings discussed in the emails, also has his own past of involvement with Israel-specific intrigues and meddling.

During the G.W. Bush administration, Hadley tagged along with neoconservatives in their numerous creations of fake intelligence and efforts to incriminate Iraq for possessing chemical and nuclear weapons. Hadley was one of the promoters from within the U.S. government of the false claim that 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta met with Iraqi officials in Prague.

Hadley also worked with then-Chief of Staff to the Vice President, Lewis Libby -- a neoconservative and former lawyer for the Mossad-agent and billionaire Marc Rich -- to discredit a CIA investigation into claims of Iraq purchasing yellowcake uranium from Niger. That claim famously appeared in Bush's State of the Union address in 2002.

What this particular claim had in common with the 'Iraq meets Atta in Prague' disinformation, and other famous lies against Iraq fabricated and circulated by the dense neocon network, was its source: Israel and pro-Israel partisans.

The distribution network of these now long-debunked claims was none other than the neoconservatives who act a veritable Israeli fifth column that has long sought to promote Israeli foreign policy objectives as being in the interest of the United States. In this, Hadley played his part by helping to ensure that the United States was railroaded into a war that had long been promoted by both Israeli and American neoconservatives, particularly Richard Perle -- an advisor to WINEP -- who had been promoting regime change in Iraq for Israel's explicit benefit for decades.

In short, for covert intrigues to serve Israel that would likely be met with protest if pitched to the government for implementation as policy, Hadley's resume was impressive.

Israeli interests pursued through covert channels

Given his employment at WINEP during this time, Jeffrey's intent to advise the KRG to sustain Kirkuk's oil production despite the seizure of the Baiji oil refinery by ISIS is somewhat suspect, especially since it required that 100,000 barrels per day pass through ISIS-controlled territory unimpeded.

Jeffrey's email from June 14, therefore, demonstrated that he had foreknowledge that ISIS would not disturb the KRG as long as the Kurds redirected oil that was intended originally for Baiji to the Kirkuk-Ceyhan export pipeline, facilitating its export and later sale to Israel.

Notably, up until its liberation in mid-2015 by the Iraqi government and aligned Shia paramilitaries, ISIS kept the refinery running and, only upon their retreat, destroyed the facility.

In July 2014, the KRG began confidently supplying Kurdish areas with Kirkuk's oil per the plan laid out by Jeffrey in the aforementioned email. Baghdad soon became aware of the arrangement and lashed out at Israel and Turkey, whose banks were used by the KRG to receive the oil revenue from Israel.

One would normally expect ISIS to be opposed to such collusion given that the KRG, while a beneficiary of the ISIS-Baghdad conflict, was not an ally of ISIS. Thus, a foreign power with strategic ties to ISIS used its close ties to the KRG and assurances that it was on-board for the oil trade, to deliver a credible guarantee that ISIS would 'cooperate' and that a boom in production and exports was in the cards.

This foreign power -- acting as a guarantor for the ISIS-KRG understanding vis-a-vis the illegal oil economy, represented by Jeffrey and clearly not on good terms with Iraq's government -- was quite clearly Israel.

Israel established considerable financial support as well as the provision of armaments to other extremist terrorist groups active near the border between the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and Southern Syria when war first broke out in Syria in 2011. At least four of these extremist groups were led by individuals with direct ties to Israeli intelligence . These same groups, sometimes promoted as 'moderates' by some media, were actively fighting Syria's government – an enemy of Israel and ally of Iran – before ISIS existed and eagerly partnered with ISIS when it expanded its campaign into Syria.

Furthermore, Israeli officials have publicly admitted maintaining regular communication with ISIS cells in Southern Syria and have publicly expressed their desire that ISIS not be defeated in the country. In Libya, Israeli Mossad operatives have been found embedded within ISIS , suggesting that Israel has covert but definite ties with the group outside of Syria as well.

Israel has also long promoted the independence of Iraqi Kurdistan, with Israel having provided Iraq's Kurds with weapons, training and teams of Mossad advisers as far back as the 1960s . More recently, Israel was the only state to support the KRG independence referendum in September 2017 despite its futility, hinting at the regard Israel holds for the KRG. Iraq's government subsequently militarily defeated the KRG's push for statehood and reclaimed Kirkuk's oil fields with assistance from the Shia paramilitaries which were responsible for defeating ISIS in the area.

A 2014 map shows the areas under ISIS and Kurdish control at the time. Source | Telegraph

This arrangement orchestrated by Jeffrey, served the long-time neoconservative-Israeli agenda of empowering the Kurds, selling Iraqi oil to Israel and weakening Iraq's Baghdad-based government.

WINEP's close association with AIPAC, which has spied on the U.S. on behalf of Israel several times in the past with no consequence, combined with Jeffrey's long-time acquaintance with key U.S. figures in Iraq, such as McGurk, provided an ideal opening for Israel in Iraq. Following the implementation of Jeffrey's plan, Israeli imports of KRG oil constituted 77 percent of Israel's total oil imports during the KRG's occupation of Kirkuk.

The WINEP connection to the KRG-Israel oil deal demonstrates the key role played by the U.S. pro-Israel Lobby, not only in terms of sustaining U.S. financial aid to Israel and ratcheting up tensions with Israel's adversaries but also in facilitating the more covert aspects of U.S.-Israeli cooperation and the implementation of policies that favor Israel.

Yet the role played by the U.S. Israel lobby in this capacity, particularly in terms of orchestrating oil sale agreements for Israel's benefit, is hardly exclusive to Iraq and can accurately be described as a repeated pattern of behavior.

Agha Hussain is an independent researcher based in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. He specialized in Middle Eastern affairs and history and is an editorial contributor to Eurasia Future, Regional Rapport and other news outlets.

Whitney Webb is a MintPress News journalist based in Chile. She has contributed to several independent media outlets including Global Research, EcoWatch, the Ron Paul Institute and 21st Century Wire, among others. She has made several radio and television appearances and is the 2019 winner of the Serena Shim Award for Uncompromised Integrity in Journalism.

[Dec 17, 2019] "My administration will never tolerate the suppression, persecution or silencing of the Jewish people," Trump declared. Does this means that ordinary Americans are now second class citizens and he will tolete those abuses for them?

Notable quotes:
"... He screwed up when he didn't disown Ivanka. ..."
Dec 17, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Art_Vandelay , 1 hour ago link

"My administration will never tolerate the suppression, persecution or silencing of the Jewish people," Trump declared at the ceremony, which doubled as a Hanukkah party.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trumps-order-combat-anti-semitism-131527480.html

rent slave , 8 minutes ago link

He screwed up when he didn't disown Ivanka.

[Dec 14, 2019] Donald Trump and Israel When Does a 'Passionate Attachment' Threaten National Security

Dec 12, 2019 | www.strategic-culture.org
The White House In his Farewell Address , of 1796 America's first president George Washington famously warned his fellow citizens that " a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification."

In today's United States, there is no more "passionate attachment" than that which exists with Israel. The tie that binds is assiduously cultivated by the media and the politically ambitious, so much so that the Jewish state is frequently referred to hyperbolically as America's best friend and closest ally. But Israel, with its own regional interests driving its policies, is in reality neither a friend nor an ally.

Politicians mired in the past like Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer can see no light between Israel and the United States. Pelosi has declared astonishingly that "I have said to people when they ask me if this Capitol crumbled to the ground, the one thing that would remain is our commitment to our aid and I don't even call it aid our cooperation with Israel. That's fundamental to who we are." Biden has repeatedly denounced any reduction in the ridiculously high level of military assistance given to Israel to convince it to modify its behavior as "bizarre," while Schumer has identified himself as the Jewish state's "shomer" or guardian in the US Senate.

Many members of the Democratic Party base are no longer enchanted by Israel and one would like to know what politicians like Biden and Pelosi really think about the Jewish state, but it is unlikely that that will ever be revealed. It is nevertheless clear that the adhesion to Israel by Democrats has been far overshadowed by the constant pandering to the Jewish state that has been the hallmark of the current administration of Donald J. Trump. To be sure, the musical chairs line-up of neo-conservatives that has included John Bolton, Mike Pence and Mike Pompeo has been unstinting in its praise of the malignant Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but it is the president himself who has raised the level of adoration to heights previously not observed coming out of the White House.

Donald Trump has overturned long standing foreign policy positions to favor Israel even more than has been the case hitherto. He withdrew from the nuclear pact with Iran, has moved the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, has recognized Israel's annexation of the Golan Heights, has declared the illegal settlements on the West Bank "not illegal," has cut off funding to the Palestinians and the United Nations and is sending signals that he will approve further moves by the Jewish state to annex much of the remaining Palestinian territory. Along the way, his Ambassador to Israel David Friedman has been making excuses for Israeli shooting of unarmed demonstrators and the everyday brutality inflicted on the hapless Palestinians.

Worse might even be coming, as Secretary of State Pompeo and Netanyahu have recently been discussing a formal defense pact which would obligate the United States to intervene on the side of Israel if it were to go to war, even if the war were initiated by the Jewish state. As Israel is now reportedly considering the value of a possible pre-emptive nuclear strike on Iran, the stakes could not be higher.

But as bad as all that is, nothing outdoes the speech delivered by Trump in Florida last Saturday in front of the Israeli American Council (IAC) National Summit. IAC is a basically right-wing group funded largely by Las Vegas casino multi-billionaire Sheldon Adelson, who is also a close adviser to the president on the Middle East. Its annual gathering included 4,000 mostly well-heeled Israelis and American Jews who cheered and periodically chanted "four more years!" as the president was speaking.

Trump spoke for 45 minutes, most of which consisted of preening over how much he has done for Israel. But he also discussed Jews in America, saying that "We have to get the people of our country, of this country, to love Israel more, I have to tell you that. We have to do it. We have to get them to love Israel more. Because you have Jewish people that are great people -- they don't love Israel enough." He also said that his audience should be supporting him and not voting for Elizabeth Warren, whom he called "Pocahontas," saying "You're not going to vote for the wealth tax Let's take 100 percent of your wealth away."

There was considerable pushback almost immediately coming from Jewish groups and prominent individuals who saw Trump's words as classic borderline anti-Semitic tropes. Trump, who often speaks to Jewish audiences in the second person, saying "you" rather than "we," clearly sees the Jewish attachment to Israel as normal and acceptable, but there is an implicit second message about potential disloyalty to the United States. In August he said that American Jews who vote for Democrats show "either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty."

And Trump also is not reluctant to link Jews with money, a generally taboo subject that he has raised before, most particularly when he was campaigning and he told an audience of Jewish Republicans that "you're not going to support me because I don't want your money. You want to control your politicians, that's fine." And, of course, the irony is that everyone who has not been asleep knows very well that the Israel Lobby in the US and Europe is indeed all about money. Money buys access to power.

For someone who has spent much of his life around Jews in the New York business world, Donald Trump is remarkably ignorant of their political culture. To be sure there is a group of oligarch billionaires that includes Adelson, Paul Singer, Ron Lauder and Bernard Marcus who are politically conservative and fund Trump as well as other Republicans. They do so not because Trump is good for the United States but because he is a gift to Israel and can easily be bought or persuaded.

But most Jews, while supporting the existence of Israel, do not exactly see things quite that way and many Jews of a liberal persuasion want to see a secure Israel that will deliver justice for the Palestinians. Plus, Trump's authoritarianism and denigratory, abrasive style offend many Jews, so the president will not be getting many Jewish votes no matter what he does. His approval rating is 29% among Jewish voters nationwide , according to a Gallup poll while only 17% of Jews voted Republican in 2017. And one would have thought even the narcissistic president might have noticed the large number of Jewish witnesses, "experts" and congressmen who seem to be "out to get him" in the impeachment hearings.

Beyond that, Trump's constant exaltation of the Israelis and of Jews in general as something like a gift to humanity should offend all other Americans. The president is elected to represent the interests of all Americans, not just a wealthy and powerful ethno-religious minority that is able and willing to give him a great deal of money to run his political campaigns. It is unthinkable that a national politician should mount his bully pulpit to praise interminably any specific ethnic group, and so it should be. It is offensive and completely unacceptable, particularly as in this case it is a favor bought that brings with it grave damage to genuine US interests and could easily lead to a major war in which Americans will die.

Nevertheless, the painful issue of who is loyal to what is genuine, particularly when a dedicated and powerful group affiliated with a foreign country is able to game the system to get what it wants. We are all supposed to be Americans first. In her comment on the Trump speech, conservative pundit Ann Coulter maintained that the president didn't go far enough in impugning the loyalty of some Jews to Israel, writing, "Could we start slowly by getting them to like America?" Philip Giraldi December 12, 2019 | Featured Story Donald Trump and Israel: When Does a 'Passionate Attachment' Threaten National Security? In his Farewell Address , of 1796 America's first president George Washington famously warned his fellow citizens that " a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification."

In today's United States, there is no more "passionate attachment" than that which exists with Israel. The tie that binds is assiduously cultivated by the media and the politically ambitious, so much so that the Jewish state is frequently referred to hyperbolically as America's best friend and closest ally. But Israel, with its own regional interests driving its policies, is in reality neither a friend nor an ally.

Politicians mired in the past like Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer can see no light between Israel and the United States. Pelosi has declared astonishingly that "I have said to people when they ask me if this Capitol crumbled to the ground, the one thing that would remain is our commitment to our aid and I don't even call it aid our cooperation with Israel. That's fundamental to who we are." Biden has repeatedly denounced any reduction in the ridiculously high level of military assistance given to Israel to convince it to modify its behavior as "bizarre," while Schumer has identified himself as the Jewish state's "shomer" or guardian in the US Senate.

Many members of the Democratic Party base are no longer enchanted by Israel and one would like to know what politicians like Biden and Pelosi really think about the Jewish state, but it is unlikely that that will ever be revealed. It is nevertheless clear that the adhesion to Israel by Democrats has been far overshadowed by the constant pandering to the Jewish state that has been the hallmark of the current administration of Donald J. Trump. To be sure, the musical chairs line-up of neo-conservatives that has included John Bolton, Mike Pence and Mike Pompeo has been unstinting in its praise of the malignant Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but it is the president himself who has raised the level of adoration to heights previously not observed coming out of the White House.

Donald Trump has overturned long standing foreign policy positions to favor Israel even more than has been the case hitherto. He withdrew from the nuclear pact with Iran, has moved the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, has recognized Israel's annexation of the Golan Heights, has declared the illegal settlements on the West Bank "not illegal," has cut off funding to the Palestinians and the United Nations and is sending signals that he will approve further moves by the Jewish state to annex much of the remaining Palestinian territory. Along the way, his Ambassador to Israel David Friedman has been making excuses for Israeli shooting of unarmed demonstrators and the everyday brutality inflicted on the hapless Palestinians.

Worse might even be coming, as Secretary of State Pompeo and Netanyahu have recently been discussing a formal defense pact which would obligate the United States to intervene on the side of Israel if it were to go to war, even if the war were initiated by the Jewish state. As Israel is now reportedly considering the value of a possible pre-emptive nuclear strike on Iran, the stakes could not be higher.

But as bad as all that is, nothing outdoes the speech delivered by Trump in Florida last Saturday in front of the Israeli American Council (IAC) National Summit. IAC is a basically right-wing group funded largely by Las Vegas casino multi-billionaire Sheldon Adelson, who is also a close adviser to the president on the Middle East. Its annual gathering included 4,000 mostly well-heeled Israelis and American Jews who cheered and periodically chanted "four more years!" as the president was speaking.

Trump spoke for 45 minutes, most of which consisted of preening over how much he has done for Israel. But he also discussed Jews in America, saying that "We have to get the people of our country, of this country, to love Israel more, I have to tell you that. We have to do it. We have to get them to love Israel more. Because you have Jewish people that are great people -- they don't love Israel enough." He also said that his audience should be supporting him and not voting for Elizabeth Warren, whom he called "Pocahontas," saying "You're not going to vote for the wealth tax Let's take 100 percent of your wealth away."

There was considerable pushback almost immediately coming from Jewish groups and prominent individuals who saw Trump's words as classic borderline anti-Semitic tropes. Trump, who often speaks to Jewish audiences in the second person, saying "you" rather than "we," clearly sees the Jewish attachment to Israel as normal and acceptable, but there is an implicit second message about potential disloyalty to the United States. In August he said that American Jews who vote for Democrats show "either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty."

And Trump also is not reluctant to link Jews with money, a generally taboo subject that he has raised before, most particularly when he was campaigning and he told an audience of Jewish Republicans that "you're not going to support me because I don't want your money. You want to control your politicians, that's fine." And, of course, the irony is that everyone who has not been asleep knows very well that the Israel Lobby in the US and Europe is indeed all about money. Money buys access to power.

For someone who has spent much of his life around Jews in the New York business world, Donald Trump is remarkably ignorant of their political culture. To be sure there is a group of oligarch billionaires that includes Adelson, Paul Singer, Ron Lauder and Bernard Marcus who are politically conservative and fund Trump as well as other Republicans. They do so not because Trump is good for the United States but because he is a gift to Israel and can easily be bought or persuaded.

But most Jews, while supporting the existence of Israel, do not exactly see things quite that way and many Jews of a liberal persuasion want to see a secure Israel that will deliver justice for the Palestinians. Plus, Trump's authoritarianism and denigratory, abrasive style offend many Jews, so the president will not be getting many Jewish votes no matter what he does. His approval rating is 29% among Jewish voters nationwide , according to a Gallup poll while only 17% of Jews voted Republican in 2017. And one would have thought even the narcissistic president might have noticed the large number of Jewish witnesses, "experts" and congressmen who seem to be "out to get him" in the impeachment hearings.

Beyond that, Trump's constant exaltation of the Israelis and of Jews in general as something like a gift to humanity should offend all other Americans. The president is elected to represent the interests of all Americans, not just a wealthy and powerful ethno-religious minority that is able and willing to give him a great deal of money to run his political campaigns. It is unthinkable that a national politician should mount his bully pulpit to praise interminably any specific ethnic group, and so it should be. It is offensive and completely unacceptable, particularly as in this case it is a favor bought that brings with it grave damage to genuine US interests and could easily lead to a major war in which Americans will die.

Nevertheless, the painful issue of who is loyal to what is genuine, particularly when a dedicated and powerful group affiliated with a foreign country is able to game the system to get what it wants. We are all supposed to be Americans first. In her comment on the Trump speech, conservative pundit Ann Coulter maintained that the president didn't go far enough in impugning the loyalty of some Jews to Israel, writing, "Could we start slowly by getting them to like America?"

© 2010 - 2019 | Strategic Culture Foundation | Republishing is welcomed with reference to Strategic Culture online journal www.strategic-culture.org . The views of individual contributors do not necessarily represent those of the Strategic Culture Foundation. In his Farewell Address , of 1796 America's first president George Washington famously warned his fellow citizens that " a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification."

In today's United States, there is no more "passionate attachment" than that which exists with Israel. The tie that binds is assiduously cultivated by the media and the politically ambitious, so much so that the Jewish state is frequently referred to hyperbolically as America's best friend and closest ally. But Israel, with its own regional interests driving its policies, is in reality neither a friend nor an ally.

Politicians mired in the past like Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer can see no light between Israel and the United States. Pelosi has declared astonishingly that "I have said to people when they ask me if this Capitol crumbled to the ground, the one thing that would remain is our commitment to our aid and I don't even call it aid our cooperation with Israel. That's fundamental to who we are." Biden has repeatedly denounced any reduction in the ridiculously high level of military assistance given to Israel to convince it to modify its behavior as "bizarre," while Schumer has identified himself as the Jewish state's "shomer" or guardian in the US Senate.

Many members of the Democratic Party base are no longer enchanted by Israel and one would like to know what politicians like Biden and Pelosi really think about the Jewish state, but it is unlikely that that will ever be revealed. It is nevertheless clear that the adhesion to Israel by Democrats has been far overshadowed by the constant pandering to the Jewish state that has been the hallmark of the current administration of Donald J. Trump. To be sure, the musical chairs line-up of neo-conservatives that has included John Bolton, Mike Pence and Mike Pompeo has been unstinting in its praise of the malignant Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but it is the president himself who has raised the level of adoration to heights previously not observed coming out of the White House.

Donald Trump has overturned long standing foreign policy positions to favor Israel even more than has been the case hitherto. He withdrew from the nuclear pact with Iran, has moved the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, has recognized Israel's annexation of the Golan Heights, has declared the illegal settlements on the West Bank "not illegal," has cut off funding to the Palestinians and the United Nations and is sending signals that he will approve further moves by the Jewish state to annex much of the remaining Palestinian territory. Along the way, his Ambassador to Israel David Friedman has been making excuses for Israeli shooting of unarmed demonstrators and the everyday brutality inflicted on the hapless Palestinians.

Worse might even be coming, as Secretary of State Pompeo and Netanyahu have recently been discussing a formal defense pact which would obligate the United States to intervene on the side of Israel if it were to go to war, even if the war were initiated by the Jewish state. As Israel is now reportedly considering the value of a possible pre-emptive nuclear strike on Iran, the stakes could not be higher.

But as bad as all that is, nothing outdoes the speech delivered by Trump in Florida last Saturday in front of the Israeli American Council (IAC) National Summit. IAC is a basically right-wing group funded largely by Las Vegas casino multi-billionaire Sheldon Adelson, who is also a close adviser to the president on the Middle East. Its annual gathering included 4,000 mostly well-heeled Israelis and American Jews who cheered and periodically chanted "four more years!" as the president was speaking.

Trump spoke for 45 minutes, most of which consisted of preening over how much he has done for Israel. But he also discussed Jews in America, saying that "We have to get the people of our country, of this country, to love Israel more, I have to tell you that. We have to do it. We have to get them to love Israel more. Because you have Jewish people that are great people -- they don't love Israel enough." He also said that his audience should be supporting him and not voting for Elizabeth Warren, whom he called "Pocahontas," saying "You're not going to vote for the wealth tax Let's take 100 percent of your wealth away."

There was considerable pushback almost immediately coming from Jewish groups and prominent individuals who saw Trump's words as classic borderline anti-Semitic tropes. Trump, who often speaks to Jewish audiences in the second person, saying "you" rather than "we," clearly sees the Jewish attachment to Israel as normal and acceptable, but there is an implicit second message about potential disloyalty to the United States. In August he said that American Jews who vote for Democrats show "either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty."

And Trump also is not reluctant to link Jews with money, a generally taboo subject that he has raised before, most particularly when he was campaigning and he told an audience of Jewish Republicans that "you're not going to support me because I don't want your money. You want to control your politicians, that's fine." And, of course, the irony is that everyone who has not been asleep knows very well that the Israel Lobby in the US and Europe is indeed all about money. Money buys access to power.

For someone who has spent much of his life around Jews in the New York business world, Donald Trump is remarkably ignorant of their political culture. To be sure there is a group of oligarch billionaires that includes Adelson, Paul Singer, Ron Lauder and Bernard Marcus who are politically conservative and fund Trump as well as other Republicans. They do so not because Trump is good for the United States but because he is a gift to Israel and can easily be bought or persuaded.

But most Jews, while supporting the existence of Israel, do not exactly see things quite that way and many Jews of a liberal persuasion want to see a secure Israel that will deliver justice for the Palestinians. Plus, Trump's authoritarianism and denigratory, abrasive style offend many Jews, so the president will not be getting many Jewish votes no matter what he does. His approval rating is 29% among Jewish voters nationwide , according to a Gallup poll while only 17% of Jews voted Republican in 2017. And one would have thought even the narcissistic president might have noticed the large number of Jewish witnesses, "experts" and congressmen who seem to be "out to get him" in the impeachment hearings.

Beyond that, Trump's constant exaltation of the Israelis and of Jews in general as something like a gift to humanity should offend all other Americans. The president is elected to represent the interests of all Americans, not just a wealthy and powerful ethno-religious minority that is able and willing to give him a great deal of money to run his political campaigns. It is unthinkable that a national politician should mount his bully pulpit to praise interminably any specific ethnic group, and so it should be. It is offensive and completely unacceptable, particularly as in this case it is a favor bought that brings with it grave damage to genuine US interests and could easily lead to a major war in which Americans will die.

Nevertheless, the painful issue of who is loyal to what is genuine, particularly when a dedicated and powerful group affiliated with a foreign country is able to game the system to get what it wants. We are all supposed to be Americans first. In her comment on the Trump speech, conservative pundit Ann Coulter maintained that the president didn't go far enough in impugning the loyalty of some Jews to Israel, writing, "Could we start slowly by getting them to like America?"

The views of individual contributors do not necessarily represent those of the Strategic Culture Foundation.

[Dec 14, 2019] Spotlight on defense authorization bill: Saudi Arabia wins big with assist from Kushner

Dec 14, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

barrisj , December 13, 2019 at 3:35 pm

From al-Monitor's ME lobbying update note:

Spotlight on defense authorization bill: Saudi Arabia wins big with assist from Kushner

The White House secured a major reprieve for Saudi Arabia this week by convincing Congress to drop several provisions from its annual defense bill before the House passed it on Wednesday. The Senate is expected to vote on the bill next week. Gone are sanctions on key Saudi officials for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi and restrictions on US support for Riyadh's campaign in Yemen. The New York Times reports that President Donald Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner – who reportedly maintains a direct WhatsApp line with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman – played a key role in the negotiations.

The United Arab Emirates also came out ahead as the final bill removes language taking aim at the $8 billion in emergency arms sales to Gulf countries that Trump authorized in May citing the threat of Iran. The UAE had lobbied against these provisions and also opposed calls for a report detailing the "military activities" of the UAE, Saudi Arabia and other international actors in Libya. . The final bill no longer singles out specific countries but still requires "a detailed description of the military activities of external actors" in the country.

https://linkst.al-monitor.com/view/5d1841f924c17c7feec17e30b8vfs.u9/46c21583

We always stick by our friends, through thick and thin and murder, and war crimes, and terrorism, and well, all of it. After all, what are friends for?

[Dec 14, 2019] I drafted the definition of antisemitism. Rightwing Jews are weaponizing it by Kenneth Stern

Notable quotes:
"... Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law and special adviser, wrote in the New York Times that the definition "makes clear [that] Anti-Zionism is antisemitism". ..."
Dec 14, 2019 | www.theguardian.com

Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law and special adviser, wrote in the New York Times that the definition "makes clear [that] Anti-Zionism is antisemitism". I'm a Zionist. But on a college campus, where the purpose is to explore ideas, anti-Zionists have a right to free expression.

I suspect that if Kushner or I had been born into a Palestinian family displaced in 1948, we might have a different view of Zionism, and that need not be because we vilify Jews or think they conspire to harm humanity. Further, there's a debate inside the Jewish community whether being Jewish requires one to be a Zionist. I don't know if this question can be resolved, but it should frighten all Jews that the government is essentially defining the answer for us.

The real purpose of the executive order isn't to tip the scales in a few title VI cases, but rather the chilling effect. ZOA and other groups will hunt political speech with which they disagree, and threaten to bring legal cases. I'm worried administrators will now have a strong motivation to suppress, or at least condemn, political speech for fear of litigation. I'm worried that faculty, who can just as easily teach about Jewish life in 19th-century Poland or about modern Israel, will probably choose the former as safer. I'm worried that pro-Israel Jewish students and groups, who rightly complain when an occasional pro-Israel speaker is heckled, will get the reputation for using instruments of state to suppress their political opponents.

Antisemitism is a real issue, but too often people, both on the political right and political left, give it a pass if a person has the "right" view on Israel. Historically, antisemitism thrives best when leaders stoke the human capacity to define an "us" and a "them", and where the integrity of democratic institutions and norms (such as free speech) are under assault.

... ... ...

Kenneth Stern is the director of the Bard Center for the Study of Hate, and the author of the forthcoming The Conflict Over the Conflict: The Israel/Palestine Campus Debate

[Dec 13, 2019] But Mr. Trump, Is Israel Lovable? by Sheldon Richman

Dec 12, 2019 | original.antiwar.com
Speaking before Sheldon Adelson's Israeli-American Council the other day, Trump took a shot at Jewish Americans who he says don't "love Israel enough."

"We have to get the people of our country, of this country, to love Israel more," Trump said . "We have to get them to love Israel more because you have people that are Jewish people, that are great people – they don't love Israel enough. You know that."

Typical of Trump, this is scatter-brained. He begins by talking about "the people of our country," which sounds like everyone, but ends up focusing on Jews who "don't love Israel enough." In either case, Trump talks rubbish.

First off, observe that although Trump stands accused of fomenting anti-Semitism by such remarks, he actually turns the loyalty issue upside-down. He doesn't say that some Jewish Americans are too loyal to Israel (presumably at the expense of America), which is what a classic anti-Semite would say, but that they are not loyal enough. Recall that he previously labeled Jews who vote for Democrats "disloyal." Disloyal to whom? Disloyal to Israel! We know this because he's criticized the Democratic Party for "defending [Reps. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, who sympathize with the Palestinians] over the State of Israel." Trump's critics seem to overlook this twist because it doesn't fit their stock narrative.

But turning to the matter at hand, Trump now entitles us to ask: what's so lovable about Israel anyway? The modern state was founded through a campaign of ethnic cleansing – violent expulsion of Arabs, that is, non-Jews, from their long-held properties – and outright massacres and terrorism. For the next couple of decades it subjected those who avoided expulsion to martial law. Then in 1967 it conquered the remainder of Palestine, the West Bank and Gaza Strip, creating new refugees. Since then Israel has denied the inhabitants of those territories all rights while the Israeli occupiers built privileged Jewish-only settlements and otherwise usurped the land it acquired through aggressive force – contrary to morality and international law. The West Bank today resembles apartheid South Africa. But things are even worse in Gaza, a small, crowded piece of land under blockade that dissenting Israelis call a concentration camp and others euphemistically refer to as merely the world's largest open-air prison. Gaza consists largely of refugees from the 1947-48 ethnic cleansing and their families.

So, I ask again, what's lovable about Israel? Is it because Israel calls itself the nation-state of the Jewish people (whether or not they live or want to live there) and Jews were treated horribly by Christian Europe, culminating in the monstrous Nazi Judeocide? That doesn't make Israel lovable. It is accountable for its crimes against humanity in Palestine regardless of the atrocities Jews suffered elsewhere. Israel is not exempt from moral judgment.

As for Jewish Americans in particular not loving Israel enough, Trump has again stuffed his foot in his mouth, something so commonplace that most people don't notice it. Like other Americans, Jewish Americans are not obligated to love Israel. How could they be? They are not part of a supposed Jewish national people – they are Americans with a particular private religious faith (unless they are secular). If they wanted to become Israelis, they would have done so.

Israel, despite what it claims, cannot be the nation-state of all Jews everywhere (even atheists with Jewish mothers); it is the state only of its own Jewish citizens/nationals. The 25 percent of non-Jewish Israeli citizens unfortunately are out of luck, but then it shouldn't call itself a democracy. Jewish Americans have roots in many countries, yet no one would say they are obliged to love those places.

We may ask: what does today's state of Israel have to do with the Jewish creed, especially the universalism of the prophets? Little, really: Zionism was a secular movement that disparaged traditional and secularized Jews in Europe and America. Theodor Herzl et al. promised a new Jew in his own state, strong and hardy farmers and soldiers, unlike the frail bookish scholars and rootless "parasitic" financiers of the so-called "diaspora." (It wasn't a diaspora since the Judeans were not exiled by the Romans in 70 CE.) That's one reason Zionism was a minority movement for a long time.

No one is clear about what it means to be a Jewish state. True, you have to be a properly credentialed Jew to get the benefits the Israeli state offers, but that only means having a Jewish mother or being converted by an approved Orthdox rabbi. (Conservative and Reform converts need not apply.) Jews and non-Jews may not marry each other, but that is not a religious injunction for Israelis; rather it's a matter of secular (pseudo-)ethnic purity. It's feared that Israeli children of interfaith marriages are less likely than other children to identify as Jewish – but then what would happen to the "Jewish people's" state?

In fact, no Jewish national ethnicity exists to be kept pure, but many Israelis (who do constitute an Israeli ethnicity) don't accept that. Nevertheless, Jews worldwide are of virtually every ethnicity, culture, language group, and color, and despite what Israel's apologists say today, Hitler was wrong: there is no Jewish race (or gene or blood). Most Jews descend from the converts of many ethnicities -- Judaism was a wide-ranging proselytizing religion roughly from 200 BCE to 200 CE (and later) -- and most ancient Israelites, Judahites, Yehudis, and Judeans never left their homes, although many of their offspring converted to Christianity or Islam.

For the record, ancient kingdoms of Israel, Judah, Yehud, and Judea, according to the Old Testament, were no more lovable bastions of enlightenment than any other kingdom in the vicinity, what with their authoritarian monarchies, military conquests, genocides, Hebrew and gentile slave labor, animal and occasional human sacrifice, forced conversion of gentiles, suppression of religious pluralism among the Hebrews, and persecution and even capital punishment of sundry peaceful nonconformists, such as homosexuals and dissenters.

Moreover – and I wouldn't expect Trump to know this – there is a long and honorable tradition of Jewish anti-Zionism . It goes back to the days of Herzl, though his idea of a "return" to Canaan originated earlier with non-Jews for perhaps less-than-honorable reasons. On different grounds, Orthodox and Reform Jews vehemently opposed Herzl's movement. (See details on this and other matters discussed here in my book Coming to Palestine .) The Orthodox regarded the Zionists as charlatans because a "return" was not to occur until the Messiah appeared in order to redeem the sinful Jews; the Orthodox anti-Zionists did not regard any of the atheists running the Zionist movement as Messiahs – even if they had Jewish mothers.

The Reform shared that disdain for the Zionists and Zionism but on different grounds. First, they rejected the premise that the people around the world who profess Judaism constitute an exiled national people, race, or ethnicity. Judaism is just a religion, they said. Second, they objected to a country that would proclaim itself the nation-state of all the "Jewish people," including Jews who don't and won't live there. This, they said, would harm the Jewish citizens of other countries and the non-Jewish residents of Israel. Third, they knew that Palestine was not a "land without a people," and so they rejected the land theft and expulsion they knew would be required to make a Jewish state there. I would say the Reform were right. (The remnant of this movement resides at the American Council for Judaism .)

So, Mr. Trump, I can't see how Jewish Americans, who when surveyed rank justice high on their list social concerns, have an obligation to love Israel – or how this admonition from you, an enthusiast for Palestinian oppression, could possibly be taken seriously.

Sheldon Richman is the executive editor of The Libertarian Institute , senior fellow and chair of the trustees of the Center for a Stateless Society , and a contributing editor at Antiwar.com . He is the former senior editor at the Cato Institute and Institute for Humane Studies, former editor of The Freeman , published by the Foundation for Economic Education , and former vice president at the Future of Freedom Foundation . His latest book is Coming to Palestine .

[Dec 12, 2019] Trump Signs Order Interpreting Judaism as a Nationality and Race

the IHRA (International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance) definition of anti-Semitism the official guideline for Title VI is as following "Anti-Semitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of anti-Semitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities." So this hatred against certain ethnic category. Much like Russophobia. Looks pretty reasonable to me. For example, claiming that Paul Singer is a criminal financial racketeer is not anti-Semitism, because Romney is not that different.
The Washington Free Beacon, funded by GOP mega-donor Paul Singer, was the original funder of Fusion GPS’ research project that attempted to dig up dirt on then-candidate Donald Trump — a project that would later be funded by the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Paul Singer-Funded Washington Free Beacon Behind Initial Fusion GPS Trump Effort
Notable quotes:
"... The order will effectively interpret Judaism as a race or nationality, not just a religion, to prompt a federal law penalizing colleges and universities deemed to be shirking their responsibility to foster an open climate for minority students. ..."
"... But the IHRA is hotly disputed. The State Department has adopted it but critics say it is too vague and all-encompassing, and can be a trap for honest critics of Israel's domestic and foreign policies. For example, it describes as anti-Semitic "denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination" under some circumstances, and offers as an example of such behavior "claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor." ..."
Dec 12, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

With his son-in-law and senior advisor Jared Kushner hovering inches behind him, President Trump signed an executive order Wednesday that interprets Judaism as a nationality or race and religion so that the federal government can threaten to withhold funds from schools deemed to be fostering anti-semitism in school activities, programs, curricula and classrooms. What it really will do is put a chill on speech, as skittish administrations shut down protests, screen speakers, and monitor classrooms for unsanctioned criticisms against Israel.

"It is a game changer," said Trump legal advisor Alan Dershowitz who along with Kushner promoted the plan to Trump. "One of the most important events in the 2,000-year battle against anti-Semitism."

12/11/19, 11:42 A.M.: President Trump is expected to sign an executive order that will effectively put a chill on BDS (Boycott Divestment Sanction) campaigns or any other campus protests against Israel's treatment of Palestinians, illegal settlements, or U.S.-Israel foreign policy.

As The New York Times reported last night:

The order will effectively interpret Judaism as a race or nationality, not just a religion, to prompt a federal law penalizing colleges and universities deemed to be shirking their responsibility to foster an open climate for minority students.

Currently, Title VI prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color and national origin. By declaring Judaism a nationality rather than religion, it puts it under the rubric of federal protection, unlocking all sorts of tools for the school to shut down speech. As of this writing, however, Jewish Insider claims to have a copy of the executive order and says, contra to the NYT, there is no mention of national origin in it.

Nevertheless, the order as being reported will allow the federal government to force schools to restrict protests and monitor speech and curriculum in the classroom. For example, if there is an active BDS organization on campus or ongoing protest against the lockdown of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, it might be deemed anti-Semitic and the Department of Education could threaten a withdrawal of financial assistance to the school. This goes, perhaps more importantly, to courses and professors that are accused of being "anti-Semitic." We can see where this is going. From the Jerusalem Post :

A senior administration official said on Tuesday that antisemitism on campuses is often hidden in an anti-Israel agenda. If campuses that receive money from the government adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism in cases of discrimination, students who will feel that they are being bullied on college campuses would be able to complain to their institution's administration, who will then need to decide if the incident is considered antisemitic.

Trump's order would make the IHRA (International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance) definition of anti-Semitism the official guideline for Title VI.

But the IHRA is hotly disputed. The State Department has adopted it but critics say it is too vague and all-encompassing, and can be a trap for honest critics of Israel's domestic and foreign policies. For example, it describes as anti-Semitic "denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination" under some circumstances, and offers as an example of such behavior "claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor."

The White House's latest move, if fulfilled, is a huge victory for pro-Israel organizations here in the United States that, according to Forward magazine has been funneling tens of millions of dollars into combating constitutionally protected boycotts on school campuses and in American states.

Not only well-funded by groups like AIPAC, according to Forward, these pro-Israel campaigns use social media bird-dogging and rapid response strikes against student governments and planned demonstrations and other measures to cast the pro-Palestinian protests as anti-Semitic. In the states, they've convinced lawmakers and governments to pass laws that would require any companies and individuals working for the government to sign "contracts" or other affidavits declaring that they would never boycott Israeli companies or be denied work. These laws have been overturned by multiple courts as unconstitutional.

Nevertheless, afraid of the "anti-Semitic" taint, federal and state elected officials have not only continued to pass these laws, but have proposed criminal charges against offenders. The issue has riven the Democratic party, with pro-Palestinian and free speech proponents on one side, and pro-Israeli advocates (joining all but a few Republicans) on the other. The often raucous BDS debate has quieted down from earlier this year, when Rep. Ilhan Omar was forced to apologize for her own comments when criticizing the anti-boycott laws, but Trump is sure to re-invigorate things now.

Meanwhile, a slow-burn smear campaign has begun against 2020 candidate Bernie Sanders, who is Jewish, and who has also spoken out against what he calls are attacks against BDS and free speech. In this outrageous Federalist piece yesterday, Melissa Langsam Braunstein, "a former U.S. Department of State speechwriter," suggests Sanders is "associating with antisemites," ignoring "far-left" and "Islamist" anti-Semitism, and employing secret anti-Semites on his staff. Again, criticism of Israel's Palestinian policies and supporting people who support the boycotts seem to be the core definition of Bernie's burgeoning anti-Semitism here.

This is should be an alarming sign for anyone, but it may be worse for Bernie. He is up in the polls, which makes him a target. He is also an avowed socialist who has been openly against the anti-boycott movement on Capitol Hill. In addition, he could suffer the same slings and arrows that his compatriot Jeremy Corbyn is taking across the pond. The Labor Party leader and candidate for prime minister has been accused of being personally anti-Semitic for his criticism of Israel and his entire party criticized for fostering a "culture of anti-Semitism" and not taking serious various formal complaints against it. Read this whole Atlantic piece for the details, but the money passage for our purposes is here:

Disproportionate hatred of Israel is one strand of left-wing anti-Semitism. The other is the conspiracist turn, turbocharged by social media, which gains succor from attacks on "the elite," "the 1 percent," "the mainstream media," and "billionaires." Corbyn has made such attacks a key part of Labour's appeal, adopting the slogan "For the many, not the few." The trouble is that while all of these are superficially innocent phrases -- as well as useful ways of describing a world in which wealth and opportunities are unequally distributed -- it is clear that some supporters hear them as a dog whistle

This is Sanders' platform, too. Heck it is a critical part of Elizabeth Warren's and President Trump's appeal. If this kind of populism–and to be sure I am not talking about the Reddit "turbo charged" racist conspiracy driven memes that we all know are out there -- is to be deemed "a dog whistle," we may all be accused of anti-Semitism before the year is done.

Phil Jester • 15 hours ago

It's wonderful when people hold onto their culture and heritage. The idea of "melting pot" wasn't some kind of blast furnace that stripped immigrants of their past, but rather a blending of the many different cultures that created something uniquely American.

To be an American doesn't mean abandoning caring about your homeland - but it does mean that you should prioritize the success and prosperity of your fellow Americans more than you do the success and prosperity of those in the land you left behind.

The implication of labeling Judaism a nationality (and the implicit tying that to Zionism) is that American Jews owe their first loyalty not to fellow Americans ... but to Judaism, and by the associative property, to Israeli Jews.

A very dangerous path for American Jews to trod, as history has shown repeatedly.

The ironic thing here is that Trump is managing to play to three different bases here
- to the most conservative Zionist Jews in America
- to Evangelical Christians who are happy to have a cudgel to use in their battle against those who don't embrace the idea of a Judeo-Christian America, and
- to White Nationalists who themselves don't consider Jews to be part of "White Culture" and will enjoy referring to a Federal declaration of Jewish otherness

Steve Naidamast Phil Jester • 12 hours ago
As one writer succinctly put it, a lot of these endeavors are indicators that the influence and power of the Jewish elite is slowly and irreversibly diminishing.

The Orange Moron can do anything he wants in this vein but it will most likely only speed up what is already in motion...

pensword • 12 hours ago
we may all be accused of anti-Semitism before the year is done

When an American vessel in neutral waters was deliberately attacked by Israel in 1967, all subsequent investigation of the attack was whitewashed and the survivors threatened with imprisonment. Nothing has been done to restore the dignity of the veterans.

When the late Paul Findley compiled copious evidence of Israel's stranglehold on institutions of government and education, using a fringe publishing house to present his findings, which enjoyed 9 weeks on the Washington Post 's bestseller list, nothing was done to forestall the Lobby's influence.

When the FBI held tens of Israeli nationals engaged in suspicious activity in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, subjecting them to polygraph tests which some failed, Richard Armitage and Alan Dershowitz applied
political pressure to free them and send them packing to Israel. Nothing more was done.

When professors Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer provided a thoroughly documented analysis of Israel's headlock on American foreign policy, proving that it was Israel who drew us into the current Middle Eastern quagmire, nothing was done to forestall the Lobby's influence.

And now Israel, applying its usual pressure in Washington, wants Americans to fight yet another war on its behalf, this time against Iran, who has done nothing to America since the 1970s.

If you discuss these plain-as-day, readily available facts, you're called an "anti-Semite" and a "Nazi." If you want to discuss them on YouTube, you risk being demonetized or deplatformed. If you raise the topics in the public square, you're certain to confront censure, if not unemployment.

And, however much one may naively regard some claims as "conspiratorial," these phenomena are just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

You had better get used to it. Free speech isn't free and there's one group in America that's more interested in eliminating it than any other.

Of course, mentioning this is "anti-Semitic" as well.

cka2nd • 11 hours ago
I was just telling a friend that the "Bernie is a self-hating Jew" meme was right around the corner, and Kelly has just confirmed it.
Zgler • 10 hours ago
Trump is first and foremost pandering to his evangelical Christian supporters and a few rich Jewish donors here. He doesn't care that he feeds into anti-semitism by implying that Jewish Americans identify with Israel rather than the U.S. Most Jewish Americans won't vote for him (he has almost a 70% dis-approval rating with Jews in the U.S.). He's also toadying to Netanyahu, who he identifies with. Netanyahu is continually under investigation for corruption.
AlmostNormalTexan • 10 hours ago
College students are free to protest the behavior of Russia without being labeled anti-Russian; they can protest the People's Republic of China without being accused of sinophobia.

Why does Israel need a special dispensation from this? If the argument is that any criticism of Israel for any reason is antisemitic, then you are essentially saying that Israel should be uniquely immune from criticism that every other country on earth is subject to.

Doug Wallis • 10 hours ago
It started in Europe with creating a class of people protected from free speech, then the envelope widened to include immigrants and then muslims then leftists use it to prevent a discussion on immigration and then you get 10+ years of pedophile and female muslim rape gangs patrolling streets and having the entire crime known by police and covered up for fear of hate speech toward a group even though its specific groups that engage in honor killings, terrorist attacks, knifing s, grooming gangs, rape gangs, etc.
Name Doug Wallis • 7 hours ago
You actually believe the Garbage you just posted?
Name • 7 hours ago
If Judaism is a nationality, then what nationality do American Secular Jews belong to?

[Dec 10, 2019] Donald Trump Is Bad for the Jews: There are things more important than your tax rate by Paul Krugman

Highly recommended!
He is bad for Jewish programmers, nurses, etc. He is certainly good for Jewish financial oligarchs like Adelson and singer as well as Zionists like natuanuahoo.
Notable quotes:
"... I think it was an Israeli friend who first told me that Judaism, unlike other faiths, has rarely been a religion of oppression -- but that the reason was simply lack of opportunity, a diagnosis that recent Israeli governments seem determined to confirm. ..."
"... An aside: American Jews almost all support Israel, but many don't support the policies of its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. But that's presumably a distinction Trump doesn't understand, at home or abroad ..."
Dec 10, 2019 | www.nytimes.com

On Saturday Donald Trump gave a speech to the Israeli American Council in which he asserted that many in his audience were "not nice people at all," but that "you have to vote for me" because Democrats would raise their taxes.

Was he peddling an anti-Semitic stereotype, portraying Jews as money-grubbing types who care only about their wealth? Of course he was. You might possibly make excuses for his remarks if they were an isolated instance, but in fact Trump has done this sort of thing many times, for example asserting in 2015 that Jews weren't supporting him because he wasn't accepting their money and "you want to control your politicians."

Well, it's not news that Trump's bigotry isn't restricted to blacks and immigrants. What is interesting, however, is that this particular anti-Semitic cliché -- that Jews are greedy, and that their political behavior is especially driven by their financial interests -- is empirically dead wrong. In fact, American Jews are much more liberal than you might expect given their economic situation.

... ... ...

In other words, American Jews aren't the uniquely greedy, self-interested characters anti-Semites imagine them to be. But it would be foolish to make the opposite mistake and imagine that Jews are especially public-spirited; they're just people, with the same virtues and vices as everyone else. I think it was an Israeli friend who first told me that Judaism, unlike other faiths, has rarely been a religion of oppression -- but that the reason was simply lack of opportunity, a diagnosis that recent Israeli governments seem determined to confirm.

An aside: American Jews almost all support Israel, but many don't support the policies of its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. But that's presumably a distinction Trump doesn't understand, at home or abroad

MikeBoma

MikeBoma VA 8m ago

Excellent column to which I would add only that Trump is not pro-Israel. Rather, he is pro-Netanyahu because he identifies with individuals he identifies as apparent "strong men" and believes that making "deals" with Netanyahu and others of his ilk will be mutually and personally beneficial. Trump has no concern with national policy or the best interests of the U.S. It's all about his power and wealth and he is open to deals with others who share his principal concern with self-benefit above all else. Any action taken by Trump that may seem pro-Israel in reality is merely a means to a self-serving and perhaps corrupt end. Birds of a feather...
esthermiriam DC 43m ago
Surprised Paul didn't mention the main sponsor of the group that invited Trump to speak, the Israeli American Council, is Sheldon Adelson, whose politics are of the minority in the Jewish community but very close to Trump (and Bibi's). Which actually makes the speech rather even uglier, perhaps.
NorthernVirginia Falls Church, VA 43m ago
Difficult to appreciate why the US, or Krugman for that matter, would support a religion-based Apartheid country, much less associate with that country's chief lobbying arm. Say what you will about our founding fathers, but George Washington was absolutely prescient and correct in his farewell address when he advised against "a passionate attachment of one nation for another"; the "variety of evils" he warned of regularly manifest themselves.
Bonku Madison 50m ago
The question is not who is Trump bad for. The question is- who is he good for! He is not so great for his own die-hard supporters, or even his own long term interest. In fact, he sabotaged his own presidency and basically got himself into this impeachment affair. Almost everyone is suffering under this guy. Vast majority realized that as soon as he became the President. Many realized it little later. Hopefully the remaining tiny few will understand in near future.
Mark New York 1h ago
Dear Professor K, weaponizing religion is nothing new. What's most amazing is that people were cheering him while being marginalized as stereotypes. The God of Mamon won the evening. This is the only religion Trump adheres to. Apparently it's popular among other religions too.
RLJ Manhattan 1h ago
Trump is supported by the Chabad sect which is ultra-orthodox and ultra-right wing. And his go-between is Jared Kushner.
RLJ Manhattan 1h ago
Trump is supported by the Chabad sect which is ultra-orthodox and ultra-right wing. And his go-between is Jared Kushner.
Sue Brooklyn 1h ago
Please don't conflate my Judaism with support for Israel. Israel would not support me, a secular Jew. Brooklyn is my homeland. Next year in Flatbush.
JayK CT 1h ago
In my first 59 years, I'd never felt concern for my physical safety as a Jew in this country until this man became president. I knew exactly where this was all headed at the moment Sean Spicer took to the podium and lied to the country about the inauguration crowd size in his first official act for Trump. It made me sick to my stomach, and I couldn't believe that most people were laughing it off as no big deal. Any Jew who trust this administration is a fool, and although there a few more "precise" Yiddish words for these members of my tribe, I'll refrain from using them as I'm sure you can fill in the blanks just fine.
Ilya Los Angeles 1h ago
A good reference to this opinion column, which was written and probably edited by highly intelligent people- The Stupidity of Intelligence: What Happened to Common Sense? Every sentence could be easily argued and overturned based upon some simple facts.
Bruce Rozenblit Kansas City, MO 2h ago
Trump and his minions try to buy Jewish support by backing right wing Israelis in their goal of a greater Israel at the expense of the Palestinians. In fact, when asked if Trump is anti-Semitic, one his strongest supporters, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, gave the standard response, "Trump supports Israel". Supporting Israel is a political position. All the while, Trump has about as much use for Jews as Archie Bunker had for the Jews in his fictional law firm, Rabinowitz, Rabinowitz and Rabinowitz. Then they often mention that his son-in-law is Jewish, like he had a choice in the matter. Simultaneously, Trump derives strong support from white nationalists that would be perfectly happy to send all American Jews to Israel. Those two motivations are inexorably linked. Because of this linkage, I can't understand for one minute how American Jews can support Trump. Is the money that good? Do they think that their money can protect them? Others have made that mistake before.
Luchino Brooklyn, New York 2h ago
Among Trump's lies is that he is far more friendly to Israel than Obama was. Sadly, some Jews take this lie as fact and, because of this, overlook everything else Trump does or says, supporting him without wavering, no matter what.
john connell columbia md 2h ago
The difference is intelligence. My college psychology textbook said that Russian Jewish immigrants had the highest IQs of all identified ethnicities. Number two was all other Jews. Of course they voted for Hillary.
Greg Cincinnati 2h ago
The attachment the wealthy have for the Republican Party goes beyond just a lower tax rate. It is power and deference. The wealthy want an unquestioned dominance that not only protects and expands their wealth, but celebrates them not only for their wealth as symbol of personal success but of their moral superiority. Obama certainly did not threaten their wealth, and, in fact, pursued policies that protected them from the worst of the Great Recession. Yet, the masters of wealth whined endlessly about Obama not respecting them and that his language toward them was disrespectful and not sufficiently deferential. Trump's "policies" threaten long term economic health, and the wealth creation that keeps concentrating wealth at the top. His trade gyrations, his dismantling of the environmental regulatory regime to favor fossil fuels, and his reward and punishment of private corporations based on politics are doing the damage that no Democrat would ever inflict. Yet, nary a corporate executive will said a word, and far too many are happy to be props at events for Trump's endless glorification of himself. Because they, like Trump, believe themselves heroes and geniuses whose domination should never be questioned. So they and Trump wind up all being pretty comfortable with each other. The neo-liberal promise of free market economics producing rational economic actors free from political motives and protecting all of us from political abuse rings pretty hollow.
James F Traynor Punta Gorda, FL 2h ago
"I think it was an Israeli friend who first told me that Judaism, unlike other faiths, has rarely been a religion of oppression -- but that the reason was simply lack of opportunity, a diagnosis that recent Israeli governments seem determined to confirm." Considering my age, and extrapolating therefrom, I think Einstein beat your friend to it. Pondering the moral weight given to Jewish thought at the time, Einstein thought political power was behind it, Jews simply had not the opportunity. As not unusual, Einstein's theory has been supported by experiment.
Plato CT 2h ago
Prof. Krugman, I loved this statement " An aside: American Jews almost all support Israel, but many don't support the policies of its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. But that's presumably a distinction Trump doesn't understand, at home or abroad" Please make sure that your colleague Bret Stephens get this memo.
Alan Kaplan Morristown, NJ 2h ago
I loved Trump's conclusion that people who are not nice vote for him. This is almost certainly true, we need to all be nice and vote the clown out.
Mike kelly nyc 2h ago
The audience at the Israeli American Council cheered Trump enthusiastically through out his whole speech. They cheered when he said he learned his tricks from Sheldon Adelson. They cheered when he said that maybe he should stay for eight more years. They hardly thought he was anti-Semitic. He has done exactly what he promised his big donors starting with the embassy in Jerusalem. His shutting down of any opposition to the Netanyahu administration especially the BDS movement . He seems to know his audience very well and they were loving it.
C. Bernard Florida 2h ago
Trump is not just saying "look at the taxes you are saving", he's saying "look what I've done for Israel!" I don't understand why the media persists on calling him a white nationalist. His daughter and son in law are strict Jews, he recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, he's given them the Golan Heights and has listened to their advice on Iran (bad idea). He's not after Jewish votes necessarily, because there are only about 2 million Jews in the U.S . But being more "affluent on average" he's more likely after some big campaign contributions.
Guesser San Francisco 2h ago
Everyone in my Jewish family votes Democratic, although we have all done well financially. I remember growing up that my Dad would say that he personally would benefit financially from a Republican administration, but that it would not be good for the nation as a whole. I believe that it is not just self-interest and fear of anti-Semitism that has led Jews to favor the Democratic party, but also Jewish values, including wanting to make the world a better place.
Watah Oakland, CA 2h ago
Trump is our Nero for the 21st century. United States and the Republicans who support him will define the decline of our status in the world stage.
JUHallCLU San Francisco Bay Area, CA 3h ago
An argument can also be made that Netanyahu (extreme Right) has been excessively partisan to the degree that it has divided both Israel and diaspora Jews. Israel might be bettered by negotiating with all of its territorial stakeholders. Land is at issue. Palestinians will not vanish or evaporate. The West Bank must be addressed. The Trump rubber stamp of a Jarusalem Embassy does not solve much.
Alan J. Shaw Bayside, NY 2h ago
@Justice Support for Israel may mean many things, at its most basic it's a belief that Israel had and still has a right to exist among the nations of the world. If one believes that at its inception it was and continues to be nothing more than an "ethnoreligious state," that imay not be support , though Krugman distinguises between the former and criticism of the current Israeli administration. I suppose the commenter would also find theocratic states like Saudi Arabia or Iran "deeply problematic " One thing for sure is that most Jews will not suport the supposedly Zionist Trump when he says that Jews who vote Democratic are either uninformed or disloyal.
Skip Moreland Baldwinsville 2h ago
@Justice My own take is that american jews support having a home for jews, esp in the land they came from. But the government of Israel is conservative while most american jews are more liberal. There are many liberal jews in Israel. I support the idea of a homeland for the jews, just not how that has been accomplished. Real democracy is fragile and far too many countries are moving from democracy to more authoritarian governments.
Eben Spinoza 5h ago
I'm told that many Israelis who were enthusiastic about Trump got a wakeup call when he abandoned the Kurds. They now better understand that he regards everyone as disposable, and can't imagine that anyone could be motivated by something other than pure-self interest.
edwardc San Francisco Bay Area 4h ago
@Eben Sadly, Donald is not the first president to abandon the Kurds. In the words of Henry Kissinger, "America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests." Yes, this could conceivably at some time in the future be relevant to Israel. Even if not under Donald.
Election Inspector Seattle 3h ago
@edwardc - Kissinger, "America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests." Our current problem is that the "interests" being pursued are solely those of Donald Trump personally -- appeasing his secret Russian lenders; doing the bidding of "tough" guy dictators like Turkey's so he can feel tough himself and build hotels in their capitals; exercising his long held bigotry about people of color in this country. Our allies the Kurds, on the other hand, helped with an actual, important US national interest: beating ISIS and holding it back from growing again to where it can resume attacking us. But since that doesn't put money in Trump's pocket he abandons the cause.
Concerned Citizen Anywheresville 2h ago
@Eben : I have great empathy for the Kurdish people, but does "support for the Kurds" mean we must stay in Iraq and Afghanistan literally forever? we've already been there going on 17 years -- at the cost of trillions of dollars spent and thousands of American lives.
Jacquie Iowa 5h ago
"In last year's midterms, 52 percent of voters with incomes over $200,000 voted Republican, compared with only 38 percent of voters with incomes under $50,000. The rightward tilt is especially strong at the very top; although there are a few high-profile liberal billionaires, most of the extremely wealthy are also extremely right-wing." And that group will vote for Trump for re-election even if he is impeached unfortunately.
Gone Coastal NorCal 5h ago
Israel does not seem to understand the long term damage being done to its country. The U.S. has always been its number one defender, but there is a whole generation of Americans that think Israel is bad, that it is mistreating the Palestinians. Demographics are working against it. Israel can always look to Europe, but I don't know how that is going to work out in the long run.
dr scott Kailua Kona 4h ago
@Gone Coastal Trump is all about the sugar high you get from immediate gratification of the baser impulses. His influence will end soon enough, perhaps another five years but the potential destruction of the Repulican party and the reaction against Trumpism could last for decades. Its a big danger to Israel if Israel is just seen as the last gasp of European colonialism and a part of the Western white world : a European imposition on the middle east. Roosevelt tried to create institutions that would lead to peace though out the life times of the people who lived when he was president. Sadly Trump is making strides to destroy the institutions initiated by Roosevelt, leaving a world where small countries are more easily bullied by their larger neighbors.

[Dec 06, 2019] Who Is Making US Foreign Policy by Stephen F. Cohen

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... A more plausible explanation is that Trump thought that by appointing such anti-Russian hard-liners he could lay to rest the Russiagate allegations that had hung over him for three years and still did: that for some secret nefarious reason he was and remained a "Kremlin puppet." Despite the largely exculpatory Mueller report, Trump's political enemies, mostly Democrats but not only, have kept the allegations alive. ..."
"... The larger question is who should make American foreign policy: an elected president or Washington's permanent foreign policy establishment? (It is scarcely a "deep" or "secret" state, since its representatives appear on CNN and MSNBC almost daily.) Today, Democrats seem to think that it should be the foreign policy establishment, not President Trump. But having heard the cold-war views of much of that establishment, how will they feel when a Democrat occupies the White House? After all, eventually Trump will leave power, but Washington's foreign-policy "blob," as even an Obama aide termed it , will remain. ..."
"... Listen to the podcast here ..."
"... War With Russia? From Putin & Ukraine to Trump & Russiagate ..."
"... The John Batchelor Show ..."
"... Trump's anti-Iranian fever is every bit as ludicrous as the DNC's anti-Russian fever. There is absolutely nothing to support the anti-Iranian policy argument or the anti JCPOA argument. The only thing that is missing from all of this is Iranian hookers, and that would certainly be an explosive headline! ..."
"... You know why Rhodes called it the blob, right? Why he made it sound so formless and squishy? Ask yourself, how does a failed novelist with zilch for foreign-affairs credentials get the big job of Obama's ventriloquist? That's a CIA billet. It so happens that Rhodes' brother has a big job of his own with CBS News, the most servile of the Mockingbird media propaganda mills. ..."
"... It's not a blob, it's a precisely-articulated hierarchy. And the top of it is CIA. So please for once somebody answer this blindingly obvious question, Who is making US foreign policy? CIA, that's who. For the CIA show trial run by Iran/Contra nomenklatura Bill Barr and his blackmailed flunky Durham, Trump's high crime and misdemeanor is conducting diplomacy without CIA supervision. They come out and say so, pointing to the National Security Act's mousetrap bureaucracy. ..."
"... CIA runs your country. They've got impunity, they do what they want. We've got 400,000 academics paid to overthink it. ..."
"... We cannot trust that the people that destroyed the country will repair it. It is run by a Cult of Hedonistic Satanic Psychopaths. If they were limited to just the CIA, America would be in far better shape than its in. The CIA is not capable of thinking or intelligence, so we should stop paying them. ..."
"... Drumpf has been a tool of the Wall Street/Las Vegas Zionist billionaires for many, many years. so his selection of warmongering Zio neo-con advisors should be no surprise. ..."
"... Perhaps part of the reason that Trump often seems to be surrounded by people who don't support his policies or values is, as Paul Craig Roberts suggested in 2016, that Trump would have real problems simply because he was an outsider. An outsider to the Washington swamp, a swamp that Clinton had been swimming in for decades. In short he didn't know who to trust, who to keep "in the tent" & who to shut out. Thus, we have had this huge churn in Secretaries & on so on downwards. ..."
"... Sociopaths are the ones that do the worst because they lack any concern or "Empathy", like robots. So I read that the socio's are some of the brightest people who often are very successful in business etc. and can hide the fact that they would soon as kill as look at ya, but cool as ice, all they want is to get what the hell they want! They don't give a rats petoot who likes likes it or not, except as . ..."
"... Trump hasn't fired any of the neocons, but he proved that he CAN fire defense executives. He fired the Sec of Navy for disagreeing with some ridiculous personal thing that Trump wanted to do. Since Trump hasn't fired any neocons, we have to conclude that he's fully on board. ..."
"... There are so many security holes in the constitution of the USA including that it was ratified by those who invented it, not by a vote put to the people that would be made to suffer being governed by it. Basically the USA is useless as a defender of human rights (one of which is the right to self determination). The so called bill of rights (1st 10 amendments) are contractual promises, but like all clauses in contracts if there is no way to enforce them, then there is no use for the clause except maybe propaganda value. ..."
"... In a normally functioning world you simply can't simultaneously argue that in one case West can bomb a country to force self-determination as in Kosovo, and also denounce exactly the same thing in Crimea. On to Catalonia and more self-determination ..."
"... Trump, among his other occupations, used to engage with the professional wrestling circuit. In that well-staged entertainment there is always a bad guy – or a ' heel ' – who is used to stir up the crowds, the Evil Sheik or Rocky's hapless movie enemies. It makes it ' real '. The ' heel ' is sometimes allowed to win to better manage the audience. But the narrative never changes. Our rational judgments should focus on what happens, and on outcomes – not on talk, slogans, speeches, etc Based on that, Trump is a classical ' heel ' character. He might even be playing it consciously, or he has no choice. ..."
"... To answer the question who runs ' foreign policy ', let's ignore the stadium speeches, and simply look at what happens. In a world bereft of enough profitable consumer things to do, and enough justifiable careers for unemployable geo-political security 'experts' of all kinds, having enemies and maybe even a small war occasionally is not such an irrational thing to want. Plus there are the deep ethnic hatreds and traumas going back generations that were naively imported into the heart of the Western world. (Washington warned against that 200+ years ago.) ..."
"... or maybe trump was a lying neocon, war-loving, immigration-loving neoliberal all along, and you and the trumptards somehow continue to believe his campaign rhetoric? ..."
"... The fact is Trump is not an anti-neocon (Deep State) president he only talks that way. The fact that he surrounded himself with Deep State denizens gives lie to the thought that he is anti-Deep State no one can be that god damn stupid. ..."
"... "TRUMP SUPPORTERS WERE DUPED – Trump supporters are going to find out soon enough that they were duped by Donald Trump. Trump was given the script to run as the "Chaos Candidate" .He is just a pawn of the ruling elite .It is a tactic known as 'CONTROLLED OPPOSITION' ". Wasn't it FDR who said "Presidents are selected , they are not elected " ? ..."
"... Trump selected the Neocons he is surrounded with. And he's given away all kinds of property that he has absolutely no legal authority to give. He was seeking to please American Oligarchs the likes of Adelson. That's American politics. "Money is free speech." Of course, there is another connection with foreign policy beyond the truly total corruption of American domestic politics, and that's through America's brutal empire abroad. ..."
"... Obama or Trump, on the main matters of importance abroad – NATO, Russia, Israel/Palestine, China – there has been no difference, except Trump is more openly bellicose and given to saying really stupid things. ..."
Dec 06, 2019 | www.unz.com
President Trump campaigned and was elected on an anti-neocon platform: he promised to reduce direct US involvement in areas where, he believed, America had no vital strategic interest, including in Ukraine. He also promised a new détente ("cooperation") with Moscow.

And yet, as we have learned from their recent congressional testimony, key members of his own National Security Council did not share his views and indeed were opposed to them. Certainly, this was true of Fiona Hill and Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman. Both of them seemed prepared for a highly risky confrontation with Russia over Ukraine, though whether retroactively because of Moscow's 2014 annexation of Crimea or for more general reasons was not entirely clear.

Similarly, Trump was slow in withdrawing Marie Yovanovitch, a career foreign service officer appointed by President Obama as ambassador to Kiev, who had made clear, despite her official position in Kiev, that she did not share the new American president's thinking about Ukraine or Russia. In short, the president was surrounded in his own administration, even in the White House, by opponents of his foreign policy and presumably not only in regard to Ukraine.

How did this unusual and dysfunctional situation come about? One possibility is that it was the doing and legacy of the neocon John Bolton, briefly Trump's national security adviser. But this doesn't explain why the president would accept or long tolerate such appointees.

A more plausible explanation is that Trump thought that by appointing such anti-Russian hard-liners he could lay to rest the Russiagate allegations that had hung over him for three years and still did: that for some secret nefarious reason he was and remained a "Kremlin puppet." Despite the largely exculpatory Mueller report, Trump's political enemies, mostly Democrats but not only, have kept the allegations alive.

The larger question is who should make American foreign policy: an elected president or Washington's permanent foreign policy establishment? (It is scarcely a "deep" or "secret" state, since its representatives appear on CNN and MSNBC almost daily.) Today, Democrats seem to think that it should be the foreign policy establishment, not President Trump. But having heard the cold-war views of much of that establishment, how will they feel when a Democrat occupies the White House? After all, eventually Trump will leave power, but Washington's foreign-policy "blob," as even an Obama aide termed it , will remain.

Listen to the podcast here . Stephen F. Cohen Stephen F. Cohen is a professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New York University and Princeton University. A Nation contributing editor, his most recent book, War With Russia? From Putin & Ukraine to Trump & Russiagate , is available in paperback and in an ebook edition. His weekly conversations with the host of The John Batchelor Show , now in their sixth year, are available at www.thenation.com .

Curmudgeon , says: December 5, 2019 at 8:49 pm GMT

because of Moscow's 2014 annexation of Crimea or for more general reasons was not entirely clear.

In an otherwise decent overview, this sticks out like a sore thumb. It would be helpful to stop using the word annexation. While correct in a technical sense – that Crimea was added to the Russian Federation – the word comes with all kinds of connotations, that imply illegality and or force. Given Crimea was given special status when gifted to Ukraine for administration by the USSR, one could just as easily apply "annexation" of Crimea to Ukraine. After Ukraine voted to "leave" the USSR, Crimea voted to join Ukraine. Obviously the "Ukrainian" vote did not include Crimea. Even after voting to join Ukraine, Crimea had special status within Ukraine, and was semi autonomous. If you can vote to join, you can vote to leave. Either you have the right to self determination, or you don't.

Rebel0007 , says: December 5, 2019 at 10:38 pm GMT
This is what is so infuriating, Stephen! These silent coups of the executive branch have been taking place for my entire life! Both parties are guilty of refusing to appoint cabinet members that the elected presidents would have chosen for themselves, because both parties are more interested in making the president of the opposing party look bad, make him ineffective, and incapable of carrying out policies that he was elected to carry out. That is the very definition of treason!

Things are a disaster. The JCPOA is at the heart of the issue and Trump and his advisors stubborn refusal to capitulate on this issue very well may cause Trump to lose the 2020 election. Trump's anti-Iranian fever is every bit as ludicrous as the DNC's anti-Russian fever. There is absolutely nothing to support the anti-Iranian policy argument or the anti JCPOA argument. The only thing that is missing from all of this is Iranian hookers, and that would certainly be an explosive headline!

The anti-Iranian fever has created so much havoc not only with Iran, but with every country on earth other than Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. Germany announced that it is seeking to unite with Russia, not only for Gazprom, but is now considering purchasing defense systems from Russia, and Germany is dictating EU policy, by and large. Germany has said that Europe must be able to defend itself independent of America and is requesting an EU military and Italy is on board with this idea, seeking to create jobs and weapons for its economy and defense.

The EU is fed up with the economic sanctions placed on countries that the U.S. has black-listed, particularly Russia and Iran, and China as well for Huwaei 5G.

Nobody in their right mind could ever claim this to be the free market capitalism that Larry Kudlow espouses!

National Institute for Study of the O... , says: December 5, 2019 at 11:00 pm GMT
You know why Rhodes called it the blob, right? Why he made it sound so formless and squishy? Ask yourself, how does a failed novelist with zilch for foreign-affairs credentials get the big job of Obama's ventriloquist? That's a CIA billet. It so happens that Rhodes' brother has a big job of his own with CBS News, the most servile of the Mockingbird media propaganda mills.

It's not a blob, it's a precisely-articulated hierarchy. And the top of it is CIA. So please for once somebody answer this blindingly obvious question, Who is making US foreign policy? CIA, that's who. For the CIA show trial run by Iran/Contra nomenklatura Bill Barr and his blackmailed flunky Durham, Trump's high crime and misdemeanor is conducting diplomacy without CIA supervision. They come out and say so, pointing to the National Security Act's mousetrap bureaucracy.

CIA runs your country. They've got impunity, they do what they want. We've got 400,000 academics paid to overthink it.

follyofwar , says: December 5, 2019 at 11:53 pm GMT
@Curmudgeon Pat Buchanan also uses the word "annexation" all the time.
Rebel0007 , says: December 6, 2019 at 4:31 am GMT
National Institute for the study of the obvious,

The CIA has no authority what so ever as defined by the supreme law of the land, the constitution. That would make them guilty of a coup which would be an act of treason, so if what you claim is true, why have they not been prosecuted.

It is a political game between to competing kleptocratic cults. The DNC and RNC are whores and will do what ever their donors tell them to do. That is also treason. This country is just a total wasteland.

Everyone has pledged allegiance to fraud.

Too big to fail, like the Titanic and the Hindenberg.

We cannot trust that the people that destroyed the country will repair it. It is run by a Cult of Hedonistic Satanic Psychopaths. If they were limited to just the CIA, America would be in far better shape than its in. The CIA is not capable of thinking or intelligence, so we should stop paying them.

Haxo Angmark , says: Website December 6, 2019 at 6:01 am GMT
Drumpf has been a tool of the Wall Street/Las Vegas Zionist billionaires for many, many years. so his selection of warmongering Zio neo-con advisors should be no surprise.
Monty Ahwazi , says: December 6, 2019 at 6:03 am GMT
What kind of stupid question is this? You mean you don't know or asking us for confirmation? If you really don't know then why are you writing an article about it? If you do know then why are you asking the UNZ readers?
animalogic , says: December 6, 2019 at 6:21 am GMT
Perhaps part of the reason that Trump often seems to be surrounded by people who don't support his policies or values is, as Paul Craig Roberts suggested in 2016, that Trump would have real problems simply because he was an outsider. An outsider to the Washington swamp, a swamp that Clinton had been swimming in for decades. In short he didn't know who to trust, who to keep "in the tent" & who to shut out. Thus, we have had this huge churn in Secretaries & on so on downwards.
EdNels , says: December 6, 2019 at 6:49 am GMT
@Rebel0007

It is run by a Cult of Hedonistic Satanic Psychopaths.

That's ok but it's a bit unfair to Hedonistic Satanic Psychopaths After all most of the country is Hedonistic as hell, it sells commercials or wtf. Satanic is philosophical and way over the heads of these clowns, though if the be a Satan, then they are in the plan for sure, and right on the mark. As for psychopaths, those are criminals who are insane, but they can have remorse and be their own worst enemies, often they just go off and go psycho and bad things happen, but can be unplanned off the wall stuff, not diabolic.

Sociopaths are the ones that do the worst because they lack any concern or "Empathy", like robots. So I read that the socio's are some of the brightest people who often are very successful in business etc. and can hide the fact that they would soon as kill as look at ya, but cool as ice, all they want is to get what the hell they want! They don't give a rats petoot who likes likes it or not, except as .

So, once upon a time, a people got so hedonistic and they didn't watch the game and theier leaders were low quality (especially religeous/morals ) and long story short Satan unleashed the Socio's , Things seem to be heading disastrously, so will bit coin save the day? Green nudeal?

Jon Baptist , says: December 6, 2019 at 6:54 am GMT
The simple questions that beg to be asked are who are the accusers and what media agencies are providing the amplification to transmit these accusations?
https://forward.com/news/national/434664/impeachment-trump-democrats-jewish/
https://www.jta.org/2019/11/15/politics/the-tell-the-jewish-players-in-impeachment

There is also this link courtesy of Haass' CFR – https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/russia-trump-and-2016-us-election

While massive attention is directed towards Russia and the Ukraine, the majority of the public are shown the slight of hand and their attention is never brought near to the real perpetrators of subverting American and British foreign policy.

https://electronicintifada.net/content/watch-film-israel-lobby-didnt-want-you-see/25876
http://joshdlindsay.com/2019/04/the-israel-lobby-in-the-u-s-al-jazeera-documentary/
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polistra , says: December 6, 2019 at 7:49 am GMT
Doesn't matter if he's surrounded. A president CAN make foreign policy, and a president CAN fire people who disagree with his policy. Trump hasn't fired any of the neocons, but he proved that he CAN fire defense executives. He fired the Sec of Navy for disagreeing with some ridiculous personal thing that Trump wanted to do. Since Trump hasn't fired any neocons, we have to conclude that he's fully on board.
sally , says: December 6, 2019 at 8:51 am GMT
@Rebel0007

The CIA has no authority what so ever as defined by the supreme law of the land, the constitution. That would make them guilty of a coup which would be an act of treason, so if what you claim is true, why have they not been prosecuted.

--
first off the supreme law of the land maybe the Constitution and to oppose it may be Treason, but the Law that is supreme to the Law of the land is Human rights law.. it is far superior to, and it is the TLD of all laws of the land of all of the Nation States that mankind has allowed the greedy among its masses, to impose.

There are so many security holes in the constitution of the USA including that it was ratified by those who invented it, not by a vote put to the people that would be made to suffer being governed by it. Basically the USA is useless as a defender of human rights (one of which is the right to self determination). The so called bill of rights (1st 10 amendments) are contractual promises, but like all clauses in contracts if there is no way to enforce them, then there is no use for the clause except maybe propaganda value.

If you note the USA constitution has seven articles..

Article 1 is about 525 elected members of congress and their very limited powers to control
foreign activities. Each qualified to vote member of the governed (a citizen so to speak) is allowed to
vote for only 3 of the 525 persons. so basically there is no real national election anywhere .

Article II grants the electoral college the power to appoint two persons full control of the assets,
resources and manpower of America to conquer the entire world or to make peace in the entire world.
Either way: the governed are not allowed to vote for either; the EC vote determines the P or VP.

Article III allows the Article II person to appoint yes men to the judiciary

Where exist the power of the governed to deny USA governors the ability to the use the powers the constitution claims the governors are to have, against the governed? <==No where I can find? Theoretically, the governed are protected from abuse for as long as it takes to conduct due process?

One person, the Article II person, is basically the king when in comes to constitutional authority to establish, conduct, prosecute or defend USA involvement in foreign affairs.

No where does the constitution of the USA deny its President the use of American resources or USA military power, to make and use diplomat appointments, or to use the USA to use the wealth of America and the hegemonic powers of the USA to make a private or public profit in a foreign land. <= d/n matter if the profit is personal to the President or if it assigned by appointment (like the feudal powers granted by the feudal kings to the feudal lords) to corporate feudal lords or oligarch personal interest.

AFAICT, the president can USE the USA to conduct war, invade or otherwise infringe on, even destroy, the territory, or a private or public interest, within a foreign sovereign more or less at will. So if the President wants to command a private or secret Army like the CIA, he can as far as I can tell, obviously this president does, because he could with his pen alone shut it down.

Seems to me the "NO" from Wilson's four points

  1. no more secret diplomacy peace settlement must not lead the way to new wars
  2. no retribution, unjust claims, and huge fines <basically indemnities paid by the losers to the winners.
  3. no more war; includes controls on armaments and arming of nations.
  4. no more Trade Barriers so the nations of the world would become more interdependent.

have been made the essence of nation state operations world wide.

IMO, The CIA exists at the pleasure of the President.

Beckow , says: December 6, 2019 at 9:29 am GMT
@Curmudgeon all of that, plus the Kosovo precedent.

In a normally functioning world you simply can't simultaneously argue that in one case West can bomb a country to force self-determination as in Kosovo, and also denounce exactly the same thing in Crimea. On to Catalonia and more self-determination

Beckow , says: December 6, 2019 at 9:52 am GMT
Trump, among his other occupations, used to engage with the professional wrestling circuit. In that well-staged entertainment there is always a bad guy – or a ' heel ' – who is used to stir up the crowds, the Evil Sheik or Rocky's hapless movie enemies. It makes it ' real '. The 'heel ' is sometimes allowed to win to better manage the audience. But the narrative never changes. Our rational judgments should focus on what happens, and on outcomes – not on talk, slogans, speeches, etc Based on that, Trump is a classical ' heel ' character. He might even be playing it consciously, or he has no choice.

To answer the question who runs ' foreign policy ', let's ignore the stadium speeches, and simply look at what happens. In a world bereft of enough profitable consumer things to do, and enough justifiable careers for unemployable geo-political security 'experts' of all kinds, having enemies and maybe even a small war occasionally is not such an irrational thing to want. Plus there are the deep ethnic hatreds and traumas going back generations that were naively imported into the heart of the Western world. (Washington warned against that 200+ years ago.)

Anon [424] Disclaimer , says: December 6, 2019 at 10:47 am GMT
https://russia-insider.com/en/politics/majority-germans-wants-less-reliance-us-more-engagement-russia/ri27985

Macron said that NATO is " brain dead " :

https://www.economist.com/europe/2019/11/07/emmanuel-macron-warns-europe-nato-is-becoming-brain-dead

The more the US sanctions so many countries around the world , the more the US generate an anti US reaction around the world .

gotmituns , says: December 6, 2019 at 11:09 am GMT
Who Is Making US Foreign Policy?
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -
Could it be israel?
DrWatson , says: December 6, 2019 at 11:20 am GMT
Trump should have kept Steve Bannon as his advisor and should have fired instead his son-in-law. Perhaps "they" are blackmailing Trump with photos like here: https://www.pinterest.com/richarddesjarla/creepy/

That would explain why Trump is so ineffective at making a reality anything he campaigned for.

Marshall Lentini , says: December 6, 2019 at 11:28 am GMT
@melpol Betas in power -- an underappreciated dimension of this morass.
propagandist hacker , says: Website December 6, 2019 at 11:29 am GMT
or maybe trump was a lying neocon, war-loving, immigration-loving neoliberal all along, and you and the trumptards somehow continue to believe his campaign rhetoric?
Realist , says: December 6, 2019 at 11:52 am GMT

An anti-neocon president appears to have been surrounded by neocons in his own administration.

The fact is Trump is not an anti-neocon (Deep State) president he only talks that way. The fact that he surrounded himself with Deep State denizens gives lie to the thought that he is anti-Deep State no one can be that god damn stupid.

Realist , says: December 6, 2019 at 12:00 pm GMT
@sally

IMO, The CIA exists at the pleasure of the President.

The CIA sees it differently; and they are part of the Deep State.

Realist , says: December 6, 2019 at 12:03 pm GMT
@propagandist hacker

or maybe trump was a lying neocon, war-loving, immigration-loving neoliberal all along, and you and the trumptards somehow continue to believe his campaign rhetoric?

That is my contention.

Sean , says: December 6, 2019 at 12:11 pm GMT
MICHAEL CARPENTER Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia from 2015 to 2017.

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/russia-fsu/2019-11-26/oligarchs-who-lost-ukraine-and-won-washington

Halfway around the world from Washington's halls of power, Ukraine sits along a civilizational and geopolitical fault line. To Ukraine's west are the liberal democracies of Europe, governed by rule of law and democratic principles. To its east are Russia and its client states in Eurasia, almost all of which are corrupt oligarchies. [ ] In this war on democratic movements and democratic principles, Russia's biggest prize and chief adversary has always been the United States. Until now, however, Russia has always had to contend with bipartisan resolve to counter

No mention of China, and this is the problem with the whole foreign policy establishment not just the neocons. Russia is more of an annoyance than anything, but they are still operating assumptions on what is the Geographical Pivot of History , so they want to talk about Russia. Like an Edwardian sea cadet we are supposed to care about Russia getting (back) a water port in Crimea. Mahan's definition of sea power included a strong commercial fleet. After tearing their own environment apart like a car in a wrecking yard and heating up the planet China has taken time out from deforestation and colonising Tibet, to send huge container vessels full of cheap goods through the melting Arctic round the top of Russia all the better to get to Europe and deindustrialise it.

Western elites have sold out to China, seen as the future, so we hear about Russia rather than the three million Uyghurs in concentration camps complete with constantly smoking crematoria, and harvesting of organs for rich foreigners.

Who poses a greater threat to the West: China or Russia?
By the time the West finds itself in open conflict with Beijing, we will have lost our relative advantage. Brendan Simms and K.C. Lin [ ] The concept of China being a threat is harder to comprehend. In what way? Yes, its hacking and intellectual property theft is a headache. But is it worse than what Russia is up to? And don't we need Chinese investment, so does it really matter if China builds our 5G mobile networks? In London, ministers agonise over these issues -- not knowing whether to pity China (we still send foreign aid there), beg for its money and contracts (with prime ministerial trade trips), or treat it as a potential antagonist.

Aid ! They sent robots to the far side of the Moon

Beijing has been the beneficiary of liberal revulsion at the Trump presidency: if the Donald is against the Chinese, who cannot be for them? As a result, Trump's efforts to address China's unfair trade practices have so far missed the mark with the domestic and international audience. As Trump declares war on free trade, China -- one of the most protectionist economies in the world -- is now celebrated at Davos as the avatar of free trade. Later this month, China's Vice-President is likely to be in attendance at Davos -- and there is even talk of him meeting with Trump. Similarly, the messiness of American politics has made China's one-party state an apparent poster boy of political stability and governability.

9/11 Inside job , says: December 6, 2019 at 12:14 pm GMT
911endofdays.blogspot.com : "Sackcloth&Ashes – The 16th Trump of Arcana " :

"TRUMP SUPPORTERS WERE DUPED – Trump supporters are going to find out soon enough that they were duped by Donald Trump. Trump was given the script to run as the "Chaos Candidate" .He is just a pawn of the ruling elite .It is a tactic known as 'CONTROLLED OPPOSITION' ".
Wasn't it FDR who said "Presidents are selected , they are not elected " ?

JOHN CHUCKMAN , says: Website December 6, 2019 at 12:25 pm GMT

Trump selected the Neocons he is surrounded with. And he's given away all kinds of property that he has absolutely no legal authority to give. He was seeking to please American Oligarchs the likes of Adelson. That's American politics. "Money is free speech." Of course, there is another connection with foreign policy beyond the truly total corruption of American domestic politics, and that's through America's brutal empire abroad.

The military/intelligence imperial establishment definitely see Israel as a kind of American colony in the Mideast, and they make sure that it's well provided for. That's what the Neocon Wars have been about. Paving over large parts of Israel's noisy neighborhood. And that includes matters like keeping Syria off-balance with occupation in its northeast. And constantly threatening Iran.

Obama or Trump, on the main matters of importance abroad – NATO, Russia, Israel/Palestine, China – there has been no difference, except Trump is more openly bellicose and given to saying really stupid things.

By the way, the last President who tried seriously to make foreign policy as the elected head of government left half of his head splattered on thec streets of Dallas.

Sick of Orcs , says: December 6, 2019 at 12:36 pm GMT
@propagandist hacker Or he was fooled, tricked, bribed, coerced by The HoloNose.

Don't get me wrong, the Orange Sellout is to blame regardless.

9/11 Inside job , says: December 6, 2019 at 12:37 pm GMT
@Jon Baptist We have all been brainwashed by the propaganda screened by the massmedia ,whether it be FOX , MSNBC , CBS ,etc.. SeptemberClues.info has a good article entitled "The central role of the news media on 9/11 " :

"The 9/11 psyop relied foremostly on that weakspot of ours .We all fell for the images we saw on TV at the time we can only wonder why so many never questioned the absurd TV coverage proposed by all the major networks The 9/11 TV imagery of the crucial morning events was just a computer-animated, pre-fabricated movie."

Was "The Harley Guy" a crisis actor ?

geokat62 , says: December 6, 2019 at 1:00 pm GMT
@National Institute for Study of the Obvious

So please for once somebody answer this blindingly obvious question, Who is making US foreign policy? CIA, that's who.

Close. You got 4 of the correct letters, AIPAC. You were just missing the P.

CIA runs your country.

No, Jewish Supremacist oligarchs run America.

Herald , says: December 6, 2019 at 1:05 pm GMT
@follyofwar Pat inhabits a strange Hollywood type world, where the US is always the good guy. He believes that, although the US may make foreign policy mistakes, its aims and ambitions are nevertheless noble and well intentioned.

In Pat's world it's still circa 1955, but even then, his take on US foreign policy would have been hopelessly unrealistic.

[Dec 01, 2019] Ilhan Omar deposition text also names Sarsour and Kushner as Qatari assets by DONNA RACHEL

Notable quotes:
"... Despite knowing that it was a failing investment, Qatar leaned on Brookfield to buy 666 Fifth Avenue from Kushner, to write off his debts ..."
"... Jared Kushner approached the government of Qatar for a bailout of 666 Fifth Avenue?" Castenda clarified. "Correct. That's what they told me. ... And they did it. ..."
"... the Qataris said Kushner told them: 'Choose one of two. You pay what I tell you to pay, or I unleash my dogs.'" "The dogs being who?" she asked. "Saudi Arabia and the UAE," Bender replied. ..."
"... American officials are the cheapest to recruit. "British officials, they demand millions to be recruited. American politicians, some of them accept $50,000." ..."
Nov 27, 2019 | www.jpost.com

"We recruited both, Republicans and Democrats, but that's not good enough. We want to rule the White House," the Qataris allegedly said. E

... ... ...

"Everything [Alan Bender] said in the deposition about me has happened," Imam Tawhidi told The Post . "I believe in the deposition and await an investigation. All I want is to be treated fairly," he added. However, Omar was not the only prominent American named in the Bender testimony.

"They [the Qataris] said: 'We recruited both, Republicans and Democrats, but that's not good enough. We want to rule the White House.' So they will," he told the court. Indeed, if Bender's testimony is accurate, they are already close. Explaining that Qatar uses western companies to effectively launder the money they paid to American citizens, Bender cited a $1.4 billion payment which he claims was passed to Jared Kushner from Qatar, via a Canadian company named Brookfield, which he says they have invested heavily in.

Despite knowing that it was a failing investment, Qatar leaned on Brookfield to buy 666 Fifth Avenue from Kushner, to write off his debts. "Why didn't they pay Kusher directly?" the lawyer for the plaintiffs, Ms. Castenda, asked. "Too risky," Bender replied. "Jared Kushner approached the government of Qatar for a bailout of 666 Fifth Avenue?" Castenda clarified. "Correct. That's what they told me. ... And they did it.

And Kushner is happy with them because, according to them, I don't know Kushner personally, but the Qataris said Kushner told them: 'Choose one of two. You pay what I tell you to pay, or I unleash my dogs.'" "The dogs being who?" she asked. "Saudi Arabia and the UAE," Bender replied.

The Qataris were aware that as an investment the pay-off was a write-off, but told Bender, "'We just paid it to pay off his debt. And as long as he's in the White House, we have to do what he wants until we control the White House.' We as in Qatar," Bender clarified. The Jerusalem Post has reached out to Mr Kushner's office for a response. However, no comment has been received as of yet.

Among other claims made by Mr. Bender were that: - The real power in Qatar is Mohammed Al-Masnad, known as 'the CEO.' "After a couple of hours, I was convinced that the Emir of Qatar does not run the show and Mohammed Al-Masnad is in charge of everything. He is also the Emir's uncle. [...] And the Emir's mother is the real king of Qatar." - The second most powerful man in Qatar is a Palestinian, Azmi Bishara. - That Jamal Khashoggi was set up by Qatar to be killed by the Saudis after he was found to have been "playing both sides." "Jamal Khashoggi and Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal were very close friends," Bender said. "[Khashoggi] would receive sensitive secrets ... and he leaks them to the Qataris. The Qataris would leak them to media outlets ... and he was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. I got that confirmation from the Qatari officials." - that "they [Qatar] finance almost 99 percent of Saudi dissidents in the US and the UK. They pay them."

Bender named Ghanem al-Dosari, a well known YouTuber, as one such individual. - Three Italians, known as 'the engineers' were paid by Qatar to hack the accounts of Saudi Arabian and the United Arab Emirates's citizens. "E-mails, text messages, regular phone calls, laptops. Anything you can think of. They hacked into all that."

American officials are the cheapest to recruit. "British officials, they demand millions to be recruited. American politicians, some of them accept $50,000." - The Qataris refer to Trump as "the orange man," and to Kushner as the "descendant of pigs and apes," because he is Jewish.

"And they refer to other American Senators and Congressmen who are Christians as 'Crusaders'."

[Nov 28, 2019] Kushner's Apparent Extortion of Qatar is an interesting gem

Nov 28, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

dltravers , Nov 28 2019 20:51 utc | 44

Kushner's Apparent Extortion of Qatar is an interesting gem. If you remember Rex Tillerson quitting, Saudi Arabia and the UAE almost going to war with Qatar and then Brookstone Partners, financed by Qatar paying, 1.4 billion for Kushers failed 666 building in NY where they were hemorrhaging money.

All this happened so Kushner could shake down Qatar to pay for his families losses? This came out of a recent deposition in Florida concerning the royal family of Qatar. Read Ilhan Omar deposition text also names Sarsour and Kushner as Qatari assets

Quoting...

Indeed, if Bender's testimony is accurate, they are already close.

Explaining that Qatar uses western companies to effectively launder the money they paid to American citizens, Bender cited a $1.4 billion payment which he claims was passed to Jared Kushner from Qatar, via a Canadian company named Brookfield, which he says they have invested heavily in.

Despite knowing that it was a failing investment, Qatar leaned on Brookfield to buy 666 Fifth Avenue from Kushner, to write off his debts.
"Why didn't they pay Kusher directly?" the lawyer for the plaintiffs, Ms. Castenda, asked.
"Too risky," Bender replied.

"Jared Kushner approached the government of Qatar for a bailout of 666 Fifth Avenue?" Castenda clarified.

"Correct. That's what they told me. ... And they did it. And Kushner is happy with them because, according to them, I don't know Kushner personally, but the Qataris said Kushner told them: 'Choose one of two. You pay what I tell you to pay, or I unleash my dogs.'"
"The dogs being who?" she asked.

"Saudi Arabia and the UAE," Bender replied.

The Qataris were aware that as an investment the pay-off was a write-off, but told Bender, "'We just paid it to pay off his debt. And as long as he's in the White House, we have to do what he wants until we control the White House.' We as in Qatar," Bender clarified.

Did we really expect anything less than this?

[Nov 27, 2019] Pompeo Gives Away the Palestinian West Bank, by Philip Giraldi - The Unz Review

From comments: "After all, Pompeo might as well announce hippos can fly. The settlements are illegal. That's a matter of fact -- not opinion."
Notable quotes:
"... If one is seeking evidence to suggest that Pompeo, a man who lies with a fluency that takes one's breath away, is delusional, it would certainly have to include his self-assessment that he has a reputation to protect. It is possible to cite many instances in which Pompeo has asserted something that is absolutely contrary to the truth, though one might also have to concede that he could often be saying what his factually challenged boss wants to hear. When Pompeo was Director of the CIA he even joked openly about how "We lied, we cheated, we stole." ..."
Nov 27, 2019 | www.unz.com

A story has been circulating suggesting that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will soon be resigning because he needs to focus on planning for his campaign to become a Senator from Kansas in 2020. This is good news for the United States, as Senator Lindsey Graham has had no one he is able to talk to about exporting democracy by blowing up the planet since Joe Lieberman retired and John McCain died. And the tale even has a bit of palace intrigue built into it, with an interesting back story as Pompeo is apparently considering his move because he fears that staying in harness with Donald Trump for too long might damage his reputation. There are also reports that he has been traveling to Kansas frequently on the State Department's dime to test the waters, a violation of the Hatch Act which prohibits most government officials from engaging in self-promotional political activities unrelated to their actual jobs.

If one is seeking evidence to suggest that Pompeo, a man who lies with a fluency that takes one's breath away, is delusional, it would certainly have to include his self-assessment that he has a reputation to protect. It is possible to cite many instances in which Pompeo has asserted something that is absolutely contrary to the truth, though one might also have to concede that he could often be saying what his factually challenged boss wants to hear. When Pompeo was Director of the CIA he even joked openly about how "We lied, we cheated, we stole."

Mike Pompeo's latest concession to the war criminals in charge of Israel, clearly intended to boost the electoral chances of Benjamin Netanyahu, is only the most recent dose of the Secretary of State's falsehood piled on fiction. It is generally assumed that the move to help Bibi by interfering in Israeli politics has been made in an effort to have Tel Aviv reciprocate by putting pressure on its many American fellow travelers in the media and congress to go easier on Trump in the impeachment saga. And Trump would also expect additional reciprocity when he runs again in 2020. Even though Netanyahu, who has been indicted over bribery and fraud, will not be able to shift many liberal Jewish votes, he will be able to get allies like mega billionaire Sheldon Adelson to pony up tens of millions of dollars to support the GOP campaign.

The Trump Administration's gifts to Israel are unprecedented, including moving the capital to Jerusalem and acknowledging the annexation of the Syrian Golan Heights. Pompeo, driven by his Christian Zionist beliefs, has been the point man on many of those moves, ably assisted by a U.S. Ambassador David Friedman, ex-bankruptcy lawyer, who has served as a consistent advocate and apologist for Israel with little or no concern for actual American interests. One might also observe that if Pompeo is truly interested in running for the Senate a little help and cash from Israel and its many friends might be very welcome.

The Pompeo gift to Bibi was announced early last week. He said that the Trump Administration is now rejecting the 1978 State Department Hansell Memorandum legal opinion that the creation of civilian settlements in occupied territories is indeed "inconsistent with international law." In a sense, he was giving something away to Israel that neither he nor the Israelis legally possess. He said that he was "accepting realities on the ground" and elaborated on his view that the White House believes legal questions about settlements should be dealt with in Israeli courts, meaning that the hapless Palestinians would have no voice in developments that would deprive them of their homes.

Per Pompeo, "Calling the establishment of civilian settlements inconsistent with international law has not advanced the cause of peace. The hard truth is that there will never be a judicial resolution to the conflict, and arguments about who is right and who is wrong as a matter of international law will not bring peace."

Pompeo's latest statement, consistent with many of his earlier ones, is completely contrary to the Fourth Geneva Convention framework of international law governing behavior by occupying military powers that was established after the Second World War. It ignores the fact that the status quo of expanding settlements has only taken place because of Washington's refusal to do anything about it. The State Department's new interpretation completely embraces arguments being made by hard-line politicians in Israel and opens the door to endorsement by the White House of a total de facto or even de jure annexation of the West Bank by the Jewish state.

Pompeo was talking about the nearly 700,000 illegal exclusively Jewish settlers currently on the West Bank and in East Jerusalem. Palestinians, in many areas under a brutal regime of martial law enforced by the Jewish state's army and police, have virtually no rights and are subject to increasing violent attacks by the settlers. Not surprisingly, Pompeo's statement was rejected by everyone but the Israelis and the usual crowd in the U.S. Congress and media, but even some leading Democratic candidates, including Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, found the decision troubling. The 28 member European Union declared that "All settlement activity is illegal under international law and it erodes the viability of the two-state solution and the prospects for a lasting peace. The E.U. calls on Israel to end all settlement activity, in line with its obligations as an occupying power."

And, of course, there are potential consequences when a government does something stupid. Shortly after Pompeo's announcement, the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem put out a security advisory warning Americans traveling in the West Bank, Jerusalem and Gaza, stating, "Individuals and groups opposed to [the Pompeo] announcement may target U.S. government facilities, U.S. private interests, and U.S. citizens." It suggested that visitors ought "to maintain a high level of vigilance and take appropriate steps to increase their security awareness in light of the current environment."

There is inevitably considerable discussion in some circles regarding what the new situation on the West Bank actually means. To be sure, the number and size of settlements will increase, but some knowledgeable critics like Gilad Atzmon suggest that the move will backfire on the Israelis, who, by taking control of the land, will eventually have to accept some kind of one state solution, giving the Palestinians considerable rights in a not-completely-denominational state. He observes how " inadvertently, Trump has finally committed the U.S.A. to the One State Solution. It is hard to deny that the area between the 'River and the Sea' is a single piece of land. It shares one electric grid, one pre-dial code (+972) and one sewage system. At present, the land is ruled over by a racist, tribal and discriminatory ideology through an apparatus that calls itself 'The Jewish State' and declares itself home for every Jew around the world; yet, is abusive, lethal and some would say genocidal toward the indigenous people of the land Pompeo's declaration provides an explicit and necessary message to the Palestinians in general and in the West Bank in particular. The conflict is not progressing toward a peaceful resolution. Those amongst the Palestinians who advocated the 'Two States Solution' will have to hide now. Pompeo has affirmed that there is one Holy Land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. From now on the battle over this disputed land is whether it will be subject to the racist discriminatory ideology implied by the notion of 'The Jewish State' and its ' National Bill ,' or if it will transform itself into a 'State of its Citizens' as is inherent in the notion of One Palestine."

Tom Suarez posits similarly at Mondoweiss, observing that any form of annexation of the West Bank without giving Palestinians equal rights would basically make Israeli apartheid so visible and unacceptable to world opinion that the Jewish state would become a complete pariah internationally and would be forced to adopt some kind of one state formula.

Nevertheless, even if a one state solution with equal citizenship status for everyone would appear to be both desirable and compliant with modern notions of human rights, it is not necessarily inevitable. The chosen-by-God Israeli state is quite capable of ethnic cleansing or even genocide on a massive scale, as it did originally in 1947-8 when it was founded and also later after it occupied the West Bank and Gaza in 1967. The Jewish state's leaders have repeatedly asserted that there is no such thing as a Palestinian, that Jordan is actually Palestine. They have become skilled at making the lives of Palestinians so miserable by destroying their farms, other livelihood and even their homes while also controlling their infrastructure, killing them if they resist, that they emigrate. Christians in Palestine, the original followers of Jesus Christ, constituted close to 8 percent of the population in 1946 but now number less than 2 percent. Most have chosen to leave rather than submit to Israel.

There is no reason to doubt that the Israelis could continue their creeping annexation of the West Bank for ten more years or so while also deliberately driving the remaining Arabs out. I have little doubt that that is precisely what they will do and they will be empowered to do so by the United States, which will never develop either the integrity or the courage to push back against "America's closest ally and best friend in the entire 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 councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected] .

Anon [154] Disclaimer , says: November 26, 2019 at 3:01 am GMT

Well, what the heck, why not? It's not like the Palestinians were doing anything with the West Bank. They might as well pass it on off to a more ambitious property developer. Call it the Middle East's version of Eminent Domain. If you can't develop it, it's going to end up in the hands of someone who will, and they'll gentrify it in the process. The Palestinians will be redlined right out of their old neighborhoods, and since the Palestinians are more hoods than neighbors, good riddance.
Anonymous [362] Disclaimer , says: November 26, 2019 at 5:25 am GMT
@Anon "Why not? It's not like Jews were doing anything with Lebensraum in the first place. They might as well pass it to more ambitious Reich developers. Call it 'Adolfian Domain'! If you can't develop it, Shlomo, give it to those who will. In any case, Juden will be rothlined out of their old shtetls. And since the Tribe is filled with hoods, not good neighbors, the world will say, 'Good auschwitzriddance'!"
Colin Wright , says: Website November 26, 2019 at 5:27 am GMT
@Anon ' The Palestinians will be redlined right out of their old neighborhoods, and since the Palestinians are more hoods than neighbors, good riddance.'

More or less what Hitler said about inferior races.

Great minds think alike.

chris , says: November 26, 2019 at 5:52 am GMT
@Colin Wright Yeah, we certainly have reached 'peak grovel,' however, there's a long way down to the nadir, because Israel is not done digesting its pray, nor with expanding its territory.

As in their attack of southern Lebanon in 2006, where they were stopped by Hesbollah, that expansion is still in the plans. All the ME wars we've been involved with since 911 have had as a strategic goal to destroy Iran in order to weaken Hesbollah, in order to, among other things, take southern Lebanon.

We're being lowered into hell in a hand-basket and are probably only 1/3 of the way down, so we're going to reach many more 'peak grovel' milestones on the way to John McCain's resting place.

mark green , says: November 26, 2019 at 6:17 am GMT

"[Pompeo's latest statement] ignores the fact that the status quo of expanding [Jewish] settlements has only taken place because of Washington's refusal to do anything about it."

Actually, it's even worse than that, Philip.

The US–as a deeply-compromised, long-term 'peace broker' between Israel and the Palestinians–has in fact been an active and willing partner with the Jewish State vis-a-vis it's race-centered, biblically-inspired objective of acquiring East Jerusalem, Syria's Golan Heights, conquering Gaza, and colonizing the West Bank.

With the possible exception of Jimmy Carter, the construction of Israeli 'settlements' (as well as the confiscation of land adjacent to Israel) has occurred under the watch of each and every US administration and Congress since 1967. This deliberate process amounts to incremental warfare.

Despite these facts, every Israeli transgression has been followed up by the delivery of billions more in US aid to Israel along with additional billions in state-of-the-art US weaponry. This is an extremely sweet deal. And it is incredibly one-sided.

At the UN, Zio-Washington has also provided diplomatic cover for the rogue Zionist state every time Israel has violated international law or UN protocols since LBJ.

Over the past 50 years, scores of UN resolutions that sought to censure Israel for its lawlessness have been vetoed by top US officials. These actions are unparalleled.

Despite the feeble attempt of a few US Presidents to push back (Ford and Bush Sr.) Zio-Washington has never decisively withheld aid to the Jewish state, no matter what–(this acquiescence by Washington even includes the 'unfortunate accident' that occurred in 1967 in international waters involving US-made Israeli fighter jets and one American intelligence-gathering vessel.)

What kind of a 'relationship' is this?

Not only is American aid to the Zionist state more lavish than the amount of aid received by any other country in US history, it is also awarded to Israel unconditionally.

Actual US states don't have a relationship this deliciously one-sided with our Federal government.

This one-way 'relationship' renders Zio-Washington a working (junior) partner in Israel's slow-motion genocide of its native gentiles.

Ironically, modern Israel has displaced a culture in Palestine that was relatively peaceful, tolerant, and integrated.

Stranger still: secular, 'multicultural' America has unwittingly signed on to this colonial, supremacist agenda with nary a peep of protest.

It's quiet out there. Too quiet.

Greg Bacon , says: Website November 26, 2019 at 8:25 am GMT
Some breathed a sigh of relief when Nutty Nikki Haley left that spot, only to be replaced by someone just as deluded, if not crazier.
I'm sure President Jared will find another clueless and irrational, Israeli-Firster to appoint to that position, one who has been blessed by Sheldon Adelson and Haim Saban.
Paul , says: November 26, 2019 at 9:28 am GMT
Donald Trump's groveling before the Israel Lobby is not going to get rid of Jewish support for ending his presidency. It is a sign of weakness.
anon [282] Disclaimer , says: November 26, 2019 at 9:31 am GMT
Where is Europe on all of this? Can't they sanction the United States to prevent this? Or maybe openly endorse sanctions on Israel? It's time for the world to step up and act.
AnonStarter , says: November 26, 2019 at 9:59 am GMT
Israel is headed for difficult times. The BDS movement is gaining steam at a pace that's outstripped that of the anti-apartheid movement, and anti-BDS legislation in America is collapsing in the courts. Demographically, Israel's military service-resistant Haredim will soon become their largest constituency and Arabs on both sides of the wire will outnumber Jews throughout the region.

It won't happen overnight, but it isn't too far away.

Anonymous [671] Disclaimer , says: November 26, 2019 at 10:28 am GMT
Nasty bit of work, that Trump. I think it's a shame that nationalists all across the Western world see him as their figurehead because it doesn't look good at all.
lavoisier , says: Website November 26, 2019 at 12:08 pm GMT
@Colin Wright We are a servile nation in thrall to a genocidal regime.

Disgusting. Absolutely disgusting.

The crimes of our government have turned all of us into criminals.

Auld Alliance , says: November 26, 2019 at 12:24 pm GMT

Pompeo, driven by his Christian Zionist beliefs,

I`m always wary of trying to get into people`s heads and declaring what they think

How about :-

Pompeo, who claims to be driven by his Christian Zionist beliefs,

Or something like that instead?

After all, I`m sure Pompeo would prefer to claim "I`m doing this due to my (perhaps a bit wacky) beliefs, and I am also clearly a Christian" rather than say "I`m doing this for Israeli Benjamins and not just the Netanyahu type."

SolontoCroesus , says: November 26, 2019 at 12:40 pm GMT
Truman: "I am Cyrus!"

Pompeo: "I am Balfour!"

Factoid: Balfour had buyer's remorse very shortly after having been cornered into giving to Jews that which they did not have. His remorse was heightened by Jewish terrorists who killed the British soldiers and diplomats who secured Palestine for Jews.

His preference was for Britain to wash its hands of 'the Jewish state,' as the British ultimately did.
"The sins of the father are visited on their children."

Mr. A. J. Balfour to the Secretary of State
Washington, January 13, 1922 .

My Dear Mr. Hughes: You will remember that some days ago I mentioned my great anxiety to get the agreements in regard to the Mandate for Palestine advanced a stage in order that the Council of the League of Nations might give it their blessing at the meeting which is now, I think, going on at Geneva. . . .

The task which the British Government have undertaken in Palestine is one of extreme difficulty and delicacy. At Paris I always warmly advocated that it should be undertaken, not by Britain, but by the U.S.A. ; and though subsequent events have shewn me that such a policy would never have commended itself to the American people I still think that, so far as the Middle East is concerned, it would have been the best.

ChuckOrloski , says: November 26, 2019 at 1:28 pm GMT
@mark green Wisely, and I place emphasis on the word "possible," Mark Green wrote: "With the possible exception of Jimmy Carter, the construction of Israeli 'settlements' (as well as the confiscation of land adjacent to Israel) has occurred under the watch of each and every US administration and Congress since 1967."

Hey Mark!

As you know, President Carter brokered the 1979 Camp David Agreement with Begin and Sadat. Such is considered the former president's greatest achievement.

A question. Who do you think most benefited from this agreement?

As reminder, in October 1981, Anwar Sadat was assassinated by presumably the Muslim Brotherhood, and the murder soon elevated the authoritarian & ruthless Hosni Mubarak as Egypt president. Of course, Israel and the US were comfortable with Mubarak.

If no response comment, Mark, I understand. Thank you.

Johnny Walker Read , says: November 26, 2019 at 1:28 pm GMT
Christian Zionism – The gift that keeps on giving(((for a certain few))). You can't fix stupid!!
Richard B , says: November 26, 2019 at 1:39 pm GMT
@mark green I go into detail here folks, and will offer a justification as to why. So, kindly bear with me.

What kind of a 'relationship' is this?

Master/Slave.

Or, since many of the same people are the purveyors of porn,

Sado-Masochistic.

Their Master/Sadism can be seen, quoting from Mark's comment,

expanding [Jewish] settlements

race-centered colonizing

Israeli confiscation of land

deliberate incremental warfare

Israeli transgression

the rogue Zionist state violated international law

Israel lawlessness

colonial, supremacist

deliciously one-sided

one-way 'relationship'

incredibly one-sided

The last three work both ways, of course, and provide a nice segue into the Slave/Masochist role played by the US (and not just the US).

The US–deeply-compromised

an active and willing partner

US aid to Israel

diplomatic cover for the rogue Zionist state

feeble attempt to push back

acquiescence – no matter what

unconditionally

There's a reason many sites have dropped their comment sections. As the comment section at TUR, and not just TUR, has made perfectly clear, commenters can help amplify and extend the ideas covered in any article, thereby driving the point home.

The point here is that human beings have but one task – to adapt to their environment, which is the same thing as saying, to adapt the environment to themselves.

Humans have the power to manipulate the environment to their advantage. But, they also have the power to manipulate the environment to their disadvantage, if they're stupid enough, as they must necessarily be, since they can see the environment only under the pressure of their needs.

The more people do this, the more the single-mindedness of purpose emerges, the less flexibility they demonstrate, the more Either/Or (Master/Slave, S & M) the world becomes, the more psychotic the behavior, the more the crazy comes out.

When enough people can see this to form a critical mass, then a culture crisis inevitably breaks out.

And that is the position we're in today.

No wonder they're cracking down on the Internet.

If there's one thing psychotics fear above all else, it's exposure.

Jewish Supremacy Inc. has rendered the USA powerless and reduced it to the status of a domesticated animal, a pet. And therein lies their stupidity and the world's dilema.

JSI routinely violates that which it is dependent on. By killing its Proxy, it kills itself.

And there's no question that the USA is dying. But then, so to is JSI.

That's what is really going on. What we're witnessing is The Pyrrhic Victory of JSI.

This explains why, now that they've sucked all of the blood out of the West in general and the USA in particular, they're currently engaged in a Fire Sale, where everything must go, and with only one buyer – China.

All Master/Slave, S & M relations are a degrading Dance of Death, which is how it ends, for both.

Osama , says: November 26, 2019 at 2:04 pm GMT
1. According to our Bible, it was Jews who were responsible for falsely accusing Jesus (pbuh), deceiving the masses about his true mission and causing him to be crucified by the Romans. It is also true that in the Bible Jesus called Jews murderers, children of the devil, vipers, liars and other vile things. Jesus did not pull any punches in describing them. I guess in today's world he would have been arrested for Antisemitism. He realized the truth and exposed them for what they really were. You Christian Zionists and far right Christians should go study your Bible. You may either learn something or come back denouncing Jesus as an anti-Semite.
2. According to many respected WW1 historians it was Jews who tricked Britain into agreeing to give them Palestine in exchange for getting the U.S. into WW1. Benjamin Freedman, a friend of some of the major leaders in our time and who is also a Jew, admitted this during a major speech given to patriots in 1961. The Neturei Karta, a devoutly Jewish religious group also admits the same. There are numerous scholars, historians and Jews who describe in detail how WW1 was started and fought with one of the main goals being securing Palestine for Jews. Here is a link to more information about that:
A Jewish Defector Warns America
3. It was Jews who caused the pogroms of their own people in Russia around the 1890s, so that the world will hate the regime of the Czar and cause millions of Jews to flee to the U.S. for political gain. Under the orders of Jacob Schiff in New York and the Rothschilds, they massacred hundreds of fellow Jews to have Russians blamed for this act and cause the immigration of thousands of other Jews to the US. Among other things, this resulted in world opinion turned against the Czar and his government and set up the bloody overthrow of his regime by the Bolsheviks.
The Illuminati and the Council on Foreign Relations
4. As admitted to by many historians and even by the ultra Israeli religious group, the Neturei Karta, WW2 was engineered by Jews and the leadership of the Jews made an alliance with Hitler causing thousands of German Jews to be killed so that others will flee en mass to Israel. They also forced the U.S. president Roosevelt to get into WW2 by embargoing Japanese oil causing them to attack the U.S. at Pearl Harbor. Roosevelt went along with this plan, all the while knowing ahead of time about the Japanese attack and the murder of thousands of Americans. See the following for more:
Stranger Than Fiction

5. The Iraqi Jew Naeem Giladi wrote a book detailing how Israelis performed terrorist actions and caused the deaths of many Jewish Iraqis during the 1950s so that Arab Iraqis can be blamed for it. The purpose of these terrorist actions was to cause Jews to migrate to Israel from Iraq. All but 6,000 of the 125,000 Jews in Iraq fled to Israel.
http://www.savethemales.ca/030203.html
6. A few years after the end of World War II, the Zionist plan to establish the nation of Israel in Palestine was finally realized. But not before the British protectors of Palestine were chased out by acts of terror carried out by ungrateful Zionist terrorists. It was British troops who unwittingly sacrificed their lives in order to steal Palestine away from Arab control and allowed the Jews of Europe to immigrate there. But with Great Britain left weakened and in debt from World War II, the ungrateful Zionists saw their opportunity to now chase the British out of Palestine by committing acts of terrorism against them. The most notorious of the Zionist terror groups was the Irgun, whose leader Menachem Begin would one day go on to become the Prime Minister of Israel and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.
On the morning of July 22, 1946, a group of 15-20 Irgun terrorists dressed as Arabs entered the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. They unloaded 225 kilograms of explosives hidden in milk churns. The King David Hotel housed the Secretariat of the Government of Palestine and Headquarters of the British Forces in Palestine. When a British officer became suspicious, a shootout took place and the Irgun lit the fuses and fled. The explosion destroyed part of the hotel and killed 91 people. Most of the victims were British but 15 innocent Jews also died. Menachem Begin was not merely suspected of being behind these murderous deeds. Begin admitted that the Irgun committed these acts and that they were necessary for the establishment of a Jewish state.
Stranger Than Fiction
7. In 1956, as reported by the Times Of London, during one of Israel's perpetual wars with its neighbors, the Israeli Mossad tried to trick the United States into siding with Israel against Egypt by blowing up a US facility in Cairo and blaming the Egyptians for it. The plot was wrecked when the operatives were caught and confessed, creating a huge scandal. This event was referred to as the Lavon Affair named after the Israeli Defense Minister, Pinhas Lavon, at that time.
http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=6854
http://www.the7thfire.com/new_world_order/zionism/mossad/lavon_affair.htm
8. According to Victor Ostrovski, a defector from the Israeli Mossad, the US was tricked into bombing Libya when the Israeli Mossad planted a radio transmitter in Tripoli which sent out fake orders to "terrorists" which the US could intercept. The faked orders caused Libya to be blamed for a German disco bombing. As a result of this fake transmission, Reagan used it as evidence to bomb Libya killing 30 innocent people including Qaddhafi's baby daughter.
http://100777.com/node/101
9. On June 8, 1967 Israel used unmarked fighters and torpedo boats to launch an hour and one-half long attack on the American Navy ship the USS Liberty, costing 34 American sailors their lives and 171 wounded. The Israelis first attacked the Liberty's radio towers in an attempt to stop the Sixth Fleet from learning that the Israelis were the attackers. After unmarked Israeli fighters horrendously bombed and strafed the Liberty, Israel sent in torpedo boats to finish the job. They even machine gunned the deployed life rafts in an effort to ensure that there would be no survivors (witnesses) who could expose them. Just as in the Lavon Affair, Israel hoped to blame this act of war on their enemy, the Egyptians. This time, only the courage and resourcefulness of the Liberty's crew prevented a further compounding of the travesty.
http://home.cfl.rr.com/gidusko/liberty/
9. It was Israelis who were armed with 9mm pistols, nine grenades, explosives, three detonators and 58 bullets and caught in Mexico in an attempt to blow the Mexican Congress up on October 10, 2001, one month after 9/11. Curiously these Israelis were found not with Israeli passports in their possession but with Pakistani passports. The Israelis were booked for conspiracy to destroy a building by means of an explosive by the Mexican police. If they were successful in blowing up the Mexican Congress, then like 9/11, it would have been blamed on Muslim terrorists, especially if Pakistani passports were found at the scene of the crime. They got caught red-handed here and only God knows how many other incidents that innocent Muslims are being blamed for that was really done by Israelis. See the following link for more on this:

"America's only ally in the Middle East, Israel, has been responsible for more acts of terror, sabotage, and murder of American citizens than the Muslims ever were. By her duplicity, she has put Americans in more danger than they have ever known or will know. She has bombed hotels, American government buildings, deliberately allowed hundreds of US Marines to be killed in their barracks in Lebanon, assaulted a US intelligence gathering ship, the USS Liberty (for the purposes of blaming the Arabs and thus drawing America into her war against them) stole and then sold America's most sensitive nuclear weapons technology to her enemies, (Russia and China) and by all indicators most certainly was involved in the 9/11 attacks. Whether it was the testimony given by the Israeli pilots who bombed and machine gunned the USS Liberty (killing 34 American sailors and wounding almost 200 more) or whether it was the Israeli intelligence officers who were arrested on 9/11 (while videotaping the destruction and cheering for a job well done) so much evidence exists which leaves no doubt as to who America's real enemy is, and yet short of one individual's conviction and prison sentence, Jonathon Pollard, nothing has been done with Israel with respect to justice or the interests of America's security. By contrast, year after year she is rewarded with more and more money and even more in terms of immunity and insulation from public scrutiny. The American people, supposedly a Christian people, have displayed not an ounce of the same concern for this obvious danger against their physical well-being which they attempt to display now over the supposed danger posed by Islamic extremism. Through the eyes of a Muslim therefore, the picture of the modern day Western Christian is one of an intellectually compliant, politically and religiously complacent individual who cannot think for himself or act in his own best interests outside of the programming which he receives from his Zionist puppet masters. Even today, as the headlines are blaring out the obvious vindication of this image by virtue of the fact that the war in Iraq was fought on completely false pretenses, the average conservative Christian in America who has adopted this irrational fear of Islam has taken no note of this nor does he appear to have been affected in the least."
Through the Eyes of a Muslim

Sean , says: November 26, 2019 at 2:12 pm GMT
@Richard B

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Bank
The name West Bank is a translation of the Arabic term ad-Diffah I-Garbiyyah, given to the territory west of the Jordan River that fell, in 1948, under occupation and administration by Jordan, which subsequently annexed it in 1950. This annexation was considered illegal and was recognized only by Britain, Iraq and Pakistan .[14] The term was chosen to differentiate the west bank of the River Jordan from the "east bank" of this river

America never recognised Jordan as having sovereignty over the West Bank, so when it lost it the position was not obviously the same as one country occupying another's territory. There was a legal opinion of how international law applied, that is all.

Durruti , says: November 26, 2019 at 2:33 pm GMT

The chosen-by-God Israeli state is quite capable of ethnic cleansing or even genocide on a massive scale, as it did originally in 1947-8 when it was founded and also later after it occupied the West Bank and Gaza in 1967. The Jewish state's leaders have repeatedly asserted that there is no such thing as a Palestinian, that Jordan is actually Palestine. They have become skilled at making the lives of Palestinians so miserable by destroying their farms, other livelihood and even their homes while also controlling their infrastructure, killing them if they resist,

The above is the Heart of Giraldi's article. Add to that, one of today's headlines, below, where the leader of Britain's Labor Party, Jeremy Corbyn , is routinely attacked in the Zionist owned American and British Mainstream Media. In the Zionist diatribe, there is not a mention of the complaints of the indigenous inhabitants of Palestine. Not an ounce of honesty is allowed by the Zionist New World Order's propaganda machine. If you oppose them, they will assassinate you, one way, or another.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/uk-chief-rabbi-says-corbyns-labour-is-poisoned-against-jews/ar-BBXkozX?li=BBnbcA1&ocid=iehp

The Zionist Financial Oligarchs are omnipotent, but no one loves them.

Durruti

Rich , says: November 26, 2019 at 4:08 pm GMT
The Turkish flag still flies over Constantinople, after having killed millions and forcefully converting or mistreating the Christians who lived there. In fact, the now Muslim countries of N Africa as well as Lebanon and Syria were also Christian lands. The tortures and degradations suffered by the formerly Christian people in this region are well documented. Where is the outrage? When does Mr Giraldi write an article about what Muslims have done to the original Christians who lived in this region?

The Israelis aren't leaving. The Palestinians, as a defeated peaple, have to find a way to make peace with their conqueror. Their Muslim ancestors were much less kind to the Christians who lived there, than the Israelis have been to them.

tradecraft46 , says: November 26, 2019 at 4:18 pm GMT
As the World Court has ruled, Israel holds the land by "Right of Conquest", by winning a defensive war.

If you live by the sword you die by the sword, so you have no complaint if you lose.

Israel may not be very good, but you have to be obey the law.

Personally, being a WASP, I think Muslims deserve what they get, but so do the Jews, Fiat Ludi!

Baaw , says: November 26, 2019 at 4:56 pm GMT
Pompeo was clearly rotated through the DCI billet just long enough to get him briefed for his focal point job at CIA's Foggy Bottom site. A rare non-tendentious question: What was the line he was getting on Israel policy? "International law has not advanced the cause of peace" is CIA boilerplate for everyplace. Is it CIA's stated policy to repudiate international law for the benefit of Israel? Or did Pompeo go off the reservation?
ChuckOrloski , says: November 26, 2019 at 5:29 pm GMT
The ZUS Executive Branch and cohort Knesset Congress West gave the West Bank to Israel. Pompeo merely conveyed the done-deal to Amerikans.

Fyi, as the Crusades have become topical on this article thread, it's good to recall how ZUS "War President" G.W. Bush slipped up (as usual ) and announced his administration's Crusade.

Curmudgeon , says: November 26, 2019 at 5:51 pm GMT
@Durruti I agree with your comment overall, but would like to point out the flaw in your Giraldi quote that no one addresses.
If the Jews claim Jordan is the real Palestine, then why do the Jews want Jerusalem as their capital, and claim the Golan Heights, West Bank and the rest of "Israel"?
The Balfour Declaration supported the resettlement of Jews in Palestine therefore Jordan, not all of the other territory they claim. As poster Sean has observed, the West Bank is not universally recognized as part of Jordan. Neither the Golan Heights nor Jerusalem have ever been part of Palestine – Jordan.
While it may piss off the King of Jordan, perhaps the question needs to be put to the Zionists, suggesting strongly that the Balfour Declaration has been misinterpreted, and the US recognition of Israel was wrong and will be withdrawn.
9/11 Inside job , says: November 26, 2019 at 6:02 pm GMT
Jeremy Hammond : "Why Israel has no right to exist " writing in the Foreign Policy Journal :
" There is a popular belief that Israel was founded through some kind of legitimate political process . This is absurd .when they declared Israel's independence Jews owned less than 7% of the land of Palestine The Zionist leadership relied on the UN's Resolution 181 for their claim of legitimate authority . The truth is that the resolution did no such thing . The UN General Assembly had no authority to partition the land against the will of the majority of its inhabitants . Nor did it claim to ."
Curmudgeon , says: November 26, 2019 at 6:03 pm GMT
The "problem" with Trump, is that his thought processes were developed for different circumstances. His statements are often confusing, giving opposite affirmatives or negatives. They are likely perfect for the business world. I think it is too soon to discard his sometimes bizarre actions.
He has stated many times that he's the best thing ever for Israel. He has made decisions regarding Israel that have been ridiculed at home and abroad. In Trump's drain the undefined swamp world, Israel could well be part of his swamp. There is an old adage, keep your friends close and your enemies closer.
His seemingly bizarre actions have made more people than ever acutely aware of the poisonous effects of the Israeli lobby. The attack on his Presidency is dominated by Jews, and the public sees that.
"If music be the food of love, play on,
Give me excess of it; that surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die."

― William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

AnonStarter , says: November 26, 2019 at 7:08 pm GMT
@Rich /When does Mr Giraldi write an article about what Muslims have done to the original Christians who lived in this region?/

Don't like what Mr. Giraldi has to say, eh?

There are an astounding number of blogs throughout cyberspace devoted to your perspective. You're more than welcome to part company with us and join your fellow hasbaraites there.

On your way out the door, a little perspective for you, courtesy of Moshe Sharett:

http://www.palestinechronicle.com/attacking-churches-in-palestine-an-israeli-policy-since-1948/

Israeli documents have revealed that the Israeli army deliberately adopted a policy based on the destruction, vandalism and harm of the sanctity of churches in Palestine, during and after the 1948 war. An Israeli book, which will be published next month, explains how the Israeli army carried out seizure and destruction operations against churches located in the Palestinian cities, towns and villages the army took control off after expelling their people.

According to the protocol, Sharett described the army's violations of the church saying, "the officers and soldiers deliberately harmed the Christian sanctities; their behaviour is that of beasts, not human beings." Sharett also said, "The attacks suffered by the churches at the hands of the soldiers and officers are a shameful page in Israel's history."

This book also revealed that Sharett compared Israel, which allowed such acts, to "an evil and brutal Caesar that promotes nothing but destruction." He added: "The soldiers and officers turned the churches to toilets where they would tend to their needs." The book also goes on to reveal that Sharett told members of the Mapai party, in a meeting in July 1949, that Israel deliberately declared the areas containing churches as military zones in order to justify its refusal to allow foreign visitors and tourists to enter these areas and churches in an attempt to prevent them from witnessing the army's heinous violations.

Sharett also said that the soldiers stole a very valuable crown made of precious stones from one of the churches. He also noted another incident where the soldiers broke the hand off a sculpture of Jesus in one of the churches in order to steal the gold bracelets that were on it, as an example of the systematic looting and stealing from the churches which lasted for months. He stressed that the Israeli officers and soldiers also intentionally harmed the sanctity of the churches and tore holy books, mentioning that the acts of destruction committed against the churches were not only committed by the officers and soldiers, but also by many settlers, especially those who newly immigrated.

Herald , says: November 26, 2019 at 7:16 pm GMT
@SolontoCroesus So Balfour announced his sordid scheme, and then expected someone else to get their hands dirty by putting it into effect. It took a little time though, but effectively that is just what has happened. Much of the filth has now washed off Britain's grubby hands and has floated its way across the North Atlantic, where it now seems very much at home. Balfour would be well pleased.
DeepThought , says: November 26, 2019 at 7:17 pm GMT
@Colin Wright Dual citizenship has killed loyalty to America.
Truth3 , says: November 26, 2019 at 7:31 pm GMT

Orthodox leaders say they've embraced Trump because of his pro-Israel policies, including voiding the Iran nuclear deal. Some pointed to Trump's commuting of Hasidic meatpacking boss Sholom Rubashkin's 27-year-sentence for bank fraud and money laundering in 2017.

Trump has always been a shabbos goy just like his Dad and Brother.

His wives and kids are all Jews, so you see, he was never one to care about the goyim.

He was faking all along.

Miggle , says: November 26, 2019 at 7:44 pm GMT
@DESERT FOX

It is worse than that, they attacked the USS Liberty and the WTC on 911, they have free rein to do anything , they are the untouchables, killers and wreckers of nations including America.

It is worse than that. Today the whole world hates the USA. Until the Jews went on their genocidal rampage in 1948 the whole world loved the USA. Even the Iranians loved the USA then, but not for long, not after the USA, the worst enemy of Democracy the world has ever known, turned their constitutional monarch into a particularly vicious, obedient dictator.

So that's Israel's (and the CIA's) greatest achievement, making everyone in the whole world hate the USA, making the final demise of the USA a total certainty.

Yet it would be so, so easy for the USA to make the whole world love it again. Step one, force an immediate One State Solution, with equal rights for all, on Israel.

Robert Dolan , says: November 26, 2019 at 8:08 pm GMT
@Curmudgeon The Greater Israel Plan means that israel is going to steal massive tracts of arab land, and white

Christian soldiers are going to die in the effort.

Anonymouse , says: November 26, 2019 at 8:11 pm GMT
@anarchyst Montesquiou pointed out that every nation is founded on a crime. A known truth for historical times, and a likely supposition about pre-historical change of rulership. True of the US, Canada, NZ, Australia in recent times.

The jews are merely the most recent example of that principle. Most of the Arab inhabitants of Israel's slice of Palestine were driven into exile, into the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon.

The jews have no right to their territory, no more than any other nation. They hold their territory by force of arms. Selective arm-chair moralizing about injustice to the Palestinians may be judged to be nothing more than hot air plus an atavistic hatred, possibly religiously based, of the jews.

The 75 year long existence of Israel has culminated in a high-class civilization, materially and professionally impressive, socially unified by majority army conscription, with efficient governance chosen democratically.

Their Ungluck is to have colonized in the wrong area surrounded by religiously based enemies. The Spartans in antiquity is an approximate parallel.

They prevailed over their enemies for centuries until they didn't. Why? One possible explanation is that their fertility rate dwindled with a concommitant loss of military supremacy. Happily, the Israeli birthrate is extremely high among the 20% religious and among the secular as well.

According to Wikipedia, "With an average of three children per woman, Israel also has the highest fertility rate in the OECD by a considerable margin and much higher than the OECD average of 1.7."

Anastasia , says: November 26, 2019 at 8:42 pm GMT
Well trumps campaign promise was to get rid of NATO and while it looks like he reneged on that promise his actions in forcing nato countries to pay their fair share is effectively dismantling nato. Maybe in his recognition of things in Israel which he has no authority to recognize is causing Israel to act in a way to create the one state scenario as the author suggests. Maybe trump is not as dumb as he looks or maybe someone above has his hand on the throttle
mark green , says: November 26, 2019 at 8:47 pm GMT
@ChuckOrloski Hi Chuck. Who benefited most from the Camp David? As you may recall, there were a series of agreements and accords that began with Camp David (which was primarily just an overrated peace deal between Israel and Egypt) but it set the stage (allegedly) for a comprehensive peace settlement involving the Palestinians as well as the larger Arab world.

But this vaunted peace process finally failed. The 'two state' solution has been dumped. Israel is now in conquest mode.

As for Camp David, Israel got Egypt to accept Greater Israel and to break away from the rest of the Arab League. This marked one of the first significant cracks in the Arab wall of anti-Zionist solidarity. It looks as if this was Israel's game plan all along. Jewish Henry Kissinger made this happen. Very clever. Very duplicitous.

The crypto-Israelis among us continue to dominate this multi-decade chess match, with Washington still carrying their bags. So we're left with this:

The expanding Jewish state continues to gain more territory while bringing its divided foes to heel.

US aid to nuclear Israel remains unconditional.

Israel's native non-Jews are still being crushed.

Looking back, the US squandered vast amounts of time, money and prestige on a peace process that went nowhere. The Palestinians continue to suffer and die. And Israel isn't done yet.

The Zions want 'regime change' in Iran and the alliance between Russia, Assad's Syria and Iran smashed. More conflict ahead.

Amerimutt Golems , says: November 26, 2019 at 9:43 pm GMT
@mark green

With the possible exception of Jimmy Carter, the construction of Israeli 'settlements' (as well as the confiscation of land adjacent to Israel) has occurred under the watch of each and every US administration and Congress since 1967. This deliberate process amounts to incremental warfare.

Carter is no saint. He covered up Israel's nuclear test just to preserve his legacy as international peacemaker.

The Vela Incident: South Atlantic Mystery Flash in September 1979 Raised Questions about Nuclear Test
https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/nuclear-vault/2016-12-06/vela-incident-south-atlantic-mystery-flash-september-1979-raised-questions-about-nuclear-test

[Nov 27, 2019] Could your county use some extra money?

Highly recommended!
Nov 27, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

catherine , 26 November 2019 at 05:16 PM

Could your county use some extra money?

According to the US Census there are 3031 counties in the US.
If we redirected the $3.8 billion plus the 500,000,000 for missile defense that we give Israel to US counties budgets each county would receive about
$ 1.3 million.

If we included the $1.2 billion each we give to Egypt and Jordon for signing the Carter peace treaty with Israel that figure increases to $2.3 million for each county.

While $2.3 million may be a small figure for counties with metro cities, it would be a large amount for the majority of counties across the nation.

Since aid to Israel alone accounts for 50% of US foreign aid who would oppose this re direct of taxpayers money...besides the politicians...and how would the politicians explain their opposition to the districts they supposedly represent?

[Nov 26, 2019] Why Pompeo Gives Away the Palestinian West Bank

Nov 26, 2019 | www.unz.com

BannedHipster , says: November 26, 2019 at 3:21 pm GMT

Trump must be doing some really terrible stuff on all those Ghislaine Maxwell/Jeffrey Epstein tapes.

[Nov 08, 2019] Who has Trump kept his promise to?

Nov 08, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Jackrabbit , Nov 8 2019 17:31 utc | 8

Who has Trump kept his promise to?

Tea Party foot soldiers?

Repeal and replace Obamacare on day one
Nope. Quietly dropped coverage for prior conditions.

Build a Wall - and Mexico's gonna pay for it!

Not really. Building sections of a wall that USA will pay for.

Drain the swamp

Nope - unless by "swamp" Trump means the Democratic Party.

"Lock her up!"

Nope. He says they're good people who have been thru a lot. Aww . . .
America?
End the "threat" from NK "Rocket man"
Nope. No follow-thru on the (sham) Summit.

End the new Cold War

Nope. Increased military spending; ended treaties; militarized space.

End "forever wars", bring the troops home

Nope.

Bring jobs home

Uncertain: trade War with China doesn't necessarily mean jobs coming back US.

= = = = = = = =

Republican Party?

Cut taxes
YES!

Cut regulations on business

YES!

Israel?

Move Embassy to Jerusalem
YES!

Recognize Golan Heights as part of Israel

YES!

End aid to Palestinians

YES!

Don't give up on Syrian regime-change

YES!

US MIC, Netanyahu, MbS?

End US participation in the JCPOA
YES!

McCain: "bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran"

"locked and loaded"
!!

[Oct 24, 2019] If motives can signal the future, the present convulsions in the US government signal that America has been taken over by the Zionists who populate all avenues of US power structures.

Oct 24, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

CarlD , Oct 23 2019 23:37 utc | 21

if motives can signal the future, the present convulsions in the US government signal that America has been taken over by the Zionists who populate all avenues of US power structures.

It is inconceivable that Trump who has been up to now catering to AIPAC and the Israeli lobbies and actors would be subjected to ignominy because he seems to want to abandon Syria. But. let's face it, Israel wants mayhem to engulf Syria, an ally of Iran and the Hezbollah.

American troops' withdrawal from Syria is seen as anathema by Zionists and Israeli likewise.
The Jewish interests can pull numerous strings in America to prevent this from happening. Trump is caught between a hammer and a nail. He wants to be reelected so he has to fulfill his promises
to his bases. Bring the troops home and all this nice stuff.

But his Israeli masters will make life difficult for him as long as he is not pandering to Israel's wishes.

There is a subtle game whereas the MSM assaults Trump but his actions are all in favor of his MSM detractors. Actor or puppet remains to be elucidated. No tax on the rich, Jerusalem, Golan Heights, the West Bank,, the Jordan Valley, all gifts to the criminal state of Israel.

And then, sanctions on China? If Trump wants to return the industrial jobs to America, he has to put tariffs on all imported goods, regardless of origin. Not only from Germany and China because they are successful exporters to America.

He would also have to put a stop on the expatriation of capital to other countries in view of reducing the ability of Wall Street to export jobs.

We do not see any of these actions from the WH so DJT is not the angel he wants to project himself to be.

For the time being, his orders of withdrawal are freeing some of the Syrian territories recently under US watch. The best thing for Syria is that it now has control over most of its territory. Much to the disgust of Israel.

I can see that Israel's greatest wish is to see a conflagration between Iran and the USA. There will be more false flags until one is so painful that Israel will be destroyed.

The Samson option is anti-Jewish. Will Israel bomb The City, New York and other great congregations of Zionists?

Remains to be seen.

[Oct 24, 2019] Joltin' Jack Keane wants your kids to fight Russia and Syria over Syrian oil by Colonel Patrick Lang

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Whilst the are absorbing that part of their country the battle of Iblib will restart. After that they can move their attention south and southeast, al-Tanf and the oilfields. I can't see how the US will be able to stop them but at least they will have time to plan their exit. ..."
"... At the moment the Syrian Government has enough oil, it is getting it from Iran via a steady stream of SUEZMAX tankers. The cost, either in terms of money or quid pro quo, is unknown. ..."
"... For those who have wondered as to why the DC FedRegime would fight over the tiny relative-to-FUKUS's-needs amount of oil in the Syrian oilfields. It is clearly to keep the SAR hobbled, crippled and too impoverished to retake all its territory or even to restore social, civic and economic functionality to the parts it retains. FUKUS is still committed to the policy of FUKUSing Syria. ..."
"... This President appears at times to recognize the reality of nation states and the meaning of national sovereignty. He needs to understand that on principle, not merely on gut instinct. President Trump's press conference today focused in one section on a simple fact -- saving the lives of Americans. Gen. Jack Keane, Sen. Lindsay Graham, and other gamers who think they are running an imperial chessboard where they can use living soldiers as American pawns, are a menace. Thanks Col. Lang for calling out these lunatics. ..."
"... During the 2016 election, Jack Keane and John Bolton were the two people Trump mentioned when asked who he listens to on foreign affairs/military policy. ..."
"... The crumbling apart is apparent. I don't know in what delusional world can conceive that 200 soldiers in the middle of the desert can deny Syria possession of their oil fields or keep the road between Bagdad and Damascus cut. All the West's Decision Makers can do is threaten to blow up the world. ..."
"... Corporate Overlords imposed austerity, outsourced industry and cut taxes to get richer, but the one thing for certain is that they can't keep their wealth without laws, the police and the military to protect them. ..."
"... Latin America is burning too - although the elites here have plundered and imposed structural plunder for too long. No matter where you are it .. Chile poster of the right, or Ecuador, Peru, etc ..."
"... Did you notice the Middle East Monitor article on October 21 reporting that the UAE has released to Iran $700 million in previously frozen funds? ..."
"... Yet in early September, Sigal Mandelker, a senior US Treasury official, was in the UAE pressing CEOs there to tighten the financial screws on Iran. The visit was deemed a success. During this visit she was quoted as saying that the Treasury has issued over 30 rounds of curbs targeting Iran-related entities. That would include targeting shipping companies and banks. ..."
"... It depends on who will be the democratic ticket .. will it mobilize the basis? I think the compromise candidate is Warren, but she looks to me a lot like John Kerry, Al Gore.. representing the professional, college educated segment of society, and that doesn't cut it. ..."
"... Trump is far from consistent. This is the man who attacked Syria twice on the basis of lies so transparent that my youngest housecat would have seen through them, and who tried and failed to leave Syria twice, then said he was "100%" for the continued occupation of Syria. ..."
"... He could have given the order to leave Syria this month, but Trump did not. Instead, he simply ordered withdrawal to a smaller zone of occupation, and that under duress. ..."
"... The Great Trumpian Mystery. I don't pretend to understand but I'm intrigued by his inconsistent inconsistencies. https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/03/17/trump-mysteries-inconsistent-inconsistencies/ ..."
"... It probably should come as no surprise to us that Trump is having small, but not no, success in getting the ship to alter course - too many deeply entrenched interests with no incentive to recognize their failures and every incentive to stay the course by removing, or at least handicapping the President who was elected on a platform of change. ..."
"... Whether the country elected the right man for the job remains to be seen. At times he appears to be his own worst enemy and his appointments are frequently topsy-- turvy to the platform he ran on but he does have his moments of success. He called off the dumb plan to go to war with Iran, albeit at 20 minutes to mid night and he is trying hard against the full might of the Borg to withdraw from Syria in accord with our actual interests. Trumps, alas, assumed office with no political friends, only enemies with varying degrees of Trump hate depending on how they define their political interests. ..."
"... Keane manipulated Trump by aggravating his animosity towards Iran, more specifically, his animosity towards Obama's JCPOA. I doubt Trump can see beyond his personal animus towards Obama and his legacy. He doesn't care about Iran, the Shia Crescent, the oil or even the jihadis any more than he cares about ditching the Kurds. This administration doesn't need a national security advisor, it needs a psychiatrist. ..."
"... IMO Trump cares about what Sheldon Adelson wants and Adelson wants to destroy Iran: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sCW4IasWXc Note the audience applause ..."
"... The difference between the reality that we perceive and the way it is portrayed in the media is so stark that sometimes I am not sure whether it is me who is insane or the world - the MSM and the cool-aid drinking libtards whose animosity against Trump won't let them distinguish black from white. Not that they were ever able to understand the real state of affairs. Discussions with them have always been about them regurgitating the MSM talking points without understanding any of it. ..."
"... "This administration doesn't need a national security advisor, it needs a psychiatrist." I think TTG speaks the truth. ..."
"... On Monday, 21 October, president Trump "authorized $4.5 million in direct support to the Syria Civil Defense (SCD)", a/k/a the White Helmets, who have been discussed here on SST before-- https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-press-secretary-89/ ..."
"... TTG IMO you and the other NEVER Trumpers are confused about the presence in both the permanent and appointed government of people who while they are not loyal to him nevertheless covet access to power. A lot of neocons and Zionists are among them. ..."
"... ANDREW BACEVICH: First of all, I think we should avoid taking anything that he says at any particular moment too seriously. Clearly, he is all over the map on almost any issue that you can name. I found his comment about taking the oil in that part of Syria, as if we are going to decide how to dispose of it, to be striking. And yet of course it sort of harkens back to his campaign statement about the Iraq war, that we ought to have taken Iraq's oil is a way of paying for that war. So I just caution against taking anything he says that seriously. ..."
"... That said, clearly a recurring theme to which he returns over and over and over again, is his determination to end what he calls endless wars. He clearly has no particular strategy or plan for how to do that, but he does seem to be insistent on pursuing that objective. And here I think we begin to get to the real significance of the controversy over Syria in our abandonment of the Kurds ..."
"... the controversy has gotten as big as it is in part because members of the foreign policy establishment in both parties are concerned about what an effort to end endless wars would mean for the larger architecture of U.S. national security policy, which has been based on keeping U.S. troops in hundreds of bases around the world, maintaining the huge military budget, a pattern of interventionism. Trump seems to think that that has been a mistake, particularly in the Middle East. I happen to agree with that critique. And I think that it is a fear that he could somehow engineer a fundamental change in U.S. policy is what really has the foreign policy establishment nervous. ..."
"... we created the problems that exist today through our reckless use of American military power. ..."
"... He let them roll him, just like Obama and so many others. Just a different set of rollers. ..."
Oct 24, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

"Joltin" Jack Keane, General (ret.), Fox Business Senior Strategery Analyst, Chairman of the Board of the Kagan run neocon "Institute for the Study of War" (ISW) and Graduate Extraordinaire of Fordham University, was on with Lou Dobbs last night. Dobbs appears to have developed a deep suspicion of this paladin. He stood up to Keane remarkably well. This was refreshing in light of the fawning deference paid to Keane by all the rest of the Fox crew.

In the course of this dialogue Keane let slip the slightly disguised truth that he and the other warmongers want to keep something like 200 US soldiers and airmen in Syria east of the Euphrates so that they can keep Iran or any other "Iranian proxy forces" from crossing the Euphrates from SAG controlled territory to take control of Syrian sovereign territory and the oil and gas deposits that are rightly the property of the Syrian people and their government owned oil company. The map above shows how many of these resources are east of the Euphrates. Pilgrims! It is not a lot of oil and gas judged by global needs and markets, but to Syria and its prospects for reconstruction it is a hell of a lot!

Keane was clear that what he means by "Iranian proxy forces" is the Syrian Arab Army, the national army of that country. If they dare cross the river, to rest in the shade of their own palm trees, then in his opinion the air forces of FUKUS should attack them and any 3rd party air forces (Russia) who support them

This morning, on said Fox Business News with Charles Payne, Keane was even clearer and stated specifically that if "Syria" tries to cross the river they must be fought.

IMO he and Lindsey Graham are raving lunatics brainwashed for years with the Iran obsession and they are a danger to us all. pl

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/military/graham-fox-news-star-showed-trump-map-change-his-mind-n1069901

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

Fred , 23 October 2019 at 04:54 PM

If only General Keane was as willing to defend America and America's oil on the Texas-Mexico border. Or hasn't anyone noticed that Mexico just a lost a battle with the Sinaloa drug cartel?
Harlan Easley , 23 October 2019 at 05:35 PM
I view them as selling their Soul for a dollar. Keane comes across as dense enough to believe his bile but Graham comes across as an opportunist without any real ideology except power.
JohninMK , 23 October 2019 at 05:43 PM
Its probably one step at a time for the Syrians, although the sudden move over the past couple of weeks must have been a bit of a God given opportunity for them.

Whilst the are absorbing that part of their country the battle of Iblib will restart. After that they can move their attention south and southeast, al-Tanf and the oilfields. I can't see how the US will be able to stop them but at least they will have time to plan their exit.

As I posted in the other thread, the Syrian Government is the only real customer for their oil and the Kurds already have a profit share agreement in place, so the US, if they allow any oil out, will effectively be protecting the fields on behalf of Assad. Surely not what Congress wants?

At the moment the Syrian Government has enough oil, it is getting it from Iran via a steady stream of SUEZMAX tankers. The cost, either in terms of money or quid pro quo, is unknown.

walrus , 23 October 2019 at 06:42 PM
I think this might be President Putin's next problem to solve. As far as I know, there is no legal reason for us to be there, not humanitarian, not strategic not even tactical. We simply are playing dog-in-the-manger.

My guess is that we will receive an offer to good to refuse from Putin.

different clue , 23 October 2019 at 06:54 PM
For those who have wondered as to why the DC FedRegime would fight over the tiny relative-to-FUKUS's-needs amount of oil in the Syrian oilfields. It is clearly to keep the SAR hobbled, crippled and too impoverished to retake all its territory or even to restore social, civic and economic functionality to the parts it retains. FUKUS is still committed to the policy of FUKUSing Syria.

Why is the Champs Elise' Regime still committed to putting the F in UKUS?
(I can understand why UKUS would want to keep France involved. Without France, certain nasty people might re-brand UKUS as USUK. And that would be very not nice.)

prawnik said in reply to different clue... , 24 October 2019 at 11:25 AM
Because France wants to be on the good side of the United States, and as you indicate, the United States is in Syria to turn that country into a failed state and for no other reason.
Decameron , 23 October 2019 at 07:03 PM
A good antidote for Joltin' Jack Keane's madness would be for Lou Dobbs and other mainstream media (MSM) to have Col Pat Lang as the commentator for analysis of the Syrian situation. Readers of this blog are undoubtedly aware that Col. Lang's knowledge of the peoples of the region and their customs is a national treasure.

This President appears at times to recognize the reality of nation states and the meaning of national sovereignty. He needs to understand that on principle, not merely on gut instinct. President Trump's press conference today focused in one section on a simple fact -- saving the lives of Americans. Gen. Jack Keane,
Sen. Lindsay Graham, and other gamers who think they are running an imperial chessboard where they can use living soldiers as American pawns, are a menace. Thanks Col. Lang for calling out these lunatics.

Stephanie , 23 October 2019 at 07:06 PM
In WWI millions of soldiers died fighting for imperial designs. They did not know it. They thought they were fighting for democracy, or to stop the spread of evil, or save their country. They were not. Secret treaties signed before the war started stated explicitly what the war was about.

Now "representatives" of the military, up to and including the Commander in Chief say it's about conquest, oil. The cards of the elite are on the table. How do you account for this?

Babak Makkinejad -> Stephanie... , 23 October 2019 at 08:48 PM
Men are quite evidently are in a state of total complete and irretrievable Fall, all the while living that particular Age of Belief.
Jackrabbit , 23 October 2019 at 07:39 PM
During the 2016 election, Jack Keane and John Bolton were the two people Trump mentioned when asked who he listens to on foreign affairs/military policy.
VietnamVet , 23 October 2019 at 07:47 PM
Colonel,

The crumbling apart is apparent. I don't know in what delusional world can conceive that 200 soldiers in the middle of the desert can deny Syria possession of their oil fields or keep the road between Bagdad and Damascus cut. All the West's Decision Makers can do is threaten to blow up the world.

Justin Trudeau was elected Monday in Canada with a minority in Parliament joining the United Kingdom and Israel with governments without a majority's mandate. Donald Trump's impeachment escalates. MbS is nearing a meat hook in Saudi Arabia. This is not a coincidence. The Elites' flushing government down the drain succeeded.

Corporate Overlords imposed austerity, outsourced industry and cut taxes to get richer, but the one thing for certain is that they can't keep their wealth without laws, the police and the military to protect them. Already California electricity is being cut off for a second time due to wildfires and PG&E's corporate looting. The Sinaloa shootout reminds me of the firefight in the first season of "True Detectives" when the outgunned LA cops tried to go after the Cartel. The writing is on the wall, California is next. Who will the lawmen serve and protect? Their people or the rich? Without the law, justice and order, there is chaos.

Mk-ec said in reply to VietnamVet... , 24 October 2019 at 07:40 PM
Latin America is burning too - although the elites here have plundered and imposed structural plunder for too long. No matter where you are it .. Chile poster of the right, or Ecuador, Peru, etc
Harper , 23 October 2019 at 07:49 PM
No doubt that Keane and his ilk want endless war and view Trump as a growing obstacle. Trump is consistent: He wanted out of JCPOA, and after being stalled by his national security advisors, he finally reached the boiling point and left. The advisors who counseled against this are all gone. With Pompeo, Enders and O'Brien as the new key security advisors, I doubt Trump got as much push back. He wanted out of Syria in December 2018 and was slow-walked. Didn't anyone think he'd come back at some point and revive the order to pull out? The talk with Erdogan, the continuing Trump view that Russia, Turkey, Syria, Iran and Saudi Arabia should bear the burden of sorting out what is left of the Syria war, so long as ISIS does not see a revival, all have been clear for a long time.

My concern is with Lindsey Graham, who is smarter and nastier than Jack Keane. He is also Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and may hold some blackmail leverage over the President. If the House votes up impeachment articles, Graham will be overseeing the Senate trial. A break from Trump by Graham could lead to a GOP Senate stampede for conviction. No one will say this openly, as I am, but it cannot be ignored as a factor for "controlling" Trump and keeping as much of the permanent war machine running as possible.

Thoughts?

Babak Makkinejad -> Harper... , 23 October 2019 at 08:52 PM
Trump has committed the United States to a long war against the Shia Crescent. He has ceded to Turkey on Syrian Kurds, but has continued with his operations against SAR. US needs Turkey, Erdogan knows that. Likewise in regards to Russia, EU, and Iran. Turkey, as is said in Persian, has grown a tail.
Tidewater said in reply to Babak Makkinejad... , 24 October 2019 at 01:14 PM
Did you notice the Middle East Monitor article on October 21 reporting that the UAE has released to Iran $700 million in previously frozen funds?

Yet in early September, Sigal Mandelker, a senior US Treasury official, was in the UAE pressing CEOs there to tighten the financial screws on Iran. The visit was deemed a success. During this visit she was quoted as saying that the Treasury has issued over 30 rounds of curbs targeting Iran-related entities. That would include targeting shipping companies and banks.

It was also reported in September that in Dubai that recent US Treasury sanctions were beginning to have a devastating effect. Iranian businessmen were being squeezed out. Even leaving the Emirates. Yet only a few days ago--a month later-- there are now reports that Iranian exchange bureaus have suddenly reopened in Dubai after a long period of closure.

Also, billions of dollars in contracts were signed between Russia, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE during Putin's recent visit to the region. It seems to me that this is real news. Something big seems to be happening. It looks to me as if there could be a serious confrontation between the Trump administration and MBZ in the offing.

Do you have an opinion on the Iranian situation in Dubai at the moment?

Lars said in reply to Harper... , 23 October 2019 at 09:10 PM
I have my doubt that Sen. Graham will lead any revolt, but if it starts to look like Trump will lose big next year, there will be a stampede looking like the Nile getting through a cataract.

They will not want to go down the tube with Trump. I still maintain that there is a good reason for him to resign before he loses an election or an impeachment. It will come down to the price.

Jack said in reply to Lars... , 24 October 2019 at 09:30 AM
Lars,

Lose big to whom in the next election? Biden got 300 people to show up for his rally in his hometown of Scranton and he is supposedly the front runner. Bernie got 20,000 to show up at his rally in NY when he was endorsed by The Squad and Michael Moore. Do you think the Dem establishment will allow him to be the nominee?

Trump in contrast routinely can fill up stadiums with 30,000 people. That was the indicator in the last election, not the polls. Recall the NY Times forecasting Hillary with a 95% probability of winning the day before the election.

As Rep. Al Green noted , the only way the Democrats can stop him is for the Senate to convict him in an impeachment trial. Who do you believe are the 20 Republican senators that will vote to convict?

Lars said in reply to Jack... , 24 October 2019 at 02:05 PM
Trump barely won the last time and while he currently has wide support in the GOP, it is not nearly as deep as his cultists believe. When half the country, and growing, want him removed, there is trouble ahead. Republicans are largely herd animals and if spooked, will create a stampede.

You can tell that there are problems when his congressional enablers are not defending him on facts and just using gripes about processes that they themselves have used in the past. In addition to circus acts.

I realize that many do not want to admit that they made a mistake by voting for him. I am not so sure they want to repeat that mistake.

Mk-ec said in reply to Lars... , 24 October 2019 at 08:20 PM
It depends on who will be the democratic ticket .. will it mobilize the basis? I think the compromise candidate is Warren, but she looks to me a lot like John Kerry, Al Gore.. representing the professional, college educated segment of society, and that doesn't cut it.
Jack said in reply to Lars... , 24 October 2019 at 09:29 PM
Lars,

It's not a question if he barely won. The fact is he competed with many other Republican candidates including governors and senators and even one with the name Bush. He was 1% in the polls in the summer of 2016 and went on to win the Republican nomination despite the intense opposition of the Republican establishment. He then goes on to win the general election defeating a well funded Hillary with all her credentials and the full backing of the vast majority of the media. That is an amazing achievement for someone running for public office for the first time. Like him or hate him, you have to give credit where it's due. Winning an election for the presidency is no small feat.

There only two ways to defeat him. First, the Senate convicts him in an impeachment trial which will require at least 20 Republican senators. Who are they? Second, a Democrat in the general election. Who? I can see Bernie with a possibility since he has enthusiastic supporters. But will the Democrat establishment allow him to win the nomination?

Diana C said in reply to Harper... , 24 October 2019 at 08:37 AM
We're no longer having to listen to Yosemite Sam Bolton. His BFF Graham is left to fight on his own. I don't think Trump feels the need to pay that much attention to Graham. He didn't worry about him during the primary when Graham always seemed to be on the verge of crying when he was asked questions.
prawnik said in reply to Harper... , 24 October 2019 at 11:28 AM
Trump is far from consistent. This is the man who attacked Syria twice on the basis of lies so transparent that my youngest housecat would have seen through them, and who tried and failed to leave Syria twice, then said he was "100%" for the continued occupation of Syria.

He could have given the order to leave Syria this month, but Trump did not. Instead, he simply ordered withdrawal to a smaller zone of occupation, and that under duress.

Congratulations are hardly in order here.

Patrick Armstrong -> prawnik... , 24 October 2019 at 05:06 PM
The Great Trumpian Mystery. I don't pretend to understand but I'm intrigued by his inconsistent inconsistencies. https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/03/17/trump-mysteries-inconsistent-inconsistencies/
Flavius said in reply to Harper... , 24 October 2019 at 01:21 PM
What the Colonel calls the Borg is akin to an aircraft carrier that has been steaming at near flank speed for many years too long, gathering mass and momentum since the end of Cold War I.

With the exception of Gulf War I, none of our interventions have gone well, and even the putative peace at the end of GUlf War I wasn't managed well because it eventuated in Gulf War Ii which has been worst than a disaster because the disaster taught the Borg nothing and became midwife to additional disasters.

It probably should come as no surprise to us that Trump is having small, but not no, success in getting the ship to alter course - too many deeply entrenched interests with no incentive to recognize their failures and every incentive to stay the course by removing, or at least handicapping the President who was elected on a platform of change.

Whether the country elected the right man for the job remains to be seen. At times he appears to be his own worst enemy and his appointments are frequently topsy-- turvy to the platform he ran on but he does have his moments of success. He called off the dumb plan to go to war with Iran, albeit at 20 minutes to mid night and he is trying hard against the full might of the Borg to withdraw from Syria in accord with our actual interests. Trumps, alas, assumed office with no political friends, only enemies with varying degrees of Trump hate depending on how they define their political interests.

With that said, I doubt very much whether the Republicans in the Senate will abandon Trump in an impeachment trial. Trump's argument that the process is a political coup is arguably completely true, or certainly true enough that his political base in the electorate will not tolerate his abandonment by Republican politicians inside the Beltway. I think there is even some chance that Trump, were he to be removed from office by what could be credibly portrayed as a political coup, would consider running in 2020 as an independent. The damage that would cause to the Republican Party would be severe, pervasive, and possibly fatal to the Party as such. I doubt Beltway pols would be willing to take that chance.

The Twisted Genius , 23 October 2019 at 11:33 PM
I don't think Keane or Trump are focused on the oil. Keane just used that as a lens to focus Trump on Iran. That's the true sickness. Keane manipulated Trump by aggravating his animosity towards Iran, more specifically, his animosity towards Obama's JCPOA. I doubt Trump can see beyond his personal animus towards Obama and his legacy. He doesn't care about Iran, the Shia Crescent, the oil or even the jihadis any more than he cares about ditching the Kurds. This administration doesn't need a national security advisor, it needs a psychiatrist.
Fourth and Long -> The Twisted Genius ... , 24 October 2019 at 12:01 PM
In case you missed this piece in Newsweek: https://www.newsweek.com/exclusive-us-has-plan-send-tanks-troops-secure-syria-oil-fields-amid-withdrawal-1467350

No idea here who the un-named pentagon "official" might be, but sounds as thought Gen Keane may not be all alone in his soup.

Artemesia said in reply to The Twisted Genius ... , 24 October 2019 at 04:17 PM
IMO Trump cares about what Sheldon Adelson wants and Adelson wants to destroy Iran: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sCW4IasWXc Note the audience applause
Decepiton , 24 October 2019 at 04:40 AM
We massacred two hundred ruskies in the battle of khasham. What can they do.
MSB said in reply to Decepiton... , 24 October 2019 at 03:21 PM
And in response, Russia killed and captured hundreds of US Special forces and PMC's alongside SAS in East Ghouta . It is said that the abrupt russian op on East Ghouta was a response to the Battle of Khasham.

http://freewestmedia.com/2018/04/11/skripal-affair-real-reason-is-capture-of-200-sas-soldiers-in-ghouta/
https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201805211064652345-syrian-army-foreign-military-presence/
http://www.newsilkstrategies.com/news--analysis/a-real-h-o-t-war-with-russia-is-underway-right-now

http://www.newsilkstrategies.com/news--analysis/confirmation-that-us-uk-special-ops-are-in-syria-some-captured

ancientarcher , 24 October 2019 at 11:19 AM
Colonel, thanks for spelling it out so clearly.

The difference between the reality that we perceive and the way it is portrayed in the media is so stark that sometimes I am not sure whether it is me who is insane or the world - the MSM and the cool-aid drinking libtards whose animosity against Trump won't let them distinguish black from white. Not that they were ever able to understand the real state of affairs. Discussions with them have always been about them regurgitating the MSM talking points without understanding any of it.

While it will always be mystifying to me why so many people on the street blindly support America fighting and dying in the middle east, the support of the MSM and the paid hacks for eternal war is no surprise. I hope they get to send their children and grandchildren to these wars. More than that, I hope we get out of these wars. Trump might be able to put an end to it, and not just in Syria, if he wins a second term, which he will if he is allowed to contest the next election. There is however a chance that the borg will pull the rug from under him and bar him from the elections. Hope that doesn't come to pass.

Larry Kart , 24 October 2019 at 11:39 AM
"This administration doesn't need a national security advisor, it needs a psychiatrist." I think TTG speaks the truth.
David said in reply to Linda... , 24 October 2019 at 04:39 PM
No, they just have to sit there and be an excuse to fly Coalition CAPs that would effectively prevent SAA from crossing the Euphrates in strength. Feasible until the SAA finishes with Idlib and moves some of its new Russian anti-aircraft toys down to Deir Ezzor.
robt willmann , 24 October 2019 at 12:46 PM
On Monday, 21 October, president Trump "authorized $4.5 million in direct support to the Syria Civil Defense (SCD)", a/k/a the White Helmets, who have been discussed here on SST before-- https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-press-secretary-89/
turcopolier , 24 October 2019 at 01:34 PM
TTG IMO you and the other NEVER Trumpers are confused about the presence in both the permanent and appointed government of people who while they are not loyal to him nevertheless covet access to power. A lot of neocons and Zionists are among them.
The Twisted Genius -> turcopolier ... , 24 October 2019 at 02:54 PM
Colonel Lang, I am well aware of the power seekers who gravitate towards Trump or whoever holds power not out of loyalty, but because they covet access to power. The neocons and Zionists flock to Trump because they can manipulate him to do their bidding. That fact certainly doesn't make me feel any better about Trump as President. The man needs help.
turcopolier -> The Twisted Genius ... , 24 October 2019 at 05:15 PM
TTG

you are an experienced clan case officer. You do not know that most people are more than a little mad? Hillary is more than a little nuts. Obama was so desperately neurotically in need of White approval that he let the WP COIN generals talk him into a COIN war in Afghanistan. I was part of that discussion. All that mattered to him was their approval. FDR could not be trusted with SIGINT product and so Marshall never gave him any, etc., George Bush 41 told me that he deliberately mis-pronounced Saddam's name to hurt his feelings. Georgie Junior let the lunatic neocons invade a country that had not attacked us. Trump is no worse than many of our politicians, or politicians anywhere. Britain? The Brexit disaster speaks for itself, And then there is the British monarchy in which a princeling devastated by the sure DNA proof that he is illegitimate is acting like a fool. The list is endless.

The Twisted Genius -> CK... , 24 October 2019 at 05:21 PM
CK, the people surrounding Trump are largely appointees. Keane doesn't have to be let into the WH. His problem is that those who would appeal to his non-neocon tendencies are not people he wants to have around him. Gabbard, for instance, would be perfect for helping Trump get ourselves out of the ME, is a progressive. Non-interventionists are hard to come by. Those who he does surround himself with are using him for their own ideologies, mostly neocon and Zionist.
oldman22 , 24 October 2019 at 01:49 PM
Bacevich interview:
> Andrew Bacevich, can you respond to President Trump pulling the U.S. troops away from this area of northern Syria, though saying he will keep them to guard oil fields?

> ANDREW BACEVICH: First of all, I think we should avoid taking anything that he says at any particular moment too seriously. Clearly, he is all over the map on almost any issue that you can name. I found his comment about taking the oil in that part of Syria, as if we are going to decide how to dispose of it, to be striking. And yet of course it sort of harkens back to his campaign statement about the Iraq war, that we ought to have taken Iraq's oil is a way of paying for that war. So I just caution against taking anything he says that seriously.

> That said, clearly a recurring theme to which he returns over and over and over again, is his determination to end what he calls endless wars. He clearly has no particular strategy or plan for how to do that, but he does seem to be insistent on pursuing that objective. And here I think we begin to get to the real significance of the controversy over Syria in our abandonment of the Kurds.

> Let's stipulate. U.S. abandonment of the Kurds was wrong, it was callous, it was immoral. It was not the first betrayal by the United States in our history, but the fact that there were others certainly doesn't excuse this one. But apart from those concerned about the humanitarian aspect of this crisis -- and not for a second do I question the sincerity of people who are worried about the Kurds -- it seems to me that the controversy has gotten as big as it is in part because members of the foreign policy establishment in both parties are concerned about what an effort to end endless wars would mean for the larger architecture of U.S. national security policy, which has been based on keeping U.S. troops in hundreds of bases around the world, maintaining the huge military budget, a pattern of interventionism. Trump seems to think that that has been a mistake, particularly in the Middle East. I happen to agree with that critique. And I think that it is a fear that he could somehow engineer a fundamental change in U.S. policy is what really has the foreign policy establishment nervous.

> NERMEEN SHAIKH: As you mentioned, Professor Bacevich, Trump has come under bipartisan criticism for this decision to withdraw troops from northern Syria. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was one of the many Republicans to criticize Trump for his decision. In an opinion piece in The Washington Post McConnell writes, quote, "We saw humanitarian disaster and a terrorist free-for-all after we abandoned Afghanistan in the 1990s, laying the groundwork for 9/11. We saw the Islamic State flourish in Iraq after President Barack Obama's retreat. We will see these things anew in Syria and Afghanistan if we abandon our partners and retreat from these conflicts before they are won." He also writes, quote, "As neo-isolationism rears its head on both the left and the right, we can expect to hear more talk of 'endless wars.' But rhetoric cannot change the fact that wars do not just end; wars are won or lost." So Professor Bacevich, could you respond to that, and how accurate you think an assessment of that is? Both what he says about Afghanistan and what is likely to happen now with U.S. withdrawal.

> ANDREW BACEVICH: I think in any discussion of our wars, ongoing wars, it is important to set them in some broader historical context than Senator McConnell will probably entertain. I mean, to a very great extent -- not entirely, but to a very great extent -- we created the problems that exist today through our reckless use of American military power.

> People like McConnell, and I think other members of the political establishment, even members of the mainstream media -- _The New York Times_, The Washington Post -- have yet to reckon with the catastrophic consequences of the U.S. invasion of Iraq back in 2003. And if you focus your attention at that start point -- you could choose another start point, but if you focus your attention at that start point, then it seems to me that leads you to a different conclusion about the crisis that we are dealing with right now. That is to say, people like McConnell want to stay the course. They want to maintain the U.S. presence in Syria. U.S. military presence. But if we look at what the U.S. military presence in that region, not simply Syria, has produced over the course of almost two decades, then you have to ask yourself, how is it that we think that simply staying the course is going to produce any more positive results?

> It is appalling what Turkey has done to Syrian Kurds and the casualties they have inflicted and the number of people that have been displaced. But guess what? The casualties that we inflicted and the number of people that we displaced far outnumbers what Turkey has done over the last week or so. So I think that we need to push back against this tendency to oversimplify the circumstance, because oversimplifying the circumstance doesn't help us fully appreciate the causes of this mess that we're in.

more here, about Tulsi, about Afghanistan, about Trump:
https://www.democracynow.org/2019/10/24/trump_lifts_turkey_sanctions_syrian_kurds

Leith , 24 October 2019 at 01:50 PM
In addition to oil from Iran, Assad also gets oil from the SDF and the Kurds. Supposedly a profit sharing arrangement as commented on by JohninMK in a previous post.

This oil sharing deal was also mentioned by Global Research and Southfront back in June of 2018:

https://www.globalresearch.ca/video-syrian-government-sdf-reach-agreement-on-omar-oil-field/5643086

The Twisted Genius -> turcopolier ... , 24 October 2019 at 05:49 PM
Colonel Lang, the only way to "overthrow" Trump is through impeachment in the House and conviction in the Senate. That is a Constitutional process, not a coup. The process is intentionally difficult. Was the impeachment of Clinton an attempted coup?
Stephanie said in reply to turcopolier ... , 24 October 2019 at 09:59 PM
Two things.

In the first place isn't the dissolution of Ukraine and Syria and Iraq and Libya and Yemen exactly what we have wished to achieve, and wouldn't an intelligent observer, such as Vladimir Putin, want to do exactly the same thing to us, and hasn't he come very close to witnessing the achievement of this aim whether he is personally involved or not? What goes around comes around?

But that is relatively unimportant compared to the question whether dissolution of the Union is a bad thing or a good thing. Preserving it cost 600,000 lives the first time. One additional life would be one additional life too many. Ukraine is an excellent example. Western Ukraine has a long history support for Nazi's. Eastern Ukraine is Russian. Must a war be fought to bring them together? Or should they be permitted to go their separate ways?

As Hector said of Helen of Troy, "She is not worth what she doth cost the keeping."

Jane , 24 October 2019 at 05:48 PM
After hanging up from a call to Putin, thanking him for Russia's help with the Turks, YPG leader Mazloum Kobane returned to the Senate hearings in which he alternately reminded his flecless American allies of their failure, not only to protect Rojava from the Turks, but didn't even give them a heads up about what was about to happen and begged an already angry [at Trump] Senate about their urgent need for a continued American presence in the territory.

It seems that some in the USG do not understand that all the land on the east bank of the Euphrates is "Rojava" or somehow is the mandate of the Kurds to continue to control. For a long time, now, the mainly Arab population of that region have been chafing under what is actually Kurdish rule. This could be a a trigger for ISIS or some other jihadis to launch another insurgency, or at the least, low level attacks, especially in Rojava to the north.

To remind, the USG is not using military personnel, but also contracts, about 200 troops in one field and 400 contractors in the other.

There is video of the SAA escorting the Americans to the Iraqi border. PM Abdel Hadi has reiterated that the US cannot keep these troops in Iraq, as they go beyond the agreed upon number. It is quite likely that the anti-Iranian aspect of the border region is NOT something they wish to see.

"Iranian proxies" refers to Hezbollah, the various Shia militia groups from Pakistan and Afghanistan, and of course, others, not the SAA.

oldman22 , 24 October 2019 at 08:29 PM
The US is reportedly planning to deploy tanks and other heavy military hardware to protect oil fields in eastern Syria, in a reversal of Donald Trump's earlier order to withdraw all troops from the country. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/24/us-military-syria-tanks-oil-fields
turcopolier , 24 October 2019 at 09:46 PM
oldman22

He let them roll him, just like Obama and so many others. Just a different set of rollers.

[Oct 24, 2019] Trump is now proven war criminal: WikiLeaks Releases New Documents Questioning Syria Chemical Attack Narrative

Highly recommended!
Objectively this should be a death sentence for Trump reelection -- war criminals should never be reelected: he proved to be yet another MIC stooge. And his government is not that different form Hillarie's: it is the same government of lies by lies for liars (from MIC)...
There is no positives heroes in this story. As Colonel W. Patrick Lang noted raving neocon lunatics in congress brainwashed for years with the Iran obsession are yet another danger to us all. ( Joltin' Jack Keane wants your kids to fight Russia and Syria over Syrian oil. - Sic Semper Tyrannis _
Notable quotes:
"... "Based on the whistleblower's extensive presentation, including internal emails, text exchanges and suppressed draft reports, we are unanimous in expressing our alarm over unacceptable practices in the investigation of the alleged chemical attack in Douma," the experts pointed out. ..."
"... Bustani was quoted as saying he had long held doubts about the alleged attack in Douma, on the outskirts of Damascus. "I could make no sense of what I was reading in the international press. Even official reports of investigations seemed incoherent at best." ..."
"... Some dissenting officials as well as countries like Russia have accused the international chemical watchdog body, which operations in coordination with the UN, of being politically compromised when it comes to Syria. ..."
Oct 24, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

A whistleblower with the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), responsible for conducting an independent investigation into the alleged chemical attack in the Syrian town of Douma on April 7, 2018, has presented WikiLeaks with a body of evidence suggesting the chemical weapons watchdog agency manipulated and suppressed evidence .

A prior official OPCW report of the investigation issued last March found "reasonable grounds" for believing a toxic chemical was used against civilians, likely chlorine. Long prior to any independent investigators reaching the site, however, Washington had launched major tomahawk airstrikes against Damascus in retribution for "Assad gassing his own people" .

WikiLeaks published documents based on evidence presented by the internal OPCW whistleblower to an expert review panel on Wednesday. "The panel was presented with evidence that casts doubt on the integrity of the OPCW," WikiLeaks editor Kristinn Hrafnsson wrote.

An official WikiLeaks press release said as follows :

Kristinn Hrafnsson took part in the panel to review the testimony and documents from the OPCW whistleblower. He says: "The panel was presented with evidence that casts doubt on the integrity of the OPCW. Although the whistleblower was not ready to step forward and/or present documents to the public, WikiLeaks believes it is now of utmost interest for the public to see everything that was collected by the Fact Finding Mission on Douma and all scientific reports written in relation to the investigation."

"Based on the whistleblower's extensive presentation, including internal emails, text exchanges and suppressed draft reports, we are unanimous in expressing our alarm over unacceptable practices in the investigation of the alleged chemical attack in Douma," the experts pointed out.

"We became convinced by the testimony that key information about chemical analyses, toxicology consultations, ballistics studies, and witness testimonies was suppressed, ostensibly to favor a preordained conclusion ."

The testimony further revealed "disquieting efforts to exclude some inspectors from the investigation whilst thwarting their attempts to raise legitimate concerns , highlight irregular practices or even to express their differing observations and assessments."

The new information was enough to convince José Bustani, former director-general of the OPCW to conclude there is now "convincing evidence" of irregularities .

According to a summary of the latest controversy to cast doubt on the dominant mainstream narrative related to Douma, Middle East analysis site Al-Bab noted Bustain harbored prior doubts :

Bustani was quoted as saying he had long held doubts about the alleged attack in Douma, on the outskirts of Damascus. "I could make no sense of what I was reading in the international press. Even official reports of investigations seemed incoherent at best."

Some dissenting officials as well as countries like Russia have accused the international chemical watchdog body, which operations in coordination with the UN, of being politically compromised when it comes to Syria.

spam filter , 4 minutes ago link

"Because of my great wisdom as a stable genius, i launched major tomahawk airstrikes against Damascus in retribution for Assad gassing his own people" .

I am Ironman!

Has he lost his mind?

Can he see or is he blind?
Can he walk at all
Or if he moves will he fall?

boattrash , 2 minutes ago link

...to appease the neocons...he killed a total of 3 ground squirrels.

monty42 , 41 seconds ago link

Tell that to the Syrians who were killed, both soldiers and civilians, as well as those having to pay for the lost property that was destroyed. It was thrown out there, purely out of thin air, that nothing of substance was hit and it was just a show by Trump, despite reports by those terrorized by the attacks.

NA X-15 , 6 minutes ago link

It's the same lying neocon **** that cried out "Darfur!"..."Donbass!"...the exact same lying ****. **** them all to hell, I wish I could exterminate their voices forever.

Arising , 12 minutes ago link

I have reposted these wikileaks documents on many different sites, especially the one's where the intelligence agencies are active.

I want them to know that we know.

Chupacabra-322 , 16 minutes ago link

The Gas Lighting, PsyOp & False Flags will continue until the masses are completely Frightened & Brainwashed.

US Interference and Regime Change PsyOp

"Secret cables and reports by the U.S., Saudi and Israeli intelligence agencies indicate that the moment Assad rejected the Qatari pipeline, military and intelligence planners quickly arrived at the consensus that fomenting a Sunni uprising in Syria to overthrow the uncooperative Bashar Assad was a feasible path to achieving the shared objective of completing the Qatar/Turkey gas link. In 2009, according to WikiLeaks, soon after Bashar Assad rejected the Qatar pipeline, the CIA began funding opposition groups in Syria."

Regime change is the only reason we or any of our proxies are there. We have NO GOOD REASON being there other than this BS.

  • The US Congress has not approved the US being in Syria.
  • The UN Security Council has not approved the US presence in Syria.
  • President Assad of Syria did not invite the US or approve the US presence in Syria.
  • Only the US deep state neocons have approved the US presence in the context of "regime change".

I mean C'mon now? These Pure Evil War Criminal Treasonous Seditious Deep State CIA, MI6, Mossad Psychopaths couldn't write up a different Scripted False Narrative PsyOp to sell to the World & American People.

CHEM ATTACK PART III RETURN OF THE ASSAD.

The Lack of creativity among those in the Pentagram & Deep Staters is downright pathetic.

Bolton was nothing more than a mere Agent of Chaos with his mission the for continuation of the Yinon Plan.

I'd respect them more if they'd just said, "we seeking regime change to secure the better interests of Israel, the US & World Community."

Wink, wink, nod, nod...those better interest are the Qatari Pipeline to provide continued SA & Petro Dollar Hegemony among Vassel States. While simultaneously eliminating Russia's & Gasprom's ability to supply European Oil.

Meximus , 23 minutes ago link

The french are having misgivings in supporting this war crime. They are now talking with russia to normalize relations.

Soon we will go from FUKUS to just UKK (united **** kingdom) .

ebworthen , 49 minutes ago link

People are still believing the chemical attack canard? Seriously?

Assad wears a suit and protects Christians and Jews; as does Russia.

I can't say the same for the U.S.A., other than protecting Christians and Jews connected to Wall Street.

NA X-15 , 51 minutes ago link

From Day One, nobody believed the neocon ******** about the alleged "gassings".

[Oct 22, 2019] Betrayal And Deception Syria Is A Prime Example Of US Foreign Policy by Federico Pieraccini

Oct 22, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Federico Pieraccini via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

Trump announced the withdrawal of US troops who had been protecting the SDF (Syrian democratic forces) in the northeast of Syria, prompting Kurdish leadership and the Damascus governed to strike a deal allowing Syrian Arab Army to retake control of the border with Turkey after nearly six years.

... ... ..

Given that the deep state retains ultimate control of US foreign policy, Trump is allowed to do and say what he wants – provided it is only within the confines of his media playpen, safe in the knowledge that his motivations are purely electoral and not really aimed and upending the foreign-policy consensus of the US establishment.

If we look beyond Trump's histrionics, we can see that the US deep state continues its illegal stay in Syria, with Trump in reality having no intention of opposing the military-industrial complex (indeed often appointing its members to serve in his administration), with these two parties finding a common point of agreement in the alleged threat posed by Iran.

US troops will only shift near Iraq, looking at disrupting any form of cooperation between Baghdad, Damascus and Tehran.

Trump's Saudi and Israeli allies in the region have long been conspiring with the Pentagon to bring down the Islamic Republic of Iran.

That said, the possibility of war with Iran does not align well with Trump's focus on securing a second term. In any such war, Israel and Saudi Arabia would bear the brunt of hostilities, making pointless their support for Trump. The price of oil would rise sharply, throwing the financial markets into chaos; and all this would conspire to ensure that Trump lost the 2020 election. Trump, therefore, has nothing to gain from war and will prefer dialogue and negotiation with the likes of North Korea, even if it does not bear much fruit.

Trump's main problem lies in the long-term damage his actions and statements may do to the credibility of the US empire. The photo-op with Kim was criticized by many in mainstream media for giving credibility to a "dictator". But the anger of the military and intelligence community really lay in leaving Washington with nowhere to go after Trump's threats of annihilation only led to negotiations that did not go anywhere.

I have previously written about the effectiveness of Pyongyang's nuclear and conventional deterrence, something well known to US policy makers, making them careful to avoid exposing themselves too much such that Pyongyang calls their bluff, thereby revealing to the world that Washington's bark is worse than its bite. To avoid such an embarrassing situation, Obama and his predecessors were always careful to refuse to meet with the North Korean leader.

The United States bases much of its military strength on the display of power, advertising its theoretical ability to annihilate anyone anywhere. By North Korea calling its bluff and revealing that the most powerful country in the world cannot in actual fact attack it, the projected image of American invincibility is thus punctured.

Similarly, when Trump announced the withdrawal of US troops from the northeast of Syria (quickly downsized by the Pentagon), and above all gave the green light to Turkey to occupy the area vacated, the political establishment and mainstream media swung into action to dissuade Trump from communicating to the world that America does not stick with its allies. Even Fox News, now siding with the Democrats, started giving wide coverage to Trump's impeachment story, inviting in the process an angry Twitter response from Trump.

Trump is of course more than aware that a complete US withdrawal from Syria would go against the interests of Riyadh and Tel Aviv, those who actually have an influence on him.

Turkey's aspirations to occupy the northeast Syria are part of Erdogan's strategy to improve negotiating positions with Damascus and Moscow with regard to the jihadists in Idlib. Erdogan hopes to be able to annex Syrian territory and fill them with the jihadists and their families who lost the war in Syria and who otherwise pose the security risk of invading Turkey from Idlib. Erdogan seems to have come to some kind of understanding with the US, which has hitherto been the protector of the SDF.

Erdogan and Trump didn't seem to consider the possibility of the SDF and Damascus finding common ground, but this is exactly what happened.

The Syrian Arab Army is now in the North East of the country, protecting its borders against an invading army. Russia and Iran will try and convince Erdogan to downplay the operation in exchange for some sort of arrangement regarding Idlib. The Syrian government in the near future should be able to take back the rich oil fields, boosting its economy.

Turkey and the US have have for years armed and financed terrorism in the region, as have Qatar and Saudi Arabia (in spite of their ideological differences). Even the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) were involved in the destabilization of Syria.

All this chaos is ultimately supervised and directed by the United States, which has for years been coordinating in the region color revolutions, the Arab Spring, and proxy wars. Any other interpretation of events would be disingenuous and untruthful.

The withdrawal of US troops from Syria simply reinforces Damascus's position as the only legitimate authority in Syria, undermines confidence of European allies in the US, and emphasizes the consistency of Moscow's actions, which has always been opposed to Washington's chaotic actions in the region.

Amidst this generalized chaos and confusion, Russia, Iran and Syria are trying to put the house back in order again, which includes the international system where sovereign states are respected.

The unipolarists have been suffering pronounced setbacks of late. The expensive air-defense systems of the United States were shown by the Houthis in the last month to be rather ineffectual; Saudi troops soon after this suffered a humiliating defeat in the south of their own country; Washington saw its high-tech drone shot down by Iran; and numerous European and Middle Eastern allies have lost faith in the US, as they watch factions fighting with each other over control for US foreign policy

The US is the victim of a unipolar world order onto which it desperately hangs without any thought of letting go, even as the rest of the world inexorably moves towards a multipolar world order, one that becomes ever more difficult to subdue with every waking day.

[Oct 16, 2019] So, who was the dumb **** that hired Bolton to begin with?

Notable quotes:
"... "I'm getting us out of unnecessary foreign wars"......by appointmentIng the most pro-Israel, rabid Yosemite Sam lookalike warmonger ever! Makes perfect sense. 4D chess at its finest. Nobody is asking for perfection, but John ******* Bolton? The guy who was part of Project for a New American Century, John Bolton?.... the same guy who is buddies with all Bushites responsible for Iraq part one, part two and Afghanistan? **** me thats dumb. ..."
Oct 16, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

south40_dreams , 45 minutes ago link

Have to wonder how many JFK events from the 3 letters have been thwarted. We just never hear

Archeofuturist , 1 hour ago link

Message to Don: Lie down with dogs, wake up with fleas. See what you get for playing nice with neocon deep state shitbags like Bolton. Stop draining the swamp into your administration.

I await the "trust the plan" and "keep your enemies closer" comments.

Oldwood , 58 minutes ago link

It's a ******* swamp.

Did you think this was going to be won with high morals and principles? You probably think you can win a war by suing for peace.

Archeofuturist , 52 minutes ago link

"I'm getting us out of unnecessary foreign wars"......by appointmentIng the most pro-Israel, rabid Yosemite Sam lookalike warmonger ever! Makes perfect sense. 4D chess at its finest. Nobody is asking for perfection, but John ******* Bolton? The guy who was part of Project for a New American Century, John Bolton?.... the same guy who is buddies with all Bushites responsible for Iraq part one, part two and Afghanistan? **** me thats dumb.

Oldwood , 46 minutes ago link

And how many wars has he gotten us into? And how many times has he been attacked for even suggesting getting us out of wars?

Never-Trumpers want to pretend that Trump is a failure because he is NOT a dictator, which only PROVES they are not conservative, as conservatives recoil at the thought of a dictatorial unconstitutional monarchy.

Trump is fighting fort his life in this ******* swamp, a swamp we can see and smell from our own living rooms. Only the retarded and ******* LIARS would attempt to condemn him for not doing more. Retards who have done NOTHING more with their lives than BITCH about other's failures.

Archeofuturist , 40 minutes ago link

Again, why did he hire him in the first place? WHY? Bolton is a VERY well known commodity. You can keep making excuses for Trump all you want, but there's a pattern emerging here where he hires horrible people, then tries to act like he's surprised when they **** him over.

Oldwood , 30 minutes ago link

To satiate those who demand war. Trump is in the ******* SWAMP. They are trying to impeach him AGAIN. Do you really think he can do everything as hew wishes...especially when easily half the republicans would throw him to the wolves tomorrow if there was self preservation or gain in it for them?

Kidbuck , 46 minutes ago link

So, who was the dumb **** that hired Bolton to begin with?

mervyn , 45 minutes ago link

his name is dumb ****.

MedTechEntrepreneur , 1 hour ago link

Ukraine is where Russiagate started through DNC operatives. Anyone who is opposed to investigating that is either Deep State or an utter Moron.

What was Russia and Ukraine all about? Watch this and you'll see. I'll give you a hint..Soros.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahSWNzW3woo&t=2738s

MedTechEntrepreneur , 47 minutes ago link

Short on time? Skip to the 42 minute mark

Oldwood , 42 minutes ago link

Democrats don't want to know as it could impede their agenda, the ends fully justifying the means.

Republicans don't want to know as they fear being tarred by the progressive assassin media, their futures put at risk.

Ultimately Trump will be thrown to the wolves the moment republicans perceive him weak. Thieves, assassins and cowards. Hell of group we have "leading" us.

Oldwood , 1 hour ago link

To appease the easily visible war hawks surrounding him on all sides.

Archeofuturist , 1 hour ago link

Trump hiring Bolton is like Obama hiring half the banking sector during the financial crisis..... SMFH.

Oldwood , 59 minutes ago link

The difference IS that Obama fulfilled his every banker's dream, whereas Bolton left defeated, and now he and every other rat out there is gunning for Trump for ******* up their dreams of eternal war.

You see, not all things are equal

Archeofuturist , 53 minutes ago link

Yes brilliant 4d move to invite the fox into the hen house. The real brilliant move would've been to tear up his resume when came across his desk so he couldn't cause any mischief. I get it though.... The diehard Trump people refuse except reality. It was dumb....full stop.

Oldwood , 2 minutes ago link

Look at what they have done to virtually every true conservative Trump has nominated to any position. They have destroyed every single one. Trump, given his choices, has put certain people into the light for all to see exactly WHO they are. Trump is simply the most illuminating president in history, exciting those around him to glow, to feel empowered and allowed to show themselves without fear of consequence or accountability.

Progressives are conflicted horribly as they have always known that their true intents were best left in secret, but with Trump, they simply cannot help themselves.

Simply LOOK at the 2020 democratic lineup. Who could have imagined just a few short years ago that democrats would be finally coming out of the closet?

[Sep 22, 2019] It's become standard procedure for the US and its MSM to consider that Iran is totally responsible for all anti-US events in the Middle East because of actions by Iran's proxy forces in other countries

Notable quotes:
"... Under international law, a state is accountable for the unlawful actions of a proxy only if an organ of the state ordered the proxy to commit the act. It is not sufficient simply to have provided material support or even encouraged the unlawful act. For example, in the 1980s, the International Court of Justice found the United States not liable for Contra violations of international humanitarian law, even after concluding that the United States had "financed, organized, trained, supplied, equipped and armed" the Contras, even to the point of providing training materials that discussed "shoot civilians attempting to leave a town, neutralize local judges and officials, hire professional criminals to carry out 'jobs,' and provoke violence at mass demonstrations to create 'martyrs'." ..."
Sep 18, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Don Bacon , Sep 17 2019 21:06 utc | 19

It's become standard procedure for the US and its MSM to consider that Iran is totally responsible for all anti-US events in the Middle East because of actions by Iran's "proxy forces" in other countries. While these events usually have more diverse objectives, it's often Iran did this and Iran did that. But there's no legal basis for that.

Here's some words on proxy relationships from DefenseOne: (excerpts)

Iran's proxy relationships have given it an extraordinary ability to impose costs on its adversaries while obscuring its role. Doing so allows it to manage its risks while politically constraining its adversaries' response. It might seem intuitive to simply declare Iran responsible, and satisfying to retaliate against it directly. But international law sets a high bar for holding a proxy's benefactor responsible for the actions of its proxy, making it difficult to build the kind of international consensus necessary to the legitimacy for any retaliation.

Under international law, a state is accountable for the unlawful actions of a proxy only if an organ of the state ordered the proxy to commit the act. It is not sufficient simply to have provided material support or even encouraged the unlawful act. For example, in the 1980s, the International Court of Justice found the United States not liable for Contra violations of international humanitarian law, even after concluding that the United States had "financed, organized, trained, supplied, equipped and armed" the Contras, even to the point of providing training materials that discussed "shoot civilians attempting to leave a town, neutralize local judges and officials, hire professional criminals to carry out 'jobs,' and provoke violence at mass demonstrations to create 'martyrs'."

Setting the bar so high establishes perverse incentives. A state that employs proxies is discouraged from moderating their behavior, since any attempt at moderation could imply effective control, and even from acknowledging the proxy relationships. So without proof that the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, which typically manages Iran's proxy relationships, ordered or participated in the attacks, there is little for which Saudi Arabia or the United States can hold Iran legally accountable.. . here

Jackrabbit , Sep 17 2019 21:07 utc | 20
Peter AU 1

Yeah. USA+allies still have a soft blockade via sanctions. And every attack that is attributed to Iran strengthens that.

It doesn't make sense that Iran participated in the attack.

And it doesn't make sense that Houthi did the damage we see by themselves.

Either they increased the damage to create a reason for war OR they increased the damage to help Netanyahu and increase oil prices.

vk , Sep 17 2019 21:10 utc | 23
@ Posted by: Jackrabbit | Sep 17 2019 20:50 utc | 16

9/11 doesn't even compare to the Houthi attack.

In 2001, drones were just a distant dream. It also involves a chain of once in a lifetime of human errors by at least three governmental institutions (CIA, FBI and Pentagon).

What the Houthi did in 2019 is not that far fetched. Drones are a much more developed and cheap technology, and Saudi Arabia is a basket case of a country. Surprise is how much soft power they did enjoy in the West, since many commenters here still insist Saudi Arabia is some kind of fascist utopia that couldn't be tricked by a bunch of stone age cave dwellers (which the Houthi aren't any way). Looks like the USA's aura of invincibility is contagious.

uncle tungsten , Sep 17 2019 21:12 utc | 24
Jackrabbit #16. Perhaps increased tensions are enough to get Nuttyahoo elected (which I think fits with the supposition that this attack is false flag). However My guess is that the Houthis will prosecute this war to the very doorsteps of the holy mosques in KSA and exact immense retribution if they can. They are responding to 5 years of geocidal assault and cannot but fight to the death.

Trump and his immaculate surrounds of holy zionists and pentecostal towel boys are in thrall. Mesmerised by their inspired service to the holy writ. No doubt they consult daily with their personal rabbi who talks through his fedora as O would have it. But they are beholden to something evil and beneath the dignity of humankind.

Perhaps war will be avoided by dithering and too elaborate plotting but I still consider that justice might manifest in a meteor strike on their heads.

[Sep 18, 2019] Trump proved to be a weak politician who is too cozy with the Isreal lobby. He illegally removed the U.S. from the Iran deal and is now boxed into escalation that has no good outcome.

Brian not to be confused with the Inner Party member in 1984. This is just a coincidence.
Sep 18, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Circe , Sep 18 2019 14:19 utc | 146
The U.S. just increased sanctions on Iran again. Bad move.

Trump is stupid. He illegally removed the U.S. from the Iran deal and is now boxed into escalation that has no good outcome...

[Sep 18, 2019] The systemic problem of "Iran expertise" in Washington

Bacevich is wrong: it is all about the control of oil producing nations in the Middle East and the preservation "oil for dollars only" regime (with the help of Israel as the forward base of the US imperialism in the Middle East)
Notable quotes:
"... In this piece, I want to draw attention to the systemic problem of "Iran expertise" in Washington, which is neither new nor limited to the hawkish political factions now running this country's foreign policy. ..."
"... I assert that the US foreign policy establishment[i] has collectively created a culture of expert impunity when it comes to Iran, which has contributed in no small part to the unstable and dangerous policy conditions we see under Trump today. ..."
"... Supporting Iraq in its foolhardy war with Iran in the 1980s proved to be strategically shortsighted in the extreme. It yielded vastly more problems than it solved. It set in train a series of costly wars that have produced negligible benefits. Supporting Saudi Arabia today in its misbegotten war in Yemen is no less shortsighted. ..."
"... Power confers choice, and the United States should exercise it. We can begin to do so by recognizing that Saudi Arabia's folly need not be our problem." ..."
"... Iran has a much longer history of managing pawns and vassal states than the USA. So too has Russia. Now replace 'Iran' with 'Israel' and you can recognise the belligerent initiator/opponent of the conflict. Trouble is that Trump is captive of the Israelis (and his petty ego) while being tormented and impoverished by all those countries that the USA invaded at the Israeli's behest. ..."
"... The dumb oafish response of the USA giant with its five eyes as it stomps about the planet enthralled by prospect of egomaniacle rapture is what endagers humanity. Leave the middle east and everyone else to their own conflict resolution I say. ..."
Sep 18, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

t r u t h , Sep 17 2019 23:59 utc | 60

Negar Razavi:

In this piece, I want to draw attention to the systemic problem of "Iran expertise" in Washington, which is neither new nor limited to the hawkish political factions now running this country's foreign policy.

I assert that the US foreign policy establishment[i] has collectively created a culture of expert impunity when it comes to Iran, which has contributed in no small part to the unstable and dangerous policy conditions we see under Trump today.

<...>

( The Systemic Problem Of "Iran Expertise" In Washington )

t r u t h , Sep 18 2019 0:18 utc | 64

Andrew J. Bacevich:

"I am not suggesting that Washington is supporting the wrong side in Yemen. I am suggesting, however, that neither side deserves support. Iran may well qualify as America's "enemy." But Saudi Arabia is not a "friend," regardless of how many billions Riyadh spends purchasing American-manufactured weaponry and how much effort Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman invests in courting President Trump and members of his family.

The conviction, apparently widespread in American policy circles, that in the Persian Gulf (and elsewhere) the United States is compelled to take sides, has been a source of recurring mischief. No doubt the escalating rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran poses a danger of further destabilizing the gulf. But the United States is under no obligation to underwrite the folly of one side or the other.

Supporting Iraq in its foolhardy war with Iran in the 1980s proved to be strategically shortsighted in the extreme. It yielded vastly more problems than it solved. It set in train a series of costly wars that have produced negligible benefits. Supporting Saudi Arabia today in its misbegotten war in Yemen is no less shortsighted.

Power confers choice, and the United States should exercise it. We can begin to do so by recognizing that Saudi Arabia's folly need not be our problem."

( Iran Might Be America's Enemy, but Saudi Arabia Is No Friend )

uncle tungsten , Sep 18 2019 0:22 utc | 65
Thanks Don Bacon #19, yep that is good material.

Iran has a much longer history of managing pawns and vassal states than the USA. So too has Russia. Now replace 'Iran' with 'Israel' and you can recognise the belligerent initiator/opponent of the conflict. Trouble is that Trump is captive of the Israelis (and his petty ego) while being tormented and impoverished by all those countries that the USA invaded at the Israeli's behest.

The dumb oafish response of the USA giant with its five eyes as it stomps about the planet enthralled by prospect of egomaniacle rapture is what endagers humanity. Leave the middle east and everyone else to their own conflict resolution I say.

karlof1 , Sep 18 2019 0:27 utc | 66
Don Bacon @58--

Yeah, I'm reminded--again--of Milo Mindbender's racket in Catch-22 , which was 100% greed driven. But we mustn't forget the vaunted Vietnam Syndrome assorted POTUS have set out to quell. Trump just played on that theme today in a portion of his speech I cited. As psychohistorian reported on the open thread, the next round of QE has commenced in an effort to bolster Trump's electability--lots of that money just went to shorting oil. Tomorrow will surely bring forth new revelations, accusations, and denials.

For any barflies in the vicinity, Iran opens "an exhibition of hunted/captured drones in #Tehran from September 22 to October 7" that will draw more than the curious. I'm sure pics will get tweeted.

Peter AU 1 , Sep 18 2019 13:12 utc | 129
Vk
Houthi news site. https://english.almasirah.net/catview.php?cid=1

https://english.almasirah.net/details.php?es_id=8810&cat_id=1
"Air Force of the Yemeni Army and Popular Committees, Saturday morning carried out a large-scale operation with 10 drones, targeting Abqaiq and Khurais refineries east of Saudi Arabia. The operation is called the 2nd Operation of Balanced Deterrence."

https://english.almasirah.net/details.php?es_id=8802&cat_id=1
"Ansarullah in Yemen claimed the attack, saying that 10 drones had targeted Abiqaiq, as well as the Khurais oilfield."

https://english.almasirah.net/details.php?es_id=8787&cat_id=1
"Meanwhile, a spokesman for the Yemeni forces said that the air force targeted 10 planes refinery Abqaiq and Khurais in eastern Saudi Arabia."

A number of other articles I have read at the houthi site also state 10 drones.

[Sep 18, 2019] >War With Iran Would Be a Catastrophic Miscalculation by James Howard Kunstler

Notable quotes:
"... some people did some things ..."
"... some people will do nothing ..."
Sep 18, 2019 | russia-insider.com

Sep 16, 2019 Welcome to the world where things don't add up. For instance, some people did some things to the Saudi Arabian oil refinery at Abqaiq over the weekend. Like, sent over a salvo of cruise missiles and armed drone aircraft to blow it up. They did a pretty good job of disabling the works. It is Saudi Arabia's largest oil processing facility, and for now, perhaps months, a fair amount of the world's oil supply will be cut off. President Trump said "[we] are waiting to hear from the Kingdom as to who they believe was the cause of this attack, and under what terms we would proceed!" Exclamation mark his.

How many times the past few years has our government declared that "we have the finest intelligence services in the world." Very well, then, why are we waiting for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to tell us who fired all that stuff into Abqaiq? Whoever did it, it was unquestionably an act of war. And, of course, what are we going to do about it? (And what will some people do about it?)

Let's face it: the USA has had a hard-on for Iran for forty years, ever since they overthrew their shah, invaded the US embassy in Tehran, and took fifty-two American diplomats and staff hostage for 444 days. On the other hand, the Arabians and Iranians have had a mutual hard-on for centuries, long before the Saud family was in charge of things, and back when Iran was known as Persia, a land of genies, fragrant spices, and a glorious antiquity (while Arabia was a wasteland of sand populated by nomads and their camels). The beef was formerly just about which brand of Islam would prevail, Sunni or Shia. Lately (the past fifty years) it has been more about the politics of oil and hegemony over the Middle East. Since the US invaded Iraq and busted up the joint, the threat has existed that Iran would take over Iraq, with its majority Shia population, especially the oil-rich Basra region at the head of the Persian Gulf. The presence of Israel greatly complicates things, since Iran has a hard-on for that nation, too, and for Jews especially, often expressed in the most belligerent and opprobrious terms, such as "wiping Israel off the map." No ambiguity there. The catch being that Israel has the capability of turning Iran into an ashtray.

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The world has been waiting for a major war in the Middle east for decades, and it might have one by close of business today. Or perhaps some people will do nothing . The Iran-backed Houthi rebels of Yemen supposedly claimed responsibility for the attack. That's rich. As if that rag-tag outfit has a whole bunch of million-dollar missiles and the knowledge and capacity to launch them successfully, not to mention the satellite guidance mojo. A correspondent suggests that the missiles were fired from a pro-Iranian military base in Iraq, with the Houthis brought in on flying carpets to push the launch buttons.

President Trump is trumpeting America's "energy independence," meaning whatever happens over there won't affect us. Well, none of that is true. We still import millions of barrels of oil a day, though much less from Saudi Arabia than before 2008. The shale oil "miracle" is hitting the skids these days. Shale oil production has gone flat, the rig-count is down, companies are going bankrupt, and financing for the debt-dependent operations is dwindling since the producers have demonstrated that they can't make a profit at it. They're trapped in the quandary of diminishing returns, frontloading production, while failing to overcome steep decline curves in wells that only produce for a couple of years.

It's also the case that shale oil is ultra-light crude, containing little heavier distillates such as diesel and aviation fuel (basically kerosene). Alas, American refineries were all built before shale oil came along. They were designed to crack heavier oil and can't handle the lighter shale. The "majors" don't want to invest their remaining capital in new refineries, and the many smaller companies don't have the ability. So, this makes necessary a high volume of oil swapping around the world. Without diesel and aviation fuel, US trucking and commercial aviation has a big problem, meaning the US economy has a big problem.

With the new crisis in the Middle East, benchmark West Texas Intermediate oil is up from around $55-a-barrel to just over $60 at the market open (European Brent crude is just above $70). That's a pop, but not a spectacular one, considering that a whole lot more damage might ensue in the days ahead. China, Korea, and Japan stand to lose bigly if the players in the Middle East really go at it and bust up each other's assets. If that happens, the world will never be the same. You can kiss the global economy goodbye for good. Let's hope some people don't do something.

[Sep 18, 2019] Will Trump Take Neocon Bait and Attack Iran Over Saudi Strike by Ron Paul

Sep 17, 2019 | www.ronpaulinstitute.org

The recent attacks on Saudi oil facilities by Yemeni Houthi forces demonstrate once again that an aggressive foreign policy often brings unintended consequences and can result in blowback. In 2015 Saudi Arabia attacked its neighbor, Yemen, because a coup in that country ousted the Saudi-backed dictator. Four years later Yemen is in ruins, with nearly 100,000 Yemenis killed and millions more facing death by starvation. It has been rightly called the worst humanitarian catastrophe on the planet.

But rich and powerful Saudi Arabia did not defeat Yemen. In fact, the Saudis last month asked the Trump Administration to help facilitate talks with the Houthis in hopes that the war, which has cost Saudi Arabia tens of billions of dollars, could finally end without Saudi crown prince Mohammad bin Salman losing too much face. Washington admitted earlier this month that those talks had begun.

The surprise Houthi attack on Saturday disrupted half of Saudi Arabia's oil and gas production and shocked Washington. Predictably, however, the neocons are using the attack to call for war with Iran!

Sen. Lindsay Graham, one of the few people in Washington who makes John Bolton look like a dove, Tweeted yesterday that, "It is now time for the US to put on the table an attack on Iranian oil refineries " Graham is the perfect embodiment of the saying, "when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail." No matter what the problem, for Graham the solution is war.

Likewise, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo – who is supposed to represent US diplomacy – jumped to blame Iran for the attack on Saudi Arabia, Tweeting that, "Iran has now launched an unprecedented attack on the world's energy supply." Of course, he provided no evidence even as the Houthis themselves took responsibility for the bombing.

What is remarkable is that all of Washington's warmongers are ready for war over what is actually a retaliatory strike by a country that is the victim of Saudi aggression, not the aggressor itself. Yemen did not attack Saudi Arabia in 2015. It was the other way around. If you start a war and the other country fights back, you should not be entitled to complain about how unfair the whole thing is.

The establishment reaction to the Yemeni oilfield strike reminds me of a hearing in the House Foreign Affairs Committee just before the US launched the 2003 Iraq war. As I was arguing against the authorization for that war, I pointed out that Iraq had never attacked the United States. One of my colleagues stopped me in mid-sentence, saying, "let me remind the gentleman that the Iraqis have been shooting at our planes for years." True, but those planes were bombing Iraq!

The neocons want a US war on Iran at any cost. They may feel temporarily at a disadvantage with the departure of their ally in the Trump Administration, John Bolton. However, the sad truth is that there are plenty more John Boltons in the Administration. And they have allies in the Lindsay Grahams in Congress.

Yemen has demonstrated that it can fight back against Saudi aggression. The only sensible way forward is for a rapid end to this four-year travesty, and the Saudis would be wise to wake up to the mess they've created for themselves. Whatever the case, US participation in Saudi Arabia's war on Yemen must end immediately and neocon lies about Iran's role in the war must be refuted and resisted.

[Sep 17, 2019] Stingray devices near White House with no consequences to Israel might be a sign of "domesticated intelligence" Can you imagine if Russian devices had been found?

Sep 17, 2019 | www.unz.com

Justvisiting , says: September 17, 2019 at 12:33 pm GMT

@Anonymous At some point when an foreign intelligence service has a critical mass of politicians blackmailed it becomes "domestic intelligence" or "domesticated intelligence". :-)
JoaoAlfaiate , says: September 17, 2019 at 11:09 am GMT
It's amazing how little coverage this story got. Can you imagine if Russian devices had been found? It would be on CNN, etc. hour after hour and they'd be interviewing Nancy Pelosi non stop.
sally , says: September 17, 2019 at 12:19 pm GMT
@Cloak And Dagger I think you are correct there maybe many Americans in the USA.. It may take the few Americans who have been allowed to see the big picture at the USA

[Sep 17, 2019] While the Trump Administration seems to be cozying up to America's Jewish voters, here is an article that outlines what American Jews really think of Donald Trump and his leadership:

Sep 17, 2019 | www.unz.com

Sally Snyder , says: September 16, 2019 at 12:13 pm GMT

While the Trump Administration seems to be cozying up to America's Jewish voters, here is an article that outlines what American Jews really think of Donald Trump and his leadership:

https://viableopposition.blogspot.com/2019/06/americas-jews-on-trump-administration.html

Washington would seem to be on the wrong track when it comes to the U.S. Jewish community.

[Sep 17, 2019] Stingray devices were detected near White House -- Isreali intelligence is most probably culprit

Notable quotes:
"... Only President Donald Trump, predictably, had something so say in his usual personalized fashion, which was that the report was "hard to believe," that "I don't think the Israelis were spying on us. My relationship with Israel has been great Anything is possible but I don't believe it." ..."
"... So Trump is stupid, a liar and an Israeli sycophant what's the solution? ..."
Sep 17, 2019 | www.unz.com

anon [113] Disclaimer , says: September 17, 2019 at 6:41 am GMT

Too bad Tulsi can't call out Israel the way she does KSA.

Trump offers to pimp out our military to his Saudi masters

https://www.youtube.com/embed/9Jo8QU2s_5I?feature=oembed

cranc , says: September 17, 2019 at 8:21 am GMT
Just bewildering to read the Left's continuing insistence that Israel is best understood as 'just another outpost of the American empire'. This is probably the most damaging idea in circulation right now, as its diversionary effect is only matched by its absurdity.
The Left simply cannot 'go there' though, no matter how much factual evidence is stacked up. (On top of the spying and theft we have 'The Lobby' documentary, the defence pact, party funding, etc. etc.). They have to avoid the reality, one which can only be explained through cross border tribal allegiances and religious history going back many centuries. These, of course, lay outside the Left's purview, and any consideration of them is dogmatically opposed. It is getting to be a kind of insanity.

Tulsi can allege that Saudi Arabia was behind the 9/11 attacks and that they pull the strings in Washington, (and many on the Left will applaud) but she cannot point out the rather more glaring 9/11 connections to Israel and the whole machinery of control that lies at the centre of American empire.
As she votes against BDS, has there ever been a more ridiculous double standard ?

Realist , says: September 17, 2019 at 9:09 am GMT

Only President Donald Trump, predictably, had something so say in his usual personalized fashion, which was that the report was "hard to believe," that "I don't think the Israelis were spying on us. My relationship with Israel has been great Anything is possible but I don't believe it."

So Trump is stupid, a liar and an Israeli sycophant what's the solution?

JoaoAlfaiate , says: September 17, 2019 at 11:09 am GMT
It's amazing how little coverage this story got. Can you imagine if Russian devices had been found? It would be on CNN, etc. hour after hour and they'd be interviewing Nancy Pelosi non stop.
sally , says: September 17, 2019 at 12:19 pm GMT
@Cloak And Dagger I think you are correct there maybe many Americans in the USA.. It may take the few Americans who have been allowed to see the big picture at the USA
Hans , says: September 17, 2019 at 1:02 pm GMT
"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

Admiral Moorer, "the dirty anti-semite," was one of the few people with influence to call out Israel for their deliberate attack on the USS Liberty – https://www.erasingtheliberty.com/

The American Legion continues to wet its pants apparently believing that kissing (((ass))) is more patriotic than standing up for America and members of the Navy.

USS Liberty Veterans banned forever from Am Legion Nat'l Convention – https://israelpalestinenews.org/uss-liberty-vets-banned-forever-american-legion-national-conference/

DESERT FOX , says: September 17, 2019 at 1:17 pm GMT
Whats new about Israeli spying against the zio/US, hell the government is full of zionists in every facet of the government, they run every department, including and especially the CIA , which would be better named the Mossad West, in fact the Mossad is so embedded in the CIA that the only way to end this would be to as JFK said to scatter it to the winds aka abolish the Mossad infested CIA.

[Sep 14, 2019] The End of Israel by Gilad Atzmon

Theocratic of neo-theocratic states do not last long. So Gilad Atzmon is probably right. The writing for theocratic Israel might well be on the wall, much like it was for the USSR. At some point the majority of population just became sick and tied of the theocratic elite and stops believing the official propaganda. .
Trump strong connecting and deference to Zionists means that he will lose certain strata of voters that previously voted for him. Will money form Zionist billionaire donors outweigh this factor is difficult to say.
Sep 14, 2019 | www.unz.com

This conflict at the heart of Israeli politics is a window into the Jewish state and its fears. Israel is rapidly becoming an Orthodox Jewish state. Israel's Orthodox Jews are the fastest growing group in the country. They are also the country's poorest population, 45 percent live below the poverty line in segregated communities. Ordinarily, one would expect the poor to support the left, but Israeli Torah Jews are rabid nationalists and openly lend their support to Benjamin Netanyahu and his party.

Prof. Dan Ben-David of Tel Aviv University warned recently that Israel could cease to exist in a couple of generations. He pointed to the astonishingly high birth rate among ultra Orthodox Jews and predicted that, based on current trends, they will comprise 49% of Israel's population by 2065. The ultra Orthodox parties are destined to dominate the Knesset within a generation or less. Ben David predicts that their dependence on Israel's welfare system will lead to a rapid decline is Israel's economy. This is economically damaging enough and is made worse by the refusal of most rabbinical schools to incorporate standard Western subjects such as mathematics, science and English into their core curriculum. Consequently, Israel is educating a growing percentage of its population in a fashion that fails to equip them to contribute to the needs of a hi-tech society that is immersed in a conflict for survival.

The picture that comes across is peculiar. As Israel becomes increasingly Jewish and fundamentalist in its nationalist and religious ethos, it has also become more divided on everything else. The Russian immigrants find it impossible to live alongside the ultra Orthodox and vice versa. The secular enclave in Tel Aviv is committed to seeing their metropolis as an extension of NY.

The Israeli Left has morphed into an LGBT hasbara unit. It has practically removed itself from the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Jewish settlers adhere to the concept of a 'Two Jewish States Solution.' They want to see the West Bank become a Jewish land. Orthodox Jews are barely concerned with any of these political issues. They well know that the future of the Jewish state belongs to them. All they need to do is sustain a productive secular Jewish minority to serve as their milk cow. On top of all of that we face Bibi's survival wars that threaten to escalate any minute into a world conflict.

Altai , says: September 12, 2019 at 8:49 pm GMT

This is why I'm more optimistic the more Trump embraces Israel. He seems to have clearly decided not to get caught in Syria and so has to keep them off his back in some other way, moving the embassy and presumably giving Netanyahu the greenlight for annexation of more of the West Bank is a good thing.

It means Israel incorporates more and more Palestinians that it can't disengage from by keeping within it's existing borders and it means damaging the bi-partisan consensus with Trump's polarising association.

Everything Netanyahu does is just pulling back the sinews for the final reckoning. Instead of staying within reasonable borders and seeking a reconciliation with neighbours, Israel just gets more demanding, more unreasonable, breaks more promises and makes itself impossible to negotiate with and runs headlong into more and more Palestinian citizens.

What's unfortunate is that Europe and the US will be forced to put up with the millions of vagrant Sabras when it all goes kaput. Instead of becoming less anti-social, the Sabra became a magnificent compilation of every annoying and anti-social habit of the nations. Israelis make Sicilians look like Swedes.

Priss Factor , says: Website September 12, 2019 at 9:53 pm GMT
@Robert Dolan Israeli power is the consequence of Jewish-American Power.

It's like the princeling brat can romp around and make all kinds of trouble because his father is the king.

The King of Jewish Power is the hold over America.

Gilad Atzmon , says: September 12, 2019 at 9:56 pm GMT
@Altai I agree Altai . at the end of the day this entire mess will fall on Europe and The USA but if I read the map correctly the tolerance and empathy to the primacy of Jewish suffering is running out..the situation is getting complicated
Gilad Atzmon , says: September 12, 2019 at 9:56 pm GMT
@Altai I agree Altai . at the end of the day this entire mess will fall on Europe and The USA but if I read the map correctly the tolerance and empathy to the primacy of Jewish suffering is running out..the situation is getting complicated
niteranger , says: September 13, 2019 at 1:41 am GMT
@Robert Dolan Absolutely correct. If not for the US and it's Jewish Controlled Congress that never met a money bill for the Magic Jews Israel would be under water already. Our infrastructure is collapsing but we continue to find money for Israel no matter that we have cities with thousands of homeless people with the threat of disease and Middle Age plagues on our door step. Orthodox Jews are like Muslims in many ways because they love the "Welfare State" and they stay on it forever. Sections of New York are saturated with these Orthodox Welfare Jews and idiots like DeBlasio caters to them.

There is now a backlash by both blacks who hate them and want to kill them for their business practices in real estate and upper middle class residents that refuse to allow them to build their so called "Jewish Orthodox Communes" and take over the areas.

Israel may have overplayed their hand but that doesn't mean they will just disappear. They are sick enough to take mankind with them with their eternal wars. Hopefully Netanyahu is crazy enough to start a conflict with Iran who will bomb the shit out of them and then Hezabollah will destroy the wimp military the IDF.

We can only hope and perhaps mankind will have a chance .

Dennis Gannon , says: September 13, 2019 at 2:27 am GMT
It is more accurate to call them Talmudists. They are not "Jews". Jew is a recent abbreviation of Judean. The Ashkenazi came from Asia. They don't follow the Old Testament. They follow the Talmud, which is Maciavellian to the core. Pure evil. Since God made the man Jesus to be Lord, eventually, their works will be judged, they are headed for destruction morally, you reap what you sew. Israel is the most anti-Semitic country on earth. Which makes them hypocrites. The Arabs and Palestinians are a Semitic people and no one hates and kills them more that Israel.
Gilad Atzmon , says: Website September 13, 2019 at 4:10 am GMT
@Colin Wright As you may know Zionism was born as a reaction to antisemitsm and this fact alone suggests that people including Jews were aware of the problem before Israel was formed
Giuseppe , says: September 13, 2019 at 4:34 am GMT
@Gilad Atzmon

I don't want to ruin the party but as far as I can tell Israel is not the problem it is just a symptom of the problem peculiarly, Israel was born to fix the problem

Interesting point of view, actually, one of the most profound things I have ever read. If this is their calling, and I too somehow believe it is, they need to turn around, because they are kind of falling down on the job. So I look forward to that great day of turning. However, when they call you names, anti-Semite, self-hating Jew, or whatever else they might dig up, they greatly err, because you are a watchman on the wall.

Frankie P , says: September 13, 2019 at 4:57 am GMT
@Saggy Gilad has expressed his views on this topic many, many times. The early Zionists desired a Jewish State to make Jews human. By this, I mean that they were well aware of the Jewish Question and the repeated bad behavior of Jews in host societies, both Muslim and Christian. They were conscious of the economic role of powerful Jews, particularly with their usurious financial practices, but also as tax collectors and enforcers for the aristocracy. This, along with their tilted ethnocentric business practices, favoring their own while fleecing the goyim, invariably led to their control of what were traditionally local businesses, creating a growing resentment in local societies that reached critical mass. What followed were pogroms and expulsion. This occurred in both Muslim and Christian lands, but were especially pronouncrd in Christian Europe, which took more aggressive protective actions to shield itself.

The early Zionists wanted to be the midwives of a Jewish State that would solve the JQ by making a nation of Jews, in which Jews carried out all of the work, took all the jobs, from garbage collecting to farming, from street cleaner to bank president. They wanted to stop the pogroms and expulsions, but at the same time they were keenly aware that these were effects of Jewish behavior and actions, not senseless anti-Semitism of the goyim. So, yes Israel was conceived and born to solve the problem.

It didn't.

refl , says: September 13, 2019 at 6:10 am GMT
@Gilad Atzmon

As you may know Zionism was born as a reaction to antisemitsm and this fact alone suggests that people including Jews were aware of the problem before Israel was formed

Was it? Or was antisemitism the solution by the jewish leadership to the dissolution of their community in modern arreligious society? Was antisemitism the virtual ghetto wall?
Tell the people within that those outside want to kill them, at the same time having a small faction of very cunning Jews who go outside and produce trouble that then by necessity falls back on the whole community?

I find it quite astonishing when I read how privileged certain Jews were in European states, compared to what was the norm for regular Christian folks.
And indeed, also Christians were butchered, expelled etc in more religious times.

mena , says: September 13, 2019 at 7:50 am GMT
peculiarly, Israel was born to fix the problem

I have heard you say this before and remain surprised that you seem to believe this. The whole " people like any other people" hasbara may have been a sales approach tailored to a particular audience at some point, but any sincerity behind it has been demonstrably beside the point. Israel has been a projection of raw power from the start.

sally , says: September 13, 2019 at 8:16 am GMT
@niteranger Are you sure => "we continue to find money for Israel" <=unless you are among the elected 527 that run the USA you probably are not included in the WE.. did you vote (either yes or no) to send money to Israel?

Three votes (one to select a person to fill one of (1/425) jobs in the house of representatives, and 1 vote to select each of 2 persons to fill two senate jobs (2/100) does not make most Americans into deciding members of the USA. Not only that, at election time, American votes for President or VP do not count, because the electoral college vote decides who shall be President or vice President? So why do the candidates spend billions on the presidential elections?

350,000,000 Americans are governed by 527 salaried persons, who are elected to work at the USA.

Israel is a product of the bankers and their corporations; it began in earnest in 1897 in Switzerland.

The great success of Zionism (not racially or religiously connected) has been its networking ability. It can identify and intercept opposing forces, transport resources($, and people) in invisible ways, to/from multi many places, to focus on and to support a target project (local, regional, national or international) . The network that facilitates this "always win intention" works like a newspaper on one side, keeping all elements informed, and on the other side, like a powerful, but invisible government; seeking or willing to invade, protect or promote a place, project or person on the other side.

The network can concentrate fire power, vote power, impose political pressure, control the media, and develop the means to take advantage of, or put down, situation or opportunity or it can protect a friend in need. In a few days, a local situation or a massive opportunity can be "crowd funded" or "petition protected" via the network. For hypothetical example, say the NYT comes up for sale, in a short while a person with meager credit, tenders a multi-billion dollar offer backed with financing sufficient to acquire the opportunity? So how did the credit come to make this possible?

Its not Israel per se..that the USA congress supports: its the banking establishments and their powerful multi nation corporations, seeking to control the middle east, seeking to use "in the course of commerce" as their excuse for invisible weapon, mind control, and spy technology development. Its Economic Zionism that explains the foreign nation state support for Israel. IMO except for the propaganda value, race or religion has little to do with it.

Germanicus , says: September 13, 2019 at 8:28 am GMT
@Gilad Atzmon Why not infuse Israel with the tons of fanatical leftist(godless) Jews we have in Germany and Europe? They could counter the orthodox leeching by providing work force, and could additionally work their bottoms off on "racism", transform settlements in gay discos and do all the other professional complaints they make in Europe, like open borders.
The Jews in Europe are always scared, if Netanyahu calls them to Israel due to "anti-semitism". If a non Jew says something similar, its evil and "anti-semitic" of course.

It is quite interesting to note, that Israel develops in a theocracy(always has been in my view), while the Jews outside Israel seek to disprove/kill god and are in rebellion against god, nature, more or less play god.

Antares , says: September 13, 2019 at 8:45 am GMT
@FvS "It is the patriotic duty of all American Jews to relocate to Israel and help their nation thrive. Remember the holocaust. Also, democracy is garbage."

You could be an American patriot who doesn't want to pay 3.8 billion per year.

gotmituns , says: September 13, 2019 at 9:22 am GMT
Theodor Herzl said, "Where there is no anti Semitism, there are no Jews."
Lol , says: September 13, 2019 at 9:25 am GMT
@Gilad Atzmon The issue is that regular Europeans have diminishing rates of sympathy for Jews and the only reason European politics don't trash Israel is largely vassalage to America and not having an independent foreign policy.

With Americans ruining their relations with everyone, this will most likely change since there's no real reason for Europeans to source military equipment from outside the EU, have sanctions on Iran or Russia instead of backing their infrastructure projects, not back China in the Pacific if it offers a better deal etc.

Essentially, Jews will be America's problem and rightfully so considering right wing Americans can't seem to stop sucking Jewish dick.

Lol , says: September 13, 2019 at 9:34 am GMT
@A123 The only realistic plan would probably involve Israel not violating the fourth Geneva convention anymore which would mean the Jewish settlements on territories outside the pre-1967 borders will cease to exist as Jewish in any way.

Once you reject international law, you can't appeal to it anymore, but you must be Jewish if you think you can pick and choose what suits you. Lol

Johnny Walker Read , says: September 13, 2019 at 12:19 pm GMT
@Rational The "Holy Hook" is being exposed on a level never imagined. Charles Giuliani has a great series out exposing the "Tribe". This is one of my favorites:
http://www.renegadebroadcasting.com/truth-hertz-pimp-daddy-abrahams-adventures-in-egypt-6-17-19/
Greg Bacon , says: Website September 13, 2019 at 12:24 pm GMT
The loonie Avi Lieberman is salivating at the thought being Israeli PM, and the loonie Nuttyahoo is salivating at the thought of staying PM and using that power to keep his sorry ass out of prison.

Presented with those two choices is like a robber asking its victim, "Do you want to be stabbed with a knife or shot with a gun?"

Johnny Walker Read , says: September 13, 2019 at 12:25 pm GMT
@Robert Dolan America will never be shed of this parasite until the fundamentalist Christian Zionist/NeoCons are swept from power. They are every bit as insane as the radicalized Muslims. You tell me which country this clown truly servers!!

https://www.youtube.com/embed/UYEF8y7IZYc?feature=oembed

anonymous [420] Disclaimer , says: September 13, 2019 at 12:29 pm GMT
@Anon

Few goyim will make the leap to figure out the modern implications of the Moses mythology.

You should discuss that with @ Dennis Gannon, who appears to be tangled in a ball of misunderstanding or ignorance, especially of Machiavelli, evident when he wrote:

The Ashkenazi came from Asia. They don't follow the Old Testament. They follow the Talmud, which is Maciavellian to the core. Pure evil.

Crack open The Prince: Machiavelli "figured out the modern implications of the Moses mythology." Of three candidates Machiavelli considered, he selected Moses as the model Prince. Certain "evil" behavior that became necessary to save his beloved city, Florence, and make it a Republic of and for the people of Florence, was acceptable, inasmuch as Moses, whose chief counselor was god himself, used whatever means necessary to achieve the wellbeing of the conquerors of Canaan.

If only the people of the USA had a Prince as evil, and as dedicated to the wellbeing of the American people, as Machiavelli was to Florence.

Frankie P , says: September 13, 2019 at 12:50 pm GMT
@Brewer "Zionism was born as a reaction to antisemitism." Gilad is correct, but I believe that implicit in his statement is the understanding that the "antisemitism" is reactionary: it is born out of the anti gentile behavior and actions of Jews in gentile host societies. Gilad, please correct me if I've misrepresented you.
DESERT FOX , says: September 13, 2019 at 12:59 pm GMT
Israel is a terrorist state ran by terrorists for terrorists and its goal is to destroy the mideast for its greater Israel agenda and with the help of the zionist controlled zio/US government and the American taxpayers funding of these wars and providing the military muscle the zionists are now their way to armageddon!
Twodees Partain , says: September 13, 2019 at 1:45 pm GMT
@Brewer My definition of antisemitism is any pushback against crimes of the Ashkenazi.
Charles Pewitt , says: September 13, 2019 at 2:06 pm GMT
Israel is not an ally of the United States of America.

Israel is a client-state millstone of the American Empire that uses diasporan Jews such as Shelly Adelson to buy off politicians such as President Trump.

Andrew Jackson and George Washington would immediately sever all ties to Israel and they would make sure that diasporan Jews that put the interests of Israel over and ahead of the interests of the USA were strongly encouraged to permanently leave the USA. Those Jews who put the interests of Israel over and ahead of the interests of the USA should be disallowed from gaining entry into any other European Christian nation such as Canada, Australia, Germany, France, England, Italy, Spain etc.

It would also be a no-go Blavatsky for these diasporan Jews who put the interests of Israel ahead of the interests of the USA to go to South America or Asia or anywhere else. Israel must be made into a receptacle that will contain and constrain the ability of diasporan Jews and Israeli Jews from interfering in the governmental affairs of any other nation.

One of the reasons I will not vote for Trump and the Republican Party is that Trump and the Republicans put the interests of Israel over and ahead of the interests of the United States of America.

Trump seems to get the fact that the American Empire is a completely and totally separate entity from the United States of America. Trump seems to understand that resistance to Shelly Adelson's demands about foreign policy decisions regarding Israel is the best way to show patriotism to the USA.

The JEW/WASP ruling class of the American Empire is a clear and present threat to the safety, security and sovereignty of the United States of America

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA FIRST!

Charles Pewitt , says: September 13, 2019 at 2:18 pm GMT
Jew billionaire Shelly Adelson puts the interests of Israel ahead of the interests of the USA.

Jew billionaire Shelly Adelson has donated hundreds of millions of dollars to President Trump and the Republican Party over the years.

What has all that loot bought for diasporan Jew Adelson?

Is Adelson buying the foreign policy of the USA?

How come that dumb boob Chris Christie used the word "occupied" in front of Adelson when Christie was trying to pry some loot out of Adelson's checkbook? DUMMY!

Tweet from 2015:

Charles Pewitt , says: September 13, 2019 at 2:21 pm GMT
The ruling class in Israel wants to continue to use the US military as muscle to fight wars on behalf of Israel.

The ADL puts the interests of Israel ahead of the interests of the United States of America.

The ADL is an evil and immoral JEW PRESSURE GROUP that pushes mass legal immigration and mass illegal immigration and REFUGEE OVERLOAD and ASYLUM SEEKER INUNDATION and multicultural mayhem and all manner of other anti-White crud.

DESERT FOX , says: September 13, 2019 at 2:34 pm GMT
@Charles Pewitt Agree, the zionists have controlled the American people since 1913 when they fastened their privately owned central bank aka the FED and IRS on to the American people and then came the foreign wars and debt and total control of the American people by the zionists and their banking kabal.

Nathan Rothschild infamously said; I care not what puppet is place on the throne of England for the man who controls the money supply controls the British Empire, and I am that man!

The same holds true here in the zio/US the zionists have control of the money supply via the FED and we are slaves on the zionist plantation aka America, and a central bank and the income tax are 2 of the 10 planks of the communist manifesto, and zionism = communism!

Anonymous Snanonymous , says: September 13, 2019 at 3:05 pm GMT
So the Orthodox will turn Israel into a big shtetl within the span of next fifty years with the financial help of the "secular" Jews in the West and then they would want to do away with the LGBTQ crowd out of Tel Aviv you reap what you sow!
Wally , says: September 13, 2019 at 4:07 pm GMT
@J said:
"Under all that noise there is country growing and strengthening very fast"

Dream on.
Without US taxpayers money "that shitty little country" wouldn't last a month.

The True Cost of Parasite Israel
Forced US taxpayers money to Israel goes far beyond the official numbers .
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-true-cost-of-israel/

How Zionist Israel Is Robbing America Blind !:
http://www.unz.com/gatzmon/how-zionist-israel-is-robbing-america-blind/

[Sep 13, 2019] Trump has acceded to 2 of the 4 demands of Republican Party donor and Jew billionaire Shelly Adelson in regards to Israel: 1) Trump has killed the Iran nuclear deal and 2) Trump has moved the US embassy to Jerusalem.

Sep 13, 2019 | www.unz.com

Charles Pewitt , says: September 13, 2019 at 5:13 pm GMT

@ChuckOrloski

Then having very (unsafely) gone off the Gaderene cliff deep end, you opined, "Trump seems to understand that resistance to Shelly Adelson's demands about foreign policy decisions regarding Israel is the best way to show patriotism to the USA."

Let me elaborate further on that sentence.

Trump has acceded to 2 of the 4 demands of Republican Party donor and Jew billionaire Shelly Adelson in regards to Israel:

1) Trump has killed the Iran nuclear deal and 2) Trump has moved the US embassy to Jerusalem.

But,

3) Trump has refused to invade Iran or start a war with Iran and 4) Trump has not dropped a nuclear bomb on Iran.

Shelly Adelson wants the US military to invade Iran and Shelly Adelson wants the US military to drop a nuclear bomb on Iran.

Trump knows that there is a difference between the American Empire and the United States of America. Trump pushes military Keynesianism for the jobs and the loot for the American people, but Trump doesn't think that the American Empire must continually be at war to justify the war expenditures. Trump gave an interview where he spoke of the military-industrial complex and Trump is a baby boomer who remembers Ike and his warnings about the profiteers and scoundrels who would use the American Empire to profit off the USA.

Trump made the wise decision to not go to war against Iran with that drone incident, and that is a good thing. Trump may have thought about oil at two hundred dollars a barrel or he might have thought it's better to pop the Iranians surreptitiously rather than televised on CNN with air strikes and the like.

I do think that Trump puts the interests of Israel ahead of the interests of the USA, but a lot of the ruling class slobs who run the American Empire don't even think that the USA exists anymore. A lot of us voted for Trump to reclaim the sovereignty and independence of the USA from the American Empire.

So I think Trump is in his own way being patriotic to a certain extent by giving Shelly Adelson some of what Adelson wanted but not all.

Trump may also understand that German American women and other American women in the Great Lakes states don't want their sons or husbands or uncles or fathers getting killed or horribly wounded in endless wars that only benefit Israel. The German Americans, bless them, have historically shown great reluctance to get caught up in all the endless war crud that the JEW/WASP ruling class of the American Empire cooks up.

I won't vote for Trump because of his backstab on immigration, but I think Trump knows that he is the government leader of a big monster and that big monster is the creature that encompasses both the American Empire and the United States of America.

I was long winded, but there's a point in there somewhere!

Mark James , says: September 13, 2019 at 5:49 pm GMT
" My relationship with Israel has been great," Trump said, listing some of his pro-Israel accomplishments. "Anything is possible," he conceded, "but I don't believe it."

Trump, Netanyahu say no spying:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/pm-hints-gantz-campaign-planted-false-story-of-israel-spying-on-white-house/

"Yesterday you heard the lies that Israel tried to spy on the White House, a complete lie," Netanyahu said in a Hebrew-language video.
He then quoted Mark Levin as saying on his show that "this is exactly like the tricks carried out by Joel Benenson. He was an adviser to Obama and now he is the adviser to [Blue and White leaders Benny] Gantz and [Yair] Lapid."

Wally , says: September 13, 2019 at 6:24 pm GMT
@Charles Pewitt Trump certainly deserves criticism for his ME policies.

However, it's pure folly to think that the alternatives to Trump would be any better, in fact I suggest that most would be worse.

It's always interesting to see those here who are so quick to bash Trump never tell us which of the alternative candidates they are willing to endorse and why.

Thanks.

[Sep 11, 2019] Better late than never Bolton's firing gives Trump a chance to heed his instincts Ron Paul

This is a bit like rearranging the chairs on the deck of Titanic.
The problem is we do not know who pressed Trump to appoint Bolton., Rumors were that it was Abelson. In this case nothing changed.
The other problem with making Bolton firing a significant move is the presence in White House other neocon warmongers. So one less doe not change the picture. For example Pompeo remains and he is no less warmongering neocon, MIC stooge, and no less subservant to Israel then Bolton.
Notable quotes:
"... Firing National Security Advisor John Bolton gives US President Donald Trump a chance to move foreign policy in a more peaceful direction – as long as he's not replaced with another hawk, former congressman Ron Paul told RT ..."
"... Bolton has "been a monkey-wrench in Donald Trump's policies of trying to back away from some of these conflicts around the world," Paul observed on Tuesday ..."
"... "Every time I think Trump is making progress, Bolton butts in and ruins it," Paul added. Negotiations with Afghanistan and talks with North Korea and Iran have reportedly been scuttled by his aggressive tendencies, with Pyongyang declaring him a "defective human product." ..."
"... "A lot of people here didn't even want his appointment, because he was only able to take a position that did not require Senate approval," Paul said, suggesting that perhaps the "Deep State" pressure had forced the president to keep Bolton around long past his sell-by date. ..."
"... As for whether Bolton's departure would change the White House's policy line significantly, though, Paul was less certain. "I don't think it will change a whole lot," he said, pointing out that "we have no idea" who will replace Bolton. Trump said he would make an announcement next week. ..."
Sep 11, 2019 | www.rt.com

Firing National Security Advisor John Bolton gives US President Donald Trump a chance to move foreign policy in a more peaceful direction – as long as he's not replaced with another hawk, former congressman Ron Paul told RT.

Bolton has "been a monkey-wrench in Donald Trump's policies of trying to back away from some of these conflicts around the world," Paul observed on Tuesday, after news of Bolton's dismissal from the White House. Also on rt.com Bolton out: Trump ditches hawkish adviser he kept for 18 months despite 'disagreements'

"Every time I think Trump is making progress, Bolton butts in and ruins it," Paul added. Negotiations with Afghanistan and talks with North Korea and Iran have reportedly been scuttled by his aggressive tendencies, with Pyongyang declaring him a "defective human product."

Foreign leaders weren't the only ones who had a problem with Trump's notoriously belligerent advisor, either.

"A lot of people here didn't even want his appointment, because he was only able to take a position that did not require Senate approval," Paul said, suggesting that perhaps the "Deep State" pressure had forced the president to keep Bolton around long past his sell-by date.

While the uber-hawk's firing came "later than it should be," Paul hoped it would clear the way for Trump to follow through on the America First, end-the-wars promises that won him so much support in 2016. "Those of us who would like less intervention, we're very happy with it."

Also on rt.com War and whiskers: Freshly-resigned John Bolton gets meme-roasting

As for whether Bolton's departure would change the White House's policy line significantly, though, Paul was less certain. "I don't think it will change a whole lot," he said, pointing out that "we have no idea" who will replace Bolton. Trump said he would make an announcement next week.

[Sep 11, 2019] Peacemaker Bolton Quits by Walrus.

Sep 11, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

...Who should the Administration now call on to provide some restraint on the Presidents warlike impulses?

blue peacock , 10 September 2019 at 04:55 PM

How about another peacemaker and lady in waiting for the GOP 2024 nomination - Nimrata "Nikki" Haley. She will immediately call for a Peace & Friendship Treaty with that evil thug Vladimir Putin.
Barbara Ann , 10 September 2019 at 05:26 PM
I'm sure the Administration will give the matter much thought and due deliberation and using the same selection process as before, choose the candidate most highly qualified recommended by the Adelsons. Tell me it ain't so.

Lyttennburgh said... Reply 11 September 2019 at 07:05 AM

Subhān Allāh! Sultan Danuld at-Trumphoon al-Quincy dismissed his wazir Yahya al-Boltoni, for verily it’s said to all Faithful: mustache is Shaitan’s brush. /s

[Sep 10, 2019] Trump has, unfortunately, shown himself to be completely untrustworthy on the international stage

Notable quotes:
"... I personally suspect that Trump has a negative net worth, and hopes that if he marches to Adelson's orders, he might get a nice pay-off at the end. It's the only thing that explains all this. ..."
Sep 10, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Kent • 19 hours ago

I think it is highly unlikely Trump can pull off detente with the Chinese or anyone else before the next election. He has, unfortunately, shown himself to be completely untrustworthy on the international stage. Under what circumstance are the Chinese going to sign some agreement with him, when he might just throw out new tariffs a week later?

What are the Taliban going to agree to when the US wants to leave thousands of troops in Afghanistan?

I personally suspect that Trump has a negative net worth, and hopes that if he marches to Adelson's orders, he might get a nice pay-off at the end. It's the only thing that explains all this.

[Sep 09, 2019] Trump wants the Jewish political donations. Iran is opposed to Israel. It's all about the money.

Sep 09, 2019 | www.nakedcapitalism.com

The Rev Kev , September 8, 2019 at 6:08 am

Probably an important factor here in the gamesmanship between Trump and Iran is Trump's re-election campaign next year. Consider – Trump probably realizes that if he is no longer President by 2021, then the democrats and a host of others will have the knives out for him and seek to drag him through a series of courts to convict him of something, anything. It sounds so Roman that. Proof of this was the Meuller investigation which went nowhere but which was used to beat him over the head with for nearly three years. Another four more years of Presidency will keep him safe from these attacks.
If a war breaks out then at a minimum Saudi Arabia's oil fields and water filtration installations along with their capital is toast! The oil route through the Straits of Hormuz are blocked and the war may spread to other countries as well, including Israel. I would guess that this would result in more economic turmoil than the 2008 crash at a minimum . And there would go Donald's chances of re-election. I know that some people may be surprised that Trump may put his personal interests ahead of that of the country but there it is. So, irony of irony, Trump may be the one factor stopping the trouble here from breaking out into a full blown war.

Synoia , September 8, 2019 at 1:41 pm

Trump wants the Jewish political donations. Iran is opposed to Israel.

It's all about the money.

[Sep 09, 2019] "'The New Normal': Trump's 'China Bind' Can Be Iran's Opportunity" by Alastair Crooke, and "Who Is Holding Back the Russian Economy?" by Tom Luongo.

Notable quotes:
"... Twice in the same sentence we get told what that assumption is: "America's technology leadership" which so clearly no longer exists in weaponry, electronics, nuclear engineering, rocketry, high speed rail and mass transportation, low energy building techniques, and a host of other realms. This same sort of thinking pervades every defense doctrine paper produced during Trump's administration--the planners have eaten and all too well digested their own propaganda about the backwardness of Russia, China and Iran. ..."
"... This does not imply some rabid anti-Americanism, but simply the experience that that path is pointless. If there is a 'clock being played out', it is that of the tic-toc of western political and economic hegemony in the Middle East is running down ..."
"... [with] Iran repeating the same old routines, whilst expecting different outcomes is, of course, one definition of madness. A new US Administration will inherit the same genes as the last. ..."
"... "And in any case, the US is institutionally incapable of making a substantive deal with Iran. A US President – any President – cannot lift Congressional sanctions on Iran. The American multitudinous sanctions on Iran have become a decades' long knot of interpenetrating legislation: a vast rhizome of tangled, root-legislation that not even Alexander the Great might disentangle: that is why the JCPOA was constructed around a core of US Presidential 'waivers' needing to be renewed each six months. Whatever might be agreed in the future, the sanctions – 'waived' or not – are, as it were, 'forever'. ..."
"... "If recent history has taught the Iranians anything, it is that such flimsy 'process' in the hands of a mercurial US President can simply be blown away like old dead leaves. Yes, the US has a systemic problem: US sanctions are a one-way valve: so easy to flow out, but once poured forth, there is no return inlet (beyond uncertain waivers issued at the pleasure of an incumbent President)." ..."
Sep 09, 2019 | www.strategic-culture.org

Speculation's abounded about the political loyalty of the head of Russia's central bank Elvira Nabullina. Luongo simply explains:

"Nabullina has always been a controversial figure because she is western trained and because the banking system in Russia is still staffed by those who operate along IMF prescriptions on how to deal with crises.

"But those IMF rules are there to protect the IMF making the loans to the troubled nation, not to assist the troubled nation actually recover....

"The fundamental problem is a miseducation about what interest rates are, and how they interact with inflation and capital flow. Because of this, the medicine for saving an economy in trouble is, more often than not, worse than the disease itself.

"If Argentina's fourth default in twenty years doesn't prove that to you, nothing will."

It sounds like he's been reading Hudson's J is for Junk Economics !

The real rescue is Putin's aggressive de-dollarization policy that's finally rid Russia of "dollar-dependency":

"She [Nabullina] keeps jumping at the shadows of a dollar-induced crisis. But the Russian economy of 2019 is not the Russian economy of 2015. Dollar lending has all but evaporated and the major source of demand for dollars domestically are legacy corporate loans not converted to rubles or euros."

The key for me is to weave the content emphasis of Putin's Eastern Economic Conference speech with his increasing pressure on Nabullina for the bank to support this very important development policy direction and show China and other nations that Russia's extremely serious about the direction being taken. Just Putin's language about mortgage rate reductions as an attracter ought to be a huge message for Nabullina to respond properly. And a further kick in the pants was provided by the massive deal announced between China and Iran. Luongo briefly alludes to foreign policy in his article, its regional economic aspects, while omitting aspects hidden by the US-China Trade War, specifically Russia's now very clear technological supremacy to the Outlaw US Empire.

This brings us to Crooke's article in which he inadvertently tells us the #1 false assumption in Trump's Trade War policy with China:

"To defend America's technology leadership , policymakers must upgrade their toolkit to ensure that US technology leadership can withstand the aftershocks." [My Emphasis]

Twice in the same sentence we get told what that assumption is: "America's technology leadership" which so clearly no longer exists in weaponry, electronics, nuclear engineering, rocketry, high speed rail and mass transportation, low energy building techniques, and a host of other realms. This same sort of thinking pervades every defense doctrine paper produced during Trump's administration--the planners have eaten and all too well digested their own propaganda about the backwardness of Russia, China and Iran.

I could write further about the supposed handcuffing of POTUS by the unconstitutional and illegal sanction regime "imposed" by the US Congress. Crooke mentions as a significant hindrance--but if it was indeed a hindrance, any POTUS could break it by suing to prove its unconstitutional, illegal standing, yet no effort is put into that, begging the question Why? Crooke spends lots of space about this but fails to see the above solution:

"The pages to that chapter have been shut. This does not imply some rabid anti-Americanism, but simply the experience that that path is pointless. If there is a 'clock being played out', it is that of the tic-toc of western political and economic hegemony in the Middle East is running down , and not the 'clock' of US domestic politics. The old adage that the 'sea is always the sea' holds true for US foreign policy.

And [with] Iran repeating the same old routines, whilst expecting different outcomes is, of course, one definition of madness. A new US Administration will inherit the same genes as the last.

"And in any case, the US is institutionally incapable of making a substantive deal with Iran. A US President – any President – cannot lift Congressional sanctions on Iran. The American multitudinous sanctions on Iran have become a decades' long knot of interpenetrating legislation: a vast rhizome of tangled, root-legislation that not even Alexander the Great might disentangle: that is why the JCPOA was constructed around a core of US Presidential 'waivers' needing to be renewed each six months. Whatever might be agreed in the future, the sanctions – 'waived' or not – are, as it were, 'forever'.

"If recent history has taught the Iranians anything, it is that such flimsy 'process' in the hands of a mercurial US President can simply be blown away like old dead leaves. Yes, the US has a systemic problem: US sanctions are a one-way valve: so easy to flow out, but once poured forth, there is no return inlet (beyond uncertain waivers issued at the pleasure of an incumbent President)."

Being British, we should excuse Crooke for not knowing about the crucial Supremacy Clause within the US Constitution, but that doesn't absolve any POTUS if that person is really intent on talking with Iran--or any other sanctioned nation. IMO, the Iranians know what I know and have finally decided the Outlaw US Empire's marriage to Occupied Palestine won't suffer a divorce anytime soon. The result is the recent very active change in policy direction aimed at solidifying the Arc of Resistance and establishing a Persian Gulf Collective Security Pact that will end in check mating the Empire's King thus causing further economic problems for the Empire.

Crooke does a good job of summarizing my comment and many more made over the year regarding the reasons for the utter failure of Outlaw US Empire policy:

"Well, here is the key point: Washington seems to have lost the ability to summon the resources to try to fathom either China, or the Iranian 'closed book', let alone a 'Byzantine' Russia. It is a colossal attenuation of consciousness in Washington; a loss of conscious 'vitality' to the grip of some 'irrefutable logic' that allows no empathy, no outreach, to 'otherness'. Washington (and some European élites) have retreated into their 'niche' consciousness, their mental enclave, gated and protected, from having to understand – or engage – with wider human experience."

The only real way for the Outlaw US Empire to regain its competitive "niche" with the rest of the world is to mount a massive program of internal reform verging on a revolution in its outcome. It's patently obvious that more of the same will yield more of the same--FAILURE--and the chorus of inane caterwauling by BigLie Media over where to place the blame.

Posted by: karlof1 | Sep 9 2019 17:24 utc | 118

[Sep 07, 2019] Who Is Jared Kushner Trump Loyalist or 'Deep State' Kissinger Protege by Robert Bridge

Nov 22, 2017 | www.strategic-culture.org

Beyond the question of Jared's omnipresence is his apparent knack for political survival. Although Trump tends to go through officials as rapidly as he tweets, Jared has managed thus far to ride out the storm. Of course, firing Jared – husband of Trump's daughter, Ivanka – would be more than your average political decision, which is probably why Trump should never have dabbled in nepotism to begin with. Or perhaps Jared Kushner remains in his top-level position not because he is the son-in-law of Donald Trump, or because he is so politically astute (thus far it would seem he is not), but precisely because the Deep State wants him there.

Whatever the case may be, it is notable that while Trump's main allies – guys like Mike Flynn, Steve Bannon and Reince Priebus (all of whom were loathed by the Deep State, incidentally) – fell to the wayside one after another, Kushner alone remains from the original Trump lineup. And his popularity among the establishment elite remains high.

Reminiscent of the day when Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize without ever negotiating a single peace deal, Time magazine just named Jared Kushner among its '100 Most Influential People'. And it was none other than Henry Kissinger, 93, the fiercely criticized former US statesman, who penned the blurb that accompanied Jared's honorable mention.

Kissinger, expert practitioner of the "strategic lie", says he first met Kushner "about 18 months ago, when he introduced himself after a foreign policy lecture I had given." The very next line strongly suggests that Kissinger is lurking in the shadows of the Trump administration. "We have sporadically exchanged views since."

Really? That short sentence should have set alarms ringing. What exactly does Kissinger mean by "sporadically," and what is it that he and Jared discuss? Somehow I doubt the weather. And is Trump aware of the content of these "sporadic" conversations, or is he content to get the Cliff Notes courtesy of Kushner?

Considering Henry Kissinger's extremely checkered past – for starters, he convinced Nixon to bomb Cambodia and Laos, and replace the democratically elected government of Chile with a brutal military dictatorship – these are no idle questions. And as it turns out, there is already some whiff of mischief in the air that directly involves Jared Kushner, and, indirectly or otherwise, Henry Kissinger.

The Art of The Dumb

To date, President Trump has made two critical decisions that, for many analysts, defied logic and even common sense and were, in short, disastrous. The first involved the firing of Michael Flynn less than a month after he was named national security adviser. The stated reason for that decision was due to conversations Flynn had with former Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak a month before Trump formally took office. However, Flynn was doing nothing more 'subversive' than attempting to tamp down Russia's understandable fury at being treated so brusquely by the Obama administration.

In the tidal wave of Russophobia that swept through Washington following Hillary Clinton's dramatic defeat, Barack Obama – after originally acknowledging the election to have been fair – suddenly changed his tune. Apparently somebody had a talk with him, and on December 29, based on the groundless claims of Russian tampering the elections, Obama expelled 35 Russian embassy staff, as well as imposing sanctions – all just days before the New Year.

It was in the course of this dramatic diplomatic meltdown between the world's two nuclear powers that Flynn and Kislyak spoke on the telephone on several occasions in an effort to repair the damage (It should be noted that Jared Kushner also participated in an earlier meeting at Trump Tower with Michael Flynn and Sergey Kislyak. The purpose of that meeting was to "establish a line of communication" between the soon-to-be Trump administration and the Kremlin, the White House told the New York Times). All things considered, it was the honorable thing to do. Others, of course, saw things differently. Yet Flynn got the sack, while Kushner continues in his post relatively unscathed.

When the wolves in the Democratic Party came a knocking, Trump probably thought he could satisfy the Deep State, obviously hell-bent on sabotaging US-Russia relations, by sacrificing Flynn like an easily disposable pawn. The maverick of Manhattan gambled wrong. Trump now reportedly " regrets " firing Flynn, who he says got a "very bad deal" from the media.

The second even more mysterious event involved the firing of James Comey, the FBI Director who was in the process of investigating claims of collusion between Trump and Russia in the course of the 2016 presidential election. It did not take a political genius to understand that firing Comey while he was investigating claims of "Russian collusion" would only serve to fortify that very myth – and worse, appear as an attempt at a Trump cover-up. The US president, understandably at wits end over the ongoing witch-hunt, now seemed guilty of attempting to 'disappear' the nosy Comey. What he got instead was just more barbarians at the gate.

Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, yet another dedicated Trump loyalist who got served a pink slip, told Charlie Rose in an interview that President Trump's decision to fire James Comey was "the biggest mistake in modern political history."

So who gave Trump such horrible advice? Some reports point to Kushner.

According to a Vanity Fair report , "Trump blamed Jared Kushner for his role in decisions, specifically the firings of Mike Flynn and James Comey, that led to Mueller's appointment." That comment was allegedly based on a phone call between Bannon and Trump. In another conversation, political analyst Roger Stone supposedly told Trump that Kushner was giving him bad political advice, and Trump agreed.

"Jared is the worst political adviser in the White House in modern history," former Trump campaign aide Sam Nunberg told the magazine. "I'm only saying publicly what everyone says behind the scenes at Fox News, in conservative media, and the Senate and Congress."

However, Nunberg's judgment is only true if we assume that Kushner is really dedicated to faithfully serving Donald Trump, but is just awful at his job. Or, alternatively, if he is instead accepting the demands and advice being given to him from people like Henry Kissinger, representatives of the Deep State. In that case, it could be argued he is doing a remarkable job.

Welcome back, Henry Kissinger

Keeping in mind Mark Twain's observation that "history does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme," it was impossible to miss the historical coincidence of Kissinger appearing next to Donald Trump in May shortly after the latter unceremoniously canned Comey. Why was it a coincidence?

Because decades earlier, Henry Kissinger, while serving under Richard Nixon as National Security Adviser and Secretary of State, played a major role in the so-called 'Saturday Night Massacre,' which saw Nixon fire Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox, who was attempting to retrieve telephone recordings connected to the case.

What followed from that disastrous decision was Nixon being eventually forced to resign in disgrace, a political calamity that some experts say could eventually happen to Trump if 'Russiagate' gets any more out of control.

"The unexpected firing of a high-profile investigator looking into potential political malfeasance connected to the White House, followed by a visit by Henry Kissinger to the Oval Office. No, this is not October 1973," began an ABC News report detailing Kissinger's strangely timed invitation to the White House.

Trump said the meeting with Kissinger, now 93, focused on Russia, Syria and "various other matters," calling Kissinger a "friend for a long time."

Coincidence or otherwise, Kissinger was one of Nixon's closest confidants and also met with him after the Saturday Night Massacre.

"I don't think we can read too much into that, but it would be interesting if they were consulting him on troubleshooting, in which case, Kissinger wouldn't be the first person I would turn to," David Greenberg, a professor of history and journalism and media studies at Rutgers University in New Jersey, told ABC News.

In any case, if it really was Jared Kushner who advised Trump to dump both Flynn and Comey, as many analysts suggest, then the sudden appearance of geopolitical guru Kissinger in the White House shortly afterwards is peculiar to say the least.

1001 Arabian arrests

Just this month, we may have witnessed, albeit from second-hand accounts, Jared Kushner taking his first steps as a Kissinger geopolitical protégé.

On November 3rd, Saudi Arabia placed a call to Lebanon's then Prime Minister Saad Hariri, demanding that he pay a visit to Riyadh. Hariri wasted no time at all, reportedly flying to Saudi Arabia without his regular staff. The next day, Hariri did something completely out of the ordinary: In a televised appearance, from the Saudi capital, he announced that he was resigning from his post as prime minister.

Western media greatly played down the fact that Hariri made his announcement on foreign soil, not least of all Saudi soil, while giving extra attention to Hariri's explanation for his sudden retirement: Iran and Hezbollah, which just helped Syria liberate itself from ISIS terrorists.

"Wherever Iran settles, it sows discord, devastation and destruction, proven by its interference in the internal affairs of Arab countries," he said in his prepared statement. He also said he feared for his life.

That evening, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman arrested 11 Saudi princes, 4 government officials and dozens of businessmen, while also claiming that Saudi Arabia had intercepted a ballistic missile launched by Houthi rebels in Yemen. The blame for that unconfirmed event naturally went to Iran as well.

Iran's Foreign Ministry said Hariri's resignation was a ploy to "create tension in Lebanon and the region."

"Hariri's resignation was done with planning by Donald Trump, the president of America, and Mohammed bin Salman (MbS), the crown prince of Saudi Arabia," said Hussein Sheikh al-Islam, adviser to Iran's supreme leader.

However, Iran's foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif took the blame game one step further, pointing to Jared Kushner as the cause of the spectacle.

"Visits by Kushner & Lebanese PM led to [Saad] Hariri's bizarre resignation while abroad," Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted . "Of course, Iran is accused of interference."

Indeed, Kushner paid a visit to Saudi Arabia in October as part of a four-day trip that also included stops in Israel, Jordan and Egypt.

The Washington Post provided some scant details on Kushner's secretive meeting with MbS: "MBS is emboldened by strong support from President Trump and his inner circle It was probably no accident that last month, Jared Kushner, Trump's senior adviser and son-in-law, made a personal visit to Riyadh. The two princes are said to have stayed up until nearly 4 a.m. several nights, swapping stories and planning strategy."

Meanwhile, Israel's interest in what transpires between Saudi Arabia and Lebanon is also of no small concern, given its wariness of Iranian moves in the region, as noted by The Spectator : "The Jewish state is hardly a natural ally for Saudi Arabia, but they have long shared a common enemy: Iran. Both fear the latter is exploiting the opening created by the fall of Isis, and the triumph of the Assad regime in Syria, to dominate the region "

The question, however, comes down to what role Jared Kushner has been playing in all of this, and to what end? Is he loyally and dutifully serving the interests of Donald Trump, while being groomed as the next Henry Kissinger, possibly eventually moving seamlessly between consecutive administrations, as Kissinger did when he survived the downfall of Nixon and went on to serve under Gerald Ford?

Or is Jared Kushner, despite being the son-in-law and top adviser of Donald Trump, heeding the demands of a different master?

[Sep 04, 2019] We will destroy Lebanon... Michael Katz, MoD of Israel in Tweet yesterday - Sic Semper Tyrannis

Sep 04, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Jack , 01 September 2019 at 01:02 PM

Sir

I'm willing to wager that Trump will order the US military to enter that war on the side of Bibi.

IMO, Bibi knows Trump is weak to zionist & neocon instigated media hysteria. This will be his "war president" moment. He'll have the full backing of Chuckie and Nancy and the rest of the Congressional crew as AIPAC calls in their check. I recall well in the heat of the Russia Collusion media hysteria when he ordered the missile strike in Syria how the media were calling it his presidential moment.

I believe Bibi for his own domestic political reasons as well as knowing that Trump is a fully bought and paid for Zionist asset has been probing what he can instigate that will cause the US to do his work. My question to this committee of military experts is what will this war look like? How will Syria and Iran respond, since both have an obligation to Hezbollah? And what will Putin do with his forces in the middle of a war zone?

walrus , 01 September 2019 at 01:02 PM
I wonder if the Israeli Government has decided that time is not on their side, leading to a decision to act now?

The game changer for Israel would be the resolution of the Syrian civil war.

That would result in a battle hardened and capable SAA being free to operate along the Southern border and on the flank of any Israeli incursion into Lebanon.

Then there is the possibility of Syria extending its air defense network to include Lebanon.

Then there is the question of money to be made in reconstructing Syria, building transport infrastructure for the Iran to Mediterranean leg of OBOR as well as perhaps other projects- this economic activity increases the political power of Syria, Iran, Lebanon and China.

All in All, perhaps Bibi has decided to go now.

blue peacock , 01 September 2019 at 06:16 PM
Col. Lang

Is there any circumstance that you see where the US will not get militarily involved if thousands are killed in Israel even if it is in response to an Israeli provocation?

It would seem that the pressure on any US president would be immense. Hezbollah after all has been demonized for so long as an Islamic terrorist organization. The support for military intervention here would be universal and bipartisan. And the ziocon media would be in full on escalation propaganda mode showing images of Israeli kids in rubble and malevolent images of the evil Nasrallah.

The likely only opposition voices would be Ron Paul, Pat Buchanan and Tulsi Gabbard and they will be maligned quickly as irrelevant.

Mathias Alexander -> blue peacock... , 02 September 2019 at 02:43 AM
The support would be bipartisan but would it be universal?
Tulsi Gabbard will fold like a cheap suit.
blue peacock said in reply to Mathias Alexander... , 02 September 2019 at 11:38 AM
Universal means the majority across all geographies from the two coasts to the mid-west and south. The people have been conditioned for decades that Hezbollah is a terrorist organization.

The only way to judge a person is how they acted in the past under similar conditions. Tulsi has shown courage of conviction in the past in opposing the very popular Obama's Syria policy of supporting & arming Al Qaeda when it was not popular to do that and she's paying for it by being labeled an Assad apologist among the establishment. And resigning from the DNC to endorse Bernie.

Now of course you are entitled to your own opinion which doesn't have to be based on any facts.

jdledell , 01 September 2019 at 06:21 PM
If the IDF general command has any say in the matter they are telling Bibi - DO NOT wage a total war in Lebanon. The only way Israel can keep Hezballah defanged is to occupy most of Lebanon - something the IDF and it reliance on reserve soldiers is NOT equiped to do except for a very short time. Southern Lebanon is crisscrossed with hundreds of tunnels, an issue where IAF saturation bombing proved to be ineffective. The IDF and their tanks were hit with withering fire from the rear and IDF operational discipline broke down quickly. There is no cohesion between the Professional soldiers in the IDF and the reservists and this makes large scale operations very difficult. Among the professional IDF, you would be hard pressed to find a single soldier who wants to fight Hezballah again.

I think Trump would gladly join Israel in a war in Lebanon and that would turn the tide in Israel's favor temporarily. However, Hezballah would not give a moments peace to any Israeli or U.S. soldier on the ground in Lebanon and the entire population of Lebanon would support Hezballah to throw the invaders out of the country. It would be a bloody occupation for however long it lasted.

jdledell said in reply to milomilo... , 02 September 2019 at 09:55 AM
One of my nephews is an F-16 pilot in the IAF and there is significant concerns about Hezballah's limited air defense capabilities. Israeli intelligence on Hezballah's capabililiies and location is very poor. The IAF has lost several planes in Syria in recent years and are loath to fly over Lebanon proper. The usual tactic is for the IAF planes to fly out to sea and fire missiles from there. Without good intelligence the IAF bombing runs usually end up churning up a lot of dirt.
Fred , 01 September 2019 at 08:00 PM
So the IDF has to penetrate the first line, which they barely managed the first time, then they face a second line of prepared defenses? How much recent combat experience do they have? If I recall correctly at least some of the Lebanese have served in Syria in one capacity or another. It certainly wasn't West Bank occupation duty.
ISL , 01 September 2019 at 09:37 PM
Dear Colonel,

It seems as if Israel is ready to re-fight the last war, and Hezbollah has prepared for the next. More importantly, if war is politics by other means, I see no clear Israeli political objectives nor any indication as to why they think a do over of 2006 will lead to a better outcome.

Absent contributing an occupation force for Lebanon, what would US contribute? Bombing targets in Lebanon? Israel will have taken out all significant targets in a few days and long term bombing changes little. I am sure Bolton is whispering in Trumps ear that Hezbollah will surrender once the might of the US enters the fray.

stumpy , 02 September 2019 at 05:20 PM
Given this discussion, it throws a bit more weight on the side of the recent air strikes by IAF in Iraq and Lebanon as an initial nibble, weighing responses from various parties in order to adjust course.

I'm quite confident that there are enough munitions that are deliverable from unmanned systems to waste Hizbulla's defenses.

The question to be weighed is whether Hizbullah can count on Israel's uncertainty as a deterrent to a massive attack against Lebanon. The Samson effect cuts both ways if Iran jumps in. Unless tptb decide to go with theatre-level weaponry, what is left of Israel even if Iran and Lebanon are squashed?

Even more interesting, if Trump jumps in with his typically flaccid braggadocio, does his action endanger Israel by falling short of the killer punch?

turcopolier , 02 September 2019 at 05:36 PM
stumpy

"I'm quite confident that there are enough munitions that are deliverable from unmanned systems to waste Hizbullah's defenses. "

Do you have any qualifications with which to make such a judgment? What unmanned weapons so you mean?

stumpy said in reply to turcopolier ... , 02 September 2019 at 08:01 PM
Sir, cruise missiles and drones. I read.
ISL said in reply to stumpy ... , 04 September 2019 at 12:33 AM
stumpy, If Israeli saturation bombing of Lebanon achieved nothing in 2006 (except defeat), why exactly do you argue it will have an effect this time?

Moreover, there likely will be a highly complex EW environment, with which Israel has no experience. Did you notice at all what happened to the US Tomahawk volley? Those missiles you admire or worship (missiles - what a novel idea), without IDF on the ground for spotters and to consolidate gains (and die) will push dirt.

Try and name ANY case where air power has been decisive politically without ground forces. You cant for a reason.

[Sep 04, 2019] Israel's Many Wars by Philip Giraldi

Notable quotes:
"... 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 councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is ..."
Sep 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

Pat Buchanan continues to be one of the few publicly visible political analysts currently active who dares to tell it like it is when it comes to Israel's power in America. His article last week "Will Israel's War Become America's War" as always gets to the heart of the problem, i.e. that the completely contrived "special relationship" with Israel could easily lead the United States into another totally unnecessary war or even a series of wars in the Middle East.

Pat starts with "President Donald Trump, who canceled a missile strike on Iran after the shoot-down of a U.S. Predator drone to avoid killing Iranians, may not want a war. But the same cannot be said of Bibi Netanyahu." He observes that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is facing re-election on September 17 th , and though most polls indicate that he will win, the opposition to him is strong based on his personal corruption and his pandering to the country's most extreme right-wing parties. So Bibi is concerned that he might lose and even go to jail and there is nothing like a little war to make a leader look strong and righteous, so he is lashing out at all his neighbors in hopes that one or more of them will be drawn into what would be for Israel, given its massive military superiority, a manageable confrontation.

Buchanan sums up Netanyahu's recent escalation, writing that on "Saturday, Israel launched a night attack on a village south of Damascus to abort what Israel claims was a plot by Iran's Revolutionary Guards' Quds Force Sunday, two Israeli drones crashed outside the media offices of Hezbollah in Beirut. Israel then attacked a base camp of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command in north Lebanon. Monday, Israel admitted to a strike on Iranian-backed militias of the Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq. And Israel does not deny responsibility for last month's attacks on munitions dumps and bases of pro-Iran militias [also] in Iraq. Israel has also confirmed that, during Syria's civil war, it conducted hundreds of strikes against pro-Iranian militias and ammunition depots to prevent the transfer of missiles to Hezbollah in Lebanon."

So, Israel has staged literally hundreds of attacks against targets in Lebanon, Syria and now Iraq while it is also at the same time shooting scores of unarmed demonstrators inside Gaza every Friday. Netanyahu has also threatened both perennial foe Iran and the Houthi rebels in Yemen. As the Jewish state is not at war with any of those countries it is engaging in war crimes. Both Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Force are vowing revenge.

Pat Buchanan goes on to make the case that Netanyahu is willy-nilly pulling the United States into a situation from which there is no exit. Indeed, one might well conclude that the trap has already been sprung as the Trump Administration is reflexively blaming Israel's actions on Iran. The Jewish state's escalation produced a telephone call to Bibi by American Secretary of State Mike Pompeo promising that the United States would unconditionally support Israel. Vice President Mike Pence also joined in , boasting of a "great conversation" with Netanyahu and tweeting that "The United State fully supports Israel's right to defend itself from imminent threats. Under President @realDonaldTrump, America will always stand with Israel!"

So, if a war in the Middle East does begin one can count on a number of developments in Washington, all of which favor Netanyahu. As Pompeo and Pence have made clear, the Trump Administration already accepts that whatever Israel does is fully justified and there are even reports that the White House will endorse Israeli annexation of all the illegal settlements on the West Bank at some point either before or immediately after the upcoming Knesset election to help Bibi. And don't look for any dissent from even the most extreme views developing inside the White House or the State Department. The president has completely surrendered to the Israel Lobby while National Security Adviser John Bolton, Pence and Pompeo are all outspoken supporters of war with Iran. And nearly all the important government posts dealing with the Middle East are staffed by Jewish Zionists, to include the president's son-in-law and two Donald Trump lawyers. The most recent addition to that sorry line-up is Peter Berkowitz, who has been appointed head of the Policy Planning Staff at State. Berkowitz studied at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and is co-founder and director of the "Israel Program on Constitutional Government."

And Congress would also be singing the "amen" chorus in support of U.S. intervention to help the country it has ridiculously but nevertheless repeatedly described as America's "best friend and closest ally." The occupied mainstream media would echo that line, as would the millions of Christian Zionists and every one of the more than 600 American Jewish organizations that in one way, shape or form support Israel.

Buchanan warns that the U.S. could find itself in real trouble, particularly given the attacks on Iraq, where Washington still has 5,000 troops, hugely outnumbered by the local pro-Iranian militias. And American aircraft carriers could find themselves vulnerable if they dare to enter the Straits of Hormuz or Persian Gulf, where they would be in range of the Iranian batteries of anti-ship missiles. He concludes that a war for Israel that goes badly could cost Trump the election in 2020, asking " have we ceded to Netanyahu something no nation should ever cede to another, even an ally: the right to take our country into a war of their choosing but not of ours?"

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 councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected] .

Bragadocious , says: September 3, 2019 at 1:33 am GMT

The president has completely surrendered to the Israel Lobby while National Security Adviser John Bolton

To be fair, Trump never promised to curb Israeli aggression during his campaign. He promised to back them and that's what he's doing. So this suggestion that "he's letting us all down" is just silly. Now, on other stuff, yeah, you can make a case. And let's be real, if Jeb Bush or Bernie Sanders or Hillary were in office they'd be backing "our ally in the Middle East" too.
Lot , says: September 3, 2019 at 2:00 am GMT
Iran is involved in four different civil wars: Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen. Yet Jihadi Phil wants to blame Israel for mideast instability!
anon [328] Disclaimer , says: September 3, 2019 at 2:47 am GMT
@Lot Iran was invited by Syrian legit gov. Lebanon was prevented from total rout by Hezbollah from the actions of the evil Zionist .Hezbollah sought and received help to confront evil Zionist. Who ever asked the Jews to show up in ME anywhere in the ME? Who? Yemen is a war that ahs been fought by Houthis . Houthis has been there for centuries They are fighting a war instigated by Israeli vassal Saudi . Iraq has been turned into dust by Jew run USA attack It is slowly coming to life.

Now don't read the script from the middle Start from the beginning . Start from the beginning ad be ready for the end . End will not be written by devious Jewish country .

renfro , says: September 3, 2019 at 3:34 am GMT
Firing Giraldi was the American Conserative's lose.

Consider this article:

Two Cheers for Israel
They're having children and defending their culture without apology. The West could learn a thing or two.
By Scott McConnell
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/two-cheers-for-israel/

"'But there is an even more important reason to give two cheers for Israel and to think of it, despite its excesses, as exemplary: Israel is nationalist."'

Maybe McConnell is paid to praise Israel or maybe he just your typical simple minded tunnel vision conservative. I gotta say my kind of conservative values, or maybe they should be called traditional values will likely stay the same but what wont stay the same is my voting for any of these conservative stupids.
I'm a registered Independent voter independent because I believed Americans should be independent of 'political parties' and not follow them like sheep, but vote for the closest thing they can get to a candidate of good character, some brains and a sense of fairness for the people. I voted for the actual America first GOP presidents, the elder Bush I and Nixon, otoh I also voted for the Dem America first presidents Kennedy and Carter.

Independent voters like myself make up 37% of registered voters in the US .that makes both the dems and repubs 'minority parties' ..neither of them can win without us.
Independent voters got to be independent because they paid more attention to the big picture and issues in politics overall than the followers of the parties .most of them are more 'traditional', including objecting to US entanglement with foreign nations. .the exact opposite of current GOP conservatism.
So it is absolute nitwittery to try and attract traditional voters by championing Israel as a model for US nationalism. Israel gives nationalism a bad name. It is asking us to step in a pile of steaming cow shit to pattern the US after Israel.

Kirt , says: September 3, 2019 at 4:50 am GMT
A lot of these Israeli provocations are, as noted, Netanyahu electioneering. Hence, they are likely to stop or be diminished (the Gaza border massacres excepted) if Bibi either wins the election and can form a new government or loses and is driven from power with the opposition forming a new government. Worst case scenario is a continuation of the present situation with Bibi unable to form a government and having to fight yet another election. This would result in still further Israeli escalation until finally Iran or Hezbollah retaliates and the US is dragged in. Or he might just formally annex the West Bank and drive out the Palestinians to the applause of Trump and his supporters.

There are other dangers as well, especially the collapse of Saudi Arabia and the UAE as a result of their defeat in Yemen. The US is sending 5,000 troops to SA just in time to defend the House of Saud from a possible overthrow or to fight on behalf of one part of that sociopathic family against another part.

Sean , says: September 3, 2019 at 5:43 am GMT

"President Donald Trump, who canceled a missile strike on Iran after the shoot-down of a U.S. Predator drone to avoid killing Iranians, may not want a war. But the same cannot be said of Bibi Netanyahu." He observes that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is facing re-election on September 17th, and though most polls indicate that he will win, the opposition to him is strong based on his personal corruption and his pandering to the country's most extreme right-wing parties. So Bibi is concerned that he might lose and even go to jail and there is nothing like a little war to make a leader look strong and righteous, so he is lashing out at all his neighbors in hopes that one or more of them will be drawn into what would be for Israel, given its massive military superiority, a manageable confrontation.

It's a good analysis, but a little different to the subjugation of US interests to Israeli ones that is normally talked about inasmuch Netanyahu personal advantage is the key factor. I don't think many people in Israel would approve of Netanyahu doing something so obvious as getting Israel into an inconclusive war just before an election. Especially as the war is one that might bring the US in but would be unlikely to motive the US to destroy the Iranian regime, wiche had time to make their facilities (nuclear) too duplicated and dispersed for airstrikes to work.

The Palestinians are the ones Israelis are happy to get tough with, even the supposedly leftist Ehud Barak has said the Palestinians of Gaza must be deterred more. Talk of war with Iran is just that, it really is, unless they do something stupid.

For Israel, getting the US to totally crush Iran would be great, but that will require America to be provoked by Iran, which is something they are loath to do. Iran is not going to fight a war they cannot possibly hope to win if they can help it, and they have said there will not be one. I don't think Bolton is any influence on Trump, and Pompeo is a never-Trumper turned Trump boot licker rather that a force in the administration in his own right.

He concludes that a war for Israel that goes badly could cost Trump the election in 2020, asking " have we ceded to Netanyahu something no nation should ever cede to another, even an ally: the right to take our country into a war of their choosing but not of ours?"

Trump never loses sight of his own self interest. A war before the Israeli election is not going to help Trump win reelection, and he did say recently he was open to talks with Iran, which left a distraught Netanyahu unsuccessfully trying to get through to Trump and gave Ehud Barack one of his few opportunities to criticise the utility for Israel of Netanyahu's relationship with Trump.

Sean O'Farrell , says: September 3, 2019 at 6:01 am GMT
@Biff The U.S. military should more aptly be called the Israeli Foreign Legion.

[Sep 02, 2019] CounterPunch

Notable quotes:
"... As for the Israelis, they don't want the man who thinks he might be "King of Israel" talking to the Hitlerite Persians. They suddenly sprayed Iran's local Middle East proxies with drone-fired rockets – in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon – just in case the wretched, financially broken and inflation-doomed Iranians were tempted to chat to the crackpot in the White House. But the Israelis wasted their ammunition. Rouhani is not mad. America has to drop its sanctions against Iran if Trump wants to talk, he said. ..."
"... And when Rouhani made it clear that he was not interested in "photo-ops" – an obvious allusion to the pictures of Trump and Little Rocket Man – what did the po-faced Washington Post ..."
"... Indeed, had Ahmadinejad's further political ambitions not been firmly crushed by his country's "supreme leader", Ayatollah Khamenei, we might just have witnessed a meeting between two of the world's leading political nutcases. Ahmadinejad, it may be recalled, was the Iranian who claimed that a holy cloud was suspended over his head for 20 minutes when he addressed the United Nations in New York. Now that is a phenomenon which Trump may also have experienced – although at least he had the good sense not to tell us of it. ..."
"... In the first eight months after Rouhani became president in 2013, the Iranian state hanged at least 537 people. In January of 2014, he had, according to a report in the Arabic daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat ..."
"... When the shah of Iran wanted to acquire nuclear technology in 1974, according to documents in the US National Security Archive, he said that Iran had an "inalienable right" to the nuclear cycle and that it would not accept obligations "dictated by the nuclear-have nations". ..."
"... In theory, what Macron is trying to do, if Le Monde ..."
"... But what Macron is really doing – which is what almost every EU leader is doing – is trying to preserve the peace of the Middle East long enough for the Americans to elect a serious, intelligent, boring and moderately honest political leader to replace the mentally unbalanced and very dangerous current holder of the highest office in the US. ..."
"... Robert Fisk writes for the Independent , where this column originally appeared. ..."
Sep 02, 2019 | www.counterpunch.org

September 2, 2019 The Crazed, Rogue Leader is in Washington Not Tehran by Robert Fisk

Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

History in the Middle East is unkind to us westerners. Just when we thought we were the good guys and the Iranians were the bad guys, here comes the ghostly, hopeless possibility of a Trump-Rouhani summit to remind us that the apparent lunatic is the US president and the rational, sane leader who is supposed to talk to him is the president of the Islamic Republic of Iran . All these shenanigans are fantasy, of course – like the "imminent" war between America and Iran – of which more later.

As for the Israelis, they don't want the man who thinks he might be "King of Israel" talking to the Hitlerite Persians. They suddenly sprayed Iran's local Middle East proxies with drone-fired rockets – in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon – just in case the wretched, financially broken and inflation-doomed Iranians were tempted to chat to the crackpot in the White House. But the Israelis wasted their ammunition. Rouhani is not mad. America has to drop its sanctions against Iran if Trump wants to talk, he said.

It still amazes me that we have to take all this stuff at face value. No sooner had Trump waffled on about Rouhani being "the great negotiator" than we saw all the White House correspondents dutifully taking this nonsense down in their notebooks – as if the American president was presidential, as if the old dream-bag was real, as if what he was saying had the slightest bearing on reality.

And when Rouhani made it clear that he was not interested in "photo-ops" – an obvious allusion to the pictures of Trump and Little Rocket Man – what did the po-faced Washington Post tell us in its subsequent report? Why, that Rouhani had "dashed hopes of a potential meeting with his US counterpart". Ye Gods! What "hopes" do they still have in their homegrown crackpot president after these two and a half years of his threats and lies and racism? Have they learned nothing?

It's as if – for the American media – Trump is unhinged in Washington but a Kissinger the moment he lands in Biarritz (or London or Riyadh or Panmunjom or a Scottish golf course, or perhaps, one day, Greenland). And Rouhani – who may be a "great negotiator" but is also a very ruthless man – is therefore supposed to play the role of Iran's previous president, the raving, crazed, Holocaust-denying Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Indeed, had Ahmadinejad's further political ambitions not been firmly crushed by his country's "supreme leader", Ayatollah Khamenei, we might just have witnessed a meeting between two of the world's leading political nutcases. Ahmadinejad, it may be recalled, was the Iranian who claimed that a holy cloud was suspended over his head for 20 minutes when he addressed the United Nations in New York. Now that is a phenomenon which Trump may also have experienced – although at least he had the good sense not to tell us of it.

Ahmadinejad, you may also remember, was the president whose claim to have won the 2009 presidential elections brought millions of protestors onto the streets of Iranian cities until they were brutalised and imprisoned into submission. His cheeky smile, chipmunk eyes and Spanish armada beard could not persuade Iranians that the "alternative facts" of his presidential victory were real.

Everyone knew that Ahmadinejad would never be given a finger on any nuclear button – many doubted if he knew the difference between nuclear physics and electricity – but he provided at the time a hate figure to rival Gaddafi or any other of the ravers of the Middle East.

But now Trump wears Ahmadinejad's international mantle of insanity and the Iranian presidential seat is today held by a far more pragmatic individual. For let's not be romantic about Hassan Rouhani . Back in 1999, when he was a humble deputy chief of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, Rouhani condemned pro-democracy demonstrators as " muhareb " and " mofsad " (corrupt on earth) – opponents of the Islamic Republic, whose punishment would be death.

In the first eight months after Rouhani became president in 2013, the Iranian state hanged at least 537 people. In January of 2014, he had, according to a report in the Arabic daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat , visited Ahwaz to deal with "a number of sensitive files" left untouched by Ahmadinejad. These included Hashem Shaabani and Hadi Rashedi – both human rights activists in the minority Arab community in southwest Iran – who had been condemned to death for "waging war on God", "spreading corruption on earth" and "questioning the principle of velayat-e faqih" (guardianship of the jurist).

Shaabani's poetry, in both Persian and Arabic, was famous; he was a founder of an institute which encouraged Arabic literature and culture among Iranians. Rouhani signed off on the executions; Shaabani and Rashedi were hanged in a still-unidentified prison.

But it is Rouhani's negotiating skill which has apparently impressed Trump, who also has little time for minorities. And when you recall that one of Trump's Republican predecessors in the White House, Ronald Reagan, arranged for the Israelis to deliver missiles to Iran in 1985 in return for the release of US hostages in Beirut, you can see why Trump might think it strange that Rouhani would turn down a meeting with him. After all, during the Iran-Contra affair the then Iranian speaker of parliament, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, was deeply involved in the enterprise.

But even if Rouhani was fool enough to flirt with Trump's offer – which he was not – his fate would have been similar to the poet Shaabani's if he had dared to talk to the US president without the full restoration of the nuclear treaty.

It doesn't take much spreading of "corruption on earth" in Iran – let alone disavowing the views of the Supreme Leader Khamanei – to catapult a learned cleric into prison. Having learned from his foreign minister in Biarritz what the American deal was supposed to be, Rouhani wisely did not touch it. The US had broken the nuclear treaty and reimposed sanctions – so Trump would have to rejoin the treaty signatories and lift sanctions for any hope of a meeting with the president of the Islamic Republic.

Of course, the Iranians will no more go to war with America than America will go to war with Iran. We all know that – except for those who blast us all with "brink-of-war" scenarios in the Gulf. We've been through Iranian ship-minings in 1987 without declarations of war. Besides, what's so new about an Iran insisting on its "sovereign" right to peaceful nuclear power?

When the shah of Iran wanted to acquire nuclear technology in 1974, according to documents in the US National Security Archive, he said that Iran had an "inalienable right" to the nuclear cycle and that it would not accept obligations "dictated by the nuclear-have nations".

Which is pretty much what Iran did accept in the nuclear agreement which Trump tore up on behalf of the United States. And I still have a clipping from The Times of November 1972, in which my then colleague David Housego was reporting from Tehran that the shah had declared that Iran's defensive frontiers extended beyond the Persian Gulf into the Indian Ocean!

In five years, the shah calculated, his arms build-up would make Iran the largest military power in the Middle East. The shah ruled with torture and executions, was crazed about the dangers of communism, and power-mad to the extent of celebrating his empire's rule in 1971 with what he called "the biggest party on earth" in the ruins of Persepolis. How Trump would love to have been there.

Well, Macron may be able to turn himself into the "Great G7 Intermediary", although all others who have tangled with Iran have been brought low by the experience. Think poor old Jimmy Carter, destroyed by the hostage-takers at the US embassy in Tehran. Think Reagan, almost brought low by Irangate. Think Colonel Oliver North. Or envoy Robert McFarlane. Or Terry Waite. Or Barack Obama, for that matter, his Iranian policy torn up by Trump.

In theory, what Macron is trying to do, if Le Monde has got it right, is persuade Trump to allow Iran's principal petroleum importers to continue buying oil from the Islamic Republic. This includes Turkey, China, Japan, India and South Korea. In return, Iran would itself return to the original nuclear agreement. That's the message Macron sent back to Tehran with Iran's foreign minister, who airbussed into Biarritz for his briefest of meetings with the French president.

But what Macron is really doing – which is what almost every EU leader is doing – is trying to preserve the peace of the Middle East long enough for the Americans to elect a serious, intelligent, boring and moderately honest political leader to replace the mentally unbalanced and very dangerous current holder of the highest office in the US.

Well, good luck to the Americans. For at present, they are confronting not the lunatic rogue state which Messers Bolton and Pompeo have nightmared up for Trump, but a nation governed by bravely defiant, ruthless, and – yes – devious men. For Iranians understand America far better than Americans will ever understand Iran.

Join the debate on Facebook More articles by: Robert Fisk

Robert Fisk writes for the Independent , where this column originally appeared.

[Aug 30, 2019] Israeli Daily Warns American Jews of Trump's Downfall by Gilad Atzmon

I am not sure that the three names mentioned means anything to most Americans. But the name Abelson probably is better known. And now Wexner and his Meta group were added.
Primitive anti-Semitism lost attraction in the USA as people are better educated now and generally are able to distinguish between bankers and particular tribe (inability to see the difference was one factor that fueled anti-Semitism in Europe in the past). If you wish anti-Semitism was displaced by Russophobia, which now is a politically correct anti-Semitism.
Aug 27, 2018 | dissidentvoice.org
Haaretz delivered a warning today to American Jewry. "If Trump falls, the testimonies of Cohen, Pecker and Weisselberg could spark an anti-Semitic Backlash."

Many have passed through the Trump Administration's revolving door and faded away quietly but those who may bring the president down are "the lawyer-fixer (Michael Cohen), the smut-dealing publisher (David Pecker) and the numbers whiz who knows it all (Alan Weisselberg)." Prominent Haaretz correspondent Chemi Shalev is honest enough to openly acknowledge that "the trio's public profile is a Jewish stereotype."

Shalev dared to write the article every other political analyst has dreaded putting into words let alone text. "The name of the lawyer who implicated Donald Trump in the commission of federal crimes is Cohen. The name of the publisher who has agreed to tell investigators how he turned his newspaper into a clearinghouse for Cohen's payments to women is Pecker. And the name of the accountant who has been granted immunity in order to testify about the role played by the Trump Organization in Cohen's endeavors is Weisselberg. The common denominators of Cohen, Pecker and Weisselberg, beside their willingness to do whatever it takes for Trump in the past and their apparent willingness to inform on him now , is that all three are indisputably and recognizably Jewish."

If you wonder why no one in America was courageous enough to write about Trump being betrayed by his closest Jewish aids, Shalev's answer is "anyone who does so risks being accused of generalizing, if not actively encouraging anti-Semitism." But this is just the first stage in this saga according to Haaretz 's correspondent. "Somewhere down the line. The racist, supremacist and neo-Nazi element of Trump's base is already drooling at the impending opportunity of enlisting disgruntled rank and file Trump fans in a battle against the Jewish conspiracy aimed at their idol."

Shalev realises that Trump's days are numbered. And he believes the actions of Cohen, Pecker and Wiesselberg make Trump's political survival unlikely. "Cohen's admissions in a New York courtroom last week that his payments to porn's Stormy Daniels and Playboy's Karen MacDougal were made in accordance with Trump's instructions have cast the President as a criminal who violated campaign finance laws. Pecker's testimony could reportedly make clear that the two payments were part of a nefarious system. And Weisselberg's account, though currently limited to Cohen's payments, could pave the way to exposure of the long line of alleged misdeeds carried out by Trump as real estate mogul, franchising czar, reality star, presidential candidate and commander in chief."

When Trump was elected some saw him as the "First Jewish President," At the moment it looks as if it his Trump's closest Jewish aides who may provide the final nails in his presidential coffin. Enacting astute Jewish pre traumatic instinct, Shalev notes that "Trump repeatedly and profusely praises Paul Manafort, who isn't Jewish, for remaining loyal despite the past and future convictions awaiting him. Cohen, Pecker and Weisselberg, who sound like a stand-up's Jewish law firm, are, by implication, part of the vast conspiracy that seeks to bring the President down and to undermine the voters' verdict."

Shalev uses the clearest possible language. "If Trump emerges unscathed, a scenario that seems increasingly unlikely, fears of anti-Semitic backlash could recede. If Trump is impeached, or forced to resign, or impaired in any other way, shape or form, the outrage against his incriminators and their common heritage could turn into a clear and present danger for American Jews." You ask, 'what about Israel?' Shalev doesn't shy away from the question. "The American right's adoration of Israel won't be an obstacle: Many of Trump's constituents, like Netanyahu's, can easily ignore the common bonds between Israel and its greatest Diaspora. Israel is the country of proud and nationalistic Jew-heroes that man the West's forward outpost against radical Islam and who play a critical role in advancing the End of Days."

Maybe the above explains the Trump administration's indication yesterday that it is set to announce it rejects Palestinian 'right of return.' If Shalev is correct then the message here could be interpreted as follows -- we are still supporting Israel, Zionism, we are totally anti Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims but we don't trust Jews either. This is, in fact, a common Zionist anti Semitic position. I.e., 'We like and support Jews as long as they are somewhere else, preferably Zion.'

According to Shalev, "from the moment Cohen turned his back on Trump, and more so since Pecker and Weisselberg apparently joined him, the neo-Nazi network is busy preparing the flip side of the coin, the analogy that could impress Trump's followers, if he falters: The three are portrayed as successors to Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Jesus to authorities." I guess that you have noticed that while Shalev seems to be comfortable pointing at the ethnicity of Cohen, Pecker and Weisselberg he seems to refer to Goyim who do the same as 'neo-Nazis' and 'supremacists.'

Shalev writes that before Trump's elections, "American Jewish organizations were quick to call out Trump for the suspected anti-Semitic messages in his statements and campaign." But their voices receded "with the prodding of Netanyahu and the vouching of Sheldon Adelson Trump's disturbing words were swept under the carpet of his decidedly pro-Israeli polices."Trump's allegedly Jew-hating supporters were somehow ignored by the American media.

However, this may change very soon. "The Jewishness of the three former Trump aides who have now decided to testify against him could mar the artificial tranquility and, in a worst-case scenario, spark a dangerous wave of anti-Semitism. American Jewish leaders would do well to prepare for such a stormy day, as would Netanyahu, who has placed all of his prestige on Trump and the American right."

Shalev sarcastically suggests that "if Netanyahu is forced to choose between the administration's pro-settler, anti-Palestinian policies and his duty to fight anti-Semitism and stand up for beleaguered American Jews, they (America Jews) would do well to start seeking their salvation elsewhere."

Havoc ahead, sums it up.

[Aug 30, 2019] Trump and Christians United for Israel

Edited for clarity...
Aug 30, 2019 | www.unz.com

follyofwar , says: August 29, 2019 at 3:54 pm GMT

@anonymous The Christian Zionists, exemplified by John Hagee and his "Christians United for Israel." for years, from the pulpi has pleaded for the bombing of Iran. He is Netanyahu's Useful Idiot.

The 60-70 million strong Christian Zionists are Trump's base. He has no hope of being re-elected without them. Thus, Trump is just as beholden to these dispensationalists as he is to Adelson and Netanyahu. The same can be said for the entire republican party.

[Aug 28, 2019] It is the ADELSON Administration . .... Bought and PAID FOR

Notable quotes:
"... Remember how "rich" Trump was "self funded" and therefore could not be influenced by contributions?"! Well $259 million bought him. ..."
"... Adelson, who alongside his wife Miriam are the biggest donors to Trump and the GOP, contributed $205 million to Republicans in the past two cycles and reportedly sent $35 million Trump's presidential bid. ..."
Aug 28, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Zaphod Braden • 5 hours ago

It is the ADELSON Administration . .... Bought and PAID FOR.

Remember how "rich" Trump was "self funded" and therefore could not be influenced by contributions?"! Well $259 million bought him.

Those funds came from Sheldon and Miriam Adelson, Paul Singer and Bernard Marcus, donors who have made no secret of their desire for the United States to destroy the Islamic Republic.

Adelson, who alongside his wife Miriam are the biggest donors to Trump and the GOP, contributed $205 million to Republicans in the past two cycles and reportedly sent $35 million Trump's presidential bid.

Sheldon Adelson BRIBED Trump and the Republicans .... This does not include the "favorable and unusual" so-called loans granted Kushner and ?Trump?

Who is notorious for being in financial difficulty and is desperately hiding his taxes. Trump has lots of energy for defending his tax returns but very little for defending Our borders.

Trump's lawyers will appeal and fight this tooth and nail for his Taxes. But when some P.O.S. "judge" treasonously rules against defending this Nation's borders from Invaders Trump just shruggs and submits. Makes empty threats about where to put the Invaders, and goes back to putting ISRAEL FIRST.

[Aug 26, 2019] Israel's Ban on Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar Backfires: it increase questioning of the USA aid to Israeli by Marjorie Cohn

Netanyahu policies toward Palestinians are actually a threat to Israel. Having implacable enemy, completely alienated population within the borders is not that any state desires.
Notable quotes:
"... Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. military aid: $3.8 billion annually. AIPAC is the chief Israel lobby in the United States and a consistent apologist for Israel's oppressive policies toward the Palestinians. ..."
"... Sen. Bernie Sanders said , "The idea that a member of the United States Congress cannot visit a nation which, by the way, we support to the tune of billions and billions of dollars is clearly an outrage," adding, "And if Israel doesn't want members of the United States Congress to visit their country to get a firsthand look at what's going on maybe [Netanyahu] can respectfully decline the billions of dollars that we give to Israel." ..."
"... Israel had approved the Tlaib/Omar trip last month. Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Ron Dermer said , "Out of respect for the U.S. Congress and the great alliance between Israel and America," Israel would not deny entry "to any member of Congress." ..."
"... But Donald Trump reportedly told several of his advisers that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should bar Tlaib and Omar because they supported BDS. Hours after Israel cancelled the trip, Trump tweeted , "It would show great weakness if Israel allowed Rep. Omar and Rep. Tlaib to visit. They hate Israel & all Jewish people." ..."
"... In These Times. ..."
"... UN Security Council Resolution 242 describes "the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war" and calls for the "withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the [1967] conflict." ..."
"... Tampa Bay Times ..."
"... "The absence of chatter from the Democrats obviously reflects the misgivings that the Democratic base has about the special relationship between the U.S. and Israel," Philip Weiss and Michael Arria wrote at Mondoweiss ..."
"... The outrageous exclusion of members of Congress from Israel-Palestine has focused unprecedented attention on the Israeli occupation and the BDS movement. This is the time to pressure congressional representatives to rethink their uncritical support for Israel and the $3.8 billion annually the United States provides to Israel. ..."
Aug 26, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

Trump and Netanyahu thought they were pulling a fast one on two U.S. congresswoman, but it has blown up in their faces, as Marjorie Cohn explains.

By Marjorie Cohn Truthout D uring Congress's August recess, a group of 41 Democratic and 31 Republican congressmembers traveled to Israel on a delegation sponsored by American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). AIPAC subsidizes congressional trips to Israel in order to further the "special relationship" between Israel and the United States.

Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. military aid: $3.8 billion annually. AIPAC is the chief Israel lobby in the United States and a consistent apologist for Israel's oppressive policies toward the Palestinians.

Reps. Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar, the first two Muslim women elected to Congress, had planned their own "Delegation to Palestine," scheduled to begin on August 17. Tlaib, who was born in the U.S., planned to travel to the West Bank to visit her 90-year old Palestinian grandmother, whom she hasn't seen for a decade. But, aided and abetted by Donald Trump, Israel withdrew permission for the trip unless Tlaib agreed to remain silent about Israel's mistreatment of the Palestinians. She refused to abide by the gag order and the trip was cancelled.

Tlaib said in a statement , "Visiting my grandmother under these oppressive conditions meant to humiliate me would break my grandmother's heart. Silencing me with treatment to make me feel less-than is not what she wants for me – it would kill a piece of me that always stands up against racism and injustice." She added, "Being silent and not condemning the human rights violations of the Israeli government is a disservice to all who live there, including my incredibly strong and loving grandmother."

Tlaib during her campaign. (Wikimedia)

Omar, who expressed "strength and solidarity" with Tlaib in a tweet, told reporters, "[Israeli Prime Minister] Netanyahu's decision to deny us entry might be unprecedented for members of Congress. But it is the policy of his government when it comes to Palestinians. This is the policy of his government when it comes to anyone who holds views that threaten the occupation." She tweeted, "We cannot let Trump and Netanyahu succeed in hiding the cruel reality of the occupation from us."

Israel's refusal to allow members of the U.S. Congress entry into Israel-Palestine without muzzling them backfired. It has garnered widespread criticism, even by AIPAC , and focused the national discourse on the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement (BDS), which Tlaib and Omar support.

Omar, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said , "It is my belief that as legislators, we have an obligation to see the reality there for ourselves. We have a responsibility to conduct oversight over our government's foreign policy and what happens with the millions of dollars we send in aid." She says the U.S. must ask Netanyahu's government to "stop the expansion of settlements on Palestinian land and ensure full rights for Palestinians if we are to give them aid."

Sen. Bernie Sanders said , "The idea that a member of the United States Congress cannot visit a nation which, by the way, we support to the tune of billions and billions of dollars is clearly an outrage," adding, "And if Israel doesn't want members of the United States Congress to visit their country to get a firsthand look at what's going on maybe [Netanyahu] can respectfully decline the billions of dollars that we give to Israel."

Tlaib and Omar Planned to Witness Occupation

Tlaib and Omar were scheduled to meet with members of the Israeli Knesset (Parliament) and Palestinian and leftist Israeli activists and nonprofits, as well as international human rights organizations in Jerusalem and the West Bank. They were also set to confer with members of Breaking the Silence, a group of former members of the Israel Defense Forces who now actively oppose Israel's occupation of Palestinian lands. Omar tweeted that the goal of the delegation "was to witness firsthand what is happening on the ground in Palestine and hear from stakeholders -- our job as Members of Congress."

The visit by Tlaib and Omar "was to be something else" in contrast to the AIPAC delegation, James Zogby, co-founder and president of the Arab American Institute , wrote in the Forward. Tlaib and Omar "weren't going to focus on officials," according to Zogby. "They were going to expose the reality of Palestinian daily life under occupation. They were going to visit the Wall that separates Palestinians from their lands. They were going to refugee camps now cut off from US funding. They were going to see how Hebron has been horridly deformed by a settler invasion and military occupation."

Israel had approved the Tlaib/Omar trip last month. Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Ron Dermer said , "Out of respect for the U.S. Congress and the great alliance between Israel and America," Israel would not deny entry "to any member of Congress."

But Donald Trump reportedly told several of his advisers that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should bar Tlaib and Omar because they supported BDS. Hours after Israel cancelled the trip, Trump tweeted , "It would show great weakness if Israel allowed Rep. Omar and Rep. Tlaib to visit. They hate Israel & all Jewish people."

The Israeli government agreed to allow Tlaib to visit her grandmother, provided she agree in writing not to discuss her support for BDS. But after emotional conversations with her family, Tlaib refused to submit to the condition that she not discuss the Israeli occupation.

Tlaib "was forced to make a choice between her right to visit her grandmother and her right to political speech against Israeli oppression," Sandra Tamari wrote at In These Times. Tamari has been barred from seeing her family in Palestine for more than 10 years because of her advocacy for Palestinian freedom and justice. Tlaib "ultimately chose the collective over the personal: She refused Israel's demeaning conditions that would have granted her a 'humanitarian' exception to enter Palestine, so long as she refrained from advocating for a boycott of Israel during her visit," Tamari added.

What Is the BDS Movement?

In 2005, Palestinian civil society -- including 170 Palestinian unions, political parties, refugee networks, women's organizations, professional associations, popular resistance committees and other Palestinian civil society bodies -- issued a call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions.

BDS is a nonviolent movement for social change in the tradition of boycotts of South Africa and the southern United States. It is aimed at ending Israel's illegal occupation. In 1967, Israel took control of Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights by military force. UN Security Council Resolution 242 describes "the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war" and calls for the "withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the [1967] conflict."

Security Council adopts Res. 242, Nov. 1967 (Getty)

But Israel continues its illegal occupation and exercises total control over the lives of Palestinians in the occupied territories. Israel regulates the ingress and egress of the people, as well as the borders, airspace, seashore and waters off the coast of Gaza. Israel expels Palestinians from their homes and builds illegal Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Israel's 2014 massacre in Gaza led to the deaths of 2,251 Palestinians, including 1,462 civilians, and the wounding of 11,231 Palestinians. These actions likely constituted war crimes, according to the UN Human Rights Council's independent, international commission of inquiry.

Former UN deputy high commissioner for human rights, Flavia Pansieri, said that human rights violations "fuel and shape the conflict" in the occupied Palestinian territories and "[h]uman rights violations in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, are both cause and consequence of the military occupation and ongoing violence, in a bitter cyclical process with wider implications for peace and security in the region."

Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, writing in the Tampa Bay Times , cited the 2010 Human Rights Watch report which "describes the two-tier system of laws, rules, and services that Israel operates for the two populations in areas in the West Bank under its exclusive control, which provide preferential services, development, and benefits for Jewish settlers while imposing harsh conditions on Palestinians." Tutu wrote, "This, in my book, is apartheid. It is untenable."

The call for BDS describes boycotts, divestment and sanctions as "non-violent punitive measures" that should last until Israel fully complies with international law by (1) ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the barrier wall; (2) recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and (3) respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their land as stipulated in United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194.

What Are Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions?

The BDS movement has had a major impact on Israel. BDS was a critical factor in the 46 percent reduction in foreign direct investment in Israel in 2014, according to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. Individuals and entities who have heeded the call for divestment include George Soros, the Bill Gates Foundation, TIAA-CREF public sector pension fund, Dutch pension giant PGGM and Norwegian bank Nordea.

Several churches, including the United Methodist Church, the Presbyterian Church USA, the United Church of Christ and many Quaker meetings, have divested from companies the BDS movement has targeted. The security services company G4S is planning to sell its subsidiary in Israel because the Stop G4S campaign resulted in a loss of millions of dollars in contracts. The withdrawal of French multinational utility company Veolia from Israel led to billions of dollars in lost contracts.

Tutu, who finds striking parallels between apartheid South Africa and Israel's oppression of the Palestinians, supports BDS. He has called on "people and organizations of conscience to divest from Caterpillar, Motorola Solutions and Hewlett Packard," which profit "from the occupation and subjugation of Palestinians."

Twenty-seven states have enacted legislation targeting boycotts of Israel, but activists have successfully defeated anti-boycott laws in several states. These bills are unconstitutional infringements on protected First Amendment activity.

In banning Tlaib and Omar, Israel relied on its 2017 law prohibiting entry to any non-Israeli citizen who "has knowingly published a public call to engage in a boycott" against Israel "or has made a commitment to participate in such a boycott."

And the United States' overwhelming support for Israel is reflected in a resolution the House of Representatives adopted on July 23. H. Res. 246 , which passed easily on a 398-17 vote, opposes the BDS movement. Tlaib and Omar voted against the resolution.

Questioning U.S. Aid to Israel

Interestingly, although the Republicans on the AIPAC trip tweeted vociferously about their visit, there was near silence on Twitter from the Democratic members of the delegation, although the group had given Netanyahu a standing ovation. "The absence of chatter from the Democrats obviously reflects the misgivings that the Democratic base has about the special relationship between the U.S. and Israel," Philip Weiss and Michael Arria wrote at Mondoweiss . "A recent survey shows that a majority of Democrats support sanctions against Israel over settlements, even as the House votes overwhelmingly to condemn the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign."

The outrageous exclusion of members of Congress from Israel-Palestine has focused unprecedented attention on the Israeli occupation and the BDS movement. This is the time to pressure congressional representatives to rethink their uncritical support for Israel and the $3.8 billion annually the United States provides to Israel.

Copyright Truthout . Reprinted with permission. Marjorie Cohn is professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, former president of the National Lawyers Guild, deputy secretary general of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers and a member of the advisory board of Veterans for Peace. She is a contributor to the new book, Reclaiming Judaism From Zionism: Stories of Personal Transformation .

[Aug 25, 2019] Netanyahu might create some problems for Trump re-election, if the US voters decide the the President is too cozy with Isreal

Notable quotes:
"... According to the Times of Israel newspaper, Netanyahu is now officially lobbying for a public statement by US President Donald Trump to back Israel's annexation of the West Bank. ..."
"... Although the White House refused to comment on the story, and an official in Netanyahu's office claimed that it was "incorrect", the Israeli right is on the fast track of making that annexation possible. ..."
"... Netanyahu had, himself, hinted at that possibility in August during a visit to the illegal settlement of Beit El. "We come to build. Our hands will reach out and we will deepen our roots in our homeland – in all parts of it," Netanyahu said, during a ceremony celebrating the expansion of the illegal settlements to include 650 more housing units. ..."
Aug 25, 2019 | www.counterpunch.org

According to the Times of Israel newspaper, Netanyahu is now officially lobbying for a public statement by US President Donald Trump to back Israel's annexation of the West Bank.

Although the White House refused to comment on the story, and an official in Netanyahu's office claimed that it was "incorrect", the Israeli right is on the fast track of making that annexation possible.

Encouraged by US Ambassador David Friedman's comment that "Israel has the right to retain some of the West Bank", more Israeli officials are speaking boldly and openly regarding their intentions of making that annexation possible.

Netanyahu had, himself, hinted at that possibility in August during a visit to the illegal settlement of Beit El. "We come to build. Our hands will reach out and we will deepen our roots in our homeland – in all parts of it," Netanyahu said, during a ceremony celebrating the expansion of the illegal settlements to include 650 more housing units.

Unlike Netanyahu, former Israeli justice minister and leader of the newly-formed United Right, Ayelet Shaked, didn't speak in code. In an interview with The Jerusalem Post, she called for the full annexation of Area C, which constitutes nearly 60 percent of the West Bank. "We have to apply sovereignty to Judea and Samaria," she said, referring to the Palestinian land using biblical designations.

Public Security, Strategic Affairs and Information Minister Gilad Erdan, however, wants to go the extra mile. According to Arutz Sheva and The Jerusalem Post, Erdan has called for the annexation of all illegal settlements in the West Bank and the ouster of Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas as well.

Now situated at the center of Israeli politics, Jewish settlers are enjoying the spectacle as they are being courted by all major political parties. Their increased violence in the West Bank is a form of political muscle-flexing, an expression of dominance and a brutish display of political priorities.

"There's only one flag from the Jordan to the sea – the flag of Israel," was the slogan of a rally involving over 1,200 Jewish settlers who roamed the streets of the Palestinian city of Hebron (Al-Khalil) on August 14. The settlers, together with Israeli soldiers, stormed al-Shuhada street and harassed Palestinians and international activists in the beleaguered Palestinian city

... ... ...

Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and editor of Palestine Chronicle. His latest book is The Last Earth: A Palestinian Story (Pluto Press, London, 2018). He earned a Ph.D. in Palestine Studies from the University of Exeter and is a Non-Resident Scholar at Orfalea Center for Global and International Studies, UCSB.

[Aug 22, 2019] What Happened to Putting Americans First by Daniel Larison

Notable quotes:
"... President Trump said Wednesday that Jewish Americans who vote for Democratic candidates are "very disloyal to Israel," expanding on his remarks from the previous day and dismissing criticism that his remarks were anti-Semitic. ..."
"... "I think if you vote for a Democrat, you are very, very disloyal to Israel and to the Jewish people," Trump said in an exchange with reporters outside the White House before departing for an event in Kentucky. ..."
"... The president is using explicit anti-Semitic rhetoric here, and he is attacking most American Jews because they are not loyal to a foreign country. ..."
"... Because Trump has made a habit of indulging the Israeli government and giving Netanyahu everything he wants regardless of the consequences for the U.S., he apparently assumes that this is the attitude everyone else should have. ..."
"... Trump's attacks are the latest example of how Israel and U.S. policy towards Israel have been made into part of the domestic culture war where being a "pro-Israel" hard-liner is associated with nationalism at home. "Pro-Israel" nationalists imagine that they have more in common with hard-liners in other countries than they do with their fellow citizens, and they see no contradiction in being aggressively nationalist here while also subordinating U.S. interests overseas to the preferences of a small client state. ..."
Aug 21, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com
Trump repeated his outrageous anti-Semitic statement earlier today:

President Trump said Wednesday that Jewish Americans who vote for Democratic candidates are "very disloyal to Israel," expanding on his remarks from the previous day and dismissing criticism that his remarks were anti-Semitic.

"I think if you vote for a Democrat, you are very, very disloyal to Israel and to the Jewish people," Trump said in an exchange with reporters outside the White House before departing for an event in Kentucky.

There wasn't really any doubt about what Trump meant the first time when he launched this attack on the vast majority of American Jews, and now he has removed any doubt that might have remained. The president is using explicit anti-Semitic rhetoric here, and he is attacking most American Jews because they are not loyal to a foreign country.

Because Trump has made a habit of indulging the Israeli government and giving Netanyahu everything he wants regardless of the consequences for the U.S., he apparently assumes that this is the attitude everyone else should have. This is the twisted logic of the "pro-Israel" hawk who assumes that Jewish people everywhere should be "loyal" to Israel and should be condemned if they are deemed not to be. It turns the old anti-Semitic attack upside down, but retains the same ugly core of singling out fellow citizens as disloyal because of their identity and vilifying them for political purposes. In one of the more disgraceful episodes of Trump's presidency, he once again denounces Jewish Americans for putting America and our values first.

Trump's attacks are the latest example of how Israel and U.S. policy towards Israel have been made into part of the domestic culture war where being a "pro-Israel" hard-liner is associated with nationalism at home. "Pro-Israel" nationalists imagine that they have more in common with hard-liners in other countries than they do with their fellow citizens, and they see no contradiction in being aggressively nationalist here while also subordinating U.S. interests overseas to the preferences of a small client state.

Paul Pillar touched on some of this in his recent article :

First, viewpoints that do not prevail in domestic political competition are seen not just as losing arguments regarding the best way to pursue the national interest but rather as not a worthy part of the nation at all. Second, some foreign interests are seen not just as allies or means that can be used to pursue the U.S. national interest but rather as objects of affection or identity in their own right. These two developments are two sides of the same coin. The more that the concept of a national interest breaks down domestically into a sharp division between one viewpoint to be cherished and an opposing one to be scorned, the more natural a step it is to identify with like-minded elements overseas rather than with one's own fellow citizens.

It isn't possible to put America and Americans first when the president and his allies are determined to take the side of a foreign government against American citizens and members of Congress. If we want a foreign policy that actually serves the American interest, we can't tolerate political leaders that attack fellow Americans to score points with foreign leaders and cast hateful aspersions against minorities in the name of promoting a relationship with another country. Trump is incapable of conducting such a foreign policy, and these anti-Semitic outbursts are the latest reminder of why he can't.

Ready for 2020 • 16 hours ago

A lot of us voted for Trump hoping for an America First president. Instead we got a self-described "King of Israel". Screw that.
Sydney • 16 hours ago
From MAGA to MIGA, or was it always MIGA? MAGA is easier to sell to disillusioned American voters who are fed up with the establishment.
Ben's List • 12 hours ago
It has become common knowledge that some American politicians and officials cater to Israel for the money and votes, but it's still shocking to have Trump lay it all out so starkly. Nonetheless, at least now we know how things are, and we can decide where we stand.

I've voted Republican most of my adult life, for Tea Party candidates in 2010, and Trump in 2016, but all I want now is to get this disgusting freak out of the White House. Him and his establishment GOP enablers.

[Aug 20, 2019] Something about Trump impeachment

Aug 20, 2019 | www.unz.com

Bill Jones , says: August 20, 2019 at 12:11 pm GMT

Ah, Phillip, You know damn well that starting wars is one thing that guarantees no impeachment ;-). Israel is the other.

[Aug 20, 2019] Impeachment Time by Philip Giraldi

Some comments are edited for clarity...
This is a very weak article full of emotion but does not clarifing anything. Zionisn is just far right Jewish nationalism colored by the occupation of Palestine. Nothing special about it and in a sense critique of Israel for Zionism falls short. whether Zionists control the USA via fifth column or the USA elite thinks that Zionist policies in Middle East are perfectly compatible with the USA geopolitical goals in the region remains to be seen. I suspect the latter.
In this case calling Trump Zionist puppet completely misses the point. The USA and Israel currently are fellow travelers. That might change in the future.
Incident with Representative [Ilhan] Omar and Representative [Rashida] Tlaib is just a minor insident and should be trated as such.
Notable quotes:
"... The likelihood that Donald Trump will be impeached (and it's the House of Representatives that impeaches, not the Senate) for any action that pleases Israel is zero. ..."
"... "Why not just support a Gabbard campaign?" Because we've been swindled by two "antiwar" candidates in a row already. We don't want to be slow learners, do we? ..."
"... If the Zionist Enterprise and Uncle Sam (and their apologists) are resentful about the strategic depth Iran has created in Syria they should not have supported a bunch of whack job head choppers like HTS, Al Qaeda, ISIL, etc., etc. Blow back pure and simple like 9/11 and US intervention in Afghanistan. ..."
"... On November 22, 1963, our last Constitutional Government was overthrown in a Coup D'état, with our last Constitutional President, John F. Kennedy , assassinated in a hail of bullets. ..."
"... You really have to have a lot of chutzpah to claim that Trump isn't presidential. After 32 years of Clinton, Bush II, Obama? What is wrong with you, Phil? ..."
"... I like Giraldi generally, that said the whole "acting Presidential" thing is way, way overrated -- that's what we've had for decades an "actor" reading a teleprompter, part of the Uniparty team selected to screw average normal Americans of all races ..."
"... As though the ziostate is a separate country from the Imperialist States of Amerikastan, instead of a parasitic twin. And as though the Imperialist States of Amerikastan is in any way innocent of the crimes of the ziostate. ..."
"... Old pensioners , even younger are political, pathetic amateurs.. Amateurs or worse. Daily declarations of never ending and growing up and up "Uber Love" for Israel means what ? Emptiness , absence of any ability ? ..."
"... Looks like President and administrations become more and more lost and lost their way in our world ? Can not USA acts and even understand, on its own, what is going on around?? ..."
"... They push Iran and Russia together,after they did the same with China, Venezuela /with 6 millions of Columbians in there/, and Turkey, before.. USA lost Syria ..."
"... And if you need a good reason to not impeach Trump here it is: Mike Pence would become President. ..."
"... Mega Group, Maxwells and Mossad: The Spy Story at the Heart of the Jeffrey Epstein Scandal ..."
"... The picture painted by the evidence is not a direct Epstein tie to a single intelligence agency but a web linking key members of the Mega Group, politicians, and officials in both the U.S. and Israel, and an organized-crime network with deep business and intelligence ties in both nations. ..."
"... "Hey, let's buy Greenland!", "Let's send a guy to Mars!". Swear to God, every day's a new adventure with this guy. ..."
"... Ignoring someone is the strongest form of bullying. BDS is this stupid path that will lead to violence just like picking up a stick in the first place. The way to deal with Israel and the Empire is by demanding the declassification of all historical secrets, and having an open conversation. We haven't done this for a century as a society. ..."
"... When that happens, it will become clear Israel has always been a colonial project of European and Jewish elites (at the top the %es warrant the statement), that human rights interventions have been designed with neo-colonial intentions in mind from the get-go (after all the creation of Israel was the first such neo-colony), and that the only way to solve this issue is through full on decolonisation. ..."
"... Trump is an idiot and a puppet of Israel. Our Congress is controlled by Israel. Trump isn't Presidential is true. But Giraldi once again seems to be clueless of all the underhanded foreign policy games Obama played. Obama is a cool Crime Lord if there ever was one. ..."
"... The CIA and the other Intelligence agencies protected Obama because he let them do whatever they wanted. Obama's fiasco in Libya was covered up and according to my friends in the CIA is one the greatest foreign policy failures in American history. But Giraldi once again ignores this type of stuff. ..."
"... Pence is also an idiot and nutbag ZioChristian. What Giraldi doesn't seem to understand is that even though Trump is an idiot etc. look at the Democrats and what does the populace see? For many they see that he is less evil than all the Democrats running. ..."
"... First I was glad to see Tlaib had the smarts to tell the Likudniks to pound sand with their new invitation. It would to me, quickly evolve into a fiasco (probably as soon as she got off her flight). Good move by the Rep. If this is a zero-sum game, she wins not Trump/Netanyahu. ..."
"... I see no stomach for impeachment during the election cycle. As well as no chance for a senate conviction. Vile crook that he is, he was elected. Now it's up to voters to make that decision again. Yes on a personal level he's terrible but if we are lucky he won't do catastrophic damage. Like Bush. ..."
"... I agree with Mr. Giraldi entirely on this matter. Unfortunately, given that the Democratic Party is determined to present voters with less than reasonable alternatives, I am fully confident that we will be enjoying another four-year term with this imbecilic, Zionist bootlick as our head-of-state ..."
"... But it is true that Trump -- like every President since LBJ -- has become an obsequious waterboy for the Zionist mafia. For me, this marks Trump's greatest failure. Wasn't he going to 'Make America Great Again'? How can a nation be great if it is not sovereign? ..."
"... A guy with interesting views about the end of the world probably shouldn't be put in a position where he could actually end it. ..."
"... Business as usual for US Presidents for at least 70 years, perhaps at least 120 years. Under the principles of equity, these would not justify impeachment. ..."
"... I really hate to admit this but you may be correct. I do think Trump is anti-war. But he's too erratic and nobody should trust him. Netanyahu is gaming him but I don't think he trusts Trump either. ..."
"... Impeachment is inherently political and there are plenty of good reasons to impeach Trump as there were to impeach Obama, Bush II, Clinton and for that matter such all time greats as Lincoln and FDR. There are better reasons not to impeach him. If impeachment fails it paves the way for a backlash that would lead to Trump's re-election by a landslide and more subservience to Israel than ever. ..."
"... If it succeeds, he is followed by Pence and more subservience to Israel than ever. And if a Democrat other than Tulsi Gabbard gets elected in 2020, keep in mind that the Democratic establishment is solidly pro-Israel as well. Only among some of the Democratic rank-and-file is there any opposition to doing the bidding of the Israeli government. ..."
"... Haven't you Bush-Cheney-Trump Republicans noticed that every four years Americans rent a pig in a poke for the next four years. ..."
Aug 20, 2019 | www.unz.com

It is astonishing to observe some Americans twisting themselves into pretzels so they can continue to make excuses to explain the bizarre behavior of President Donald Trump on the world stage. The line most commonly heard is that he has "kept us out of new wars." The reality is somewhat different. He has kept us in old wars in Afghanistan and Syria that he could have ended while also needlessly ratcheting up tension with countries like Russia, Venezuela, Iran and China that could easily escalate into armed conflict. The situation with Moscow is particularly dangerous as President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly warned that his country's defense doctrine includes going nuclear if there is an attack on Russia by a superior force.

But the most frightening aspect of the current situation is the feeling that the man whose finger is on America's nuclear trigger is not quite sane. The steady stream of insulting and vulgar tweets that seem to serve as a substitute for more substantial mental activity reveals a man who is profoundly ignorant, completely narcissistic and hopelessly insecure. To say the least, Trump is not presidential. He is not even rational except in a conniving, manipulative fashion intended to embarrass his adversaries and place them on the defensive. And his enemies list appears to include all Americans who are not "with him."

The Constitution of the United States in Articles I and II details the procedure for impeachment by the Senate of a president who commits "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors." I believe that threshold has finally been crossed. It was crossed last Thursday when President Trump telephoned either Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or some other senior Israeli government official before, one hour later, tweeting the following: "It would show great weakness if Israel allowed Representative [Ilhan] Omar and Representative [Rashida] Tlaib to visit. They hate Israel and all Jewish people. And there is nothing that can be said or done to change their minds. Minnesota and Michigan will have a hard time putting them back in office. They are a disgrace!"

Netanyahu then followed Trump's lead with a series of tweets of his own, banning the visit of the two congresswomen because "Only a few days ago, we received their itinerary for their visit in Israel, which revealed that they planned a visit whose sole objective is to strengthen the boycott against us and deny Israel's legitimacy. For instance: they listed the destination of their trip as Palestine and not Israel the itinerary of the two Congresswomen reveals that the sole purpose of their visit is to harm Israel and increase incitement against it."

The two women are in fact the only two congressional supporters of the non-violent Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement that seeks to use economic pressure to convince Israel to end its brutal occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, meaning that the other 533 members of congress are not so inclined. BDS supporters have been blocked from travel to Israel under an anti-boycott law passed by the Knesset in March 2017, suggesting that free speech in Israel is conditional.

Even though BDS is a non-violent protest movement, it has been condemned by the U.S. Congress and also by nearly all Jewish groups in America, quite possibly because it is having a real impact in an environment where legitimate criticism of Israel is effectively forbidden. There is considerable irony in the fact that Jewish groups have in the past used boycotts to advance their own tribal interests while condemning the use of the same tactic when it is employed against Israeli oppression.

The Israeli ban was subsequently partially lifted to allow Tlaib to travel to the occupied West Bank to visit her 90 year old grandmother, but the congresswoman indicated that she has refused the offer as she is being treated "like a criminal." Clearly, Netanyahu and Trump saw political benefit coming out of the exchange. Netanyahu is facing re-election in two weeks and will be able to boast of his demonstrated ability as a "strong leader" to obtain maximum support for anything he does from the White House. Trump is also already running for re-election next year and is working hard to make Israel an issue, labeling the Democrats as the party that is anti-Israel and anti-Semitic. He will also expect Netanyahu to do him favors as appropriate closer to the actual U.S. election.

So much for the view from the two heads of government. The other perspective, and why the president should be impeached, is that Trump's decision was, as usual, to propagate a disgusting and deliberate lie that is also extremely damaging to actual United States interests as well as to our form of government.

To put it in simplest terms, President Trump is conniving with a foreign government headed by a war criminal to block the entry of and also demonize two congresswomen whose political views differ from his own. He is endangering the women, who have already received death threats, by expanding on the lies that are being circulated about them due to their criticism of Israel's appalling human rights record.

Netanyahu, for his part, would prefer that prominent observers not be able to report on the actual conditions prevailing on the West Bank and in Gaza. Indeed, Israel's occupation of much of the West Bank is an ongoing crime that is carefully hidden from most foreign visitors. Netanyahu's government already carefully manages the summer recess annual pilgrimage by members of Congress, such as the one that ended last week where 31 Republicans and 41 Democrats made the journey to kiss the prime minister's ring. And it should be noted that as Omar and Tlaib are only two of a handful of Democratic lawmakers who dare to criticize Israel, their impact on party policy is decidedly limited, rendering even more incomprehensible the panic over their travels.

There are a number of other things wrong with what took place between Trump and Netanyahu vis-à-vis the two congresswomen. First of all, Israel is the top recipient of U.S. military aid at more than $3 billion each year. It also profits from trade arrangements, co-production projects and charitable contributions from American Jews and Christian Zionists that amount to an estimated three times that much annually. That members of Congress should have the right, even the obligation, to visit Israel to see where all that money goes should be unquestioned and it has, indeed, been unchallenged prior to this incident. Tlaib and Omar are the first congressmen to be denied entry to Israel. That Trump apparently orchestrated the entire incident in connivance with a foreign government in support of his own political ambitions and that foreign power's narrow interests is a clear abuse of executive power.

To be sure, numerous Democrats have decried the Israeli decision, but they have tended to frame it in such a way as to praise Israel while also slamming Trump. They note, in a friendly way, that it will hurt Israel's otherwise pristine image as an upstanding democracy and close ally, both of which assertions are in any event demonstrably false. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi issued a statement that was typical, saying "As one who loves Israel, I am deeply saddened by the news that Israel has decided to prevent Members of Congress from entering the country. Last month, Israeli Ambassador Dermer stated that, 'Out of respect for the U.S. Congress and the great alliance between Israel and America, we would not deny entry to any Member of Congress into Israel.' This is a sad reversal and is deeply disappointing. I pray that the Government of Israel will reverse that denial. Israel's denial of entry to Congresswomen Tlaib and Omar is a sign of weakness, and beneath the dignity of the great State of Israel. The President's statements about the Congresswomen are a sign of ignorance and disrespect, and beneath the dignity of the Office of the President."

Senator Bernie Sanders was one of the few legislators to actually approach the heart of the matter, saying "The idea that a member of the United States Congress cannot visit a nation which, by the way, we support to the tune of billions and billions of dollars is clearly an outrage. And if Israel doesn't want members of the United States Congress to visit their country to get a firsthand look at what's going on -- and I've been there many, many times -- but if he doesn't want members to visit, maybe [Netanyahu] can respectfully decline the billions of dollars that we give to Israel."

Even the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) disapproved of the decision, stating in a tweet that "We disagree with Reps. Omar and Tlaib's support for the anti-Israel and anti-peace BDS movement, along with Rep. Tlaib's calls for a one-state solution. We also believe every member of Congress should be able to visit and experience our democratic ally Israel firsthand."

One of the few Republicans to enter into the discussion was Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, who characteristically tweeted what amounted to an attack on the congresswomen, stating that it was a mistake for the Israeli government to deny them entry because "Being blocked is what they really hoped for all along in order to bolster their attacks against the Jewish state."

Trump's attack on the two congresswomen comes on top of another bizarre foreign policy related intervention. It involved sending his official hostage negotiator Robert O'Brien to Stockholm on the taxpayers' dime to obtain freedom for an American rap musician ASAP Rocky who was in jail after having gotten into a fight with some local boys. Trump did not actually know Rocky, but he was vouched for by the likes of Kim Kardashian and Kanye West, both of whom have had nice things to say about the president. Trump also exercised his usual disregard for standard diplomatic courtesy by tweeting furiously against Sweden's prime minister, Stefan Lofven, over Rocky's detention. The negotiator was instructed to threaten Sweden that if they did not release Rocky there would be "negative consequences" for the bilateral relationship.

And if you need more good reasons to impeach Donald Trump, here they are:

Trump has twice attacked Syria with cruise missiles based on flawed intelligence without a declaration of war and without Damascus representing an actual threat. That is a war crime and the stationing of American soldiers in Syria without the consent of that country's government is also illegal. The Trump administration's "Justice" Department is seeking to extradite truth-teller Julian Assange of WikiLeaks so he can be locked up for life or killed in prison like Jeffrey Epstein. America's Secretary of State and National Security Advisors are implementing policies that impose punitive sanctions that have served to starve or otherwise kill thousands of Venezuelans, Iranians and Yemenis. Far from being Russian President Vladimir Putin's patsy, Trump has unnecessarily escalated tensions with Moscow more than any American president since the end of the cold war by moving NATO troops up to the Russian border and arming Ukraine, putting our nation and much of the world at risk of a nuclear exchange whether by accident or design. Trump has unnecessarily withdrawn from an Iranian nuclear agreement and from two arms treaties with Russia, all of which enhanced the national security of the United States. The Trump administration has continued to lavish support on the Middle East's two kleptocracies Saudi Arabia and Israel, endorsing everything they do. The tilt towards Israel, including U.S. recognition of sovereignty over illegally occupied East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, has been particularly unfortunate as it could lead to a major war in the region with the U.S. placed right in the middle of the conflict.

Finally, there are certainly some who oppose getting rid of Trump because it would give us Mike Pence as acting president. True enough, and Mike certainly has some interesting Christian Zionist views about the end of the world, but how could he possibly be worse than Donald Trump?

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 councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected] .

obwandiyag , says: August 19, 2019 at 10:32 pm GMT

Sorry. But he didn't start any wars, and didn't heat any up either. He couldn't end them, although he is basically anti-war, because you know why.
A123 , says: August 19, 2019 at 10:53 pm GMT
Let me help. What you are actually advocating is better represented by this:

GIRALDI Endorses MIKE PENCE for President

Did you forget that the VP takes the Presidency if the sitting President is impeached?

Do you really believe that PENCE would be better than Trump on foreign policy?

__________

He has kept us in old wars in Afghanistan and Syria that he could have ended

Trump has drawn down troops from Afghanistan.

The primary issue with pulling troops out of Syria is Iran, although Turkey and the deep state bureaucracy are also complicating factors. Hopefully, Iran's impending exit from Syria will allow Trump to also exit.

Iranian troops are in conflict with Assad and they are rapidly wearing out its welcome in Syria (1):

the Iranian Revolutionary Guards "took over the al-Nurain Mosque and houses around it on Korniche Street in the city, where they prevented civilians, members of regime forces, and NDF from entering or passing through the area, without orders from the command forces located in al-Mayadin."

Iran is also intentionally provoking Russia and undermining Putin's credibility (2):

due to the permanent infiltration efforts conducted by Iran and Hizbullah, a very unique situation has unfolded on the ground. Hizbullah and pro-Iranian proxies' checkpoints, coordinated by the regime's Fourth Division deployed in the area, have been erected almost adjacent to the Russian checkpoints. Pro-Iranian patrols have been patrolling the area in the very same axis patrolled by the Russians. As a result, frictions between the Russian and the pro-Iranian proxies occur from time to time, creating tensions between Moscow and Tehran.

It is now a test of wills between Ayatollah Khamenei and Putin, and it is pretty clear that Putin is going to win.

PEACE

____

(1) https://m.jpost.com/Middle-East/Iranian-Revolutionary-Guard-forces-Assad-supporters-out-of-checkpoint-596661

(2) http://jcpa.org/article/the-iranian-conquest-of-syria/

Aletho , says: Website August 19, 2019 at 11:09 pm GMT
It's not saying much but Trump seems to be the sanest of the bunch. Even Sanders wants more militarism. His support for Israel, though less overtly obnoxious, achieves the same end result. I could possibly exclude Gabbard. Why not just support a Gabbard campaign?
Diversity Heretic , says: August 19, 2019 at 11:28 pm GMT
The likelihood that Donald Trump will be impeached (and it's the House of Representatives that impeaches, not the Senate) for any action that pleases Israel is zero.
Kelso , says: August 19, 2019 at 11:48 pm GMT
Tulsi Gabbard should embrace the BDS movement and move ahead of the other candidates. This is in spite of her ill-advised vote recently to condemn BDS. It would be a dramatic about face -- she will be vilified no matter what she does, but she will please a large and growing segment of the electorate, not unlike Ross Perot's Independence Party.
Twodees Partain , says: August 19, 2019 at 11:57 pm GMT
"Mike certainly has some interesting Christian Zionist views about the end of the world, but how could he possibly be worse than Donald Trump?"

Mike Pence could be worse than Hillary Clinton without half trying. For that matter, he could be worse than GW Bush without breaking a sweat. You underestimate him, Phil.

Twodees Partain , says: August 20, 2019 at 12:00 am GMT
@Aletho

"Why not just support a Gabbard campaign?" Because we've been swindled by two "antiwar" candidates in a row already. We don't want to be slow learners, do we?

JoaoAlfaiate , says: August 20, 2019 at 12:11 am GMT
@A123

If the Zionist Enterprise and Uncle Sam (and their apologists) are resentful about the strategic depth Iran has created in Syria they should not have supported a bunch of whack job head choppers like HTS, Al Qaeda, ISIL, etc., etc. Blow back pure and simple like 9/11 and US intervention in Afghanistan.

Durruti , says: August 20, 2019 at 12:16 am GMT
Giraldi

No more excuses for a train-wreck foreign policy

Yes, The entire post November 22, 1963 American Government, with only a few exceptions should be Impeached.

On November 22, 1963, our last Constitutional Government was overthrown in a Coup D'état, with our last Constitutional President, John F. Kennedy , assassinated in a hail of bullets.

If you (Giraldi), read Unz' article on the subject of the Coup, and just who performed the Coup, or a dozen other articles to the point, you should understand that our post-constitutional government has been increasingly controlled by Foreign Zionist Banking Oligarchs. Our so-called 'elected Representatives' function as bought Minions of the Rothschilds , and live in fear of their MOSSAD and puppet CIA police.

I assume you have read your own articles on the subject of just who controls the USA. Or do I have to cite them for you?

You advocate an Impeachment Process to be brought against Casino Trump . And who, pray tell, will do the impeaching? You are advocating an effort that lends a certain Legitimacy to a pathetic Puppet government, long at the service of the Zionist World Order. Do you dream that the pathetic band of almost 537 Traitors are up to the task?

You expect a Congress, perhaps led by the Democrap Gangers, to begin the process of removing the current Hollywood actor ("You're Fired"), in a pretend Constitutional Process performed by a Pretend Constitutional Government.

Ron Unz -- er. Philip Giraldi, our Yellow Brick Road to Liberty involves, of necessity, a Restoration of Our Republic, with a restoration of our Constitution, with a restoration of our honor, and a restoration of our Beloved Nation's Sovereignty.

But I will deal with you as a well meaning and brave American, a friend. If you have a way to trigger, or begin the process of impeachment of Casino Trump, even in the Pretend World we will have to live in to swallow the Show, I and my friends will do all we can to follow your lead.

This is your article and your lead. Hell! We might get lucky. On with the show. You will not fight alone.

Now. if your article is just an intellectual appeal to the powers that be (whomever they are), to advance an impeachment show for us to passively observe, a show where nothing essential will change, and nothing will be learned, then our Citizens will have no option but to continue following the Foreign Zionist controlled Democrap & Republicant Gangs to Hell.

Durruti

restless94110 , says: August 20, 2019 at 12:41 am GMT
You really have to have a lot of chutzpah to claim that Trump isn't presidential. After 32 years of Clinton, Bush II, Obama? What is wrong with you, Phil?

You evidently are a one-issue guy with a hitherto serious case of Trump Derangement Syndrome.

You've know joined the ranks of The Mooch and that lunatic Kristol.

Hope you enjoy the company you keep.

getaclue , says: August 20, 2019 at 1:06 am GMT
I like Giraldi generally, that said the whole "acting Presidential" thing is way, way overrated -- that's what we've had for decades an "actor" reading a teleprompter, part of the Uniparty team selected to screw average normal Americans of all races

Ppersonally not having been a Trump fan ever -- I like the fact that he doesn't act like an actor teleprompter reading robot and that he swings back at the lying Propagandist Mainslime Media and Dems who are complete insane lunatics at this point (I was a Dem myself for 40 years and even voted for Obama the first time -- no more.

They are actively plotting to destroy the country by importing "replacement" illegal aliens to vote for them as sane people won't and Identity "hate whitey" politics -- why would any sane "white" person vote for them?).

Do I like all Trump is doing? No. His Israel "love" and Javanka etc .But who exactly would Mr. Giraldi recommend we support/vote for that has any possible chance of getting elected who is not a pre-selected Uniparty stooge/traitor? Trump is all we got, and by his wide range of obvious enemies we can tell he is also obviously not fully "on board" with the cretins of the Deep State -- and those who "run" things view him as a threat, gotta like that .

Precious , says: August 20, 2019 at 1:17 am GMT
If I have to choose between Trump and those two harpies then Trump is in. Those two women are fake Americans who should go back to where they came from.
Fiendly Neighbourhood Terrorist , says: Website August 20, 2019 at 2:24 am GMT
As though the ziostate is a separate country from the Imperialist States of Amerikastan, instead of a parasitic twin. And as though the Imperialist States of Amerikastan is in any way innocent of the crimes of the ziostate.
Paw , says: August 20, 2019 at 4:28 am GMT
@getaclue Elites do not let anybody from the younger generation up , through filter. Old pensioners , even younger are political, pathetic amateurs.. Amateurs or worse. Daily declarations of never ending and growing up and up "Uber Love" for Israel means what ? Emptiness , absence of any ability ?

Looks like President and administrations become more and more lost and lost their way in our world ? Can not USA acts and even understand, on its own, what is going on around??

They push Iran and Russia together,after they did the same with China, Venezuela /with 6 millions of Columbians in there/, and Turkey, before.. USA lost Syria ..And what about Yemen ? At the same time they expose Israel, towards many dangerous developments in that area around .And in the whole world.. Negativity against Israel is growing..

They/together/ never solve and end, this horrible situation with Palestine.. Sanction are deadly weapon against all children and their future everywhere..Are the they blind ? As well ? Have They declared sanctions on their own sights ??

Colin Wright , says: Website August 20, 2019 at 4:35 am GMT
' And if you need more good reasons to impeach Donald Trump, here they are '

And if you need a good reason to not impeach Trump here it is: Mike Pence would become President.

Charles Martel , says: August 20, 2019 at 4:36 am GMT
What's that coming out of your ears, Mr. Giraldi?

Your ridiculous, TDS-fueled list of President Trump's alleged sins does not include a single high crime or misdemeanor. It merely states your despicable preference for a world run by Mohammedans and a country run by the likes of those Mohammedan Congress-snakes.

Repeat these words in front of your local imam -- hopefully as the blood spurts from a camel's throat on Eid; it earns you extra points and a delicious camel steak.

"There is no god but Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet."

Until you do that, we will know that you lack the courage of your convictions.

WWebb , says: Website August 20, 2019 at 4:44 am GMT
Question:

Would changing potus or any puppet make any real difference, at all, when the clear cancerous origin of the decline of the usa, and in fact, the entire western world is not completely eliminated?

With US Liberty, JFK, and 911 in mind, here is an opportunity to expose and eliminate.

Mega Group, Maxwells and Mossad: The Spy Story at the Heart of the Jeffrey Epstein Scandal

The picture painted by the evidence is not a direct Epstein tie to a single intelligence agency but a web linking key members of the Mega Group, politicians, and officials in both the U.S. and Israel, and an organized-crime network with deep business and intelligence ties in both nations.

by Whitney Webb

https://www.mintpressnews.com/category/epstein-investigation/

Nancy Pelosi's Latina Maid , says: August 20, 2019 at 4:54 am GMT
"Hey, let's buy Greenland!", "Let's send a guy to Mars!". Swear to God, every day's a new adventure with this guy. The Gonzo Presidency, like going to Vegas with Hunter S. Thompson.
Ilya G Poimandres , says: August 20, 2019 at 4:59 am GMT
Ignoring someone is the strongest form of bullying. BDS is this stupid path that will lead to violence just like picking up a stick in the first place. The way to deal with Israel and the Empire is by demanding the declassification of all historical secrets, and having an open conversation. We haven't done this for a century as a society.

When that happens, it will become clear Israel has always been a colonial project of European and Jewish elites (at the top the %es warrant the statement), that human rights interventions have been designed with neo-colonial intentions in mind from the get-go (after all the creation of Israel was the first such neo-colony), and that the only way to solve this issue is through full on decolonisation.

niteranger , says: August 20, 2019 at 5:06 am GMT
Trump is an idiot and a puppet of Israel. Our Congress is controlled by Israel. Trump isn't Presidential is true. But Giraldi once again seems to be clueless of all the underhanded foreign policy games Obama played. Obama is a cool Crime Lord if there ever was one.

He is most likely a product of his mother and other relatives being in the CIA chain if you investigate thoroughly. The CIA and the other Intelligence agencies protected Obama because he let them do whatever they wanted. Obama's fiasco in Libya was covered up and according to my friends in the CIA is one the greatest foreign policy failures in American history. But Giraldi once again ignores this type of stuff.

America is a Military Industrial-Intelligence Police State. Our leaders are just players in the game. Trump realizes he is not in charge of the foreign policy and most of the Intelligence Agencies have gone rogue. They answer to the Corporations of the World not to Nations. Just look at the debacle of the FBI and the Trump investigation. Who was in charge and what were they trying to do? They were trying to prevent Trump from becoming president and the NSA who were monitoring everything did what? Just like William Binney former NSA intelligence officer stated how far they have gone in their own game plan against the citizens of the USA.

Pence is also an idiot and nutbag ZioChristian. What Giraldi doesn't seem to understand is that even though Trump is an idiot etc. look at the Democrats and what does the populace see? For many they see that he is less evil than all the Democrats running.

Once again this seems like a rather naive analysis from someone with the credentials of Giraldi.

Wally , says: August 20, 2019 at 5:29 am GMT
@obwandiyag I wonder why Obama, the Clintons, Bush 1&2, etc. get no "good reasons to impeach" list.

Trump is small beer in comparison. Generally you do good work, Phil Giraldi, but this time your avoiding the big picture . while you ignore the 2016 alternative, Hillary.

Regards.

Mark James , says: August 20, 2019 at 5:58 am GMT
First I was glad to see Tlaib had the smarts to tell the Likudniks to pound sand with their new invitation. It would to me, quickly evolve into a fiasco (probably as soon as she got off her flight). Good move by the Rep. If this is a zero-sum game, she wins not Trump/Netanyahu.

I see no stomach for impeachment during the election cycle. As well as no chance for a senate conviction. Vile crook that he is, he was elected. Now it's up to voters to make that decision again. Yes on a personal level he's terrible but if we are lucky he won't do catastrophic damage. Like Bush.

# As an aside just a note on Sen. Gillibrand calling for forgiveness in the cases of Al Franken and Mark Halperin. The NY'er is a skilled politician but this is a bit too obvious. Would she be calling for second chances if their surnames were Smith and Jones? I don't think so. Not in the current atmosphere of 'me to.'
She was doing this to make amends for damage done to her among liberals and Jews. Not because she has second thoughts, about whether she was wrong about them initially.

Bardon Kaldian , says: August 20, 2019 at 6:29 am GMT
OK, who else instead of Trump? Crickets ..
Oleaginous Outrager , says: August 20, 2019 at 7:03 am GMT

To say the least, Trump is not presidential.

So what you're sayin', Phil, is we need more drone strikes.

Nicolás Palacios Navarro , says: Website August 20, 2019 at 7:29 am GMT
I agree with Mr. Giraldi entirely on this matter. Unfortunately, given that the Democratic Party is determined to present voters with less than reasonable alternatives, I am fully confident that we will be enjoying another four-year term with this imbecilic, Zionist bootlick as our head-of-state .
Olifant , says: August 20, 2019 at 7:38 am GMT
My take on Trump is that he knows something that not every politician knows: to bring down those who are the greatest threat to your country, you sometimes have to give them all they want and more, after which you'll shed crocodile tears at the news of their demise. Just give them more rope!
mark green , says: August 20, 2019 at 7:42 am GMT
Interesting article (as usual) by Philip Giraldi. I'm not sure that I'm ready to throw in the towel on Trump however -- though I'm getting close.

As for Trump, he is far more of a leader and independent thinker than his VP, so the idea of having Zio-devout, 'end-of-times' Pence take over for Trump seems rash.

But it is true that Trump -- like every President since LBJ -- has become an obsequious waterboy for the Zionist mafia. For me, this marks Trump's greatest failure. Wasn't he going to 'Make America Great Again'? How can a nation be great if it is not sovereign?

Trump is manifesting some of the usual, toxic symptoms and embracing some of the bizarre, extra-national 'values' that make a politician 'mainstream' in America.

These values include 1) eager capitulation to the Zionist community involving all 'matters of concern' to World Jewry, and 2) don't forget the first part.

These crypto-Zionist 'values' however cause immense and toxic distortions in US policies, our nation's intellectual climate, and American culture in general. This is no small matter. As a consequence, the issue of oversized Jewish influence in the West is not supposed to be addressed -- much less critically examined and dealt with.

If a problem cannot be addressed, how can it be understood and contained?

It can't.

... ... ...

Exhibiting a 'hostility' towards Israel or discharging a virulent 'whiff' of anti-Semitism can easily become a political death sentence. This is power. This is Jewish-Israeli power.

Americans exist in a heavily monitored, strategically censored, post-Holocaust, pro-Zionist, white-guilt-tripping, fabricated kosher wonderland. Therefore, do say the right thing. Never say the wrong thing. Never. Indelicate speech has how been criminalized. That's BAD.

Preemptive bombing and wholesale annihilation on the other hand has been sanctified. Democracy! It's all very strange and twisted. But perfectly normal now.

If nothing else, 'reckless and insane' Trump's steady and deliberate subservience to the Zionist establishment proves how astonishingly powerful they are.

Anonymous [172] Disclaimer , says: August 20, 2019 at 8:31 am GMT

Mike certainly has some interesting Christian Zionist views about the end of the world, but how could he possibly be worse than Donald Trump?

You've answered your own question. A guy with interesting views about the end of the world probably shouldn't be put in a position where he could actually end it.

Lot , says: August 20, 2019 at 8:45 am GMT
@A123 Giraldi shows that ultimately anti-Semite nutcases will always side with America's enemies as long as they attack Israel.

Turning Minnesota into New Somalia he doesn't care, Ilhan Omar is solid on the JQ!

22pp22 , says: August 20, 2019 at 8:46 am GMT
With any other president but Trump, you would be doing Israel's fighting in Iran RIGHT NOW.
The Alarmist , says: August 20, 2019 at 9:02 am GMT

I believe that threshold has finally been crossed. It was crossed last Thursday when President Trump telephoned either Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or some other senior Israeli government official before, one hour later, tweeting the following .

Not a crime, not an impeachable offence.

The other perspective, and why the president should be impeached, is that Trump's decision was, as usual, to propagate a disgusting and deliberate lie

Impeaching a politician for lying; now that's rich!

that is also extremely damaging to actual United States interests as well as to our form of government.

Trump would be at the end of a very long line if you are talking about his collaboration with Israel.

beneath the dignity of the Office of the President.

Still no crime or impeachable offence there. Dignity of the Office of the President? The Rubicon was crossed a long time ago.

And if you need more good reasons to impeach Donald Trump, here they are .

Business as usual for US Presidents for at least 70 years, perhaps at least 120 years. Under the principles of equity, these would not justify impeachment.

anarchyst , says: August 20, 2019 at 9:32 am GMT
I must disagree with Mr. Giraldi on this one. Trump is smart like a fox. He KNOWS the machinations and dirty dealings of the jews as he has had to deal with jews all of his life. There is a saying: "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer". It is possible that Trump is doing just that.

Trump KNOWS that the "deep state" is real and has "eliminated" those who do not "toe the line" and is smart enough to know that. Trump's "weak spot" is the appointment of his son-in-law Kushner to handle his "foreign policy" arrangements. All in all, Trump IS "getting things done".

Mark James , says: August 20, 2019 at 9:53 am GMT
@22pp22

With any other president but Trump, you would be doing Israel's fighting

I really hate to admit this but you may be correct. I do think Trump is anti-war. But he's too erratic and nobody should trust him. Netanyahu is gaming him but I don't think he trusts Trump either. Bottom line is Trump doesn't think spending the money is worth it and not even the Israel lobby can convince him (we hope). Bottom line is everyone who deals with him thinks he's nuts. Sooner or later that's going to catch up and bite us.

Anonymous [172] Disclaimer , says: August 20, 2019 at 9:56 am GMT
@Olifant So that's how 44D chess is played? You give the enemy so much support and resources that they just seize up from all the goodies? Sounds legit.

Man, I wish I was smart enough to play on that level.

Sean Breathnach , says: August 20, 2019 at 10:05 am GMT
@Rich Yes I agree, it's all about the Benjamin's. Neither of the two women are anti-white or anti-American but it sounds like you in fact are a racist, just like Trump.
Realist , says: August 20, 2019 at 10:07 am GMT
@anarchyst

All in all, Trump IS "getting things done".

All in all, the Deep State IS "getting things done". FIFY. Trump like most elected officials serves at the pleasure of the Deep State.

Amon , says: August 20, 2019 at 10:09 am GMT
Holy smokes is there a lot of MAGA boomers railing in defence of Trump. The orange clown should have been booted out of office on the very day he invited the swamp to infest his government.
Amon , says: August 20, 2019 at 10:13 am GMT
@Olifant The only thing Trump knows is how to obey his jewish handler(Jared) and his daughter.

Would not surprise me if Orange Clown and Epstein had fun with Ivanka on a joint fligth decades ago.

Kolya Krassotkin , says: August 20, 2019 at 10:18 am GMT
@restless94110 Add Bush I to your list of un-presidential Presidents. As to the Mooch, every time I see him on TV, I change the channel.

We already have Andy and Chris Cuomo: Two goombahs are company, three a crowd.

Whitewolf , says: August 20, 2019 at 10:33 am GMT
@Bardon Kaldian

OK, who else instead of Trump? Crickets ..

That lapdog Guido or whatever his name is that they had lined up for Venezuela? He's already house trained so it would be a smooth transition.

BuelahMan , says: August 20, 2019 at 11:00 am GMT
@Olifant It is this idiotic hope that puts you on equal footing with any Clintonista, Bushie, Obama Maniac or Drumpfter.

They are all the same idiotic "believers". No. Trump is owned lock, stock and barrel by Chabad sect. To suggest anything different is foolish or obvious deception.

Antares , says: August 20, 2019 at 11:01 am GMT
This is why I'm happy with Trump:

-- France wants cooperation with Russia.
-- Germany wants cooperation with Russia.
-- Russia should rejoin G8, according to these European countries.

-- American's hubris is now plain to see for everyone.
-- Israel's hubris is now plain to see for everyone.

-- We are not going to buy expensive American LNG.
-- Our gas will not flow through Ukraine.

Before Trump this was unthinkable! I don't know how that would work out with Pence. Changing foolishness for pure evil is risky. Please let us hate Trump but don't get rid of him!

Herald , says: August 20, 2019 at 11:13 am GMT
@Wally What is the point of giving reasons to impeach the Clintons and Bushes, when it is Trump who is the incumbent of the White House? Your post makes absolutely no sense and seems little more than a feeble attempt at giving cover in regard to Trump's erratic behaviour.
Exile , says: August 20, 2019 at 11:32 am GMT
Trump letting the neocons back into the White House, particularly giving the egregious Bolton the NSA chair, was a much more momentous event than mean tweets or interference in the Squad Qwainz travel plans. Syria and Iran sabre-rattling and ham-fisted destabilization efforts in Venezuela and Hong Kong are a lot worse than this as well. None of it is impeachment-worthy.

Phil's venting here. No one's more critical of Trump's Zio-cucking than I am, but talking about impeachment over this or any of the other aggregate offenses he lists isn't serious. Phil's not writing a Hopkins Russiagate /sarc piece but it comes across like one.

The entire US Congress is Israeli-occupied territory (h/t Pat Buchanan). Mossad's latest blackmailer of America's Davos-tier was just strangled to death in custody. If Zio-cuckery is impeachable, we might as well call a new constitutional convention and send all three branches packing. That's the ugly truth and worrying over the Qwainz is just a trivial sideshow distraction for the cucks and anti-cucks alike.

Anon [382] Disclaimer , says: August 20, 2019 at 12:01 pm GMT
November 2020 is roughly 15 months away. I watched a Trump rally on Fox the other night. He was sharp as a razor. Even when speaking impromptu on a few subjects, he didn't misspeak or struggle for or with words. One might not like a great deal of what he does, but he is quite in control of his faculties.
Barnaby , says: August 20, 2019 at 12:07 pm GMT
@Kelso Agreed. Tulsi needs to get off the fence and make a clear statement regarding Israel and her own plans, if any, to deal with Zionist influence on the US gov.
Bill Jones , says: August 20, 2019 at 12:11 pm GMT
Ah, Phillip, You know damn well that starting wars is one thing that guarantees no impeachment. Israel is the other.
RoatanBill , says: August 20, 2019 at 12:23 pm GMT
It's not President Trump that needs impeaching, it's the entire Federal Government that should be excised from the planet. It's the system, not any particular individual that's the real problem. It's the concentration of power and the usurpation of control by unelected bureaucrats commonly referred to as the 'deep state' that threatens the entire world.

"The way to get rid of corruption in high places is to get rid of high places." -- Frank Chodorov

Get rid of Trump and a new moron will take his place. We need to get rid of the Nancy Pelosi's and the Chuck Shumer's along with the monstrosities like the NSA, CIA, Air Force, Army, Raytheon, etc so the people of the 50 states can separately decide on how they want to proceed. It is the monopoly of the Fed Gov that's the real problem not any particular pinhead.

Kirt , says: August 20, 2019 at 12:24 pm GMT
Impeachment is inherently political and there are plenty of good reasons to impeach Trump as there were to impeach Obama, Bush II, Clinton and for that matter such all time greats as Lincoln and FDR. There are better reasons not to impeach him. If impeachment fails it paves the way for a backlash that would lead to Trump's re-election by a landslide and more subservience to Israel than ever.

If it succeeds, he is followed by Pence and more subservience to Israel than ever. And if a Democrat other than Tulsi Gabbard gets elected in 2020, keep in mind that the Democratic establishment is solidly pro-Israel as well. Only among some of the Democratic rank-and-file is there any opposition to doing the bidding of the Israeli government.

therevolutionwas , says: August 20, 2019 at 12:33 pm GMT
Pence could be much worse than Trump; he could be Trump unleashed to do what Trump only threatened. Trump is just the tail of the dog anyway. It is the power of the deep state that needs to be diminished, and there are many peaceful ways to accomplish that.
DESERT FOX , says: August 20, 2019 at 12:50 pm GMT
Trump is a wholly owned promoter of zionism and a puppet of the zionists who has sold out America and Americans who thought they were getting a change from the warmongers and the MIC and the zionist control over the zio/US government only to find they elected a Trojan Horse of zionism who will do anything his zionist overlords tell him to do.

JFK was the last patriot POTUS and that is why he was shot in full view of the American people, shot as an example that the satanic overlords of America were still in charge!

If interested read the book JFK, the CIA and Vietnam by Col. L. Fletcher Prouty, can be had on amazon.

anon [393] Disclaimer , says: August 20, 2019 at 12:54 pm GMT
@Lot Attacking Israel involves attacking the system which supports Israel. It is 1 pragmatic . It is 2 moral and 3 ethical to do so when it is found out that these forces have been lassoed roped penned and put into serving parasitic Israel 24/7 . At least the offspring of the skates will have a better future .

Don't you agree a lot and not only to 123 .

anon [393] Disclaimer , says: August 20, 2019 at 12:55 pm GMT
@Charles Martel I told you not to read that Scofield Bible again but you didn't listen . Not only that you also sat down bowed head listening to fat misshaped Hagee in your local CUFI outlet . Don't do that . Get some crayons and start drawing Star of David on your viagra worked dick . There is Canadian nurse who I knew in Detroit , used to talk a lot about My Brothers Keeper . May be she also knew the real keeper Epstein . Lot of kept .
Moi , says: August 20, 2019 at 1:00 pm GMT
@obwandiyag Come to think of it, Trump is a perfect president for a violently insane and amoral nation. Sweet Lord Yeshua!
Charles , says: August 20, 2019 at 1:02 pm GMT
No one (who I ever hear or read) who claims Trump should be impeached knows what that even means. Similarly to being indicted, being impeached means a political figure stands trial. Being impeached guarantees nothing -- Bill Clinton was impeached and naturally it turned into a farce, whether he was provably guilty of what he was accused or not. Even more importantly there's the little matter of having a REASON to impeach. Hating an individual -- even when that person is an oddball, as is certainly the case with Trump -- because that person behaves eccentrically in your eyes is not and never will be "impeachable".
Anon [300] Disclaimer , says: August 20, 2019 at 1:04 pm GMT
Phil, here's the thing: on the evil scale of 1 to 10 Trump is a 9.5, but everyone else around him is a 9.9 or 10. So we are stuck with the fool for now.
anon [393] Disclaimer , says: August 20, 2019 at 1:09 pm GMT
Accidental war is possible but the trend is towards more shouting and screaming followed by climb down. Unless Pompeo fat or Bolton walrus drown accidentally or intentionally in some Israeli supplied water , war remains a possibility , Even the frowning might not help . It can be blamed on Iran . Israel might supply the water if it feels Pomeo might get tired of being told what to do and start telling the truth behind war against Iran .

The real concern is recession . If that hurts Trump's re-election , he might do something stupid . He might buy the water from Israel with trillions of dollars ( just the advice on how to initiate the war against Iran but AIPAC-Likud charges for that ) and drown the USA . There is no climbdown. Iran will be in ruins . Trump will be the president . America has seen it's last president .

Another ' Richard Pearle ' will say to Americans "Pompeo and Bolton didn't do the job and Neither Trump did as was told . They didn't listen . We tried to help but they couldn't carry out . They are not Roosevelt Churchill or Reagan . We were mistaken , "

Paul Bustion , says: August 20, 2019 at 1:20 pm GMT
Trump has not broken any laws, even though his behavior is inappropriate. Even if he colluded with Russia during the 2016 presidential campaign, he did not break any laws in doing so. Even though his collaboration with Israel is inappropriate, he did not break any laws in collaborating. Neither in the case of collaborating with Russia nor with Israel did he commit treason against the USA or accept illegal campaign contributions from their governments, which would be the only way the collaboration would be illegal. So there is no legal basis on which to impeach him. Additionally, there is a principle of sovereign immunity that, in fact if not in theory, has some limited application to the president, it would not be possible to successfully remove a president from office, even if he was guilty of a crime, unless it was an extremely serious one. So trying to impeach Trump would be a complete waste of time. Impeaching Trump would be even more ridiculous than impeaching Clinton was.
War for Blair Mountain , says: August 20, 2019 at 1:21 pm GMT
And the CANNON FODDER occupation of the shithole Afghanistan will continue apace during the reign of the OLD FARTING BOOMER GRANNY POTUS Elizabeth Warren .on the advice of Irish Skank Samantha Powers and the midget mulato negro Susan Rice .
Hossein , says: August 20, 2019 at 1:43 pm GMT
Sorry you Goys are all doomed. The next president ,Democrat or the orangegutan will continue to bow before the real emperor, Netanyahu.

The only way to get rid of virus of Zionism is to implement a real American constitutional government where loyalty will be 100% to the US and not to foriegn governments. Best of luck to all of you Goys.

nsa , says: August 20, 2019 at 2:03 pm GMT
@Hossein "Best of luck to all of you Goys" New improved motto for the hapless MAGAstinians ..Make America Goy Again.
follyofwar , says: August 20, 2019 at 2:05 pm GMT
@Wally I concur, Wally, exept for your use of the term "small beer." Love him or hate him, there's nothing small beer about Mr. Trump.

It seems to me that those advocating for Trump's impeachment could, unwittingly, guarantee his re-election. Most, I think, don't like a legally elected president to be impeached over policy differences. Using that criteria, every president could be impeached.

Mr. Giraldi asks if VP Pence could "possibly be worse than Donald Trump." Emphatically I say that he not only COULD be, but quite likely WOULD be. One example: Trump should have never sent such a huge naval presence into the Persian Gulf, but, who knows, Pence may have done so even sooner. And, after that Iranian shoot down of the US drone, would Pence, an Israel-first neocon in good standing, have held back from retaliating?

Lastly, I find it a little odd that Mr. Giraldi uses the Omar/Tlaib incident as grounds for impeachment. Trump was ill-advised to say what he did (sadly a nearly daily occurrence), but that seems like a minor incident, similar in severity to the republicans ridiculous attempt to impeach Clinton over lying about Lewinsky's semen stained blue dress. The easy way to get rid of Trump is the way this country usually does it -- vote him out of office at the ballot box, not make him a martyr by trying to get rid of him a few months before next November's election. Besides, the Senate will never convict.

DESERT FOX , says: August 20, 2019 at 2:16 pm GMT
In regards to impeachment, we patriots are screwed, Pence is just as bad as Trump , and in regards to the elections for POTUS , the demon-rats and the republi-cons are the same zionist controlled bullshit, until Americans wake up to that fact, nothing will change. The demon-rats are the zio/US version of the bolsheviks and the republi-cons are a farce!
wayfarer , says: August 20, 2019 at 2:17 pm GMT
Israel, the rich selfish beggar nation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blue_Boy

rich: abundant possessions, especially material wealth.
selfish: unquiet with one's own well-being without regard for others.
beggar: one who lives by asking for gifts or charity.

anon [401] Disclaimer , says: August 20, 2019 at 2:18 pm GMT
Netanyahu asked US lawmakers in June to condemn Tlaib, Omar for BDS support. In missive to Democratic leaders predating row over ban, Netanyahu wrote that the congresswomen were the 'antithesis to strong support for Israel' https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-asked-us-lawmakers-to-condemn-tlaib-omar-for-bds-support-in-june/

Now Trump has done more for Israel as per request of Israel, US media and some in Israeli media are blaming Trump for wrecking"bipartisan support" to Israel and for endangering "special relationship"

Thats the way Zionist work . They prod they force they bribe or blackmail and get the things done .Then they blame the perpetrator for doing what Israel has been asking them them do.

Iran war will be another example of 'wrecking bipartisan relationship" or "special relationship being endangered " by the Zionist media because of the danger of Israel would be pointed out correctly to be the mastermind to be the payer to be the controller to be the open and only figure forcing some corrupt lawmakers do it

Charles Martel , says: August 20, 2019 at 2:38 pm GMT
@anon Warning: prions in camel steaks have an adverse effect on peoples' brains to the extent that they can't frame a coherent thought. Lay off the steaks!

Meanwhile, here's a little Eid present for you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkS2f3DyDr4

anon [113] Disclaimer , says: August 20, 2019 at 2:45 pm GMT
@therevolutionwas "It is the power of the deep state that needs to be diminished, and there are many peaceful ways to accomplish that."

Enlighten us, please!

Buzz Baldrin , says: August 20, 2019 at 2:54 pm GMT
Haven't you Bush-Cheney-Trump Republicans noticed that every four years Americans rent a pig in a poke for the next four years.

Four years later, the voters can extend the rental or rent a new pig.

No accountability, other than impeachment, which like the presidential election, is political.

By impeaching Sheldon Adelson's pet pig, Americans hold the Bitter Twitter accountable for risking an accidental or insane nuclear exchange with Russia. Hold him accountable for exploding the national debt to create an asset bubble for the finance racket. And hold him accountable for flooding the country with legal and illegal immigrants and prisoners released to keep up with the Kardashians.

That's why Philip Giraldi is right about impeachment. Where his critics show their ignorance is their certainty that the process automatically leads to Pence. It could easily lead to the Nixon alternative. The bipartisan impeachment of Nixon was the last step of a negotiated deal as Watergate unfolded. First Agnew resigned. Then Nixon and the House made Gerald Ford vice president. "We gave Nixon no choice but Ford," House Speaker Carl Albert recalled later (Ford's Wikipedia page).

In the last act, Tricky Dick resigned in return for a pardon. The danger of Pence begs for a similar outcome.

Wally , says: August 20, 2019 at 3:09 pm GMT
@follyofwar Thanks.

-- Comparatively speaking, Trump is indeed small beer next to the warmongering of Hillary 'forcefully ending the Russian presense in Syria' Clinton, for example.

-- And while Trump blusters about places like Iran, he's nowhere close to McCain school of 'attack now, ask questions later'.

-- Trump's "sending" of naval forces is hardly the same as actually attacking with those forces.

-- BTW, the impeachment of Clinton was based upon his lying under oath concerning his sexual abuse of Gennifer Flowers, not about his semen on Lewinsky.

-- Trump's re-election is guaranteed. Hell, he now has a +50% rating with Hispanics and there are more & more some blacks who are tired of being on the neo-Marxist plantation and are seeing through their game.

Che Guava , says: August 20, 2019 at 3:10 pm GMT
Well Doc Giraldi, as an outsider, I understand your disgust and change of tack. However, although I don't know about Tlaib, she seems rather sensible, unlike her three insane allies. Also, Omar is a multiple violator of your U.S. immigration law. That is a fact. Easy to ascertain. It is only by many others of the same stripe being dumped in the same area, many also liars, and I would not doubt, many voters intimidated by people with whom she is conected (the large Somali population dumped there and/or brainwashing, from mainly Jewish sources) other voters had no say in her election.

So. impeach Trump on the grounds you state, it would be great for your USA. It would never be permitted. He is the greatest dupe of your colonial masters in Israel to date. You would know that. Likewise, ejection of Omar from her seat and deportation for immigration fraud are perfectly legal and sane, and will never happen.

Ragno , says: August 20, 2019 at 3:11 pm GMT
I must have missed the part where Giraldi offered up a list of replacement politicians who, as President, who could be relied upon to put illegal immigration on the front burner (until Trump, that was a grand total of ZERO) ..rework the insane, suicidal sweetheart deal we had previously arranged with China .and could credibly give Israel and its countless agents, apologists and apparatchiks throughout the West, what-for.

All things considered, two out of three ain't bad.

Hey, nobody (except the neverTrumpers who intend to shit all over him and his family the very moment he's out of office, the same as any michaelmoore would) is happy about Trump's kowtowing to Team Shmuel certainly nobody in his "base" is crazy about this setup .but I have the oddest feeling that Trump assiduously licks those Hebraic hindquarters as the Cost of Doing Business (ie, the only reliable Assassination Insurance an American President can hope to purchase).

In the end, it's all about the art of the deal; and from Robert Maxwell to Jeffrey Epstein and all points between, history tells us that the greatest ability any power-broker can demonstrate is survivability . Ask Bubba.

Priss Factor , says: Website August 20, 2019 at 3:12 pm GMT
Trump and his opponents are all scum. Trump is a 'racist' in the sense that he favors Zionist supremacism over the much-oppressed Palestinians. He also praises criminal blacks while having done nothing for whites. But of course, NYT is okay with Trump's pro-Zionist bigotry.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/ydD8HagdO9U?feature=oembed

Zumbuddi , says: August 20, 2019 at 3:22 pm GMT
@Buzz Baldrin As I type this I am listening to Mike Pence lead an all-star cast to discuss the Trump-PENCE space initiative (s), including the 6th branch of DoD, the Space Force.

It should be excitin g but it is terrifying: DoD is "unified" with the intelligence agencies & space force -- to ensure a total, space-based surveillance state.

US will collaborate "with its allies" -- i.e. Israel. Pence's quasi-religious delusions, and the broadly shared Abrahamic ideology: that Abrahamics possess the RIGHT idea, and have not only the RIGHT but the obligation to impose that ideology on all mankind -- will have at his ready access the most powerful & intrusive technology.
Those technologies will be militarized.

It would be a mistake to misunderestimate the ambition, cunning, and delusional vision of Mike Pence.

Precious , says: August 20, 2019 at 3:26 pm GMT
@Realist "Trump like most elected officials serves at the pleasure of the Deep State." If that were true, there would have been no Spygate coup. The Deep State doesn't quite have the lock on US elections you think it does.
Germanicus , says: August 20, 2019 at 3:33 pm GMT
I am actually thinking, Trump is a true gift. He keeps showing the US unmasked, raw, vile and criminal as it is, and in good company with the criminal jewish entity.
What has been done for decades, masked and filtered away as democracy BS, freedom defending BS, "american values" aka corruption, intimidation and threats, is becoming under Trump just blatantly obvious for every one to see. The US administration are a mafia, a crime syndicate that spreads tumors with its military.
Robjil , says: August 20, 2019 at 3:37 pm GMT
@Bill Jones The attempted impeachment of Clinton was timed around the talk of war against Yugoslavia. He wasn't impeached.

https://www.historyonthenet.com/was-bill-clinton-impeached

With television cameras rolling, on February 12, 1999 the whole world watched as the senators stood up to vote inside the chamber. 55 Senators voted "not guilty" on the charge of perjury. The Senate split 50/50 against Clinton when it came to the charge of obstruction of justice. This meant that the 2/3 majority was not achieved, the President was acquitted and allowed to serve out the rest of his term of office up until January 2001.

A month later and twelve days after his get of Dodge card was given to him, the war on Yugoslavia was put in place.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/nato-s-war-of-aggression-in-yugoslavia-who-are-the-war-criminals/2144

Twenty years ago in the early hours of March 24, 1999, NATO began the bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. "The operation was code-named "Allied Force " -- a cold, uninspired and perfectly descriptive moniker" according to Nebosja Malic.

Impeachment is the branding rode for Z Puppet Presidents by the our warmongering ZUS rulers. Our "presidents" are treated like cattle too, just like us little people.

[Aug 18, 2019] The Destruction Is the Point [ of Trump policy toward Iran] by Daniel Larison

How current prices correlate with Pompeo statement that "We have taken over 95 percent of the crude oil that was being shipped by Iran all around the world, and we have taken it off the market." ? Something really strange is happening here.
Notable quotes:
"... Given these statements, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that Pompeo is not being entirely honest when he claims the maximum pressure campaign is succeeding. Rather than leveling with the American people and making an argument about why the administration is persisting with the policy in spite of the lack of progress, he has chosen to deceive the public in order to defend a dangerous policy. ..."
"... Pompeo has made a habit of deceiving the public as Secretary of State on a range of issues from Yemen to North Korea, but for the most part he has been allowed to get away with that. ..."
"... When Pompeo has been asked for proof that the sanctions are "working," he cannot point to any positive change in the Iranian government's behavior, and instead he boasts about the harm that has been done to Iran's economy and its people: ..."
"... We have taken over 95 percent of the crude oil that was being shipped by Iran all around the world, and we have taken it off the market. ..."
"... Pompeo is deception, lies, absolute dishonesty. But of course that is the mark of the trump regime in general terms. ..."
Aug 15, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Nicholas Miller has delivered a devastating response to Pompeo's pitiful propaganda op-ed from earlier this month:

Given these statements, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that Pompeo is not being entirely honest when he claims the maximum pressure campaign is succeeding. Rather than leveling with the American people and making an argument about why the administration is persisting with the policy in spite of the lack of progress, he has chosen to deceive the public in order to defend a dangerous policy.

Pompeo has made a habit of deceiving the public as Secretary of State on a range of issues from Yemen to North Korea, but for the most part he has been allowed to get away with that. He probably thinks that there is no price to be paid for constantly lying and misrepresenting things to the public and Congress, and so he keeps doing it.

The more important reason why Pompeo keeps deceiving the public is that he is also eager to please the president, and so he has to keep claiming success for failing policies because reports of success are what the president wants to hear. When Pompeo's ridiculous op-ed came out last week, one of the common questions that many people asked was, "Who is the audience for this?" The point these people were making was that the "argument" in the op-ed was so facile and nonsensical that it can't possibly have been intended to persuade anyone, so the purpose of it had to be to placate Trump and reassure him that the policy "works."

Miller does an outstanding job picking apart Pompeo's various claims and using Pompeo's previous contradictory claims against him, and he shows that the Secretary's defense of "maximum pressure" is a joke to any minimally informed person. But as far as Pompeo is concerned, all that matters is that Trump sticks with the policy. When Pompeo has been asked for proof that the sanctions are "working," he cannot point to any positive change in the Iranian government's behavior, and instead he boasts about the harm that has been done to Iran's economy and its people:

I remember, David – I'm sure no one in this room, but many here in Washington said that American sanctions alone won't work. Well, they've worked. We have taken over 95 percent of the crude oil that was being shipped by Iran all around the world, and we have taken it off the market.

Miller addressed Pompeo's use of economic damage as proof of the policy's success this way:

Using economic damage to gauge the success of sanctions is like using body counts to measure success in counter-insurgency -- it's an indicator that your policy is having an effect, but does not necessarily imply you're any closer to achieving strategic objectives.

For a hard-liner like Pompeo, continuing with a destructive and bankrupt policy is a matter of ideology and an expression of hostility towards the targeted country. It doesn't matter to hard-liners if the policy actually achieves anything as long as it does damage, and so they take pride in the damage that they cause without any concern for the consequences for the U.S. and Iran. Rational critics of this policy rightfully object that this is just aimless destruction, but the destruction is the point of the policy.

Sid Finster • 3 days ago

The current administration, like its predecessors, is not merely incompetent, it is actively malicious.
Zsuzsi Kruska Sid Finster • 3 days ago
It only appears incompetent until you discover who benefits, and it isn't the majority of Americans. Who has benefited so far? The Plutocrats, oligarchs, Israel, Saudi, MIC, Big Oil, Big Rx, immigration related services. This is just a partial list, but guess who it doesn't include?
maninthewilderness Sid Finster • 3 days ago
Perhaps it's a precondition for being the administration.
Littleredtop • 3 days ago
Any nation that allows "freedom of speech" has made the assumption that either everyone is honest or everyone is smart enough to know bull sh !t when they hear it.
Taras77 • 3 days ago
Pompeo is deception, lies, absolute dishonesty. But of course that is the mark of the trump regime in general terms.

[Aug 02, 2019] On the nature of Trump affilliation with Zionists

Aug 02, 2019 | www.unz.com

Dissident , says: July 29, 2019 at 10:37 pm GMT

@Miro23

Trump wasn't their candidate (which suggests that he's clean), and (so far) he hasn't enabled a war with Iran, so what happens with him is an open question.

I wonder what makes you (or anyone) so sure that "Trump wasn't their candidate". From the time that he announced his candidacy in 2015 to the present moment, I have never found implausible the possibility that the President may be controlled opposition. Or, more mundanely, simply the self-promoting carnival barker that just about all evidence strongly suggests that he always was. How closely have you looked at Mr. Trump's actual record, starting from before he announced?

And, to what extent, since becoming President, has Mr. Trump actually opposed the Globo-Homo agenda?

Miro23 , says: July 30, 2019 at 5:07 am GMT
@Dissident

Trump wasn't their candidate (which suggests that he's clean), and (so far) he hasn't enabled a war with Iran, so what happens with him is an open question.

I wonder what makes you (or anyone) so sure that "Trump wasn't their candidate".

The Deep State, Empire, Zio-Glob, or whatever you want to call it, was obviously 100% behind Hillary Clinton. She and her husband were totally blackmailable, and the media fury when she lost was something to see.

For his part, Trump looked surprised (and not too happy) that he won. It's clear that he has links to the Deep State, but he was set up to lose (the media from the start presenting him as the joke candidate – the irrelevant clown). The script was for serious, boring and ineffectual Jeb Bush to lose to the heroic champion of Social Justice, and first woman President Hillary Clinton.

When Trump actually found himself President (and could see the trouble he was in) – for survival, he fully committed to Israel and the Zionists. The idea was that they would defend him , against their Cultural Bolshevik cousins in the US. The Adelsons and the Israelis love him while the US Cultural Bolshevik Jews hate him.

The US public are just extras in this show. If he cared about them he would do something about 9/11 – which he won't. He's a high rise developer from New York and knows better than anyone that 9/11 was all fakery. Here's his first public reaction (on the day):

[Jul 17, 2019] MAGA. Bow before Netanyahu and present America to the zionists on a silver tray. You MAGA red necks are becoming a joke.

Jul 17, 2019 | www.unz.com

DESERT FOX , says: July 17, 2019 at 12:29 pm GMT

Trump is a zionist puppet and pretends to be doing something about illegal immigration but he has all the authority under the Constitution to close the border and stop the illegal immigration and since the zionists want open borders , Trump is not doing jackshit about stopping illegal immigration!

The zionists in control of the zio/US want open borders so that they can merge the zio/US with Mexico and zio/Canada into the North American Union similar to the European Union with a new currency the Amero similar to the Euro, and so the borders are going to remain a sieve !

Trump and Helliary and all the politicians , be they demonrats or republicons are all under zionist AIPAC control and the borders will remain a pathway to the destruction of America!

Patrikios Stetsonis , says: July 17, 2019 at 12:42 pm GMT
@follyofwar In case you did not hear it, Philip Giraldi is informing us:

25 Senators in Secret Meeting With Jewish Leaders to Plot Strategy Against Growing Anger Over Influence of Jewish Elites

"On June 5, 16 heads of Jewish organizations joined 25 Democratic senators in a private meeting, which, according to the Times of Israel, is an annual event.

As with last year, the meeting was chaired by Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and included Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Ben Cardin (D-MD), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Chris Coons (D-DE), Bob Menendez (D-NJ), Patty Murray (D-WA), Jacky Rosen (D-NV), Ed Markey (D-MA), Michael Bennet (D-CO), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Tom Carper (D-DE), Bob Casey (PA), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), Dick Durbin (D-IL), Maggie Hassan (D-NH), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Chris Murphy (D-CT), Patty Murray (D-CT), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), Tom Udall (D-NM), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) and Ron Wyden (D-OR)".

https://russia-insider.com/en/25-senators-secret-meeting-jewish-leaders-plot-strategy-against-growing-anger-over-influence-jewish#.XSyfD369trM.email

Hossein , says: July 17, 2019 at 1:40 pm GMT
MAGA. Bow before Netanyahu and present America to the zionists on a silver tray. You MAGA red necks are becoming a joke.

[Jul 11, 2019] Epstein, Trump and CIA

Jul 11, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Alexander P , Jul 10 2019 19:46 utc | 20

We do not know why Epstein resurfaced, there was no need to re-open the case unless 'they' wanted it to be reopened. Thus, there is definitely a deeper political purpose behind this. As I know the higher ups in both Democrat and Republican Party are in one way or another involved in this (both Clinton and Trump visited his island and I am sure many more prominent high ranking US career politicians), this could indeed be equally dangerous for either political party.

However, I don't think Trump needs convincing with regard to Iran he has been all in on that from day 1 of his presidency and never hesitated a moment to tear up the JCPOA. Bibi was right when he said there was never a US president as friendly towards Israel than Donald Trump. His actions have spoken louder than words. So for this case, we will just have to wait and see what pieces of information they allow the MSM to publish and we will know who they are after or what bigger political goal is at play.

jared , Jul 10 2019 20:03 utc | 27

Something does not smell right about this.
It's not like Epstein was some obscure issue or that Trump was uninformed about the case.
Who would allow a person with such baggage on the team?
And the issue was raised so no possibility it was over-looked.
Congress (including the now concerned repubs) had their shot at him, where was the indignation?
Looks like people were told to disregard the issue, until now.
Now like good soldiers they are all barking alert.
Looks like this guy was a plant, an insurance policy maybe.
Now that policy has been triggered - has Trump failed in playing his role?

Pft , Jul 10 2019 21:22 utc | 51

Trumps ex-pal Epstein linked to intelligence. Makes sense given he has Robert Maxwell's daughter doing the procuring. His was likely a black mail operation run by the intelligence agency

Trumps other ex-pal (partner) was also linked to intelligence. Bayrocks Felix Sater. I imagine some of their business practices could have landed Trump in jail unless like Felix he cooperated

Could Trump himself be a an intelligent asset? Perhaps under duress through his activities with Jeffrey and Felix.

If so, indeed the question is if its Israels or the US agency, or is there any difference now.

I don't pretend to know the answers.

Whats the end game?. Comeys daughter is one of the NY prosecutors.Dershowitz is an Israeli puppet and was behind getting the sealed files opened. Is Clinton and the Dems the target or is it meant to pressure Trump to go hard on Iran or risk something coming out? Something else?

I cant help but wonder why nobody choses to remind us about the case filed against Trump in 2016, where a woman claimed rape at age 13 at Epstein's apartment. Is wasn't covered much at the time either. Apparently silently withdrawn. Curious no? Not even the so called Deep State Media that everyone believes was against Trump. Theydon't seem to want to touch it now either. Maybe its just BS.

Of course, maybe just more distraction as they continue fleecing the bottom 90%

Mr. Lucky , Jul 10 2019 21:28 utc | 53

Epstein was/is Mossad. He ran honey traps for Israel.

This is one of the primary ways the Tribe controls US politicians.

This is how Deep State controls Trump, and why Trump betrayed every campaign promise, except the one to Israel.

Acosta was told to give Epstein a sweetheart deal and to stop the Federal investigation.

For his compliance, he was awarded the job of Labor Secretary in the Trump administration.

fastfreddy , Jul 10 2019 21:30 utc | 54

Billionaire, $6 B, Les Wexner, L Brands, Victoria's Secret.

from Wiki

Wexner had a close relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, who managed Wexner's financial assets. Wexner and Epstein parted when Epstein went to prison.[25] Wexner was believed to be the primary source of Epstein's wealth. [26]

fastfreddy , Jul 10 2019 21:45 utc | 62

I am trying to link Wexner with the Bronfman's (Seagrams Liquor Family) via a source other than the Mega Group (which may not be credible, IDK).Clare Bronfman and NEXIVM.

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/

seagram-heiress-clare-bronfman-pleads-guilty-in-nxivm-sex-slave-case-825103/

https://www.wexnerfoundation.org/about-us/our-offices--staff


Looks like Epstein was running a high powered honey trap to ensnare Politicians, Lawyers, Government employees for the express purpose of promoting the "Greater Israel Project".

KC , Jul 10 2019 21:51 utc | 63

@fastfreddy - While I hesitate to engage in the ubiquitous Israel is at the root of all debacles conjecture, I think you might be onto something there. Sure would be interesting (now or when whatever shakes out of this) to compare the record on votes of importance to Israeli interests of any politician who gets implicated or indicted with who doesn't.

Alaric , Jul 10 2019 21:52 utc | 64

Protecting Epstein and his clients is secondary. The main goal is to protect his billionaire, Jewish, sponsors and whatever state sponsored him. The pleabs cannot know that their gov is corrupt but the bigger secret that must be kept is who is pulling the strings and how they are doing it.

Andrew Kreig , Jul 10 2019 22:02 utc | 68

Am enjoying the insights here and can share a few responses after years of reporting on Epstein, Clinton, Obama, Trump and Barr.

In response to lysias at #34 on Barr's intelligence and corruption cover-up background, here's a full history with links: "Trump Found His Roy Cohn In Deep State Fixer Bill Barr," May 27, 2019. https://www.justice-integrity.org/1659-trump-found-his-roy-cohn-in-deep-state-fixer-bill-barr

Regarding questions on Acosta by Jared at #27, here's a 2017 article showing that the facts were out about Acosta when the Senate confirmed him: "Did Trump Labor Pick Protect Trump, Rich Rapists, Tax Cheats, Crooked Bankers? Do We Find Out Wednesday?" March 14, 2017. http://ow.ly/hk8b309Uerm

Regarding MSM reluctance to mention rape of 12 and 13 year olds by Trump, as several commentators noted, here's a January 2017 wrap up of those matters with leading to other links: "Welcome To Waterbury: The city that holds secrets that could bring down Trump," Jan. 9, 2018. http://www.justice-integrity.org/1445-welcome-to-waterbury-the-city-that-holds-secrets-that-could-bring-down-trump. My colleague Wayne Madsen and I filed a FOIA action today at the U.S. Justice Department seeking further records.

Our view is that this is an intelligence / foreign policy operation and it's likely that Epstein's time has run out, an occupational hazard in that field. Further, Madsen and I have written separate books years ago documenting that all U.S. presidents after Carter -- but not yet Trump as proven -- have been covert assets of the CIA or FBI before -- stress that -- they entered politics. That's the way it is, and helps explain a lot of the complaints in comments above. Trump is in his own category of a corrupt stooge -- that's not necessarily better.

Can recommend excellent 2008 book "Flat Earth News" by longtime UK journalist Nick Davies that describes the deeply flawed nature of MSM from his perspective as a Guardian and other UK journalist, who aptly describes why lies and quarter-truths get printed. That's a longer story but the gist is what many here are suggesting.

last day of grace , Jul 10 2019 23:04 utc | 79

After years of study and many many books I believe the Mossad and CIA are one and the same. The Mossad is very useful when leaving sovereign footprints is verboten--and vice versa.

Jen , Jul 10 2019 23:06 utc | 80

"...'Belongs to intelligence' makes a lot of sense. The question is to which one. A lot of people will says "Mossad" but I don't believe that to be the (full) truth ..."

At the level that Jeffrey Epstein is operating, he is loyal primarily to himself but happily takes his reward from whichever intel agency at any time offers him the most or whose interests might prove the most lucrative for him.

And the interests of American, British, Israeli and other nations' intelligence agencies are surely so entwined that picking them apart is impossible. One thing for sure though: none of them serve the interests of the nations they supposedly work for.

last day of grace , Jul 10 2019 23:09 utc | 81

The function of the CIA/Mossad is to make sure the agenda and the narrative of the Deep State gets served. In that case one could truly blame Epstein's actions on individuals, or groups of individuals who dictate orders to the Mossad/CIA.

Really? , Jul 10 2019 23:31 utc | 85
@29

Epstein is CFR???
What???
HOw can that be?

Mr.Lucky , Jul 10 2019 23:37 utc | 86
Lozion:

I am not implying, I am stating that they absolutely have the goods on Trump.

His supporters knew he was a scum bag when they voted for him, but he promised to stop the invasion and they fell for it.

Why do you think that Trump did a 180 on every campaign promise once elected, except the promise to Israel?

Why do you think that Trump gave Acosta a job after the sweetheart deal?

Ask yourself another question: Why is happening as the election cycle is beginning?

Anyone who says Clinton is in trouble is delusional. Clinton is invincible.

They are going after Trump.

Really? , Jul 10 2019 23:39 utc | 89

"Something does not smell right about this."

Re timing, could it be connected to Mueller soon to be under oath and testifying?

could Mueller be a target of some kind?

jared , Jul 10 2019 23:50 utc | 93

Epstein reminds me of the Bill Browder affair. And the statement: To know who are the rulers not which are the ones you are not permitted to criticize. Or somethinh like that.

Alexander P. , Jul 11 2019 0:09 utc | 99
If indeed they are after Trump as he failed them on 'Iran', then it makes absolute sense that Dershowitz and Cernovich had the records unsealed as both are strong, strong Zionists and supporters of Israel. Getting a judge do the thing they need is just a formality. I agree with some writer above who asked, why the publicity if pressure can be applied in secret without the media being involved? But this may be the stated goal to bring Trump either completely in line now or publicly topple his presidency.

I get why @94 Really? and others would be sceptical at this stage but I know strong powers in the Zionist/Neo-con deep state want a direct confrontation with Iran for myriad number of reasons (stop the BRI, deal a blow to Syria and Hizbollah, take out Israel's No 1 enemy etc, shore up the Petrodollar), and Trump was still the most likely candidate to follow through with this, given his proximity to Zionism. So far he also has dully followed through with everything imaginable, except for actually attacking Iran.

Interesting development indeed. B. Clinton could be collateral damage, at this stage their power is overestimated in my opinion.

karlof1 , Jul 11 2019 0:11 utc | 100
Andrew Kreig @68--

Okay, An "intelligence op," but which one? The Epstein/Mueller link was made several months ago. I don't see any irregularities in the court judgement to order the unsealing as it's been ongoing for almost 2.5 years and involves odd bedfellows. Was Mueller even aware of the attempt to unseal Epstein's case? So many questions!

ekerbacker , Jul 11 2019 0:16 utc | 103

Arnon Milchan? He was Israeli. Should he be punished, absolutely. But you know who should be hung? Robert DeNiro. He knew Arnon Milchan was a spy and kept his mouth shut for decades. He is a POS of epic proportions.

Insofar as Epstein is concerned. It is all about timing. Mueller is set to testify and probably has skeletons in his closet with regards to Epstein's case. He is likely being told implicitly via the Epstein arrest to be on his best behavior by Barr, and Barr at this age probably can care less that Epstein is being sacrificed so he can make his point, particularly since Barr is probably the 2nd most powerful person in the USA right now.

Epstein was extremely likely an Israeli asset. The Israelis have through political power and force convinced many in the US IC that their ship is sailing in the same direction, and that they should be allowed to serve as the US's dog on a leash, and once in a while be unleashed to do what the US won't. So while he was an Israeli asset, his resources (that is compromising material) was often made available to the CIA, and thus Acosta was told that he is an intelligence asset.

The fireworks will start to fly if and when Epstein realizes he is being hung out to dry and won't be saved. But like almost every other case involving such rich and powerful people, don't hold your breath for justice to be served in the US.

Alexander P , Jul 11 2019 0:29 utc | 104
@96 and 33

What does protecting adolescent teenagers from predatory adults have to do with puritanism? Am I understanding this correctly that you advocate sex with minors as long as they have reached biological puberty? Never mind their mental maturity? So sexual relations involving young women is ok what about sexual relations with young men? This has nothing to do with a false pretentious morality but with the fact that teenagers have not yet reached the level of mental maturity that protects them from sexual exploitation that will haunt them for the rest of their lives, never mind their biological functions and ability to conceive or sire children. It is really puzzling that I even need to make these elaborations in here!

Debsisdead , Jul 11 2019 0:35 utc | 105
In many ways this thread is as sickening as the subject it discusses. All sorts of types left and right competing to show that they have the most insight into the forces behind the anal rape of a 12 year old girl See Andrew Kreig's excellent piece which does consider the horror of the acts, rather than just whether or not it plays into the particular vision of 'power politics' each poster invokes). In no instance does anyone express disgust at the actions of these low life scum other than for the corruption of the pols such as Acosta.
The glee which so many have displayed jumping into this horror story because it can be twisted and forced into their own particular theory about "how the world really works" while totally ignoring that these humans who were abducted at age eleven or twelve & then sold like cattle, now inhabit the netherworld of 'the great society' living in the fringes of prosperous cities in a ramshackle 'double wide', reveals a psychic corruption not a million miles away from that of the rapists.

This story is those young boys & girls, anyone who claims to want to use it to force the greedy rapists and warmongering grubs to face justice, will not succeed as long as they waste time speculating who works for who and who is really in control.

Prince Andrew still bludges off taxpayers despite being photographed with his arm around one of his victims, if you're english & really care about stopping this scum, instead of speculating on which shadowy 'palace spokesman suggested that the Daily Mail include the line "There is no suggestion that the duke had any sexual contact at the house, or knew what was allegedly going on there" you will find out how the at the time 17 y.o. Virginia Roberts feels about her public destruction now (A child the Mail described as an erotic masseuse - presumably to reduce the horror a normal human reacts to that pic whilst ensuring the victim is so humiliated she causes no further problem for "the royal family's" number one arms salesman). This victim first hung out with the andrew sleaze when she was 17 at the pimp's Florida hell hole where the age of consent is 18.

Concentrating on the effect on victims while protecting them from further harm will bring the creeps undone - nothing else will. It was only once people began to see past the priests claims that "the victims led me on" and considered the huge power imbalance that the catholic church came unstuck.
Most of all without humanity, there is no difference between any of us and the scum we criticise.

William Gruff , Jul 11 2019 0:55 utc | 106

Woohoo! Debsisdead isn't dead!

Now, to be on topic, why the insistence that Epstein finally getting outed for real is some mysterious intel op? The CIA has been screwing up left, right and center for years, so is it any surprise that one of their major kompromat operations is getting exposed? Their foolproof plan to install their tool Clinton in the White House in 2016 failed spectacularly and blew up in their faces, so tell me again how great they are at running covert ops? The CIA's own version of James Bond gets snuffed by the CIA's own death squads in Benghazi, but people still think the CIA has a clue what they're doing? The CIA's operatives in multiple embassies are being incapacitated by freakin' crickets and people think these clowns still somehow maintain some vestigial link to reality?

No, this is simply another massive screw-up by the establishment. This blind-sided the Deep State and so much took them by surprise that they were too late to get it clamped down in the mass media. If Epstein dies before the real dirt starts getting exposed then it proves me right and proves wrong all those who worship at the alter of the omnipotent Deep State.

[Jul 06, 2019] Same old, same old, same old, same old. Prospective candidates spewing out the same tired old hot air about how, this time, it really, really, really, really will be different.

Notable quotes:
"... Just like Dubya. Just like Obomber. Just like the Orange Baboon. Whilst simultaneously begging for shekels from Adelson, Saban, Singer, Marcus. ..."
Jul 06, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

mark , July 3, 2019 at 00:17

Same old, same old, same old, same old. Prospective candidates spewing out the same tired old hot air about how, this time, it really, really, really, really will be different.

There won't be any more crazy multitrillion wars for Israel. Honest.

Just like Dubya. Just like Obomber. Just like the Orange Baboon. Whilst simultaneously begging for shekels from Adelson, Saban, Singer, Marcus.

... ... ...

[Jul 05, 2019] Ivanka and Jared are going to be a liability for the reelection of Trump

Notable quotes:
"... But to me, she looks like – among other things – a clever manipulator in her, relatively short radius. Yet, although the US is no.1. as world power, she is no match for any real world politician, anywhere. Not just now; anytime in the future. ..."
"... Her "visibility" is a confluence of a few fleeting influences. Basically, fate has favored her for the time being (I'm not talking about morals etc.). But, to think that she's capable of much more is to entertain the idea that Trump is, all the time, playing 6-dimensional chess. ..."
"... Ivanka took her conversion to Judaism to an almost insane level. This comes from the Rabbi's involved in her conversion. She is an even more hard core Zionist than "daddy dearest", if that is even humanly possible ..."
"... Two days ago I commented on Breitbart that good or bad G20, Trump looked foolish toting Ivanka along. Response: Oh yeah, he should have brought AOC, that would have been much better, you idiot. Me: So Trump's only choice was Ivanka or AOC? None of the hundreds of attorneys or diplomats who have devoted careers to international trade negotiations? ..."
Jul 05, 2019 | www.unz.com

The Alarmist, July 5, 2019 at 7:56 am GMT 100 Words

Meow!

Because however loud the calls for Ivanka's ouster have gotten . Ivanka just digs those stilettoes in. She won't be budged. She refuses to take a hint.

Amazing how deaf fathers can be when it comes to their daughters. Surprising he didn't dispose of Jared by making him Secy of Education or some shizzle like that.

Anon [424] Disclaimer , says: Next New Comment July 5, 2019 at 9:03 am GMT

Ivankita and Jaredcito are going to be a liability for the reelection of daddy . Does`t Ivankita realizes it ?

Felix Krull , says: Next New Comment July 5, 2019 at 9:27 am GMT

Here's a solid surmise: Trump dare not cross his daughter who is intent on riding his coattails to things far greater.

That is the most naive surmise I've ever heard. Do you also believe that Trump bombed Syria because Ivanka got mopey over some snuff photos?

Bardon Kaldian , says: Next New Comment July 5, 2019 at 10:15 am GMT

Ilana seems to think, referencing Wolff (and arguing with his position), that IKT is a sort of Machiavellian (although inexperienced) woman greedy for power who, well, should not be underestimated.

Of course no one should be underestimated.

But to me, she looks like – among other things – a clever manipulator in her, relatively short radius. Yet, although the US is no.1. as world power, she is no match for any real world politician, anywhere. Not just now; anytime in the future.

She seems to be one of those people who are lucky for a period of time, but soon disappear from the scene. Her "visibility" is a confluence of a few fleeting influences. Basically, fate has favored her for the time being (I'm not talking about morals etc.). But, to think that she's capable of much more is to entertain the idea that Trump is, all the time, playing 6-dimensional chess.

Of course- not. Life is not like that.

Johnny Walker Read , says: Next New Comment July 5, 2019 at 12:35 pm GMT

Trump's(Ivanka)Hebrew name is "Yael." In the Book of Judges, a woman named Yael came upon the enemy king Sisera, who had fled from battle with the Isralites. She fed and sheltered him until he fell asleep. Then she killed him by using a mallet to drive a tent peg into his skull.

Ivanka took her conversion to Judaism to an almost insane level. This comes from the Rabbi's involved in her conversion. She is an even more hard core Zionist than "daddy dearest", if that is even humanly possible. Ivanka believes she is now a chosenite of the highest order and is therefore destined to rule over all us insignificant little Goys. Yael's greatest concern is rising antisemitism here in the US of Israel.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/ivanka-trump-concerned-about-rising-anti-semitism-drop-in-israel-support/

Nancy Pelosi's Latina Maid , says: Next New Comment July 5, 2019 at 12:46 pm GMT

Many of our MAGApedes still think Ivanka's great because Trump is God Emperor.

Two days ago I commented on Breitbart that good or bad G20, Trump looked foolish toting Ivanka along. Response: Oh yeah, he should have brought AOC, that would have been much better, you idiot. Me: So Trump's only choice was Ivanka or AOC? None of the hundreds of attorneys or diplomats who have devoted careers to international trade negotiations?

Response: I would take Ivanka over any single "professional" negotiator of the past 30 years – hands down.

I think the sage commenters at Unz underestimate just how entrenched God Emperor's fanatic support remains. And apparently this support extends to Jarvanka.

Johnny Walker Read , says: Next New Comment July 5, 2019 at 12:55 pm GMT

Let us not forget the words of General George Cornwallis in 1781.

"Your churches will be used to teach the Jew's religion and in less than two hundred years, the whole nation will be working for divine world government. That government that they believe to be divine will be the British Empire. All religions will be permeated with Judaism without even being noticed by the masses, and they will all be under the invisible all-seeing eye of the Grand Architect of Freemasonry."

Did this man nail it or what?

https://www.henrymakow.com/the_united_states_is_a_masonic.html

Jacques Sheete , says: Next New Comment July 5, 2019 at 1:53 pm GMT
@Johnny Walker Read lives." (p. 287)

In the words of a speaker at a secret B'nai Brith meeting in Paris in 1936:

"Yet it remains our secret that those Gentiles who betray their own and most precious interests, by joining us in our plot should never know that these associations are of our creation and that they serve our purpose

"One of the many triumphs of our Freemasonry is that those Gentiles who become members of our Lodges, should never suspect that we are using them to build their own jails, upon whose terraces we shall erect the throne of our Universal King of Israel; and should never know that we are commanding them to forge the chains of their own servility to our future King of the World."

Republic , says: Next New Comment July 5, 2019 at 2:33 pm GMT
@Johnny Walker Read poke to Washington in 1781

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Williams_(engineer)

He spent most of the period from 1770 to 1785 in England

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Cornwallis,_1st_Marquess_Cornwallis

Cornwallis never met Washington

Cornwallis, apparently not wanting to face Washington, claimed to be ill on the day of the surrender, and sent Brigadier General Charles O'Hara in his place to surrender his sword formally. Washington had his second-in-command, Benjamin Lincoln, accept Cornwallis' sword

[Jun 29, 2019] You can see Chabad as a CIA tool to get their foot into Eastern Europe/Russia in the 1990's

Jun 29, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

somebody , Jun 29, 2019 7:23:01 AM | 122

...Chabad is interesting. They are a network of independent open chassidist communities, charities and schools with strong bases in Brooklyn, Chabad Israel and Moscow, and lots of political and secret service connections. The do not finance themselves via membership fees but via donations. The founding Rabbi has died, so there is no one in control of this network except the - diverse - people who donate. There is no legal restriction on who may or may not call themselves Chabad and there is no controlling within the network. They seem to have a policy of restricting political interventions on "Jewish issues" and not to interfere in the politics of the host countries otherwise. So they don't mind being seen with Viktor Orban .
Abramovich - see non existant Russian oligarchs - funded a lot on the Russian side. On the US side they encourage real estate donations" and are connected to Jared Kushner.
In Israel they are close to the government and Netanyahu.

A network like this can be influenced/used by all sides that donate to it. So you can see Chabad as a CIA tool to get their foot into Eastern Europe/Russia in the 1990's, as a Russian influence campaign or an Israeli tool.

Should Russia stop its military backing of Iran, and should the US attack Iran against their interests, I am prepared to believe Israel succeeded. I very much doubt this will be the case.

[Jun 28, 2019] The Donald's Latest Iranian Caper Sh*t-Faced Stupidity by David Stockman

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... This is just wanton shit-faced stupidity. We are referring to the Trump Administration's escalation of sanctions on Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei and its foreign minister, and then the Donald's tweet-storm of bluster, threats and implicit redlines when they didn't take too kindly to this latest act of aggression by Washington. ..."
"... That last point can't be emphasized enough. Iran is zero threat to the American homeland and has never engaged in any hostile action on U.S soil or even threatened the same. ..."
"... To the contrary, Washington's massive naval and military arsenal in the middle east is essentially the occupational force of a naked aggressor that has created mayhem through the Persian Gulf and middle eastern region for the past three decades; and has done so in pursuit of the will-o-wisp of oil security and the neocon agenda of demonizing and isolating the Iranian regime. ..."
"... the demonization of the Iranian regime is based on lies and propaganda ginned up by the Bibi Netanyahu branch of the War Party (that has falsely made Iran an "existential" threat in order to win elections in Israel). ..."
"... Likewise, it has presumed to have an independent foreign policy involving Washington proscribed alliances with the sovereign state of Syria, the leading political party of Lebanon (Hezbollah), the ruling authorities in Baghdad and the reining power in the Yemen capital of Sana'a (the Houthis). All these regimes except the puppet state of Iraq are deemed by Washington to be sources of unsanctioned "regional instability" and Iran's alliances with them have been capriciously labeled as acts of state sponsored terrorism. ..."
"... The same goes for Washington's demarche against Iran's modest array of short, medium and intermediate range ballistic missiles. These weapons are palpably instruments of self-defense, but Imperial Washington insists their purpose is aggression – unlike the case of practically every other nation which offers its custom to American arms merchants for like and similar weapons. ..."
"... For example, Iran's arch-rival across the Persian Gulf, Saudi Arabia, has more advanced NATO supplied ballistic missiles with even greater range (2,600 km range). So does Israel, Pakistan, India and a half-dozen other nations, which are either Washington allies or have been given a hall-pass in order to bolster US arms exports. ..."
"... In short, Washington's escalating war on Iran is an exercise in global hegemony, not territorial self-defense ..."
"... When the cold-war officially ended in 1991, in fact, the Cheney/neocon cabal feared the kind of drastic demobilization of the US military-industrial complex that was warranted by the suddenly more pacific strategic environment. In response, they developed an anti-Iranian doctrine that was explicitly described as a way of keeping defense spending at high cold war levels. ..."
"... Iranians had a case is beyond doubt. The open US archives now prove that the CIA overthrew Iran's democratically elected government in 1953 and put the utterly unsuited and megalomaniacal Mohammad Reza Shah on the peacock throne to rule as a puppet in behalf of US security and oil interests. ..."
"... Indeed, in this very context the new Iranian regime proved quite dramatically that it was not hell bent on obtaining nuclear bombs or any other weapons of mass destruction. In the midst of Iraq's unprovoked invasion of Iran in the early 1980s the Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa against biological and chemical weapons. ..."
"... Yet at that very time, Saddam was dropping these horrific weapons on Iranian battle forces – some of them barely armed teenage boys – with the spotting help of CIA tracking satellites and the concurrence of Washington. So from the very beginning, the Iranian posture was wholly contrary to the War Party's endless blizzard of false charges about its quest for nukes. ..."
"... However benighted and medieval its religious views, the theocracy which rules Iran does not consist of demented war mongers. In the heat of battle they were willing to sacrifice their own forces rather than violate their religious scruples to counter Saddam's WMDs. ..."
"... Then in 1983 the new Iranian regime decided to complete the Bushehr power plant and some additional elements of the Shah's grand plan. But when they attempted to reactivate the French enrichment services contract and buy necessary power plant equipment from the original German suppliers they were stopped cold by Washington. And when the tried to get their $2 billion deposit back, they were curtly denied that, too. ..."
Jun 25, 2019 | original.antiwar.com
This is just wanton shit-faced stupidity. We are referring to the Trump Administration's escalation of sanctions on Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei and its foreign minister, and then the Donald's tweet-storm of bluster, threats and implicit redlines when they didn't take too kindly to this latest act of aggression by Washington.

That last point can't be emphasized enough. Iran is zero threat to the American homeland and has never engaged in any hostile action on U.S soil or even threatened the same.

To the contrary, Washington's massive naval and military arsenal in the middle east is essentially the occupational force of a naked aggressor that has created mayhem through the Persian Gulf and middle eastern region for the past three decades; and has done so in pursuit of the will-o-wisp of oil security and the neocon agenda of demonizing and isolating the Iranian regime.

But as we have demonstrated previously, the best cure for high oil prices is the global market, not the Fifth Fleet. And the demonization of the Iranian regime is based on lies and propaganda ginned up by the Bibi Netanyahu branch of the War Party (that has falsely made Iran an "existential" threat in order to win elections in Israel).

Stated differently, the American people have no dog in the political hunts of Washington's so-called allies in the region; and will be no worse for the wear economically if Washington were to dispense with its idiotic economic warfare against Iran's 4 million barrel per day oil industry and allow all exporters in the region to produce and sell every single barrel they can economically extract.

Viewed in the proper context, Iran's response to the new sanctions and intensified efforts to destroy their economy was readily warranted:

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani called the new sanctions "outrageous and stupid." Mr. Khamenei, while the political leader of Iran, also is one of the world's leading authorities for Shia Muslims.

"Would any administration with a bit of wisdom [sanction] the highest authority of a country? And not only a political authority, a religious, social, spiritual one, and not the leader of Iran only, the leader of the Islamic revolution all over the world?" Mr. Rouhani said in a speech broadcast on state television.

He said it was "obvious" that the US was lying about wanting to negotiate with Iran: "You want us to negotiate with you again?" Mr. Rouhani said, "and at the same time you seek to sanction the foreign minister too?"

Iran also said these sanctions closed the door on diplomacy and threatened global stability, as American officials renewed efforts to build a global alliance against Tehran.

Unfortunately, it didn't take the Donald long to upchuck what amounted to a dangerous tantrum:

.Iran's very ignorant and insulting statement, put out today, only shows that they do not understand reality. Any attack by Iran on anything American will be met with great and overwhelming force. In some areas, overwhelming will mean obliteration. No more John Kerry & Obama!

Those words are utterly reckless and outrageous. The Donald is carrying water for the neocons, Bibi and the Saudis without really understanding what he is doing and in the process is betraying America First and inching closer to an utterly unnecessary conflagration in the Persian Gulf that will virtually upend the global economy.

Worst of all, as he escalates the confrontation with the Iranian regime, he espouses a pack of lies and distortions that do no remotely comport with the facts. For instance, the following tweet is absolutely neocon baloney:

.The wonderful Iranian people are suffering, and for no reason at all. Their leadership spends all of its money on Terror, and little on anything else. The US has not forgotten Iran's use of IED's & EFP's (bombs), which killed 2000 Americans, and wounded many more

The truth of the matter is that the Donald is referring to attacks on US forces by the Shiite militias in Iraq during Washington's misbegotten invasion and occupation of that woebegone nation during the last decades. The Shiite live there, constitute the majority of its electorate, didn't want America there in the first place, and now actually run the government that Washington placed in power and are totally opposed to Trump's confrontation with their Shiite compatriots in Iran.

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!

Better still, it is crucial to understand that this entire dangerous escalation is owing to the fact that the Donald got into his thick head that utter nonsense that the Iran nuke deal was some kind of disaster, and from there walked-away from the deal and restarted a brutal economic war against Iran in the guise of sanctions.

But nothing could be further from the truth. The Donald's action to terminate the Iranian nuclear deal was a complete triumph for the War Party.

It gutted the very idea of America First because Washington's renewed round of sanctions constitute economic aggression against a country that is no threat to the US homeland whatsoever.

In fact, Iran did not violate any term of the nuke deal, and as we demonstrate below, scrupulously adhered to the letter of it. So the real reasons for Trump's abandonment of the nuke deal have everything to do with the kind of Imperial interventionism that is the antithesis of America First.

Trump's action, in fact, is predicated on the decades long neocon-inspired Big Lie that Iran is an aggressive expansionist and terrorism-supporting rogue state which threatens the security of not just the region, but America too.

But that's flat out poppycock. As we documented last week, the claim that Iran is the expansionist leader of the Shiite Crescent is based on nothing more than the fact that Tehran has an independent foreign policy based on its own interests and confessional affiliations – legitimate relationships that are demonized by virtue of not being approved by Washington.

Likewise, the official charge that Iran is the leading state sponsor of terrorism is not remotely warranted by the facts: The listing is essentially a State Department favor to the Netanyahu branch of the War Party.

The fact is, the Iranian regime with its piddling $14 billion military budget has no means to attack America militarily and has never threatened to do so. Nor has it invaded any other country in the region where it was not invited by a sovereign government host.

As Ron Paul cogently observed:

Is Iran really the aggressive one? When you unilaterally pull out of an agreement that was reducing tensions and boosting trade; when you begin applying sanctions designed to completely destroy another country's economy; when you position military assets right offshore of that country; when you threaten to destroy that country on a regular basis, calling it a campaign of "maximum pressure," to me it seems a stretch to play the victim when that country retaliates by shooting a spy plane that is likely looking for the best way to attack.

Even if the US spy plane was not in Iranian airspace – but it increasingly looks like it was – it was just another part of an already-existing US war on Iran. Yes, sanctions are a form of war, not a substitute for war.

The point is Washington's case is almost entirely bogus. To wit:

Mr. Trump also reiterated his demands Monday at the White House: "We will continue to increase pressure on Tehran until the regime abandons its dangerous activities and its aspirations, including the pursuit of nuclear weapons, increased enrichment of uranium, development of ballistic missiles, engagement in and support for terrorism, fueling of foreign conflicts, and belligerent acts directed against the United States and its allies."

Let's see about those "dangerous activities and aspirations".

In fact, Iran has no blue water navy that could effectively operate outside of the Persian Gulf; its longest range warplanes can barely get to Rome without refueling; and its array of mainly defensive medium and intermediate range missiles cannot strike most of NATO, to say nothing of the North American continent.

Likewise, it has presumed to have an independent foreign policy involving Washington proscribed alliances with the sovereign state of Syria, the leading political party of Lebanon (Hezbollah), the ruling authorities in Baghdad and the reining power in the Yemen capital of Sana'a (the Houthis). All these regimes except the puppet state of Iraq are deemed by Washington to be sources of unsanctioned "regional instability" and Iran's alliances with them have been capriciously labeled as acts of state sponsored terrorism.

The same goes for Washington's demarche against Iran's modest array of short, medium and intermediate range ballistic missiles. These weapons are palpably instruments of self-defense, but Imperial Washington insists their purpose is aggression – unlike the case of practically every other nation which offers its custom to American arms merchants for like and similar weapons.

For example, Iran's arch-rival across the Persian Gulf, Saudi Arabia, has more advanced NATO supplied ballistic missiles with even greater range (2,600 km range). So does Israel, Pakistan, India and a half-dozen other nations, which are either Washington allies or have been given a hall-pass in order to bolster US arms exports.

In short, Washington's escalating war on Iran is an exercise in global hegemony, not territorial self-defense. It is a testament to the manner in which the historic notion of national defense has morphed into Washington's arrogant claim that it constitutes the "Indispensable Nation" which purportedly stands as mankind's bulwark against global disorder and chaos among nations.

Likewise, the Shiite theocracy ensconced in Tehran was an unfortunate albatross on the Persian people, but it was no threat to America's safety and security. The very idea that Tehran is an expansionist power bent on exporting terrorism to the rest of the world is a giant fiction and tissue of lies invented by the Washington War Party and its Bibi Netanyahu branch in order to win political support for their confrontationist policies.

Indeed, the three decade long demonization of Iran has served one overarching purpose. Namely, it enabled both branches of the War Party to conjure up a fearsome enemy, thereby justifying aggressive policies that call for a constant state of war and military mobilization.

When the cold-war officially ended in 1991, in fact, the Cheney/neocon cabal feared the kind of drastic demobilization of the US military-industrial complex that was warranted by the suddenly more pacific strategic environment. In response, they developed an anti-Iranian doctrine that was explicitly described as a way of keeping defense spending at high cold war levels.

And the narrative they developed to this end is one of the more egregious Big Lies ever to come out of the beltway. It puts you in mind of the young boy who killed his parents, and then threw himself on the mercy of the courts on the grounds that he was an orphan!

To wit, during the 1980s the neocons in the Reagan Administration issued their own fatwa again the Islamic Republic of Iran based on its rhetorical hostility to America. Yet that enmity was grounded in Washington's 25-year support for the tyrannical and illegitimate regime of the Shah, and constituted a founding narrative of the Islamic Republic that was not much different than America's revolutionary castigation of King George.

That the Iranians had a case is beyond doubt. The open US archives now prove that the CIA overthrew Iran's democratically elected government in 1953 and put the utterly unsuited and megalomaniacal Mohammad Reza Shah on the peacock throne to rule as a puppet in behalf of US security and oil interests.

During the subsequent decades the Shah not only massively and baldly plundered the wealth of the Persian nation. With the help of the CIA and US military, he also created a brutal secret police force known as the Savak, which made the East German Stasi look civilized by comparison.

All elements of Iranian society including universities, labor unions, businesses, civic organizations, peasant farmers and many more were subjected to intense surveillance by the Savak agents and paid informants. As one critic described it:

Over the years, Savak became a law unto itself, having legal authority to arrest, detain, brutally interrogate and torture suspected people indefinitely. Savak operated its own prisons in Tehran, such as Qezel-Qalaeh and Evin facilities and many suspected places throughout the country as well.

Ironically, among his many grandiose follies, the Shah embarked on a massive civilian nuclear power campaign in the 1970s, which envisioned literally paving the Iranian landscape with dozens of nuclear power plants.

He would use Iran's surging oil revenues after 1973 to buy all the equipment required from Western companies – and also fuel cycle support services such as uranium enrichment – in order to provide his kingdom with cheap power for centuries.

At the time of the Revolution, the first of these plants at Bushehr was nearly complete, but the whole grandiose project was put on hold amidst the turmoil of the new regime and the onset of Saddam Hussein's war against Iran in September 1980. As a consequence, a $2 billion deposit languished at the French nuclear agency that had originally obtained it from the Shah to fund a ramp-up of its enrichment capacity to supply his planned battery of reactors.

Indeed, in this very context the new Iranian regime proved quite dramatically that it was not hell bent on obtaining nuclear bombs or any other weapons of mass destruction. In the midst of Iraq's unprovoked invasion of Iran in the early 1980s the Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa against biological and chemical weapons.

Yet at that very time, Saddam was dropping these horrific weapons on Iranian battle forces – some of them barely armed teenage boys – with the spotting help of CIA tracking satellites and the concurrence of Washington. So from the very beginning, the Iranian posture was wholly contrary to the War Party's endless blizzard of false charges about its quest for nukes.

However benighted and medieval its religious views, the theocracy which rules Iran does not consist of demented war mongers. In the heat of battle they were willing to sacrifice their own forces rather than violate their religious scruples to counter Saddam's WMDs.

Then in 1983 the new Iranian regime decided to complete the Bushehr power plant and some additional elements of the Shah's grand plan. But when they attempted to reactivate the French enrichment services contract and buy necessary power plant equipment from the original German suppliers they were stopped cold by Washington. And when the tried to get their $2 billion deposit back, they were curtly denied that, too.

To make a long story short, the entire subsequent history of off again/on again efforts by the Iranians to purchase dual use equipment and components on the international market, often from black market sources like Pakistan, was in response to Washington's relentless efforts to block its legitimate rights as a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) to complete some parts of the Shah's civilian nuclear project.

Needless to say, it did not take much effort by the neocon "regime change" fanatics which inhabited the national security machinery, especially after the 2000 election, to spin every attempt by Iran to purchase even a lowly pump or pipe fitting as evidence of a secret campaign to get the bomb.

The exaggerations, lies, distortions and fear-mongering which came out of this neocon campaign are downright despicable. Yet they incepted way back in the early 1990s when George H.W. Bush actually did reach out to the newly elected government of Hashemi Rafsanjani to bury the hatchet after it had cooperated in obtaining the release of American prisoners being held in Lebanon in 1989.

Rafsanjani was self-evidently a pragmatist who did not want conflict with the United States and the West; and after the devastation of the eight year war with Iraq was wholly focused on economic reconstruction and even free market reforms of Iran's faltering economy.

It is one of the great tragedies of history that the neocons managed to squelch even George Bush's better instincts with respect to rapprochement with Tehran.

The Neocon Big Lie About Iranian Nukes And Terrorism

So the prisoner release opening was short-lived – especially after the top post at the CIA was assumed in 1991 by Robert Gates. As one of the very worst of the unreconstructed cold war apparatchiks, it can be well and truly said that Gates looked peace in the eye and then elected to pervert John Quincy Adams' wise maxim by searching the globe for monsters to fabricate.

In this case the motivation was especially loathsome. Gates had been Bill Casey's right hand man during the latter's rogue tenure at the CIA in the Reagan administration. Among the many untoward projects that Gates shepherded was the Iran-Contra affair that nearly destroyed his career when it blew-up, and for which he blamed the Iranians for its public disclosure.

From his post as deputy national security director in 1989 and then as CIA head Gates pulled out all the stops to get even. Almost single-handedly he killed-off the White House goodwill from the prisoner release, and launched the blatant myth that Iran was both sponsoring terrorism and seeking to obtain nuclear weapons.

Indeed, it was Gates who was the architect of the demonization of Iran that became a staple of War Party propaganda after the 1991. In time that morphed into the utterly false claim that Iran is an aggressive wanna be hegemon that is a fount of terrorism and is dedicated to the destruction of the state of Israel, among other treacherous purposes.

That giant lie was almost single-handedly fashioned by the neocons and Bibi Netanyahu's coterie of power-hungry henchman after the mid-1990s. Indeed, the false claim that Iran posses an "existential threat" to Israel is a product of the pure red meat domestic Israeli politics that have kept Bibi in power for much of the last two decades.

But the truth is Iran has only a tiny fraction of Israel's conventional military capability. And compared to the latter's 100 odd nukes, Iran has never had a nuclear weaponization program after a small scale research program was ended in 2003.

That is not merely our opinion. It's been the sober assessment of the nation's top 17 intelligence agencies in the official National Intelligence Estimates ever since 2007. And now in conjunction with a further study undertaken pursuant to the 2015 nuke deal, the IAEA has also concluded the Iran had no secret program after 2003.

On the political and foreign policy front, Iran is no better or worse than any of the other major powers in the Middle East. In many ways it is far less of a threat to regional peace and stability than the military butchers who now run Egypt on $1.5 billion per year of US aid.

And it is surely no worse than the royal family tyrants who squander the massive oil resources of Saudi Arabia in pursuit of unspeakable opulence and decadence to the detriment of the 30 million citizens which are not part of the regime, and who one day may well reach the point of revolt.

When it comes to the support of terrorism, the Saudis have funded more jihadists and terrorists throughout the region than Iran ever even imagined.

In fact, Iran is a nearly bankrupt country that has no capability whatsoever to threaten the security and safety of the citizens of Spokane WA, Peoria IL or anywhere else in the USA.

Its $460 billion GDP is the size of Indiana's and its 68,000 man military is only slightly larger than the national guard of Texas.

It is a land of severe mountains and daunting swamps that are not all that conducive to rapid economic progress and advanced industrialization. It has no blue water navy, no missiles with more than a few hundred miles of range, and, we must repeat again, has had no nuclear weapons program for more than a decade.

Moreover, Donald's incessant charge that the Obama Administration gave away the store during the nuke deal negotiations that led to the JCPA is just blatant nonsense. In fact, the Iranians made huge concessions on nearly every issue that made a difference.

That included deep concessions on the number of permitted centrifuges at Natanz; the dismantlement of the Fordow and Arak nuclear operations; the virtually complete liquidation of its enriched uranium stockpiles; the intrusiveness and scope of the inspections regime; and the provisions with respect to Iran's so-called "breakout" capacity.

For instance, while every signatory of the non-proliferation treaty has the right to civilian enrichment, Iran agreed to reduce the number of centrifuges by 70% from 20,000 to 6,000.

And its effective spinning capacity was reduced by significantly more. That's because the permitted Natanz centrifuges now consist exclusively of its most rudimentary, outdated equipment – first-generation IR-1 knockoffs of 1970s European models.

Not only was Iran not be allowed to build or develop newer models, but even those remaining were permitted to enrich uranium to a limit of only 3.75% purity. That is to say, to the generation of fissile material that is not remotely capable of reaching bomb grade concentrations of 90%.

Equally importantly, pursuant to the agreement Iran has eliminated enrichment activity entirely at its Fordow plant – a facility that had been Iran's one truly advanced, hardened site that could withstand an onslaught of Israeli or US bunker busters.

Instead, Fordow has become a small time underground science lab devoted to medical isotope research and crawling with international inspectors. In effectively decommissioning Fordow and thereby eliminating any capacity to cheat from a secure facility – what Iran got in return was at best a fig leave of salve for its national pride.

The disposition of the reactor at Arak has been even more dispositive. For years, the War Party has falsely waved the bloody shirt of "plutonium" because the civilian nuclear reactor being built there was of Canadian "heavy water" design rather than GE or Westinghouse "light water" design; and, accordingly, when finished it would have generated plutonium as a waste product rather than conventional spent nuclear fuel rods.

In truth, the Iranians couldn't have bombed a beehive with the Arak plutonium because you need a reprocessing plant to convert it into bomb grade material. Needless to say, Iran never had such a plant – nor any plans to build one, and no prospect for getting the requisite technology and equipment.

But now even that bogeyman no longer exists. Iran removed and destroyed the reactor core of its existing Arak plant in 2016 and filled it with cement, as attested to by international inspectors under the JCPA.

As to its already existing enriched stock piles, including some 20% medical-grade material, 97% has been eliminated as per the agreement. That is, Iran now holds only 300 kilograms of its 10,000 kilogram stockpile in useable or recoverable form. Senator Kirk could store what is left in his wine cellar.

But where the framework agreement decisively shut down the War Party was with respect to its provision for a robust, comprehensive and even prophylactic inspections regime. All of the major provision itemized above are being enforced by continuous IAEA access to existing facilities including its main centrifuge complex at Natanz – along with Fordow, Arak and a half dozen other sites.

Indeed, the real breakthrough in the JCPA lies in Iran's agreement to what amounts to a cradle-to-grave inspection regime. It encompasses the entire nuclear fuel chain.

That means international inspectors can visit Iran's uranium mines and milling and fuel preparation operations. This encompasses even its enrichment equipment manufacturing and fabrication plants, including centrifuge rotor and bellows production and storage facilities.

Beyond that, Iran has also been subject to a robust program of IAEA inspections to prevent smuggling of materials into the country to illicit sites outside of the named facilities under the agreement. This encompasses imports of nuclear fuel cycle equipment and materials, including so-called "dual use" items which are essentially civilian imports that can be repurposed to nuclear uses, even peaceful domestic power generation.

In short, not even a Houdini could secretly breakout of the control box established by the JCPA and confront the world with some kind of fait accompli threat to use the bomb.

That's because what it would take to do so is absurdly implausible. That is, Iran would need to secretly divert thousands of tons of domestically produced or imported uranium and then illicitly mill and upgrade such material at secret fuel preparation plants.

It would also need to secretly construct new, hidden enrichment operations of such massive scale that they could house more than 10,000 new centrifuges. Moreover, they would need to build these massive spinning arrays from millions of component parts smuggled into the country and transported to remote enrichment operations – all undetected by the massive complex of spy satellites overhead and covert US ands Israeli intelligence agency operatives on the ground in Iran.

Finally, it would require the activation from scratch of a weaponization program which has been dormant according to the National Intelligence Estimates (NIEs) for more than a decade. And then, that the Iranian regime – after cobbling together one or two bombs without testing them or their launch vehicles – would nevertheless be willing to threaten to use them sight unseen.

So just stop it!

You need to be a raging, certifiable paranoid boob to believe that the Iranians can break out of this framework box based on a secret new capacity to enrich the requisite fissile material and make a bomb.

In the alternative scenario, you have to be a willful know-nothing to think that if it publicly repudiates the agreement, Iran could get a bomb overnight before the international community could take action.

To get enough nuclear material to make a bomb from the output of the 5,000 "old and slow" centrifuges remaining at Natanz would take years, not months. And if subject to an embargo on imported components, as it would be after a unilateral Iranian repudiation of the JCPA, it could not rebuild its now dismantled enrichment capacity rapidly, either.

At the end of the day, in fact, what you really have to believe is that Iran is run by absolutely irrational, suicidal madmen. After all, even if they managed to defy the immensely prohibitive constraints described above and get one or a even a few nuclear bombs, what in the world would they do with them?

Drop them on Tel Aviv? That would absolutely insure Israel's navy and air force would unleash its 100-plus nukes and thereby incinerate the entire industrial base and major population centers of Iran.

Indeed, the very idea that deterrence would fail even if a future Iranian regime were to defy all the odds, and also defy the fatwa against nuclear weapons issued by their Supreme Leader, amounts to one of the most preposterous Big Lies ever concocted.

There is no plausible or rational basis for believing it outside of the axis-of-evil narrative. So what's really behind Trump's withdrawal from the JCPA is nothing more than the immense tissue of lies and unwarranted demonization of Iran that the War Party has fabricated over the last three decades.

Iran Never Wanted the Bomb

At bottom, all the hysteria about the mullahs getting the bomb was based on the wholly theoretically supposition that they wanted civilian enrichment only as a stepping stone to the bomb. Yet the entirety of the US intelligence complex as well as the attestation of George W. Bush himself say it isn't so.

As we have previously indicated, the blinding truth of that proposition first came in the National Intelligence Estimates of 2007. These NIEs represent a consensus of all 17 US intelligence agencies on salient issues each year, and on the matter of Iran's nuclear weapons program they could not have been more unequivocal:

"We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program; we also assess with moderate-to-high confidence that Tehran at a minimum is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons. We assess with moderate confidence Tehran had not restarted its nuclear weapons program as of mid-2007, but we do not know whether it currently intends to develop nuclear weapons.

"Our assessment that Iran halted the program in 2003 primarily in response to international pressure indicates Tehran's decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach rather than a rush to a weapon irrespective of the political, economic and military costs."

Moreover, as former CIA analyst Ray McGovern noted recently, the NIE's have not changed since then.

An equally important fact ignored by the mainstream media is that the key judgments of that NIE have been revalidated by the intelligence community every year since.

More crucially, there is the matter of "Dubya's" memoirs. Near the end of his term in office he was under immense pressure to authorize a bombing campaign against Iran's civilian nuclear facilities.

But once the 2007 NIEs came out, even the "mission accomplished" President in the bomber jacket was caught up short. As McGovern further notes,

Bush lets it all hang out in his memoir, Decision Points. Most revealingly, he complains bitterly that the NIE "tied my hands on the military side" and called its findings "eye-popping."

A disgruntled Bush writes, "The backlash was immediate ."I don't know why the NIE was written the way it was. Whatever the explanation, the NIE had a big impact – and not a good one."

Spelling out how the Estimate had tied his hands "on the military side," Bush included this (apparently unedited) kicker: "But after the NIE, how could I possibly explain using the military to destroy the nuclear facilities of a country the intelligence community said had no active nuclear weapons program?"

So there you have it. How is it possible to believe that the Iranian's were hell-bent on a nuclear holocaust when they didn't even have a nuclear weapons program?

And why in the world is the Donald taking America and the world to the edge of a utterly unnecessary war in order to force a better deal when the one he shit-canned was more than serviceable?

The answer to that momentous questions lies with the Bombzie Twins (Pompeo and Bolton) and the malign influence of the Donald's son-in-law and Bibi Netanyahu toady, Jared Kushner.

Rarely have a small group of fanatics more dangerously and wantonly jeopardized the security, blood and treasure of the American people.

David Stockman was a two-term Congressman from Michigan. He was also the Director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Ronald Reagan. After leaving the White House, Stockman had a 20-year career on Wall Street. He's the author of three books, The Triumph of Politics: Why the Reagan Revolution Failed , The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America and TRUMPED! A Nation on the Brink of Ruin And How to Bring It Back . He also is founder of David Stockman's Contra Corner and David Stockman's Bubble Finance Trader .

[Jun 27, 2019] Trump has filled his White House with CFR Neocon chickenhawks

And probably, if we just impeach the Walrus of Death nothing will change . Its a freight train to war. It moves slowly at first but its hell to try and stop.
Jun 27, 2019 | www.unz.com

This awesome demonstration of American resolve was meant to be punishment for the vicious slaughter of an expensive U.S. military drone, which was peacefully invading Iranian airspace, and not at all attempting to provoke the Iranians into blowing it out of the sky with a missile so the U.S. military could "retaliate."

The military-industrial complex would never dream of doing anything like that, not even to further the destabilization and restructuring of the Greater Middle East that they've been systematically carrying out the since the collapse of the former Soviet Union, which more on that in just a moment.

[Jun 27, 2019] Monsters Walk the Earth. Why These Three Countries Are the Real Troika of Evil

Notable quotes:
"... For some odd reason, Donald Trump wants to be reelected president in 2020 in spite of the fact that he appears to be uncomfortable in office. A quick, successful war would enhance his chances for a second term, which is probably what Pompeo promised, but any military action that is not immediately decisive would hurt his prospects, quite possibly inflicting fatal damage. ..."
"... Trump apparently had an intercession by Fox news analyst Tucker Carlson, who may have explained that reality to him shortly before he decided to cancel the attack. Tucker is, for what it's worth, a highly respected critic coming from the political right who is skeptical of wars of choice, democracy building and the global liberal order. ..."
"... It is an interesting process to observe how Jewish oligarchs like Sheldon Adelson contribute tens of millions of dollars to the politicians who then in turn give the Jewish state taxpayer generated tens of billions of dollars in return. Bribing corrupt politicians is one of the best investments that one can make in today's America. ..."
Jun 27, 2019 | www.strategic-culture.org

... ... ...

The current foreign policy debate centers around what Washington's next moves in the Middle East might be. The decision-making will inevitably involve the US and its "close allies" Israel and Saudi Arabia, which should not surprise anyone. While it is clear that President Donald Trump ordered an attack on Iran before canceling the action at the last minute, exactly how that played out continues to be unclear. One theory, promoted by the president himself, is that the attack would have been disproportionate, killing possibly hundreds of Iranian military personnel in exchange for one admittedly very expensive surveillance drone. Killing the Iranians would have guaranteed an immediate escalation by Iran, which has both the will and the capability to hit high value targets in and around the Persian Gulf region, a factor that may also have figured into the presidential calculus.

Trump's cancelation of the attack immediately produced cries of rage from the usual neoconservative chickenhawk crowd in Washington as well as a more subdued reiteration of the Israeli and Saudi demands that Iran be punished, though both are also concerned that a massive Iranian retaliation would hit them hard. They are both hoping that Washington's immensely powerful strategic armaments will succeed in knocking Iran out quickly and decisively, but they have also both learned not to completely trust the White House.

To assuage the beast, the president has initiated a package of "major" new sanctions on Iran which will no doubt hurt the Iranian people while not changing government decision making one iota. There has also been a leak of a story relating to US cyber-attacks on Iranian military and infrastructure targets, yet another attempt to act aggressive to mitigate the sounds being emitted by the neocon chorus.

To understand the stop-and-go behavior by Trump requires application of the Occam's Razor principle, i.e. that the simplest explanation is most likely correct. For some odd reason, Donald Trump wants to be reelected president in 2020 in spite of the fact that he appears to be uncomfortable in office. A quick, successful war would enhance his chances for a second term, which is probably what Pompeo promised, but any military action that is not immediately decisive would hurt his prospects, quite possibly inflicting fatal damage.

Trump apparently had an intercession by Fox news analyst Tucker Carlson, who may have explained that reality to him shortly before he decided to cancel the attack. Tucker is, for what it's worth, a highly respected critic coming from the political right who is skeptical of wars of choice, democracy building and the global liberal order.

The truth is that all of American foreign policy during the upcoming year will be designed to pander to certain constituencies that will be crucial to the 2020 presidential election. One can bank on even more concessions being granted to Israel and its murderous thug prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to bring in Jewish votes and, more importantly, money. John Bolton was already in Israel getting his marching orders from Netanyahu on the weekend and Pence was effusive in his praise of Israel when he spoke at the meeting in Orlando earlier in the week launching the Trump 2020 campaign, so the game is already afoot.

It is an interesting process to observe how Jewish oligarchs like Sheldon Adelson contribute tens of millions of dollars to the politicians who then in turn give the Jewish state taxpayer generated tens of billions of dollars in return. Bribing corrupt politicians is one of the best investments that one can make in today's America.

Trump will also go easy on Saudi Arabia because he wants to sell them billions of dollars' worth of weapons which will make the key constituency of the Military Industrial Complex (MIC) happy. And he will continue to exert "maximum pressure" on Iran and Venezuela to show how tough he can be for his Make America Great audience, though avoiding war if he possibly can just in case any of the hapless victims tries to fight back and embarrass him.

So, there it is folks. War with Iran is for the moment on hold, but tune in again next week as the collective White House memory span runs to only three or four days. By next week we Americans might be at war with Mongolia.

[Jun 27, 2019] Deal of the Century or Eon of Disasters by Jamal Kanj

Jun 27, 2019 | ahtribune.com

The Trumpian hyperbole marketing brand had generated unrealistic expectations for the "Deal of the Century." For over a year and a half, Jared Kushner promised but missed at least three dates to unveil the "secret" plan.

Assisted by two bono fide Zionists, Special Envoy to the Middle East Jason Greenblatt and US Ambassador David Friedman, Kushner's lone political experience with Palestine/Israel is his family's tax deductible contributions to building "Jewish only colonies."

Kushner's predisposed conviction and his parochial bias were palpable in the June 2nd interview with Axios on HBO. In the interview, he opined that Palestinians were not "capable of governing" themselves or become free from Israeli occupation.

After more than a year of hyped promotion, Kushner's Zionist team revealed a scaled down version of Trump's "concrete plan." Evident in the leaked conference agenda, the goal of Kushner's gathering is not to offer economic support to Palestinians, but rather to provide a cover-up for opening the doors of Arab capitals to Israeli officials.

Israel gets the reward of the illusionary peace upfront while US tantalizes to Arabs a peace process that may never materialize. Deferring and circumventing political process is archetypical Israeli trademark strategy that seeks to harvest fruits before the tree blossoms. Hence, the fruits of the US proposed miniature workshop in Bahrain.

MORE...

In the Oslo Accord in 1993, the PLO agreed to recognize Israel, in advance, over 78% of historical Palestine. There was no reciprocal Israeli obligation toward the PLO on the remaining 22% (West Bank, Jerusalem and Gaza).

A quarter of a century later, peace did not blossom and the only implemented sections of the Oslo Accords were the PLO recognition of Israel. In addition, it relieved Israel of administering the life of five million Palestinians, security coordination and outsourcing―free of cost―the security services to the Palestinian Authority.

Meanwhile, Israel continued to violate and effectively buried the Oslo Accords under new expansive "Jewish only colonies" changing the demographics of the population in areas allotted for the future Palestinian state.

Ten years following the Accord, George W Bush proposed a Road Map for peace. To placate Israeli reservations, Bush rewarded Israel, in advance, with an official American letter agreeing to annex "Jewish only colonies" in the West Bank as part of any future peace agreement.

Israel crushed Bush's Road Map under the bulldozers of yet more "Jewish only colonies." The American letter remains the sole outcome of the Road Map. Greenblatt and Friedman are using Bush's letter to advocate Israeli annexation of parts of the West Bank and Jerusalem.

Kushner's economic peace is an age old Israeli contrived gas bubble intends to skirt compliance with international law and UN resolutions. Shimon Peres floated the idea to equivocate Israel's commitments under the Oslo Accords. Current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu revived it in 2009 to sidestep the American (Bush and Obama) administration's support for two-state solution.

Yet, for quarter of a century since the establishment of the Palestinian authority, Israel had systematically strangled the very economy it (and now Kushner) claims to champion.

Since 1993, the European Union invested billions of dollars in economic infrastructure, including an airport and seaport in Gaza. In 2002 after the failure of Camp David, Israel obliterated both facilities denying Palestinians access to trade and fishing.

To further stifle the economy, Israel erected walls separating farmers from their olive groves and farms, spiked the West Bank with intrusive military checkpoints encumbering the movement of goods, divided towns and cities and misappropriated tax money held on Palestinian imports.

Kushner and Israel's invented economic peace is a political shenanigan to sedate the bird cage (walled) economy, or leverage it in the form of collective punishment to suppress resistance and subjugate Palestinians.

Like Oslo Accords, the Road Map, and now ahead of rolling the political plan for the "Deal of Century", Trump conferred on Israel another advanced installment by recognizing Jerusalem as its capital, cut financial aid to Palestinians including UN organizations, and the annexation of the Syrian Golan Heights without any Israeli concession.

In addition to normalizing contacts between Arabs attending the Manama workshop and Israel (another advanced installment), Kushner's plan would relegate the cost of the caged Palestinian economy to Arab countries, gifting Israel yet more freebies without negotiation.

Kushner economic peace workshop is a false allure to salve Palestinian (and Arab) capitulation before rolling out the eon of all political disasters. Jamal Kanj was born in a Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon ten years after the creation of the state of Israel. He moved to the United States in late 1977, and has been active in various local and national political organizations. Like so many other Palestinians, the life of Jamal Kanj has been an odyssey of conflict, displacement and resettlement and Jamal Kanj is expressing a lifetime experience with the Palestinian diaspora and struggle against and with the occupation through his writings. Jamal Kanj is columnist at several newspapers and websites.

[Jun 27, 2019] Trump's Underwhelming Deal for Palestine and the Gulf Monarchies' Complicated Ties with Israel Consortiumnews

Notable quotes:
"... Telling was the 40-page proposal put out earlier this month by the White House, which used the terms "investment" and "financing" dozens of times, yet never once mentioned "occupation." Dan Kurtzer, who previously served as Washington's ambassador to Israel and Egypt and is now a professor of Middle East policy studies at Princeton University, tweeted : "I would give this so-called plan a 'C' from an undergraduate student. The authors of the plan clearly understand nothing." ..."
"... Can anyone explain the complete inappropriateness & Cronyism of Trump's son in law, Jared Kushner, in negotiating this sham of a Deal? This is the "Con of the Century" not the Deal of the Century? Jared Kushner never got out of Bibi's Bed & his flawed Plan is a $50 Billion dollar loan bribe, a LOAN not a Hand out & where this money is coming from, as it's not coming from America but supposedly from non-existent Arabian Financial sources is a mystery? ..."
"... An investor would have to be an utter idiot to put funds into Palestinian infrastructure because the Israelis would promptly destroy it in their next military incursion. Investment without rock solid perpetual peace is just money down the drain. ..."
Jun 27, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

The U.S.-backed two-day "Peace to Prosperity" summit in Bahrain on Tuesday and Wednesday was designed to advance the Trump administration's vision for resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. But without any significant Palestinian representation at the summit, as well as the absence of any Israeli government officials, the gathering was ultimately little more than a face-saving effort on the White House's part following two years of the administration's "futile" peacemaking efforts.

The conference is understood to have laid the foundation for the "Deal of the Century." The details have yet to be released, although the White House claims it will unveil the plan following Israel's elections in September. Yet some details have leaked, leading the Palestinian Authority to declare it dead on arrival. Virtually all Palestinian factions are united in opposition to it.

Telling was the 40-page proposal put out earlier this month by the White House, which used the terms "investment" and "financing" dozens of times, yet never once mentioned "occupation." Dan Kurtzer, who previously served as Washington's ambassador to Israel and Egypt and is now a professor of Middle East policy studies at Princeton University, tweeted : "I would give this so-called plan a 'C' from an undergraduate student. The authors of the plan clearly understand nothing."

The "workshop" in Bahrain began with President Donald Trump's adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner delivering a speech in which he unveiled a $50 billion economic package intended to "unleash" the Palestinians' potential as well as help develop neighboring Lebanon and Jordan. Kushner referred to a "bustling tourist center in Gaza" without acknowledging Israel's siege of the coastal strip and the dire humanitarian crises in the blockaded enclave. IMF Director Christine Lagarde spoke about applying lessons from Mozambique to Palestine. Steve Schwarzman, an American billionaire whose personal wealth exceeds Palestine's annual GDP, advised the Palestinians to follow the model of Singapore. The U.S. ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, hailed the "workshop" as an "attempt to jumpstart the Palestinian economy" and "improve the quality of life of Palestinians."

Unrealistic and Disingenuous

Undeniably, the White House's plans for resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict are as unrealistic as they are disingenuous. With an ongoing conflict and no clearly defined borders, it is at best naïve to imagine the Occupied Palestinian Territories fostering a climate that is ripe for foreign investment. Building a tourism sector and stimulating vibrant economic growth under occupation are also unrealistic. Whereas Kushner sought to first discuss the economic dimensions of the Palestinians' problems while saving meetings over the political ones for later, he fails to understand how Palestine's economic crises are linked to politics. Put simply, the Palestinians will not be able to achieve economic development through some foreign-driven technocratic plan without finding a solution to the political issues at the heart of the conflict.

The Palestinian view is that the White House is simply trying to liquidate their cause by buying them off with foreign money. Moreover, no experts believe that the Trump administration has the political or diplomatic capital to serve as a credible mediator between the Palestinians and Israel. The White House has absolutely no goodwill among Palestinians, particularly in the aftermath of the administration formally recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital and slashing funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.

As the first U.S. administration to officially reject the two-state solution as the basis for resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the current White House represents an opportunity for Israel to cement its colonization of territory in land annexed during 1967. As such, the "Deal of the Century" is about the consolidation of Israel's occupation of Palestinian land and a way toward establishing a "second homeland" for Palestinians in Jordan and/or Egypt. The Israeli UN ambassador's opinion piece in The New York Times , which called for a Palestinian "surrender" and was published just before the Bahrain summit kicked off, essentially summed up both the Israeli government and the Trump administration's views on the Palestinian question.

GCC-Israel Ties

Nonetheless, although the summit did not raise important questions about Palestinian-Israeli relations, it raised some about Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member-states and Israel's gradual normalization of ties. That this summit was held in Bahrain was not a major surprise considering that the archipelago kingdom has led the GCC in terms of moving toward normalization of relations with Israel.

Indeed, Bahrain's openness to closer relations with the Jewish state was on display in September 2017 when Prince Nasser bin Hamad al-Khalifa attended a multinational event in Los Angeles where two American rabbis stated that the king of Bahrain had voiced his opposition to the Arab League's economic boycott of Israel. As the "Peace to Prosperity" workshop began, the Bahraini Crown Prince welcomed delegates with a message that called the Bahraini capital, Manama, the Gulf's most religiously diverse city and referenced its tiny Jewish community. Notably, Bahrain's former Jewish ambassador to Washington, Houda Ezra Ebrahim Nonoo, attended the summit.

Much like the dynamics which have brought other GCC member-states closer to Israel, a mutual perception of Iran as a threat is at the heart of Bahrain's interest in establishing warmer ties with Tel Aviv. Yet for Bahrain and other Arabian Peninsula monarchies -- until the Palestinian issue is resolved -- prospects for moving toward a full normalization of relations will remain complicated.

Whereas Kuwait stands out as the only country in the GCC that principally rejects this trend of Gulf states moving in the direction of normalizing ties with Israel, it is the GCC's only semi-democracy, thus this firm "pro-Palestinian" stance partially reflects pressures from Kuwaiti public opinion.

... ... ...

Rong Cao , June 27, 2019 at 13:53

Isn't GCC on the brink of the collapse a while ago when the US congress threatened to sue GCC for manipulate the oil prices? Guess now that the US has become a world major oil exporter, GCC has stood on its way. So the patriarchy inside GCC, namely Saudi Arabia, has been colluding with the US and Israel to pay $50 billion to Palestinians authority for the purchase of Israeli's occupied lands once for all. Indeed a deal of the century for President Trump.

KiwiAntz , June 27, 2019 at 04:28

Can anyone explain the complete inappropriateness & Cronyism of Trump's son in law, Jared Kushner, in negotiating this sham of a Deal? This is the "Con of the Century" not the Deal of the Century? Jared Kushner never got out of Bibi's Bed & his flawed Plan is a $50 Billion dollar loan bribe, a LOAN not a Hand out & where this money is coming from, as it's not coming from America but supposedly from non-existent Arabian Financial sources is a mystery?

And in order to receive this blood money, Palestinian's only have to surrender what's left of their Country & the illegal settlements, any chance of a 2 State solution & other humiliating concessions to Apartheid Israel, such as any Sovereignty claims to their own Lands? And I state it's Palestinian's Land," THEIR COUNTRY" not the illegal, immoral Land Usurper called the Nation of Israel?

This Land of Palestine, illegally occupied since 1948 by repatriated Jews from a devastated, War ravaged Europe, as a bloodguilt reward from the Allies, for their failure in preventing the Holocaust & genocide of the Jews during WW2?The idiotic English came up with the disastrous plan to repatriate these European Jewish people to a already occupied Land called Palestine? And for the record, the Historical Jews lost their claims to these Lands, as was prophesied in the Bible following their rejection & complicity in the Death of the Messiah?

JC stated their "House (or Nation) would be abandoned to them" as a result of their rejection of him, being the Son of God! This was confirmed in the year 70 B.C.E when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem, destroying all their records, the Temple & killing one million people with the survivors taken into captivity! The confirmation of the loss of Divine favour & Gods utter rejection of the Jewish Nation & people was that God allowed the Roman destruction to occur without any direct intervention on his part! That was the end of the Nation State of Ancient Israel! When this happened, it became inhabited by Arab Tribes & gradually became Palestine?

This Modern Day interpretation of a Nation State of Israel is a monstrosity, a human construct not a Theocratic Nation created by God!

This Plan is a utter waste of Time & other peoples money as Palestinian's want a Political solution as mandated by the UN, not a blood money, loan bribe by Trumps crony Capitalist, son in law, in league with Uncle Bibi Netanyahu!

Moi , June 27, 2019 at 02:40

An investor would have to be an utter idiot to put funds into Palestinian infrastructure because the Israelis would promptly destroy it in their next military incursion. Investment without rock solid perpetual peace is just money down the drain.

[Jun 27, 2019] No One Believes the President's War Claims Anymore

Notable quotes:
"... The possibility that the United States might be committing an act of war under false pretenses apparently did little to discourage the president's principal foreign policy advisers, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton, from pushing a military response. Tehran's action was presented as raw aggression, an act of war that deserved retaliation. ..."
"... The president apparently complained to a close associate, "These people want to push us into a war, and it's so disgusting." According to The Wall Street Journal , he further opined, "We don't need any more wars." He's right. But then why has Trump chosen to surround himself with advisers apparently so at variance with his views? ..."
"... Iran is preparing to breach the limits established by the agreement because Washington repudiated it . It is evident that the president doesn't understand the JCPOA or the nuclear issue more generally. ..."
"... Moreover, though he is focused on nuclear issues, his appointees have been demanding far more of Tehran, forestalling negotiations. For instance, last year, Pompeo ordered Iran to abandon its independent foreign policy and dismantle its missile deterrent, while accepting Saudi and American domination of the region. ..."
"... Pompeo's demands look a bit like the ultimatum to Serbia in June 1914 after a nationalist backed by Serbian military intelligence assassinated the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne. The Austrians set only 10, rather than 12, requirements, but they also were intended to be rejected. Vienna explained to its ally Germany that "the possibility of its acceptance is practically excluded." ..."
"... They were living out what Hermann Goering, on trial at Nuremberg, described in a private conversation to an American officer: "voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country." Tragically, he's probably right. ..."
Jun 27, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

... ... ...

Iran predictably claimed that the drone was within its airspace. American officials asserted that it was in international airspace. Reported by The New York Times :

"a senior Trump administration official said there was concern inside the United States government about whether the drone, or another American surveillance aircraft, or even the P-8A manned aircraft flown by a military aircrew, actually did violate Iranian airspace at some point. The official said the doubt was one of the reasons Mr. Trump called off the strike."

The point is worth repeating. The military was prepared to blast away when it wasn't even certain whether America was in the right. The episode brings to mind the 1988 shootdown of an Iranian airliner in the Persian Gulf by the guided missile cruiser USS Vincennes . Initially the U.S. Navy justified its action, making a series of false claims about Iran Air Flight 655, which carried 290 passengers and crew members. Eventually Washington did admit that it had made a horrific mistake, though the Vincennes captain was later decorated.

The possibility that the United States might be committing an act of war under false pretenses apparently did little to discourage the president's principal foreign policy advisers, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton, from pushing a military response. Tehran's action was presented as raw aggression, an act of war that deserved retaliation.

The president apparently complained to a close associate, "These people want to push us into a war, and it's so disgusting." According to The Wall Street Journal , he further opined, "We don't need any more wars." He's right. But then why has Trump chosen to surround himself with advisers apparently so at variance with his views?

Presumably the president believes that he can control his war-happy subordinates, using them as he sees fit. However, his overweening hubris ignores their power to set the agenda and influence his choices. Consider the basic question of objectives regarding Iran. Trump now says all he wants to do is keep nukes out of Tehran's hands: "Never can Iran have a nuclear weapon," he intoned after halting the proposed reprisal, adding that "restraint" has its limits. But the nuclear accord was drafted to forestall an Iranian nuclear weapon. Iran is preparing to breach the limits established by the agreement because Washington repudiated it . It is evident that the president doesn't understand the JCPOA or the nuclear issue more generally.

Moreover, though he is focused on nuclear issues, his appointees have been demanding far more of Tehran, forestalling negotiations. For instance, last year, Pompeo ordered Iran to abandon its independent foreign policy and dismantle its missile deterrent, while accepting Saudi and American domination of the region.

These mandates were an obvious non-starter -- what sovereign nation voluntarily accepts puppet status? In fact, Pompeo admitted that he didn't expect Iran to surrender, but instead hoped for a popular revolution. In recently stating that the administration would negotiate without preconditions, he added that Washington expected Iran to act like "a normal nation," meaning behaving just as he'd demanded last year. (Notably, there was no offer for America to act like a normal country.)

Sanctions: Trump's Cruel Substitute for an Actual Iran Policy A Century Later, the Versailles Treaty Still Haunts Our World

Pompeo's demands look a bit like the ultimatum to Serbia in June 1914 after a nationalist backed by Serbian military intelligence assassinated the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne. The Austrians set only 10, rather than 12, requirements, but they also were intended to be rejected. Vienna explained to its ally Germany that "the possibility of its acceptance is practically excluded."

Once it became evident that no one would willingly back down and conflict was likely, Germany's Kaiser and Russia's Tsar tried to halt the rush to war. However, they found themselves hemmed in by the war plans created by their nominal subordinates. With Austria-Hungary mobilizing against Serbia, Russia had to act to protect the latter. Germany then faced a two-front war. Thus, to aid its ally in Vienna, the Germans had to mobilize quickly in an attempt to defeat France before Russia could put its massive army into the field. No one had sufficient time for diplomacy.

However, cousins Kaiser Wilhelm and Tsar Nicholas did engage in a last minute "Willy-Nicky" exchange of telegrams. Wilhelm warned Nicholas that general Russian mobilization would require Germany to act, with war the result. In response, the tsar switched from general to partial mobilization. But he was soon besieged by his top officials who insisted that the entire army had to be called up.

Understanding that general mobilization meant war, the tsar observed: "Think of the responsibility you are asking me to take! Think of the thousands and thousands of men who will be sent to their deaths." But he gave in, approving mobilization on the evening of July 30. Nicholas's concern was warranted. More than 1.7 million Russian soldiers, along with hundreds of thousands of civilians, died in the conflict. The ensuing Russian Civil War was even more deadly, indeed far more so for noncombatants, among them the tsar and his family.

Kaiser Wilhelm was equally at the mercy of the "France-first" Schlieffen Plan. To wait would be to invite destruction between the French and Russians, so he approved German mobilization on August 1. He predicted the war would lead to "endless misery," and so it did. In 1918, he was forced to abdicate and he lived out his life in exile.

Pompeo, Bolton, and like-minded officials tried and failed to force another war last week. Next time they may succeed in leaving the president with no practical choice but the one they favor. In which case he will find himself starting the very conflict that he had declared against.

Ongoing administration machinations -- exacerbated by the opportunity to manipulate a president -- offer an important reminder as to the Founders' wisdom. Delegates to the Constitutional Convention made clear their intention to break with monarchical practice, minimizing the president's authority. Congress was assigned the powers to raise armies, decide on the rules of war, issue letters of marque and reprisal, and ratify treaties. Most importantly, the legislative branch alone could declare war.

As commander-in-chief, the president could defend against attack, but he could not even order a retaliatory strike without congressional authority. Wrote James Madison to Thomas Jefferson: "The Constitution supposes, what the History of all Governments demonstrates, that the Executive is the branch of power most interested in war, and most prone to it. It has accordingly with studied care vested the question of war in the Legislature." Delegate James Wilson insisted that the Constitution was intended to "guard against" being hurried into war: "It will not be in the power of a single man, or a single body of men, to involve us in such distress, for the important power of declaring war is vested in the legislature at large."

Most important, placing the war power with Congress ensured that the people would be heard. Of course, even that is not enough today. Presidents have adeptly concocted "evidence" and misled the public, such as during the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq.

They were living out what Hermann Goering, on trial at Nuremberg, described in a private conversation to an American officer: "voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country." Tragically, he's probably right.

However, the Iraq debacle has resulted in greater skepticism of presidential claims. The Trump administration's unsupported judgment that Iran was behind attacks on oil tankers was greeted at home and abroad with a demand for more evidence. People were conscious of having been repeatedly played by Washington and did not want a repeat. Many found the U.S. government no more trustworthy than Iranian authorities, a humbling equivalence. And given the doubts apparently voiced by Pentagon officials out of public view, such skepticism was well-founded.

Last week, Donald Trump declared, "I want to get out of these endless wars." Unlike his predecessors, the president apparently recognizes the temptation to sacrifice lives for political gain. However, alone he will find it nearly impossible to face down the bipartisan War Party. The best way to get out of endless wars is to not get in them in the first place. And that requires changing personnel and respecting the constitutional limits established by the nation's Founders.

Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and a former special assistant to President Ronald Reagan. He is the author of Foreign Follies: America's New Global Empire

Kent • 8 hours ago

Unfortunately, the President is attempting to walk a tight-rope between peace and the most prominent funders of the GOP. Sheldon Adelson and his ilk are bent on the destruction of any nation that stands in the way of Israeli expansion. And of course military contractors need constant growth in tax-payer funding to support their margins and shareholder value. Hence the blustering to appease the aforementioned and keep the bribes flowing, while backing down to appease the base.

It would of course be in the interests of the base to oppose the bribe-taking to begin with, but I assume that must be beyond their intellectual capacity. Or perhaps they're simply in favor of it for ideological reasons.

Adriana Pena • 14 hours ago
Please stop this "czar good, ministers bad" narrative when discussing Trump standing up to the war party.

Trump hired Bolton
Trump hired Pompeo
Trump made the torturer Gina the head of the CIA

For someone who does not want war, he managed to put war lovers in sensitive posts.

John Michener • 15 hours ago
We might as well be honest about it. All politicians over simplify, shade the truth, and occasionally lie. But Trump's falsehoods are so continuous and extensive that there is no reason to believe anything he says - everything needs to be validated against external authorities - which is why he is so intent on tearing down all authorities that could contradict him.
Clyde Schechter • 15 hours ago
This is another in the long line of stories we are reading here (and in other places) that Trump really doesn't want to get involved in a war but is being manipulated by Bolton, Pompeo and the national security apparatus. Sorry, but I don't buy it.

Trump hired Bolton and Pompeo. Even somebody as apparently dimwitted as Trump could not possibly have failed to notice that they were warmongers. Indeed, Bolton is probably the most extreme warmonger around: he has an extensive public record of advocating war with Iran for about two decades now. I cannot believe that even Trump was unaware of this. And even if he was, why hasn't he fired them? He doesn't need anybody's permission to do that. Let's get real: Trump is every bit the warmonger as the people he hires. His statements to the contrary are just more additions to his endless string of lies.

What's more, he has another way to avoid being cornered into starting a war. All he has to do in that circumstance is acknowledge that the constitution doesn't grant him that authority and toss the decision making to Congerss, where it legally belongs. But he has done nothing that suggests he acknowledges that constitutional delegation of authority--even though it could provide him a way out if he felt he needed one.

So, no. I don't believe for a minute that Trump wants to avoid war. Actions speak louder than words, especially Trump's words.

JJ • 17 hours ago
You're falling for the "official" report that he called off the attack merely because 150 lives were at stake? Since when did he all of a sudden grow a conscious after the inexcusable defense he gave for our irresponsible military and intelligence ventures? He even bypasses Congress itself by his illegal presidential will to give weapons to the SAUDIS. The tyrannical, radical, scourge of humanity tribal savages turned psychopathic oligarchs that is the House of Saud.

Let's be perfectly honest with ourselves, Tucker Carson (a f*cking tv show host of all people) convinced a US president to not commit to another illegal war. Not because lives were at stake, heavens no. It's because going into a disastrous war with Iran would gauruntee his chances of not getting re-elected.

The American government is a living parody with no hope of redemption.

HenionJD • 9 hours ago
The President's almost daily outpouring of gibberish gives one little confidence that the notion of 'the truth' holds any importance for him or his crew. Who needs historical precedents to establish a feeling of mistrust when even the simplest statements from the White House are so often needlessly loaded with misapprehensions, distortions and out right BS?
EliteCommInc. • 15 hours ago
" He's right. But then why has Trump chosen to surround himself with advisers apparently so at variance with his views?"

I get this, position. You present an incredibly tough front as you press an entirely different goal. The problem is that the president has presented a very tough front himself. So when it appears to to actually be tough, he comes across as "not so much". It even provides opportunity to grand him fearful. In the scenario that I think is being played out or made to appear to play out --- the good cop, the reasonable cop has to sound reasonable all the time. He has to claim to be holding back the forces of evil that threaten to consume the target. But the president has been leading the way as "bad cop" so in the mind the targets, there are no good cops.

But in my view, all of this hoollla baaaloooey about Iran is a distraction to the real threat

the border. And the only common ground to be had is to enforce the law. That is why I think the president is weak. For all of the tough talk --- he folded -- again on immigration. Pretending to get concessions that is by agreement already expected from Mexico is the such naked weakness that launching hypersonic missiles obliterating Tehran would just give him sandals.

Uhhhh, no. I don't regret my vote. And and I still want the wall built and the laws enforced and the sovereignty of the US respected by guests and citizens alike,.

[Jun 26, 2019] Cost of potential US war with Iran $250 oil another Afghanistan

Notable quotes:
"... Should such a war really happen, the stakes would be very high, so there is every reason to assume that Iran's missiles would not only be equipped with conventional high explosive fragmentation warheads, but would also carry toxic agents and dirty bombs. ..."
"... even a handful of Tehran's missiles reaching critical infrastructure in the Persian Gulf region would be enough to cause devastation. ..."
"... On top of that, there are more questions than answers regarding the reliability of the antimissile and air defense systems that the Persian Gulf monarchies deployed to defend their hydrocarbon terminals and other oil and gas infrastructure. ..."
"... To solve the problem of Iran once and for all, the US would need to mount a large-scale ground operation, with the US Army invading the country. America would have to wipe out both regular Iranian forces and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, unseat the current leadership of Iran, and have a military presence in every major city for the next 10 to 15 years, keeping tight control over the entire country at the same time. ..."
Jun 26, 2019 | www.rt.com

Iran's downing of a US military surveillance drone last week predictably led to another flare-up in tense relations between Tehran and Washington. What could be the implications of a potential conflict between the two nations? Right after the Global Hawk UAV was shot down, the New York Times reported that US President Donald Trump approved military strikes against Iran, but then changed his mind.

Let's start by saying that the decision to launch a military operation against Iran (which is what this is really about), including the specific time and place, would have to be taken by a very small group of top US political and military officials. At such meetings, no leaks could possibly occur by definition.

Now, let's take a look at some of the details. The difference between a 'strike' and an 'operation' is quite significant, at the very least in terms of duration, and forces and equipment involved. It would be nice to know if the NYT actually meant a single airstrike or an entire air operation.

Also on rt.com US lapdog Jeremy Hunt prepping British public for war with Iran, just in case Trump asks

Amusingly enough, the publication reported that the strikes were scheduled for early morning to minimize the potential death toll among the Iranian military and civilians. It's worth pointing out that the US has never cared about the number of victims either among the military personnel or the civilian population of its adversaries.

Moreover, the purpose of any military conflict is to do as much damage to your enemy as possible in terms of personnel, military hardware and other equipment. This is how the goals of any armed conflict are achieved. Of course, it would be best if civilian losses are kept to a minimum, but for the US it's more of a secondary rather than a primary objective.

The US Navy and Air Force traditionally strike before dawn with one purpose alone – to avoid the antiaircraft artillery (both small and medium-caliber), as well as a number of air defense systems with optical tracking, firing at them. Besides, a strike in the dark hours of the day affects the morale of the enemy personnel.

Here we need to understand that Iran would instantly retaliate, and Tehran has no small capabilities for that. In other words, it would be a full-scale war. For the US, it wouldn't end with one surgical airstrike without consequences, like in Syria. And the US seems to have a very vague idea on what a military victory over Iran would look like.

Also on rt.com US will not 'stumble into' war with Iran by mistake. If it happens, it will be by design

There is no doubt that a prolonged air campaign by the US will greatly undermine Iran's military and economic potential and reduce the country to the likes of Afghanistan, completely destroying its hydrocarbon production and exports industries.

To say how long such a campaign could last would be too much of a wild guess, but we have the examples of Operation Desert Storm in 1991 when airstrikes lasted for 38 days, and Yugoslavia in 1991 when the bombing continued for 78 days. So, theoretically, the US could bomb Iran for, say, 100 days, wrecking the country's economy and infrastructure step by step.

However, the price the US would have to pay for starting such a military conflict may turn out to be too high.

For instance, Iran can respond to US aggression by launching intermediate and shorter-range ballistic missiles to target oil and gas fields and terminals in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, and the UAE.

Should such a war really happen, the stakes would be very high, so there is every reason to assume that Iran's missiles would not only be equipped with conventional high explosive fragmentation warheads, but would also carry toxic agents and dirty bombs.

Firstly, it should be pointed out that even though the capabilities of US intelligence agencies are almost limitless, quite a few Iranian missile launching sites remain undiscovered. Secondly, US air defense systems in the Persian Gulf, no matter how effective, would not shoot down every last Iranian missile. And even a handful of Tehran's missiles reaching critical infrastructure in the Persian Gulf region would be enough to cause devastation.

On top of that, there are more questions than answers regarding the reliability of the antimissile and air defense systems that the Persian Gulf monarchies deployed to defend their hydrocarbon terminals and other oil and gas infrastructure.

Also on rt.com $300 oil? US war with Iran spells catastrophe for global economy, expert tells RT

If such a scenario came true, that would bring inconceivable chaos to the global economy and would immediately drive up oil prices to $200-250 per barrel – and that's the lowest estimate. It is these implications that are most likely keeping the US from attacking Iran.

To solve the problem of Iran once and for all, the US would need to mount a large-scale ground operation, with the US Army invading the country. America would have to wipe out both regular Iranian forces and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, unseat the current leadership of Iran, and have a military presence in every major city for the next 10 to 15 years, keeping tight control over the entire country at the same time.

For the record, the US failed to do that even in Afghanistan, which is several times smaller than Iran in terms of both territory and population. And almost 18 years of fighting later, the US has achieved next to nothing.

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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.

[Jun 25, 2019] Tulsi on Iraq war and Trump administration and some interesting information about Bolton

With minor comment editions for clarity...
Looks like Bolton is dyed-in-the-wool imperialist. He believes the United States can do what wants without regard to international law, treaties or the роlitical commitments of previous administrations.
Notable quotes:
"... Israel is an Anglo American aircraft carrier to control the Eastern Mediterranean ..."
Jun 25, 2019 | www.unz.com

J. Gutierrez says: June 24, 2019 at 5:37 pm GMT 300 Words

...Look at this man's video and remember he is a pervert, warmonger and a coward!

https://www.youtube.com/embed/hs35O_TBbbU

Ma Laoshi , says: June 24, 2019 at 11:56 pm GMT

@J. Gutierrez

...Zionists know what they want, are willing to work together towards their goals, and put their money where their mouth is. In contrast, for a few pennies the goyim will renounce any principle they pretend to cherish, and go on happily proclaiming the opposite even if a short while down the road it'll get their own children killed.

The real sad part about this notion of the goy as a mere beast in human form is maybe not that it got codified for eternity in the Talmud, but rather that there may be some truth to it? Another way of saying this is raising the question whether the goyim deserve better, given what we see around us.

Saka Arya , says: June 25, 2019 at 7:02 am GMT
@Malla

Israel is an Anglo American aircraft carrier to control the Eastern Mediterranean and prevent a Turko Egyptian and possibly Persian invasion of Greece & the West

[Jun 23, 2019] Iranian UN envoy condemns unlawful destabilizing measures by US

Jun 20, 2019 | www.rt.com

Iran's envoy to the United Nations has called on the international community to end "unlawful destabilizing measures" by the US, declaring that while Iran does not seek war, it "reserves the right to counter any hostile act."

Iranian envoy to the UN Majid Takht Ravanchi has condemned continuing US provocations that culminated Thursday morning in the downing of an American surveillance drone by the Iranian air force over Hormozgan province.

The drone "had turned off its identification equipment and [was] engaged in a clear spying operation," Ravanchi confirmed in a letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, adding that the aircraft had ignored "repeated radio warnings" in order to enter Iranian airspace near the Strait of Hormuz.

[Jun 22, 2019] Trump on Iran threat now and then

Oct 22, 2012 | www.unz.com

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump

Don't let Obama play the Iran card in order to start a war in order to get elected--be careful Republicans!

11:43 AM 22 Oct 12 Twitter Web Client

[Jun 22, 2019] Donald Trump likes to think of himself as a statesman, an author, an A-level negotiator but at heart, he's one thing: an insult comic

Add to this that he is in the pocket of Israel lobby and that helps to explain most of his actions.
Jun 16, 2019 | www.politico.com

President Donald Trump likes to think of himself as a statesman, an author, an A-level negotiator, but at heart, he's one thing: an insult comic.

Every day in D.C. is a roast, the insults and belittling nicknames wielded like tiny comedy bullets. And if you haven't seen enough of the fusillade on Twitter, all you need to do is turn on late night TV. Television comedy has a strange, symbiotic relationship with the real political world, something between a feedback loop and a funhouse mirror....

... ... ...

[Jun 21, 2019] Forget Trump's 'deal of the century'. Israel was always on course to annexation by Jonathan Cook

Israel is just another 'settlers" country. It might be successful or it might fail like South Africa and Rhodesia. The survival of Israel as the settler country hinges on the USA unconditional support as yet another (stealth) USA state, and the continuation of the role of the USA as the world hegemon and the center of the global neoliberal empire. . The USA position as for Israel might eventually change with the collapse of neoliberalism.
One problem that creates negative attitude to Israel around the world (according to BBC data only the USA and a couple of African countries having the majority of population that views Israel positively) is, as one commenter observed, the situation in which "The Children of the Holocaust survivors, born into Israel, have now become the "Holocaust-ers of Palestine"
Jun 21, 2019 | www.unz.com

When Israeli prime ministers are in trouble, facing difficult elections or a corruption scandal, the temptation has typically been for them to unleash a military operation to bolster their standing. In recent years, Gaza has served as a favourite punching bag.

Benjamin Netanyahu is confronting both difficulties at once: a second round of elections in September that he may struggle to win; and an attorney general who is widely expected to indict him on corruption charges shortly afterwards.

Netanyahu is in an unusually tight spot, even by the standards of an often chaotic and fractious Israeli political system. After a decade in power, his electoral magic may be deserting him. There are already rumblings of discontent among his allies on the far right.

Given his desperate straits, some observers fear that he may need to pull a new kind of rabbit out of the hat.

In the past two elections, Netanyahu rode to success after issuing dramatic last-minute statements. In 2015, he agitated against the fifth of Israel's citizens who are Palestinian asserting their democratic rights, warning that they were "coming out in droves to vote".

Back in April, he declared his intention to annex large chunks of the occupied West Bank, in violation of international law, during the next parliament.

Amos Harel, a veteran military analyst with Haaretz newspaper, observed last week that Netanyahu may decide words are no longer enough to win. Action is needed, possibly in the form of an announcement on the eve of September's ballot that as much as two-thirds of the West Bank is to be annexed.

Washington does not look like it will stand in his way.

Shortly before April's election, the Trump administration offered Netanyahu a campaign fillip by recognising Israel's illegal annexation of the Golan Heights, territory Israel seized from Syria in 1967.

This month David Friedman, US ambassador to Israel and one of the chief architects of Donald Trump's long-delayed "deal of the century" peace plan, appeared to offer a similar, early election boost.

In interviews, he claimed Israel was "on the side of God" – unlike, or so it was implied, the Palestinians. He further argued that Israel had the "right to retain" much of the West Bank.

Both statements suggest that the Trump administration will not object to any Israeli moves towards annexation, especially if it ensures their favoured candidate returns to power.

Whatever Friedman suggests, it is not God who has intervened on Israel's behalf. The hands that have carefully cleared a path over many decades to the West Bank's annexation are all too human.

Israeli officials have been preparing for this moment for more than half a century, since the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza were seized back in 1967.

That point is underscored by an innovative interactive map of the occupied territories. This valuable new resource is a joint project of the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem and Forensic Architecture, a London-based team that uses new technology to visualise and map political violence and environmental destruction.

Titled Conquer and Divide , it reveals in detail how Israel has "torn apart Palestinian space, divided the Palestinian population into dozens of disconnected enclaves and unravelled its social, cultural and economic fabric".

The map proves beyond doubt that Israel's colonisation of the West Bank was never accidental, defensive or reluctant. It was coldly calculated and intricately planned, with one goal in mind – and the moment to realise that goal is fast approaching.

Annexation is not a right-wing project that has hijacked the benign intentions of Israel's founding generation. Annexation was on the cards from the occupation's very beginnings in 1967, when the so-called centre-left – now presented as a peace-loving alternative to Netanyahu – ran the government.

The map shows how Israeli military planners created a complex web of pretexts to seize Palestinian land: closed military zones today cover a third of the West Bank; firing ranges impact 38 Palestinian communities; nature reserves are located on 6 per cent of the territory; nearly a quarter has been declared Israeli "state" land; some 250 settlements have been established; dozens of permanent checkpoints severely limit movement; and hundreds of kilometres of walls and fences have been completed.

These interlocking land seizures seamlessly carved up the territory, establishing the walls of dozens of tightly contained prisons for Palestinians in their own homeland.

Two Nasa satellite images of the region separated by 30 years – from 1987 and 2017 – reveal how Israel's settlements and transport infrastructure have gradually scarred the West Bank's landscape, clearing away natural vegetation and replacing it with concrete.

The land grabs were not simply about acquisition of territory. They were a weapon, along with increasingly draconian movement restrictions, to force the native Palestinian population to submit, to recognise its defeat, to give up hope.

In the immediate wake of the West Bank's occupation, defence minister Moshe Dayan, Israel's hero of the hour and one of the architects of the settlement project, observed that Palestinians should be made "to live like dogs, and whoever wants to can leave – and we shall see where this process leads".

Although Israel has concentrated Palestinians in 165 disconnected areas across the West Bank, its actions effectively won the international community's seal of approval in 1995. The Oslo accords cemented Israel's absolute control over 62 per cent of the West Bank, containing the Palestinians' key agricultural land and water sources, which was classified as Area C.

Occupations are intended to be temporary – and the Oslo accords promised the same. Gradually, the Palestinians would be allowed to take back more of their territory to build a state. But Israel made sure both the occupation and the land thefts sanctioned by Oslo continued.

The new map reveals more than just the methods Israel used to commandeer the West Bank. Decades of land seizures highlight a trajectory, plotting a course that indicates the project is still not complete.

ORDER IT NOW

If Netanyahu partially annexes the West Bank – Area C – it will be simply another stage in Israel's tireless efforts to immiserate the Palestinian population and bully them into leaving. This is a war of attrition – what Israelis have long understood as "creeping annexation", carried out by stealth to avoid a backlash from the international community.

Ultimately, Israel wants the Palestinians gone entirely, squeezed out into neighbouring Arab states, such as Egypt and Jordan. That next chapter is likely to begin in earnest if Trump ever gets the chance to unveil his "deal of the century".

A version of this article first appeared in the National, Abu Dhabi.

Sally Snyder , says: June 20, 2019 at 11:54 am GMT

Here is an article that clearly explains the pro-Israel bias in America's mainstream media:

https://viableopposition.blogspot.com/2019/04/the-pro-israel-skew-in-american.html

This study shows us that the pro-Israel narrative has become so firmly entrenched in the American mainstream media that it is almost impossible for news consumers to discern the truth about the situation in Israel and Palestine. This has greatly benefitted Washington which has made it abundantly clear that it sides with Israel in this fifty year-old conflict.

Bardon Kaldian , says: June 21, 2019 at 10:19 am GMT

If Netanyahu partially annexes the West Bank – Area C – it will be simply another stage in Israel's tireless efforts to immiserate the Palestinian population and bully them into leaving. This is a war of attrition – what Israelis have long understood as "creeping annexation", carried out by stealth to avoid a backlash from the international community.

Ultimately, Israel wants the Palestinians gone entirely, squeezed out into neighbouring Arab states, such as Egypt and Jordan. That next chapter is likely to begin in earnest if Trump ever gets the chance to unveil his "deal of the century".

This is probably true-and? I don't see Palestinians as a real people; they're just a bunch of Arabs & it is absolutely irrelevant whether they are in Syria, Egypt or Arabia. They themselves say they're not a "real" people:

https://youtu.be/FBPd28WYPFQ

On the other hand, real peoples like Uyghurs & Tibetans are swamped by the Chinese, which is a real tragedy & only, huh, Richard Gere complains.

So, what the big deal with "Palestinians"? Why would they have a "right to exist"on some shitty piece o land Jews seem to be obsessively addicted to in past 2 millennia?

And then, what with Amazonian Indians, Eskimos, Ostyaks, Okinawans, ..? What about expulsion of 13 million Germans in what are now parts of Poland, Czechia, Russia .?

Israelis should have expelled all of them in 1967. & there would be peace.

UncommonGround , says: June 21, 2019 at 10:20 am GMT
There is one point in the article that is not completely accurate. J. Cook writes: "Israeli officials have been preparing for this moment for more than half a century, since the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza were seized back in 1967."

In fact, Ilan Pappe shows in his book "The biggest Prison on Earth" (2017) that plans to occupy the whole land were much older. The plans weren't made because Israel took Palestinian lands in 1967. Israel took lands in 1967 because of the plans to colonize it. Those plans were older.

So, Pappe says in a more general way in his book that " . since 1948 and even more since 1956, Israel's military and political elites was looking for the right historical moment to occupy the West Bank." (p. XIV). He also says more specifically: "The strategy was presented by the CoGS to the army on 1 May 1963 and was meant to prepare the army for controlling the West Bank as an occupied military area" (p. XIII).

All talk about "peace", about "coexistence", about a "two state solution" are (and were) made in bad faith. About Pappe's book: I don't want to reccomend it for a casual reading. It may be valuable historically because it deals with historical material from archives. But it's basically a book about the Israeli burocracy, about laws, rules which would make sure that Israel controls the conquested territory which it never thought of giving back. It's a dry book. He has other books that which are much more agreeable to read like his short book "Ten Myths About Israel".

[Jun 20, 2019] Chuck Schumer 'The American People Deserve A President Who Can More Credibly Justify War With Iran'

Highly recommended!
Jun 20, 2019 | politics.theonion.com

In a pointed critique of President Trump's foreign policy leadership, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer stated to members of the press Thursday that "the American people deserve a president who can more credibly justify war with Iran."

"What the American people need is a president who can make a much more convincing case for going to war with Iran," said Schumer (D-NY), adding that the Trump administration's corruption and dishonesty have "proven time and time again" that it lacks the conviction necessary to act as an effective cheerleader for the conflict.

"Donald Trump is completely unfit to assume the mantle of telling the American people what they need to hear in order to convince them a war with Iran is a good idea.

One of the key duties of the president is to gain the trust of the people so that they feel comfortable going along with whatever he says. President Trump's failure to serve as a credible advocate for this war is yet another instance in which he has disappointed not only his colleagues in Washington, but also the entire nation."

Schumer later concluded his statement with a vow that he and his fellow Democrats will continue working toward a more palatable case in favor of bombing Iran.

[Jun 20, 2019] The Trump regime wants another pointless war by Ryan Cooper

Highly recommended!
A very good analysis. Trump essentially morphed into Hillary or worse. Essentially the same type of warmonger and compulsive liar.
Notable quotes:
"... The American people appear largely uninterested in this idea. But unless some real mass pressure is mounted against it, there is a good chance Trump will launch the U.S. into another pointless, disastrous war. ..."
"... At time of writing, the Washington Post has counted 10,796 false or misleading claims from Trump himself since taking office. Abject up-is-down lying is basically the sine qua non of modern conservative politics. ..."
"... Pompeo insists " there is no doubt " that Iran carried out the attacks -- the exact same words that Vice President Dick Cheney said in 2002 about Saddam Hussein's possession of weapons of mass destruction and his intention to use them on the United States, neither of which were true. (This is no doubt why several U.S. allies reacted skeptically to Trump's claims.) ..."
"... What's more, the downside risk here is vastly larger than tax policy. A great big handout to the rich might be socially costly in many ways, but it won't cause tens of thousands of violent deaths in a matter of days. War with Iran could easily do that -- or worse . ..."
"... Who else might have done the attacks? Saudi Arabia springs to mind. ..."
"... At a minimum, anybody with half a brain would want to be extremely certain about what actually happened before taking any rash actions. It's clear that Bolton and company, by contrast, just want a pretext to ratchet up pressure on Iran even further. ..."
"... On the other hand, sinking Iran's navy, as Stephens suggests in his column, would likely be a lot more dangerous than he thinks. Americans have long been fed a lot of hysterical nationalist propaganda from neocons like him about the invincibility of the U.S. military, and the ease with which any possible threat could be defeated. But while U.S. forces are indeed powerful, there is a very real risk that Iran's navy -- which is full of fast-attack boats, mini-subs, and disguised civilian vessels specifically designed to take out large ships with swarm attacks -- could inflict significant damage. Just a few lucky hits could kill thousands of sailors and cause tens of billions of dollars in damage. This is before you even get to the primary lesson of the Iraq War which is that an initial military victory is completely useless and probably counterproductive without a plan for what comes next. ..."
"... Finally, attacking Iran would be illegal. It would violate U.S. treaties , and thus the Constitution. The only justification is the claim that the 2001 authorization to attack Al Qaeda covers an attack on Iran . This is utterly preposterous -- akin to arguing it covers attacking New Zealand to roll back their gun control efforts -- but may explain Pompeo's equally preposterous attempt to blame Iran for a Taliban attack in Afghanistan. ..."
"... Pompeo and Bolton are clearly hell-bent on war. But Trump himself seems somewhat hesitant , sensing (probably accurately) that starting another war of aggression would tank his popularity even further. It's high time for everyone from ordinary citizens up to Nancy Pelosi to demand this rush to war be stopped. ..."
Jun 18, 2019 | theweek.com

The Trump regime is attempting to gin up a war with Iran. First Trump reneged on Obama's nuclear deal with the country for no reason, then he slapped them with more economic sanctions for no reason, and then, pushed by National Security Adviser John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, he moved massive military forces onto Iran's doorstep to heighten tensions further. Now, after a series of attacks on oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman -- none of which were American -- that the administration blames on Iran, Pompeo says the U.S. is "considering a full range of options," including war. (Iran has categorically denied any involvement.)

The American people appear largely uninterested in this idea. But unless some real mass pressure is mounted against it, there is a good chance Trump will launch the U.S. into another pointless, disastrous war.

The New York Times ' Bret Stephens, for all his #NeverTrump pretensions, provides a good window into the absolute witlessness of the pro-war argument . He takes largely at face value the Trump administration's accusations against Iran -- "Trump might be a liar, but the U.S. military isn't," he writes -- and blithely suggests Trump should announce an ultimatum demanding further attacks cease, then sink Iran's navy if they don't comply.

Let me take these in turn. For one thing, any statement of any kind coming out of a Republican's mouth should be viewed with extreme suspicion. Two years ago, the party passed a gigantic tax cut for the rich which they swore up and down would " pay for itself " with increased growth. To precisely no one's surprise, this did not happen . Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) was just one flagrant example of many who got elected in 2016 while lying through their teeth about their party's efforts to destroy ObamaCare and its protections for preexisting conditions.

At time of writing, the Washington Post has counted 10,796 false or misleading claims from Trump himself since taking office. Abject up-is-down lying is basically the sine qua non of modern conservative politics.

Republican accusations of foreign aggression should be subjected to an even higher burden of proof. The Trump regime has provided no evidence of Iranian culpability aside from a video of a ship the Pentagon says is Iranians removing something they say is a mine from an oil tanker -- but a Japanese ship owner reported at least one attack came from a " flying object ," not a mine. Pompeo insists " there is no doubt " that Iran carried out the attacks -- the exact same words that Vice President Dick Cheney said in 2002 about Saddam Hussein's possession of weapons of mass destruction and his intention to use them on the United States, neither of which were true. (This is no doubt why several U.S. allies reacted skeptically to Trump's claims.)

What's more, the downside risk here is vastly larger than tax policy. A great big handout to the rich might be socially costly in many ways, but it won't cause tens of thousands of violent deaths in a matter of days. War with Iran could easily do that -- or worse .

And though this may be a shock to Troop Respecters like Bret Stephens, the military's record of scrupulous honesty is not exactly spotless. It has lied continually about the state of the Afghanistan occupation, just as it did in Vietnam . It lied about the effects of Agent Orange on U.S. troops and Vietnamese civilians. It lied about Pat Tillman being killed by friendly fire. Military recruiters even sometimes lie about enlistment benefits to meet their quotas.

Who else might have done the attacks? Saudi Arabia springs to mind. False flag attacks on its own oil tankers sound outlandish, but we're talking about a ruthless dictatorship run by a guy who had a Washington Post columnist murdered and chopped into pieces because he didn't like his takes. And the Saudis have already been conducting a years-long war in Yemen with catastrophic humanitarian outcomes in order to stop an Iran-allied group from coming to power. It's by no means certain, but hardly outside the realm of possibility.

At a minimum, anybody with half a brain would want to be extremely certain about what actually happened before taking any rash actions. It's clear that Bolton and company, by contrast, just want a pretext to ratchet up pressure on Iran even further.

But let's grant for the sake of argument that some Iranian forces actually did carry out some or all of these attacks. That raises the immediate question of why. One very plausible reason is that all of Trump's provocations have strengthened the hand of Iran's conservative hard-liners, who are basically the mirror image of Pompeo and Bolton. "It is sort of a toxic interaction between hard-liners on both sides because for domestic political reasons they each want greater tension," as Jeremy Shapiro of the European Council on Foreign Relations told the New York Times . This faction might have concluded that the U.S. is run by deranged fanatics, and the best way to protect Iran is to demonstrate they could choke off oil shipping from the Persian Gulf if the U.S. attacks.

This in turn raises the question of the appropriate response if Iran is actually at fault here. It would be one thing if these attacks came out of a clear blue sky. But America is very obviously the aggressor here. Iran was following its side of the nuclear deal to the letter before Trump reneged, and continued to do so as of February . So far the European Union (which is still party to the deal) has been unwilling to sidestep U.S. sanctions, prompting Iran to threaten to restart uranium enrichment . So Iran is a medium-sized country with a faltering economy, hemmed in on all sides by U.S. aggression. Backing off the threats and chest-thumping might easily strengthen the hand of Iranian moderates, and cause them to respond in kind.

On the other hand, sinking Iran's navy, as Stephens suggests in his column, would likely be a lot more dangerous than he thinks. Americans have long been fed a lot of hysterical nationalist propaganda from neocons like him about the invincibility of the U.S. military, and the ease with which any possible threat could be defeated. But while U.S. forces are indeed powerful, there is a very real risk that Iran's navy -- which is full of fast-attack boats, mini-subs, and disguised civilian vessels specifically designed to take out large ships with swarm attacks -- could inflict significant damage. Just a few lucky hits could kill thousands of sailors and cause tens of billions of dollars in damage. This is before you even get to the primary lesson of the Iraq War which is that an initial military victory is completely useless and probably counterproductive without a plan for what comes next.

Taken together, these factors strongly militate towards de-escalation and diplomacy even if Iran did carry out these attacks, which again, is not at all proven. The current standoff is almost entirely our fault, and Iranian forces are far from defenseless. America has a lot better things to do than indulge the deluded jingoist fantasies of a handful of armchair generals who want lots of other people to die in battle.

Finally, attacking Iran would be illegal. It would violate U.S. treaties , and thus the Constitution. The only justification is the claim that the 2001 authorization to attack Al Qaeda covers an attack on Iran . This is utterly preposterous -- akin to arguing it covers attacking New Zealand to roll back their gun control efforts -- but may explain Pompeo's equally preposterous attempt to blame Iran for a Taliban attack in Afghanistan.

Pompeo and Bolton are clearly hell-bent on war. But Trump himself seems somewhat hesitant , sensing (probably accurately) that starting another war of aggression would tank his popularity even further. It's high time for everyone from ordinary citizens up to Nancy Pelosi to demand this rush to war be stopped.

[Jun 19, 2019] Trump has drained the swamp right into his administration

Notable quotes:
"... I suppose we deserve this but it doesn't do well for my blood pressure. ..."
Jun 19, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

ken , Jun 19, 2019 3:57:37 PM | 23

..Trump HAS drained the swamp,,, right into his administration.

Look at what we in the US have to look forward to,,, tyrants on the left,,, tyrants on the right. I suppose we deserve this but it doesn't do well for my blood pressure.

[Jun 19, 2019] Trump MIGA bellicosity: the president said a fight would mean "the official end of Iran"

Neocon donors ask Trump for favors and he can't refuse... Trump foreign policy is a direct continuation of Bush II and Obama foreign policy and is dominated by neocons, who rule the State Department. Pomeo is a rabid neocon, to the right of Condoleezza Rice, Hillary and John Kerry. Actually anti-Iranian and pro-Israeli bias was clearly visible even during 2016 campaign, but few voters paid any attention. Now they should.
It is clear that Trump is the most pro-Israel President after Johnson.
Notable quotes:
"... In contrast, in the Middle East the president has been extraordinarily bellicose. In April, the Administration revoked waivers that allowed certain countries to buy oil from Iran without violating U.S. sanctions [ U.S. Won't Renew Sanction Exemptions For Countries Buying Iran's Oil , by Bill Chappell, NPR, April 22, 2019]. In early May, the president imposed new sanctions on Iranian metals, a direct threat to the regime's economic viability. ..."
"... The "maximum pressure campaign," as it has been called, puts Iran in the position of either accepting a humiliating surrender or striking out where it can [ Maximum pressure on Iran Means Maximum Risk of War , by Ilan Goldenberg, Foreign Policy, June 14, 2019]. ..."
"... Why Iran would do this is questionable, unless it's just a move of desperation. ..."
"... But did Iran actually do it? Washington has a credibility gap with the rest of the world and its own people thanks to the disaster of the Iraq War . There were, it turned out, no "Weapons of Mass Destruction." So now many Americans openly question whether Iran attacked these tankers. This includes some MSM reporters who trusted the "intelligence community" when it was attacking Trump but now want an "international investigation of the incident". [ Ben Rhodes, CNN, And Others Purposefully Fuel Pro-Iranian "False Flag Conspiracy Theories After Tanker Attacks , RedState, June 14, 2019] ..."
Jun 19, 2019 | www.unz.com

The most optimistic explanation: Trump intends to use immigration as an election issue in 2020. Yet his fecklessness in office will be as unappealing to many voters as the Democrats' extremism. [ Trump Is Vulnerable to Biden on Immigration , by Michael Brendan Dougherty, National Review, June 11, 2019] After all, Trump began his campaign vowing to solve the immigration problem almost exactly four years ago -- but essentially nothing has been done.

Instead, the president has been reduced to asking Mexico to solve our problem for us. He supposedly cut a deal with the Mexican government after threatening tariffs , but even that is in dispute. [ Mexico denies Trump's claim of secret concessions in deal , by Jill Colvin, Colleen Long, and Maria Verza, Associated Press, June 10, 2019] The president left powerful negotiating tools on the side, including, most importantly, a remittance tax . As in his dealings with Congress, the president insists on negotiating from weakness in his dealings with Mexico.

In contrast, in the Middle East the president has been extraordinarily bellicose. In April, the Administration revoked waivers that allowed certain countries to buy oil from Iran without violating U.S. sanctions [ U.S. Won't Renew Sanction Exemptions For Countries Buying Iran's Oil , by Bill Chappell, NPR, April 22, 2019]. In early May, the president imposed new sanctions on Iranian metals, a direct threat to the regime's economic viability. [ Trump sanctions Iranian metals, Tehran's largest non-petroleum-related sources of export revenue , by Amanda Macias, CNBC, May 8, 2019]

Later that month, the president said a fight would mean "the official end of Iran" [ Trump threatens Iran With 'Official End' by Kenneth Walsh, US News and World Report, May 20, 2019].

The "maximum pressure campaign," as it has been called, puts Iran in the position of either accepting a humiliating surrender or striking out where it can [ Maximum pressure on Iran Means Maximum Risk of War , by Ilan Goldenberg, Foreign Policy, June 14, 2019].

This has culminated in Iran's alleged attack on two tankers traveling in the Strait of Hormuz. [ Pompeo Says 'There's No Doubt' Iran Attacked 2 Tankers , by Daniella Cheslow, NPR, June 16, 2019] Congressman Adam Schiff, one of the president's most fervent opponents, agrees Iran is to blame [ Schiff agrees with Trump: 'No question' Iran attacked oil tankers , by Ronn Blitzer, Fox News, June 16, 2019], Senator Tom Cotton (who has a relatively strong immigration policy ) has gone so far as to call for direct military action. [ Senator Tom Cotton Calls For 'Retaliatory Military Strike,' Against Iran After Tanker Attacks, by Benjamin Fearnow, Newsweek, June 16, 2019]

Why Iran would do this is questionable, unless it's just a move of desperation.

But did Iran actually do it? Washington has a credibility gap with the rest of the world and its own people thanks to the disaster of the Iraq War . There were, it turned out, no "Weapons of Mass Destruction." So now many Americans openly question whether Iran attacked these tankers. This includes some MSM reporters who trusted the "intelligence community" when it was attacking Trump but now want an "international investigation of the incident". [ Ben Rhodes, CNN, And Others Purposefully Fuel Pro-Iranian "False Flag Conspiracy Theories After Tanker Attacks , RedState, June 14, 2019]

This is not the same country that re-elected George W. Bush in 2004. The trust in institutions is gone; America is war-weary.

And regardless of who did it, who cares? What American interest is at stake? The Iraq War made the region more unstable ; an Iran War would unleash sectarian warfare all over again. [ Attacking Iran Would Unleash Chaos on the Middle East , by Robert Gaines and Scott Horton, National Interest, June 15, 2019]

We can't even say it's "about the oil" -- the United States is now the world's biggest oil producer and may soon be the world's top exporter [ US will soon threaten to topple Saudi Arabia as the world's top oil exporter: IEA by Tom DiChristopher, CNBC, March 11, 2019]. Who cares about Iran's oil?

There is also a deeper fundamental question. Our country is crumbling. The border is non-existent; entire communities are being overrun. There's something perverse about even entertaining a dangerous and costly military intervention halfway around the world. It's akin to a Roman emperor declaring he will conquer India while barbarians are crossing the Rhine.

President Trump ran on a policy of non-intervention and promised it even after being elected. [ Trump lays out non-interventionist U.S. military policy , by Steve Holland, Reuters, December 6, 2016] He repeatedly pushed back against efforts to get more deeply involved in Syria. He must now resist efforts to get involved in Iran, especially from those who may hint it will win him re-election.

[Jun 16, 2019] It's hard to think of a bigger or more shameful betrayal by Arabs by fellow Arabs, or a more stupid policy by the US then Kushner proposals

Jun 16, 2019 | www.strategic-culture.org

And now we wait the all-time bad joke, the so-called 'Deal of the Century,' which Trump and his boys hope will get rich Arabs to buy off poor Palestinians in exchange for giving up lots more land to Israel.

It's hard to think of a bigger or more shameful betrayal by Arabs of fellow Arabs, or a more stupid policy by the US. But, of course, it's not a made-in-the-USA policy at all.

[Jun 16, 2019] Kushner as a Colonial Administrator by Ramzy Baroud

Jun 11, 2019 | dissidentvoice.org

Let's Talk About the "Israeli Model"

In a TV interview on June 2, on the news docuseries "Axios" on the HBO channel, Jared Kushner opened up regarding many issues, in which his 'Deal of the Century' was a prime focus.

The major revelation made by Kushner, President Donald Trump's adviser and son-in-law, was least surprising. Kushner believes that Palestinians are not capable of governing themselves.

Not surprising, because Kushner thinks he is capable of arranging the future of the Palestinian people without the inclusion of the Palestinian leadership. He has been pushing his so-called 'Deal of the Century' relentlessly, while including in his various meets and conferences countries such as Poland, Brazil and Croatia, but not Palestine.

Indeed, this is what transpired at the Warsaw conference on 'peace and security' in the Middle East. The same charade, also led by Kushner, is expected to be rebooted in Bahrain on June 25.

Much has been said about the subtle racism in Kushner's words, reeking with the stench of old colonial discourses where the natives were seen as lesser, incapable of rational thinking beings who needed the civilized 'whites' of the western hemisphere to help them cope with their backwardness and inherent incompetence.

Kushner, whose credentials are merely based on his familial connections to Trump and family friendship with Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is now poised to be the colonial administrator of old, making and enforcing the law while the hapless natives have no other option but to either accommodate or receive their due punishment.

This is not an exaggeration. In fact, according to leaked information concerning Kushner's 'Deal of the Century,' and published in the Israeli daily newspaper, Israel Hayom , if Palestinian groups refuse to accept the US-Israeli diktats, "the US will cancel all financial support to the Palestinians and ensure that no country transfers funds to them."

In the HBO interview, Kushner offered the Palestinians a lifeline. They could be considered capable of governing themselves should they manage to achieve the following: "a fair judicial system freedom of the press, freedom of expression, tolerance for all religions."

The fact that Palestine is an occupied country, subject in every possible way to Israel's military law, and that Israel has never been held accountable for its 52-year occupation seems to be of no relevance whatsoever, as far as Kushner is concerned.

On the contrary, the subtext in all of what Kushner has said in the interview is that Israel is the antithesis to the unquestionable Palestinian failure. Unlike Palestine, Israel needs to do little to demonstrate its ability to be a worthy peace partner.

While the term 'US bias towards Israel' is as old as the state of Israel itself, what is hardly discussed are the specifics of that bias, the decidedly condescending, patronizing and, often, racist view that US political classes have of Palestinians – and all Arabs and Muslims, for that matter; and the utter infatuation with Israel, which is often cited as a model for democracy, judicial transparency and successful 'anti-terror' tactics.

According to Kushner a 'fair judicial system' is a conditio sine qua non to determine a country's ability to govern itself. But is the Israeli judicial system "fair" and "democratic"?

Israel does not have a single judicial system, but two. This duality has, in fact, defined Israeli courts from the very inception of Israel in 1948. This de facto apartheid system openly differentiates between Jews and Arabs, a fact that is true in both civil and criminal law.

"Criminal law is applied separately and unequally in the West Bank, based on nationality alone (Israeli versus Palestinian), inventively weaving its way around the contours of international law in order to preserve and develop its '(illegal Jewish) settlement enterprise'," Israeli scholar, Emily Omer-Man, explained in her essay 'Separate and Unequal'.

In practice, Palestinians and Israelis who commit the exact same crime will be judged according to two different systems, with two different procedures: "The settler will be processed according to the Israeli Penal Code (while) the Palestinian will be processed according to military order."

This unfairness is constituent of a massively unjust judicial apparatus that has defined the Israeli legal system from the onset. Take the measure of administrative detention as an example. Palestinians can be held without trial and without any stated legal justification. Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been subjected to this undemocratic 'law' and hundreds of them are currently held in Israeli jails.

It is ironic that Kushner raised the issue of freedom of the press, in particular, as Israel is being derided for its dismal record in that regard. Israel has reportedly committed 811 violations against Palestinian journalists since the start of the 'March of Return' in Gaza in March 2018. Two journalists – Yaser Murtaja and Ahmed Abu Hussein – were killed and 155 were wounded by Israeli snipers.

Like the imbalanced Israeli judicial system, targeting the press is also a part of a protracted pattern. According to a press release issued by the Palestinian Journalists Union last May, Israel has killed 102 Palestinian journalists since 1972.

The fact that Palestinian intellectuals, poets and activists have been imprisoned for Facebook and other social media posts should tell us volumes about the limits of Israel's freedom of press and expression.

It is also worth mentioning that in June 2018, the Israeli Knesset voted for a bill that prohibits the filming of Israeli soldiers as a way to mask their crimes and shelter them from any future legal accountability.

As for freedom of religion, despite its many shortcomings, the Palestinian Authority hardly discriminates against religious minorities. The same cannot be said about Israel.

Although discrimination against non-Jews in Israel has been the raison d'être of the very idea of Israel, the Nation-State Law of July 2018 further cemented the superiority of the Jews and inferior status of everyone else.

According to the new Basic Law, Israel is "the national home of the Jewish people" only and "the right to exercise national self-determination is unique to the Jewish people."

Palestinians do not need to be lectured on how to meet Israeli and American expectations, nor should they ever aspire to imitate the undemocratic Israeli model. What they urgently need, instead, is international solidarity to help them win the fight against Israeli occupation, racism and apartheid.

Dr. Ramzy Baroud is an author and a journalist. He is athor of The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People's Struggle and his latest My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story . He can be reached at [email protected] . Read other articles by Ramzy , or visit Ramzy's website .

This article was posted on Tuesday, June 11th, 2019 at 11:25pm and is filed under Apartheid , Benjamin Netanyahu , Colonialism , Discrimination , Donald Trump , Ethnic Cleansing , Freedom of Expression/Speech , Hypocrisy , International Law , Israel/Palestine , Jared Kushner , Justice , Land Theft , Media Censorship , Occupation , Political Prisoners , Racism , Resistance , Right of Return , Settler Colonization , Solidarity , United States , US Hypocrisy , US Lies , West Bank , Zionism .

[Jun 15, 2019] Game On Pompeo Blames Iran, Calls Attacks 'Threat to International Peace'

Notable quotes:
"... A few years ago, Sheldon Adelson wanted the US to drop a nuke on Iran. Video below. What Sheldon wants, Trump the errand-boy delivers. The fact that the US public is overwhelmingly against a war with Iran is completely irrelevant. ..."
"... Probably a 50/50 chance it was an American-Saudi-Israel false flag. ..."
"... Just like how the Reichstag Fire took place and by pure happenstance, the Nazis had the Enabling Act all ready to go. ..."
"... If I was a betting man I'd put my money on the "actual" culprits being Mossad, CIA, MI6 or any combination of the three. The Neocons and Zionists in Washington are traitors to our Constitutional Republic! Don't let them drag us into another foreign war for Israel! ..."
"... Remember the USS Liberty! Never Forget! ..."
"... This updated post from "Moon of Alabama" is definitely worth reading: "Today's Attacks On Ships In The Gulf Of Oman Are Not In Iran's Interest – Or Are They? (Updated)": https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/06/todays-attacks-on-ships-in-the-gulf-of-oman-are-not-in-irans-interest.html#more ..."
"... Maybe Colin Powell can come out of retirement and deliver the US/neocon presentation at the UN Security Council: https://www.youtube.com/embed/Rp6WuTSTyS8 ..."
"... The only person whom I can recall endlessly deceiving on this is Benjamin Netanyahu, whom I recall making speech after speech claiming that Iran was just about to have nuclear weapons. He's been doing that for over a decade now. ..."
"... As for incentives/disincentives, Mossad doesn't have much disincentive. If they are caught, they and their friends in the USA will scream 'Fake News!'. ..."
"... Who wants war? Saudis to prop up oil prices and get Iran in trouble? Pompeo because he wants to bring on the Rapture and the return of JC? Donald Trump so he can be a "wartime president" stir up his base and please the military contractor donors? Netanyahu to distract from his corruption charges and weaken Iranian Islamists? Some really stupid underground hardliners in Iran? ..."
"... I forgot one more who wants war: Bolton because he is an immoral idiot who wants to strut. ..."
Jun 15, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Clyde Schechter, says: June 14, 2019 at 4:58 pm

Back in the 1960's as the Cuban missile crisis was brewing, JFK conferred with then French president Charles DeGaulle and offered to show him the reconnaissance pictures showing the Russian missiles in Cuba. DeGaulle is said to have replied "No, I do not need to see pictures. The word of the President of the United States is enough."

It's impossible to imagine anyone saying that today, unless they still believe in the tooth fairy.

David Harrell , says: June 14, 2019 at 9:50 pm
It very well could an act by a state that according to an elite Army warfare college, is "known to disregard international law to accomplish mission" and also a "wildcard. Ruthless and cunning. Has capability to target U.S. forces and make it look like a Palestinian/Arab act."

What state? See "U.S. troops would enforce peace under Army study," Washington Times, September 10, 2001.

Janwaar Bibi , says: June 14, 2019 at 11:11 pm
A few years ago, Sheldon Adelson wanted the US to drop a nuke on Iran. Video below. What Sheldon wants, Trump the errand-boy delivers. The fact that the US public is overwhelmingly against a war with Iran is completely irrelevant.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/6sCW4IasWXc

Sydney , says: June 15, 2019 at 3:02 pm
Yes, Iran is to be blamed! Absolutely true, US President himself said so!

Let's look at some facts and then deductions. So, the US drone was following the Iranian boat. Iranians saw the drone, fired at it and missed. Regardless, they continued their "journey" to the tanker, all the while their supreme leader was trying to persuade Abe to help Iran.

Tump: It was Iran the terrorist nation, not leaders but the nation. Not long ago Trump lauded Iranians as very nice people. If the drone was there, why don't we see the beginning of the boat's journey and then where that boat with the mine went? According to Mr Pompeo and Mr Bolton, the nation of terrorists is not only evil but stupid too. Yet no other actor in the region has the sophistication to perform such an act (that is stupid act) – according to Mr.Pompeo. Hm who else, I wonder would be interested in bringing down Iran? I can't think even of one such actor.

Lily Sandoz , says: June 15, 2019 at 3:08 pm
Lest we forget. Gen. Wesley Clark's revelation. This was first revealed to General Wesley Clark in 1991 by neo-con Paul Wolfowitz. The seven countries which were to be invaded and blessed with regime change were Iraq, Libya, Syria, Lebanon, Somalia, Sudan, and the big prize, Iran with its wealth of resources and potential market of over 70 million persons.This same plan was revealed again to General Clark during a visit to the Pentagon ten days after 9-11, the event that presented the neo-cons, and no doubt others behind the scenes, with their Pearl Harbor, their justification to proceed with the plan, somewhat conveniently. You can see Clark say it in person on YouTube if you don't believe it.
grumpy realist , says: June 13, 2019 at 5:26 pm
The only thing missing is a bunch of Iranian passports "just accidentally found" near the ships with a big floating arrow pointing towards them, just in case we're clueless. If we get dragged into a bunfight with Iran because of this we deserve all the opprobrium anyone hurls at us–if only for our outright stupidity.
cdugga , says: June 13, 2019 at 5:35 pm
Who exactly wants the US to go to war with Iran? Iran?
Whitehead , says: June 13, 2019 at 5:52 pm
""This assessment is based on intelligence [I think we already know what the Saudis and Israelis want us to think], the weapons used [which were what again?], the level of expertise needed to execute the operation [more than what was needed to prove the existence of fake WMDs], recent similar Iranian attacks on shipping ['Iranian attacks' according to who, exactly?], and the fact that no proxy group operating in the area has the resources and proficiency to act with such a high degree of sophistication [so sophisticated there's no evidence they did it]," the Secretary said, without taking questions [or citing proof]"

He doesn't even bother with a Colin Powell style PowerPoint to convince us he believes any of the horsesh!t he's peddling. Real contempt for the American public.

Chris in Appalachia , says: June 13, 2019 at 5:57 pm
Probably a 50/50 chance it was an American-Saudi-Israel false flag.
Marky Mark , says: June 13, 2019 at 6:02 pm
It's always something maritime
USS Maine
The Maddox
Lusitania

Not a lot of witnesses, but heavy on consequences

mark_be , says: June 13, 2019 at 6:02 pm
Let's quote that fellow with the little moustache, shortly before he ordered the invasion of Poland: "I will provide a propagandistic casus belli. Its credibility doesn't matter. The victor will not be asked whether he told the truth." To think that the only obstacle between peace and war is a president too stupid to understand that he brought this on himself.
EarlyBird , says: June 13, 2019 at 6:20 pm
It's very sad that I trust the word of the Ayatollah Khameni more than the President of the United States or any of his spokesman. The proxy which had the weapons, level of expertise needed to execute the operation, resources and proficiency to act with such a high degree of sophistication is called the Central Intelligence Agency.
Kirt Higdon , says: June 13, 2019 at 6:32 pm
Reeks of false flag pretense by the neo-cons for war! Betting the US, Saudis or Israelis are responsible for this – perhaps all of them.
Sid Finster , says: June 13, 2019 at 6:37 pm
How utterly convenient! Abe is meeting with the Iranian leadership, what better time to attack Japanese tankers (what better time for Saudi Arabia, Israel and the neocons, that is)? Not 24 hours go by after the supposed attack and Pompeo already knows who did it and has a response ready. Why, it's almost like his mind were already made up! (But when it comes to, say, that Saudi prince who chops up journalists, it seems that we can never ever ever really know what happened!)

Just like how the Reichstag Fire took place and by pure happenstance, the Nazis had the Enabling Act all ready to go.

Sarcasm aside, everyone knows that Pompeo is lying, looking for an excuse to escalate tensions. The question is whether anyone will do anything about it.

Whine Merchant , says: June 13, 2019 at 6:44 pm
Jarred says that Bibi swears it wasn't Mossad, and Pompeo knows the pecking order in the White House, so he parrots the party line.
JEinCA , says: June 13, 2019 at 6:51 pm
If I was a betting man I'd put my money on the "actual" culprits being Mossad, CIA, MI6 or any combination of the three. The Neocons and Zionists in Washington are traitors to our Constitutional Republic! Don't let them drag us into another foreign war for Israel!

Remember the USS Liberty! Never Forget!

Gene Smolko , says: June 13, 2019 at 7:05 pm
Anyone believe this warmongering liar?
Krishnan Venkatram , says: June 13, 2019 at 7:09 pm
It is not unreasonable to smell a Bolton/MEK sized rat in this
dstraws , says: June 13, 2019 at 7:27 pm
And so it begins. An unwarranted accusation by a war-hawk, surprise.. surprise.
Myron K Hudson , says: June 13, 2019 at 7:28 pm
This is stupid and reckless enough to be the work of Saudi Arabia. Or Bolton and Pompeo.
Kurt Gayle , says: June 13, 2019 at 8:42 pm
Jason Ditz, the News Editor at Antiwar.com reports: "Pompeo's declaration of Iran's guilt was based chiefly on similar incidents happening in mid-May. John Bolton and Pompeo blamed Iran then, and since this was the same sort of thing, they blame Iran now. The problem is, they have offered no evidence Iran was responsible for the first incidents, let alone today's, and are just tying them all together. Pompeo rattled off a list of things to blame Iran for, including multiple incidents that were done by Yemen's Houthis, a rocket fired in Iraq that was never convincingly blamed on anyone, and an Afghanistan bombing that clearly was nothing to do with Iran at all."

Jason Ditz goes on to report: "The big questions are, as always, motive. Iran has no conceivable reason to attack such ships. In this case, one of the ships is even Japanese-owned. Japan is a very important trading partner of Iran, and Japan's prime minister Abe Shinzo is visiting Iran right now, trying to reduce tensions. Abe has also declared Iran to have no intention to make nuclear arms. This would be a preposterous move for Iran to even consider. Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif declared that 'suspicious doesn't begin to describe' what happened, noting that the attacks were timed to when Japanese PM Abe Shinzo was meeting with Iran's Supreme Leader. Abe's meeting was also a subject of Pompeo's comments, as Pompeo falsely accused Ayatollah Ali Khamenei of having refused the meeting with Abe. In reality, the meeting took place, and Khamenei simply rejected a proposal to trade messages with President Trump. Pompeo went on to declare the attack on a Japanese ship during Abe's Iran visit as an Iranian 'insult to Japan.' This all rests on the US assumption of Iran's guilt, and as Zarif points out, makes the attack look suspiciously like it might have been carried out for the benefit of the anti-Iran narrative. "

https://news.antiwar.com/2019/06/13/two-tankers-attacked-in-gulf-of-oman/

Janwaar Bibi , says: June 13, 2019 at 9:01 pm
I read somewhere that the Iranians used weapons of mass destruction given to them by Saddam to attack the USS Maine in the Gulf of Tonkin, taking American lives on American soil.
Myx , says: June 13, 2019 at 9:15 pm
What was that headline in the Onion? "An attack on Japanese oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman is an attack on America itself?"
Inspector General , says: June 13, 2019 at 9:20 pm
Odd that just yesterday I watched the video entitled, "Debunking a Century of War Lies."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yw0-ASR4sr8

I had forgotten that basically all wars are "protected by a bodyguard of lies," according to the video. Most poignant to me was the Iraqi woman pleading to Congress about Sadam Hussein's destruction of incubators, which George HW Bush later referenced as the "babies strewn about the floor like firewood." Except it was all fabricated by a PR firm!

Ken T , says: June 13, 2019 at 9:52 pm
cui bono ?

Is anyone really that delusional to believe that Iran is going to attack a Japanese tanker while the Japanese PM is meeting with the Ayatollah? The ONLY explanation that makes sense is that it was planned in the White House by Pompeo and Bolton. Whether it was with or without Trump's knowledge and approval is irrelevant. P & B have been openly salivating for any excuse to start a war with Iran, and Trump has given them free rein. It is a war crime, and all three are guilty.

PAX , says: June 14, 2019 at 12:09 am
The USS Liberty is spot on. That was our Versailles Treaty and Johnson ceded much of our foreign policy and intelligence to Israel – we capitulated and have continued to capitulate to Israel. Things are looking grim and look like a repeat of Iraq. What can stop this momentum to war?
Iron Felix , says: June 14, 2019 at 12:10 am
Well, it seems that just about 100% of those who comment here have this figured out. Once these things were a bit more sophisticated, but now the Empire doesn't seem to care if its schemes are blatantly transparent.

Abe has been closely consulting with Trump and the Iranians as a go-between to create the conditions which can allow Trump to save face now that Bolton's and Pompeo's campaign against Iran is a big fat failure.

It is clear who hopes to gain by this little stunt, which will not go anywhere. Abe is certainly not going to be fooled by any of this. Don't expect the WaPo or the NYT to expose this obvious false flag.

Jiyushugi , says: June 14, 2019 at 12:47 am
What a shame that more Americans haven't read 'The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich', by William L. Shirer ..
Daath , says: June 14, 2019 at 2:08 am
Iran is a rather divided country, and some groups regard USA with as much hatred and suspicion as the neocons hold towards them. The responsible party might have been IRGC, intending to raise tensions enough to make their government's current fence-straddling act unviable and force them to scrap the JCPA.

I'd try to avoid the logic that it must have been Saudis/Israel/USA, because if it was Iran, the likes of Bolton would somehow be in the right. They're not. So far, Iran hasn't been the one responsible for the vast majority of provocations, and even if it elements on their side were did this, the chickenhawks running USA's national security won't bother to secure proof before escalating. It's not a secret that they want war and aren't particularly picky about how they get it.

Brian Villanueva , says: June 14, 2019 at 2:15 am
Saudi Arabia. The other agencies speculated here are off the mark: Israel would fear getting caught, CIA leaks like a sieve, MI6 has no incentive. But the Saudis? They have the combination of economic incentives, religious hatred, technical knowledge, advanced (American) weaponry, and who-gives-a-crap-if-we-get-caught attitude.
Deacon Blue , says: June 14, 2019 at 3:19 am
In these matters, I know who NOT to believe.
HenionJD , says: June 14, 2019 at 7:14 am
And I have a bridge to sell y'all.
Kent , says: June 14, 2019 at 8:50 am
Results:

1. US attacks Iran on false pretenses and the world knows it.

2. Iran destroys shipping through the Straits of Hormuz.

3. Gasoline goes to $10/gallon, if you can find it.

4. The world's economy collapses, with international debt collapse and a global run on banks.

5. Unemployment goes to 25% and prices go through the roof as the dollar collapses in value and the US can't afford to import Chinese products.

6. Bernie Sanders is elected president, and the US becomes a democratic socialist state.

Way to go there Donnie.

Kurt Gayle , says: June 14, 2019 at 8:52 am
This updated post from "Moon of Alabama" is definitely worth reading: "Today's Attacks On Ships In The Gulf Of Oman Are Not In Iran's Interest – Or Are They? (Updated)": https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/06/todays-attacks-on-ships-in-the-gulf-of-oman-are-not-in-irans-interest.html#more
Sam , says: June 14, 2019 at 8:53 am
Given Iran's history of endless deception in their nuclear weapons development program, might all these suggestions of these attacks being an American fabrication be a bit premature? How about even a tiny bit of objectivity? Or did Larsen write all these comments? (:
TheSnark , says: June 14, 2019 at 9:02 am
I have a question about the video footage supposedly showing Iranians removing a mine from a tanker. The quality of the picture is no better than that we saw back in the 1965 Tonkin Gulf incident, when N Vietnamese boats allegedly attacked a US Navy ship. But that was 54 years ago. In video technology today 1080p is a standard resolution, 4k is pretty common. Why is the US Navy still showing something that looks like it came from my Dad's 8mm home movie set-up?
Kurt Gayle , says: June 14, 2019 at 9:55 am
Maybe Colin Powell can come out of retirement and deliver the US/neocon presentation at the UN Security Council: https://www.youtube.com/embed/Rp6WuTSTyS8
FJR - Atlanta , says: June 14, 2019 at 9:58 am
Even Jesse Smollett isn't buying this.
Sid Finster , says: June 14, 2019 at 10:23 am
Sam wrote:

"Given Iran's history of endless deception in their nuclear weapons development program, might all these suggestions of these attacks being an American fabrication be a bit premature? How about even a tiny bit of objectivity? Or did Larsen write all these comments? (:"

What "history of endless deception"? Every third party has confirmed that Iran has complied strictly with the JCPOA.

The United States, on the other hand, has a long track record of blatant lies to get the wars it seeks ..

Sid Finster , says: June 14, 2019 at 10:24 am
@The Snark:

To quote myself, sorry "how utterly convenient!" Haven't we been reading a lot about deepfakes lately?

Mark B. , says: June 14, 2019 at 10:46 am
@ Kent

Exactly what I am hoping for IF the US attacks Iran. All depends on the Iranian capabilities to cripple the flow of oil from the ME. So I say: Go Iran, make us pay! And don't forget to throw some missiles on the royal Saudi palace and Riyad. Make that a few dozen. Or hundred.

Barry , says: June 14, 2019 at 11:00 am
Sam

"Given Iran's history of endless deception in their nuclear weapons development program, might all these suggestions of these attacks being an American fabrication be a bit premature? How about even a tiny bit of objectivity? Or did Larsen write all these comments? (:"

The only person whom I can recall endlessly deceiving on this is Benjamin Netanyahu, whom I recall making speech after speech claiming that Iran was just about to have nuclear weapons. He's been doing that for over a decade now.

As for incentives/disincentives, Mossad doesn't have much disincentive. If they are caught, they and their friends in the USA will scream 'Fake News!'.

Mr. Bone Saw has got to be extremely cocky now.

And both of them could reasonably expect that if they succeed in triggering a US-Iran war, that even later exposure wouldn't matter.

Kurt Gayle , says: June 14, 2019 at 11:02 am
Yesterday (June 13th) Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii), a Democratic candidate for President in 2020, was interviewed by the Washington Post's Robert Costa. Here (at 23:58-28:06) is a brief excerpt of Rep. Gabbard's excellent views on US Iran policy:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/W0KGWFA_idU

Zgler , says: June 14, 2019 at 11:41 am
Who wants war? Saudis to prop up oil prices and get Iran in trouble? Pompeo because he wants to bring on the Rapture and the return of JC? Donald Trump so he can be a "wartime president" stir up his base and please the military contractor donors? Netanyahu to distract from his corruption charges and weaken Iranian Islamists? Some really stupid underground hardliners in Iran?

There are some plausible choices but none of them is the Iranian government.

Zgler , says: June 14, 2019 at 11:43 am
I forgot one more who wants war: Bolton because he is an immoral idiot who wants to strut.
DennisW , says: June 14, 2019 at 11:52 am
I frankly just don't believe anything coming form the US government anymore, especially warmongering neo-cons in charge of foreign policy, the Pentagon, and Deep State actors.

What on earth would Iran have to gain from attacking a Japanese oil tanker while their leader is meeting with the Japanese PM? More likely a false-flag CIA operation.

JeffK , says: June 14, 2019 at 12:00 pm
@TheSnark
June 14, 2019 at 9:02 am

"I have a question about the video footage supposedly showing Iranians removing a mine from a tanker. The quality of the picture is no better than that we saw back in the 1965 Tonkin Gulf incident, when N Vietnamese boats allegedly attacked a US Navy ship. But that was 54 years ago. In video technology today 1080p is a standard resolution, 4k is pretty common. Why is the US Navy still showing something that looks like it came from my Dad's 8mm home movie set-up?"

100%. When I heard on the news this morning that there was video showing Iranians, I thought "They have them". Then I saw the video. Now I call BS.

The Dean , says: June 14, 2019 at 12:22 pm
Are these the same guys that provided the irrefutable "evidence" of weapons of mass destruction in Iran?
I am sure that since the Mossad provides us with intelligence in that area of the world, they are completely objective, and have the best interest of the American military at heart.
Taras 77 , says: June 14, 2019 at 12:26 pm
@Snark: I tend to agree that the video raises more questions: -what would be the purpose of a mine above the water line?
-why does it take a group of 10-20 people milling about on the bow to remove a mine?
-does 10-20 people really indicate a clandestine effort to remove a mine, more like a clusterf____?

As OffGuardian remarked, does the deep state (cia,mi6,mossad) really think we are that stupid?

Sydney , says: June 14, 2019 at 1:06 pm
Why would Iranians attack their own interests? Because they are "evil". Let's see: Front Altair is owned by John Frederiksen, the owner of the Frontline Tanker company, who moved Iranian oil for nearly 40 years including during the "tanker war" with Iraq siding with Iran. Mr Federiksen was called Khomeini's blood life.
What about the Japanese tanker? While the Supreme Leader of Iran was working on Abe to help Iran?
Who's evil, who's stupid?
balconesfault , says: June 14, 2019 at 1:21 pm
James Fallows
@JamesFallows
Here is the problem with running the kind of govt the US has recently:

When you ask people to *believe* you, or give your "assessments" the benefit of the doubt, there is no reason that they should.

Kurt Gayle , says: June 14, 2019 at 2:06 pm
"Outrage on Capitol Hill over 'completely unacceptable' US-funded scheme to shape Iran debate," The Independent, Wednesday, June 12, 2019:

"United States officials say they are outraged by a government-funded troll campaign that has targeted American citizens critical of the administration's hardline Iran policy and accused critics of being loyal to the Tehran regime. State Department officials admitted to Congressional staff in a closed-door meeting on Monday that a project they had funded to counter Iranian propaganda had gone off the rails. Critics in Washington have gone further, saying that the programme resembled the type of troll farms used by autocratic regimes abroad. 'It's completely unacceptable that American taxpayer dollars supported a project that attacked Americans and others who are critical of the Trump administration's policy of escalation and conflict with Iran,' a senior Congressional aide told The Independent, on condition of anonymity. 'This is something that happens in authoritarian regimes, not democracies'."

The Independent article by Negar Mortazavi and Borzou Baragahi continues: "One woman behind the harassment campaign, a longtime Iranian-American activist, has received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the State Department over the years to promote 'freedom of expression and free access to information.' The campaign relentlessly attacked critics of the Iran policy on social media, including Twitter and Telegram messaging app, accusing them without evidence of being paid operatives of the regime in Tehran. A spokeswoman for the State Department told reporters on Monday that funding for the 'Iran Disinformation Project' had been suspended and is under review after it was reported that it went beyond the scope of its mandate by veering from countering propaganda from Iran to smearing domestic critics of White House policy. State Department officials disclosed to lawmakers they had granted $1.5 million for Iran Disinfo, which repeatedly targeted, harassed and smeared critics of Trump's tough stance against Iran on social media.

The Independent article noted: "Among those targeted were American activists, scholars, and journalists who challenged the Trump administration's 'maximum pressure campaign' against Iran. The revelation that US taxpayer money was being used to attack administration critics has now sparked a flurry of queries. 'There are still so many unanswered questions here,' Congresswoman Ilhan Omar wrote on Twitter. 'What rules are in place to prevent state-funded organisation from smearing American citizens? If there wasn't public outcry, would the Administration have suspended funding for Iran Disinfo?' Cold War-era US rules barring the use of government-funded propaganda against American citizens have been flouted for decades State Department officials speaking at the closed-door meeting admitted the project was out of bounds, according to Congressional staffers speaking to The Independent on condition of anonymity. Both Democratic and Republican Congressional staffers were highly critical of the project and questioned whether US officials should continue to work with the contractor, E-Collaborative for Civic Education. The State Department spokeswoman declined to outline steps to prevent such an operation in the future E-Collaborative for Civic Education, co-founded by Iranian American activist Mariam Memarsadeghi, is a long-time State Department contractor "

Foundation for Defence of Democracies and MEK involved in creating fake articles. The Independent continues:

"Congressional officials also confirmed to The Independent that one individual working for the Foundation for Defence of Democracies, an influential Washington organisation with hawkish views on Iran, is part of the E-Collaborative for Civic Education's Iran Disinformation Project Over the weekend, The Intercept revealed that a purported Iranian activist, who had published dozens of articles on Iran in prominent outlets such as Forbes and The Hill, does not exist and is a fake persona run by a team of operatives connected to a bizarre Iranian political cult. The "Heshmat Alavi" persona had a strong presence on Twitter and harassed Iranian journalists, academics, and activists who are critical of the Mujahedin-e-Khalq organisation, a one-time armed guerilla group now holed up in Albania. There is no known link between the Iran Disinfo programme and the fake persona. At least one was cited by the Trump administration as proof against the effectiveness of the Obama-era nuclear deal. Some of the MEK articles were also picked up by US government funded Voice of America's Persian-language service "

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/us-iran-congress-meeting-money-trump-conflict-a8954191.html

Kolya Krassotkin , says: June 14, 2019 at 2:06 pm
Let's not forget the lies our great-grandparents were told to inveigle us into WWI: "German troops are raping Belgian nuns" and "German troops are using Belgian babies for bayonet practice."

100 years from now a future historian, (probably Russian or Chinese), writing about the collapse of the US, will chronicle how the Americans gullibly believed the war propagandists asserting that Iran fired on oil tankers, which belonged to it trading partner, with the same sense of disbelief we now feel upon reading of the crazy assertions made about German troops.

Un Citoyen , says: June 14, 2019 at 3:10 pm
The Japanese ship's captain came out today and said that there was no way the ship was hit by a mine as US claimed, it was hit above sea level and sailors saw something hitting the vessel, like a torpedo.

Why on earth would Iran want to bomb a Japanese ship in the middle of a visit by the Japanese PM?

This whole thing stinks to high heaven.

The US under the rule of the neocons in the Trump admin, the Pence-Pompeo-Bolton trifecta, is a menace and a danger to the whole world. From Iran to Venezuela, Ukraine to North Korea, China to Russia, there isn't a country these neocon stooges don't want to pick a quarrel with. America has become the greatest threat to world peace.

pax , says: June 14, 2019 at 3:13 pm
Sam – When was the last time Iran invaded another country? Why is Israel pushing so hard for us to fight yet another war on their behalf. As Ron Paul said – if they want to fight Iran – let them, but we must stand aside as they duke it out. Israel has created enough Gold Star mothers in the US. Time to do their own fighting. Larsen and Giraldi make a lot of sense.

[Jun 10, 2019] Pompeo s promise to intervene against Corbyn should surprise no one by Catte Black

Jun 10, 2019 | off-guardian.org

alt media-verse is currently on fire with the news that the US State Dept's answer to Al Capone, Mike Pompeo, has been caught promising "Jewish leaders" to send the boys round to Jeremy Corbyn if he should get elected and subsequently prove to be uppity and out of line. According to the WaPo , who broke the story:

The remarks, which are contained in audio of a private meeting leaked to The Washington Post, make Pompeo the second senior U.S. official to comment on Britain's turbulent leadership succession in the past week.

During his meeting with Jewish leaders in New York, Pompeo was asked if Corbyn "is elected, would you be willing to work with us to take on actions if life becomes very difficult for Jews in the U.K.?"

In response, Pompeo said, "It could be that Mr. Corbyn manages to run the gantlet and get elected. It's possible. You should know, we won't wait for him to do those things to begin to push back. We will do our level best," he said to fervent applause from attendees.

"It's too risky and too important and too hard once it's already happened," he said.

Of course the idea the "Jewish leaders" harbor any real fear that Jeremy Corbyn (Jeremy Corbyn!) is going to make life "difficult" for British Jews if elected is simply risible. They know, just as every moderately informed person knows, that that's absurd. They know Corbyn has no wish to make life difficult for anybody – except possibly the uber wealthy and the profiteer class.

They know the "antisemitism" fear is just a cover for the very very real fear that a Corbyn government will break the unwritten rules of modern western governance and reject the agenda of austerity, exploitation and perpetual war that has been creating huge profits and ideological thrills for the blessed few over the last twenty years.

They know that what Pompeo is promising is action to prevent this possibility coming about.

People are up in arms about this, and some seem quite shocked. Apparently the idea the neoliberal elites would try regime change or regime-control on a relatively prosperous western country was something they didn't previously think possible.

Unfortunately it's more than possible. The state apparatus of the different western nations are a tight bond of mutual regard and interest, just as likely to foment regime change on their own or their allies' elected representatives as on those of impoverished or "developing" countries, if they believe those representatives threaten the perceived interests of the state. Of course it isn't too often necessary, since the same western state apparatus also works to ensure that only governments that don't threaten perceived state interests manage to get elected. But, when the unthinkable happens, MI5 and the CIA are quite happy to step up to the plate and throw their own or their allies' democratic governments out the window. It's happened – or nearly happened – at least twice in the last fifty years.

In the 1960s the UK security agencies, senior military and members of the royal family were apparently contemplating a fullblown coup against Labour prime minister Harold Wilson.

In 1975 it was Australia's turn , when democratically elected reforming prime minister Gough Whitlam was overthrown in a bloodless constitutional coup organised jointly by the US and UK .

The old empire and the new have form in this regard, and this means no one should take Pompeo's words (spoken in private let's not forget) lightly.

It's also interesting to look at how the WaPo frames the revelation. There's no sense of outrage or surprise there. In fact it's an almost matter-of-fact piece, written with no awareness of its potential impact. Even those in the comments who object in some form are mostly doing it within the permissible current language of dissent – blaming Trump , because in these identity politics-saturated times, your morality resides in who or what you are NOT in what you do.

To the WaPo – and many of its readers – there's nothing intrinsically either wrong or surprising in the idea a US secretary of state should be overtly promising to interfere in the democratic governance of another country.

It's just what they do when they need to.

Barovsky

See Caitlin Johnson’s piece: https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/06/10/uh-what-did-pompeo-mean-when-he-vowed-to-push-back-against-corbyn/

[Jun 10, 2019] Company part-owned by Jared Kushner got $90m from unknown offshore investors since 2017 by Jon Swaine

Notable quotes:
"... Kushner was initially denied a security clearance by career officials when he joined Trump's administration. A whistleblower has told Congress it was blocked due to concerns about Kushner's outside business interests and "foreign influence". Kushner was later granted a clearance, allegedly after a Trump appointee intervened. ..."
"... Richard Painter, a former ethics lawyer in Bush's administration who ran for the Democratic US Senate nomination in Minnesota last year, said he was troubled by the lack of disclosure around some of Cadre's funding. "The problem with Kushner – and with Trump – is that we have all these corporate entities, and often nobody knows who is invested in them and where those investors borrowed their money. We simply have no idea," said Painter. ..."
Jun 10, 2019 | www.theguardian.com
Overseas investment flowed to Cadre while Trump's son-in-law works as US envoy, raising conflict of interest questions

in New York

Jared Kushner, who is married to Donald Trump's elder daughter Ivanka, kept a stake in Cadre after joining the administration. Photograph: Joshua Roberts/Reuters A real estate company part-owned by Jared Kushner has received $90m in foreign funding from an opaque offshore vehicle since he entered the White House as a senior adviser to his father-in-law Donald Trump.

Investment has flowed from overseas to the company, Cadre, while Kushner works as an international envoy for the US, according to corporate filings and interviews. The money came through a vehicle run by Goldman Sachs in the Cayman Islands , a tax haven that guarantees corporate secrecy.

Kushner, who is married to Trump's elder daughter Ivanka, kept a stake in Cadre after joining the administration, while selling other assets. His holding is now valued at up to $50m, according to his financial disclosure documents.

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Cadre's foreign funding could create hidden conflicts of interest for Kushner as he performs his work for the US government, according to some ethics experts, who raised concerns over the lack of transparency around the investments.

"It will cause people to wonder whether he is being improperly influenced," said Jessica Tillipman, a lecturer at George Washington University law school, who teaches government ethics and anti-corruption laws.

Kushner resigned from Cadre's board and reduced his ownership stake to less than 25% after he joined the White House, according to his attorneys. He failed to list Cadre on his first ethics disclosure, later adding the company and saying the omission was inadvertent. Cadre says he is not actively involved in the company's operations.

The names of the foreigners investing in Cadre via Goldman Sachs are not disclosed by the companies, which are not required to make the information public. Two sources familiar with the firm said much of the money came to the Cayman Islands vehicle from a second offshore tax haven, while some came from Saudi Arabia.

Kushner was initially denied a security clearance by career officials when he joined Trump's administration. A whistleblower has told Congress it was blocked due to concerns about Kushner's outside business interests and "foreign influence". Kushner was later granted a clearance, allegedly after a Trump appointee intervened.

The White House and Abbe Lowell, an attorney for Kushner, did not respond to questions about the foreign investors and Kushner's stake in Cadre.

A spokesman for Cadre declined to comment on the record. A spokesman for Goldman Sachs, Patrick Scanlan, said: "Cadre does not have access to any information about the Goldman Sachs clients who have invested in these vehicles."

Cadre was founded in 2014 by Kushner, his brother Joshua and their friend Ryan Williams, who previously worked for Goldman Sachs. The company operates from a building in Manhattan owned by the Kushner family's real estate corporation.

The company styles itself as an online marketplace where investors can come together to buy property. But it has also built a real estate investment fund, now worth more than half a billion dollars, that is used to buy properties across the US. The fund's value has risen fivefold since 2017, when Kushner was appointed a White House adviser, following earlier slower growth.

The offshore Goldman Sachs vehicle began collecting funds for Cadre in August 2017, according to a securities filing . The bank announced in January last year that it had struck a deal for clients to invest up to $250m in total with Cadre.

The vehicle is managed by accountants in the Cayman Islands and is owned by another offshore Goldman Sachs entity. The arrangement is legal. Offshore jurisdictions have come under increased scrutiny in recent years from international authorities concerned about their secrecy.

Funding from the Cayman Islands vehicle goes into Cadre's real estate purchases in the US, according to sources familiar with the company's work. Cadre charges an annual fee and takes a cut of profits made from the properties.

This funding is separate from ownership stakes in Cadre itself bought by venture capitalists in Silicon Valley and foreign billionaires, including the Chinese technology tycoon Jack Ma and the Russian investor Yuri Milner. Cadre last year held talks with a fund backed by money from the Saudi Arabian government, but no deal was done.

Trump and several members of his administration, including Kushner, have bucked precedent by retaining business interests after entering the government. George W Bush and Bill Clinton moved their wealth into "blind trusts", while Barack Obama had few assets beyond savings accounts and investments in index funds.

Richard Painter, a former ethics lawyer in Bush's administration who ran for the Democratic US Senate nomination in Minnesota last year, said he was troubled by the lack of disclosure around some of Cadre's funding. "The problem with Kushner – and with Trump – is that we have all these corporate entities, and often nobody knows who is invested in them and where those investors borrowed their money. We simply have no idea," said Painter.

Government officials are barred by law from being involved "personally and substantially" in actions that benefit them financially, and are obliged to ensure they do not create an appearance of bias.

Kushner says he has excluded himself from government policy on real estate. A footnote to his financial disclosure form said he was recused from "particular matters in the broker-dealer, real estate, and online financial services sectors to the extent they would have a direct and predictable effect on Cadre".

The conflict of interest law treats spouses' financial interests as combined. Ivanka Trump has been credited by Trump with advocating for an administration policy that promises to be lucrative for real estate developers and investors. She denies any impropriety.

Kushner's own recusal on real estate matters in front of the government would not in itself prevent him from taking actions in other policy areas that could entice foreign investors to Cadre.

In all, Cadre's investment arm manages more than $522m in assets, according to its latest filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission, which was submitted at the end of March.

Kushner has had financial ties to several different countries. His family's single most expensive purchase, a skyscraper on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue, was last year refinanced by a fund backed by the Qatari government. In an article for the Washington Post defending the family's businesses, Kushner's father, Charles, said foreign investments were "a legal and appropriate stream of funding".

As Trump's special representative in the Middle East, Kushner has developed a close relationship with Saudi Arabian officials, particularly the crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman. Cadre says it does not have any sovereign wealth funds among its investors.

Sources familiar with Cadre's setup said a small amount of money in the Goldman-Cadre vehicle, estimated at about $1m, came from Saudi Arabia. Other funding arrived through vehicles based in the British Virgin Islands, adding another layer of offshore secrecy to its origins.

Virginia Canter, the chief ethics counsel at the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said the opaque investments in Cadre would continue raising concerns as Kushner carried out his government duties.

"It was one of the only assets that Kushner retained and it continues to collect foreign investors without transparency," said Canter, a former White House attorney for Obama and Clinton.

Kushner owns a stake worth between $25m and $50m in a "holding company for" Cadre, according to his most recent financial disclosure form, which he filed in May 2018. Kushner and his wife estimate their total wealth at between $235m and $812m.

Cadre was one of dozens of holdings added to a revised version of Kushner's 2017 financial disclosure form that corrected his original filing.

Williams, Cadre's chief executive, has said the firm is "democratizing" real estate investment. The small print of its website says its offerings are intended only for people who earn at least $200,000 a year or have a net worth of $1m excluding the value of their home. The company requires a minimum investment of $50,000.

Cadre recently announced plans to raise multimillion-dollar funds to invest in real estate developments in parts of the US covered by the Trump administration's "opportunity zones" program, which offers valuable tax breaks to developers and investors.

The program was championed by Ivanka Trump, according to her father, who said at the White House that Ivanka had been "pushing this very hard". The remarks raised allegations that policy she worked on could benefit her husband financially. She has denied any impropriety.

[Jun 08, 2019] Trump has gathered the US Jewish vultures to handle his "deal of the century'

Jun 08, 2019 | www.unz.com

renfro , says: June 7, 2019 at 1:56 am GMT

I had concerns about her ties to India and therefore Israel. But I doubt she would let Jews or Israelis run the US like Trump does.

Trump has gathered the US Jewish vultures to handle his "deal of the century' ..and that deal will be raping Palestine and as much of the ME as they can. Given the opportunity I don't know whose throat I'd cut first probably the little girlie fop Kushner.

White House invites key Trump business allies to Bahrain forum in search for a Middle East 'deal of the century' .. CNBC

[MORE]

The White House has invited some of President Trump's key business allies to an event in Bahrain intended to kick-start the administration's long-awaited Middle East peace plan. The Bahrain meeting will focus on the economic part of the "deal of the century," which has been led by Jared Kushner. Tom Barrack, CEO of real estate investment firm Colony Capital, will be heading to the event. Blackstone's Steve Schwarzman, BlackRock's Larry Fink and Goldman Sachs' Dina Powell were also invited.

Tom Barrack, a loyal supporter of the president and the CEO of real estate investment firm Colony Capital, will be heading to the event slated to start on June 25 at the Four Seasons in Bahrain's capital, Manama.

"Tom is pleased to be a participant in a well organized forum for the purpose of advancing the peace process in the Middle East," said his spokesman, Owen Blicksilver. "He has been a lifelong advocate of economic prosperity being a foundation stone of hope for the entire region especially its exploding young and largely unemployed population."

Blackstone CEO Steve Schwarzman, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink and Goldman Sachs' Dina Powell are among the heavy hitters who have been invited to the gathering dubbed "Peace to Prosperity," according to people familiar with the planning.

Schwarzman is likely to attend, one of the people said, while Fink will not be going due to previous commitments, a separate source added. It's unclear whether Powell, a former deputy national security advisor under Trump, will join the group.

Schwarzman is a top donor to Trump's reelection campaign. In 2017, he contributed $344,400 Trump's joint fundraising committee.
Blackstone, BlackRock and Goldman Sachs all have extensive ties to the Middle East, including offices in Dubai, Riyadh and Tel-Aviv.
A senior administration official did not deny that Schwarzman, Fink and Powell were invited to the forum.

The Trump White House and its associates have close ties to Bahrain. Reuters previously reported that the administration was pursuing a nearly $5 billion sale of F-16 fighter jets to island nation in the Gulf. The president's outside lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, landed a security consulting contract with the country's Ministry of Interior, The Daily Beast reported.

A team of White House officials led by Kushner has been attempting to bring Israeli and Palestinian leaders to the negotiating table since the administration's earliest days. Last month, the White House announced the Bahrain summit, which was described at the time as a chance for attendees to "galvanize support for potential economic investments and initiatives that could be made possible by a peace agreement," with a particular focus on Palestinians.

Meanwhile, Palestinian business executives are turning down invitations to the event, which Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has ripped.

"Trump's 'deal of the century' will go to hell, as will the economic workshop in Bahrain that the Americans intend to hold and present illusions," Abbas said last week.

Kushner, in a recent interview with Axios, fired back at the Palestinian government, and blamed the leadership for the loss of U.S. aid that was cut from the West Bank and Gaza.

"The actions we've taken were because America's aid is not entitlement. Right, if we make certain decisions which we're allowed to as a sovereign nation to respect the rights of another sovereign nation and we get criticized by that government, the response of this president is not to say, 'Oh, let me give you more aid,'" Kushner said.

Representatives from wealthy Gulf states the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia will be attending. Officials from Qatar are set to take part as well.

Barrack, who was the chairman of Trump's inaugural committee and is a grandson of Lebanese immigrants, has a long history of attempting to make inroads in the Middle East, particularly through advocating for business investments.

While Barrack is not running point on the Trump administration's efforts, he is still deeply involved in the process. He authored a white paper for the administration titled "The Trump Middle East Marshall Plan," which specifically mentions expanding U.S. and international business opportunities there as a way to unite the region.

[Jun 05, 2019] US Threatens Europe With Loss Of Access To US Financial System Over SWIFT-Evading Iran SPV

Notable quotes:
"... Trump administration is escalating its battle with "European allies" over the fate of the Iran nuclear accord, and is "threatening penalties against the financial body created by Germany, the U.K. and France to shield trade with the Islamic Republic from U.S. sanctions. " ..."
"... While it is obvious that the US ire was sparked by the realization - and alarm - that cracks are appearing in the dollar's reserve status, opponents of Instex argue - at least for public consumption purposes - that the mechanism is flawed because the Iranian institution designated to work with Instex, the Special Trade and Finance Instrument, has shareholders with links to entities already facing sanctions from the U.S ..."
"... "When transactions move beyond that, it doesn't matter what vehicle's out there, if the transaction is sanctionable, we will evaluate it, review it, and if appropriate, levy sanctions against those that were involved in that transaction," Pompeo said. "It's very straightforward." ..."
"... In 2018, Europe made a huge stink about not being bound by Trump's unilateral breach of the Iranian deal, and said it would continue regardless of US threats. But now that the threats have clearly escalated, and Washington has made it clear it won't take no for an answer, it will be interesting to see if Europe's resolve to take on Trump - especially in light of the trade war with China - has fizzled ..."
"... that's too Boltonesque or Pompeonish and would only denigrate Europe for no reason. ..."
"... This is the latest move (in a very long line) by Jewish-freemason banksters to take over the world. The USA is owned and run by them and is used simply for their ends and purposes. ..."
"... Trumpsters cheering on DJT need to be aware that they have as much regard and affection for you and for your country as they do for a mangy dog. ..."
"... The US is starting to act a bit too unhinged now. Even the zombies are starting to wonder what the problem is with the US and the USD. Not very smart to be so loud, aggressive and threatening all the time. ..."
"... What we are witnessing in the US sanctions, threats, and illegal and costly military operations around the globe are the final throes and spasms of a dying, yet still dangerous, wounded animal ..."
"... Global trade in its current form with trade routes stretching all around the world is unsustainable due to rapidly depleting oil/energy. ..."
"... If you cut through all the propaganda and look only at actions taken by the U.S. government, it certainly does look like America is taking numerous intentional steps to disconnect itself from global trade with long-standing international partners in Europe, Asia and the Middle East ..."
"... America acting the big bully and pissing off all our international trade partners is just an act. Don't worry, the long term plan is exactly what you're wishing for, more or less. Though, since the Middle East still has so much oil, chances are America and its military will remain there for quite a while longer -- but that's the only reason. ..."
"... America is on the path of sanctioning itself into isolation. The US is shooting itself someplace much more sensitive with all these sanctions, tariffs, and warmongering. ..."
"... Soon the isolated US will ONLY have Israel, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Canada and Britain to have economic relationship with. I wonder what do these assets of the US and former British colonies can offer to one another in the form of meaningful trade? Oil, maple syrup, weapons, sand, and British tea. ..."
"... In 2018, Europe made a huge stink about not being bound by Trump's unilateral breach of the Iranian deal, and said it would continue regardless of US threats. But now that the threats have clearly escalated, and Washington has made it clear it won't take no for an answer, it will be interesting to see if Europe's resolve to take on Trump - especially in light of the trade war with China - has fizzled. ..."
"... It's easier to replace SWIFT than replace a reserve currency the petro-dollar is today. They've tried at no avail. So long as our economy kicks ***, it will be hard to replace USD as a reserve money. ..."
"... The issue isn't just SWIFT. It's "access to US markets". Sayanim Pompeo is threatening them with the nuclear option: Financial MAD. ..."
"... Trump seems to think he's CEO of the planet and all the countries are just different departments of his corporation. ..."
"... It's worse than that. Thump thinks that Bibi is Chairman of the Board, and Adelson is a Senior Board Member of a small (((Board))) ..."
May 29, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

It's going from bad to worse for Europe, whose currency had just hit session lows after Brussels confirmed that Italy faces a massive fine over its debt, when the Euro was hit with a double whammy after Bloomberg reported that the Trump administration is escalating its battle with "European allies" over the fate of the Iran nuclear accord, and is "threatening penalties against the financial body created by Germany, the U.K. and France to shield trade with the Islamic Republic from U.S. sanctions. "

According to Bloomberg, the Treasury Department's undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, Sigal Mandelker, sent a letter on May 7 warning that Instex, the European SPV to sustain trade with Tehran, and anyone associated with it could be barred from the U.S. financial system if it goes into effect.

As a reminder, last September, in order to maintain a financial relationship with Iran that can not be vetoed by the US, Europe unveiled a "Special Purpose Vehicle" to bypass SWIFT. Back then we predicted that Washington would not be too delighted with this development seeking to undermine the dollar's reserve status. We were right.

EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini alongside Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif

"I urge you to carefully consider the potential sanctions exposure of Instex," Mandelker wrote in the letter to Instex President Per Fischer. "Engaging in activities that run afoul of U.S. sanctions can result in severe consequences, including a loss of access to the U.S. financial system."

Germany, France and the U.K. finalized the Instex system in January, allowing companies to trade with Iran without the use of U.S. dollars or American banks, allowing them to get around wide-ranging U.S. sanctions that were imposed after the Trump administration abandoned the 2015 Iran nuclear deal last year.

Not surprisingly, a senior admin official behind the eltter said the U.S. decided to issue the threat " after concluding that European officials, who had earlier downplayed the significance of Instex in conversations with the Trump administration, were far more serious about it than they had initially let on. "

The official, who asked not to be identified discussing internal deliberations, said the letter was intended to serve as a warning that the U.S. would punish anyone associated with Instex -- including businesses, government officials and staff -- if they were working to set up a program to help Iran evade U.S. sanctions.

"This is a shot across the bow of a European political establishment committed to using Instex and its sanctions-connected Iranian counterpart to circumvent U.S. measures, " said Mark Dubowitz, the chief executive officer of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington.

When asked to comment on the letter, the Treasury Department issued a statement saying "entities that transact in trade with the Iranian regime through any means may expose themselves to considerable sanctions risk, and Treasury intends to aggressively enforce our authorities."

At the heart of the latest US move is the argument that Iran and its central bank use deceptive financial practices and haven't implemented minimum global safeguards against money laundering and terrorism financing, according to Bloomberg.

While it is obvious that the US ire was sparked by the realization - and alarm - that cracks are appearing in the dollar's reserve status, opponents of Instex argue - at least for public consumption purposes - that the mechanism is flawed because the Iranian institution designated to work with Instex, the Special Trade and Finance Instrument, has shareholders with links to entities already facing sanctions from the U.S .

Meanwhile, during a visit to London on May 8, Mike Pompeo also warned that there was no need for Instex because the U.S. allows for humanitarian and medical products to get into Iran without sanction.

"When transactions move beyond that, it doesn't matter what vehicle's out there, if the transaction is sanctionable, we will evaluate it, review it, and if appropriate, levy sanctions against those that were involved in that transaction," Pompeo said. "It's very straightforward."

In 2018, Europe made a huge stink about not being bound by Trump's unilateral breach of the Iranian deal, and said it would continue regardless of US threats. But now that the threats have clearly escalated, and Washington has made it clear it won't take no for an answer, it will be interesting to see if Europe's resolve to take on Trump - especially in light of the trade war with China - has fizzled.

carman , 5 minutes ago link

Europe should tell the U S to go F--- themselves, you don't dictate to Europe who we trade with.

hugin-o-munin , 2 minutes ago link

No that's too Boltonesque or Pompeonish and would only denigrate Europe for no reason.

zob2020 , 5 minutes ago link

Those shits are only promising... they never keep their promises to free Europe from their grip

mailll , 6 minutes ago link

Makes me wonder why year after year China's GDP increases and never decreases while the US GDP does periodically go into the negative zone and when it is positive, it isn't that much positive.

With our control we try to have over foreign countries coupled with our antiquated and overpriced education system, we are heading nowhere very fast while China continues to grow.

https://tradingeconomics.com/china/gdp-growth-annual

Airstrip1 , 7 minutes ago link

This is the latest move (in a very long line) by Jewish-freemason banksters to take over the world. The USA is owned and run by them and is used simply for their ends and purposes.

Trumpsters cheering on DJT need to be aware that they have as much regard and affection for you and for your country as they do for a mangy dog.

Aussiestirrer , 9 minutes ago link

Ussa = Terrorist Superpower with no shame or decency. The sooner you wipe yourselves out the better for this planet.

activisor , 9 minutes ago link

Europe has been servile to the US since the end of WW2. Germany in particular has continually bowed to US pressure and surely the time has come to kick the US out of Ramstein Air Base which houses over 60,000 personnel including 5000 non US military.

The US also continues to stir its anti Russia interference in compliant countries especially the Ukraine. Europe should dismantle the EU and the euro and revert to sovereign nations using their own currencies. NATO is US driven and hinders not helps European cooperation. There is no military threat in Europe full stop.

hugin-o-munin , 10 minutes ago link

The US is starting to act a bit too unhinged now. Even the zombies are starting to wonder what the problem is with the US and the USD. Not very smart to be so loud, aggressive and threatening all the time.

BIWEEE , 12 minutes ago link

What we are witnessing in the US sanctions, threats, and illegal and costly military operations around the globe are the final throes and spasms of a dying, yet still dangerous, wounded animal. The US has been killed by the criminal Satanic

Ashkenazi Bolshevik Khazar filth who did 911. The US and Israel are the two most hated countries on earth.

MrNoItAll , 1 hour ago link

This is all part of a long term plan intended to rearrange global trade arrangements. The future we are heading into is one where "global" trade will be much more regional, by necessity. Global trade in its current form with trade routes stretching all around the world is unsustainable due to rapidly depleting oil/energy.

Europe, Asia and the Middle East need to make their own financial and trade arrangements -- this manufactured disagreement will force companies and governments to adapt to that reality.

America is intentionally cutting itself off from trade with Europe and Asia to force self-sustainability for the Americas continent and for American companies, because that's what the future demands -- it is what's sustainable long term.

The Trade War and this contrived spat with Europe and many other trade-related "conflicts" getting publicity are all part of a multi-pronged action plan to force painful and politically untenable changes on companies and governments in preparation for a future that will be characterized by much less oil/energy and by extension, much more localized and regional trade and finance.

Savvy , 54 minutes ago link

America is intentionally cutting itself off from trade with Europe and Asia to force self-sustainability for the Americas continent and for American companies

I'd love to believe that but you're going to have to take your war machine home with you or what you say means **** all.

MrNoItAll , 47 minutes ago link

If you cut through all the propaganda and look only at actions taken by the U.S. government, it certainly does look like America is taking numerous intentional steps to disconnect itself from global trade with long-standing international partners in Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

Actions speak louder than words. The rational for bringing an end to all these energy-intensive trade and financial arrangements that were created back when oil WAS cheap and plentiful begins to make a lot of sense.

America acting the big bully and pissing off all our international trade partners is just an act. Don't worry, the long term plan is exactly what you're wishing for, more or less. Though, since the Middle East still has so much oil, chances are America and its military will remain there for quite a while longer -- but that's the only reason.

JohnnyAmerica , 1 hour ago link

"Iran and its central bank use deceptive financial practices and haven't implemented minimum global safeguards against money laundering and terrorism financing, according to Bloomberg." This is akin to Stalin telling Mao to be nicer to his citizens.

potkettleblack.

No nation will ever be sovereign until the International Banking Tyrants and their relatives to the third cousin receive a very public guillotine haircut.

Blue2B , 1 hour ago link

Everyday, a new threat by the rusty meat-grinder known as the Untied State of Israel. Which country will we read a war tweet about next?

America is on the path of sanctioning itself into isolation. The US is shooting itself someplace much more sensitive with all these sanctions, tariffs, and warmongering.

Soon the isolated US will ONLY have Israel, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Canada and Britain to have economic relationship with. I wonder what do these assets of the US and former British colonies can offer to one another in the form of meaningful trade? Oil, maple syrup, weapons, sand, and British tea.

espirit , 1 hour ago link

Ah, but we can **** up the debt of most countries if we want to...

Shemp 4 Victory , 58 minutes ago link

Funny how people use the term "we" to pretend that they are part of the gang.

espirit , 12 minutes ago link

Simple **** Maynard.

"We" is the ruling cabal over the U.S. peeps. And it's how (((they))) think...

HRClinton , 1 hour ago link

In 2018, Europe made a huge stink about not being bound by Trump's unilateral breach of the Iranian deal, and said it would continue regardless of US threats. But now that the threats have clearly escalated, and Washington has made it clear it won't take no for an answer, it will be interesting to see if Europe's resolve to take on Trump - especially in light of the trade war with China - has fizzled.

And there you have it. Tyler 1 nailed it.

BT , 1 hour ago link

Someone please explain to me how SWIFT system would operate if only US and a few of its vessels like Canada and Australia are in it?

delta0ne , 1 hour ago link

however obsolete the SWIFT system is there isn't any credible alternative to the old bank wire system. It's coming though. Should be an easy fix in this day and age. US doesn't want to lose control of who's wiring what and to whom, Capisce?

It's easier to replace SWIFT than replace a reserve currency the petro-dollar is today. They've tried at no avail. So long as our economy kicks ***, it will be hard to replace USD as a reserve money.

HRClinton , 1 hour ago link

The issue isn't just SWIFT. It's "access to US markets". Sayanim Pompeo is threatening them with the nuclear option: Financial MAD.

Bibbi doesn't mind.

Savvy , 1 hour ago link

Trump seems to think he's CEO of the planet and all the countries are just different departments of his corporation.

Doesn't work like that Donny.

HRClinton , 1 hour ago link

It's worse than that. Thump thinks that Bibi is Chairman of the Board, and Adelson is a Senior Board Member of a small (((Board))).

[Jun 03, 2019] Bolton Brazenly Lies About Iran Again by DANIEL LARISON

Notable quotes:
"... From what I have read, including excerpts of JCPOA, it seems that Iran's move to restart some low level enrichment is captured in the agreement as something that Iran could do if the other party(ies) are in breach of the agreement. And at this time, the US is not a party any longer and the EU is in breach by stopping any economic intercourse with Iran. ..."
"... This should be reiterated again and again, because just mentioning that Iran unilaterally is starting enrichment puts a target on their back especially in the United States of Amnesia, while they are still just doing only what is prescribed by the JCPOA. ..."
"... Bolton's lying goes with his broad contempt for the American people. He treats us like contemptible sheep, he lies to us, and then he tries to manipulate Trump into sending our sons and daughters to fight wars for his foreign buddies. ..."
"... It is indeed remarkable in a very bad way that Bolton has any credibility to speak on issues. He has a very long track record of lie after lie after lie, going back to the build up for Iraq war. Indeed, he has never acknowledged that Iraq war a monumental tragedy. ..."
May 29, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

John Bolton repeats one of the Trump administration's biggest and most important lies:

Donald Trump's national security adviser said Wednesday there was "no reason" for Iran to back out of its nuclear deal with world powers other than to seek atomic weapons, a year after the U.S. president unilaterally withdrew America from the accord.

Bolton and other administration officials have promoted the lie that Iran seeks nuclear weapons for months. Unfortunately, members of Congress and the press have largely failed to call out these lies for what they are. There is no evidence to support the administration's claims, and there is overwhelming evidence that they are wrong, but if they can get away with saying these things without being challenged they may not need evidence to get the crisis that Bolton and others like him want.

In this case, the AP story just relays Bolton's false and misleading statements as if they should be taken seriously, and their headline trumpets Bolton's dishonest insinuations as if they were credible. This is an unfortunate case of choosing the sensationalist, eye-catching headline that misinforms the public on a very important issue. Bolton's latest remarks are especially pernicious because they use Iran's modest reactions to Trump administration sanctions as evidence of Iran's imaginary intent to acquire weapons. The U.S. has been trying to push Iran to abandon the deal for more than a year, and at the first sign that Iran begins to reduce its compliance in order to push back against the administration's outrageous economic warfare Bolton tries to misrepresent it as proof that they seek nuclear weapons. Don't fall for it, and don't trust anything Bolton says. Not only does he have a record of distorting and manipulating intelligence to suit his purposes, but his longstanding desire for regime change and his ties to the Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK) make him an exceptionally unreliable person when it comes to any and all claims about the Iranian government.

The story provides some context, but still fails to challenge Bolton's assertions:

Bolton said that without more nuclear power plants, it made no sense for Iran to stockpile more low-enriched uranium as it now plans to do. But the U.S. also earlier cut off Iran's ability to sell its uranium to Russia in exchange for unprocessed yellow-cake uranium [bold mine-DK].

Iran has set a July 7 deadline for Europe to offer better terms to the unraveling nuclear deal, otherwise it will resume enrichment closer to weapons level. Bolton declined to say what the U.S. would do in response to that.

"There's no reason for them to do (higher enrichment) unless it is to reduce the breakout time to nuclear weapons," Bolton said.

Earlier this year, the Trump administration ended the sanctions waivers that enabled Iran to ship its excess low-enriched uranium out of the country. They made it practically impossible for Iran to do what they have been reliably doing for years, and now Bolton blames Iran for the consequences of administration actions. The administration has deliberately put Iran in a bind so that they either give up the enrichment that they are entitled to do under the JCPOA or exceed the restrictions on their stockpile so that the U.S. can then accuse them of a violation. Left out in all of this is that the U.S. is no longer a party to the deal and violated all of its commitments more than a year ago. Iran has patiently remained in compliance while the only party to breach the agreement desperately hunts for a pretext to accuse them of some minor infraction.

Iran's record of full compliance with the JCPOA for more than three years hasn't mattered to Bolton and his allies in the slightest, and they have had no problem reneging on U.S. commitments, but now the same ideologues that have wanted to destroy the deal from the start insist on treating the deal's restrictions as sacrosanct. These same people have worked to engineer a situation in which Iran may end up stockpiling more low-enriched uranium than they are supposed to have, and then seize on the situation they created to spread lies about Iran's desire for nukes. It's all so obviously being done in bad faith, but then that is what we have come to expect from Iran hawks and opponents of the nuclear deal. Don't let them get away with it.

The reason that Iran is threatening to enrich its uranium to a higher level is that the U.S. has been relentlessly sanctioning them despite their total compliance with the terms of the JCPOA. The Trump administration has done all it could to deny Iran the benefits of the deal, and then Bolton has the gall to say that they have no other reason to reduce their compliance. Of course Iran does have another reason, and that is to put pressure on the other remaining parties to the deal to find a way to get Iran the benefits it was promised. It is a small step taken in response to the administration's own destructive policy, and it is not evidence of anything else. Iran is not seeking nuclear weapons, and it is grossly irresponsible to treat unfounded administration claims about this as anything other than propaganda and lies.

Kouros, says: May 29, 2019 at 10:58 am

From what I have read, including excerpts of JCPOA, it seems that Iran's move to restart some low level enrichment is captured in the agreement as something that Iran could do if the other party(ies) are in breach of the agreement. And at this time, the US is not a party any longer and the EU is in breach by stopping any economic intercourse with Iran.

This should be reiterated again and again, because just mentioning that Iran unilaterally is starting enrichment puts a target on their back especially in the United States of Amnesia, while they are still just doing only what is prescribed by the JCPOA.

Braced , says: May 29, 2019 at 3:24 pm

Bolton's lying goes with his broad contempt for the American people. He treats us like contemptible sheep, he lies to us, and then he tries to manipulate Trump into sending our sons and daughters to fight wars for his foreign buddies.

Taras 77 , says: May 29, 2019 at 3:56 pm

It is indeed remarkable in a very bad way that Bolton has any credibility to speak on issues. He has a very long track record of lie after lie after lie, going back to the build up for Iraq war. Indeed, he has never acknowledged that Iraq war a monumental tragedy.

I think NK has it right to assert that Bolton is a defective human product.

But there he is stacking intell in trump's ear.

[Jun 03, 2019] Don t Fall for Pompeo s Empty Rhetoric by DANIEL LARISON

Neocon hawks are destroying US economics very effectively by supersizing military expenses and the costs of foreign wars.
Essentially Trump administration is acting in Israeli and Saudi interests in this case
Notable quotes:
"... Like many other phony administration offers to negotiate, Pompeo's proposal doesn't really include anything new or different. The administration is still insisting on the preposterous demands that the Secretary of State delivered last year. That is what Pompeo's "normal nation" reference means. In other words, the administration still expects Iranian capitulation, and they are willing to meet with Iranian officials to accept their surrender. ..."
"... Of course, this would not be a "conversation," which implies give-and-take between equals who speak to each other with respect. This would amount to something much more like a demarche where the U.S. tells Iran what it must do and then expects Iran's representatives to nod in agreement. ..."
"... Pompeo is an Iran hawk, but he is also a yes-man who seeks to curry favor with the president at all times. If he thinks that the president wants him to make diplomatic-sounding noises, he will make those noises, but it doesn't mean very much in terms of the administration's goals and means. ..."
"... Iran hawks are used to feigning interest in diplomacy while doing everything they can to undermine and poison it. As always, judge the administration by what it does and not what it happens to be saying at the moment. As long as the U.S. keeps its illegitimate sanctions in place and continues to make unrealistic and excessive demands, offers to talk are meaningless because the administration has already rendered negotiations useless. ..."
"... Pompeo is an unskilled purveyor of "smoke & mirrors" diplomacy: he thinks the world is unaware that preconditions with Iran have been in place since May 2018 when Trump unilaterally tore up the JCPOA followed by a slew of unprecedented sanctions against the Iranian people. ..."
"... Of course this statement is not for Iran, it is for the U.S. public to make the case for 'we tried' when in actuality, 'we lied'. ..."
Jun 03, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Pompeo made a statement about talks with Iran that is much less meaningful than it seems:

The United States is prepared to engage with Iran without pre-conditions about its nuclear program but needs to see the country behaving like "a normal nation", U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Sunday.

Iran dismissed the offer as "word-play".

Like many other phony administration offers to negotiate, Pompeo's proposal doesn't really include anything new or different. The administration is still insisting on the preposterous demands that the Secretary of State delivered last year. That is what Pompeo's "normal nation" reference means. In other words, the administration still expects Iranian capitulation, and they are willing to meet with Iranian officials to accept their surrender. The report continues:

"We are certainly prepared to have that conversation when the Iranians can prove that they want to behave like a normal nation," he told a joint news conference with his Swiss counterpart Ignazio Cassis.

Of course, this would not be a "conversation," which implies give-and-take between equals who speak to each other with respect. This would amount to something much more like a demarche where the U.S. tells Iran what it must do and then expects Iran's representatives to nod in agreement.

The Iranian government's dismissive response is to be expected. For one thing, the distrust between Washington and Tehran is immense, so Iran's government is bound to view any offer with suspicion. The Iranian government has already explained what the U.S. has to do if they want to talk about anything, and the administration has no intention of doing any of those things. As far as Iran is concerned, their nuclear program isn't up for discussion, so what would be the point of meeting with U.S. officials when the administration remains committed to its outrageous policy of economic warfare and collective punishment?

Pompeo is an Iran hawk, but he is also a yes-man who seeks to curry favor with the president at all times. If he thinks that the president wants him to make diplomatic-sounding noises, he will make those noises, but it doesn't mean very much in terms of the administration's goals and means.

Iran hawks are used to feigning interest in diplomacy while doing everything they can to undermine and poison it. As always, judge the administration by what it does and not what it happens to be saying at the moment. As long as the U.S. keeps its illegitimate sanctions in place and continues to make unrealistic and excessive demands, offers to talk are meaningless because the administration has already rendered negotiations useless.

There is an understandable temptation to seize on comments from administration officials as proof that they are giving up on a destructive and fruitless policy, but until the administration translates its rhetorical gestures into actions we should assume that the policy remains unchanged.

Procivic, says: June 3, 2019 at 2:10 am

Pompeo is an unskilled purveyor of "smoke & mirrors" diplomacy: he thinks the world is unaware that preconditions with Iran have been in place since May 2018 when Trump unilaterally tore up the JCPOA followed by a slew of unprecedented sanctions against the Iranian people.

The exodus of qualified State Department careerists can't be plugged by promoting the likes of Brian Hook.

Christian J Chuba , says: June 3, 2019 at 8:07 am

Of course this statement is not for Iran, it is for the U.S. public to make the case for 'we tried' when in actuality, 'we lied'.

[Jun 03, 2019] Trump's Iran Obsession Wrecked His Foreign Policy by DANIEL LARISON

Trump is trying to create a coalition of China Russia, India Iran and Turkey. That's an interesting foreign policy strategy,
Are we really trading Britain, Canada, Germany, and Japan for … Israel and Saudi Arabia ?
Notable quotes:
"... Ever since he embraced the Saudis and Emiratis early in his first year in office, he has been increasingly bound to them and has been eager to cater to their preferences as much as he can. His determination to be even more pro-Saudi than the average president has guaranteed that U.S. foreign policy has had less and less to do with American interests and has instead become a vehicle for promoting the ambitions of regional clients at our expense. ..."
"... He replaced them because they weren't as inclined to do the bidding of Israel and Saudi Arabia as they should have been. If you don't jump when Israel and Saudi Arabia say jump, you don't get the big campaign bucks. Transactional Trump understands that very well. Tillerson and McMaster didn't. Bolton and Pompeo not only understand it, they rely on it. ..."
"... I did not notice the name Sheldon Adelson mentioned and if we are looking for reasons for Trump's antipathy toward Iran, we need to recognize the fact of the large donations made by this ultra-Zionist to Trump's campaign. ..."
May 29, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com
Trump speaks at Washington rally against the Iran deal back in September 2015. Credit: Olivier Douliery/Sipa USA/Newscom

Andrew Bacevich comments on the recent escalation of tensions with Iran and what it tells us about Trump's presidency:

Again, the precise numbers are almost beside the point. In effect, Trump has drawn his own line in the sand, one that says: "We ain't leaving, no sir." His decision -- was it really his? -- is in effect a capitulation. Trump has deferred to the institutions, interests, and individuals intent on perpetuating the forever wars. Devious and diabolical and brilliant, the war party, abetted by its foreign auxiliaries, has prevailed. Trump will now surely bequeath those wars to his successor -- that's the significance of the Iran war scare.

I agree with all of this. I would just add that this was a predictable outcome for a president who chose to make antipathy to Iran the centerpiece of his foreign policy. Trump could not extricate the U.S. from the region while simultaneously pursuing a more aggressive anti-Iranian policy than his predecessor. The pursuit of that anti-Iranian policy has had a great deal to do with the failure to bring U.S. involvement in multiple unnecessary wars to an end. This was not something foisted on him by others, but has been his own doing from the beginning. When his subordinates disagreed with him about the nuclear deal as Tillerson and McMaster did, he replaced them sooner or later, and he chose even more bellicose and aggressive people to take their place. He has signed off on every aggressive anti-Iranian and pro-Saudi move he could. When faced with unprecedented Congressional opposition over the war on Yemen, he chose to use his veto for only the second time in his presidency to reject Congress' demand that he withdraw the U.S. from that war.

Ever since he embraced the Saudis and Emiratis early in his first year in office, he has been increasingly bound to them and has been eager to cater to their preferences as much as he can. His determination to be even more pro-Saudi than the average president has guaranteed that U.S. foreign policy has had less and less to do with American interests and has instead become a vehicle for promoting the ambitions of regional clients at our expense. It isn't possible to disentangle the U.S. from ceaseless war in the Middle East when the president abases himself to such an extent before despotic clients and takes their enemies as ours. The Iran obsession has defined and wrecked Trump's foreign policy, and it has led him to make most of the worst foreign policy decisions of his presidency.

Trump knows very little and had no foreign policy experience to speak of, and that made it extremely easy for hawkish advisers to fill his head with their own terrible ideas. Those advisers are undoubtedly responsible for egging Trump on to take destructive and aggressive actions, but ultimately it is Trump's responsibility for surrounding himself with people that everyone knew would give him such awful advice. No one made Trump choose Pompeo and Bolton. It was his own vanity and his preference for flattering yes-men that led him to choose such unworthy and dangerous people for important positions at the highest levels of the government. Trump doesn't have the wit, knowledge, or conviction to take U.S. foreign policy in a different, better direction, and to the extent that he occasionally has impulses that point in that direction they are just as easily canceled out and overwhelmed by even stronger, contradictory impulses that drive him toward confrontation and escalation. The war party prevailed because the president sided with them from the beginning, filled his administration with hard-liners, and fought against every effort in Congress to rein in and end our government's illegal and unauthorized involvement in the war on Yemen.

Whine Merchant, says: May 29, 2019 at 5:27 pm

Trump is not a Conservative, a Republican, a neo-con, nor even a RINO; he is a grifter, and belligerence toward Iran is where his greatest profit can be made.

Kouros , says: May 29, 2019 at 6:19 pm

Do not forget the family dinner, especially when Ivanka and Jared are present

midway , says: May 30, 2019 at 9:05 am

"When his subordinates disagreed with him about the nuclear deal as Tillerson and McMaster did, he replaced them sooner or later, and he chose even more bellicose and aggressive people to take their place."

He replaced them because they weren't as inclined to do the bidding of Israel and Saudi Arabia as they should have been. If you don't jump when Israel and Saudi Arabia say jump, you don't get the big campaign bucks. Transactional Trump understands that very well. Tillerson and McMaster didn't. Bolton and Pompeo not only understand it, they rely on it.

Sid Finster , says: May 30, 2019 at 10:47 am

@midway: I suspect without any hard evidence that Bolton and Pompeo got and keep their jobs not because of dollars and sense, but something even more pathetic.

Namely, they flatter Trump and tell him he is "tough" in private, and do nothing to upstage Trump in public.

Anon1970 , says: May 30, 2019 at 10:53 am

midway: The really big campaign bucks were made possible by the Citizens United Supreme Court decision back in 2010. The conservatives on the court then probably never realized they were giving a handful of billionaires the power to have more influence on federal politics than they had ever had before. If the US stumbles into a war with Iran in the next couple of years, the little people wearing the MAGA caps will be worse off than ever.

Myron K Hudson , says: May 30, 2019 at 1:16 pm

"His determination to be even more pro-Saudi than the average president has guaranteed that U.S. foreign policy has had less and less to do with American interests and has instead become a vehicle for promoting the ambitions of regional clients at our expense."

Promoting the ambitions of regional clients at our expense it couldn't be put more clearly than that. An even greater shame: this isn't part of some "great game"; we're led by a man who wants to be seen as tough by men he sees as tough.

SteveK9 , says: May 31, 2019 at 11:28 am

I did not notice the name Sheldon Adelson mentioned and if we are looking for reasons for Trump's antipathy toward Iran, we need to recognize the fact of the large donations made by this ultra-Zionist to Trump's campaign.

[Jun 03, 2019] HARPER- POMPEO PRONOUNCES KUSHNER PLAN DOA

Notable quotes:
"... Pompeo has shown some unexpected political savvy by distancing himself from the doomed "peace plan," which appears to be little more than a scheme to buy Palestinian capitulation through a combination of promises of Arab money and political strong-arming from the Gulf States and Israel. ..."
Jun 03, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

On May 28, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was in New York City for a closed-door meeting with the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. In remarks that were covertly recorded and passed along to the Washington Post, Pompeo effectively declared that the Middle East peace plan conjured by First Son-in-Law Jared Kushner was a non-starter and would be rejected by most parties.

Instead of the "deal of the century" touted by President Donald Trump, Pompeo conceded that the peace scheme was a losing proposition. "I get why people think this is a deal that only Israel could love. I understand the perception of that. I just hope everyone will give the space to listen and settle in a bit." Pompeo continued his blunt remarks: "I don't want to call it failing. Call it whatever. I fail a lot, so it's not about using a word like that."

Pompeo admitted that the State Department is giving a good deal of attention to what to do next if the Kushner Plan flops.

Until Prime Minister-elect Benjamin Netanyahu failed to put together a majority cabinet this week and had to call snap elections for September, it had been expected that the long-awaited Kushner Plan would be rolled out this month. Now the launch date is delayed until late September or early October after a new Israeli government is formed and sworn in.

Pompeo has shown some unexpected political savvy by distancing himself from the doomed "peace plan," which appears to be little more than a scheme to buy Palestinian capitulation through a combination of promises of Arab money and political strong-arming from the Gulf States and Israel.

[Jun 02, 2019] Trump 2020

Notable quotes:
"... Trump is Gambino family, Hillary (and Comey, et al) are Genoveses. All of them are sleaze, criminal, deep state. Samo-samo. Just one pile of dirt fighting another pile of dirt. ..."
Jun 02, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

sarz , 23 hours ago link

Trump has always had divided loyalties and has always talked out of two sides of his mouth. From day one the actual decision has been to be top *** rather than American. Israel and Goldman Sachs. Israel counts for far more with him than America. If he has to choose which Jews he has a problem. Then he goes for Zionists over banksters. It's when he can serve both with the same stroke that he's in his element. Like recognizing Golan as Israel, for both Bibi and Rothschilds, as land as as oil.

Trump is a *** in everything except the accident of his Scot Presbyterian mother. His father a Zionist ***. His first two wives and possibly his third, Jews. Possibly all his children, definitely all but one, Jews. His daughter Ivanka born a *** and then a fake convert to Judaism. To fake the Deplorables.

Trump is revelling in playing top ***, fighting wars for the Jews, while suckers write articles like this about his antiwar heart.

BankSurfyMan , 23 hours ago link

Trump 2020

SHsparx , 1 day ago link

Oh please stfu. Poor anti-war Trump being helplessly entangled in wars by the neocons he doesn't want to. He's the one that picked them lol. He's the one that openly admits he's beholden to Israel and the Saudis. He's the one that openly vowed during election he'd increase war machine spending. No one's making him do anything. He acts like he's antiwar with his words only to make chumps think he's anti-war.

Gonzogal , 1 day ago link

Comment from another ZHer re Trump:

"Has anyone noticed the neat escape-responsibility manoeuvre Trump uses? Past presidents have always consulted with their advisors and cabinet and presented a united front. Trump now deflects responsibility by investing his appointees with, evidently, independent powers which only he curtails. His cabinet apparently works independently from him. In some case, when necessary, they are directly responsible to him. In other cases, where unnecessary, they go "off the plantation" and make their own decisions...which, for some reason, he can't overrule. Pretty nifty."

SHsparx , 1 day ago link

Classic case of playing good cop/bad cop. Trump is the "good cop" so he can keep pacifying his idiot cult following, like the author of this article, and get reelected.

HRClinton , 15 hours ago link

Trump's behavior is easy to explain if you stick to basics. One of them is the Lincoln model of political deception:

"...and you can fool some of the people ALL of the time"

I believe that they are also referred to as the Dumbest Goyim.

The Persistent Vegetable , 1 day ago link

So there are two things I agree trump on and this is one of them. But even here his thought process doesn't make sense. If you're going to fight a war mongering bureaucracy why in the hell do you appoint war mongers as Sec of state and national security advisor? He's better off appointing a couple of ***** dems than these assholes. He ensures those agencies will fight him to the bitter end. He has yet to appoint one person who shares his philosophy and I'm sure they're out there.

Gonzogal , 1 day ago link

He has yet to appoint one person who shares his philosophy and I'm sure they're out there

His philosophy is the SAME as the neocons he has appointed. People didnt listen to what he said during the 2016 campaign:

https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/MAGAZINE-where-does-donald-trump-stand-on-israel-1.5384623

https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-israel-campaign-office-2016-9

"Why can't we use nuclear weapons?"

"Who knows?" -- when asked if, as president, he would start a war with China , New York Times interview, March 25, 2016

"When Iran, when they circle our beautiful destroyers with their little boats, and they make gestures at our people that they shouldn't be allowed to make, they will be shot out of the water." -- threatening to go to war with Iran over rude hand gestures, Pensacola, Florida, Sept. 9, 2016

"This is the Trump theory on war. But I'm good at war. I've had a lot of wars of my own. I'm really good at war. I love war in a certain way. But only when we win." Fort Dodge, Iowa, Nov. 12, 2015

Demeter55 , 1 day ago link

He appointed these three amigos under orders from the only person who supports him. And now he lets them have enough rope to hang themselves, really make it obvious that they are incompetent, and then he can fire them and start fresh in 2020. Without alienating his support/money source.

All the so-called competent people turned up their noses at Trump, declining appointment to his administration. **** them! They obviously aren't as competent nor as patriotic as they thought they were. They have disqualified themselves, and good riddance!

The first truly competent, if reluctant appointee is Bill Barr. He does a good job, and some other, equally competent and country-loving personalities will come out of the crowd.

The only reason Betsy DeVos, the most incompetent Cabinet official in decades, hasn't been pink-slipped is her mercenary brother and her husband's Amway fortune. She needs to be encouraged out of office in 2020, if not before.

HRClinton , 15 hours ago link

Never forget that the Biggest Patriot is the Biggest Idiot . A bit of a malleable fool and thus a Useful Tool.

It takes more than physical bravery and allegiance to be a "Patriot".

It also takes a certain amount of (1)willful blindness , (2) moral hypocrisy and (3) need to submit to a well-organised hierarchy . Do you think that this country is lacking in such people?

TheRapture , 1 day ago link

Why people keep making excuses for Trump is beyond me.

Evaluate Trump not on hot air, but on action. Based on hot air Trump is completely inconsistent. Based on actual behavior Trump is a very consistent Israel-First neocon warmonger, and an extremely crude and corrupt one at that.

Wahooo , 1 day ago link

You nailed it. BTW, his cult makes excuses for him because it validates their original vote and all the justifications they've had over time.

As I've always said, had you asked any American 10 years ago if they thought Trump would be a good president, the answer would have been a unanimous "Are you ******* kidding? He'll no!"

ConanTheContrarian1 , 1 day ago link

As a mostly full-fledged member of his "cult", let me explain. Trump has the entirety of the Democrat party, half the Republican, and 2/3 of the judiciary against him. I'm amazed he's done as well as he has. He's canned a large number of sleazebags in the FBI, and many other functionaries in government suddenly decided they want to retire.

Just like an allstar offensive player lined up against an allstar defensive player will win some and lose some, so it is with Trump. You're full of ****.

Gonzogal , 1 day ago link

You cant have it both ways. As of his inauguration he became Commander in Chief, WITH ALL THE RESPONSIBILITY THAT GOES WITH THAT TITLE.

He is either President of the US or he is not, there is NO grey area. He even said that he is "responsible for what happens in the US."

monty42 , 1 day ago link

The executive is only to act as Commander in Chief, raising armies and fighting wars, if the Legislature declares war. As it stands, the executive is a military despot, maintaining a standing armed force spread across the world and waging war without declaration or justification.

It's a self insulated circle, where those volunteering swear an oath to uphold the Constitution and defend it, but in reality they "just follow orders" regardless of how blatantly unconstitutional the whole process and D.C. regime is.

Yogapith , 1 day ago link

Most immature comment of the week. Thats the theory in a beautiful ideal world. But the reality is that very powerful entrenched interests are at play.

TheRapture , 1 day ago link

He's canned a large number of sleazebags in the FBI

The only deep state sleazebags fired that I can see were FBI execs involved in the coup against Trump. Trump's motive was not justice, it was vengeance and self-defense. You call that a house-cleaning?

Trump is Gambino family, Hillary (and Comey, et al) are Genoveses. All of them are sleaze, criminal, deep state. Samo-samo. Just one pile of dirt fighting another pile of dirt.

HRClinton , 15 hours ago link

Evaluate Trump not on hot air, but on action. Based on hot air Trump is completely inconsistent. Based on actual behavior Trump is a very consistent Israel-First neocon warmonger, and an extremely crude and corrupt one at that.

One of the early tells was that he's a philanderer, an adulterer, a cheapskate who doesn't pay his contractors, but fosters this image of philanthropy, and who found out that you can't *** Jewish bankers and get away with it. Unless you up the ante and tell them that you'll further their political agenda if they put him in the WH.

It's not difficult to analyze Trump, if you keep your own emotional needs out of it, and just look at the facts and behaviors. If you can't, then it says more about you than about Trump. Maybe people with a specific type of defect in their moral compass identify with the same defect in Trump's? It would explain a lot.

systemsplanet , 13 hours ago link

Who knows if Trump would have made a really great president. The Leftist denied Trump, and all Americans who voted for him, a chance to MAGA.

One thing is for certain, a large number of Americans want pay back for

  • 2 years of Russia Russia
  • Kavenaugh character assignation
  • the obstructing Trumps cabinet pics
  • 9th circuit Judicial subversion
  • targeting his personal attorney
  • non stop media lies
  • spying on his campaign
  • stunts to embarrass him when he's out of the country
  • the Ukraine Manafor hit job
  • the Flynn hit job
  • the Papadopollis hit job
  • the Carter Page hit job

it's a never ending list of reasons for millions of Patriots to get even.

Gonzogal , 1 day ago link

When will Americans stop shifting the blame for TRUMPS DECISIONS onto something/someone else????

HE HAS THE FINAL WORD. He even said so: " I am responsible for what happens in the United States."

Yogapith , 1 day ago link

Ideally. Reality is more complex and (((difficult))) unfortunately.

HRClinton , 14 hours ago link

Trump the ultimate showman and conman:

He pretends that he has a military background, but doesn't . Being shipped off to a Mil academy doesn't count, even if it's beneficial to a wild child.

He pretended to pay his bills, but doesn't . The list of Gypped/Jewed/Screwed contractors is a mile long, as is the list of bankers whom he forced into wild refinance, by using Bankruptcy laws as a weapon.

He pretended to be a faithful husband, but wasn't . Two of his 3 marriages ended because of adultery. He loves hot sluts who stroke his ego even better than his ****.

He pretended to look after the interests of Main St, but hasn't . Looking after Bibi & The Likudniks doesn't count, nor should Wall St sharks.

He pretended to seek true Justice, but hasn't . Why is Hillary & The Gang still free? Why did he disavow Assange?

He pretended to ramp down imperialism , but hasn't. He's ramped it UP.

He pretended to "Build the Wall", but hasn't . The Wall is the Fake Rabbit at the Greyhound races: Useful to get the stupid dogs to perform on command.

He pretended to mend fences with Russia, but hasn't . "Russiagate" has become a very useful ploy and cover to satisfy the MIC and Big Oil.

With all this overwhelming evidence, of people can't see him as he truly is, then the ONLY explanation left is that they are mentally deficient, psychologically defective, and/or in on (benefit from) his network of scams.

Lavrov , 1 day ago link

Why we did NOT have ww3 is beyond me in Syria.. Only once the GLOVES came off It happen the last time I wrote this it was taken OFF immediately.. A peace deal was sign Derazor The US Air Force came and Slaughter about 100 Syrian Army soldiers Apparentley There were 11 Russians soldiers Kill too.

This is a TRUE story The communication lines WERE OPEN The Russians were SCREAMING on the HOT phone to STOP. They never responded just kept bombing.

This gets INTERESTING now.. Where are the ORDERS coming from to the US air force to BOMB It was coming from Allepo. PUTIN order BOMB the HEAD QUARTERS of the COMMAND CENTRE giving these orders. 3 BUNKER BUSTER BOMBS came a FLYING in.

Under ground head quarters was DESTROY. There were roughly 30 military officers in that BUNKER EVAPORATED 5 mossad agents 5 US CIA agents 10 Saudi a few from Britan what ever. It was in ALL the NEWS PAPERS in Russia right across the Middle east Al Jezerra on the NEWS.

Not a word mention in ISRAHELL and JUSA. So if there was going to be WW3 that would of been the time. Thank God better heads prevail. Look like PUTIN threw down the gauntlet.

Lavrov , 1 day ago link

I forgot after the US stop bombing Derazor ******* IMMEDIATELY ISIS attack ******* IMMEDIATELY No that wasn't plan. Just a coinincidence yeah that's it

Let it Go , 1 day ago link

Trump did not come across as a warmonger during the presidential campaign. When America put Trump in office many of us were seeking a world where the leadership in Washington would focus on bringing both jobs and money home rather than squandering it on foreign wars.

What has been happening in Washington is proof that the power of the swamp is very resilient and may not be able to be drained. A strong case can be made that President Trump has become a hostage of those occupying the very swamp he promised to drain. More on this in the article below.

http://America Did Not Vote For More Death And Destruction!html

Gonzogal , 1 day ago link

from 2016 campaign:

https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/MAGAZINE-where-does-donald-trump-stand-on-israel-1.5384623

https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-israel-campaign-office-2016-9

"Why can't we use nuclear weapons?"

"Who knows?" -- when asked if, as president, he would start a war with China , New York Times interview, March 25, 2016

"When Iran, when they circle our beautiful destroyers with their little boats, and they make gestures at our people that they shouldn't be allowed to make, they will be shot out of the water." -- threatening to go to war with Iran over rude hand gestures, Pensacola, Florida, Sept. 9, 2016

"This is the Trump theory on war. But I'm good at war. I've had a lot of wars of my own. I'm really good at war. I love war in a certain way. But only when we win." Fort Dodge, Iowa, Nov. 12, 2015

Wahooo , 1 day ago link

All those folks are war mongers. You don't get into the Club unless you are.

Gonzogal , 1 day ago link

https://israeltodaynews.blogspot.com/2019/02/donald-trump-converted-to-judaism-two-years-ago.html

Yogapith , 1 day ago link

My opinion is that it will take a generation to clean it.

Boogity , 1 day ago link

Inquiring minds want to know if Jared let Orange grab Ivanka's ***** after attacking Syria.

motherjones , 1 day ago link

Both parties are War Parties, and Trump was "broke" long before he moved into the White House.

MrButtoMcFarty , 1 day ago link

Only six more years snowflakes!

KEEP AMERICA GREAT!

666D Chess , 1 day ago link

LOL. Did you mean keep Israel great?

Boogity , 1 day ago link

I bet you're going to be stylin' in that little red MIGA Yamaka during the 2020 campaign

hairy nose wombat , 1 day ago link

with or without frump... the U.S. is full-on fucked.

quidam101 , 1 day ago link

The bureaucrats run the government , not the elected politicians who come and go and spend more time collecting money to be reelected than ruling. All the democrat bureaucrats are against him what is he left with? The warmongers republicans of the Bush Reagan era.

[May 31, 2019] Trump's Iran Obsession Wrecked His Foreign Policy by DANIEL LARISON

Notable quotes:
"... Devious and diabolical and brilliant, the war party, abetted by its foreign auxiliaries, has prevailed. Trump will now surely bequeath those wars to his successor -- that's the significance of the Iran war scare. ..."
"... "When his subordinates disagreed with him about the nuclear deal as Tillerson and McMaster did, he replaced them sooner or later, and he chose even more bellicose and aggressive people to take their place." ..."
"... He replaced them because they weren't as inclined to do the bidding of Israel and Saudi Arabia as they should have been. If you don't jump when Israel and Saudi Arabia say jump, you don't get the big campaign bucks. Transactional Trump understands that very well. Tillerson and McMaster didn't. Bolton and Pompeo not only understand it, they rely on it. ..."
"... "His determination to be even more pro-Saudi than the average president has guaranteed that U.S. foreign policy has had less and less to do with American interests and has instead become a vehicle for promoting the ambitions of regional clients at our expense." ..."
"... I did not notice the name Sheldon Adelson mentioned and if we are looking for reasons for Trump's antipathy toward Iran, we need to recognize the fact of the large donations made by this ultra-Zionist to Trump's campaign. ..."
May 29, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Andrew Bacevich comments on the recent escalation of tensions with Iran and what it tells us about Trump's presidency:

Again, the precise numbers are almost beside the point. In effect, Trump has drawn his own line in the sand, one that says: "We ain't leaving, no sir." His decision -- was it really his? -- is in effect a capitulation. Trump has deferred to the institutions, interests, and individuals intent on perpetuating the forever wars. Devious and diabolical and brilliant, the war party, abetted by its foreign auxiliaries, has prevailed. Trump will now surely bequeath those wars to his successor -- that's the significance of the Iran war scare.

I agree with all of this. I would just add that this was a predictable outcome for a president who chose to make antipathy to Iran the centerpiece of his foreign policy. Trump could not extricate the U.S. from the region while simultaneously pursuing a more aggressive anti-Iranian policy than his predecessor. The pursuit of that anti-Iranian policy has had a great deal to do with the failure to bring U.S. involvement in multiple unnecessary wars to an end. This was not something foisted on him by others, but has been his own doing from the beginning. When his subordinates disagreed with him about the nuclear deal as Tillerson and McMaster did, he replaced them sooner or later, and he chose even more bellicose and aggressive people to take their place. He has signed off on every aggressive anti-Iranian and pro-Saudi move he could. When faced with unprecedented Congressional opposition over the war on Yemen, he chose to use his veto for only the second time in his presidency to reject Congress' demand that he withdraw the U.S. from that war.

Ever since he embraced the Saudis and Emiratis early in his first year in office, he has been increasingly bound to them and has been eager to cater to their preferences as much as he can. His determination to be even more pro-Saudi than the average president has guaranteed that U.S. foreign policy has had less and less to do with American interests and has instead become a vehicle for promoting the ambitions of regional clients at our expense. It isn't possible to disentangle the U.S. from ceaseless war in the Middle East when the president abases himself to such an extent before despotic clients and takes their enemies as ours. The Iran obsession has defined and wrecked Trump's foreign policy, and it has led him to make most of the worst foreign policy decisions of his presidency.

Trump knows very little and had no foreign policy experience to speak of, and that made it extremely easy for hawkish advisers to fill his head with their own terrible ideas. Those advisers are undoubtedly responsible for egging Trump on to take destructive and aggressive actions, but ultimately it is Trump's responsibility for surrounding himself with people that everyone knew would give him such awful advice. No one made Trump choose Pompeo and Bolton. It was his own vanity and his preference for flattering yes-men that led him to choose such unworthy and dangerous people for important positions at the highest levels of the government. Trump doesn't have the wit, knowledge, or conviction to take U.S. foreign policy in a different, better direction, and to the extent that he occasionally has impulses that point in that direction they are just as easily canceled out and overwhelmed by even stronger, contradictory impulses that drive him toward confrontation and escalation. The war party prevailed because the president sided with them from the beginning, filled his administration with hard-liners, and fought against every effort in Congress to rein in and end our government's illegal and unauthorized involvement in the war on Yemen.

Whine Merchant , says: May 29, 2019 at 5:27 pm

Trump is not a Conservative, a Republican, a neo-con, nor even a RINO; he is a grifter, and belligerence toward Iran is where his greatest profit can be made.

Kouros , says: May 29, 2019 at 6:19 pm

Do not forget the family dinner, especially when Ivanka and Jared are present

midway , says: May 30, 2019 at 9:05 am

"When his subordinates disagreed with him about the nuclear deal as Tillerson and McMaster did, he replaced them sooner or later, and he chose even more bellicose and aggressive people to take their place."

He replaced them because they weren't as inclined to do the bidding of Israel and Saudi Arabia as they should have been. If you don't jump when Israel and Saudi Arabia say jump, you don't get the big campaign bucks. Transactional Trump understands that very well. Tillerson and McMaster didn't. Bolton and Pompeo not only understand it, they rely on it.

Sid Finster , says: May 30, 2019 at 10:47 am

@midway: I suspect without any hard evidence that Bolton and Pompeo got and keep their jobs not because of dollars and sense, but something even more pathetic.

Namely, they flatter Trump and tell him he is "tough" in private, and do nothing to upstage Trump in public.

Anon1970 , says: May 30, 2019 at 10:53 am

midway: The really big campaign bucks were made possible by the Citizens United Supreme Court decision back in 2010. The conservatives on the court then probably never realized they were giving a handful of billionaires the power to have more influence on federal politics than they had ever had before. If the US stumbles into a war with Iran in the next couple of years, the little people wearing the MAGA caps will be worse off than ever.

Myron K Hudson , says: May 30, 2019 at 1:16 pm

"His determination to be even more pro-Saudi than the average president has guaranteed that U.S. foreign policy has had less and less to do with American interests and has instead become a vehicle for promoting the ambitions of regional clients at our expense."

Promoting the ambitions of regional clients at our expense it couldn't be put more clearly than that. An even greater shame: this isn't part of some "great game"; we're led by a man who wants to be seen as tough by men he sees as tough.

SteveK9 , says: May 31, 2019 at 11:28 am

I did not notice the name Sheldon Adelson mentioned and if we are looking for reasons for Trump's antipathy toward Iran, we need to recognize the fact of the large donations made by this ultra-Zionist to Trump's campaign.

[May 31, 2019] Jared Packs Unicorns and Rainbows For Mideast Trip by Ilana Mercer

Notable quotes:
"... For one, the Arabs know that Ivanka is calling the shots -- and that the president's fashion-focused daughter is behind the branding of the sexually androgynous, intellectually inchoate production that is Jared Kushner. If you think that's something Arabs respect, you don't know Shiite from Shinola . ..."
"... Then there's Bibi Netanyahu's ingenious, Israel First tactics. You have to be a special kind of dumb -- Jared and Ivanka dumb -- to imagine you can present Bibi with a plan to fix his part of the world. The Israeli prime minister will make the right noises and will have Jared for breakfast. ..."
"... As the Economist noted derisively -- its writers, too, are radicals in the mold of Jared and Ivanka -- Netanyahu is no radical. He is a reactionary nationalist. Temperamentally conservative," and "wary of change," as all true conservatives ought to be, Netanyahu "governs as if Israel needs no change." The Israeli prime minister has even passed nation-state legislation consecrating Israel as the home of the Jewish people. ..."
"... In case you're unfamiliar with Bibi's base -- supporters of Likud since the party's inception -- they are, "Voters from conservative religious and working-class backgrounds, Russian-speaking immigrants and Mizrahi Jews (who are descended from immigrants from the Arab world)." The political equivalent of Trump's deplorables. ..."
"... "We will forever live by the sword." Bibi's words in 2015. ..."
May 31, 2019 | www.unz.com

... ... ...

Let us begin with our debutant's Middle East peace plan, the thing his father-in-law calls "the deal of the century."

The notion of Jared solving the Israeli-Palestinian vexation is laughable, perhaps the dumbest thing ever. You just know this is a vain Ivanka move to brand the region and add it to her CV. (Ivanka, to those who don't know, is intent on riding to the presidency herself on her father's coattails.)

The Arabs slated to partake in the Kushner summit, Bahraini, Saudi and Emirati participants, are likely laughing the hardest.

For one, the Arabs know that Ivanka is calling the shots -- and that the president's fashion-focused daughter is behind the branding of the sexually androgynous, intellectually inchoate production that is Jared Kushner. If you think that's something Arabs respect, you don't know Shiite from Shinola .

Wily Arabs are hip to White House dynamics. They know who's running the West Wing and who to flatter. Some in the region have even given Donald Trump a dubious honorific , Abu Ivanka al-Amriki. Being known as "father of Ivanka the American" is, of course, no honor in the muscular, manly Middle East.

The timing of the Kushner peace plan is especially asinine. For all the upheaval in the region, the Palestinian Problem has nevertheless dropped off the geopolitical radar as an urgent matter to resolve.

For better or for worse, the two sides are locked in a deadly, tightly choreographed dance. The Palestinians rise in frustration and fury; the Israelis respond with overwhelming force. The world then offers-up perfunctory sympathy for the Palestinians. Everybody moves on.

It's just the way it is. The world has become desensitized to the plight of the Palestinians.

Take the Economist -- a liberal, pro-Palestinian, most excellent weekly. Its editors cogitated but briefly over the Israeli army's last use of excessive force against the M.O.P.E (Most Oppressed People Ever), concluding nonchalantly that, "Every state has a right to defend its borders." "It is time for Palestinians to take up genuine non-violence."

In other words, " Grow up, Palestinians. The stone-throwing was cute when your struggle was in its infancy ."

Understandably, the Palestinians will have no truck with the Trump administration.

Then there's Bibi Netanyahu's ingenious, Israel First tactics. You have to be a special kind of dumb -- Jared and Ivanka dumb -- to imagine you can present Bibi with a plan to fix his part of the world. The Israeli prime minister will make the right noises and will have Jared for breakfast.

Netanyahu has been busy befriending " once hostile neighbors and has gained the respect of world leaders ." Like himself, his new friends (the murderous Saudi regime is among them) don't seem to care much that Israel's "supposedly temporary occupation [of 4.5 million Palestinians] has become permanent conquest."

Don't blame me for dishing Middle Eastern realpolitik. These are just the facts and the deductions therefrom.

By the Economist's telling , Mr. Netanyahu's strategy toward the Palestinians is a finely honed "anti-solutionism." Netanyahu "has sought to convince Israelis that the conflict can be managed, if the right people are put in charge of managing it, and thus need not be solved."

From experience, Netanyahu knows that an "anti-solutionism" puts his army and him in control, to better deliver on the security needs of the Israelis. This makes Bibi even more of a mystery to the self-aggrandizing Kushners. After all, they are not acting in America's self-interest. A provincial leader who does just that is anathema to the mindset dominant in America.

Like him or not, the conservative, patriotic Bibi will not allow Jared Kushner to steer Israel in a radical direction. Instead, Bibi will likely let The American rattle on about radical change (which he, Jared, will not have to live through), and will quietly ignore him in favor of maintaining the safer status quo.

You see, the Israeli prime minister is a grizzled old warrior -- and a true populist, the kind that builds walls to protect his people and passes laws to safeguard their ancient patrimony.

Netanyahu and his new Sunni partners will make polite noises and then shrug off this Middle-East plan with a hearty laugh and some good arak , behind Jared's slender, sylphlike back.

As the Economist noted derisively -- its writers, too, are radicals in the mold of Jared and Ivanka -- Netanyahu is no radical. He is a reactionary nationalist. Temperamentally conservative," and "wary of change," as all true conservatives ought to be, Netanyahu "governs as if Israel needs no change." The Israeli prime minister has even passed nation-state legislation consecrating Israel as the home of the Jewish people.

But by golly, Bibi will give the first-couple-in-waiting good hospitality -- leading Ivanka and her poodle to "think" they succeeded in plastering their brand on the region. Then he'll send Ivanka's emissary packing, to be celebrated by his clueless American fans.

And the region will return to its old ways.

Bibi, moreover, reads his voters well. The appetite for the charade that are the Israeli-Palestinians peace talks has diminished. "The percentage of Israelis favoring talks with the Palestinians has dropped from over 70 percent to closer to 50 percent over the past decade. Among Mr. Netanyahu's supporters it is 30 percent."

In case you're unfamiliar with Bibi's base -- supporters of Likud since the party's inception -- they are, "Voters from conservative religious and working-class backgrounds, Russian-speaking immigrants and Mizrahi Jews (who are descended from immigrants from the Arab world)." The political equivalent of Trump's deplorables.

To sum, "should it ever to arrive," Mr. and Mrs. Kushner's peace plan "will be dead on arrival."

Americans like Jared and Ivanka don't know the past and show little respect for it. Netanyahu, however, understands history and what it portends for the future. "Because the Palestinian issue cannot be solved," Bibi's statecraft entails preparing his people for a reality they understand all too well:

"We will forever live by the sword." Bibi's words in 2015.

Let us wrap-up on a more mirthful note. Here's some stuff our oracular Mr. Jared has said about rainbows and unicorns in the Middle East: "Progress could 'look like a lot of different things." "Success 'can look like an agreement, it can look like a discussion, it could lead to closer cooperation, maybe resolve a couple of issues."

Now that's deep. Reality TV deep.

Ilana Mercer has been writing a weekly, paleolibertarian column since 1999. She is the author of Into the Cannibal's Pot: Lessons for America From Post-Apartheid South Africa (2011) & The Trump Revolution: The Donald's Creative Destruction Deconstructed " (June, 2016). She's on Twitter , Facebook , Gab & YouTube

Exile , says: May 31, 2019 at 2:06 am GMT

Solid assessment. Bibi’s ruthlessness in pursuit of his people’s interests is something I wish my people’s leaders would emulate. Instead, they buy into the Israeli gaslighting and flattery and beclown themselves with paens to “Judeo-Christianity,” “America’s greatest ally,” and “the ME’s only democracy.”

It’s debatable whether Bibi’s “forever war” is in fact in the best interests of Israeli Jews, but no one can credibly claim he’s a tool of foreign powers.

The Empire, on the other hand, is most definitely in thrall to a people whose American diaspora makes up less than 3% of its population.

Fidelios Automata , says: May 31, 2019 at 4:12 am GMT

I take issue with Mercer’s characterization of The Economist as “excellent.” It may have been at one time. I dropped my subscription decades ago when I realized it was a globalist propaganda rag.

Thinker , says: May 31, 2019 at 4:25 am GMT

I wish Trump would just keep his moron SIL on Israel-Palestinian affairs only. Who cares if he F’s it all up. It’d be no different from where it was 10, 20, 50 years ago. But everything Jared touches turns to shite, including his POS prison reform plan and atrocious immigration bill. Trump’s turned into a POS because he put his POS SIL in charge of everything, incl. his signature campaign issue, immigration.

Javanka is the worst thing to happen to America. Without these two treasonous rats Trump might have saved the country, now he’s just another swamp creature.

Franklin Ryckaert , says: May 31, 2019 at 4:33 am GMT

Netanyahu (and most Israelis) don’t want the problem be resoved, neither does Mahmoud Abbas (and most Palestinians). Abbas has already explicitly stated that he will not accept the plan whatever it is. Under such circumstances the only result of Jared’s and Ivanka’s mission might be that Ivanka will get some lucrative contracts for selling her designer shoes in the Middle East, like she did in China. God help us if ever this naive and ignorant woman will run for president!

renfro , says: May 31, 2019 at 6:14 am GMT

Shorter Ilana……’the dogs bark, the caravan moves on.’

Meanwhile Netanyahu is in deep doodoo. After winning the election he failed to form a majority party. So there will be a do over election. This means the PIECE Plan is dead for the time being.

The final round: Netanyahu versus Liberman

https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2019/05/israel-benjamin-netanyahu-reuven-rivlin-likud-elections.html

renfro , says: May 31, 2019 at 6:26 am GMT

Here’s the Kushner, Greenblatt, Friedman peace plan. Its not new. Its a transfer plan.

The Jerusalem Summit

Assessment
1. The conventional-wisdom paradigm for the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has failed woefully, bringing nothing but misery and despair to both sides – but particularly to the Palestinians as individual human beings.

[Hide MORE]
2. This conventional paradigm has attempted to solve the conflict by means of a Political Approach involving the establishment of a self governing Palestinian entity on territories in Judea Samaria and Gaza which have been under Israeli control since 1967 i.e. on the basis of a “Land for Peace” approach.

3. Dispassionate assessment of the history of the conflict and its current development will strongly suggest that persisting with attempts to attain a political solution on the basis the conventional paradigm are at best futile – and at worse harmful. Accordingly, alternative modes of resolution must be pursued.

B. Analysis

1. Analysis of Palestinian deeds and declarations over the years make it difficult to avoid the conclusion that they are in effect both unwilling and incapable of achieving and maintaining statehood.
(a) Palestinian Unwillingness: This is reflected in the fact that the Palestinians have rejected every single viable proposal which would have afforded them a state – from the 1947 partition plan to the 2000 Barak proposals.

(b) Palestinian Incapability: The Palestinian national movement has enjoyed conditions far more favorable than almost any other national independence movement since WW-II – widespread international endorsement of their cause, unmitigated support of a superpower in the decades of the Cold War, highly sympathetic coverage by the major media organizations, and over a decade of Israeli administrations who have acknowledged (and at times even identified with) the Palestinians declared national aspiration. In spite of this, the achievements of Palestinian national movement have been more miserable than almost any other national independence movement – bringing nothing but privation and penury to its people.
2. It is thus far easier to understand Palestinian conduct if one assumes that it is driven less by lack of Palestinian self determination and more by the very the existence of Jewish self determination; less by the aspiration to establish a Palestinian state and more by the aspiration to dismantle a Jewish state.

Read more….. http://www.jerusalemsummit.org/eng/hs_short_eng.htm

3. The latter, and seemingly more plausible, explanation of Palestinian behavior – i.e. rejection of Jewish self determination and the dismantling of the Jewish nation state – reflects an agenda totally unacceptable by any international standards and thus must be branded as devoid of any legitimacy.

4. Accordingly if the accepted version of the Palestinian narrative – i.e. a desire for Palestinian self determination and the aspiration for Palestinian statehood – cannot be reconciled with the history of Palestinian behavior, this narrative also must be branded as devoid of any legitimacy.

5. This issue of legitimacy of narrative is crucial. Indeed the very fuel of the Political Paradigm involving the establishment of a Palestinian state is the perception – or rather the misperception – of the presently prevailing Palestinian narrative as legitimate.

C. Conclusion

1. The establishment of a Palestinian State must removed from the international agenda.

2. However, removing the issue of a Palestinian state from the international agenda will not eliminate the humanitarian predicament of Palestinians residing in Israeli-administered areas.

3. This is clearly an issue that must be addressed and resolved. But it must be addressed not in political terms but in humanitarian ones.

4. Thus, to successfully resolve the Palestinian problem, the Political Paradigm must be replaced by a Humanitarian Paradigm. This, however can only be done if the current Palestinian narrative, which fuels the Political Paradigm, is de-legitimized.
5. Thus, the de-legitimization of the Palestinian narrative becomes a vital prerequisite to any comprehensive resolution of the Palestinian issue.

D. Proposal

1. A comprehensive Humanitarian Approach to the Palestinian issue would entail three major elements:
(a) The dissolution of UNRWA – which will end the discriminatory treatment of the Palestinians with regard to their status as refugees;

(b) The termination of ethnic discrimination against Palestinians , living in the Arab world – which will end the discriminatory treatment of the Palestinians with regard to their status as residents;

(c) Generous relocation grants to Palestinians living in Israeli administered territories on an individual basis and not via any official Palestinian organization.

2. UNRWA is an organization that perpetuates the Palestinian refugee problem. It is an anomalous organization which exists solely to deal with Palestinian refugees, while all the other refugees on the face of the globe are dealt with by the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR).

3. The organizations not only deal differently with the refugees under their auspices, they each have different definitions for classifying an individual as a “refugee”.

4. This difference in definition has far-ranging consequences. For in contrast to the UNHCR definition, which results in a decline in the number of refugees over time, the UNRWA definition leads to an inflation of the number.

5. In fact, if the UNHCR’s otherwise universal definition were applied to the Palestinian case, the number of refugees would decline from 4-5 million to 200-300,000 i.e. by over 90%!!

6. It thus appears that UNWRA is perpetuating the very problem it was designed to eliminate.
7. Accordingly, the dissolution of UNRWA is an essential prerequisite for any comprehensive, durable settlement of the Palestinian issue.

8. With the dissolution of UNWRA, the remaining, and drastically reduced, number of Palestinian refugees, should be placed under the auspices of UNHCR – in accordance with the accepted practice for all other refugee groups on the face of the globe.

9. Those Palestinians no longer classed as refugees under the new arrangements, must be offered all the privileges afforded all other peoples resident in their current countries of domicile in the Arab world — including the right to acquire citizenship.

10. In order to do this, a vigorous diplomatic and media campaign must be mounted to induce Arab governments to end their harsh discriminatory behavior towards the millions of Palestinians domiciled in their countries and absorb them into their societies as fully fledged citizens. After all, even the Palestinians assert (in the opening paragraph of their National Covenant) that they are “part of the Arab Nation”.

11. As for the Palestinians resident in Israeli administered territory, there is only one reasonable and feasible alternative that will facilitate:
(a) extricating them from their dire humanitarian plight;
(b) free them from the yoke of generations of misrule by their leadership;
(c) ensure the survival of Israel as the nation-state of the Jews.

12. This is a generous relocation and resettlement package to allow them to build a new life for themselves and their families in countries preferably, but not necessarily exclusively, with similar religious and socio-cultural conditions.

13. In order to minimize the ability of organized Palestinian interest groups to impede the success of such an effort, the offer of financial inducement to emigrate must be “atomized” – i.e. made to individual Palestinian breadwinners on a one-to one personal level and not on a communal level via some formal Palestinian entity.
14. A survey conducted among the Palestinians in Nov. 2004 indicates that only about 15% of the Palestinian population resident in Israeli administered areas would reject such an offer outright. By contrast, over 70% would accept some form of material compensation as an inducement to emigrate permanently from the areas currently under Israeli administration (see http://www.jerusalemsummit.org/eng/news.php?news=102 )
15. The economic cost of such a policy of generously financed humanitarian relocation and resettlement would be eminently affordable and would compare favorably with almost all other settlement proposals on the table today. Indeed, its total cost would be around 50% of the present total US outlay on the War in Iraq!!

16. Indeed, given Israel’s present level of GDP, it is an initiative that it could well undertake on its own over the next decade to a decade and a half. It should be realized that this is the period that has elapsed since the initiation of the Oslo process – which has brought nothing but failure and tragedy at the cost of billions of dollars and thousands of lives.

17. Of course, if the US, the EU and other developed nations were to contribute to this effort, it could be implemented in a far shorter space of time and with almost no burden on the world economy.

18. Quite the opposite, the Palestinians arriving in their new countries of domicile will not be impoverished refugees but reasonably affluent émigrés. The funds that they would be bringing with them would provide a considerable boost for the economies of these nations – most of which would be developing countries with a pressing need for such a substantial influx of funds.

E. Summary

The proposed initiative constitutes a “win-win” proposal which will:
Alleviate, and even eliminate, the humanitarian plight of individual Palestinians

Ensure the continued security and survival of Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish people

Provide a Significant Boost to the Economies of the Developing World

Transform poverty stricken refugees into affluent émigrés

Al Liguori , says: • Website May 31, 2019 at 6:58 am GMT

How can one write meaningfully about the Kushners without mentioning that they are Chabadniks? To understand the significance, one must understand Jared’s family background and the virulent malevolence of supremacist Chabad. http://judaism.is/kushner.html

Bardon Kaldian , says: May 31, 2019 at 7:25 am GMT

“We will forever live by the sword.” Bibi’s words in 2015.

I knew there was a reason I always liked this guy….

joeshittheragman , says: May 31, 2019 at 9:46 am GMT

The Palestinians rise in frustration and fury; the Israelis respond with overwhelming force. The world then offers-up perfunctory sympathy for the Palestinians. Everybody moves on
——————————————————————————————————-
Interesting that after getting their butts kicked every time, when the smoke clears, there’s another Pal. kid is still throwing rocks at israeli soldiers. I don’t know how it will happen but somehow the Pals are going to win this thing.

neutral , says: May 31, 2019 at 9:57 am GMT

So much wrong with this, where to start. The Economist is not excellent, The Economist only supports Israel to have the right to protect its borders, Kusher is a jewish supremacist that has given absolute everything to Israel, the Arabs taking part in these ethnic cleansing talks are all corrupt puppets and how no real support in their countries.

This is all makes sense if one knows that this woman is an anti white jew. Its time to deport this anti white crusader back to South Africa, she was after all very eager to destroy the country the whites built, why should she not suffer the consequences of her actions and beliefs?

AryanMasterUberMan , says: May 31, 2019 at 10:14 am GMT

What I find curious about Israel is that they are backed by the world’s most powerful military force, they get infinite money, almost any high-tech military hardware they want, an international propaganda aparatus that exonerates them regardless of what they do, and an entire population that is militarized, and yet with all these advantages going on 70 years, these jews CANNOT even colonize a tiny desert strip of the Levant. Unbelievable. Really, how incompetent are jews? Forget Eretz Israel. That requires conquering people much more dangerous and resilient than poor Palestinian peasants. It’s like jews are incapable of building. Destruction is all they know.
Israel will fail.
Like their Soviet Union failed.
Everything a jew touches fails.

Realist , says: May 31, 2019 at 11:31 am GMT
@Thinker

Javanka is the worst thing to happen to America. Without these two treasonous rats Trump might have saved the country, now he’s just another swamp creature.

Trump is a denizen of the swamp….a Deep State sycophant. Javanka is allowed to be ‘treasonous’ by her daddy. You have the cart before the horse.

Old and grumpy , says: May 31, 2019 at 1:52 pm GMT
@AryanMasterUberMan

Can’t have the possibility that a Palestinian genocide bump the Holocaust from the headlines. As it is now every Jewish holiday, they can celebrate historic bloodshed with Palestinian bloodshed. Oh and not to forget, all those rock tossing kids have organs to be harvested for Israel’s growing transplant industry.

Brooklyn Dave , says: May 31, 2019 at 3:28 pm GMT

Brilliant article, Ilana. I love the term Abu Ivanka al Amriki. If that isn’t derisive, I don’t know what is. Trump has already turned off a part of his base in regard that Jared and Ivanka still having too much to say in the administration. The sooner he gets rid of them (don’t hold your breath), the better off the nation will be. The only pressure I can see Trump bending to in regard to Bimbo & Boy Bimbo is that of the military – one of the few institutions that he respects. Since Obama cleared the military of a lot of its good men, leaving it with career-minded slimeballs, one wonders who in the military would have to cojonees to put that kind of pressure on Trump? If Ivanka thinks having her eye on the presidency is realistic, she better think twice. I’d ALMOST contemplate voting for Ocasio-Cortez for a micro-second before I’d go that route. Unfortunately, the Palestinians are disposable. They have nothing to offer anyone in realpolitik. Muslims and Arabs will make all kinds of noise, but not seriously risk a thread of their wives’ burkhas. Only human compassion motivates activism on behalf of the Palestinians. Yes, Bibi will have Jared & Ivanka’s heads spinning and dazed by the time their plane lands back in the US. Ah well, such is realpolitik.

Anon [414] • Disclaimer , says: May 31, 2019 at 5:34 pm GMT

Jews had made a mess of Europe until WWII because they were always treated as the outsiders, not allowed to own land, etc., so they stuck together as a group for survival and to thrive. But things are different now, esp. in the US, they are outsiders no more. Why do Jews continue to stick together as a tribe, still refusing to assimilate, wanting the US to go to more wars on behalf of Israel, and encouraging open borders and multiculturalism so that they are not the only out group against a white majority. Why won’t they assimilate?

I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s all because of Israel. Israel needs for the diaspora to stay loyal to the tribe to ensure it’s survival. That’s why they are going out of their way to build the holocaust museum, because Judaism is losing its appeal as more Jews become secular, they need to keep them loyal to the tribe on a new religion: Holocaustianity.

As long as there is an Israel, Jews will never assimilate, and the world will always be in chaos. For the world to achieve peace, Israel Must DIE.

Al Liguori , says: • Website May 31, 2019 at 4:34 pm GMT
@TKK ltra-Orthodox Jewish Newspaper Edits Female World Leaders Out of Charlie Hebdo March
http://www.mediaite.com/online/ultra-orthodox-jewish-newspaper-edits-female-world-leaders-out-of-charlie-hebdo-march/
•IDF’s chief rabbi-to-be Eyal Karim permits raping women in wartime
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4827240,00.html
•etc. http://judaism.is/torah-on-women.html
druid55 , says: May 31, 2019 at 5:37 pm GMT
@Al Liguori

Definitely a shitty little country

Tired of Not Winning , says: May 31, 2019 at 6:16 pm GMT

Girly man a.k.a. Lucifer in the flesh’s Mideast Peace Plan is dead on arrival because China and Russia ain’t drinking his poisonous KoolAid, unlike his dumb FIL who chugs it by the bucket:

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-05-28/china-russia-jointly-boycott-trumps-deal-century-mideast-peace-conference

“Everything Jared touches turns to gold,” Trump tells us. A guy that dumb and blind has no business being president.

Robert Dolan , says: May 31, 2019 at 6:41 pm GMT

The Kushners are full on criminals.

Ivanka and her idiot husband are the worst thing that ever happened to Donald Trump.

Trump could have been a contender. Instead…..he’s just another shabbos goy sellout bum.

Tired of Not Winning , says: June 1, 2019 at 12:27 am GMT

US Confirms It Updated Maps To Show Disputed Golan Heights As Israeli:

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-05-31/us-confirms-it-updated-maps-show-golan-heights-israeli

Next, Trump will confirm US updated map showing Iran as part of Israel.

[May 31, 2019] The Hidden Side of the Mueller Report by Tom Mysiewicz

Notable quotes:
"... There are numerous NGOs that act on behalf of Israel in the U.S., examples being CUFI, JINSA, AIPAC and the Chabad Lubbivitcher sect. ..."
"... For, if the real intention had been to "get" Trump post election -- and not make him a sympathetic character to the average American -- an investigation would have focused on the "Russian" mafia and their banks, Israeli intel, Trump's bankruptcies (and who got him out of them) and the Chabad Lubbavitcher sect. Does anyone really believe that a U.S. legislature that previously violated protocol and invited Bibi Netanyahu to the U.S. on its own -- and then gave him more than 15 standing ovations -- would impeach the man who gave Jerusalem and the Golan Heights to Israel? This is sheer nonsense -- theater intended to sway the gullible public. ..."
"... In fact, Adelson even funds a major newspaper in Israel -- Israel Today -- that has helped keep Netanyahu in power. (The 85-year-old and his wife Miriam gave $82-million+ to Republicans and candidate Trump in 2016.) But, alas, this alone is not enough to account for the election upset (if that was what it was.) ..."
"... In order for Trump to win, it would be necessary to swing a small percentage of disaffected white Americans from both parties. That small percentage (8%-10%) is now referred to as the "Alt Right." ..."
"... It should be remembered that, during the 2016 campaign, Hillary had discussed creating a private non-monitored hotline to Netanyahu when she was elected [12] ) ..."
"... So, the unhinged and unprecedented frothing-at-the-mouth rage towards Trump displayed by the worst of the Neocons (Bill Kristol, Jennifer Rubin, Max Boot, etc.) is all part of the ruse? ..."
"... entire deep state apparatus, with international assistance swung into action with the phony Mueller investigation was a sure sign that Trump's platform was never going to be allowed. ..."
"... "When a public is stressed and confused, a big lie told repeatedly and unchallenged can become accepted truth." ~George Orwell ..."
"... As for Flynn: he knew about many of the misdeeds of the previous administration. They took advantage of a neophyte administration fending off Sally Yates Russian Collusion initiative via a corrupt FBI Director to pressure them to let Flynn go – a terrible newbie mistake telegraphing weakness to all his enemies. ..."
"... So that being said, what's his point. That Trump is exceptionally corrupt despite no collusion with Russia because he's controlled by Izzies? ..."
May 31, 2019 | www.unz.com

The Mueller Report is done, and from the digest made public, its conclusion of no collusion to "fix" the last election by the Russian or "other" foreign governments does not surprise me. I agree with this conclusion. These foreign governments would, presumably, include Israel. However, in the case of Israel, I believe this may be a question of semantics.There is, I believe, considerable evidence that non-governmental forces acting on behalf of Israel succeeded in placing an individual in charge of the U.S. who is currently redirecting the power and financial resources of the nation to almost entirely serve the interests of a foreign power. (And that entity is not Russia!)

There are numerous NGOs that act on behalf of Israel in the U.S., examples being CUFI, JINSA, AIPAC and the Chabad Lubbivitcher sect. There are many super-wealthy patrons of Israel and the Netanyahu government, such as Sheldon Adelson, that were involved in Trump's election. Finally there are shadowy private Israeli contractors, such as those referred to by Cambridge Analytica's Alexander Nix, and the so-called "Russian" mafia, which is reputedly controlled by individuals loyal to Israel. Trump apparently has had business proximity in the past to such entities and their bank. [1]

First indication along these lines can be deduced from special prosecutor Robert Mueller's indictment of General Michael Flynn [2]

. Flynn admits lying to FBI agents about his conversations with Sergey Kislyak, then-Russian Ambassador to the United States, in December 2016, when Trump was president-elect. Apparently acting on orders from Jared Kushner, Trump's senior advisor and son-in-law, Flynn contacted Kislyak to ask if Russia would delay or veto a UN Security Council vote criticizing Israeli settlements. It's certainly a stretch to see how aiding and abetting actions illegal under international law would benefit the U.S. or Trump's MAGA agenda.

Empirical evidence of the preceding and a good example of the type of Israelocentric policy making that came in with the election of Mr. Trump can be found in the book Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House . [2a] There author Michael Wolff relates an alleged conversation between former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon and Roger Ailes, the former CEO of Fox News. Bannon reportedly told Ailes that Trump, Bibi Netanyahu and Trump-Netanyahu backer Sheldon Adelson are in agreement with moving the US embassy to Jerusalem. The national interests of the U.S. and possible international ramifications of this act apparently were not considered.

Trump's reaction to Bannon's alleged statement: "When he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind."

"Donald Trump is the Zionist water boy in the Oval Office. Trump's collusion was never with the Russian government; it was always with the Bolshevik/Ashkenazi/Zionist mafia (the new Deep State) that has now ousted the old Clinton-Bush mafia (the old Deep State) from power. And that coup was stunningly successful and swift. Accordingly, Donald Trump has faithfully filled his administration with quintessential Zionist insiders -- including Mike Pence, Mike Pompeo, John Bolton, Nikki Haley, Elliot Abrams, Gary Cohn, Steve Mnuchin, Wilbur Ross, David Friedman, Jared Kushner, et al.," comments America's most courageous evangelist, Chuck Baldwin, "God help us." [3]

MAGA -- Make America Great Again -- was widely believed to be a spontaneous outpouring of authentic nationalistic sentiment embodied by President Donald Trump. Trump's election was initially welcomed by some countries as a government acting in the actual self-interest of the U.S. because it would be far more predictable than one acting for hidden interests. And Trump's election, promising to reduce the footprint of the U.S. abroad, offered the hope of rolling back the push toward a world war.

Alas, much as was the case with the so-called "Arab Spring", these hopes did not materialize and U.S. interventions overseas have grown. Often, these are somehow related to the interests of the Israeli state and its Likud government:

Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Iran nuclear deal and placed new sanctions on Iran, in accordance with the wishes of Netanyahu and Sheldon Adelson. On April 22 nd , for instance, oil prices jumped 3% as the Trump administration promised to remove sanction waivers on Iran oil [4] -- which had allowed countries such as India to continue buying Iranian oil -- prompting threats from Iran to close the Straits of Hormuz for this violation of the nuclear disarmament treaty. American consumers could pay soaring prices on all their purchases for this act which demonstrably is connected to pre-election planning by backers of Israel with the Trump campaign. (Apparently fearing that this would cause a major rift with India, further alienate Turkey, and scuttle hopes of a trade agreement with China, Trump quietly reversed course to give these countries another year to comply, further demonstrating the Israelocentric monomania of the Neocon-Zionists vs. the actual interests of the U.S.) The ongoing negotiations with North Korea appear centered on its "giving up" Iranian nuclear and missile secrets -- as well as destroying its own offensive missile capabilities -- in return for normalization. Trump recently vetoed a bill to pull U.S. troops out of Yemen and their support of the Saudi aggression (apparently as part of a deal to have Saudi Arabia guarantee Arab support for Trump and Jared Kushner's new Mid-East "peace plan".) Trump's promises of reducing involvement in Syria appear stalled and the U.S. continues the de facto support of he partition of Syria (A future Kurdistan may well become a part of Eretz Israel in the future -- the Barzani brothers were trained by Israel and articles have appeared linking the Kurds to the genetics of the Israeli population) as well as the protection of the evacuation of key ISIS operatives. In South America, war is on the horizon as Neocons move to topple Venezuela -- going so far as to name an alternative president. Venezuela's heavy crude is key to diesel production and China has substantial claims on it (which might not be honored if they don't play ball with Trump.) And the restructuring of South America may also play a role in the creation of a "New Israel" in Patagonia -- a potential evacuation zone of Jews from Israel, the U.S., Canada and elsewhere in the event of war or national chaos -- where Israeli operatives are reported to be extremely active. [4a] Meanwhile, President Trump has destroyed the last vestiges of international law relating to conquest of territory by aggressive warfare, as in the case of the 1967 Mideast War. He has ceded control of territory so seized (recognizing Israeli conquest of East Jerusalem and Syria's Golan Heights) despite U.S. membership in the U.N., which was created to prevent such events in the future so as to make war less attractive. Was this done for any specific U.S. benefit? I think not. But it may have something to do with President Trump's "fabulous" new Mideast peace plan that is similar to Bill Clinton's fabulous new peace plan. Possibly to pressure Europe to support the redrawing of the Mid East, the Trump administration is expected to launch a tariff war with the EU starting this May. (This will apparently follow an expected superficial agreement with China during the same period.) And money for Israel has not been stinted either. Military aid for Israel apparently avoided the budget ax in Trump's 2020 fiscal plan sent to Congress. It includes the full $3.3-billion in assistance promised under a 10-year memorandum of understanding, despite spending cuts in other sectors affecting American interests throughout the proposal. [5]

While the interests of the Israeli ally have been thoroughly protected, in the economic sphere, Trump's MAGA has been something of a train wreck for Trump's populist supporters on main street. Their indebtedness has soared [6]

while the interest on savings (for the 40-something percent of those who have any) dropped to near zero. They got tax breaks that were temporary (as opposed to the massive permanent tax cuts for corporations who are often heavily indebted to large banks) and then, many learned they wouldn't be getting their usual annual tax refunds due to quirks in the tax law -- something that has hit the retail economy hard. Wall St. and the big banks have certainly prospered. U.S. Corporations were allowed to repatriate huge sums of money with no strings attached. And what did they do with this money? Did they invest in infrastructure, job training of Americans and building/retooling of factories as President Trump should have insisted? No, they used it for stock buybacks and acquisitions -- mostly paper shuffling -- that has kept the stock market propped up.

Trump's tariff war, meanwhile, has imposed new costs on average Americans -- not on the Chinese -- with industrial production dropping or remaining flat and U.S. trade deficits soaring. The ham-handed imposition of tariffs without corresponding domestic industrial capacity may also have destroyed some of America's backbone and staunch Trump supporters -- farmers on small- and mid-sized farms. Large amounts of corn and soybeans were placed in silos awaiting the end of Trump's "trade war". These have mostly been destroyed by record flooding and are NOT covered by crop insurance. Many of these farmers will go bankrupt and big agribusiness may ultimately take over their land. (And the "farm bailouts" announced by Trump will mainly go to large farms and big agribusiness -- including farms owned by Chinese interests!)

In a nutshell, Trump "jazzed" a brief economic recovery in the U.S. with massive tax cuts for big business and temporary cuts for voters (more bark than bite variety) while increasing the national debt, which these same overtaxed voters will ultimately be on the hook for. At the same time Trump "jawboned" the Federal Reserve to ease monetary policy so interest rates wouldn't rise as a result of the vast increase in national indebtedness. He has laid the groundwork for eventual hyperinflation (or hyper-stagflation) that may well ruin more of his middle class voters after the 2020 election.

"Manufacturing production ( in March -- Ed. ) was flat after dropping in January and February. In the first three months of the year, factory output fell at an annual rate of 1.1%. Production of cars, truck and auto parts dropped 2.5% in March and 4.5% over the past year." [7] The Cass Freight Index, a measure of truck shipments indicative of overall economic activity is down for the fourth consecutive month year-over-year. [8] Sales of Class 8 trucks (18-wheelers) hit the ditch in January, with orders down 58 percent from a year ago hitting a level not seen since October 2016, near the end of the transportation recession, "when Class-8 truck orders had plunged to the lowest levels since 2009, and truck and engine manufacturers responded with layoffs," writes Wolf Richter. [9]

American businesses expanded in April at the slowest pace in 31 months, according to IHS Markit's survey of business executives. IHS Markit's flash PMI for services slipped to 52.9 from 55.3, while the manufacturing index was flat at 52.4. Any number over 50 signifies expansion. "The U.S. economy started the second quarter with its weakest expansion since mid-2016 as businesses reported a marked slowing in output, new orders and hiring," said Chris Williamson, chief business economist at IHS Markit " [10]

"Manufacturing production has pivoted to the downside in the first quarter of the year, showing the revival in factories and output is sputtering for the first time since the Trump economics team took office," said Chris Rupkey, chief economist at MUFG in New York. "The trade war and America First policies have not brought factories back home yet." [11]

What about immigration? While President Trump "talks the talk" he has failed to close the border as previous presidents have done and seems more interested in expanding the H1B program for large corporate interests instead of retraining Americans to fill at least some of the gap of necessary skills . He allows American soldiers to be captured and disarmed by the Mexican military inside U.S. borders (as happened recently without a proportionate response) and the rate of "catch and release" has soared due to lack of internment facilities. America is filled with unemployed (U6 -- the real unemployment rate -- is 3 times higher than the publicized rate and many of the real jobs are part time and multiple jobs can be held by a single person), homeless and homeless camps, yet we need hordes of unskilled labor pouring into the country? Trump proposes to dump refugees in sanctuary cities, which sounds nice until one realizes that these cities will simply give the refugees tickets to go elsewhere in America. (This already happens in some places in the U.S. where indigents are given tickets to go elsewhere.)

The empirical evidence is therefore clear. Trump's announced program vs. what he has actually delivered to nationalist voters who supported him is what a Hollywood Western town is to a real Western town: it is only a facade. (It should be remembered that Steve Bannon, one of the chief architects of the Trump victory, went from being a Goldman Sachs investment banker to being a Hollywood movie director!) The only plausible explanation? That the Neocon-Zionist power structure co-opted the authentic nationalist sentiments of Americans for their own ends and disguised this control with "Pepe": a neo-Nazi green frog "front man" wearing a red "MAGA" ball cap. It stands to reason that such potent and capable forces are the real source of President Trump's power.

Amazingly, Trump's approval rating remains surprisingly high despite the outcome. Part of this may be the unwillingness of average people to believe their vote counted for nothing and they are heading for the same outcome as if Hillary Clinton had been elected. Then there is something called the Galileo gambit (also called the "Galileo fallacy.") This informal logical fallacy is a way to convince listeners (or viewers) that a questionable leader (or his policies) are good despite evidence to the contrary. I believe this was accomplished using the Russian meddling meme and having the establishment media -- widely distrusted by Trump supporters -- pile on Trump. For, if the real intention had been to "get" Trump post election -- and not make him a sympathetic character to the average American -- an investigation would have focused on the "Russian" mafia and their banks, Israeli intel, Trump's bankruptcies (and who got him out of them) and the Chabad Lubbavitcher sect. Does anyone really believe that a U.S. legislature that previously violated protocol and invited Bibi Netanyahu to the U.S. on its own -- and then gave him more than 15 standing ovations -- would impeach the man who gave Jerusalem and the Golan Heights to Israel? This is sheer nonsense -- theater intended to sway the gullible public.

To make a case for the election of Trump being a soft takeover of the U.S., it's necessary to examine how this might have been accomplished. It is child's play to hack Diebold voting machines for which no paper trails exist. But due to the nature of such rigging it would likely be impossible to prove, say, a hypothesis that Hillary had some machines in key states rigged and "someone's" black ops unrigged them. We also know one of Trump's major backers, the Zionist Sheldon Adelson, is also the main backer of Netanyahu in Israel. In fact, Adelson even funds a major newspaper in Israel -- Israel Today -- that has helped keep Netanyahu in power. (The 85-year-old and his wife Miriam gave $82-million+ to Republicans and candidate Trump in 2016.) But, alas, this alone is not enough to account for the election upset (if that was what it was.)

America is pretty well divided by party and elections are typically very close. There is a block of Israeli-indoctrinated Pentecostal and "Christian Zionist" voters that could deliver 20% of votes. But many of these are already on the Republican rolls. In order for Trump to win, it would be necessary to swing a small percentage of disaffected white Americans from both parties. That small percentage (8%-10%) is now referred to as the "Alt Right."

And it is the Alt Right -- comprised of voters who might otherwise not have voted in the election -- that swung the election coupled with the divisive campaign of Hillary Clinton, which many middle class Americans found odious. (It must be remembered how quickly Trump backed off his "jail Hillary" meme at the conclusion of the election. Was this also play acting? It should be remembered that, during the 2016 campaign, Hillary had discussed creating a private non-monitored hotline to Netanyahu when she was elected [12] )

So, we may start with the genesis of this Alt Right movement. Which was in Israel. Breitbart News, the flagship of the Alt Right movement and a mouthpiece for the Trump campaign (and the eventual nesting place of Steve Bannon) was actually started by a Jewish lawyer and businessman, Larry Solov. [13]

In a 2015 post announcing the opening of Breitbart's Jerusalem bureau, Solov wrote that Breitbart News itself was conceived of in Israel, when Solov traveled to the Israeli state with Andrew Breitbart, the now-deceased founder of Breitbart and met with him and Bibi Netanyahu in planning sessions. (There are pictures of this event.)

"One thing we specifically discussed that night was our desire to start a site that would be unapologetically pro-freedom and pro-Israel. We were sick of the anti-Israel bias of the mainstream media and J-Street," he wrote. [14]

Breitbart's infatuation with Israel is eerily reminiscent of a similar situation in the 1930s. National Socialist propagandist Josef Goebbels ran a publication called the Algerminer in the 1930s prior to the Second World War. Goebbels was quite sympathetic to Zionist interests, sponsored a fact-finding trip to Palestine and had a commemorative coin issued in honor of this collaboration depicting a swastika on one side and a Jewish hexagram ("Mogen David") on the obverse. [15]

Subsequently, the so-called Transfer Agreement saw German Jews brought to Palestine on German ships. [16]

Andrew Breitbart subsequently died -- but not before Steve Bannon had him narrate one of his turgid Hollywood conservative documentaries and got on his and Larry Solov's "good side." Solov then tapped Bannon as Breitbart's successor and brought him on to run the website -- possibly also due to his links with the wealthy Mercer family. Bannon went on to transform Breitbart into the spearhead of Trump's campaign to disaffected Americans vis a vis the Alt-Right. (Although Bannon was reputed in a divorce proceeding to have once made a comment about "whiny Jews," he was given a kosheresque seal of approval by no less than the Israeli ambassador to the U.S. [17]

)

Bannon's masterful use of Breitbart's ideas and website pale in comparison with the impact of his creation of Cambridge Analytica in 2013 (with billionaire fund manager Robert Mercer) [18]

as a spinoff from Strategic Communications Laboratories (SCL.) [19] SCL is a UK firm whose niche "specialties" were once described as psychological warfare , public diplomacy and influence operations.

Cambridge's first big success with "behavorial microtargeting" was swinging the Brexit vote in the U.K., a cause also championed by the Zionist politician Boris Johnson [20] (The Israeli press, not surprisingly, now raises the possibility of Israel becoming Britain's "window on the world" in the event of a hard Brexit! No doubt, Israel may ultimately benefit from the trade wars launched by President Trump as well. It has free trade arrangements with many nations.) Thanks to what's alleged to have been a massive data breach of some 50-million Facebook users, Cambridge was apparently able to corral the (private) data on the social media accounts of millions of American voters in swing states [21]

, allowing development of Trump's talking points and election materials directed at individual voters' "hot buttons" by a sophisticated AI program allegedly developed by company whistleblower Christopher Wylie with help getting the data from a company, Global Science Research (GSR), controlled by researcher Aleksandr Kogan of Cambridge University. [22] Kogan reportedly gave thousands of volunteers a personality test app (thisisyourdigitallife) and then used the Facebook platform (allegedly in violation of the terms of use) to find their friends and their friends' friends and so on much like Carnivore to create a relational database that grew into many tens of millions. In effect, this created the potential for psychological warfare to be used by Cambridge Analytica on the American voting public in order to "game" the election.

For its part, Cambridge claimed that it believed GSR had abided by the UK Data Protection Act and, as soon as it found out this was not the case, terminated the data and deleted the information. And that, after being paid $6.2-million by the Trump campaign, none of the consent-less data was used to elect Trump. (Reuters relates that the N.Y. Times interviewed half a dozen former employees and contractors and reviewed documents and records and claimed these indicate Cambridge retained the data and did use the data. Facebook, after receiving information that 270,000 people had downloaded Kogan's app and that data obtained without consent had not been deleted, then banned Cambridge Analytica and Wylie from using its platform. [23] )

What is even more disturbing is that foreign players may also have been involved in the 2016 election. While Cambridge Analytica and its parent SCL ceased operations on May 2nd, 2018 (possibly to stymie investigations as to the extent of its activities for the Trump campaign and foreign governments) [24]

that cessation came after its former CEO Alexander Nix had some interesting things to say when recorded by TV Channel 4 with a hidden camera while making a sales presentation. [25] In addition to the usual allusions to prostitutes, shady characters, blackmail and the like, Nix carelessly " boasted of his ability to employ "Israeli companies" to gather intelligence on politicians Nix then went on to praise the ability of "Israeli" intelligence personnel in what can only be described as a power sales pitch to a would-be client." [26]

Like Bannon with his revelations to Wolff, Nix had gone too far and was quickly sacked pending an investigation. Had he committed the unforgivable sin of speaking the truth in an insecure venue??? According to a statement put out by CA at the time:

"In the view of the Board, Mr. Nix's recent comments secretly recorded by Channel 4 and other allegations do not represent the values or operations of the firm and his suspension reflects the seriousness with which we view this violation. We have asked Dr. Alexander Tayler to serve as acting CEO while an independent investigation is launched to review those comments and allegations." [27]

Much like exploding armor on tanks, Trump seemingly uses associates and then fires them to deflect criticism when they become compromised. In the case of the massive Cambridge data breach and its possible use to swing the election, Steve Bannon fared no better than General Flynn.

After Bannon's departure from the White House, quoting McClatchy Washington Bureau: " Bannon sold his stake in Cambridge Analytica -- the controversial data firm Donald Trump's campaign employed to reach voters with hyper-targeted online messaging -- in April, as required by his ethics requirement. But Bannon only notified the government of the sale in November, three months after he had left the White House and one month after McClatchy asked him if he still had an interest in the company. He was fined for the late report about the sale Bannon was supposed to sell his $1 million to $5 million stake in Cambridge Analytica while he served in the administration as part of his ethics agreement, but it was never clear until now if he had done so Under Federal law, late filers such as Bannon are fined $200. However, while the fine is small only a tiny percentage of such government-required reports are filed late. Obviously, most reports are timely filed because tardy filing could be an indication of some misfeasance or malfeasance. [28]

Notes

[1] https://www.veteranstoday.com/2017/03/31/how-trump-became-the-russian-mafias-bitch/

[2] United States of America vs. Michael T. Flynn, Violation of 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1001

In a plea agreement, Flynn admitted that he had lied to Justice Dept. investigators, with regard to a resolution submitted by Egypt to the UNSC concerning sanctions on Israel for illegal settlement construction in Palestinian areas, he contacted the Russian Ambassador to the U.S. on December 22 nd , 2016 at the behest of a "very senior member of Trump's transition team" (believed to be Jared Kushner -- Ed.) and requested Russia vote against the resolution or at least delay it. He met again with the Russian Ambassador on December 23 rd and was informed Russia would not comply if the resolution came to a vote. https://www.justice.gov/file/1015126/download

[2a] Wolff, Michael, Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, ISBN 978-1-250-15806-2, Henry Holt and Co. (2018)

[3] Baldwin further adds that (in addition to the Kushners -- Ed.) Trump's association with Jewish mafia billionaires is easily documented. I'm talking about men such as Alexander Mashkevich, Tevfik Arif (not Jewish by birth but a strong Zionist), Felix Henry Sater and Lev Avnerovich Leviev. Look them up for yourself. Jewish Zionist Wilbur Ross (Bilderberg), whom Trump appointed as Secretary of Commerce, was one of the Jewish billionaire Rothschild bankers who bailed Trump out of one of his bankruptcies. "Donald Trump, John Hagee, Zionism And The Chabad," by Chuck Baldwin, February 14, 2019

[4] http://fortune.com/2019/04/22/iran-oil-waivers-sanctions-trump/

[4a] For instance: https://www.mintpressnews.com/dark-secret-behind-british-billionaire-joe-lewis-parallel-state-in-argentina-patagonia/256068/

[5] https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/White-House-budget-plan-contains-33-billion-in-military-aid-for-Israel-583258

[6] Americans' credit spending was greater than ever in 2018, as debt levels reached record totals. Overall consumer debt reached $13.3 trillion in the last quarter of 2018, while the total amount of unpaid revolving debt hit $4.1 trillion.

"Consumer Debt Reaches $13 Trillion in Q4 2018," by Matt Tatham, 3 April 2019. https://www.experian.com/blogs/ask-experian/research/consumer-debt-study/

[7] https://www.usnews.com/news/business/articles/2019-04-16/us-industrial-production-slipped-01-in-march

[8] https://macro.economicblogs.org/mish/2019/04/shedlock-trucking-cass-truck-shipment-index/

[9] http://www.mises.tv/power-market/transportation-boom-ends

[10] "IHS Markit PMI shows slowest U.S. economic growth in 31 months" by Jeffry Bartash, MarketWatch, 18 April 2019. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/ihs-markit-pmi-shows-somewhat-slower-us-economic-growth-in-april-2019-04-18

[11] "U.S. manufacturing mired in soft patch in first quarter" by Lucia Mutikani, Reuters, 16 April 2019

[12] Hillary apparently willing to anything behind the scenes to assist Netanyahu and the Zionists while pandering to Arab and Muslim supporters. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/clinton-in-newly-revealed-classified-emails-discussed-secret-comms-channel-with-israel

[13] The coexistence of anti-Semitism and right-Wing Zionism "in Trump's world make sense," said Todd Gitlin, the Columbia University sociologist and cultural commentator in an email to the Forward. https://forward.com/opinion/354344/steve-bannon-signals-coming-storm-for-jews-in-age-of-donald-trump/

[14] "Breitbart News Network: Born In The USA, Conceived In Israel," by Larry Solov, Breitbart News Network, 17 November 2015. https://www.breitbart.com/the-media/2015/11/17/breitbart-news-network-born-in-the-usa-conceived-in-israel/

[15] https://northshorenumismaticsociety.org/little-known-medal-marks-nazi-zionist-co-operation-in-1933/

also: https://www.coinbooks.org/v20/esylum_v20n54a28.html

[16] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Transfer_Agreement

[17] Ron Dermer, Israel's ambassador to the United States, in 2016 praised President-elect Donald Trump as a "true friend of Israel" and said he looks forward to working with incoming White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon. "Israel has no doubt that President-elect Trump is a true friend of Israel "

https://www.breitbart.com/middle-east/2016/11/17/israeli-ambassador-u-s-look-forward-working-steve-bannon/

[18] According to testimony given to British lawmakers by a company whistle blower, Christopher Wylie, Cambridge Analytica was founded by billionaire Robert Mercer and Steve Bannon.

In other words, Bannon was likely a kingpin and not just a bit player in what transpired -- and probably the real reason he had to leave the White House. "Trump and Brexit: Cambridge Analytica Whistleblower Gives Bombshell Testimony to British Lawmakers," by Pam and Russ Martens, Wall Street on Parade, 27 March 2018

[19] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Analytica

[20] See "Brexit: A Bucket of Cold Water for You," by T. Mysiewicz, Renegade Tribune, 27 June 2016. http://www.renegadetribune.com/brexit-bucket-cold-water/

[21] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-cambridge-analytica/trump-consultants-harvested-data-from-50-million-facebook-users-reports-idUSKCN1GT02Y

also: https://www.politico.com/story/2018/03/17/facebook-trump-campaign-data-cambridge-analytica-423599

also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Analytica

[22] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-cambridge-analytica/trump-consultants-harvested-data-from-50-million-facebook-users-reports-idUSKCN1GT02Y

[23] https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/03/suspending-cambridge-analytica/

[24] Are Cambridge Analytica and SCL Group attempting to evade recent negative coverage, only to re-form and continue their work as part of a new entity? "The news Wednesday about the closure of Cambridge Analytica does not mention Emerdata or its subsidiary Firecrest Technologies All of the other UK SCL-related companies are still listed as active and have no pending filings .

The business purpose of Emerdata is not known, beyond the general description of "data processing, hosting and related activities". However, in a channel 4 News report, the SCL Group founder, Nigel Oakes, said it was his understanding that Emerdata was set up to acquire all of Cambridge Analytica and SCL.

"Cambridge Analytica is dead -- but its obscure network is alive and well," by Wendy Siegelman, The Guardian Weekly, 5 May 2018

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/may/05/cambridge-analytica-scl-group-new-companies-names

[25] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpbeOCKZFfQ

[26] "The Cambridge Analytica Scandal Could Provide Hard Evidence of "Israeli" Meddling in Trump Election," by Adam Garrie, Global Policy and Analysis Think Tank, 20 March 2018

http://www.eurasiafuture.com/2018/03/20/the-cambridge-analytica-scandal-could-provide-hard-evidence-of-israeli-meddling-in-trump-election/

[27] "BREAKING: Cambridge Analytica CEO Suspended From Duty," by Adam Garrie, Global Policy and Analysis Think Tank, 20 March 2018

https://eurasiafuture.com/2018/03/20/breaking-cambridge-analytica-ceo-suspended-from-duty/

[28] "Bannon Sold His Stake in Cambridge Analytica, and was Fined for Late Ethics Report," Hamodia-The Daily Newspaper of Torah Jewry, 20 February 2018

menters to Ignore ...to Follow Endorsed Only Trim Comments?

Biff , says: May 30, 2019 at 6:50 am GMT

The Mueller Report = Political Theatre

JimDandy , says: May 30, 2019 at 7:26 am GMT

So, the unhinged and unprecedented frothing-at-the-mouth rage towards Trump displayed by the worst of the Neocons (Bill Kristol, Jennifer Rubin, Max Boot, etc.) is all part of the ruse?

Bardon Kaldian , says: May 30, 2019 at 11:59 am GMT

I don't get what's so "hidden" or new? Anyone who has read Walt & Mearsheimer knows just about everything.

Johnny Walker Read , says: May 30, 2019 at 12:40 pm GMT

"There is, I believe, considerable evidence that non-governmental forces acting on behalf of Israel succeeded in placing an individual in charge of the U.S. who is currently redirecting the power and financial resources of the nation to almost entirely serve the interests of a foreign power. (And that entity is not Russia!)"

Wow, I've been looking for an article with this level of truth since this latest cardboard cutout was ushered into office. You shills who will be screaming for evidence I suggest you watch the video below and then tell me Israhell is not in charge of American foreign policy.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/A8JB7oSNUHM?feature=oembed

Chris Mallory , says: May 30, 2019 at 1:11 pm GMT

Wait! We have had a president in the last 30 years who hasn't been a water boy for Israel? Even the "Muslim" Obama bent over for that insignificant nation.

The Alarmist , says: May 30, 2019 at 3:11 pm GMT

Good thing the Brits and Australians were in the mix to add a layer of abstraction, eh?

homahr , says: May 30, 2019 at 3:16 pm GMT
@Short Everything

I think there are people on the alt-right who are both pro and anti Israel. Obviously the pro ones only love Israel because Israel likes killing brown people.

Agent76 , says: May 30, 2019 at 3:28 pm GMT

Apr 10, 2019 Congressman Adam Schiff's Russiagate Delusions Are Not Okay

Aaron Maté takes on the Grand Inquisitor of the Russiagate conspiracy, Rep. Adam Schiff, methodically dismantling his deceptive claims, one by one.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/tXsHmoSdPkY?feature=oembed

14.05.2017 International Cyber Attack: Roots Traced to US National Security Agency

Over 45,000 ransomware attacks have been tracked in large-scale attacks across Europe and Asia - particularly Russia and China - as well as attacks in the US and South America. There are reports of infections in 99 countries. A string of ransomware attacks appears to have started in the United Kingdom, Spain and the rest of Europe, before striking Japan, Vietnam and the Philippines on May 12. According to Kaspersky Laboratory, Russia, Ukraine, India and Taiwan were hit hardest.

http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2017/05/14/international-cyber-attack-roots-traced-us-national-security-agency.html

AWM , says: May 30, 2019 at 3:55 pm GMT
@The Alarmist

Don't forget the Italians!

Al Liguori , says: • Website May 30, 2019 at 4:05 pm GMT

Multigenerational subservience of the Trumps to the Jews
http://www.chareidi.org/archives5777/voera/afredtrumpvrh77.htm

and yet many Jews are after Trump. Why is that? Now that you know about Trump's wicked friends, learn about Trump's wicked enemies Anti-Trump & Pro-Obama, the Pritzkers made Obama. "They're bigshots in Holocaustianity, pioneers of mortgage-backed derivatives & publish the genocidal Zohar."

Jorge Bergoglio @HereIsJorge
Carolyn Yeager , says: • Website May 30, 2019 at 4:22 pm GMT

It looks to me like the anti-Trump 'cranks' are getting the upper hand here at Unz Review. Tom Mysiewicz is known for writing articles of this type for Renegade Tribune, which presents the most highly conspiratorial view of world politics possible. Just because he can create 28 footnotes doesn't mean that any of them are credible or actually provide evidence for what he is proposing. In this article, most don't. For example, this paragraph:

Breitbart's infatuation with Israel is eerily reminiscent of a similar situation in the 1930s. National Socialist propagandist Josef Goebbels ran a publication called the Algerminer in the 1930s prior to the Second World War. Goebbels was quite sympathetic to Zionist interests, sponsored a fact-finding trip to Palestine and had a commemorative coin issued in honor of this collaboration depicting a swastika on one side and a Jewish hexagram ("Mogen David") on the obverse.[15]

Subsequently, the so-called Transfer Agreement saw German Jews brought to Palestine on German ships.[16]

I can confidently say that this simplified description and 'conclusion' misrepresents the actual situation at the time and also misrepresents Josef Goebbels intentions. It's the same with many of Mysiewicz's sources intended to back up his argument that Trump is a bought and paid for Israeli asset, and Israel rules the world. What's really going on is that the Jewish population in every country acts as Israeli assets, which gives them their power. And who is responsible for that? Let's look first at the English aristocracy.

Donald Trump is who he is. He has a long history as a public figure and he's been saying the same things for many years. The idea that he has set out to fool Americans in order to serve the interests of Israel and bring about total Jewish domination over us is not supported by the overall reality. The reality is that every U.S. president has limited power and is beset by opposition at all times (including the fierce Jewish Lobby). That is Democracy as we know it. Those who want to sell two-dimensional comic-book villains to their conspiracy-obsessed readers are doing us all a disservice.

homahr , says: May 30, 2019 at 5:00 pm GMT
@Dr. Krieger

Isn't Tommy Robinson and other British far-fight/alt-right people extremely pro-Israel?

Robert Dolan , says: May 30, 2019 at 5:07 pm GMT
@Carolyn Yeager Then he shit on his base and became the most insanely pro-Israel zealot we have ever seen. The southern border is wide open with thousands of invaders pouring in, and they are given WORK PERMITS. Trump was a shill to begin with, or they threatened him and his family so he caved. I kind of think he was a shill to begin with, that he was always a globalist piece of shit and he lied to us to get elected.

In any case, Trump actually is a two dimensional comic book villain that hires every neocon he can find and turns his back on people that believed in him.

It's sickening and it's given me great sorrow.

Prester John , says: May 30, 2019 at 5:43 pm GMT

Reagan had his Eleventh Commandment about not speaking ill of fellow Republicans. Herewith, the Twelfth: "Thou shalt not speak ill of Yisroel."

RobinG , says: May 30, 2019 at 5:48 pm GMT
@Robert Dolan lockquote>

" our June 8, 2019 Memorial Service will be held at the Navy Memorial, 701 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W., Washington DC 20004 at noon. I admit it would be more moving to have the service at Section 34, Arlington Cemetery, however, because of security, logistics, and cost issues, the Navy Memorial is the better choice. In any case, prayer and remembrance can occur anywhere the heart is."

U.S.S. Liberty Veterans Association
https://usslibertyveterans.org/pdfs/LVANewsletter-2019-04.pdf

Curmudgeon , says: May 30, 2019 at 6:10 pm GMT
@Robert Dolan

entire deep state apparatus, with international assistance swung into action with the phony Mueller investigation was a sure sign that Trump's platform was never going to be allowed.

Whether you like Bannon or not, his departure statement – the Trump presidency is dead – has been entirely accurate. The unanswered question is whether that was the plan all along, or whether Trump received an offer that he couldn't refuse. Until proof otherwise, my view is the latter. This was confirmed yesterday when I saw Mueller's bullshit political statement which was essentially, the President can't prove when he stopped beating his wife.

BADmejr , says: May 30, 2019 at 6:23 pm GMT
@homahr

Although the term "Alt Right" has gone out of style these days, the group to which it actually referred is NOT in any way pro-Israel. Tommy Robinson and his like were never Alt Right. The Alt Right is characterized by many things, and some disagree on these, but two things on which no one disagrees is regarding race realism and knowledge of the Jewish question, which means the Alt Right is "anti-semitic" in the eyes of its true enemies. Semitism causes anti-Semitism, and any who refuse to address the Jewish question, and especially those who shill for Israel are NOT Alt Right.

Johnny Walker Read , says: May 30, 2019 at 6:45 pm GMT
@Carolyn Yeager

Again, some here are totally unable to face the truth. This is known as cognitive dissonance. If you suffer from this condition please seek help. Here is a good place to start.

"When a public is stressed and confused, a big lie told repeatedly and unchallenged can become accepted truth." ~George Orwell

https://www.sott.net/article/339728-Political-cognitive-dissonance-and-the-psychology-of-soft-slavery

anonymous [218] • Disclaimer , says: May 30, 2019 at 8:30 pm GMT
@Carolyn Yeager

Its been proven already Breitbart run by jews

Precious , says: May 30, 2019 at 8:57 pm GMT

Trump's tariff war, meanwhile, has imposed new costs on average Americans - not on the Chinese - with industrial production dropping or remaining flat and U.S. trade deficits soaring.

Not on the Chinese? That is news to them and everyone else

China's economy grew at its slowest pace in 28 years in 2018, with gross domestic product expanding 6.6%, down 0.2 percentage point from the previous year, according to data released Monday by the country's National Bureau of Statistics.

The last time economic growth was so tepid was 1990, when the economy slumped in the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square incident. Last year, the economy was hampered by a drive to cut regional government and corporate debt, as well as China's trade war with the U.S.

In a nutshell, Trump "jazzed" a brief economic recovery in the U.S. with massive tax cuts for big business and temporary cuts for voters (more bark than bite variety) while increasing the national debt, which these same overtaxed voters will ultimately be on the hook for. At the same time Trump "jawboned" the Federal Reserve to ease monetary policy so interest rates wouldn't rise as a result of the vast increase in national indebtedness. He has laid the groundwork for eventual hyperinflation (or hyper-stagflation) that may well ruin more of his middle class voters after the 2020 election.

There has never been hyperinflation in any Western nation other than the Weimar Republic. This has been going on since the Bretton Woods agreement. Trump has been dealing with a coup since he took office, when exactly did he have time to reform or replace our central bank with a new money standard and reform our banking laws? Was he supposed to start a recession the moment he took office so we could start tightening our belts and paying all our debts?

Wally , says: May 30, 2019 at 9:14 pm GMT
@Johnny Walker Read

said:
"Wow, I've been looking for an article with this level of truth since this latest cardboard cutout was ushered into office. You shills who will be screaming for evidence I suggest you watch the video below and then tell me Israhell is not in charge of American foreign policy."

Yawn. As if Trump is any different from all the other Presidents who have bowed to Jew / Israeli interests. The alternative was Hillary.

Wally , says: May 30, 2019 at 9:24 pm GMT
@Johnny Walker Read

Quit the strawman arguments. People here realize that Trump yields to Jew interests. The problem you and those like you have is that none of you have differentiated Trump from other Jew ass kissing Presidents. And given the for-Israel wars of Bush & Obama, it's fair to say that Trump is actually better in that regard.

You have also not explained why most Jews dislike Trump. Now please sit down.

FvS , says: May 30, 2019 at 9:25 pm GMT
@homahr

Israel can be useful to the Alt-Right in two ways.
1. As a destination for Jewish diaspora relocation.
2. The existence of the Jewish ethnostate serves as a talking point for white nationalists.

RobinG , says: May 30, 2019 at 11:12 pm GMT
@Carolyn Yeager

Does anyone actually "write for" Renegade Tribune? Seems like it's reposts from elsewhere, like this one from Another Day in the Empire (Kurt Nimmo)

Breitbart, Infowars: Defenders of Mass Murder and Ethnic​ Cleansing
http://www.renegadetribune.com/breitbart-infowars-defenders-of-mass-murder-and-ethnic%e2%80%8b-cleansing/

[MORE]
BaronAsh , says: May 30, 2019 at 11:48 pm GMT

A poor article (unusual with Unz).

First, apart from mentioning it's over in first paragraph, it has NOTHING to do with the Mueller report. It's a reasonable diatribe about how the Izzies have their hands on the American Presidential throat. Name me one President for whom that has not been the case since the 1950s. One: Obama (maybe). And what a totalitarian, police state disaster he was. Maybe in order to do all that he had to do an end run around most of the Izzy agents in the USG, or maybe it was a highly principled stand. But apart from him, nobody. Well, maybe Kennedy, actually, but look what they did to him?

As for Flynn: he knew about many of the misdeeds of the previous administration. They took advantage of a neophyte administration fending off Sally Yates Russian Collusion initiative via a corrupt FBI Director to pressure them to let Flynn go – a terrible newbie mistake telegraphing weakness to all his enemies.

So that being said, what's his point. That Trump is exceptionally corrupt despite no collusion with Russia because he's controlled by Izzies?

Rather feeble if you ask me. I expect better in Unz.

Robert Dolan , says: May 30, 2019 at 11:53 pm GMT
@Carolyn Yeager

Kusnher and Graham have drafted new immigration legislation for amnesty and higher levels of immigration. Trump SAYS what we want to hear, then does NOTHING.

Nothing about sanctuary cities. Nothing about E-verify. Nothing about birthright citizenship. Nothing about the Visa lottery. No wall to speak of, maybe a few miles. His fraud on immigration is handing the democrats permanent power and he has to know this.

Yes ..the nose has fought him at every turn, you're right about that.

But Israel got 38 billion dollars, while we get more mexicans.

I have lost all faith in the man.

Johnny Walker Read , says: May 31, 2019 at 12:55 am GMT
@BaronAsh f promises made that are never kept.

Maybe I'm just tired of seeing the national dept continue to skyrocket.

Maybe I'm just tired of the crumbling infrastructure of my country being ignored while billions upon billions are given to other countries in the form of foreign aid.

Maybe I'm just tired of never ending wars that drain my country of blood and treasure.

Maybe I'm just tired of putting my faith in some politician promising the world and never delivering.

Maybe I'm just tired of the right/left, Republican/Democrat game.

Maybe I'm just tired of "settling" period.

Monty Ahwazi , says: May 31, 2019 at 1:07 am GMT

Just like the vague conclusions of the commission which investigated the 9/11 and didn't reveal the real story, Robert Mueller did the same by deceiving the people and didn't reveal the real story of his investigation into 2016 election. By announcing in detail yesterday as how the Russians manipulated the election in 2016 Mueller completely failed to describe that some of the Russians involved in meddling were Russian Zionists with ties to the Russian mobs! So far this is the 2nd event that they've gotten away with it. It's so sad to see the extend of their involvement in the US government affairs!!!!

Al Liguori , says: May 31, 2019 at 1:48 am GMT
@Wally

You have also not explained why most Jews dislike Trump.

See comment #15's Twitter links. Trump is a pawn (maybe a rook) in intra-tribal warfare: Prtitzker/Soros/Rothschild Jews v. Chabad Jews.

Toby , says: May 31, 2019 at 2:36 am GMT
@FvS

Israel shall be a light unto the nations

The State of Israel as a Light unto the Nations. In his writings and speeches, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion (1886-1973) emphasized his vision of the state of Israel as a moral and social beacon to the whole world, and by that, in his view, it shall implement the vision of the prophets.

Carolyn Yeager , says: • Website May 31, 2019 at 3:27 am GMT
@Robert Dolan come together. If you think any president can just do away with all these things you mention, you are very naive, even childish.

I remember during Trump's campaign, he was speaking to a small rally in the West, maybe California, and one man stood up and asked his position on Israel as a criminal, enemy nation (not his exact words). Trump seemed genuinely shocked, all he could say was, 'We all love Israel don't we? Israel is great, Israel is our friend' like that, then went on to someone else's question. Trump also praised Israel when he spoke to AIPAC and said then he would move the US embassy to Jerusalem. So you are cherry-picking things he said that fit your "poor me" scenario of being lied to.

eah , says: May 31, 2019 at 6:30 am GMT

A plot of the non-profits registered by Jews in the US over the last century reveals how they've made us slaves to Israel. There were four waves: 1) secure a homeland; 2) fund their homeland with our taxes; 3) guilt us with Holocaust education; 4) crush dissent with censorship

Tom Mysiewicz , [AKA "Author"] says: May 31, 2019 at 3:34 pm GMT
@JimDandy

The individuals you name are fanatical supporters of the Zionist state. Looking at what Mr. Trump has done to date vis a vis Israel, how can that not be the case, i.e., that their criticism was a ruse? Suggested reading is the Thomas Friedman book "From Beirut to Jerusalem" where he recounts how covert Arab assets of the Israelis were deliberately attacked in the Israeli press to increase their credibility on the Arab "street." If you read my article carefully–especially on the microtargeting of the disaffected white minority–you will see that such attacks by Neocons were necessary and entirely predictable.

Tom Mysiewicz , [AKA "Author"] says: May 31, 2019 at 4:19 pm GMT
@Carolyn Yeager sume to know the mind of Josef Goebbels I cannot make a conclusion on the actual, documented events..FACTS? It's documented that leading members of the Stern Gang (such as Shamir and Begin) were on the Axis side until well into 1942. Admiral Canaris provided the Jewish Lubbavitcher "Rebbe" Schneerson and his family safe passage in and out of the Warsaw Ghetto. What was he thinking–have you any telepathic revelations on the subject.

I base my conclusions on facts and observations. You, in light of what you said on tariffs, have another methodology. And, sadly, I am an "anti-Trump crank" who voted for Trump as the lesser of two evils and now regrets it. Mea culpa!

Tom Mysiewicz , [AKA "Author"] says: May 31, 2019 at 4:35 pm GMT
@Chris Mallory r grasp of jurisprudence is remarkable. Do you allege Russia rigged voting machines or destroyed ballots? What, precisely did Russia do to swing the election in favor of Trump? This is nonsense. Except for the U.S., no state player–even Israel–would be so careless as to risk being implicated in such a scandal. Because that would swing public opinion against the interests of the offending state.

Trump cannot be prosecuted for any crimes related to this while in office, as Mueller pointed out. So these avenues were not pursued. Which is what I allude to in my article. A serious question: what is the definition of treason in the U.S. Constitution? I'm not sure there is one.

Alden , says: May 31, 2019 at 5:42 pm GMT
@Johnny Walker Read

I don't think any Unz readers need any more proof that Israel has ruled American foreign policy since Truman. There were just a couple refusals by Eisenhower and Kennedy to comply with Israel orders. But since November 1963 every president has been an Israel puppet.

Johnny Walker Read , says: May 31, 2019 at 5:47 pm GMT
@Art

Sorry to say both "parties" are going to give the store away when it comes to Israel. Yes, even the sainted Tulsi Gabbard has taken her pull on the kosher sausage. https://www.youtube.com/embed/PxXcUNct18Q?start=500&feature=oembed

Alden , says: May 31, 2019 at 5:47 pm GMT
@Tom Mysiewicz

In America, the treasonous act must be done in time of war to aid the enemy.

Since we're not at war with Israel or Russia whatever anyone does to help those countries is not treason. All the Israeli and in the old days, Russian theft of military information and materials didn't fit the definition of treason since we weren't at war with those countries.

The constitution is whatever one federal state or even municipal Judge says it is.

Alden , says: May 31, 2019 at 5:52 pm GMT
@Tom Mysiewicz

I have a book about Abu Nidal. He was a big anti Israel bogeyman for decades. The author claims the evil anti semitic Nidal was an Israeli operative all along. The purpose was to supply a bogey man to scare gullible American Jews into giving more and more money and lobby for the American tax payers to give even more to help Israel. He also allegedly gave Israel information about Palestinian activists.

It's pretty well known that even 100 years ago the Zionists had plenty of spies and operatives in the Arab organizations.

Alden , says: May 31, 2019 at 6:01 pm GMT
@Monty Ahwazi

Neither Mueller nor his 3 year investigation came up with one concrete, actual thing the Russians did to influence the election. So some Russians may might have set up a website that some American voters may, might have looked at. BFD

Alden , says: May 31, 2019 at 6:12 pm GMT
@Corvinus ment point of view. You kept writing about collusion. Exactly what did Trump or his associates DO that constitutes collusion? 3 years of investigation and Mueller has found NOTHING that constitutes collusion.

For your simple minded incoherent self: for example the crime of theft. Something must be taken. Robbery, something must be taken from the physical person who owns or legally possesses it. Burglary burglar must go inside a building.

So, what exactly was the ACT of collusion? Mueller found nothing. The only people who are interested any more are the same old same old ultra liberals who hate Whites, Republicans , and Trump/

Corvinus , says: May 31, 2019 at 7:26 pm GMT
@Alden

This investigation is way above your intellectual pay grade. I dumbed down the comment especially for your ilk to understand what is going on. Just keep putting your hands over your face and say "Nothing to see here, move along".

Carolyn Yeager , says: • Website May 31, 2019 at 7:43 pm GMT
@Tom Mysiewicz ere, but, unlike you, know enough about the background to not turn each individual piece of knowledge into a giant conspiracy of my own making. I have covered it all in my articles [for example https://carolynyeager.net/elie-wiesel-and-mossad-part-1%5D and my book https://carolynyeager.net/book-update-3rd-edition-now-available , a translation of Hermann Giesler's memoir of his close association with Hitler.

I am also, like Robin, not convinced that you are Tom Mysiewicz, but are likely just another anonymous crank. All the worse for T.M. is that is so.

Art , says: May 31, 2019 at 7:53 pm GMT
@Alden

But since November 1963 every president has been an Israel puppet.

But since November 1963 every president has been a reluctant Israel puppet.

That is except Trump – he has been an enthusiastic supporter (maybe Johnson also).

Art , says: May 31, 2019 at 8:26 pm GMT
@Johnny Walker Read . Yes, even the sainted Tulsi Gabbard has taken her pull on the kosher sausage.

Yes – it is sad.

Israeli security – Israeli security – Israeli security - those two words are part of Washington's DNA. Deny those words and lightening will strike you dead in DC. The fact is that Gabbard has served against mutual US/Israeli enemies – surly that has influenced her.

I am for Peace, even for Jews – I also do not want a blood bath in Israel. I still believe that Gabbard is anti war with Iran. A pure and total anti-Israel stance.

Think Peace - Art

Anon [262] • Disclaimer , says: May 31, 2019 at 9:17 pm GMT

@Curmudgeon

He received the offer on election night. The real-time poll agglomerate I was following simply couldn't update Georgia and other states.. tv commentators were stuck in a loop.. then tv stations announced .. and the first words out of Trump's mouth were "sorry to keep you waiting, complicated business".

He had agreed not to prosecute Hillary in exchange for an easy recognition of his triumph. And so the enemy was free to persecute him..

Alden , says: May 31, 2019 at 10:17 pm GMT
@Monty Ahwazi

In 3 years Mueller did not find one administrative, civil or criminal city county state or federal law violation. Some Russians had a website on which was posted news about the election. BFD!!!!!!!

You're not an attorney are you? If you were,you'd know the difference between unproven allegations and some kind of law breaking,tort, sharp practice whatever that could be prosecuted or the grounds for a civil suit.

There's nothing in that report.

Alden , says: May 31, 2019 at 10:28 pm GMT
@Monty Ahwazi us you've never been involved in any kind of litigation. Never heard of cause of action or violation of a law code. You're so naive you'll believe anything somebody named Mueller talks about on TV.

What exactly did Trump DO. What violation of an administrative civil or criminal code did Trump DO? Trump did nothing wrong and Mueller and the liberals know they found nothing. so they are just starting from scratch allover again hoping to convince idiots like you that there is something,anything.

So some Russians posted something on the internet. BFD

Boo Hoo,Trump didn't save us so now you hate him.

Art , says: May 31, 2019 at 10:50 pm GMT
@Carolyn Yeager – he is a total loser on immigration. Our country is going backwards.

Things just get worse – now he is penalizing our neighbor Mexico because he cannot lead America to an immigration solution.

We on our side of the issues, need to begin to see the whole picture of his administration – not just the opposition. He bears some responsibility for much of the crazed opposition.

He is the president – he needs to lead us to solutions – not spend his time saving his ego.

How much of our country's disfunction – is his personal disfunction?

Think Peace - Art

[May 29, 2019] >Lubavitchers in the Israeli Mossad

Feb 11, 2014 | collive.com
0

Ex-chief of Israel's national intelligence agency Meir Dagan had an interesting answer to the question if Lubavitchers serve in the Mossad.

By COLlive reporter

Are there Lubavitcher chassidim serving in the Mossad?

This candid question was presented to Meir Dagan , the former director of the national intelligence agency of Israel, during a private meeting in Jerusalem, on Tuesday.

Dagan, who served under 3 prime ministers and was an officer in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), was chatting with donors following the inauguration of a new career development center for frum Jews.

During the conversation about the employment of haredi Jews in the country's many security branches, Dagan was asked whether Lubavitchers serve in the Mossad.

His reply: "You will be surprised to know how many haredim serve in the Mossad."

Dagan added that aside from the employment of chassidim in a professional capacity, the Chabad organization provides spiritual assistance at Mossad's central commend in Tel Aviv.

"Chabad gets a Yashar Koach (kudos) because thanks to them the synagogue at the Mossad command was renovated and we now have a luxurious shul."

As reported in the past, Dagan had a friendly relationship with a Shluchim couple in Belarus when he underwent a successful liver transplant in 2012.

"The Chabad House in Minsk, (a city which) its Jewish history is known to all, became my home," said Dagan who was born on a train between the Soviet Union and Poland during the Holocaust. "Rabbi Schneur Deitsch and his wife will remain forever engraved in my heart."

The Rebbe's unknown ties to the head of the Mossad and their assistance to Chabad's educational and outreach activities in the Former Soviet Union were mapped out in the Hebrew book "The Rebbe and the Mossad," published in 1998.

The inside story of the Rebbe's involvement in Israel's security, as told by its defense and government leaders, is told in JEM's documentary film Faithful and Fortified – Volume 1.

https://player.vimeo.com/video/7456857?color=71bbcc

0

[May 18, 2019] Trump's purported deviation from US foreign policy orthodoxy was a propaganda scam engineered by the pro-Israel Lobby from the very beginning

Highly recommended!
May 15, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

Abe , May 15, 2019 at 17:04

During the 2012 Republican presidential primaries, Mitt Romney claimed that he would not make any significant policy decisions about Israel without consulting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Romney blatantly pandered to the pro-Israel Lobby, including both Jewish Zionists and evangelical Christian Zionists.

In a telling exchange during a debate in December 2011, Romney criticized Newt Gingrich for making a disparaging remark about Palestinians, declaring: "Before I made a statement of that nature, I'd get on the phone to my friend Bibi Netanyahu and say: 'Would it help if I say this? What would you like me to do?' "

Netanyahu met with Romney in 2011. The two men had worked together in the 1970s.

Martin S. Indyk, a leading figure in the pro-Israel Lobby who served as United States ambassador to Israel in the Clinton administration, said that whether intentional or not, Romney's statement implied that he would "subcontract Middle East policy to Israel."

"That, of course, would be inappropriate," added Indyk, a former director for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), who also served eight years as the founding Executive Director of the notorious pro-Israel warhawk "think tank" Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP).

For years, Netanyahu has mobilized pro-Israel Lobby groups and Congressional Republicans to pressure successive US administrations into taking a more confrontational approach against Iran.

"To the extent that their personal relationship would give Netanyahu entree to the Romney White House in a way that he doesn't now have to the Obama White House," Indyk said, "the prime minister would certainly consider that to be a significant advantage."

In March 2012, Romney spoke via satellite to a meeting of the AIPAC. Like other politicians backed by the pro-Israel Lobby, Romney vehemently criticized the Obama administration over its policies toward Israel.

Romney worked at at Boston Consulting Group from 1975 to 1977; Mr. Netanyahu was involved from 1976 to 1978. But a month after Netanyahu arrived, he returned to Israel to start an antiterrorism foundation in memory of his brother, an officer killed while leading the hostage rescue force at Entebbe, Uganda. An aide said he sporadically returned to the company over the rest of that two-year period.

Romney later decamped to Bain & Company, a rival of Boston Consulting. They did, however, maintain a significant link: at Bain, Mr. Romney worked closely with Fleur Cates, Netanyahu's second wife. (Cates and Netanyahu divorced in the mid-1980s, but she remained in touch with Romney.)

Netanyahu paid him a visit to Romney when the latter became the governor of Massachusetts. Netanyahu, who had recently stepped down as Israel's finance minister, regaled Romney with stories of how he had challenged unionized workers over control of their pensions and privatized formerly government-run industries. He encouraged Romney to look for ways to do the same.

"Government," Romney recalled Netanyahu saying, "is the guy on your shoulders."

As governor, Mr. Romney said, he frequently repeated the story to the heads of various agencies.

A few years later, Romney had dinner with Mr. Netanyahu at a private home in central Jerusalem. Before he left Israel, Romney set up several meetings with government officials in the United States for his old colleague. "I immediately saw the wisdom of his thinking," Romney claimed. Back in Massachusetts, Mr. Romney sent out letters to legislators requesting that the public pension funds they controlled sell off investments from corporations doing business with Iran.

Netanyahu maintained contact with Romney during the presidential campaign. When Newt Gingrich leaped to the top of the polls, an article in January 2012 explored why billionaire oligarch Sheldon Adelson was devoting millions of dollars to back Gingrich. It described Netanyahu and Adelson as close friends. Netanyahu's office quickly relayed a message to a senior Romney adviser, Dan Senor claiming that the Israeli prime minister had played no role in Adelson's decision to bankroll a Romney rival.

Fast forward to the 2016 US presidential election.

Trump's purported deviation from US foreign policy orthodoxy was a propaganda scam engineered by the pro-Israel Lobby from the very beginning.

Trump received the "Liberty Award" for his contributions to US-Israel relations at a 3 February 2015 gala hosted by The Algemeiner Journal, a New York-based newspaper, covering American and international Jewish and Israel-related news.

"We love Israel. We will fight for Israel 100 percent, 1000 percent."
VIDEO minutes 2:15-8:06
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiwBwBw7R-U

After the event, Trump did not renew his television contract for The Apprentice, which raised speculation about a Trump bid for the presidency. Trump announced his candidacy in June 2015.

Trump's questioning of Israel's commitment to peace, calls for even treatment in Israeli-Palestinian deal-making, and refusal to call for Jerusalem to be Israel's undivided capital, were all stage-managed for the campaign.

Stage management of both the Trump administration and its Republican and Democratic "opposition" continues apace.

The Israeli government, via the machinations of the pro-Israel Lobby, is an ever more aggressively warmongering "guy on your shoulders".

"Russia-gate" really is about an immense conspiracy to "do things".

The primary "thing", the key pretext that Lazare and other CN contributors steadfastly ignore:

The "Russia-gate" fiction was specifically designed to divert attention from the reality of "Israel-gate".

[May 18, 2019] Is Trump a double dealer. Why Trump Administration Withholds Information That Could Debunk Russian Interference Claims

May 16, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

tom , May 16, 2019 at 15:23

Trump Administration Withholds Information That Could Debunk Russian Interference Claims

Lavrov responded first to the question. He said that there is no evidence that shows any Russian interference in the U.S. elections. He continued:

Speaking about the most recent US presidential campaign in particular, we have had in place an information exchange channel about potential unintended risks arising in cyberspace since 2013. From October 2016 (when the US Democratic Administration first raised this issue) until January 2017 (before Donald Trump's inauguration), this channel was used to handle requests and responses. Not so long ago, when the attacks on Russia in connection with the alleged interference in the elections reached their high point, we proposed publishing this exchange of messages between these two entities, which engage in staving off cyberspace incidents. I reminded Mr Pompeo about this today. The administration, now led by President Trump, refused to do so. I'm not sure who was behind this decision, but the idea to publish this data was blocked by the United States. However, we believe that publishing it would remove many currently circulating fabrications. Of course, we will not unilaterally make these exchanges public, but I would still like to make this fact known.

The communication channel about cyber issues did indeed exist. In June 2013 the Presidents of the United States and Russia issued a Joint Statement about "Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs)". The parties agreed to establishing communication channels between each other computer emergency response teams, to use the direct communication link of the Nuclear Risk Reduction Centers for cyber issue exchanges, and to have direct communication links between high-level officials in the White House and Kremlin for such matter. A Fact Sheet published by the Obama White House detailed the implementation of these three channels.

One inference from Lavrov's statement is that the "fundamental understanding on this matter" between the two presidents that has "not been fully implemented" is the release of the communications about cyberspace incidents. The Russians clearly think that a release of the communications with the Obama administration would exculpate them. That would also exculpate Trump from any further collusion allegations. Why then does the Trump administration reject the release? Who is blocking it?

Cont. reading: Trump Administration Withholds Information That Could Debunk Russian Interference Claims

https://www.moonofalabama.org/

[May 14, 2019] iJews and the Left-i by Philip Mendes A Review, by Brenton Sanderson - The Unz Review

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... While promoting pluralism and diversity and encouraging the dissolution of the racial and ethnic identification of Europeans, Jews have simultaneously endeavored to maintain precisely the kind of intense group solidarity they decry as immoral in others and the great majority support an ethno-nationalist Israel. They have initiated and led movements that have discredited the traditional foundations of Western society: patriotism, the Christian basis for morality, social homogeneity, and sexual restraint. At the same time, within their own communities, they have supported the very institutions they have attacked in Western societies. This is ruthless, uncompromising Darwinian group competition played out in the human cultural arena. ..."
"... Jewish writer David Cole recently questioned the wisdom of this strategy of using non-Whites as “golem” to protect the Jews from a recrudescence of National Socialism. He notes that many of the Jews’ non-White pets (like Ilhan Omar) have a disconcerting tendency to turn on their Jewish masters ..."
"... In the minds of Jewish leaders and activists nurtured since birth on the cult of “the Holocaust,” White nationalism is still the most ominous threat to Jewish survival. This is reflected in the unquestioning commitment of the vast majority of Jewish activists and intellectuals (Cole excepted) to mass non-White immigration and multiculturalism in all historically White nations. ..."
May 14, 2019 | www.unz.com

Despite the Jewish domination of the American Left in the post-War period, Mendes notes that "most Americans do not appear to have adhered to the same anti-Semitic assumptions about Jewish links with communism that dominated public opinion in parts of Europe." [80] Ibid ., 229.
(Philip Mendes, Jews and the Left: The Rise and Fall of a Political Alliance (Melbourne, Victoria; Palgrave MacMillian, 2014), 250.) As evidence of this, Mendes cites the decidedly muted public response to the conviction and execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for selling atomic secrets to the Soviet Union. Despite the recognizably Jewish identity of the couple (given their name) and of all of their co-conspirators (David Greenglass, Ruth Greenglass, and Morton Sobell), and the fact the Rosenberg spy network consisted almost exclusively of Jews from the Lower East Side of Manhattan, the case "provoked remarkably little overt anti-Semitism." [81] Ibid ., 230.
Nor, he observes, did the "significant number of Jews -- including teachers and Hollywood actors -- who were victims of anti-communist purges" and the prominence of Jews amongst those subpoenaed by the House Committee on Un-American Activities, lead to a significant reaction. All public opinion polls conducted during this period showed a consistent decline in "anti-Semitism," and only a small minority of those surveyed (about 5 percent) identified Jews with communism. [82] Ibid .

The lack of any real backlash to Jewish prominence in the New Left is ascribed to various factors: that many members of the public were not aware of the Jewish background of many of the radical leaders; that these Jewish radicals were ostensibly "not campaigning about any specifically Jewish issues that would have focused attention on Jews per se;" and to the "general decline in anti-Semitism since World War Two." [83] Ibid ., 257. This latter shift in public opinion (unsurprisingly) coincided with the Jewish seizure of the commanding heights of American (and Western) culture in the 1960s, and the growing emergence of the culture of "the Holocaust." The combined effect was to banish overt critical discussion of Jewish power to the margins of public discourse. While Americans rejected communist activities during the Cold War, unlike in Europe, they did not widely equate communism with Jews (at least publicly), or view Jewish participation in leftist politics with particular concern.

Neoconservatism

Neoconservative leaders were among those who feared that the Jewish prominence in the New Left of the late 1960s and early 1970s would fuel a conservative backlash against Jewish radicalism. For example, Norman Podhoretz, the editor of Commentary magazine, attacked leading Jewish leftists as alleged self-hating Jews and completely unrepresentative of the Jewish community. [84] Ibid ., 22.

Mendes ascribes the defection of many Jews from the radical left to neoconservatism in the 1970s to a growing misalignment between modern Leftist politics and Jewish ethnic interests: the key factor being "the creation of the State of Israel which transformed Jewish dependence from international to national forces." [85] Ibid ., viii.
With the advent of the state of Israel, Jewish interests were no longer exclusively represented by the universalistic agendas of the Left. According to Mendes: "Most Jews have lost their faith in universalistic causes because they do not perceive the Left as supportive of Jewish interests, and have turned instead to nationalist solutions." [86] Ibid ., 235.

The creation of a Jewish national entity featuring (thanks to US taxpayers) a strong and powerful army meant that Jews all over the world could look to the Zionist state to safeguard their interests, rather than depending on internationalist movements and ideologies (i.e. communism and the Soviet Union) which had often proven to be unreliable allies. Even many left-wing Jews, who might have been anti-Zionist prior to World War Two, shifted their position after the birth of Israel. For example, the long-time Austrian Jewish leftist Jean Amery commented in 1976:

There is a very deep tie and existential bond between every Jew and the State of Israel Jews feel bound to the fortunes and misfortunes of Israel, whether they are religious Jews or not, whether they adhere to Zionism or reject it, whether they are newly arrived in their host countries or deeply rooted there The Jewish State has taught all the Jews of the world to walk with their head high once more Israel is the virtual shelter for all of the insulted and injured Jews of the earth. [87] Ibid ., 236-37

The perceived anti-Zionism of the New Left from the 1967 onwards served to alienate many Jews and confirm their commitment to nationalist, rather than internationalist solutions. An additional factor was the 1967 Six Day War in the Middle East, which provoked fears of "another Holocaust," and galvanized even non-Zionist Jews in support of Israel. There were rallies in support of Israel throughout the Western world accompanied by large donations. American Jews held massive fundraising campaigns and reportedly raised 180 million dollars. Numerous volunteers travelled to Israel to support the Jewish State. In Australia, more than 20 per cent of a total Jewish population of 34,000 in Melbourne -- attended a public rally to express their support for Israel, and 2500 attended a youth rally. 750 young Jews volunteered to go to Israel. According to Taft,

there was a widespread, almost universal, absorption in the Middle East Crisis of June among the Jews of Melbourne. This absorption took the form of extreme concern about the safety of Israel, emotional upsets, obsessive seeking of news, constant discussion of events and taking spontaneous actions to support Israel's cause. [88] Ibid ., 238.

The rise of left-wing anti-Zionism after the Six Day War furthered alienated sections of Western Jewry from the social democratic Left. Another factor that pushed American Jews in a neoconservative direction, identified by Mendes, was the decline in Black–Jewish relations. The emergence of the Black Power movement in the mid-1960s led to the removal of Jews from the leadership of organizations like the NAACP. Black hostility was viewed by some Jews as evidence of the failure of the strategy of courting non-White groups to advance Jewish interests. This ostensible failure prompted many Jews to concentrate on a narrower ethnic self-interest in the future. [89] Ibid ., 243.

This, in turn, contributed to the creation of "pragmatic alliances" with conservative political parties such as the Republicans and evangelical groups such as Christians United for Israel which "have been consistent supporters of Israel in the USA." An associated factor was that pro-Israel perspectives within Western countries increasingly emanated from mainstream conservatives, rather than from the moderate or radical Left. This occurred despite "many in these groups hold socially conservative views on issues such as abortion, homosexuality, the environment, multiculturalism, state support for the poor and disadvantaged, and refugees, which are anathema to many Jews." [90] Ibid ., 287.

Mendes makes the point that "These alliances were based solely on the latter's position of support for Israel, irrespective of their conservative views on social issues such as abortion, homosexuality and the welfare state, which were often sharply at odds with the more liberal opinions of most Jews." [91] Ibid ., 239.

Despite the defection on many Jews from the radical left to neoconservatism, the great majority of American Jews still see their ethnic interests as basically aligning with the Democratic Party. Their willingness to prioritize their ethnic interests over their personal economic interests is reflected in the fact that "high numbers of affluent Jews compared to others of the same socioeconomic status still vote for moderate left parties that do not seem to favor their economic interests." Today, the structural factors which historically drew many Jews to the Left no longer exist. Most Jews sit comfortably in middle- or even higher-income categories. This "middle-classing" of Jews throughout the West has meant that the "Jewish proletariat that motivated Jewish identification with left-wing beliefs no longer exists." [92] Ibid ., 239. Consequently, "the specific link between Jewish experience of class oppression and adherence to left-wing ideology has ended." [93] Ibid ., 241.

Most Western Jews still support parties on the Left

Despite the widespread break with the radical Left over support for Israel, Jews nevertheless remain a “massively significant presence” in the Left in terms of their numbers and fundraising, their organizational capacity, and their impact on popular culture.[94]Ibid., 287. It was estimated that about a quarter of the world’s leading Marxist and radical intellectuals in the 1980s were still Jews, including Ernest Mandel, Nathan Weinstock, Maxime Rodinson, Noam Chomsky, Marcel Liebman, Ralph Miliband, and the founder of deconstructionism, Jacques Derrida. Despite continuing to comprise much of the intellectual and financial backbone of the Left, today’s Jews, “an influential and sometimes powerful group, with substantial access to politics, academia and the media,” no longer must “rely on the Left to defend their interests and wellbeing.”[95]Ibid., 286.

The primary reason most Western Jews still vote overwhelmingly for parties on the left is the perceived threat posed by the “social conservatism” of parties further to the right of the political spectrum in nations whose majorities are European-derived and nominally at least Christian:

With the possible exception of ultra-orthodox groups, Jews seem to prefer social liberal positions on issues such as religious pluralism, abortion, feminism, illicit drugs, same-sex marriage, the science of climate change and euthanasia. Another significant factor is the long history of Christian anti-Semitism has led Jews to remain suspicious of any attempts by Christian religious groups to undermine the separation of church and state. This fear of organized religion [and of the White people who practice it] seems to explain the continued strong support of American Jews for the Democratic Party in presidential elections. A further complicating factor is the growing universalization of Jewish teachings and values, including the lessons of the Holocaust, in support of social liberal perspectives. … For example, Berman (2006) presents evidence that the younger Jewish generation in Australia have been influenced by the experience of the Holocaust into taking a strong stand against any forms of racial or religious discrimination. Many are active in campaigns for indigenous rights, and to support refugees from Afghanistan, Sudan, and Middle Eastern countries seeking asylum in Australia.[96]Ibid., 288-89.

This advocacy is, of course, entirely hypocritical and cynical. While promoting pluralism and diversity and encouraging the dissolution of the racial and ethnic identification of Europeans, Jews have simultaneously endeavored to maintain precisely the kind of intense group solidarity they decry as immoral in others and the great majority support an ethno-nationalist Israel. They have initiated and led movements that have discredited the traditional foundations of Western society: patriotism, the Christian basis for morality, social homogeneity, and sexual restraint. At the same time, within their own communities, they have supported the very institutions they have attacked in Western societies. This is ruthless, uncompromising Darwinian group competition played out in the human cultural arena.

The ideological preoccupations of organized Jewry today are reflected in comments by Boston Globe writer, S.I. Rosenbaum, who insisted the main lesson of “the Holocaust” is “that white supremacy could turn on us at any moment,” and the strategy of appealing to the White majority “has never worked for us. It didn’t protect us in Spain, or England, or France, or Germany. There’s no reason to think it will work now.” The central question of Jewish political engagement in Western societies, she insists, is “how we survive as a minority population,” where the one great advantage American Jewry enjoys is that “unlike other places where ethno-nationalism has flourished, the U.S. is fast approaching a plurality of minorities.” Presiding over a coalition of non-Whites groups to actively oppose White interests is the Jewish ethno-political imperative: “If Jews are going to survive in the future, we will have to stand with people of color for our mutual benefit.”

Jewish writer David Cole recently questioned the wisdom of this strategy of using non-Whites as “golem” to protect the Jews from a recrudescence of National Socialism. He notes that many of the Jews’ non-White pets (like Ilhan Omar) have a disconcerting tendency to turn on their Jewish masters:

For decades, leftist Jews have been flooding the West with Third World immigrants, “Hey here’s a plan—lets dump a hundred thousand Somalis in the whitest parts of the U.S. That’ll save us from Fargo Hitler!” Inundating the West with non-White immigrants is seen by Jews as an insurance policy against “white supremacy.” The idea is that these immigrants will act as a wedge, diluting “white power” while remaining small enough to be manageable.

Jews have done this everywhere—playing two groups against each other as a way of assuring Jewish security. Let’s play Hamas against the Palestinian authority. Let’s play ISIS against Assad. … But today we live in a world in which even the lowliest bark-eater in the Kalahari can have internet access. It’s not as easy to fool entire groups anymore (individuals, sure, but not an entire race, ethnicity or faction). …

And now we Jews, so worried that Minnesota might become the Frozen Fourth Reich if left in the hands of evil whites, have created for ourselves a good old-fashioned golem in Ilhan Omar (and a bunch of the other Third World freshman congressthingies). Yeah, Omar hates whites. Yeah, she thinks white supremacy lurks behind every glass of milk and “OK” finger sign. But she hates Jews a hell of a lot more…

In a perfect world, the Rabbinical Rain Men would finally get the fuck over the Holocaust and end their war of hostility against the West. They’d see that whites are no longer the enemy, but indeed the opposite. They’d see that importing foreign mud to mold golem in traditionally white regions of the U.S is bad strategy.

Here Cole vividly restates Kevin MacDonald’s point in Culture of Critique that: “Although multiculturalist ideology was invented by Jewish intellectuals to rationalize the continuation of separatism and minority-group ethnocentrism in a modern Western state, several of the recent instantiations of multiculturalism may eventually produce a monster with negative consequences for Judaism.”[97]Kevin MacDonald, The Culture of Critique: An Evolutionary Analysis of Jewish Involvement in Twentieth‑Century Intellectual and Political Movements, (Westport, CT: Praeger, Revised Paperback edition, 2001), 313. The creation of this “monster” is ostensibly regarded by Jewish leaders and activists as a risk worth taking to demographically, politically and culturally weaken threatening White populations.

In the minds of Jewish leaders and activists nurtured since birth on the cult of “the Holocaust,” White nationalism is still the most ominous threat to Jewish survival. This is reflected in the unquestioning commitment of the vast majority of Jewish activists and intellectuals (Cole excepted) to mass non-White immigration and multiculturalism in all historically White nations.

Conclusion

While Jews and the Left offers a useful catalogue of Jewish involvement in radical political movements throughout the world over the last two centuries, it recycles many of the same apologetic tropes that permeate the work of other Jewish historians and intellectuals. Mendes mischaracterizes the Jewish identity and affiliations of important Jewish communist leaders (like Lazar Kaganovich), and offers no examination of their often-murderous actions. He provides feeble apologies for the Jewish practices that engendered hostility among the native peasantry in the Pale of Settlement. The inherent weakness of his position necessitates specious argumentation and desperate resort to that evergreen of Jewish apologetic historiography: the innate irrationality and malevolence of the European mind and character. This is the invariable fallback position in any quest to exculpate Jews from responsibility for the crimes of communism in the Soviet Union and throughout Eastern Europe. Though less inclined than Brossat and Klingberg in Revolutionary Yiddishland to glorify Jewish communist militants, Mendes is equally keen to evade, whitewash and excuse disproportionate Jewish involvement in some of the worst crimes of the twentieth century.

[May 09, 2019] John Kelly Said Trump's Family Needs To Be "Dealt With"

Notable quotes:
"... Those who have been following the Trump administration drama since the beginning might remember that, after initially welcoming Kelly as a "steady hand" and "adult in the room" who would bring order to a chaotic West Wing, Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump swiftly turned on the former general, and their months-long power struggle become fodder for endless anonymously sourced reports and reprisals. ..."
"... That feud apparently left a bad taste in Kelly's mouth that just won't go away. Which is probably why, five months after being 'liberated' from the West Wing, Kelly felt comfortable publicly expressing his distaste for the two - in his own reserved way, not mentioning the couple by name - Trump Administration senior advisors during an interview with David Rubenstein on Bloomberg TV . ..."
"... And in what sounded suspiciously like ingratitude toward his host, Kelly said he had removed a few "very disruptive" people from the administration after arriving in the West Wing, and was struck by the "intense personal ambition" of some of his staffers. ..."
May 08, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-05-08/kelly-revives-feud-javanka-says-trumps-family-needs-be-dealt

by Tyler Durden Wed, 05/08/2019 - 20:00 0 SHARES Twitter Facebook Reddit Email Print John Kelly has had a few months to reflect on his tumultuous tenure as White House Chief of Staff. And though he's apparently forgiven the president for the angry tweets and public rebukes, which helped fuel persistent rumors about his impending firing, the former general still holds a grudge against his former West Wing antagonist: Javanka. Those who have been following the Trump administration drama since the beginning might remember that, after initially welcoming Kelly as a "steady hand" and "adult in the room" who would bring order to a chaotic West Wing, Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump swiftly turned on the former general, and their months-long power struggle become fodder for endless anonymously sourced reports and reprisals.

That feud apparently left a bad taste in Kelly's mouth that just won't go away. Which is probably why, five months after being 'liberated' from the West Wing, Kelly felt comfortable publicly expressing his distaste for the two - in his own reserved way, not mentioning the couple by name - Trump Administration senior advisors during an interview with David Rubenstein on Bloomberg TV .

Kelly told Rubenstein that members of the Trump family serving in the administration needed to be "dealt with" - even if Kelly wasn't the one to do it.

"They were an influence that has to be dealt with," Kelly said Tuesday during an interview on Bloomberg Television's "The David Rubenstein Show," when asked whether it was complicated to have the president's family working at the White House. "By no means do I mean Mrs. Trump - the first lady's a wonderful person."

The Marine general sat for the interview in Las Vegas, where he was attending Anthony Scaramucci's SALT conference (ironic because one of the first things Kelly did after arriving in the West Wing was fire Scaramucci over an unhinged rant published in the New Yorker where Scaramucci accused Steve Bannon of trying to "suck his own c*ck").

And in what sounded suspiciously like ingratitude toward his host, Kelly said he had removed a few "very disruptive" people from the administration after arriving in the West Wing, and was struck by the "intense personal ambition" of some of his staffers.

... ... ...

Watch the full interview below:

https://www.bloomberg.com/multimedia/api/embed/iframe?id=8dbaab6b-121a-494b-9a03-5389330a01de

He–Mene Mox Mox , 2 minutes ago link

I would have more respect for Kelly, if he bayoneted both Bolton and Pompeo on his way out the door. That would have been the "Marine" thing to do, and would have been a greater service to the country and the world.

[May 08, 2019] Bolton Means Another War for Israel is Coming

Notable quotes:
"... War is likely to start in the Middle East as Iran, Lebanon and Syria are relatively soft targets with only limited capability to strike back. As neocon pundit Michael Ledeen put it , " Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business ." ..."
Mar 26, 2018 | ahtribune.com

Excerpt from the article by Philip Giraldi

Israel controls Trump

With the appointment of leading neoconservative John Bolton as National Security Advisor, the Zionist war-party takeover of the White House is nearly complete. With Mike Pompeo as Secretary of State, Nikki Haley at the U.N. and now Bolton whispering in the President's ear, we have a fully endowed war cabinet that will make sure the Mullahs, Russkies and Rocket Man begin to pay attention. As Haley laid down the law in the United Nations recently, "Our patience is not unlimited."

Bolton, the point man for Israeli-American casino billionaire and GOP kingmaker Sheldon Adelson , will be the spark plug that ignites a new round of warfare on behalf of Israel. Bolton has long been planning to attack Iran. He secretly and illegally met with Israel's Mossad intelligence service in 2003-4 when he was in the State Department under George W. Bush to lay the groundwork for such a conflict. Today, right-wing Israelis are certainly cheering his appointment. Naftali Bennett, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's security cabinet, has already praised the move, calling Bolton "an extraordinary security expert, experienced diplomat and a stalwart friend of Israel".

War is likely to start in the Middle East as Iran, Lebanon and Syria are relatively soft targets with only limited capability to strike back. As neocon pundit Michael Ledeen put it , " Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business ." There have been numerous indications that Israel is preparing for war. Its planning clearly includes deliberately involving the United States in the conflict, turning American soldiers into de facto hostages, with U.S. casualties guaranteeing Washington's direct and immediate involvement in the fighting.

Largely unknown to the American public, the United States has just completed the largest ever joint military exercises with Israel even though it has no defense agreement or treaty with Tel Aviv. That is, in part, because military alliances are dependent on an attack on one partner mandating support from all parties to the agreement. Israel has balked at such an arrangement because it cannot define its own borders, which are constantly expanding.

The recent maneuvers featured scenarios in which U.S. troops fought Syrians, Lebanese and Palestinians in a mock-up Arab village to defend Israel. Washington's particularly vulnerability vis-à-vis Israel derives from the recent opening of a U.S. permanent facility at Mashabim Air Base in the Negev Desert.

It is described as a base within a base, completely contained by an Israeli air force installation and operating "under Israeli military directives," meaning that if the facility is attacked Americans will likely die. It has no function in support of U.S. regional interests but is instead a shell facility with a few dozen airmen that can be ramped up considerably if Israel goes to war and calls for American assistance. Together with billions of dollars-worth of U.S. military equipment that is pre-positioned in Israel and can be used by the Israelis as needed, it is all about supporting Israeli war-making and has nothing to do with American security or defense interests except as a tripwire to bring about U.S. involvement.

For that reason, all of the above is something more than just the latest "we have to support Israel" gimmick. The American soldiers and airmen who are now based in Israel are the sacrificial lambs that will guarantee U.S. entry into a war that Israel intends to start, make no mistake about that.

When Israel attacks Syria and/or Lebanon, as it clearly intends to do, Hezbollah will retaliate with its missiles, some of which will surely be directed towards the Mashabim Air Base, which will be targeted to inhibit the base's ability to bomb Lebanon. And once Washington is well and truly engaged in what is referred to as "force protection," Israel will undoubtedly widen the conflict by drawing Iran in through attacks on that country's identified bases in Syria that are supporting the al-Assad government. The bigger war will suddenly become America's responsibility after Israel inevitably proves itself incapable of handling the escalation.

[May 07, 2019] Why neoliberals and pro-Israel Democrats like Pelosi and Schumer are attacking Trump?

Trump does not touch their milt-cow --- the defense budget which now exceed one trillion (see America's Defense Budget Is Bigger Than You Think)
Trump does not touch their foreign policy: appointment of Bolton and Pompeo means complete and humiliating capitulation to neocons and globalists.
Trump was instrumental in reelecting Netanyahu and give several gifts to Israel.
Despite Hillary fiasco Pelosi managed to cling to power. Thanks to Mueller shenanigans which put deep suspicion on the results of 2016 election which were a crushing defeat of Clinton democrats (DemoRats - or neoliberal wing of Democratic Party) this neoliberal who most probably outlived her political usefulness was not replaced.
Why they are still attacking Trump. What is the logic behind this sustained effort to impeach him not matter what are the costs and with full understanding that President Pence is much worse ?
This is a real mystery of the US political life.
Notable quotes:
"... "What we've seen is a meltdown, an absolute meltdown, an inability to accept the bottom-line conclusion on Russian interference from the special counsel's report," he said. ..."
May 07, 2019 | thehill.com

Republican pollster Conor Maguire said in an interview that aired Tuesday on "What America's Thinking" that the divide over special counsel Robert Mueller 's report into Russia's election meddling is an example of American political tribalism.

"It is really tribalism," Maguire, a senior strategist at WPA Intelligence, told Hill.TV's Jamal Simmons on Monday.

"You are either supporting or you're not based on your party," he continued. "Interesting to see independents really split pretty much 50-50 as well."

Democrats have continued to dive deeper into Mueller's probe into Moscow's election interference, demanding the full, unredacted report from Attorney General William Barr , and have called to hear from Mueller himself.

The rift has led to a growing gulf between House Democrats and the Justice Department, with House Judiciary Committee Democrats scheduling a vote to hold Barr in contempt.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said on the Senate floor Tuesday the case was closed related to Mueller's probe.

"What we've seen is a meltdown, an absolute meltdown, an inability to accept the bottom-line conclusion on Russian interference from the special counsel's report," he said.

[May 07, 2019] What's in a Cartoon by Philip Giraldi

May 07, 2019 | www.unz.com

Israel and its friends in Washington and New York never miss the opportunity to exploit the news cycle to tighten the screws a bit more, rendering any criticism of the Jewish state unacceptable or even illegal. Israel's Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon has been persistently demanding that what he describes as anti-Semitic speech be criminalized. Danon declared that "The time for talking and having a conversation is over. What Israel and the Jewish community around the world demand is action – and now."

How exactly Danon would enforce his definition of acceptable speech is not clear, but the demands to eliminate any negative commentary regarding the holocaust or on Israel and/or the behavior of diaspora Jews have been promoted for some time, resulting in laws in Europe that inflict harsh punish on those who dare to speak out. The latest incident in the campaign to eliminate the First Amendment in America took place oddly enough on the pages of the New York Times , which, in its international edition, ran a cartoon by a Portuguese cartoonist showing a dog with the face of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on a leash leading a caricature of Donald Trump wearing a yarmulke and a blind man's glasses. The Netanyahu-dog had a tag on its collar featuring a Star of David.

There are several ways to interpret the cartoon. It is, of course, an insult to dogs to have them depicted in such a fashion as to suggest that they might behave like the monstrous Israeli Prime Minister. No dog would sink so low. One observer , commenting from a dog's point of view, noted that "We canines share that saying that 'the eyes are the window to the soul.' Look into our eyes and you'll see love and trust. Look into Netanyahu's eyes you see cunning and deceit so why stick his head on our body?"

On the other hand, one might see in the cartoon a serious message, that Netanyahu has been able to "wag the dog" with an ignorant and impulsive United States president who is so desirous of pandering to Jews both in Israel and in the U.S. that he is blind to his obligation to do what is best for the American people. Trump, who is the first president within memory not to own a dog, would rather stroke the head of the disgusting casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson than an intelligent and loyal Labrador retriever.

Paw , says: May 7, 2019 at 4:17 am GMT

This is nothing new. In communist country Czechoslovakia 1948-1989 media every day wrote, several times and they repeated it in TV about "with USSR all the time and never otherwise" And any criticism od the state and the Party was crime.
Fran Macadam , says: May 7, 2019 at 5:33 am GMT
The editorial cartoon was well within the usual and acceptable traditions of political comment. It depicted with the usual license for caricature a political figure being led down the garden path by another, and mocking him for it. What's the big deal?
Robert Dolan , says: May 7, 2019 at 6:43 am GMT
Trump has not built a wall.
We have more immigrants coming in than at any time in American history.
We experienced a record number of opioid deaths in 2018 and the drugs still flow freely.
Trump is attempting to force the US into multiple wars that are of no benefit to us.
Trump bumped stocks.
Trump is allowing all of his supporters (many of them now former supporters) to be banned from the internet.
Trump is allowing his supporters to be arrested and imprisoned for supporting him.
Trump is escalating tensions with Russia for no reason.
Trump has not pulled out of NATO.
Trump's replacement of NAFTA is the same thing as NAFTA.

Meanwhile, he has done more for Israel than any president ever in history.

Trump ended the Iran deal.
Trump attacked Assad over fake gassings.
Trump stopped aid to Palestine.
Trump hired John Bolton as his national security advisor.
Trump turned the US ambassador to the UN into a second Israeli ambassador to the UN.
Trump closed off all official communications and diplomatic relations with Palestine.
Trump sent $38 billion in US taxpayer money to Israel.
Trump made a $110 billion dollar arms deal with Saudi Arabia.
Trump moved the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Israel.
Trump refuses to pull troops out of Syria.
Trump somehow transferred the Syrian Golan Heights to Israel.
Trump is now apparently planning a war with Iran.

Paul , says: May 7, 2019 at 6:44 am GMT
"And yes, a few million Benjamins scattered around would have underlined why Trump misbehaves as he does."

The New York real estate man Donald Trump is always aware of what side his bread is buttered on. Follow the shekels!

Paul , says: May 7, 2019 at 7:00 am GMT
Donald Trump is considered off limits when doing Israel's bidding. On anything else he is considered fair game.
Been_there_done_that , says: May 7, 2019 at 8:25 am GMT
Would those knee-jerk critics have considered the political cartoon less outrageous or offensive if The Master was not blind and the head of the dog on the leash had the features of Donald Trump instead?
Harold Smith , says: May 7, 2019 at 12:07 pm GMT
Actually the cartoon is somewhat misleading, IMO. It's unjustifiably generous to the orange clown, because what the orange clown does, he does knowingly and willingly, not because he's ignorant and impressionable. IOW, orange clown is evil, not blind.
Philip Giraldi , says: May 7, 2019 at 12:58 pm GMT
@JoaoAlfaiate Correct. I just posted this over on Facebook: Game over. The U.S. will now base its foreign policy, not on national interests, but on the interests of Israel and its cabal in the United States. This was an inevitable progression when you equate criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism and then appoint a high government official to punish countries on that basis. And, one might add, the First Amendment is also under attack by the same folks to make illegal even the mildest criticism of Israel here at home. Will this ever end?

https://news.yahoo.com/u-may-review-ties-countries-deemed-anti-israel-142945941.html?fbclid=IwAR2j9eRtoo4DMMo5YZLBwFpB5Tvm79l1khxrImA_KdHr1Yi6y83HgaN-XTo

turtle , says: May 7, 2019 at 2:05 pm GMT
@Philip Giraldi

appoint a high government official to punish countries on that basis.

The Vice President of the U.S. has publicly declared his primary allegiance is to a foreign power.
Which foreign power is irrelevant.

Agent76 , says: May 7, 2019 at 2:08 pm GMT
May 30, 2018 The Occupation of the American Mind

Over the past few years, Israel's ongoing military occupation of Palestinian territory and repeated invasions of the Gaza strip have triggered a fierce backlash against Israeli policies virtually everywhere in the world -- except the United States.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/dP0-YohJR-g?feature=oembed

[May 06, 2019] Trump's top three donors

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Is there a significant difference between "leftist" megadonor Saban and "conservative" megadonor Adelson when it comes to issues like Zionism/ Greater Israel/ destroying Iran? Or are they both acting primarily as ethnic activists, rather than as ideologically-driven "philanthropists?" ..."
May 06, 2019 | www.unz.com

Trump's top 3 donors are:

  1. Sheldon Adelson
  2. Paul Singer
  3. Bernard Marcus

Are any of these 3 individuals "evangelical Christians?"
Or is there some other aspect of their identity/ heritage that they have in common?

Some might even go so far as to characterize the common leftist claim that fanatical GOP Israeli-Firstism is driven by evangelical Christians as a "long-debunked semitic canard."

Note also the alternative. Hillary's top donor was that notorious "evangelical Christian," Haim Saban.

Is there a significant difference between "leftist" megadonor Saban and "conservative" megadonor Adelson when it comes to issues like Zionism/ Greater Israel/ destroying Iran? Or are they both acting primarily as ethnic activists, rather than as ideologically-driven "philanthropists?"

A lot of other "evangelical Christians" among Hillary's top donors, too.

... ... ...

https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/top-five-clinton-donors-are-jewish-campaign-tally-shows-1.5453781

[May 06, 2019] Trump is Zionist and neocon' that's why he hired Bolton, Pompeo and Abrams.

Notable quotes:
"... Pompeo, Bolton and Abrams are Trumps hires and only a moron could fail to recognise that they are neocons stuck in the regime change model of US foreign policy. Venezuela hasn't gone away and if history is any clue, they're going to double down on their initial stupidity. ..."
"... There is only one party, the Pentagon Party, and judging from their $750B budget, $20T 'accounting error', 60% of federal discretionary spend, zero audits and successful scare campaigns that are building up to another Cold War, I'd say they are doing just fine thank you very much. ..."
May 06, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

curbjob , 1 hour ago link

The key for him now is to undo a lot of the damage that's been done by his staff, disloyal cabinet members and recalcitrant bureaucracy who are all wedded deeply to the old way things are done.

Pompeo, Bolton and Abrams are Trumps hires and only a moron could fail to recognise that they are neocons stuck in the regime change model of US foreign policy. Venezuela hasn't gone away and if history is any clue, they're going to double down on their initial stupidity.

medium giraffe , 46 minutes ago link

There is only one party, the Pentagon Party, and judging from their $750B budget, $20T 'accounting error', 60% of federal discretionary spend, zero audits and successful scare campaigns that are building up to another Cold War, I'd say they are doing just fine thank you very much.

As for Sheldon Adelson's pet chihuahua telling him to get stuffed? Well that would make for a very cold day in hell.

[May 05, 2019] Trump's foreign policy team, the Pompeo-Bolton axis represent the pro-Israel Lobby signature "toxic combination of neoconservatives and evangelicals

Notable quotes:
"... Patrick Lawrence avers that "Trump may not have chosen his foreign policy team so much as its members have been imposed upon him". There is absolutely no evidence for this assertion. Both Trump and Hillary Clinton (and all their rivals from the 2016 presidential campaign) are Israel-Firsters deep in the pockets of the pro-Israel Lobby. Trump's current policies are not significantly at variance from Clinton's equally pro-Israel policy agenda. At a 2015 gala hosted by the Algemeiner Journal, Trump declared "We love Israel. We will fight for Israel 100 percent, 1000 percent." His bid for the presidency was announced soon after. ..."
"... Trump's whole "insurgent" campaign, including his purported break with GOP orthodoxy, questioning of Israel's commitment to peace, calls for even treatment in Israeli-Palestinian deal-making, and refusal to call for Jerusalem to be Israel's undivided capital, were an elaborate propaganda scam engineered by the Israel Lobby from the very beginning. ..."
"... Jared Kushner, Donald Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser on Middle East/Israel issues, gave his first on-the-record appearance at the Saban Forum at the Brookings Institution on 3 December 2017. Saban praised Kushner for attempting to derail a vote at the United Nations Security Council about Israeli settlements during the Obama administration. ..."
"... Make no mistake, Israel and the pro-Israel Lobby exploit Trump and the GOP, as well as Clinton and the Democrats. ..."
"... The Russia-gate conspiracy theory, eagerly promoted by both key right and left pro-Israel Lobby figures (including Jewish and Christian Zionists, as well as sheepdog Sanders), is partly an effort to distract attention from the pro-Israel Lobby meddling in American electoral politics and its pernicious influence on US foreign policy. ..."
May 05, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

Abe , April 30, 2019 at 22:26

Patrick Lawrence avers that "Trump may not have chosen his foreign policy team so much as its members have been imposed upon him". There is absolutely no evidence for this assertion. Both Trump and Hillary Clinton (and all their rivals from the 2016 presidential campaign) are Israel-Firsters deep in the pockets of the pro-Israel Lobby. Trump's current policies are not significantly at variance from Clinton's equally pro-Israel policy agenda. At a 2015 gala hosted by the Algemeiner Journal, Trump declared "We love Israel. We will fight for Israel 100 percent, 1000 percent." His bid for the presidency was announced soon after.

Trump's whole "insurgent" campaign, including his purported break with GOP orthodoxy, questioning of Israel's commitment to peace, calls for even treatment in Israeli-Palestinian deal-making, and refusal to call for Jerusalem to be Israel's undivided capital, were an elaborate propaganda scam engineered by the Israel Lobby from the very beginning.

Trump's "1000 percent" efforts on behalf of Israel began immediately after the election, prior to his taking the oath of office.

Jared Kushner, Donald Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser on Middle East/Israel issues, gave his first on-the-record appearance at the Saban Forum at the Brookings Institution on 3 December 2017. Saban praised Kushner for attempting to derail a vote at the United Nations Security Council about Israeli settlements during the Obama administration.

Kushner reportedly dispatched former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn to make secret contact with the Russian ambassador in December 2016 in an effort to undermine or delay the resolution, which condemned Israel for settlement construction. Saban told Kushner that "this crowd and myself want to thank you for making that effort, so thank you very much." Kushner thanked the audience at Brookings, a leading pro-Israel Lobby think tank, "It's really an honor to be able to talk about this topic with so many people who I respect so much, who have given so much to this issue."

During the keynote conversation, Kushner and Saban framed Middle East peace as a "real estate issue". Kushner acknowledged that "We've solicited a lot of ideas from a lot of places." Trump's understanding of "regional dynamics" in the Middle East clearly manifests "a lot of ideas" from pro-Israel war hawks from the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution. Make no mistake, Israel and the pro-Israel Lobby exploit Trump and the GOP, as well as Clinton and the Democrats.

The fracture between the Trump and Clinton contingents of the pro-Israel Lobby is rooted in the personal predilections of their major American Jewish oligarch donors. Billionaires Sheldon Adelson and Haim Saban are the Koch Brothers of the pro-Israel Lobby.

Both Adelson and Saban are staunch supporters of the Israeli military, vehemently opposed to the global BDS movement against Israeli apartheid, and obsessed about starting war with Iran.

When Adelson and Saban shared the stage at the Israeli American Council's inaugural conference in Washington, D.C. in 2014, Saban quipped, "There's no right or left when it comes to Israel". Despite their shared pro-Israel Lobby objectives, Adelson and Saban had a fracas in 2015 over political tactics.

The Republican Party and Democratic Party campaign platforms in 2016 reflected right and left pro-Israel Lobby orientations. Even the Sanders sheepdog campaign was a far-left pro-Israel Lobby iteration.

The Russia-gate conspiracy theory, eagerly promoted by both key right and left pro-Israel Lobby figures (including Jewish and Christian Zionists, as well as sheepdog Sanders), is partly an effort to distract attention from the pro-Israel Lobby meddling in American electoral politics and its pernicious influence on US foreign policy.

Trump's "foreign policy team", the Pompeo-Bolton axis and myriad minions, precisely represent the pro-Israel Lobby signature "toxic combination of neoconservatives, many drawn from the Heritage Foundation [and other decidedly pro-Israel policy think tanks], and evangelical Christians".

Trump surrounded himself with pro-Israel Lobby "foreign policy Manicheans" devoted to an aggressive, militaristic agenda aimed at "securing the realm" for Israel.

The results are entirely predictable.

The Trump administration's foreign policies are not so much "shambolic", "amateurish and discombobulated" as monomaniacally pro-Israel, no matter how much damage is done to key US interests.

michael , April 30, 2019 at 18:57

Blaming Trump for moving the Embassy to Jerusalem seems disingenuous since Congress passed a law moving the Embassy to Jerusalem in 1995 (the Senate voted (93–5), and the House voted (374–37 in favor of the move). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerusalem_Embassy_Act Clinton started a charade, justified by "National Security" and signed a waiver every six months to stall the move; the game continued under Bush II and Obama and even Trump, his first turn. But then "on June 5, 2017, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed a resolution commemorating the 50th anniversary of reunification of Jerusalem by 90-0. The resolution reaffirmed the Jerusalem Embassy Act and called upon the President and all United States officials to abide by its provisions." Trump abided.

jessika , April 30, 2019 at 12:34

Absolutely JohnP is right, Kushner should be scrutinized for his pro-Israel positions. The ball should be on AIPAC and Israel but instead is on Russia even now. Trump is just the frontman for the activity of Adelson, Bibi, Bolton, Pompeo, Kushner: Bolton pushes for the neocons post Bush II; Pompeo for evangelicals in US who know nothing, as well as for neocons; Kushner for Israel Netanyahu politics. Trump is their foolish pawn. Iran is in crosshairs because of Israel.

dean 1000 , April 30, 2019 at 07:56

Trump got elected by running against the empire. What he is doing in the mid-east won't last. The demography and need for oil is against it. The birth pangs of a new mid-east started when Russia came to the aid of Syria. Does Bolton and Pompeo mean that Trump has been completely co-opted by the duopoly he ran against? His supporters say wait till 2020. Fat chance.

I agree with Joe Tedesky. Washington is going to sanction itself out of its empire. The end of empire is hardly the end of the US. The Brits didn't get single payer healthcare until the empire was gone. Will Washington make the same mistake?
A country the size of the US will not become obscure.

[May 05, 2019] Did Mueller substituted Russia for Israel in his report

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... "What if you substituted 'Israel' for 'Russia'?" (The moderator, who apparently knows me, had to look right at me with my hand raised whenever he called on someone but never called on me). ..."
"... "Has there ever been an investigation on the scale of the Mueller investigation into possible collusion with Israel?" ..."
"... The surprising thing about the Mueller report is that he found nothing. That’s impossible because when the government wants to find something, they find it. Why Mueller pulled the plug, I can’t say. ..."
May 05, 2019 | www.unz.com

Second hour: Journalist and TV host Ken Meyercord (also based in Washington, DC) writes:

"I attended an event at the Brookings Institution yesterday on the Mueller Report. As is sadly customary at DC think tanks, the panelists and the moderator were all of one mind. Nevertheless, one panelist, a former US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia (a court notorious for rubber-stamping any charge the government brings against those who disrupt the smooth functioning of our foreign policy apparatus), made a curious analogy, arguing that the contacts Trump and his associates had with Russians would be culpable even if the contacts were with some other, less hostile country:

https://youtu.be/E96084YuYyE?t=812 .

His remark got me to thinking, so in the Q & A I sought to ask him "What if you substituted 'Israel' for 'Russia'?" (The moderator, who apparently knows me, had to look right at me with my hand raised whenever he called on someone but never called on me).

I don't know what his response would have been; but if he said it would still apply, I would have followed up with "Has there ever been an investigation on the scale of the Mueller investigation into possible collusion with Israel?"

"The more I think about it, the more intriguing I find Mr. Rosenberg's remark. He seemed to think the sheer number of contacts by Trump folks with Russians proved culpability. It might be interesting to compare Trump's contacts with the Russians during the campaign with his contacts with Israelis. I suspect the latter were more numerous and of greater significance. Certainly, Trump's acts as President would seem to indicate he's more Netanyahu's puppet than Putin's: moving the embassy to Jerusalem, cutting off aid to the Palestinians, recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. Imagine if Putin proposed naming a village in Russia after Trump in appreciation, as Netanyahu has proposed doing in the Golan Heights!

"P.S. Ueli Maurer is the President of the Swiss Confederation."

Rational , says: May 1, 2019 at 5:02 pm GMT

THE WHOLE MUELLER INVESTIGATION WAS A SCAM.

The entire Western media is the enemy of the people. The Demogangsters and the mediocrats, Public Enemy #1, were angry that Trump won the election, so they fabricated a scam called contacts with Russians.

They are saying that Trump and his people talked to the Russians as private citizens before the election, so it is illegal.

What? Talking to Russians is illegal? Really? Says who?

They will not tell you the law that was allegedly broken, because the law that was allegedly broken itself is illegal.

It is the Logan Act which “criminalizes negotiations by unauthorized persons with foreign governments having a dispute with the United States.”

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

This law is a joke, because Trump never “negotiated” with any foreign govt. on behalf of the USA, and Russia is not having a dispute with the USA.

Most importantly, the Logan Act is unconstitutional.

That is why nobody has been prosecuted under it–for decades!

So any American who posts on rt.com or on an Iranian website suggesting peace is technically violating the Logan Act.

Any newspapers that publishes articles about Iran or Russia or Syria and suggesting peace or war is technically violating the Logan Act.

So why are all they not in jail?

Because the Logan Act is unconstitutional and it violates the first amendment.

Go, say, “I will talk to the Russian govt. all I want and promote world peace.”

Only in America—the criminal Democrats have investigated an innocent man for a non-existent crime of violating an unconstitutional law.

Rational , says: May 1, 2019 at 8:51 pm GMT
ADDENDUM: NOBODY HAS EVER BEEN CONVICTED UNDER THE LOGAN ACT.

This is stated in the wikipedia article I put the link for above.

In fact, the wikipedia article also talks about its unconstitutionality.

Sin City Milla , says: May 2, 2019 at 5:11 am GMT
@Rational

Only in America—the criminal Democrats have investigated an innocent man for a non-existent crime of violating an unconstitutional law.

While I would not say this happens only in America, this sort of thing is actually long-standing policy in the US. As long ago as 1944 in Wickard vs. Filburn, the Democrat Supreme Court upheld the conviction of a man for not merely raising food on his own land, but for failing to offer the food for sale, on the rationale that the non-sale affected Interstate Commerce as much as if he had offered it for sale. Since then it has been ‘constitutional’ to find federal jurisdiction over even private vegetable gardens grown exclusively for domestic consumption. Under this theory, even breathing oxygen places one under federal jurisdiction because it is followed by exhaling CO2.

One of the most surprising things I discovered when I began to practice law was the fact that no one is ‘innocent’. I.e, there is always some law somewhere that is being ‘broken’ no matter what one does, which means that if the government wants someone, they can always convict him because the government can always find some law he has broken. I’m speaking ironically, of course. Many of these laws should be unconstitutional. Just don’t bet that SCOTUS will ever rule that way because, as Gorsuch recently pronounced, “that’s all been settled.”

The surprising thing about the Mueller report is that he found nothing. That’s impossible because when the government wants to find something, they find it. Why Mueller pulled the plug, I can’t say.

[May 03, 2019] Trump lost anti-war right. Forever.

Notable quotes:
"... Trump *escalated* US-Iran and US-Venezuela conflicts and intensified the sabre rattling towards both countries, according to all analysts. For the first time a POTUS openly said direct US invasion to Venezuela "is on the table" and his Adelson bought appointment for USNSA Bolton publicly showed in a notebook the writing "5000 troops to Colombia" openly suggesting a direct invasion was imminent. For the first time the White House asked the Pentagon to draw up options for military strikes against Iran. ..."
"... Trump's administration declared a whole branch of the Iran armed forces (IRGC) as a terrorist organisation. This is an escalation and according to most analysts, considered an act of war. ..."
"... Trump administration heavily increased sanctions to Iran, Russia and Venezuela and in the latter case even instigated a failed uprising and coup d'etat, going as far as to declare a virtual political Venezuelan nobody the "official" president of the country, which is in itself unbelievable and has no historic precedent. Another act of war actually. ..."
"... Trump administration also escalated the tensions with China, ordered the arrest and de facto kidnapping of Chinese corporate executives and openly used the US legal apparatus to attack and hinder a foreign corporation. ..."
"... Trump has been, objectively, the most neocon Israel-firster POTUS in US history. ..."
"... Friendly reminder that voting for Republicans and expecting US Jewish lobby/Corporate America promoted policies such as open borders and US imperialist interventions to stop is moronic beyond belief. Republicans are the most pro corporate pro US Jewish lobby of the two parties by far. At least there is talk and critique about how the Israel Lobby owns the USG in the Dem party. Nothing of the sort going on in the GOP. ..."
May 03, 2019 | www.unz.com

Scalper , says: May 3, 2019 at 9:45 am GMT

@A123 You Trump shills are chutzpah personified:

The U.S. missile strike on Shayrat Airbase on 7 April 2017 was the first time the U.S. became a deliberate, direct combatant against the Syrian government and marked the start of a series of deliberate direct military actions by U.S. forces against the Syrian government and its allies in May -- June 2017 and February 2018.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/06/trump-syria-missiles-assad-chemical-weapons

Trump *escalated* the war from covert support to insurgents to direct intervention and official *invasion* in Syria. This is the equivalent of going from financing and supporting a faction in a so called proxy war in say Vietnam to leading the US to go full Iraq WMD and become a warring and invading faction in the conflict. Again, this is an escalation.

The number of boots on the ground vs Obama's is data you just took out of your bottom. Sources for your cheap PR shilling? You don't have any because this statement of yours is a blatant lie.

Trump *escalated* US-Iran and US-Venezuela conflicts and intensified the sabre rattling towards both countries, according to all analysts. For the first time a POTUS openly said direct US invasion to Venezuela "is on the table" and his Adelson bought appointment for USNSA Bolton publicly showed in a notebook the writing "5000 troops to Colombia" openly suggesting a direct invasion was imminent. For the first time the White House asked the Pentagon to draw up options for military strikes against Iran.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/13/white-house-asked-pentagon-plans-strike-iran

Trump's administration declared a whole branch of the Iran armed forces (IRGC) as a terrorist organisation. This is an escalation and according to most analysts, considered an act of war.

Trump's administration ended the Iran deal without any objective reasons, ie Obama's effort to deescalate the Israel firsters driven Iran-US conflict

Trump administration heavily increased sanctions to Iran, Russia and Venezuela and in the latter case even instigated a failed uprising and coup d'etat, going as far as to declare a virtual political Venezuelan nobody the "official" president of the country, which is in itself unbelievable and has no historic precedent. Another act of war actually.

Trump administration declared Golan Heights part of Israel brought US embassy to Jerusalem, increasing the tensions and animosity towards the US in the ME.

Trump administration will declare Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organisation, increasing the animosity from Arab countries in the ME to unbelievable levels. This includes non Arab country Turkey also, a traditional ally until neocon Trump took power.

Trump administration also escalated the tensions with China, ordered the arrest and de facto kidnapping of Chinese corporate executives and openly used the US legal apparatus to attack and hinder a foreign corporation.

Trump has been, objectively, the most neocon Israel-firster POTUS in US history.

Friendly reminder that voting for Republicans and expecting US Jewish lobby/Corporate America promoted policies such as open borders and US imperialist interventions to stop is moronic beyond belief. Republicans are the most pro corporate pro US Jewish lobby of the two parties by far. At least there is talk and critique about how the Israel Lobby owns the USG in the Dem party. Nothing of the sort going on in the GOP.

Immigration restrictionism is a traditional pro working class, leftist policy.

Non intervention and "pacifist" policies the same. How many GOP supporters were against the Vietnam and Iraq war? Not many yeah.

Johnny Walker Read , says: May 3, 2019 at 1:20 pm GMT
@A123 Here's your numbers TROLL.

Trump has dropped more bombs and missiles on Middle Eastern countries in a comparable period of time than any modern U.S. President. Presidents Bush, Obama and now [2017] Trump have dropped nearly 200,000 bombs and missiles on Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. Trump's rate of bombing eclipses both Bush and Obama; and Trump is on a pace to drop over 100,000 [180,000 to be precise] bombs and missiles on Middle Eastern countries during his first term of office -- which would equal the number of bombs and missiles dropped by Obama during his entire eight-year presidency.

Here's more perspective:

The United States Government, under the Trump administration, reportedly drops a bomb every 12 minutes, which means that 121 bombs are dropped in a day, and 44,096 bombs per year. The Pentagon's data show that during George W. Bush's eight years he averaged 24 bombs dropped per day, that is, 8,750 per year. Over the course of Obama's time in office, his military dropped 34 bombs per day, 12,500 per year. This shows that even though American presidents are all war criminals, Trump is the most vicious of them all.

Yes, Trump is dropping almost FOUR TIMES MORE BOMBS than Barack Obama and over FIVE TIMES MORE BOMBS than G.W. Bush -- which included military invasions of two countries.

We also know that Trump expanded America's wars in Afghanistan and Syria (and, no, he is NOT bringing U.S. troops home from Syria) and is ramping up America's war machine against Venezuela, Iran, China and Russia. And this does not even take into account the way Trump has given Benjamin Netanyahu's raunchy racist regime the green light to expand its wars against the Palestinians, Lebanon, Syria and Iran or the U.S./Israeli proxy war (with Saudi Arabia taking the lead) in Yemen.

Then there is Somalia:

In the age of Donald Trump, wasn't that [the Battle of Mogadishu -- Black Hawk Down] a million presidencies ago? Honestly, can you even tell me anymore what in the world it was all about? I couldn't have, not without looking it up again. A warlord, starvation, U.S. intervention, 18 dead American soldiers (and hundreds of dead Somalis, but that hardly mattered) in a country that was shattering. President Clinton did, however, pull out those troops and end the disastrous mission -- and that was that, right? I mean, lessons learned. Somalia? Africa? What in the world did it all have to do with us? So Washington washed its hands of the whole thing.

And now, on a planet of outrageous tweets and murderously angry white men, you probably didn't even notice, but more than two years into the era of Donald Trump, a quarter-century after that incident, American airstrikes in yep, Somalia, are precipitously on the rise.

Last year's 47 strikes, aimed at the leaders and fighters of al-Shabaab, an Islamist terror outfit, more than tripled the ones carried out by the Obama administration in 2016 (themselves a modest increase from previous years). And in 2019, they're already on pace to double again, while Somali civilians -- not that anyone (other than Somali civilians) notices or cares -- are dying in significant and rising numbers.

And with 500 troops back on the ground there and Pentagon estimates that they will remain for at least another seven years, the U.S. military is increasingly Somalia-bound, Congress hasn't uttered a peep on the subject, and few in this country are paying the slightest attention.

So consider this a simple fact of the never-ending Global War on Terror (as it was once called): the U.S. military just can't get enough of Somalia. And if that isn't off the charts, what is? Maybe it's even worth a future book (with a very small print run) called not Black Hawk Down II but U.S. Down Forever and a Day.

And now that I've started on the subject (if you still happen to be reading), when it comes to the U.S. military, it's not faintly just Somalia. It's all of Africa.

After all, this country's military uniquely has a continent-wide Africa Command (aka AFRICOM), founded in 2007. As Nick Turse has often written for TomDispatch, that command now has its troops, thousands of them, its planes, and other equipment spread across the continent, north to south, east to west -- air bases, drone bases, garrisons, outposts, staging areas, you name it. Meanwhile, AFRICOM's outgoing commanding general, Thomas Waldhauser, only recently told Congress why it's bound to be a forever outfit -- because, shades of the Cold War, the Ruskies are coming! ("Russia is also a growing challenge and has taken a more militaristic approach in Africa.")

And honestly, 600-odd words in, this wasn't meant to be a piece about either Somalia or Africa. It was meant to be about those U.S. wars being off the charts, about how the Pentagon now feeds eternally at the terror trough, al-Shabaab being only a tiny part of the slop it regularly digests.

And, while America's wars are way up, according to Gallup, church attendance in America is way down:

As Christian and Jewish Americans prepare to celebrate Easter and Passover, respectively, Gallup finds the percentage of Americans who report belonging to a church, synagogue or mosque at an all-time low, averaging 50% in 2018.

U.S. church membership was 70% or higher from 1937 through 1976, falling modestly to an average of 68% in the 1970s through the 1990s. The past 20 years have seen an acceleration in the drop-off, with a 20-percentage-point decline since 1999 and more than half of that change occurring since the start of the current decade.

Most interesting is this Gallup observation:

Although the United States is one of the more religious countries, particularly among Western nations, it is far less religious than it used to be. Barely three-quarters of Americans now identify with a religion and only about half claim membership in a church, synagogue or mosque.

The rate of U.S. church membership has declined sharply in the past two decades after being relatively stable in the six decades before that. A sharp increase in the proportion of the population with no religious affiliation, a decline in church membership among those who do have a religious preference, and low levels of church membership among millennials are all contributing to the accelerating trend.

Obviously, America's Jewish and Muslim populations pale compared to its Christian population. The vast decline of attendance to religious services, therefore, primarily means church attendance. Notice, also, that this steep decline commenced at the beginning of this century (2000) -- when G.W. Bush became President of the United States.

I tried to warn readers -- and listeners to my nationwide radio talk show -- that due to his insatiable war fever, G.W. Bush was going to forever warp the perception in people's minds of Christianity. And, sadly, I was absolutely right. After eight years of the warmongering G.W. Bush in the White House, millions of Americans came to associate Christianity with wars of aggression. As a result, the exodus out of America's churches began in earnest.

Enter Donald Trump.

As noted above, Trump has expanded Bush's war fever exponentially. But Trump has done more than that: He has aggressively put the United States smack dab in the middle of Israel's wars. It could even be argued that Donald Trump has turned the U.S. military into a proxy army for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

Don't get me wrong: I am very cognizant of the fact that G.W. Bush's "war on terror" was nothing more than a proxy war for Israel. But the Israeli connection was covert and completely covered up. Not anymore. Donald Trump is unabashedly and explicitly partnering the mission of the U.S. military with that of the IDF. No wonder Benjamin Netanyahu promises to name a community in the Israel-seized, Israel-occupied Golan Heights after Donald Trump. (Trumplinka would fit Netanyahu's concentration-style occupation nicely.)

So, not only are millions of Americans now associating Christianity with G.W. Bush's wars of aggression, they are associating Christianity with Donald Trump's wars of aggression for the racist apartheid State of Israel. The result: the steepest decline in church attendance and church affiliation in U.S. history.

The longer evangelical Christians continue to support Donald Trump's radical pro-Israel, pro-war agenda, the deeper America will plunge into an anti-Christian country.

The good news is that all over America, people are waking up to the Israel deception. Support for the erroneous doctrine of dispensational eschatology is in a giant free fall; the myth of Zionist Israel being a resurrected Old Testament Israel is being repeatedly exposed; the attempts by Israel's toadies to characterize people whose eyes are open to the truth of Zionism as being "anti-Semitic" is losing more and more credibility by the day; and more and more people are becoming aware of the utter wickedness of the Zionist government in Israel. Plus, more and more people are beginning to understand the plight of the persecuted people (including Christian people) in the Israeli-occupied territories of Palestine.

Ron, maybe your shipmates on the USS LIBERTY didn't die in vain after all.

From an historical perspective, overextended wars are the downfall of any empire; from a financial perspective, warfarism is the precursor to an economically depressed middle class; and from a Scriptural/spiritual perspective, God cannot and will not bless a warmongering nation.

Let's be clear: God is not building a "Greater Israel." God is not building a third Jewish temple. God is not speaking through phony prophets who are attributing some sort of divine calling to Trump's pro-Israel warmongering. God is not blessing America because we are blessing Zionist Israel. Just the opposite: The more America aligns itself with Israel's belligerence, bullying and bombing of innocent people, the more God will deliver us over to becoming an antichrist country. After all, one cannot idolize and partner with antichrists without becoming one himself.

After Trump finishes this term in office, two-thirds of this young century will have seen a "Christian" warmonger in the White House. It is no coincidence that during this same period of time, wars are way up and church attendance is way down.
https://chuckbaldwinlive.com/Articles/tabid/109/ID/3866/Americas-Wars-Are-Way-Up-Church-Attendance-Is-Way-Down.aspx

Anonymous [102] Disclaimer , says: May 3, 2019 at 1:23 pm GMT
Burning down the house. Driving like a madman on the road to nowhere has put the nation on a path to its own demise. Our foreign policy is a disaster that does nothing to promote democracy anywhere in the world. Our military has provided nothing but instability in the world since the end of world war 2. Ask yourself, why are we involved in so many useless wars that don't make the world a better place?
Don't you feel like we are being used by war hawks who see every skirmish as a threat to our national security? Why can't we cut out all the military BS and just trade with with nations that want to trade, and ignore those who want to kill each other. Let them figure it out on their own. Social Capitalism is the only policy we should be supporting.
Johnny Walker Read , says: May 3, 2019 at 1:36 pm GMT
America's foreign policy since the end of WWII. End of story.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/O66UKjCwmTw?feature=oembed

EliteCommInc. , says: May 3, 2019 at 2:50 pm GMT
"All statements of Trump do not count. All Trump statements are results from stress of torture by Democrats, and deep state."

When this president stated during the campaign,

that christians don't have to forgive their enemies, I rolled my eyes stated he wrong, and understood well he doesn't know what christianity means and supported him anyway

that he supported same sex marriage, I rolled my eyes, rebuffed the the silliness of his comments and understood, he is not a conservative and beyond that he doesn't know what christianity means

when it was uncovered that he had in fact had relations outside of marriage, I rolled my eyes, and understood that alone could be a disqualifying factor in light of the competition and supported him anyway

when some of the most respected departments of government leaders said he colluded with Russians, based on the evidence, I said "poppycock" and supported him anyway

when media swirled with tales of Russian bath houses and carousings abounded, I thought nonsense and supported hum anyway

when the rumors of underage girls and same sex parties and orgies seped into the main, I rolled my eyes and supported him anyway . . .

when he spouted off about Charlottesville prematurely, I supported him anyway . . .

when became clear he actually advocated torture, I choked, spat and supported him anyway, afterall he's not schooled in international relations and the consequences for our service personnel, much less apparently the basics of tortures effectiveness, especially in large scale strategies such as the US is engaged in

when it came to light he was completely ignorant of how our criminal justice system gets it wrong as exampled by the Cen 5 case, I supported him anyway . . .

I supported him in spite of his comments about the poor and people like me who supported him

There's a long list of tolerance is support of this president based on his advocacy regarding turning the attention to the US welfare . . .

And when he actually agreed that the Russians had sabotaged the US elections and even engaged in murder in the states of our European allies -- I knew, that in all liklihood the turn inward was dead.

Here' a man who beat all the odds because of stalwart support of people like me, who repeatedly bit the sides of our cheeks in the understanding that the returns would exceed the price only to discover that the man who beat the odds doesn't seem to have a spine to stand on ideologically which were the foundations of my advocacy: national security, less reckless spending, holding business and financial organizations accountable for misbehavior, investing in the US citizen, restructuring our trade deals to benefit the US, not merely shooting up tarrifs that would in turn be priced to the citizens the supposed tarrifs were intended to protect, tax cuts that actually gave middle americans less, no evidence of a draw down in our careless ME behaviors, i even gave him some room to deal with israel as perhaps a new way forward -- it's a new way alright – no pretense of acting as honest brokers – that's new, Immigration is worse and by worse he might as well be serving tea and crumpets at the border welcoming illegals . . .

If the man you elected to turn the corner actually becomes the vehicle for of what you elected him to reject and change, eventually one has to acknowledge that fact. he beat the deep state, he just either had not the courage, the integrity, or the ability, perhaps all three to withstand the victory and do the work. Of course he had opposition and not much of it very fair and nearly all of it damaging to the country. But he had support to stand against it -- he chose an easier path.

And while I support him still, I have no intention of pretending that he is fulfilling the mandate for which he was elected. I would be lying to myself and doing a disservice to him.

I have not changed, I knew he was a situational leader, I knew what that meant, but I voted for a particular agenda, he left the reservation on his own accord and the "deep state", the establishment", the democrats, the liberals, the libertarians, can only be held to blame for so much --

But several weeks ago, on top of a complete failure to ensure US order security, the armed forces paid homage to Mexicans on US territory by relinquishing their weapons and surrendering -- and given the tenure thus far -- - it devastatingly fitting that this occurred under this admin.

And in the midst of all this, he is pandering to those engaged in same sex behavior -- – deep state my eye . . .

the path of least resistance. I cling to the belief that having voting for any of the other candidates -- matters would have been far worse.

I make no apologies for being a conservative and Christian and holding a loyalty to the US.

I reject your whine, it had legs and even some salience still, but at this stage, very little.

Now he is bed with Sen. Rubio, Sen. Cruz and others on mucking around in SA -- I can only consider your comments as an attempt at humor.

[May 03, 2019] President Donald Trump is a blind man being led by a guide dog -- Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu,

May 03, 2019 | www.unz.com

Charles Pewitt , says: May 3, 2019 at 3:22 pm GMT

The JEW/WASP ruling class of the American Empire is using the US military as muscle to fight wars on behalf of Israel and to keep the dollar-based global financial system operating to their benefit.

Republican Party politician whores are led by the Jew-controlled Neo-Conservative foreign policy faction and the Democrat Party is led by the Jew-controlled Humanitarian Interventionist Harpy foreign policy faction.

Debt-based fiat currency systems must always expand or they implode.

Empires must expand or they implode.

The JEW/WASP ruling class of the American Empire is stuck with a federal funds rate of 2.50 percent or so when the normal level is 6 percent.

Yellen was talking about 4 percent being the new normal level, but she was off by 1.5 percent.

Tweets from 2015:

anonymous [204] Disclaimer , says: May 3, 2019 at 6:32 pm GMT
Tucker Carlson is another charlatan who still refuse to hold the Jewish mafia servant, Trump, responsible for the massacre in Venezuela. He is trying to please both sides to collect his $$$.

He is complicit in Trumps' crimes against Venezuelan people. Trump is a terrorist and mass murderer who tried to assassinate Maduro few months ago unsuccessfully. This does not dilute the fact that TRUMP IS AN ASSASSIN. All these criminals must be arrested and put on trial to be executed, if not possible then people must assassinate these scums who have no shame to starve millions of people to death by violating international laws to grab their land and resources. The world cannot wait. Their complicit, like Tucker Carlson, should be exposed all over the world. We are fed up with these criminals who received $$$$$ for their lies, continue to help the criminals at the Pentagon and WH.

Those criminals who spread the lies that Venezuela is Maduro's fault. Carlson and other CHARLATANS refuse to see the role of the US criminals against Venezuelan people for over 20 years, attacking the population, country's infrastructure well being, economic system and engaging in assassination , staging riot using their traitor pawns in the country to topple a legitimate government in order to steal Venezuela's RESOURCES where pays for the liars like Carlson's salary to spread his propaganda. The US criminals who have assassinated many leaders to bring down the governments around the world should be assassinated themselves along with their propagandists.

You criminals have been exposed all over the world and soon should go into your graves, one by one. These criminals including trump and Carlson, hold Chavez responsible for the chaos in the country and now Maduro, but ignore the US criminals acts even assassination of the leaders.

Carlson should stop supporting the Jewish mafia illiterate and mass murderer Trump and shut up on blaming Maduro, a victim of US brutality and its complicit media like Carlson.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/new-york-times-apologizes-anti-semitic-cartoon/5676246

[President Donald Trump as a blind man being led by a guide dog with the face of Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, identified by a star-of-David collar.]

[May 01, 2019] The NYT cartoon showing a blind, yarmulked Trump being led by Nuttinyahoo should have put Kushner's face on the seeing-eye dog instead

May 01, 2019 | www.unz.com

anon [271] Disclaimer , says: May 1, 2019 at 11:23 am GMT

@Thulean Friend The NYT cartoon showing a blind, yarmulked Trump being led by Nuttinyahoo should have put Kushner's face on the seeing-eye dog instead.

MIGA!

[May 01, 2019] The president has said he doesn t want to see this country wrapped up in endless wars and I agree with that -- Bernie Sanders

Notable quotes:
"... In fact, Trump gave the Democrats his theme for peace by 2020 ..."
"... If Sanders emerged as the nominee, we would have an election with a Democrat running with the catchphrase “no more wars” that Trump had promoted in 2016. Thus, Trump would be defending the bombing of Yemeni rebels and civilians by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia. ..."
"... None of the main candidates for the 2020 Democratic nomination — Joe Biden, Sanders, Kamala Harris, Beto O’Rourke, Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker– seems as aggressive as Trump has become. ..."
"... Trump pulled the United States out of the nuclear agreement with Iran, negotiated by Secretary of State John Kerry, and re-imposed severe sanctions against the Iranians. He declared the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran a terrorist organization, to which Tehran responded with the same action against the U.S. Central Command. ..."
"... Trump has recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, moved the U.S. embassy there, closed the consulate that was in charge of Palestinian affairs, cut off aid to Palestinians, recognized the annexation by Israel of the Golan Heights snatched from Syria in 1967 and kept silent about Netanyahu’s threat to annex the Jewish settlements in the West Bank. ..."
May 01, 2019 | www.counterpunch.org

Originally from: Who Will Be the War Candidate in 2020? by Manuel E. Yepe

"The president has said he doesn't want to see this country wrapped up in endless wars and I agree with that," Bernie Sanders said to the Fox News audience last week at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Then, looking directly at the camera, he added: "Mr. President, tonight you have the opportunity to do something extraordinary: sign that resolution. Saudi Arabia must not determine the military or foreign policy of this country."

Sanders was talking about a resolution on the War Powers Act that would put an end to U.S. involvement in the 5-year civil war in Yemen. This war has created one of the biggest humanitarian crises in the world of our time, with thousands of children dead in the middle of a cholera epidemic and famine.

Supported by a Democratic Party united in Congress, and an anti-interventionist faction of the Republican Party headed by Senators Rand Paul and Mike Lee of Utah, the War Powers resolution had passed both houses of Congress.

But 24 hours after Sanders urged the President to sign it, Trump vetoed the resolution, describing it as a "dangerous attempt to undermine my constitutional authority."

According to journalist Buchanan J. Buchanan, “with enough Republican votes in both chambers to resist Trump’s veto, this could have been the end of the matter; but it wasn’t. In fact, Trump gave the Democrats his theme for peace by 2020.”

If Sanders emerged as the nominee, we would have an election with a Democrat running with the catchphrase “no more wars” that Trump had promoted in 2016. Thus, Trump would be defending the bombing of Yemeni rebels and civilians by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia.

In 2008, John McCain, hawk leader in the Senate, was defeated by the progressive Illinois Senator Barack Obama, who had won his nomination by defeating the bellicose Hillary Clinton who had voted for authorizing the war in Iraq. In 2012, the Republican candidate, Mitt Romney, who was much more aggressive than Obama in his approach to Russia lost.

However, in 2016, Trump presented himself as a different kind of Republican, an opponent of the Iraq war, an anti-interventionist, and promising to get along with Russian Vladimir Putin and getting out of the Middle East wars.

None of the main candidates for the 2020 Democratic nomination — Joe Biden, Sanders, Kamala Harris, Beto O’Rourke, Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker– seems as aggressive as Trump has become.

Trump pulled the United States out of the nuclear agreement with Iran, negotiated by Secretary of State John Kerry, and re-imposed severe sanctions against the Iranians. He declared the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran a terrorist organization, to which Tehran responded with the same action against the U.S. Central Command.

Trump has recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, moved the U.S. embassy there, closed the consulate that was in charge of Palestinian affairs, cut off aid to Palestinians, recognized the annexation by Israel of the Golan Heights snatched from Syria in 1967 and kept silent about Netanyahu’s threat to annex the Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

Trump has spoken of getting all U.S. troops out of Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. However, they are still there.

Although Sanders supports Israel, he says he is looking for a two-state solution, and criticizes Netanyahu’s regime.

Trump came to power promising to get along with Moscow, but he sent Javelin anti-tank missiles to Ukraine and announced the US withdrawal of the 1987 Treaty of Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) subscribed by Ronald Reagan, who banned all ground-based nuclear intermediate range missiles.

When Putin sent a hundred Russian soldiers to Venezuela to repair the S-400 anti-aircraft and anti-missile system that was damaged in the recent blackouts, Trump provocatively ordered the Russians to “get out” of the Bolivarian and Chavista country. According to Buchanan, the gravity center of U.S. policy is shifting towards Trump’s position in 2016. And the anti-interventionist wing of the Republican Party is growing.

The anti-interventionist wing of the Republican Party together with the anti-war wing of the Democratic Party in Congress are capable — as they were War Powers Act resolution on Yemen– to produce a new bipartisan majority.

Buchanan predicts that in the 2020 primaries, foreign policy will be in the center and the Democratic Party would have captured the ground with the catchphrase “no more wars” that candidate Donald Trump exploited in 2016.

[Apr 30, 2019] A neocon pretending to be a diplomat Pompeo trying to explain the difference between Israel annexation of Holan Heights and Crimea

Apr 30, 2019 | irrussianality.wordpress.com

Mao Cheng Ji says: April 25, 2019 at 3:01 pm

If you continue making outrageous false equivalence arguments, mister, you'll have have to spend time in a reeducation camp, I'm afraid.

It's been explained to you a million times already:

"Earlier, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that the situation with recognizing Crimea as part of Russia differed from acknowledging Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights.

According to him, what US President Donald Trump did is to "recognize the reality on the ground." Pompeo stressed that Washington seeks to work on Middle East stability, noting that "America is a force for good in the region" and its intentions are noble."

[Apr 29, 2019] Israel just wants instability for Syria and to deprive that state of the use of its own resources. It's just gangsterism, but America fully goes along

Apr 29, 2019 | consortiumnews.com

JOHN CHUCKMAN , April 26, 2019 at 12:14

Worth reading, as are most things Jonathan Cook writes.

But I'm not sure I accept his notion of The Lobby's hold in the United States weakening in any way. Yes, there finally are a few people in Congress who speak truth for the first time ever. But look at the choke-hold Israel has on the county, despite those minor influences. Many of Trump's most senior appointments are people serving Israeli interests to a record degree -- Bolton, Pompeo, Abrahams, Kushner, and others.

And look at the things, not his to legally dispose of at all, that Trump has "given" Israel. It's shocking, but there are almost no voices in the United States saying so.

And by all accounts, Trump's big "peace plan" could have been written by members of Netanyahu's staff. There is no pretense of working with two sides to solve a problem involving two sides.

We have matters like Trump's "Syria withdrawal" reduced to dust under Israeli influence, for there is no other serious known interest keeping American military, illegally, in northwestern Syria.

Israel just wants instability for Syria and to deprive that state of the use of its own resources. It's just gangsterism, but America fully goes along.

And the steady drumbeat against law-abiding Iran is becoming deafening.

There is only one interest pushing this pointlessly destructive policy, Israel with its intense desire to dominate its region and benefit from all the favor of the United States in doing so.

America's own long-term interests all dictate that it should work to establish good relations with Iran, a major and peaceful state with many things to offer in trade and friendship, but America cannot do so under Israel's withering influence. America just keeps flagellating itself to exhibit its reverence towards one small and extremely belligerent state.

Israel is under absolutely no threat from Iran. It's just empty rhetoric, an excuse for itself promoting threats and belligerence.

Imagine a non-nuclear state attacking a nuclear state such as Israel, one with a sizable arsenal? One, moreover, doubly protected by America's nuclear arsenal. It's a darkly laughable idea, but it is never laughed at by anyone in Washington, it is only ritualistically honored and repeated.

Israel's destructive viewpoint prevails in almost all important matters. Even much of America's intense Russophobia reflects stoking by Israeli interests. Israel simply views Russia, without saying so publicly, as a big stumbling block to the kind of American international dominance Israel would be very happy seeing.

There is not much to be hopeful about that I see. Perhaps, if Israel keeps so grotesquely over-playing its hand, there will be a backlash in the United States. But that's only a "perhaps." Americans, on the whole, just go right along with things, much resembling a herd of cattle quietly grazing in a pasture while just over the distant hills, vicious armies clash and threaten their future.

[Apr 28, 2019] The Real Men Go to Tehran delusion

Apr 28, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Hoarsewhisperer , Apr 28, 2019 3:54:57 AM | link

Considering that this 'study' is an overblown version of the Real Men Go to Tehran delusion (which is STILL in the pondering phase) it's hard to ignore the trepidation revealed in an assessment divided into pseudo business-like categories of...

1. Likelihood of Success
2. Benefits
3. Costs & Risks

...when there are sufficient unresolved uncertainties to be fine-tuned to keep this plan bogged down in the pondering phase for even longer than the unconsummated Real Men Go To Iran nothing-burger.

[Apr 28, 2019] I found the photo of Fred Trump gifting New York real estate for a Torah study center particularly interesting as good Lutherans do that with such regularity.

Apr 28, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Madrone , Apr 28, 2019 10:22:00 AM | link

Wake up, the Trump (Drumpf) family are crypto Jews, Drumpf women have been marrying Jews for generations. Well worth your time to read Miles Mathis on the family history, I found the photo of Fred Trump gifting New York real estate for a Torah study center particularly interesting as good Lutherans do that with such regularity.

http://mileswmathis.com/trump.pdf

[Apr 28, 2019] Pompeo: Friends, let me go on record: Anti-Zionism IS anti-Semitism. The Trump administration opposes it unequivocally and we will fight for it relentlessly," he made clear

Apr 28, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Zachary Smith , Apr 28, 2019 1:21:07 PM | link

It may well be that Earnest read the New York Times.

Probably not. This character probably reads the Neocon York Times about as much as I do, which is not at all. The connection between the awful surge of "antisemitism" and violence by the rightwingnutters is already being made.

Dani Dayan, Consul General of Israel in New York, reached out to the Times to express his outrage regarding the cartoon. An Israeli official told The Jerusalem Post that Dayan in his conversations made it clear that the cartoon was unacceptable, and that the fact it appeared on the paper is an escalation of the latest trend of displaying antisemitic tropes in the American public sphere.

The horror of it all! It's time for Congress to get off its fat duff and pass those laws outlawing BDS in all shapes and forms! Time to crack down on forums like this one where criticism of Holy Israel is allowed to pollute the Internet Tubes. From our lard-ass End-Times Secretary of State:

"Friends, let me go on record: Anti-Zionism IS anti-Semitism. The Trump administration opposes it unequivocally and we will fight for it relentlessly," he made clear.

Writing anything except glowing hugs-and-kisses about God's Favorite Thieves and Murderers ought to be illegal. This site owner would quickly get his act together if he was given the "Galileo Treatment" of being shown videos from the Cuban Concentration Camp with scenes of the evildoers there being waterboarded.

One more thing to consider:

The New York Times retraction, however, was not an apology. It also left many questions unanswered as to how such an obviously anti-Semitic cartoon, not even associated with the story on the page it appeared on, could have passed the gauntlet of editors.

All those editors have cushy nice-paying jobs. When it's time to keep their mouths shut, they keep them shut. My tight-fitting tinfoil hat causes me to suspect the publication of this obviously factual cartoon was a cold-blooded business decision. Its mere existence will give the Neocon York Times a long spell of 'deniability' that it is always in bed with the the pissant Apartheid state in every way imaginable. I'd imagine this flea-bite of momentary discomfort will be very useful in the next two or so years as it shills for Trump's Deal of the Century as well as any other horrors advanced by the Wag-The-Dog state.

[Apr 28, 2019] T>he latest "offer you can't refuse" conveyed by a gangster posing as diplomat, Consul Minimus Mike Pompeo, now essentially orders the whole planet to submit to the one and only arbiter of world trade: Washington by Pepe Escobar

The Trump administration once again has graphically demonstrated that "international law" and "national sovereignty" already belong to the Realm of the Walking Dead.
Notable quotes:
"... The full – frontal attack on Iran reveals how the Trump administration bets on breaking Eurasia integration via what would be its weakeast node; the three key nodes are China, Russia and Iran. These three actors interconnect the whole spectrum; Belt and Road Initiative; the Eurasia Economic Union; the Shanghai Cooperation Organization; the International North-South Transportation Corridor; the expansion of BRICS Plus. ..."
"... A plausible scenario involves Moscow acting to defuse the extremely volatile U.S.-Iran confrontation, with the Kremlin and the Ministry of Defense trying to persuade President Donald Trump and the Pentagon from any direct attack against the IRGC. The inevitable counterpart is the rise of covert ops, the possible staging of false flags and all manner of shady Hybrid War techniques deployed not only against the IRGC, directly and indirectly, but against Iranian interests everywhere. For all practical purposes, the U . S . and Iran are at war. ..."
Apr 28, 2019 | www.globalresearch.ca

As if a deluge of sanctions against a great deal of the planet was not enough, the latest "offer you can't refuse" conveyed by a gangster posing as diplomat, Consul Minimus Mike Pompeo , now essentially orders the whole planet to submit to the one and only arbiter of world trade: Washington.

First the Trump administration unilaterally smashed a multinational, UN-endorsed agreement, the JCPOA, or Iran nuclear deal. Now the waivers that magnanimously allowed eight nations to import oil from Iran without incurring imperial wrath in the form of sanctions will expire on May 2 and won't be renewed. The eight nations are a mix of Eurasian powers: China, India, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Turkey, Italy and Greece.

Apart from the trademark toxic cocktail of hubris, illegality, arrogance/ignorance and geopolitical/geo – economic infantilism inbuilt in this foreign policy decision, the notion that Washington can decide who's allowed to be an energy provider to emerging superpower China does not even qualify as laughable. Much more alarming is the fact that imposing a total embargo of Iranian oil exports is no less than an act of war.

Ultimate Neocon Wet Dream

Those subscribing to the ultimate U.S, neocon and Zionist wet dream – regime change in Iran – may rejoice at this declaration of war. But as Professor Mohammad Marandi of the University of Tehran has elegantly argued,

"If the Trump regime miscalculates, the house can easily come crashing down on its head."

Reflecting the fact Tehran seems to have no illusions regarding the utter folly ahead, the Iranian leadership -- if provoked to a point of no return, Marandi additionally told me -- can get as far as "destroying everything on the other side of the Persian Gulf and chasing the U.S. out of Iraq and Afghanistan. When the U.S. escalates, Iran escalates. Now it depends on the U.S. how far things go."

This red alert from a sensible academic perfectly dovetails with what's happening with the structure of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) -- recently branded a "terrorist organization" by the United States. In perfect symmetry, Iran's Supreme National Security Council also branded the U.S. Central Command -- CENTCOM -- and "all the forces connected to it" as a terrorist group .

The new IRGC commander-in-chief is Brigadier General Hossein Salami, 58. Since 2009 he was the deputy of previous commander Mohamamd al-Jafari , a soft spoken but tough as nails gentleman I met in Tehran two years ago. Salami, as well as Jafari, is a veteran of the Iran-Iraq war; that is, he has actual combat experience. And Tehran sources assure me that he can be even tougher than Jafari.

In tandem, IRGC Navy Commander Rear Admiral Alireza Tangsiri has evoked the unthinkable in terms of what might develop out of the U.S. total embargo on Iran oil exports; Tehran could block the Strait of Hormuz.

Western Oblivion

Vast swathes of the ruling classes across the West seem to be oblivious to the reality that if Hormuz is shut down, the result will be an absolutely cataclysmic global economic depression.

The War on Iran is Already Underway

Warren Buffett, among other investors, has routinely qualified the 2.5 quadrillion derivatives market as a weapon of financial mass destruction. As it stands, these derivatives are used -- illegally -- to drain no less than a trillion U.S. dollars a year out of the market in manipulated profits.

Considering historical precedents, Washington may eventually be able to set up a Persian Gulf of Tonkin false flag. But what next?

If Tehran were totally cornered by Washington, with no way out, the de facto nuclear option of shutting down the Strait of Hormuz would instantly cut off 25 percent of the global oil supply. Oil prices could rise to over $500 a barrel, to even $1000 a barrel. The 2.5 quadrillion of derivatives would start a chain reaction of destruction.

Unlike the shortage of credit during the 2008 financial crisis, the shortage of oil could not be made up by fiat instruments. Simply because the oil is not there . Not even Russia would be able to re-stabilize the market.

It's an open secret in private conversations at the Harvard Club – or at Pentagon war-games for that matter – that in case of a war on Iran, the U.S. Navy would not be able to keep the Strait of Hormuz open.

Russian SS-NX-26 Yakhont missiles -- with a top speed of Mach 2.9 -- are lining up the Iranian northern shore of the Strait of Hormuz. There's no way U . S . aircraft carriers can defend a barrage of Yakhont missiles.

Then there are the SS-N-22 Sunburn supersonic anti-ship missiles -- already exported to China and India -- flying ultra-low at 1,500 miles an hour with dodging capacity, and extremely mobile; they can be fired from a flatbed truck, and were designed to defeat the U . S . Aegis radar defense system.

What Will China Do?

The full – frontal attack on Iran reveals how the Trump administration bets on breaking Eurasia integration via what would be its weakeast node; the three key nodes are China, Russia and Iran. These three actors interconnect the whole spectrum; Belt and Road Initiative; the Eurasia Economic Union; the Shanghai Cooperation Organization; the International North-South Transportation Corridor; the expansion of BRICS Plus.

So there's no question the Russia-China strategic partnership will be watching Iran's back. It's no accident that the trio is among the top existential "threats" to the U.S., according to the Pentagon. Beijing knows how the U . S . Navy is able to cut it off from its energy sources. And that's why Beijing is strategically increasing imports of oil and natural gas from Russia; engineering the "escape from Malacca" also must take into account a hypothetical U . S . takeover of the Strait of Hormuz.

A plausible scenario involves Moscow acting to defuse the extremely volatile U.S.-Iran confrontation, with the Kremlin and the Ministry of Defense trying to persuade President Donald Trump and the Pentagon from any direct attack against the IRGC. The inevitable counterpart is the rise of covert ops, the possible staging of false flags and all manner of shady Hybrid War techniques deployed not only against the IRGC, directly and indirectly, but against Iranian interests everywhere. For all practical purposes, the U . S . and Iran are at war.

Within the framework of the larger Eurasia break-up scenario, the Trump administration does profit from Wahhabi and Zionist psychopathic hatred of Shi'ites. The "maximum pressure" on Iran counts on Jared of Arabia Kushner's close WhatsApp pal Mohammad bin Salman (MbS) in Riyadh and MbS's mentor in Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Zayed , to replace the shortfall of Iranian oil in the market. Bu that's nonsense -- as quite a few wily Persian Gulf traders are adamant Riyadh won't "absorb Iran's market share" because the extra oil is not there.

Much of what lies ahead in the oil embargo saga depends on the reaction of assorted vassals and semi-vassals. Japan won't have the guts to go against Washington. Turkey will put up a fight. Italy, via Salvini, will lobby for a waiver. India is very complicated; New Delhi is investing in Iran's Chabahar port as the key hub of its own Silk Road, and closely cooperates with Tehran within the INSTC framework. Would a shameful betrayal be in the cards?

China, it goes without saying, will simply ignore Washington.

Iran will find ways to get the oil flowing because the demand won't simply vanish with a magic wave of an American hand. It's time for creative solutions. Why not, for instance, refuel ships in international waters, accepting gold, all sorts of cash, debit cards, bank transfers in rubles, yuan, rupees and rials -- and everything bookable on a website?

Now that's a way Iran can use its tanker fleet to make a killing. Some of the tankers could be parked in -- you got it -- the Strait of Hormuz, with an eye on the price at Jebel Ali in the UAE to make sure this is the real deal. Add to it a duty free for the ships crews. What's not to like? Ship owners will save fortunes on fuel bills, and crews will get all sorts of stuff at 90 percent discount in the duty free.

And let's see whether the EU has grown a spine -- and really turbo-charge their Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) alternative payment network conceived after the Trump administration ditched the JCPOA. Because more than breaking up Eurasia integration and implementing neocon regime change, this is about the ultimate anathema; Iran is being mercilessly punished because it has bypassed the U.S. dollar on energy trade.

*

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

[Apr 27, 2019] Trump Drops The Other Iran Oil Shoe

Notable quotes:
"... Bolton says that this is all designed to make Iran be a "normal country," as if Saudi Arabia were such. ..."
Apr 27, 2019 | angrybearblog.com

Indeed, this looks like a potentially much more dangerous situation. If these major nations obey Trump (I suspect some will not), Iran might be tempted to take more aggressive action, with blocking the Straits of Hormuz among the more serious. This would really spike the price of oil, and quite possibly trigger a war. This may be what the Trump people want, with their real policy apparently being "regime change." However, so far the only regime change seems to be rising influence of hardliners, with a new hardline commander for the now sanctioned Revolutionary Guards being appointed. He has been talking about missiles getting fired on Israel from Lebanon by Hezbollah. Is this what Netanyahu really wants?

I think those who think the Iranian regime will easily be overthrown are more deluded than those who advocated invading Iraq (and some of them are the same people, see John Bolton especially). This has the potential of really seriously distracting people from the Mueller Report, but not at all in a good way.

... ... ...

Another Addendum: In WaPo this morning they report that the other three nations are Greece, Italy, and Taiwan, and that they have already stopped buying Iranian oil under US pressure. Also, apparently Japan has been stockpiling oil from there and has stopped further purchases already in anticipation of just this move by the US. OTOH, both China and Turkey are talking about not obeying the US order. No word out of either India or South Korea so far.

Bolton says that this is all designed to make Iran be a "normal country," as if Saudi Arabia were such. As it is, indeed the hawkish new leader of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards has spoken publicly of possibly blocking the Straits of Hormuz, as I suggested they may well be contemplating.

[Apr 26, 2019] Jared Kushner, Not Maria Butina, Is America's Real Foreign Agent by Philip Giraldi

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... FARA requires all individuals and organizations acting on behalf of foreign governments to registered with the Department of Justice and to report their sources of income and contacts. Federal prosecutors have claimed that Butina was reporting back to a Russian official while deliberating cultivating influential figures in the United States as potential resources to advance Russian interests, a process that is described in intelligence circles as "spotting and assessing." ..."
"... Selective enforcement of FARA was, ironically, revealed through evidence collected and included in the Mueller Report relating to the only foreign country that actually sought to obtain favors from the incoming Trump Administration. That country was Israel and the individual who drove the process and should have been fined and required to register with FARA was President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner. As Kushner also had considerable "flight risk" to Israel, which has no extradition treaty with the United States, he should also have been imprisoned. ..."
"... Kushner reportedly aggressively pressured members of the Trump transition team to contact foreign ambassadors at the United Nations to convince them to vote against or abstain from voting on the December 2016 United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 condemning Israeli settlements. The resolution passed when the US, acting under direction of President Barack Obama, abstained, but incoming National Security Adviser Michael Flynn did indeed contact the Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak twice and asked for Moscow's cooperation, which was refused. Kushner, who is so close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the latter has slept at the Kushner apartment in New York City, was clearly acting in response to direction coming from the Israeli government. ..."
"... Another interesting tidbit revealed by Mueller relates to Trump foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos's ties to Israel over an oil development scheme. Mueller "ultimately determined that the evidence was not sufficient to obtain or sustain a conviction" that Papadopoulos "committed a crime or crimes by acting as an unregistered agent of the Israeli government." Mueller went looking for a Russian connection but found only Israel and decided to do nothing about it. ..."
Apr 25, 2019 | ronpaulinstitute.org
The Mueller Special Counsel inquiry is far from over even though a final report on its findings has been issued. Although the investigation had a mandate to explore all aspects of the alleged Russian interference in the 2016 US election, from the start the focus was on the possibility that some members of the Trump campaign had colluded with the Kremlin to influence the outcome of the election to favor the GOP candidate. Even though that could not be demonstrated, many prominent Trump critics, to include Laurence Tribe of the Harvard Law School, are demanding that the investigation continue until Congress has discovered "the full facts of Russia's interference [to include] the ways in which that interference is continuing in anticipation of 2020, and the full story of how the president and his team welcomed, benefited from, repaid, and obstructed lawful investigation into that interference and the president's cooperation with it."

Tribe should perhaps read the report more carefully. While it does indeed confirm some Russian meddling, it does not demonstrate that anyone in the Trump circle benefited from it or cooperated with it. The objective currently being promoted by dedicated Trump critics like Tribe is to make a case to impeach the president based on the alleged enormity of the Russian activity, which is not borne out by the facts: the Russian role was intermittent, small scale and basically ineffective.

One interesting aspect of the Mueller inquiry and the ongoing Russophobia that it has generated is the essential hypocrisy of the Washington Establishment. It is generally agreed that whatever Russia actually did, it did not affect the outcome of the election. That the Kremlin was using intelligence resources to act against Hillary Clinton should surprise no one as she described Russian President Vladimir Putin as Hitler and also made clear that she would be taking a very hard line against Moscow.

The anti-Russia frenzy in Washington generated by the vengeful Democrats and an Establishment fearful of a loss of privilege and entitlement claimed a number of victims. Among them was Russian citizen Maria Butina, who has a court date and will very likely be sentenced tomorrow .

Regarding Butina, the United States Department of Justice would apparently have you believe that the Kremlin sought to subvert the five-million-member strong National Rifle Association (NRA) by having a Russian citizen take out a life membership in the organization with the intention of corrupting it and turning it into an instrument for subverting American democracy. Maria Butina has, by the way, a long and well documented history as an advocate for gun ownership and was a co-founder in Russia of Right to Bear Arms, which is not an intelligence front organization of some kind. It is rather a genuine lobbying group with an active membership and agenda. Contrary to what has been reported in the mainstream media, Russians can own guns but the licensing and registration procedures are long and complicated, which Right to Bear Arms, modeling itself on the NRA, is seeking to change.

Butina, a graduate student at American University, is now in a federal prison, having been charged with collusion and failure to register as an agent of the Russian Federation. She was arrested on July 15, 2018. It is decidedly unusual to arrest and confine someone who has failed to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938 (FARA) , but she has not been granted bail because, as a Russian citizen, she is considered to be a "flight risk," likely to try to flee the US and return home.

FARA requires all individuals and organizations acting on behalf of foreign governments to registered with the Department of Justice and to report their sources of income and contacts. Federal prosecutors have claimed that Butina was reporting back to a Russian official while deliberating cultivating influential figures in the United States as potential resources to advance Russian interests, a process that is described in intelligence circles as "spotting and assessing."

Maria eventually pleaded guilty of not registering under FARA to mitigate any punishment, hoping that she would be allowed to return to Russia after a few months in prison on top of the nine months she has already served. She has reportedly fully cooperated the US authorities, turning over documents, answering questions and undergoing hours of interrogation by federal investigators before and after her guilty plea.

Maria Butina basically did nothing that damaged US security and it is difficult to see where her behavior was even criminal, but the prosecution is asking for 18 months in prison for her in addition to the time served. She would be, in fact, one of only a handful of individuals ever to be imprisoned over FARA, and they all come from countries that Washington considers to be unfriendly, to include Cuba, Saddam's Iraq and Russia. Normally the failure to comply with FARA is handled with a fine and compulsory registration.

Butina was essentially convicted of the crime of being Russian at the wrong time and in the wrong place and she is paying for it with prison. Selective enforcement of FARA was, ironically, revealed through evidence collected and included in the Mueller Report relating to the only foreign country that actually sought to obtain favors from the incoming Trump Administration. That country was Israel and the individual who drove the process and should have been fined and required to register with FARA was President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner. As Kushner also had considerable "flight risk" to Israel, which has no extradition treaty with the United States, he should also have been imprisoned.

Kushner reportedly aggressively pressured members of the Trump transition team to contact foreign ambassadors at the United Nations to convince them to vote against or abstain from voting on the December 2016 United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 condemning Israeli settlements. The resolution passed when the US, acting under direction of President Barack Obama, abstained, but incoming National Security Adviser Michael Flynn did indeed contact the Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak twice and asked for Moscow's cooperation, which was refused. Kushner, who is so close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the latter has slept at the Kushner apartment in New York City, was clearly acting in response to direction coming from the Israeli government.

Another interesting tidbit revealed by Mueller relates to Trump foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos's ties to Israel over an oil development scheme. Mueller "ultimately determined that the evidence was not sufficient to obtain or sustain a conviction" that Papadopoulos "committed a crime or crimes by acting as an unregistered agent of the Israeli government." Mueller went looking for a Russian connection but found only Israel and decided to do nothing about it.

As so often is the case, inquiries that begin by looking for foreign interference in American politics start by focusing on Washington's adversaries but then comes up with Israel. Noam Chomsky described it best "First of all, if you're interested in foreign interference in our elections, whatever the Russians may have done barely counts or weighs in the balance as compared with what another state does, openly, brazenly and with enormous support. Netanyahu goes directly to Congress, without even informing the president, and speaks to Congress, with overwhelming applause, to try to undermine the president's policies -- what happened with Obama and Netanyahu in 2015. Did Putin come to give an address to the joint sessions of Congress trying to -- calling on them to reverse US policy, without even informing the president? And that's just a tiny bit of this overwhelming influence."

Maria Butina is in jail for doing nothing while Jared Kushner, who needed a godfathered security clearance due to his close Israeli ties, struts through the White House as senior advisor to the president in spite of the fact that he used his nepotistically obtained access to openly promote the interests of a foreign government. Mueller knows all about it but recommended nothing, as if it didn't happen. The media is silent. Congress will do nothing. As Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi put it "We in Congress stand by Israel. In Congress, we speak with one voice on the subject of Israel." Indeed.

Reprinted with permission from Strategic Culture Foundation .

[Apr 25, 2019] Bibi's best bet to solve his intractable Hezbollah problem is when his bitch Trump is in office

Apr 25, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

blue peacock , 23 April 2019 at 04:24 PM

Col. Lang,

Bibi's best bet to solve his intractable Hezbollah problem is when his bitch Trump is in office. Nothing like getting for free the USAF to do the work his IAF can't do. Of course Trump can follow Dubya's footsteps and become the war president. Nothing like a neocon-inspired war to shore his support is what Bolton & Pompeo will advise and Adelson will be crooning too.

How do you think Hezbollah will react when the die is cast and the casus belli is manufactured? Would they preempt and launch all they have knowing they would have to go down when the tens of thousands of sorties of the USAF commence? Syed Nasrallah apparently has warned his commanders to expect an Israeli war this summer.

Would Putin & Xi sit it out & let Hezbollah go down in flames?

Unhinged Citizen said in reply to blue peacock... , 23 April 2019 at 09:38 PM
"Would Putin & Xi sit it out & let Hezbollah go down in flames?"

That is almost certain. What the Russians have demonstrated is there absolute weakness in the face of US economic dominance and military might. These Chinese have demonstrated their inability to show any sort of political backbone, but suck in as much world capital as they possibly can in silence.

turcopolier , 23 April 2019 at 09:38 PM
BP - If a massive heavy bomber strike is made on Hizbullah it may cripple Hizbullah's ability to lay down a lot of fire in Israel. This Hizbullahis must have figured this out. That creates a hair trigger possibility for a preemptive strike on Israel. This is a very dangerous situation. my crystal ball is cloudy. I have no idea what Putin and Xi might do. "Best in Show" is a great film depicting a wonderful breed.
Joe100 , 23 April 2019 at 09:38 PM
How likely is it that the US could surprise Hizbullah with a massive strategic bombing strike?
Would not Russia see this coming and probably warn Hizbullah?

And does anyone her have a sense of the extent of area that would need to be covered and the density of Hizbullah fortifications within this area? Would it be plausible to cover the full extent of the threat to Israel in one strike?

Also, I recently read an article by an air force officer assigned to the MACV combat operations center during the siege of Khe Sanh. He indicated that intelligence was received that the NVA were going to try to tunnel under the Marine defense lines. This officer vaguely remembered that a bunker-busting/deep penetration weapon for B-52s was somewhere "in the inventory". It turned out some were in stock in Okinawa, so were relatively immediately available to use at Khe Sanh. So if these weapons (or something similar) remain available, their impact could potentially be greater on Hizbullah fortifications than what Col. Lang observed on his BDA.

turcopolier , 23 April 2019 at 09:38 PM
joe100

The US is very good at OPSEC and IMO Hizbullah would have no warning at all until the bombs started to fall from way up in the sky. And unlike a lot of target system the Tabbouleh line cannot be moved without a lot of trouble. How big a target set? Essentially the width of Lebanon and three or four miles wide against what by now must be a fully developed picture of the arrray of targets. This will have been developed in full by now by DIA and the USAF targeting people. You people are living in Cloud Cuckoo Land. And since Hizbullah is designated as a terrorist organization the AUMF would apply. The only thing protecting Hizbullah in Tabbouleh Line is fear of the reaction of the American people and that can be overcome by a supposed attack on Israel.

[Apr 24, 2019] Trump is a Zionist

Apr 24, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Circe , Apr 24, 2019 12:47:33 PM | link

@22 Ron Horn

You sir are delusional. Trump was dead set against taking down Iran and Venezuela from day one. Trump is a Zionist. I wish people would get that through their thick skulls.

There is no surprise here. Everything is rolling along on schedule according to plan. The Empire can now call the shots unilaterally. You have all allowed for this domination by trying to ridicule and shut down the discussion of Zionism's role in this outcome. We are not free! Millions of people around the world marched against the proposed invasion of Iraq and the Empire's vassals came running to help (I'm pointing especially to you, U.K., trying to take Corbyn down while welcoming the Orange Oaf for an official visit!). The WMD's were a hoax. Bolton admitted that regime change was always the goal, and same goes for Venezuela and Iran.

Trump is not a Zionist hostage suffering from Stockholm syndrome. Let me spell out the writing that has been on the wall from day one: TRUMP IS A ZIONIST. Trump is accelerating the ZEmpire's domination in every way imaginable. Trump die-hard supporters are Zionists of all stripes even if the more liberal ones try desperately to conceal that fact, and the rest are loyal donkeys with blinders on.

>>>>>>>>>>>

I don't expect Russia to come to Iran's rescue. a) Iran is a gas competitor. And b) Zionist Russian oligarchs are deep in Trump's corner.

Israel has been attacking Iran on Syrian soil with Putin's blessing.

I don't know what Putin's game is, but muti-polarity doesn't seem to be at the top of his list as it is with some of us here.

There is only one way to deal with ZUSA aggression: DETERRENCE.

Iran should stop being so prudish regarding nukes. Iran could have had a stockpile by now. Maybe North Korea can start doing business.

Peaceful means of resistance to Zionism do not work! Zionists are only satisfied with total domination and they are proving it.

We are not free. We are powerless. We have already been muzzled left an right and they are trying to legitimize restraint on our rights. We have no democracy. This has been happening while you were all sleeping.

Trump is an enforcer of Zionism and many of you are drunk uncle toms high on his neutralizing moonshine or stealth Zionists still peddling his Zionist bullshet as 4D chess.

Trump is a Zionist enforcer and is accelerating ZEmpire domination. They know the jig is up and time is of the essence. The goal is to make all resistance futile. Some of you here have been helping them achieve this goal, and now your 11th-hour shock and awe and armchair musings ring cheap and hollow.

You are chamberlains unable to call what is steering the Empire's domination by its name: ZIONISM.

How can you fight the enemy you refuse to acknowledge? So here we are, NEXT STOP: IRAN AND WAR.

ARRGH.

[Apr 24, 2019] Those who supported Trump are fools. Those who thought Mueller would find impeachable offenses are tools. We are all either fools or tools.

Apr 24, 2019 | www.unz.com

,

Wallbanger , says: April 23, 2019 at 6:15 pm GMT
What a joke. Trump is a Zionist. The "deep state" is Zionist. The trillionaires are Zionists.

Trump moved the US embassy to Jerusalem. Continues the illegal wars in Syria and Yemen. Unilaterally declares the Golan Heights to be Israeli territory.

Kushner is Genie Energy. Cheney, et al. Stealing Syrian national wealth.

Trump is a tool.

Those who supported Trump are fools. Those who thought Mueller would find impeachable offenses are fools. We are all either fools or tools.

Adrian E. , says: April 23, 2019 at 9:26 pm GMT
@Wallbanger Of course, Trump is pro-Zionist, and he hardly needed any pressure for this. Kushner is a close friend of Netanyahu, and we don't know anything about conflicts between Trump and Kushner.

But I think the Russiagate conspiracy theory still may have served important foreign policy goals.

I think it is important to distinguish between Israeli foreign policy and US neocon foreign policy, even though they are close allies. At least superficially, these are two rather different things, and to me, it is an open question to what degree these differences are only superficial.

US neocons follow the doctrine of „full spectrum dominance". This leads them to having military bases all over the world, stoking up conflicts, and destabilizing countries that have or want good relations with rivals like China and Russia. The idea that such „full spectrum dominance" will be used for the benefit of Israel certainly goes a long way for explaining why neocons think it is worth the price – after all, many US neocons are Jewish Zionists, and many of their lower-rank supporters are Christian Zionists. But their goal of „full spectrum dominance" goes beyond matters related to Israel, it leads to conflicts and tensions all over the world, Israel is just one of the motivating factors.

Israeli foreign policy is very different. It does not share the US' hostility towards other great powers. Israel has good relations with Russia and China. It refused to follow the US and the EU in sanctioning Russia, Netanyahu meets Putin regularly, and, like Trump with the Golan recognition, Putin also gave Netanyahu a present a short time before the elections (retrieving remains of an Israeli soldier who was missing since 1982 from Syria). Of course, Russia and Israel supported different sides in Syria, but they still seem to take into account each other's interest to some degree. Israel also has good relations and a strong economic partnership with China and participates in the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative. The general principle seems to be that whenever there is a conflict and rivalry, Israel wants to have good relations and influence on both sides. There are some exceptions, in the Sunni-Shia conflict, Israel only has behind-the-scenes influence on the Sunni-Wahhabi side, but that is probably one of the reasons why good relations with Russia, which has closer contacts with Iran, are important to Israel. In the case of the conflict in Ukraine (which is quite relevant for Israel because many Israeli citizens are from Russia or Ukraine), Israel remained neutral and has strong connections to both sides. Such a policy of keeping good relations with as many powerful nations as possible obviously seems smart for a smaller (albeit in many respects very strong) country in a difficult part of the world.

Of course, the Israeli government is very much aware that there could hardly ever be a powerful country where Israel is as influential as it is in the US. Israel has some significant influence in Western Europe and Russia, criticizing Israel can be risky, and overall, these countries have rather pro-Israeli policies (as does, as far as I know, China). But they will never be as extremely pro-Israeli as the US. There are many votes in the UN were there is just Israel and the US on one side (sometimes together with some tiny micronations that depend on the US). Therefore, it is in Israel's interest that the US tries at all cost to gain influence relative to other great powers that are less extremely pro-Israeli. Thus, US neocons who drive the US towards a costly „full spectrum dominance" policy are unequivocally positive and worthy of support from the perspective of the Israeli government. But for Israeli foreign policy itself, due to risk management considerations, the priorities are different. The best-case scenario for them is that a) Israeli influence in the US remains strong and b) the US can achieve and maintain „full-spectrum dominance" for a long time. But they also know that this best-case scenario is far from assured, and therefore, they also consider good relations between Israel and potentially powerful countries like China and Russia important.

I think Trump's foreign policy ideas (before any pressure was applied to him) was quite close to the Israeli ideas (rather than the positions of the US neocons). Unlike Israel, he had some ideas about confronting China (mainly on trade), and certainly, he wanted pro-Israeli policies, but it seems he also wanted to have a general policy of „getting along" with relatively important countries rather than pursuing „full-spectrum dominance" wherever possible and stoking up proxy conflicts at every occasion. On the whole, it seems Trump wanted a US foreign policy that is closer to the Israeli one than to the one of US neocons. If Israel can „get along" with Russia, why shouldn't the US? The Israeli and international press does not scream „treason" every time Netanyahu and Putin meet (which they do quite often).

This idea of a normalization of US-Russian relations is what led to such strong opposition from US neocons. I think they all knew that it would never be in doubt that Trump's policies would be pro-Israeli. But that was not enough for them. According to them, the US, unlike Israel, has to have a strongly anti-Russian stance.

I think there are two plausible explanations, one that does involve Israel and one that does not. They may both be partially be true (probably, for some US neocons, it is more the one, while for others, it is more the other).

The first explanation is that US neocons who strongly identify with Israel, as I argued above, recognize that Israel should have good relations with Russia and China because of risk management considerations, but at the same time, Israel wants to have the US to have as much power as possible because it will never have as much influence in Russia and China as it has in the US. The Russia hysteria has helped increasing military spending (and Democrats going along with this), which may increase the chances of "full spectrum dominance" – and this dominance will, among other things, be used on behalf of Israel. In that case, it may have been a kind of misunderstanding. Trump may have thought that for neocons, it would be enough if he is pro-Israeli and anti-Iranian and has normal, non-hostile relations with Russia, as Israel has – ignoring that the roles Israel and the US should play according to the neocons are very different.

But I am not so sure if Israel would really have minded much if the US had normalized its relations with Russia. Netanyahu hardly ever was hostile towards Trump, he knew he was a reliable ally. Some may even think it weakens the ability of the US to support Israel if it gets entangled in conflicts and confrontations all over the world. So, I suppose that for many true Israel-firsters, Trump was hardly seen as a problem (as long as he is pro-Israeli and anti-Iranian, and there had hardly been any doubt that he is).

There also do not seem to be strong indications about Israeli involvement in Russiagate/Spygate. Some Israelis seem to have been involved in the entrapment of Papadopoulos, but it was not necessarily the Israeli government as a whole that was behind this (they may just have been needed because Israeli energy policy is one of the main specializations of Papadopoulos), and I think there are at least as strong indications of an Israeli involvement on the pro-Trump side.

Russiagate/Spygate mainly seems to be an affair of US and British intelligence services, not so much of Israel. Certainly, in the US, many neocons were strongly involved, but it may not have so much to do with Israel. While support of Israel is one of the reasons why some neocons passionately pursue „full-spectrum dominance", for many of them, this has probably become a goal in itself, even in cases in which it is not needed for Israel – partially for ideological reasons, partially because many of them profit from increased military spending.

notanon , says: April 23, 2019 at 4:40 pm GMT
@Rurik

The right ((neocons)), on the other hand, see Trump as a quisling to rally the hated white men into dying for greater Israel. The perfect Commander and Chief of the Janissaries for Zion.

i agree that initially it was always a possibility he was a neocon plant i.e. neocons couldn't get a war in Syria so decided to put up a candidate who'd promise stuff on trade and immigration to get into office but then ignore it all afterwards and just do neocon stuff but

1) if so he didn't need to say the anti-war stuff
and
2) neocons like Kristol hated him and did everything they could to stop him.

You might call them the Alan Dershowitz wing of the Jewish supremacists. I see that mug on Tucker Carlson defending Trump, and he's positively beaming.

right but he'd be beaming like that even more if he knew Trump was originally isolationist but now is compromised and compliant.

too early to tell for sure but my take is if neocons and the media now start going easier on him i think that will prove they got him and want to keep him in office.

(nb it doesn't change anything if he was always a shill or he wasn't but they got him – the end result is the same)

Rurik , says: April 23, 2019 at 6:06 pm GMT
@notanon

1) if so he didn't need to say the anti-war stuff
and

the only reason I was duped into voting for Dubya his first term, was because I was appalled at Clinton's flouting of international law when he bombed Serbia, and Dubya said specifically said he wasn't a "nation builder". Boy oh boy was I chumped by that one.

And we were all chumped by Obama, the Nobel Peace Prize winner, and serial war pig.

But what choice do we have but to at least vote for the peace candidate, and then wait until, on cue, we're all betrayed once again by the Jewish supremacist deepstate.

So far, Trump hasn't started any new wars. So as Mr. Giraldi says, "one hopes"

if neocons and the media now start going easier on him

then we're toast

it seems the only metric we have for determining whether or not a person is rotten to the core, or not, is whether the media likes them, or not.

If the media likes them, then they're as rotten as they come.

If the media hates them, (Ron Paul, Julian Assange

others..)

then there is likely at least something redeeming about them.

The main reason for (pathetically) clinging to some tiny, gossamer wisp of hope for Trump, is that ((they)) continue to be unhinged in their hysterical enmity for all things Trump.

But considering that he's basically giving them everything they want, (sans an all out war on Iran), it seems the main reason they still hate his guts, is because the despised rubes in flyover country still like him. And I suppose because of a few good judges and justices.

But as long as Bubba continues to proudly wear the hat, they're going to hate Donald Trump with a seething malevolence.

And I have to confess to getting great satisfaction by seeing these rats going apoplectic over Trump.

a guilty secret of mine is that everyday that this sick, twisted bitch

https://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/4dbf746ee84f4a07be81d3e41d1e79c5?width=650

is *not* president, I smile inside.

notanon , says: April 23, 2019 at 6:23 pm GMT
@Rurik yes

it seems the only metric we have for determining whether or not a person is rotten to the core, or not, is whether the media likes them, or not

double yes

notanon , says: April 23, 2019 at 6:34 pm GMT
@Rurik the other potentially relevant thing about Trump imo is he made some comments on 9/11 at the time about how strong the twin towers were (i forget the exact details) which could be construed as walking the edge of disbelief.

this may be related to Brennan in particular having such a hysterical reaction to Trump's candidacy.

Germanicus , says: April 23, 2019 at 6:35 pm GMT
@Rurik

it seems the only metric we have for determining whether or not a person is rotten to the core, or not, is whether the media likes them, or not.

I would contend, this is not a reliable indicator. If they really dislike someone, they will simply not report anything at all. It would be a declared and enforced taboo to report.
Negative publicity is also publicity, and the guys behind the curtain know this.

Realist , says: April 23, 2019 at 6:46 pm GMT
@Rurik

But what choice do we have but to at least vote for the peace candidate, and then wait until, on cue, we're all betrayed once again by the Jewish supremacist deepstate.

It won't change anything, but you won't feel betrayed.

the grand wazoo , says: April 23, 2019 at 9:30 pm GMT
To think that any indictments will come of this is naïve, and an understatement of the power of the deep state. The only thing that keeps Trump alive is his usefulness to Netanyahu, also known as Benji the NutnYahoo.

[Apr 24, 2019] Wallbanger

Apr 24, 2019 | www.unz.com

says: April 23, 2019 at 6:15 pm GMT 100 Words What a joke. Trump is a Zionist. The "deep state" is Zionist. The trillionaires are Zionists.

Trump moved the US embassy to Jerusalem. Continues the illegal wars in Syria and Yemen. Unilaterally declares the Golan Heights to be Israeli territory.

Kushner is Genie Energy. Cheney, et al. Stealing Syrian national wealth.

Trump is a tool.

Those who supported Trump are fools. Those who thought Mueller would find impeachable offenses are fools. We are all either fools or tools.

Adrian E. , says: April 23, 2019 at 9:26 pm GMT

@Wallbanger Of course, Trump is pro-Zionist, and he hardly needed any pressure for this. Kushner is a close friend of Netanyahu, and we don't know anything about conflicts between Trump and Kushner.

But I think the Russiagate conspiracy theory still may have served important foreign policy goals.

I think it is important to distinguish between Israeli foreign policy and US neocon foreign policy, even though they are close allies. At least superficially, these are two rather different things, and to me, it is an open question to what degree these differences are only superficial.

US neocons follow the doctrine of „full spectrum dominance". This leads them to having military bases all over the world, stoking up conflicts, and destabilizing countries that have or want good relations with rivals like China and Russia. The idea that such „full spectrum dominance" will be used for the benefit of Israel certainly goes a long way for explaining why neocons think it is worth the price – after all, many US neocons are Jewish Zionists, and many of their lower-rank supporters are Christian Zionists. But their goal of „full spectrum dominance" goes beyond matters related to Israel, it leads to conflicts and tensions all over the world, Israel is just one of the motivating factors.

Israeli foreign policy is very different. It does not share the US' hostility towards other great powers. Israel has good relations with Russia and China. It refused to follow the US and the EU in sanctioning Russia, Netanyahu meets Putin regularly, and, like Trump with the Golan recognition, Putin also gave Netanyahu a present a short time before the elections (retrieving remains of an Israeli soldier who was missing since 1982 from Syria). Of course, Russia and Israel supported different sides in Syria, but they still seem to take into account each other's interest to some degree. Israel also has good relations and a strong economic partnership with China and participates in the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative. The general principle seems to be that whenever there is a conflict and rivalry, Israel wants to have good relations and influence on both sides. There are some exceptions, in the Sunni-Shia conflict, Israel only has behind-the-scenes influence on the Sunni-Wahhabi side, but that is probably one of the reasons why good relations with Russia, which has closer contacts with Iran, are important to Israel. In the case of the conflict in Ukraine (which is quite relevant for Israel because many Israeli citizens are from Russia or Ukraine), Israel remained neutral and has strong connections to both sides. Such a policy of keeping good relations with as many powerful nations as possible obviously seems smart for a smaller (albeit in many respects very strong) country in a difficult part of the world.

Of course, the Israeli government is very much aware that there could hardly ever be a powerful country where Israel is as influential as it is in the US. Israel has some significant influence in Western Europe and Russia, criticizing Israel can be risky, and overall, these countries have rather pro-Israeli policies (as does, as far as I know, China). But they will never be as extremely pro-Israeli as the US. There are many votes in the UN were there is just Israel and the US on one side (sometimes together with some tiny micronations that depend on the US). Therefore, it is in Israel's interest that the US tries at all cost to gain influence relative to other great powers that are less extremely pro-Israeli. Thus, US neocons who drive the US towards a costly „full spectrum dominance" policy are unequivocally positive and worthy of support from the perspective of the Israeli government. But for Israeli foreign policy itself, due to risk management considerations, the priorities are different. The best-case scenario for them is that a) Israeli influence in the US remains strong and b) the US can achieve and maintain „full-spectrum dominance" for a long time. But they also know that this best-case scenario is far from assured, and therefore, they also consider good relations between Israel and potentially powerful countries like China and Russia important.

I think Trump's foreign policy ideas (before any pressure was applied to him) was quite close to the Israeli ideas (rather than the positions of the US neocons). Unlike Israel, he had some ideas about confronting China (mainly on trade), and certainly, he wanted pro-Israeli policies, but it seems he also wanted to have a general policy of „getting along" with relatively important countries rather than pursuing „full-spectrum dominance" wherever possible and stoking up proxy conflicts at every occasion. On the whole, it seems Trump wanted a US foreign policy that is closer to the Israeli one than to the one of US neocons. If Israel can „get along" with Russia, why shouldn't the US? The Israeli and international press does not scream „treason" every time Netanyahu and Putin meet (which they do quite often).

This idea of a normalization of US-Russian relations is what led to such strong opposition from US neocons. I think they all knew that it would never be in doubt that Trump's policies would be pro-Israeli. But that was not enough for them. According to them, the US, unlike Israel, has to have a strongly anti-Russian stance.

I think there are two plausible explanations, one that does involve Israel and one that does not. They may both be partially be true (probably, for some US neocons, it is more the one, while for others, it is more the other).

The first explanation is that US neocons who strongly identify with Israel, as I argued above, recognize that Israel should have good relations with Russia and China because of risk management considerations, but at the same time, Israel wants to have the US to have as much power as possible because it will never have as much influence in Russia and China as it has in the US. The Russia hysteria has helped increasing military spending (and Democrats going along with this), which may increase the chances of "full spectrum dominance" – and this dominance will, among other things, be used on behalf of Israel. In that case, it may have been a kind of misunderstanding. Trump may have thought that for neocons, it would be enough if he is pro-Israeli and anti-Iranian and has normal, non-hostile relations with Russia, as Israel has – ignoring that the roles Israel and the US should play according to the neocons are very different.

But I am not so sure if Israel would really have minded much if the US had normalized its relations with Russia. Netanyahu hardly ever was hostile towards Trump, he knew he was a reliable ally. Some may even think it weakens the ability of the US to support Israel if it gets entangled in conflicts and confrontations all over the world. So, I suppose that for many true Israel-firsters, Trump was hardly seen as a problem (as long as he is pro-Israeli and anti-Iranian, and there had hardly been any doubt that he is). There also do not seem to be strong indications about Israeli involvement in Russiagate/Spygate. Some Israelis seem to have been involved in the entrapment of Papadopoulos, but it was not necessarily the Israeli government as a whole that was behind this (they may just have been needed because Israeli energy policy is one of the main specializations of Papadopoulos), and I think there are at least as strong indications of an Israeli involvement on the pro-Trump side. Russiagate/Spygate mainly seems to be an affair of US and British intelligence services, not so much of Israel. Certainly, in the US, many neocons were strongly involved, but it may not have so much to do with Israel. While support of Israel is one of the reasons why some neocons passionately pursue „full-spectrum dominance", for many of them, this has probably become a goal in itself, even in cases in which it is not needed for Israel – partially for ideological reasons, partially because many of them profit from increased military spending.

notanon , says: April 23, 2019 at 4:40 pm GMT
@Rurik

The right ((neocons)), on the other hand, see Trump as a quisling to rally the hated white men into dying for greater Israel. The perfect Commander and Chief of the Janissaries for Zion.

i agree that initially it was always a possibility he was a neocon plant i.e. neocons couldn't get a war in Syria so decided to put up a candidate who'd promise stuff on trade and immigration to get into office but then ignore it all afterwards and just do neocon stuff but

1) if so he didn't need to say the anti-war stuff
and
2) neocons like Kristol hated him and did everything they could to stop him.

You might call them the Alan Dershowitz wing of the Jewish supremacists. I see that mug on Tucker Carlson defending Trump, and he's positively beaming.

right but he'd be beaming like that even more if he knew Trump was originally isolationist but now is compromised and compliant.

too early to tell for sure but my take is if neocons and the media now start going easier on him i think that will prove they got him and want to keep him in office.

(nb it doesn't change anything if he was always a shill or he wasn't but they got him – the end result is the same)

Rurik , says: April 23, 2019 at 6:06 pm GMT
@notanon

1) if so he didn't need to say the anti-war stuff
and

the only reason I was duped into voting for Dubya his first term, was because I was appalled at Clinton's flouting of international law when he bombed Serbia, and Dubya said specifically said he wasn't a "nation builder". Boy oh boy was I chumped by that one.

And we were all chumped by Obama, the Nobel Peace Prize winner, and serial war pig.

But what choice do we have but to at least vote for the peace candidate, and then wait until, on cue, we're all betrayed once again by the Jewish supremacist deepstate.

So far, Trump hasn't started any new wars. So as Mr. Giraldi says, "one hopes"

if neocons and the media now start going easier on him

then we're toast

it seems the only metric we have for determining whether or not a person is rotten to the core, or not, is whether the media likes them, or not.

If the media likes them, then they're as rotten as they come.

If the media hates them, (Ron Paul, Julian Assange

others..)

then there is likely at least something redeeming about them.

The main reason for (pathetically) clinging to some tiny, gossamer wisp of hope for Trump, is that ((they)) continue to be unhinged in their hysterical enmity for all things Trump.

But considering that he's basically giving them everything they want, (sans an all out war on Iran), it seems the main reason they still hate his guts, is because the despised rubes in flyover country still like him. And I suppose because of a few good judges and justices.

But as long as Bubba continues to proudly wear the hat, they're going to hate Donald Trump with a seething malevolence.

And I have to confess to getting great satisfaction by seeing these rats going apoplectic over Trump.

a guilty secret of mine is that everyday that this sick, twisted bitch

https://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/4dbf746ee84f4a07be81d3e41d1e79c5?width=650

is *not* president, I smile inside.

notanon , says: April 23, 2019 at 6:23 pm GMT
@Rurik yes

it seems the only metric we have for determining whether or not a person is rotten to the core, or not, is whether the media likes them, or not

double yes

notanon , says: April 23, 2019 at 6:34 pm GMT
@Rurik the other potentially relevant thing about Trump imo is he made some comments on 9/11 at the time about how strong the twin towers were (i forget the exact details) which could be construed as walking the edge of disbelief.

this may be related to Brennan in particular having such a hysterical reaction to Trump's candidacy.

Germanicus , says: April 23, 2019 at 6:35 pm GMT
@Rurik

it seems the only metric we have for determining whether or not a person is rotten to the core, or not, is whether the media likes them, or not.

I would contend, this is not a reliable indicator. If they really dislike someone, they will simply not report anything at all. It would be a declared and enforced taboo to report.
Negative publicity is also publicity, and the guys behind the curtain know this.

Realist , says: April 23, 2019 at 6:46 pm GMT
@Rurik

But what choice do we have but to at least vote for the peace candidate, and then wait until, on cue, we're all betrayed once again by the Jewish supremacist deepstate.

It won't change anything, but you won't feel betrayed.

[Apr 21, 2019] As a journalist, I find it quite amazing that there's no question raised with Pelosi, with Schumer, with any of the leading Democrats. What is going on? You attack Trump for everything. How come you don't attack him for giving Netanyahu a blank check to do what he wants?

Apr 21, 2019 | www.truthdig.com

So, you have a very odd circumstance where we have a lot of discussion about Russia's influence here. They have got nothing. They have sanctions, nothing. As a journalist, I find it quite amazing that there's no question raised with Pelosi, with Schumer, with any of the leading Democrats. What is going on? You attack Trump for everything. How come you don't attack him for giving Netanyahu a blank check to do what he wants? It must be frustrating to an observer like yourself, no?

[Apr 18, 2019] I've suggested Trump has elevated Pompeo and Bolton and Pence because he was forced to do so.

Notable quotes:
"... I was pleasantly surprised to see that Team Trump not only had an intoxicating dream, but also a very logical and disciplined strategy to win the election. Trump kept up a cracking pace and worked tirelessly to the end of the campaign season. It's no wonder that his supporters are reluctant to desert such an inspirational candidate. ..."
Apr 18, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Hoarsewhisperer , Apr 18, 2019 4:05:55 AM | link

I've suggested Trump has "elevated" Pompeo and Bolton and Pence because he was forced to do so. It's even scarier if the old (soon-to-be-73) fart has drunk the kool-aid and wants to be a prime mover in the End Times. From all I've read of late the man is gullible enough to buy into such a scheme.

Posted by: Zachary Smith | Apr 17, 2019 2:30:23 PM | 6

Opinions vary. I beg to differ about Trump being gullible.

I neither knew nor cared who "Donald Trump" was until he became a candidate for POTUS, and I never watched The Apprentice for more than 3 seconds, and then only by accident.

But I liked his campaign antics right from the start. And I wasn't alone. To me, he came across as the sharpest knife in the drawer, by a big margin. Putting himself forward as the Drain the Swamp candidate was worthy of close attention for two reasons:

  1. It took balls to stick his neck out so defiantly
  2. Of far greater significance was the fact that here was an AmeriKKKan Presidential candidate claiming to have an MLK-ish dream and a PLAN to achieve it.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that Team Trump not only had an intoxicating dream, but also a very logical and disciplined strategy to win the election. Trump kept up a cracking pace and worked tirelessly to the end of the campaign season. It's no wonder that his supporters are reluctant to desert such an inspirational candidate.

Given that he entered the race with an undisclosed plan to win the election and won it, it's quite likely that his undisclosed plan to Drain The Swamp has a good chance of being equally successful.
-------
Talking about undisclosed plans, Trump is the only person in the Known Universe with a Drain The Swamp plan so it's only sensible to assume that he's the best person to decide how to achieve it. 3D Chess sounds cute but reverse psychology sounds far more practical. It's been apparent for some time that the individuals who pop their heads above the parapet to promote and justify the Swamp's insanely counter-intuitive plans, have scornfully rejected the Human concepts of decency and morality. They also believe too much of their own bullshit.
Trump has already given them several opportunities to spout their drivel publicly and they've enthusiastically grabbed each one with indecent haste, despite the obvious idiocy and illegality.

John Bolton was interviewed on PBS Newshour on March 17. Look it up and watch it and ask yourself "Is this creature sane or rational?"

Circe , Apr 18, 2019 8:27:00 AM | link

@77 oo goo gachoo

So then you want Trump to win, because you can't honestly compare Trump to Sanders! It's just not intellectually honest!

Hoarsewhisperer @73

Pure Trumpjuice swilling rubbish, as usual. I guess you sleep all day and miss the news because after all the shet Trump has pulled, he couldn't be better for maintaining the Swamp than he is. Reversse pyschology, my ass! You must think you have the power to make others see what even you don't see. News flash, you sound more ridiculous every day. I ask myself why I bother to engage such nonsense. I think it's because I know ONLY Zionists still support Trump the way you do and I just can't let you push that kind of dishonest crap and let you dream you're getting away with it. People whose perception I respect 100 times more than you are now knocking that Trump excuse bullset you're peddling: like reverse psychology and dimensional chess. Honestly? You think anyone but the Zionist West Bank choir you're preaching to buys that kind of dishonest garbage?

https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/04/13/trump-supporters-are-hurting-assange-with-their-4-d-chess-talk/

Now quit with the Trump propaganda.

[Apr 17, 2019] Al-Sisi is evidently not impressed with Trump

Notable quotes:
"... This is a humiliation for the US in that it demonstrates the waning power and influence of the US in the region and most especially of Donald Trump who has demonstrated his indifference to the interests of the Arabs in repeated slavish support of Israel against the Palestinians, Lebanese and Syrians. pl ..."
Apr 17, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

It surprises me that Egypt has rather brazenly walked away from the Boltonesque fantasy of an "Arab NATO." I would have thought that the paychecks Egypt receives every year from the American taxpayer and the Saudis would have kept Sisi in line, but apparently the prospect of other sources of funding affected the decision to defy the Amiirkaan.

With the exception of Jordan's small but competent armed forces, Egypt is the only country among the members that possesses significant military power, The armed forces of the other countries are mere playthings for princes. Egypt's withdrawal from this alliance makes the farcical nature of the plan quite clear.

This is a humiliation for the US in that it demonstrates the waning power and influence of the US in the region and most especially of Donald Trump who has demonstrated his indifference to the interests of the Arabs in repeated slavish support of Israel against the Palestinians, Lebanese and Syrians. pl

https://southfront.org/egypt-pulled-out-of-u-s-efforts-to-form-arab-nato-to-combat-iran-reports/

[Apr 16, 2019] MAKE YEMEN SHITHOLE AGAIN!: I voted for Trump and I got a copy of Hillary instead

Apr 16, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

†FreeThought†

What happened to "Nationalism, not globalism will be our credo"...? I voted for Trump and I got Trumpstein instead.

Haboob

Reality is a bitch.

Deep Snorkeler , 8 minutes ago link

Victory in Yemen! Victory in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan and everywhere else! Our $trillon military, led by genius generals, will bring home slaves and loot to replenish our bankrupt treasury. We shall crush our enemies and hear the lamentations of their women.

ClickNLook, 44 minutes ago

MAKE YEMEN SHITHOLE AGAIN!

warsev

I guess we now know fully where President Trump stands on reining in executive warmongering.

[Apr 16, 2019] Look on the bright side, Trump's overt pandering to Israel has disgusted the Europeans so much that Macron is at the lowest point in his popularity as Rothschild's puppet, and there is rising support for the AfD in Germany.

Apr 16, 2019 | www.unz.com

Thinker , says: April 16, 2019 at 1:39 pm GMT

Look on the bright side, Trump's overt pandering to Israel has disgusted the Europeans so much that Macron is at the lowest point in his popularity as Rothschild's puppet, and there is rising support for the AfD in Germany.

The NYT reported that 40% of Germans now think it's right to blame Jews for Israel's policy in the Mideast, German youth couldn't care less about the holocaust, and Merkel is pivoting to Russia.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/15/opinion/germany-nazis.html

It is now (America + Israel) vs. (the rest of the world led by Russia, China, Iran, Syria, with increasing pivot from Germany and India)

Even the rest of the Five Eyes a.k.a. America's lap dogs are casting a wary eye towards this unholy alliance, and avoid outright support for Israel. Netanyahu has let his new found power, i.e. America's muscles, gone to his head. He's digging a grave for himself, turning Israel more and more into a pariah state with each passing day.

I'm guessing chess is not Trump's strong suit, nor any of the Israel Firsters (incl. Pence & Pompeo) hanging around him. They're all letting their new found power go to their collective heads. Things are going to backfire on them sooner or later.

[Apr 16, 2019] "Trump panders to his base at the Republican Jewish Coalition." but the problem is that the Republican Jewish Coalition was never his base.

Apr 16, 2019 | www.unz.com

Thinker , says: April 16, 2019 at 1:51 pm GMT

@wayfarer "Trump panders to his base at the Republican Jewish Coalition."

The trouble is, the Republican Jewish Coalition was never his base. These people were the biggest Trump haters until he got elected. Now they're just holding their noses to buy power through him.

Meanwhile, the real Trump's base could care less about Israel, and are frankly disgusted with his foreign policy and complete failure on immigration.

[Apr 16, 2019] Trump probably should get one step further at the Republican Coalition

Apr 16, 2019 | www.unz.com

Mark Bruzonsky , says: Website April 16, 2019 at 4:39 am GMT

"Trump also told the Republican Coalition audience how he came to a decision on recognizing Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights."

He should and probably will recognize USA as the colony of Isreal and the Jews, and get it over with.

[Apr 16, 2019] Trump Dances to Israel's Tune by Philip Giraldi

Apr 16, 2019 | www.unz.com

So newly reelected Israeli monster-in-chief Benjamin Netanyahu has boasted , with a grin, that America's President Donald J. Trump followed through on his proposal to declare the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) a terrorist group. Bibi was smiling because the timing of the move, one day before the Israeli election, strongly suggests it was done to assist him against what had become a very strong opposition challenge. That Trump likely colluded with Netanyahu to blatantly interfere in the election has apparently bothered no one in Israel or in the tame American media.

The gift from Washington came on top of recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, threatening members of the International Criminal Court if they try to prosecute Israel for war crimes, moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, removing the word "occupation" from the State Department's assessments of human rights infringements on the West Bank, eliminating relief funding for Palestinian refugees, leaving the U.N. Human Rights Council because it was too critical of Israel, and looking the other way as Israel declared itself a state only for Jews. Washington also ignored the bombing of hospitals, schools and water treatment infrastructure in Gaza while Israeli army snipers were shooting unarmed demonstrators demanding their freedom.

The labeling of the Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist group is particularly disturbing as it means that the United States military by virtue of the Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF) now has a mandate to attack the IRGC wherever it appears, including in Syria or even in the waterway the Straits of Hormuz, where the guard has regular patrols in small boats. It is a de facto declaration of war and it comes on top of a number of deliberate provocations directed against Iran starting with the withdrawal from the nuclear agreement Joint Comprehensive Plan Of Action (JCPOA) one year ago, which led to the unilateral imposition of harsh sanctions directed against the Iranian economy to bring about a popular uprising as well as regularly repeated false claims that Iran is the leading "state sponsor of terrorism." Next month, the U.S. will begin enforcing a unilaterally declared worldwide sanction on any and all Iranian oil sales.

Netanyahu pledged to annex Israeli settlements on the largely Palestinian West Bank if elected, which is undoubtedly a move cleared in advance with the Trump team of foreign policy sociopaths as it de facto puts an end to any delusional speculation over a possible two-state negotiated solution for the Israel-Palestine conflict. It will also lead to a massive upsurge in violence as the Palestinians object, which is neither a concern for the White House or Netanyahu, as they are assuming that it can be suppressed by overwhelming force directed against an almost completely unarmed civilian population.

And Trump will no doubt expect Bibi to return the favor when he is running for reelection in 2020 by encouraging American Jews who care about Israel to support the Republicans. Trump is focused on his own electability and is absolutely shameless about his betrayal of actual American interests in the Middle East, possibly because he has no inkling of the actual damage that he is doing. His speech last week before the casino multi-billionaire Sheldon Adelson-hosted Jewish Republican Coalition Annual Leadership Meeting in Las Vegas was a disgusting pander to a group that includes many key players who have little or no concern for what happens to the United States as long as Israel flourishes. The only good news that came out of the meeting was that Adelson himself appears to be "gravely ill."

Trump at times appeared to be speaking to what he thought was a group of Israelis, referring to "your prime minister" when mentioning Benjamin Netanyahu and several times describing Israel as "yours," suggesting that deep down he understands that many American Jews are more loyal to Israel than to the United States. At another point, Trump declared that "The Democrats have even allowed the terrible scourge of anti-Semitism to take root in their party and their country," apparently part of a White House plan to keep playing that card to turn American Jews and their political donations in a Republican direction before elections in 2020.

Trump also told the Republican Coalition audience how he came to a decision on recognizing Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights. He described how "he'd been speaking to his son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, as well as U.S. ambassador to Israel David Friedman and his Israel adviser, Jason Greenblatt, over the phone about an unrelated issue when he suddenly brought up the Golan Heights." Trump shared how "I said, 'Fellows, do me a favor. Give me a little history, quick. Want to go fast. I got a lot of things I'm working on: China, North Korea. Give me a quickie.' After the advisers filled him in, Trump said he asked Friedman: 'David, what do you think about me recognizing Israel and the Golan Heights?' Friedman, apparently surprised by the suggestion, reacted like a 'wonderful, beautiful baby,' Trump said, and asked if he would 'really do that.' 'Yeah, I think I'm doing it right now. Let's write something up,' Trump said he responded, prompting applause and cheers from his audience in Las Vegas. 'We make fast decisions and we make good decisions.'"

Putting the Trump story about the Golan Heights in some kind of context is not really that difficult. He wanted an answer to please Netanyahu and he went to three Orthodox Jews who support the illegal Israeli settlements and have also individually contributed financially to their growth so he was expecting the response that he got. That he was establishing a precedent by his moves on Jerusalem and the Golan apparently did not occur to him as his administration prides itself on having a foreign policy vision that extends no longer than the beginning of next week, which is why he hired Mike Pompeo, John Bolton and Elliott Abrams. And then there is always the doleful Stephen Miller lurking in the background as well as the three musketeers of Kushner, Greenblatt and Friedman for really serious questions relating to why acceding to the wishes of parasite state Israel should continue to be the apparent number one priority of the government of the United States.

Donald Trump neither poses nor answers the question why he feels compelled to fulfill all of the campaign pledges he made to the Jewish community, which by and large did not vote for him, while failing to carry out the promises made to those who actually did support him . The absurd Jewish Republican Coalition narrative about how Trump gave Israel the Golan Heights should have resulted in a flood of opprobrium in the U.S. media about his profound ignorance and fundamental hypocrisy, but there was largely silence.

The nonsense going on in Las Vegas in front of a lot of fat cats who regard the United States as little more than a cash cow that they control as well as in the White House itself unfortunately has real world consequences. America is being led by the nose by a well-entrenched and powerful group of Israeli loyalists and this will not end well. The U.S. doesn't even have a Middle Eastern foreign policy anymore – it has a "to do" list handed by Netanyahu to whomever is president. The fact that the current man in charge in Washington is either so ignorant or so deluded as to allow the process to escalate until the U.S. is drawn into yet more catastrophic wars is beyond regrettable. U.S. foreign policy should not depend on the perceptions of Kushner and company. It should be based on real, tangible American interests, not those of Israel. Someone should explain that to the president.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected].

Anon [163] Disclaimer , says: April 16, 2019 at 2:59 am GMT

The gift from Washington came on top of recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, threatening members of the International Criminal Court if they try to prosecute Israel for war crimes

It reminds me of the following agreements concluded during the Bush era:

US Bilateral Exemption Agreements

"The Bush Administration is actively opposed to the International Criminal Court. Its insistence on placing all Americans above international law risks undermining the ICC in its earliest and most fragile years. Currently, the State Department is pushing individual countries to conclude bilateral agreements with the US, exempting all Americans (and even some non-nationals) from accountability for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes . These proposed agreements, in the form requested by the US government, are illegal under the Rome Statute and are not required by US law.

– see http://www.iccnow.org/html/aiusimpunity200208.pdf

and

– http://www.iccnow.org/html/ciccart98memo20020823.pdf .

· The European Union has concluded that "Entering into US agreements – as presently drafted would be inconsistent with ICC States Parties' obligations with regard to the ICC Statute and may be inconsistent with other international agreements."

To bring the US proposal back within the legal scope of Article 98(2), the EU would require four modifications:

· No impunity: A guarantee that the US would investigate and potentially prosecute the accused in its domestic courts.

· No reciprocity: Nationals of ICC States Parties must be excluded from coverage.

· No universal scope: These agreements can only cover persons officially sent on government business by a State.

· Ratification: The agreement must be approved according to the constitutional procedures of each individual state.

US Bilateral Exemption Agreements

http://www.iccnow.org/documents/FS-WFA-Art98Impunity.pdf

Mark Bruzonsky , says: Website April 16, 2019 at 4:21 am GMT
Does any election matter? Does who is elected matter at all ? Is it election or selection by TPTB?

The monster has total control of the West and beyond for ages, and it will not end well.

https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/netanyahu-trump-putin-love-story-190408095633979.html

http://againstourbetterjudgment.com/

About the book

Soon after WWII, U.S. statesman Dean Acheson warned that creating Israel on land already inhabited by Palestinians would "imperil" both American and all Western interests in the region. Despite warnings such as this one, President Truman supported establishing a Jewish state on land primarily inhabited by Muslims and Christians.

Few Americans today are aware that U.S. support enabled the creation of modern Israel. Even fewer know that U.S. politicians pushed this policy over the forceful objections of top diplomatic and military experts.

As this work demonstrates, these politicians were bombarded by a massive pro-Israel lobbying effort that ranged from well-funded and very public Zionist organizations to an "elitist secret society" whose members included Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis.

Against Our Better Judgment brings together meticulously sourced evidence to illuminate a reality that differs starkly from the prevailing narrative. It provides a clear view of the history that is key to understanding one of the most critically important political issues of our day.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/c8jfE1XjgaM?feature=oembed

Interview with Scholar and Journalist, Mark Bruzonsky. Mark Bruzonsky, a Jewish, American Scholar and Journalist, has been a key member behind the scenes of the Israeli Palestinian peace initiative in the 1980s, meeting with Former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and with Palestinian officials. In this exclusive interview with Press TV's Autograph, Mr. Bruzonsky talks about the challenges and missed opportunities he witnessed first-hand, and how Zionist groups infiltrated American politics, US institutions and organizations. He goes further to explain the specific time and day Obama sold out to the AIPAC lobby, and how President Obama would never dare oppose the stronghold of the Zionist, Israeli Lobby in the US.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Mark+Bruzonsky

[Apr 16, 2019] The incompetent, the corrupt, the treacherous -- not just walking free, but with reputations intact, fat bank balances, and flourishing careers. Now they re angling for war with Iran.

Highly recommended!
Apr 15, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Return of the Just April 14, 2019 at 10:46 am

You're right. I see people like Robert Kagan's opinions being respectfully asked on foreign affairs, John Bolton and Elliott Abrams being hired to direct our foreign policy.

The incompetent, the corrupt, the treacherous -- not just walking free, but with reputations intact, fat bank balances, and flourishing careers. Now they're angling for war with Iran.

It's preposterous and sickening. And it can't be allowed to stand, so you can't just stand off and say you're "wrecked". Keep fighting, as you're doing. I will fight it until I can't fight anymore.

Ken Zaretzke , says: April 14, 2019 at 3:38 pm
Fact-bedeviled JohnT: “McCain was a problem for this nation? Sweet Jesus! There quite simply is no rational adult on the planet who buys that nonsense.”

McCain had close ties to the military-industrial complex. He was a backer of post-Cold War NATO. He was a neoconservative darling. He never heard of a dictator that he didn’t want to depose with boots on the ground, with the possible exception of various Saudi dictators (the oil-weaponry-torture nexus). He promoted pseudo-accountability of government in campaign finance but blocked accountability for the Pentagon and State Department when he co-chaired the United States Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs with John Kerry.

And, perhaps partly because of the head trauma and/or emotional wounds he suffered at the hands of Chinese-backed Commies, it’s plausible to think he was regarded by the willy-nilly plotters of the deep state as a manipulable, and thus useful, conduit of domestic subversion via the bogus Steele dossier.

Unfortunately, the episode that most defines McCain’s life is the very last one–his being a pawn of M-16 in the the deep state’s years-long attempt to derail the presidency of Donald Trump.

Joe Dokes , says: April 14, 2019 at 11:55 pm
Measuring success means determining goals. The goals of most wars is to enrich the people in charge. So, by this metric, the war was a success. The rest of it is just props and propaganda.
Andrew Stergiou , says: April 15, 2019 at 5:11 am
“Pyrrhic Victory” look it up the Roman Empire Won but lost if the US is invaded and the government does not defend it I would like to start my own defense: But the knee jerk politics that stirs America’s cannon fodder citizens is a painful reminder of a history of jingoist lies where at times some left and right agree at least for a short moment before the rich and powerful push their weight to have their way.

If All politics is relative Right wingers are the the left of what? Nuclear destruction? or Slavery?

Peter Smith , says: April 15, 2019 at 5:13 am
My goodness! I am also a veteran, but of the Vietnam war, and my father was a career officer from 1939-1961 as a paratrooper first, and later as an intelligence officer. He argued vigorously against our Vietnam involvement, and was cashiered for his intellectual honesty. A combat veteran’s views are meaningless when the political winds are blowing.

Simply put, we have killed thousands of our kids in service of the colonial empires left to us by the British and the French after WWII. More practice at incompetent strategies and tactics does not make us more competent–it merely extends the blunders and pain; viz the French for two CENTURIES against the Britsh during the battles over Normandy while the Planagenet kings worked to hold their viking-won inheritance.

At least then, kings risked their own lives. Generals fight because the LIKE it…a lot. Prior failures are only practice to the, regardless of the cost in lives of the kids we tried to raise well, and who were slaughtered for no gain.

We don’t need the empire, and we certainly shouldn’t fight for the corrupt businessmen who have profited from the never-ending conflicts. Let’s spend those trillions at home, so long as we also police our government to keep both Democrat and Republican politicians from feathering their own nests. Term limits and prosecutions will help us, but only if we are vigilant. Wars distract our attention while corruption is rampant at home.

Fayez Abedaziz , says: April 12, 2019 at 12:25 am
Thanks, I appreciate this article.
I’ll make two points, my own opinion:
it’s the same story as Vietnam, the bull about how the politicians or anti-war demonstrators tied the military ‘hand,’ blah, blah.
Nonsense. Invading a nation and slaughtering people in their towns, houses…gee…what’s wrong with that, eh?
The average American has a primitive mind when it comes to such matters.
Second point I have, is that both Bushes, Clinton, Obama, Hillary and Trump should be dragged to a world court, given a fair trial and locked up for life with hard labor… oh, and Cheney too,for all those families, in half a dozen nations, especially the children overseas that suffered/died from these creeps.
And, the families of dead or maimed American troops should be apologized to and compensation paid by several million dollars to each.
The people I named above make me sick, because I have feelings and a conscience. Can you dig?
kingdomofgodflag.info , says: April 12, 2019 at 8:19 am
Though there is a worldly justification for killing to obtain or maintain freedoms, there is no Christian justification for it. Which suggests that Christians who die while doing it, die in vain.

America’s wars are prosecuted by a military that includes Christians. They seldom question the killing their country orders them to do, as though the will of the government is that of the will of God. Is that a safe assumption for them to make? German Christian soldiers made that assumption regarding their government in 1939. Who was there to tell them otherwise? The Church failed, including the chaplains. (The Southern Baptist Convention declared the invasion of Iraq a just war in 2003.) These wars need to be assessed by Just War criteria. Christian soldiers need to know when to exercise selective conscientious objection, for it is better to go to prison than to kill without God’s approval. If Just War theory is irrelevant, the default response is Christian Pacifism.

Mark Thomason , says: April 12, 2019 at 10:43 am
“has gone un-investigated, unheard of, or unpunished.”

The one guy who did tell us has just been arrested for doing exactly that.

The arrest is cheered by those who fantasize about Russiagate, but it is expressly FOR telling us about these things.

Stephen J. , says: April 12, 2019 at 10:51 am
“Iraq Wrecked” a lot of innocent people. Millions are dead, cities reduced to rubble, homes and businesses destroyed and it was all a damned lie. And the perpetrators are Free.
Now there is sectarian violence too, where once there was a semblance of harmony amongst various denominations. See article link below.

“Are The Christians Slaughtered in The Middle East Victims of the Actions of Western War Criminals and Their Terrorist Supporting NATO ‘Allies’”?

http://graysinfo.blogspot.com/2017/04/are-christians-slaughtered-in-middle.html

the the , says: April 12, 2019 at 11:53 am
We are a globalist open borders and mass immigration nation. We stand for nothing. To serve in this nation’s military is very stupid. You aren’t defending anything. You are just a tool of globalism. Again, we don’t secure our borders. That’s a very big give away to what’s going on.
the the , says: April 12, 2019 at 11:57 am
If our nation’s military really was an American military concerned with our security we would have secured our border after 9/11, reduced all immigration, deported ALL muslims, and that’s it. Just secure the borders and expel Muslims! That’s all we needed to do.

Instead we killed so many people and imported many many more Muslims! And we call this compassion. Its insane.

Kouros , says: April 12, 2019 at 12:02 pm
Maybe if Talibans get back in power they will destroy the opium. You know, like they did when they were first in power…. It seems that wherever Americans get involved, drugs follow…
JohnT , says: April 12, 2019 at 2:03 pm
“Yet, we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources, and livelihood are all involved. So is the very structure of our society. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.” In Eisenhower’s televised farewell address January 17, 1961.
Rational thought would lead one to believe such words from a fellow with his credentials would have had a useful effect. But it didn’t. In point of fact, in the likes of Eric Prince and his supporters the notion of war as a profit center is quite literally a family affair.
Ken Zaretzke , says: April 12, 2019 at 2:10 pm
The military-industrial complex couldn’t accomplish this all by its lonesome self. The deep state was doing its thing. The two things overlap but aren’t the same. The deep state is not only or mainly about business profits, but about power. Power in the world means empire, which requires a military-industrial complex but is not reducible to it.

We now have a rare opportunity to unveil the workings of the deep state, but it will require a special counsel, and a lengthy written report, on the doings in the 2016 election of the FBI (Comey, Strzok, et. al.), and collaterally the CIA and DIA (Brennan and Clapper). Also the British government (M-16), John McCain, and maybe Bush and Obama judges on the FISA courts.

[Apr 16, 2019] Trump is a weak and easily controlled puppet, and his puppet masters are Bibi and Javanka.s"

Apr 16, 2019 | www.unz.com

Johnny Walker Read , says: April 16, 2019 at 3:17 pm GMT

Trump is a weak and easily controlled puppet, and his puppet masters are Bibi and Javanka.
http://aristocratsofthesoul.com/why-trumps-maga-agenda-is-failing-a-review-of-kushner-inc/
DESERT FOX , says: April 16, 2019 at 3:35 pm GMT
@Johnny Walker Read In my opinion Kushner is mossad !

[Apr 15, 2019] Jared Kushner dodges questions about security clearance in rare interview - YouTube

Apr 02, 2019 | www.youtube.com

House Oversight Committee members will decide Tuesday whether to subpoena senior Trump administration officials over a whistleblower's claim. The issue is top-level security clearances, including those for the president's daughter, Ivanka, and her husband, Jared Kushner, who are both presidential advisers. Paula Reid reports.

Rocket Man , 1 week ago

The issuance of security clearances is an executive agency function controlled by executive order and entirely within the discretion of the president. Trump isn't violating anything if he overrides a lower level determination on a security clearance since the entire function of issuing a security clearance stems from his own constitutional authority. The whole idea around security clearances is that the president has people in executive agencies that he can trust. He can trust his own daughter and son-in-law, even if some woman in the clearance department thinks otherwise.

Douglas Barton , 1 week ago

I am quite sure now that often, very often, in matters concerning religion and politics a man's reasoning powers are not above the monkey's. Mark Twain

Ken Wells , 1 week ago

I think we should hire Muller to investigate this for two years.

[Apr 15, 2019] Donald Trump meet his golden boy Jared Kushner - YouTube

Dec 11, 2016 | www.youtube.com

Jared Kushner is the in-law that Trump calls "his son," he's has a similar back story to the President elect. But who is the man touted for a big role in the new administration? Subscribe to us and get more videos from Channel 4 News Subscribe for more: bit.ly/LtASif.

JSOMERSET994 JSOMERSET994 , 2 years ago

Israeli operative... going to be set up and destroyed...

[Apr 15, 2019] Is Jared Kushner next to leave Trump White House - YouTube

Mar 04, 2018 | www.youtube.com

Jared Kushner has allegedly been peddling his Trump White House credentials to influence foreign policy in an attempt to save his sinking real estate business.

Former Watergate prosecutor Richard Ben-Veniste tells CBC The Weekly's Wendy Mesley the Trump administration seems to lack any 'normative behaviour.'

Leopoldo Buenaventura , 1 year ago

The entire family is incredibly incompetent and corrupted....

maxglide , 1 year ago

Kushner DOES look like a possessed Ken doll!

Carolyn Smith , 1 year ago

Corruption, Incompetence, Ignorance of American Democrary, Pay-For-Play.

News that matter , 1 year ago (edited)

He's a joke. A degenerate. A crook. He needs to investigated and brought up on charges. I want that smirk wiped off his face.

[Apr 14, 2019] Pro-Israeli groups defining the US foreign policy: Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business

Highly recommended!
US neocons motto as expressed by Ledeen, who was involved with CIA & overthrow of Allende : "Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business". ..."
The US foreign policy is defined by interests of neoliberals and neocons, or to be exact by interests of multinational corporations, who are not necessary led by Jews ;-). The whole discussion of the US foreign policy via the lens of Jew/non-Jew dichotomy is far from the best approach to this problem.
While it is true that a large number of neocons end even some "economic nationalists" like Steve Bannon identify with Israel. But the real allegiance of neocons is not to Israel. It is to many from American MIC. In this sense, neither chickenhawk Michael Ledeen (a second rate figure at best, without much political influence), no chickenhawk Bill Kristol (third rate figure, with little or no political influence at all), but Senator McCain and Dick Cheney are proper examples of really dangerous neocons.
Yes, neocons has a large, sometimes decisive influence on the US foreign policy. But this is because they are neoliberals with the gun, political prostitutes serving MIC interests, not so much because some of them are "Israel-firsters" (this term is not without problems, although it denotes Jewish nationalists pretty well, see an interesting discussion in The Volokh Conspiracy )
Notable quotes:
"... Netanyahu is making an alliance with even the anti-Semitic Western alt-right, with the instinct to show all other Jews that Israel is their only home & safe haven ..."
"... I suppose Ledeen still believes what he said fifteen years ago, when the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were still young and dewy-fresh: "Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business". ..."
"... This even became known as "The Ledeen Doctrine"; I am sure he is very proud. ..."
"... Perhaps today he thinks Iran is a suitable "small crappy little country". If so, he is very badly mistaken. Ledeen was involved with CIA & overthrow of Allende, I believe. I refer you to Louis Wolfe's "Counterspy," the magazine of the 1970′s. ..."
"... Hostility toward Iran (and imperialism generally) is deeply rooted in the American foreign policy establishment (which isn't close to being all or mostly Jewish), and can't be explained by naive WASPs being manipulated by clever Jews. ..."
"... Of course, the Israel Lobby is much bigger than just jews, and stupid American Christians manipulated by their church leaders into believing fatuous ideas about Israel based upon dubiously interpreted biblical nonsense has historically provided a lot of its political clout. ..."
"... The Jewish individuals named by Giraldi still massively disproportionately dominate the foreign policy media and political debate on ME wars, and the wealthy Jewish Israel supporters mentioned by him still massively disproportionately influence who gets heard and which opinions are suppressed and which promoted. ..."
"... I think solidarity and internationalism are the best weapons against militarism and imperialism. ..."
"... You'd be on the right track if you started paying attention to the central American goal since 1945 of keeping Middle Eastern oil in the hands of obedient governments within the American orbit, so it can serve as a non-Russian/non-Soviet, American-controlled source of energy for American allies (and economic competitors) in Europe and Japan. ..."
"... Anyway, the American public has shown many times that it really doesn't give a rat's ass about foreigners being killed or maimed - not three of them, not three million of them. Foreigners might as well be bugs. What really matters is that feeling of power and superiority: their country is Top Nation and can whip anyone else, yes sir. Politicians continually rely on that undercurrent of nationalist chuavinism, and it never lets them down. ..."
"... A courageous article and spot on. Once again I'm thankful for Ron Unz and the Unz Review. You would never read such an article in the MSM. ..."
"... So now US troops are suddenly bombing "ISIS" in Syria while supplying "rebels" with arms, even though by the CIA's own admission most of the arms supplied have fallen into the hands of ISIS since the rebels joined forces with them. ..."
"... Nikki Haley might as well be renamed Israel's ambassador to the UN. Every time that daft woman opens her mouth the US is in danger of going to war with somebody, usually on behalf of Israel. ..."
"... There's a place for using the term "Zionist" and a place for using the term "Jew" (the two are most certainly not interchangeable). The wider Zionist Israel Lobby in the US is certainly a big problem, but there is also the problem of Jewish nationalists being disproportionately represented in the US foreign policy, media and political elites, while their likely nationalist ulterior motives are not mentioned and are largely unnoticed because of the prevailing taboo against mentioning it.. ..."
"... Bill Kristol appearing on c-span to push, agitate for the 2nd Iraq war was asked by a caller if he had served in the (U.S.) military. Kristol said he had not served but had a friend(s) who had and that he served in other ways. When a country drafts into the military, can one get out of service by saying, "My friend served"? ..."
"... I supported and voted for Trump as well. I don't like his neocon turn now, but which candidate in that election (save for Rand Paul and possibly Jill Stein) wouldn't have declared a non-fly zone in Syria and actively supported the overthrow of Assad? ..."
"... Bernie Sanders (a scary Jew!) wasn't nearly as anti-imperialist as I would have liked him to be, but I doubt he would have attacked Assad regime forces 6 times like Trump has by this point, and certainly not without Congressional approval (which he probably wouldn't have gotten, even if he had wanted it). ..."
"... Even under Hillary, the Iran deal would have stood a better chance, since she was at least verbally committed to it (unlike even Rand Paul), and there would have been Obama loyalists within the Clinton administration who would have been desperate to preserve Obama's signature foreign policy achievement (and one of the only worthwhile ones, in my opinion, along with restoration of diplomatic ties with Cuba). ..."
"... How is the article's factual content fundamentally different from the similar content of the Haaretz article linked by Greg Bacon in post 21 above? Is the Haaretz piece "unhinged and bigoted"? ..."
"... "The USA is a colony of Israel". Fake News Story. Now, let us assume that to be true. What are personally doing about this situation? What active measures are you taking to free yourself from the shackles of your oppressor? Or, are simply impotent while taking it good and hard? ..."
Sep 19, 2017 | www.unz.com

Originally from: America's Jews Are Driving America's Wars by Philip Giraldi September 19, 2017 - The Unz Review

Dump Trump , September 19, 2017 at 8:32 pm GMT

@Brabantian Yet, in a classic, paradox-tinged pro-Israel loop-back, the 'alt-Right' and 'white nationalist' movement, is increasing positive links with security-fence-building, also-ethnic-nationalist Israel:

US alt-right leader, Richard Spencer, appeared on Israeli TV last month to call himself a "white Zionist"
The above from an interesting article by British activist and Nazareth, Palestine resident Jonathan Cook , speaking of how Israel's Netanyahu is making an alliance with even the anti-Semitic Western alt-right, with the instinct to show all other Jews that Israel is their only home & safe haven ... and hence the 'progressive' Jews should abandon any support for boycott of Israel or for Palestinian rights:
The Israeli prime minister has repeatedly called on all Jews to come to Israel, claiming it as the only safe haven from an immutable global anti-semitism. And yet, Mr Netanyahu is also introducing a political test before he opens the door.

Jews supporting a boycott of Israel are already barred. Now, liberal Jews and critics of the occupation like Mr Soros are increasingly not welcome either. Israel is rapidly redefining the extent of the sanctuary it offers – for Jewish supremacists only.

For Mr Netanyahu may believe he has much to gain by abandoning liberal Jews to their fate, as the alt-right asserts its power in western capitals.

The "white Zionists" are committed to making life ever harder for minorities in the West in a bid to be rid of them. Sooner or later, on Mr Netanyahu's logic, liberal Jews will face a reckoning. They will have to accept that Israel's ultra-nationalists were right all along, and that Israel is their only sanctuary.

Guided by this cynical convergence of interests, Jewish and white supremacists are counting on a revival of anti-Semitism that will benefit them both.

Yet, in a classic, paradox-tinged pro-Israel loop-back, the 'alt-Right' and 'white nationalist' movement, is increasing positive links with security-fence-building, also-ethnic-nationalist Israel

Steve Bannon and his supposed alt-right rag Breitbart are incredibly pro-Israel. I supposed it has something to do with its founder Andrew Breitbart being a Jew. Every time Trump or Nikki Haley says something nasty about Iran, you'll get plenty of Breitbart commenters echoing their sentiment egging them on, you can tell by their inane comments many have no idea why they should hate Iran, other than Breitbart told them to.

They've fully bought into the Breitbart narrative that Iran is evil and must be destroyed. The Trump fan boys/girls who continue to blindly support him despite all his betrayals are every bit as stupid as the libtards they claim to hate.

jamsok , September 19, 2017 at 7:03 pm GMT

@Tom Welsh "And I would add a few more names, Mark Dubowitz, Michael Ledeen and Reuel Marc Gerecht..."

I suppose Ledeen still believes what he said fifteen years ago, when the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were still young and dewy-fresh: "Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business".

This even became known as "The Ledeen Doctrine"; I am sure he is very proud.

Perhaps today he thinks Iran is a suitable "small crappy little country". If so, he is very badly mistaken. Ledeen was involved with CIA & overthrow of Allende, I believe. I refer you to Louis Wolfe's "Counterspy," the magazine of the 1970′s.

matt , September 19, 2017 at 6:42 pm GMT

@Randal

I didn't say there weren't any Jews pushing for a war with Iran, I said there are plenty of non-Jews pushing for one too, including Trump himself.
Which certainly doesn't mean there isn't a particular problem, exactly as Giraldi describes it with plenty of sound supporting examples, of dual loyalty jews pushing wars that favour Israel.

In fact, the reality is that Giraldi might be guilty of, at most, overstatement, but since a large part of the problem is precisely that any reference at all to the problem is suppressed, one might expect an honest opponent of the US's military interventionism to temper his criticism of Giraldi's piece appropriately. For whatever reason, instead, you seem to feel the need to hysterically accuse it as though it contains no truth whatsoever.

What gives?

Hostility toward Iran (and imperialism generally) is deeply rooted in the American foreign policy establishment (which isn't close to being all or mostly Jewish), and can't be explained by naive WASPs being manipulated by clever Jews.
Of course, the Israel Lobby is much bigger than just jews, and stupid American Christians manipulated by their church leaders into believing fatuous ideas about Israel based upon dubiously interpreted biblical nonsense has historically provided a lot of its political clout.

That's another problem, but it doesn't make the problem highlighted by Giraldi not a problem. The Jewish individuals named by Giraldi still massively disproportionately dominate the foreign policy media and political debate on ME wars, and the wealthy Jewish Israel supporters mentioned by him still massively disproportionately influence who gets heard and which opinions are suppressed and which promoted.

"What gives" is that I think lunatic screeds about "America's Jews" (like Noam Chomsky?) manipulating foreign policy do damage to the anti-war cause. I think solidarity and internationalism are the best weapons against militarism and imperialism.

Of course, the Israel Lobby is much bigger than just Jews, and stupid American Christians manipulated by their church leaders into believing fatuous ideas about Israel based upon dubiously interpreted biblical nonsense has historically provided a lot of its political clout.

That's slightly better than the 1-dimensional Joo-paranoia, but it doesn't begin to describe the problem.

You'd be on the right track if you started paying attention to the central American goal since 1945 of keeping Middle Eastern oil in the hands of obedient governments within the American orbit, so it can serve as a non-Russian/non-Soviet, American-controlled source of energy for American allies (and economic competitors) in Europe and Japan.

matt , September 19, 2017 at 6:32 pm GMT

@Sam Shama

I am glad you think Iran isn't stupid or suicidal. Yet it doesn't square with your earlier statement which reads " I'm glad they have the capability, if need be, to destroy the hostile military bases that encircle them ". There are no scenarios in which Iran could destroy US bases without changing the meaning of the word "suicidal", is there?

Before you decide to label as sociopath, anyone who proposes a worldview grounded in reality, you might think long and hard about the multitude of paths this world can take under the scenario of a wholesale withdrawal of U.S. presence in the Gulf. Most one hears on this forum, including your own, reduce to precious nothing over virtue signaling.

Like it or not the world is never going to assume the shape of a collection of nations equal in power, interests and endowments. Hoping for that is to live in a state of delusion.

U.S. does not wish to go on an offensive mission against Iran . Far from it; yet facilitating her allies' aspirations to join the American vision isn't one we are about to walk away from. That is not chest beating. It is eminently in evidence from the number of nations wishing to join the Western economic and cultural model. I am keenly aware of the lunatics on this forum who believe they'd be perfectly happy to embrace other cultures, I can only invite them to make haste.

Spare me the rest of your sanctimony.

"I'm glad they have the capability, if need be, to destroy the hostile military bases that encircle them". There are no scenarios in which Iran could destroy US bases without changing the meaning of the word "suicidal", is there?

In the case of a defensive war with United States, there sure would be. At that point Iran would not have much hope but to inflict as much damage as possible on the aggressor. Although Iran does not nearly have the ability to fully reciprocate the harm the US can inflict on it, it hopefully has the capability to inflict enough damage so that an offensive war against it would be intolerable to the US. That's how deterrence works.

U.S. does not wish to go on an offensive mission against Iran.

If that's true, and I sincerely hope it is, it's because Iran has sufficient deterrent capacity, which includes not only the anti-ship missiles in the Gulf, but also Hezbollah's arsenal of ~130,000 short, medium and long-range rockets capable of reaching every square inch of Israeli territory.

Believe me, I'm a realist. You don't have to lecture me on the reality of aggressive rogue nations.

anonymous , Disclaimer September 19, 2017 at 6:26 pm GMT

@Tom Welsh Nope. As far as I know, he was being perfectly serious.

And that is exactly the way the power elite think - although they are usually much more cautious about speaking their mind in public.

Anyway, the American public has shown many times that it really doesn't give a rat's ass about foreigners being killed or maimed - not three of them, not three million of them. Foreigners might as well be bugs. What really matters is that feeling of power and superiority: their country is Top Nation and can whip anyone else, yes sir. Politicians continually rely on that undercurrent of nationalist chuavinism, and it never lets them down.

Anyway, the American public has shown many times that it really doesn't give a rat's ass about foreigners being killed or maimed – not three of them, not three million of them. Foreigners might as well be bugs. What really matters is that feeling of power and superiority: their country is Top Nation and can whip anyone else, yes sir.

True words sir!

The evil empire sustains itself primarily through this attitude of its people. It does not matter how the Jews connive to shape it. Only thing that matters is that they buy into it without exercising their conscience.

Americans, remember, such glory has a cost. You will find soon enough that a cancerous soul is too high a price to be "Top Nation," for essentially a blink in cosmic time.

Dump Trump , September 19, 2017 at 6:26 pm GMT

A courageous article and spot on. Once again I'm thankful for Ron Unz and the Unz Review. You would never read such an article in the MSM.

The late Samuel Huntington said in his amazing book Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order that Saudi Arabia and Iran are fighting for supremacy in the Islamic world. Syria is a proxy war between the two countries. Now Israel has become BFF with Saudi Arabia because they too want a piece of Syria, for the oil reserve in the Golan Heights. So now US troops are suddenly bombing "ISIS" in Syria while supplying "rebels" with arms, even though by the CIA's own admission most of the arms supplied have fallen into the hands of ISIS since the rebels joined forces with them.

Make no mistake Jews and Arabs run this country. That is why Trump went to Israel and SA for his first foreign trip, he knows who America's daddy is, even if most Americans are still in the dark.

His entire administration is crawling with Israel loving Jews, starting with his son-in-law the most loyal son of Israel. Even Steve Bannon and Breitbart are crazy gung ho pro-Israel. Nikki Haley might as well be renamed Israel's ambassador to the UN. Every time that daft woman opens her mouth the US is in danger of going to war with somebody, usually on behalf of Israel.

When was the last time Iran conducted a jihad against the west? All the Muslim terrorists now attacking the west are Sunnis, funded by Saudi Arabia. The only time Iran had direct armed conflict with the US was when they kicked us out of Tehran, for trying to steal their oil. All their beef is with Israel, not with the US. Why are we taking up Israel's cause? Trump is a moron of the first order and has no understanding of what really goes on in the mideast. He surrounds himself with pro-Israel neocons and Jews and is easily manipulated. He's stupid and dangerous. I voted for him because he presented himself as someone completely different, someone anti-war and anti-immigration, now he's a neocon globalist libtard, the worst of all worlds. Someone needs to primary him out in 2020.

matt , September 19, 2017 at 6:17 pm GMT

@iffen as sociopaths like you

Speaking of unhinged I'd say the sentiment that America has the right to threaten and/or attack other countries to maintain its "economic interests" is sociopathic. What would you call it? And I didn't say that he personally was in charge of US/Israeli/Saudi policy towards Iran, if that's what you thought I meant. That would be unhinged. I just said that sociopaths like him are.

Randal , September 19, 2017 at 6:12 pm GMT

@KBRO [In comments, allcaps is shouting. Stop shouting or your comments will be trashed.]

RE:
BUSH-CHENEY-CLINTON-TRUMP--MCMASTER--KELLY---AND THE LOT OF THEM ALL AIN'T JEWS:

WELL PUT. GIRALDI IS A MIXED BAG, WRITES SOME GOOD STUFF, BUT IT MISIDENTIFIES THE PROBLEM--THE ENEMY-- BY LABELING IT AS "THE JEWS". THE NEO-CONS--AND NEO-LIBERALS--WHO DRIVE U.S. FOREIGN POLICY IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND THROUGHOUT THE WORLD COME IN MANY FLAVORS.
I'M AN ANTI-ZIONIST, AND IT'S CRUCIAL TO MAKE THAT DISTINCTION AND I DON'T QUITE GET WHY GIRALDI DOESN'T USE THE TERM ZIONIST.

IT'S CRUCIAL TO MAKE THAT DISTINCTION AND I DON'T QUITE GET WHY GIRALDI DOESN'T USE THE TERM ZIONIST

There's a place for using the term "Zionist" and a place for using the term "Jew" (the two are most certainly not interchangeable). The wider Zionist Israel Lobby in the US is certainly a big problem, but there is also the problem of Jewish nationalists being disproportionately represented in the US foreign policy, media and political elites, while their likely nationalist ulterior motives are not mentioned and are largely unnoticed because of the prevailing taboo against mentioning it..

Giraldi is discussing the latter and not the former, and doing a service to the American nation by his taboo-busting.

Brooklyn Dave , September 19, 2017 at 6:06 pm GMT

I wonder where Mr. Giraldi would put David Horowitz on the list? Although Horowitz is not a public policy maker, but rather an author and blogger, but definitely is a known Jewish voice. I respect Horowitz tremendously because of his background as an ex-Communist and his dead-on criticism of the American Left, both historically and currently. Although rather knee-jerk in his defense of Israel, I would not doubt his loyalty to this country one iota.

I do not know if David Horowitz is a dual Israeli-American citizen, but he is not a legislator nor a government policy maker, so as far as I am concerned, the issue is moot. If one questions the loyalty to America, of Jews or any other group for that matter, the issue of holding dual citizenship while holding certain government offices should be something of concern. Once out of public office or service, then they can resume their dual citizenship. It makes the issue of loyalty less questionable.

wayfarer , September 19, 2017 at 6:05 pm GMT

@bjondo Regarding jew and war:

Bill Kristol appearing on c-span to push, agitate for the 2nd Iraq war was asked by a caller if he had served in the (U.S.) military. Kristol said he had not served but had a friend(s) who had and that he served in other ways. When a country drafts into the military, can one get out of service by saying, "My friend served"?

reckon his serving in other ways was/is lying and pushing for wars for his real country israel. Truth hurts, America.

Of the 58,220 Americans who were sacrificed during the Vietnam War, 270 were Jewish. That's approximately 0.46 percent or less than a half of one-percent.

Guess they were too busy partying in college, while pursuing their law degrees.

During the Vietnam war the U.S. selective service system gave deferments to those attending college, which delayed their eligibility for conscription.

"Among partners of the top law firms in New York, I estimate that at least 25% are Jews."

source: https://www.archives.gov/research/military/vietnam-war/casualty-statistics.html

source: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/4726694_Going_to_College_to_Avoid_the_Draft_The_Unintended_Legacy_of_the_Vietnam_War [accessed Sep 19, 2017].

source: http://manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2014/6/5/is-lack-of-diversity-at-big-law-firms-a-crisis

Randal , September 19, 2017 at 6:03 pm GMT

@matt I didn't say there weren't any Jews pushing for a war with Iran, I said there are plenty of non-Jews pushing for one too, including Trump himself. Hostility toward Iran (and imperialism generally) is deeply rooted in the American foreign policy establishment (which isn't close to being all or mostly Jewish), and can't be explained by naive WASPs being manipulated by clever Jews. It's not just bigoted, it's a cartoonishly stupid "explanation".

I didn't say there weren't any Jews pushing for a war with Iran, I said there are plenty of non-Jews pushing for one too, including Trump himself.

Which certainly doesn't mean there isn't a particular problem, exactly as Giraldi describes it with plenty of sound supporting examples, of dual loyalty jews pushing wars that favour Israel.

In fact, the reality is that Giraldi might be guilty of, at most, overstatement, but since a large part of the problem is precisely that any reference at all to the problem is suppressed, one might expect an honest opponent of the US's military interventionism to temper his criticism of Giraldi's piece appropriately. For whatever reason, instead, you seem to feel the need to hysterically accuse it as though it contains no truth whatsoever.

What gives?

Hostility toward Iran (and imperialism generally) is deeply rooted in the American foreign policy establishment (which isn't close to being all or mostly Jewish), and can't be explained by naive WASPs being manipulated by clever Jews.

Of course, the Israel Lobby is much bigger than just jews, and stupid American Christians manipulated by their church leaders into believing fatuous ideas about Israel based upon dubiously interpreted biblical nonsense has historically provided a lot of its political clout.

That's another problem, but it doesn't make the problem highlighted by Giraldi not a problem. The jewish individuals named by Giraldi still massively disproportionately dominate the foreign policy media and political debate on ME wars, and the wealthy jewish Israel supporters mentioned by him still massively disproportionately influence who gets heard and which opinions are suppressed and which promoted.

anonymous , Disclaimer September 19, 2017 at 6:00 pm GMT

@matt I'm strongly against any war with Iran, but this comes of as an unhinged and bigoted rant. Not nearly everyone who is pushing for war with Iran is Jewish, and this narrative perpetuates the myth, beloved by alt-right types and paleocons, of a well-intentioned but naive Trump administration that was hijacked by Jewish neocons. In reality, despite differences within the administration, Iran was always something they could all agree on. H.R. McMaster and James Mattis are well known Iran hawks, and neither are Jewish. Nikki Haley isn't Jewish, nor is Rex Tillerson. Steve Bannon and Michael Flynn wouldn't have stopped Trump from going to war if they hadn't been forced out of the administration, as both, especially the latter, were absolute lunatics when it came to Iran. On that subject, they were worse than neocons. And of course there's Trump himself, whose bloodlust regarding Iran has always been on full display from the beginning, if you were paying attention. Hostility toward Iran might in fact be the most consistent theme of the Trump administration and of Trump himself, who has been known to vacillate on virtually every issue, except this one.

If you supported Trump because you thought he might be some sort of isolationist dove, you have only yourself to blame. Evil Jewish neocons didn't force you to ignore the massive evidence that was always right in front of your face. The fact that there are so many who profess to the Christian faith, who are as evil as those Joo neocons, such as those you mentioned, simply cannot be denied. Even if hypothetically speaking the Joos were to vanish overnight, the wars of aggression by the Evil Empire will continue unabated.

The Evil Empire and its Evil b!tch both share the same satanic vision of world domination. Two evil nations, made for each other, in a match made in Hell.

Btw, the orange scumbag was hilariously evil at the UN.

Both N.Korea and Iran should simply call this bastard's bluff, by literally giving him the finger. I say, let the chips fall where they may. Let's see how the American, Japanese, S.Korean, Israeli & "Royal" pussies like the consequences.

To you N.Koreans, its been written that you will target the thousands of American Terrorists stationed in the south. I am counting on that, so don't you miss chaps.

matt , September 19, 2017 at 5:44 pm GMT

@Anonymous

They should. If Raimondo starts blaming the Jews, he can avoid taking responsibility for his idiotic and embarrassing cheerleading for the current warmonger-in-chief.
I supported and voted for Trump as well. I don't like his neocon turn now, but which candidate in that election (save for Rand Paul and possibly Jill Stein) wouldn't have declared a non-fly zone in Syria and actively supported the overthrow of Assad?

And started plans for attacking Iran? Who? Hillary? Hahahaha. Ted Cruz? Hahahaha. Etc.

Bernie Sanders (a scary Jew!) wasn't nearly as anti-imperialist as I would have liked him to be, but I doubt he would have attacked Assad regime forces 6 times like Trump has by this point, and certainly not without Congressional approval (which he probably wouldn't have gotten, even if he had wanted it).

Even under Hillary, the Iran deal would have stood a better chance, since she was at least verbally committed to it (unlike even Rand Paul), and there would have been Obama loyalists within the Clinton administration who would have been desperate to preserve Obama's signature foreign policy achievement (and one of the only worthwhile ones, in my opinion, along with restoration of diplomatic ties with Cuba).

matt , September 19, 2017 at 5:15 pm GMT

@Randal

If an article titled "America's Jews are Behind America's Wars" isn't unhinged and bigoted, I'd like you to tell me what is.
How is the article's factual content fundamentally different from the similar content of the Haaretz article linked by Greg Bacon in post 21 above? Is the Haaretz piece "unhinged and bigoted"?

Or is it not the statement of the facts that you are outraged by, but merely the proposed solutions? If so, then what solutions to the problem identified by Giraldi and by Haaretz would you propose?

If Trump's insane rhetoric on Iran and push for war isn't an example of bloodlust, why don't you tell me what it is?
Good examples might be the desperate attempts to prevent the deal with Iran that hopefully will prove to have cauterised the longstanding efforts to use the spurious nuclear weapons issue to push the US towards confrontation and war with Iran:

KEY JEWISH DEMOCRATS IN CONGRESS SAY THEY WILL VOTE AGAINST IRAN DEAL

Or when Israel's primary agents of political influence in the US went "all out" to try to get the US to attack Syria and hand yet another country to (even more) jihadist-ridden chaos:

AIPAC to go all-out on Syria

But hey, I suppose for you those are just more examples of "unhingedness" and "bigotedness".

It must be strange living in the world you inhabit, so far removed from basic reality by a desperate need to avoid being seen as any kind of badwhite. I didn't say there weren't any Jews pushing for a war with Iran, I said there are plenty of non-Jews pushing for one too, including Trump himself. Hostility toward Iran (and imperialism generally) is deeply rooted in the American foreign policy establishment (which isn't close to being all or mostly Jewish), and can't be explained by naive WASPs being manipulated by clever Jews. It's not just bigoted, it's a cartoonishly stupid "explanation".

matt , September 19, 2017 at 5:10 pm GMT

@Sam Shama They can certainly try, and, I suppose you'd require the U.S. to stay her hand as a matter of fair principle while watching said bases destroyed. Nice idea, but I'd stick to reality. U.S. has vast interests, including economic ones; those which benefit every U.S. citizen, and, to be practical, all her allies. Iran isn't stupid or suicidal. Its anti-ship missiles are for deterrence, which Iran has plenty of need for, as sociopaths like you populate the American, Israeli, and Saudi governments and are itching to attack.

matt , September 19, 2017 at 5:07 pm GMT

@WJ Outside of an almost symbolic launch of cruise missiles into Syria in April, how has Trump been a warmonger?

I remember the debate between Pence and the hideous Tim Kaine where the Democrat vowed that there would be No Fly Zone over Syria which would certainly have allowed the head chopping rebels to gain a stronger foothold.

In addition to all that, Trump has also cut off aid to the Syrian rebels. His Afghanistan policy /escalation is also symbolic. US troops won't be in direct combat and there will only be 15000 there anyway.

Outside of an almost symbolic launch of cruise missiles into Syria in April, how has Trump been a warmonger?

You haven't been paying attention. Since the initial strike in April, the Trump administration has deliberately attacked regime or allied forces an additional five times. ( one , two , three , four , five ).

Including the Tomahawks in April, that's a total of 6 deliberate attacks on the Syrian Arab Republic or its allies (so far), which is already 6 more than Obama carried out during his entire presidency. And it's not like this is the end of Trump's tenure, either; it's the 9th goddamn month since he's been in office. I'm sure the war hawks in Wahington are quite pleased with his progress, as they should be.

In addition to all that, Trump has also cut off aid to the Syrian rebels. His Afghanistan policy /escalation is also symbolic.

Anyone could tell by that point that Assad isn't going to be overthrown. The aim now is to limit the Assad regime's territorial gains as much as possible, and the "rebels" proved they were useless at doing that when Shia militia reached the Iraqi border at al-Tanf, and cut them off from reaching Deir ez-Zor back in May (which was what one of the attacks mentioned above was about).

After that, the Trump administration put all its eggs in the "Syrian Democratic Forces/People's Protection Units (SDF/YPG) basket, the mainly Kurdish (with some Arab fighters) militia that the US has been using to fight ISIS since 2015 (it's also, ironically, a hard left socialist organization. Think Kurdish Antifa. Though I doubt Trump knows or cares or could do anything about it even if he did). Trump has given the SDF <a title="" https://sputniknews.com/amp/middleeast/201709141057402885-america-weaponry-deir-ez-zor/&quot ; https://sputniknews.com/amp/middleeast/201709141057402885-america-weaponry-deir-ez-zor/&quot ;heavy weaponry with the aim of confronting Assad and limiting his territorial gains. They've also been pressuring the rebel groups they formerly supported to join the SDF.

I have sympathy for the SDF/YPG and the Syrian Kurds, and it made sense to support them when they were under direct assault from ISIS (though US motives were hardly altruistic even then). But ISIS is all but beaten now, and this is a dangerous game the US is playing, which could readily lead to a military confrontation betweeen the US and Russia and/or Iran. In fact, just a few days ago, the SDF seized part of Deir ez-Zor after SAA forces reached the city, and the Pentagon is now accusing Russia (which has in the past at least had good relations with the SDF/YPG), of deliberately bombing SDF fighters, in close proximity to American special forces.

US troops won't be in direct combat and there will only be 15000 there anyway.

Only 15,000! I guess you wouldn't mind, then, if they Taliban, or the Afghan Army for that matter, or any other country, put 15,000 troops on American soil, as a "symbolic" gesture.

Trump has also accelerated US collaboration in the sadistic torture of Yemen by the Saudis, past the levels under even Obama, which was already shameful.

And again, we should also keep in mind that it's only been 9 months. For his next act, Trump might be thinking about ending the Iran deal in October.

Heather Heyer's Ghost , September 19, 2017 at 4:44 pm GMT

@Thomm Jews are white. Ashkenazi Jews, and those are the ones we are mainly dealing with, are an endogamous caste of bankers, progressive journalists, lawyers, and social scientists (including, now, education), that have migrated all over Europe, but never identifying as European, with exceptions that prove the rule.

As a tribe, once can read Kevin MacDonald's work to see how they work in remarkable ethnic cohesion–not necessarily as an "organized conspiracy" (though that certainly happens), but as an ethnic drive.

Being neither European as such, nor Christian, and although their skin is white, they are not White.

Stan d Mute , September 19, 2017 at 4:41 pm GMT

Dual loyalty is an avoided and career-ending subject for a couple reasons. One must never, ever, criticize Jews (a third rail at complete odds with) and one may not criticize immigrants' behavior.

The obvious problem is Treason. Just how much Treason is the result of so-called "dual loyalty"? And isn't Treason subject to some rather serious legal sanctions?

...

just an internet commenter , September 19, 2017 at 3:47 pm GMT

I just want to point out, being a (fake) "news" consumer, I hear about Israel all the time, all while not hearing a lot of follow-up detail about Israel and its interests. Isn't that a clever sleight of hand? According to the pro-Israel (by extension jews) propaganda I'm required to care about, despite it having nothing to do with my life, my family's life, my neighbors' lives, and my community's lives Israel is that big of a deal. Actually, I hear more about Israel in the media than I hear about my home state of Michigan. Michigan is probably a lot more important to the US economy, US security, US tourism industry, Midwestern industrial technology industry, US engineering industry, and the Midwestern Farming economy, than Israel is. Then there are the people who live here, who are Americans. Israel first, then Americans? Okay, got it.

If the public were exposed to as much emotionally captivating propaganda about Michigan as they were about Israel, I'd posit the public would see a far better investment in Michigan than they would in Israel. That includes an emotional investment.

I don't know what can be politely said or how it would shape up, but Midwesterners desperately need to understand the Israel (by extension jewish) problem. They're bleeding us and getting away with it, all while getting away with incessantly calling us racists and anti-semites. Because again, caring about Michigan and its people first is just morally irreprehensible. Israel first, then Israel second, etc Got it bigot? That sleight of hand, it's just always there. I don't fully grasp how this large scale agit-prop psychology works. I do understand jewish solidarity. I'll hand it to jews, they have the strongest ethnic/religious/cultural solidarity I've ever seen. If Midwesterners realized the value of this level of solidarity, they wouldn't enlist their sons in the military to serve jewish interests overseas.

Anonymous , Disclaimer September 19, 2017 at 3:13 pm GMT

From Money Manipulation And Social Order (Dublin: Browne and Nolan, 1944) by Fr. Denis Fahey, C.S.Sp., Professor of Philosophy and Church History, Holy Ghost Missionary College, Dublin:

When the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States, created in 1913 by Mr. Paul Warburg, a German Jew belonging to the Banking Firm of Kuhn, Loeb and Company, had been a few years in existence, in 1916 to be precise, President Woodrow Wilson thus summed up the situation in U.S.A.: "A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. . .

We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized world!no longer a Government by conviction and the free vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of small groups of dominant men." From the similar testimonies quoted by Christopher Hollis in The Two Nations, let us take one. "Behind the ostensible government," ran Roosevelt's policy, " sits enthroned an invisible government owning no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people."

https://archive.org/details/FaheyDenisMoneyManipulationAndSocialOrder

Corvinus , September 19, 2017 at 2:37 pm GMT

@Che Guava

Bullshit.

Anyone who reads knows that Israel (and its agents, where not dual citizens, the Jewish ones effectively all are, and the goyim dupes and toadies, who are not, 'cept sometimes with marriage) have been the tail that wags the US dog for many years, starting over a century ago, in finance, commerce, and law in NYC, in a small way the scope is ever wider and the effects more and more blatant.

The USA is a colony of Israel, everybody is knowing it, but some lie and deny.

From my reading of history, I would placing the tipping point from 'excessive power' to 'colonial masters' at the 1967 war of Israel and its neighbours.

Others may dating it to the end of the Third Reich, with all sorts of Jewish DPs and US Jews who had never seen combat running around in US military and MP uniforms to persecuting and killing Germans, under the command of Eisenhauer, the Morgenthau plan, etc.

Others may picking a different time.

It is funny that you are posting as Anonymous on this, can only mean that you are a more subtle pro-Israel troll with your usual u-name. "So it is safe to say that much of the agitation to do something about Iran comes from Israel and from American Jews."

Certainly SOME Israelis and American Jews are involved in developing policy designed to generate hostility to the point of potential war.

But Dick Cheney and Erik Prince, among other prominent non-Jews, bear mentioning.

Regardless, the Jew fixation here is duly noted. Boo! Goes the Joo!

"The USA is a colony of Israel". Fake News Story. Now, let us assume that to be true. What are personally doing about this situation? What active measures are you taking to free yourself from the shackles of your oppressor? Or, are simply impotent while taking it good and hard?

[Apr 14, 2019] Something about Trump decision making process

Is this Dementia? Or arrogance? Or incompetence? Or all of them ?
Notable quotes:
"... "I said, 'Fellows, do me a favor. Give me a little history, quick. Want to go fast. I got a lot of things I'm working on: China, North Korea. Give me a quickie," Trump said to laughter from the Las Vegas crowd, Reuters reported. ..."
"... "I went - 'BING!' - it was done," Trump said on Saturday, describing the swiftness of his decision. "We make fast decisions. And we make good decisions." ..."
Apr 07, 2019 | www.tasnimnews.com

Speaking at the Republican Jewish Coalition gathering in Las Vegas, Trump said he made the snap decision during a discussion with his top Middle East peace advisers, including the US ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, and son-in-law Jared Kushner.

"I said, 'Fellows, do me a favor. Give me a little history, quick. Want to go fast. I got a lot of things I'm working on: China, North Korea. Give me a quickie," Trump said to laughter from the Las Vegas crowd, Reuters reported.

"'How do you like the idea of me recognizing exactly what we're discussing?'" said Trump, recounting the conversation.

Trump said Friedman was shocked, "like a wonderful, beautiful baby," and asked the president if he would actually do it.

"I went - 'BING!' - it was done," Trump said on Saturday, describing the swiftness of his decision. "We make fast decisions. And we make good decisions."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Trump last month. At their March 25 meeting, Trump signed a proclamation officially granting US recognition of the Golan as Israeli territory.

Golan is a border area the Tel Aviv regime seized from Syria in 1967.

[Apr 14, 2019] If you think Trump is spineless towards Israel, wait until Israel's next choice for POTUS, Nutty Nikky Haley steals the WH

Jul 09, 2018 | www.unz.com

Greg Bacon , Website July 3, 2018 at 7:13 pm GMT

It will be interesting to see if Ocasio-Cortez-if elected–sticks to her principles or succumbs to the shekel storm headed her way.

Radical Jews of the Hasidic type are also acting thuggish on American streets, like in Brooklyn where they committed assault, battery and kidnapping on a bicyclist.

These kind of fanatics are growing in numbers all over the USA.

If you think Trump is spineless towards Israel, wait until Israel's next choice for POTUS, Nutty Nikky Haley steals the WH.

[Apr 13, 2019] Trump Puts America Last by Daniel Larison

Money quote (from comments): This GOP/Israel connection stinks to high heaven. Anyone who studied or remembers our problem with Communist spies back in the '50s has got to be hearing alarm bells ringing in their ears. Worries about Soviet spying and Russian meddling pale in comparison to what's now going on in plain sight with Israel.
Notable quotes:
"... As usual, Trump made the announcement of recognizing Israel's claim to the Golan Heights without any consultation with any of the relevant administration officials: ..."
"... After more than two years of watching Trump's impulsive and reckless "governing" style, it doesn't come as a surprise to anyone that he makes these decisions without advance warning. There is no evidence that Trump ever thinks anything through, and so he probably sees no reason to tell anyone in advance what he is going to do. ..."
"... Trump almost never bothers consulting with the people who will be responsible for carrying out his policies ..."
"... There is absolutely no upside for the United States in endorsing illegal Israeli claims to the Golan Heights. It is a cynical political stunt intended to boost Netanyahu and Likud's fortunes in the upcoming election, and it is also a cynical stunt aimed at shoring up Trump's support from Republican "pro-Israel" voters and donors. ..."
"... Once again, Trump has put narrow political ambitions and the interests of a foreign government ahead of the interests of the United States. That seems to be the inevitable result of electing a narcissist who conducts foreign policy based on which leaders flatter and praise him. ..."
"... Bolton is usually the culprit responsible any destructive and foolish policy decision over the last year, and his baleful influence continues to grow. We can also see the harmful effects of the administration's Iran obsession at work. In the end, the Syria "withdrawal" hasn't happened and apparently isn't going to, but Trump nonetheless gives Israel whatever it wants in exchange for nothing so that they will be "reassured" of our unthinking support. ..."
"... I wonder what Mr. Kagan has to say now about "authoritarian" regimes?! ..."
"... Trump is making one hell of a mess for the next president to clean up. ..."
"... The decision to leave the INF treaty was taken in a similar way and with a total disregard for the consequences. The leaders of the European NATO countries have shown utter spinelessness in going along with it. ..."
"... I am shocked and horrified by what I've seen under Trump. I am deeply disappointed that so few Republicans (or Democrats, for that matter) have stood up to him on foreign policy, and I will never vote Republican again. This GOP/Israel connection stinks to high heaven. Anyone who studied or remembers our problem with Communist spies back in the '50s has got to be hearing alarm bells ringing in their ears. Worries about Soviet spying and Russian meddling pale in comparison to what's now going on in plain sight with Israel. ..."
"... To be fair, it ain't just Team R that has the sloppy crush on Israel. Team D is just as bad, even if they don't gush quite so publicly. In fact, episodes such as this one are useful in a way, as they make it hard to pretend that this is just a one-off, a misguided decision that we have to go along with to appease a powerful friend. ..."
"... Nevertheless, Israel should be very concerned about Northern Syria. If war breaks out and the US is forced to go to war with its own NATO ally as a result, Israel should prepare to kiss its alliance with the US goodbye. ..."
"... Many (rightfully or not) will blame Israel due to its connections to neoconservatism and Saudi jingoism, and consequently we may end up seeing BOTH parties becoming unfriendly to Israel over the subsequent generation. ..."
"... All of this could be prevented if President Trump would just tell Saudi Arabia to STOP the nonsense. But no. He's too focused on MIC profits. He's not America First. And quite frankly, I'm starting to think Benjamin Netanyahu is not Israel-first either, because if he were he'd be warning Trump about the mess he's going to end up getting America, Israel, and much of Europe and the Middle East into. ..."
Mar 20, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

As usual, Trump made the announcement of recognizing Israel's claim to the Golan Heights without any consultation with any of the relevant administration officials:

President Donald Trump's tweet on Thursday recognizing the Golan Heights as Israeli territory surprised members of his own Middle East peace team, the State Department, and Israeli officials.

U.S. diplomats and White House aides had believed the Golan Heights issue would be front and center at next week's meetings between Trump and Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House. But they were unprepared for any presidential announcement this week.

No formal U.S. process or executive committees were initiated to review the policy before Trump's decision, and the diplomats responsible for implementing the policy were left in the dark.

Even the Israelis, who have advocated for this move for years, were stunned at the timing of Trump's message.

After more than two years of watching Trump's impulsive and reckless "governing" style, it doesn't come as a surprise to anyone that he makes these decisions without advance warning. There is no evidence that Trump ever thinks anything through, and so he probably sees no reason to tell anyone in advance what he is going to do.

Trump almost never bothers consulting with the people who will be responsible for carrying out his policies and dealing with the international fallout, and that is probably why so many of his policy decisions end up being exceptionally poor ones. The substance of most of Trump's foreign policy decisions was never likely to be good, but the lack of an organized policy process on major decisions makes those decisions even more haphazard and chaotic than they would otherwise be.

There is absolutely no upside for the United States in endorsing illegal Israeli claims to the Golan Heights. It is a cynical political stunt intended to boost Netanyahu and Likud's fortunes in the upcoming election, and it is also a cynical stunt aimed at shoring up Trump's support from Republican "pro-Israel" voters and donors.

Whatever short-term benefit Israel gains from it, the U.S. gains nothing and stands to lose quite a bit in terms of our international standing.

There has been no consideration of the costs and problems this will create for the U.S. in its relations with other regional states and beyond because Trump couldn't care less about the long-term effects that his decisions have on the country.

Once again, Trump has put narrow political ambitions and the interests of a foreign government ahead of the interests of the United States. That seems to be the inevitable result of electing a narcissist who conducts foreign policy based on which leaders flatter and praise him.

Trump's bad decision can be traced back to Bolton's visit to Israel earlier this year:

Administration officials said that National Security Advisor John Bolton was instrumental to the decision, after visiting Israel in January to assure officials there that the United States would not abandon them in Syria despite Trump's sudden withdrawal of troops from the battlefield.

Nervous Israeli officials saw an opportunity. "It was an ask," one Israeli source said, "because of the timing -- it suddenly became a relevant issue about Iran."

Bolton is usually the culprit responsible any destructive and foolish policy decision over the last year, and his baleful influence continues to grow. We can also see the harmful effects of the administration's Iran obsession at work. In the end, the Syria "withdrawal" hasn't happened and apparently isn't going to, but Trump nonetheless gives Israel whatever it wants in exchange for nothing so that they will be "reassured" of our unthinking support.

SF Bay March 21, 2019 at 10:28 pm

Well, of course Trump puts America last. There is one and only one person he is interested in -- himself. As you say this is his narcissistic personality at work.

My never ending question is always, "Why does any Republican with a conscience remain silent? Are they really all this shallow and self absorbed? Is there nothing Trump does that will finally force them to put country before party and their own ambition?"

It's a really sad state of events that has put this country on the road to ruin.

Kouros , , March 21, 2019 at 11:39 pm
I wonder what Mr. Kagan has to say now about "authoritarian" regimes?!
Trump 2016 , , March 22, 2019 at 1:45 am
Trump is making one hell of a mess for the next president to clean up. Straightening out all this stupidity will take years. Here's hoping that Trump gets to watch his foreign policy decisions tossed out and reversed from federal prison.
Grumpy Old Man , , March 22, 2019 at 3:29 am
He ought to recognize Russia's seizure of Crimea. Why not? Кто кого?
Tony , , March 22, 2019 at 8:50 am
The decision to leave the INF treaty was taken in a similar way and with a total disregard for the consequences. The leaders of the European NATO countries have shown utter spinelessness in going along with it.

The administration says that a Russian missile violates the treaty but it will not tell us what the range of the missile is. Nor will it allow its weapons inspectors to go and look at it.

The reason is clear: Fear that the weapons inspectors' findings would contradict the administration's claims.

Some Perspective , , March 22, 2019 at 9:08 am
I voted Republican ever since I started voting. I voted for Bush I, Dole, Dubya, and McCain. I couldn't vote for either Obama or Romney, but I voted for Trump because of Hillary Clinton.

I am shocked and horrified by what I've seen under Trump. I am deeply disappointed that so few Republicans (or Democrats, for that matter) have stood up to him on foreign policy, and I will never vote Republican again. This GOP/Israel connection stinks to high heaven. Anyone who studied or remembers our problem with Communist spies back in the '50s has got to be hearing alarm bells ringing in their ears. Worries about Soviet spying and Russian meddling pale in comparison to what's now going on in plain sight with Israel.

We're losing our country. We're losing America.

Sid Finster , , March 22, 2019 at 10:22 am
To be fair, it ain't just Team R that has the sloppy crush on Israel. Team D is just as bad, even if they don't gush quite so publicly. In fact, episodes such as this one are useful in a way, as they make it hard to pretend that this is just a one-off, a misguided decision that we have to go along with to appease a powerful friend.

Europoliticians tell that last one a lot. "We really don't want to but the Americans twisted our arms ZOMG Special Relationship so sorry ZOMG!" Only with a lot more Eurobureaucratese.

G-Pol , , March 22, 2019 at 11:15 am
I agree with the article's premise, but not because of this move regarding Israel.

Personally, I believe this move will have little impact on the outcome of the crisis in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia and the other Arab monarchies are too focused on containing Iran and Turkey to give a crap about what Israel does. The only Arab states that I can see objecting to this move are Syria (obviously) and the others who were already allied with Iran and/or Turkey to begin with.

Right now, the REAL center of attention in the region should be Northern Syria. THAT's where the next major war likely will begin. In that area, Saudi Arabia and to a lesser extent Turkey and the United Arab Emirates are the ones doing the major escalations, while Israel has virtually no role at all aside from sideline cheer-leading. And of course, Trump is doing nothing to stop what could become the next July Crisis. What's "America First" about that?

Nevertheless, Israel should be very concerned about Northern Syria. If war breaks out and the US is forced to go to war with its own NATO ally as a result, Israel should prepare to kiss its alliance with the US goodbye.

There is no way our international reputation will come out of this war unscathed, and odds are we'll be in a far worse position diplomatically than we were at any point in our history, even during the Iraq war. When that happens, the American people will be out to assign blame. Many (rightfully or not) will blame Israel due to its connections to neoconservatism and Saudi jingoism, and consequently we may end up seeing BOTH parties becoming unfriendly to Israel over the subsequent generation.

All of this could be prevented if President Trump would just tell Saudi Arabia to STOP the nonsense. But no. He's too focused on MIC profits. He's not America First. And quite frankly, I'm starting to think Benjamin Netanyahu is not Israel-first either, because if he were he'd be warning Trump about the mess he's going to end up getting America, Israel, and much of Europe and the Middle East into.

[Apr 13, 2019] Zionism Wahhabism: Twin Cancers of the Middle East (And Their Veiled Origins)

Apr 13, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Noirette @ 7

I don't think the issue is to end capitalism, but economic Zionism (all known as capitalism changed into monopoism) is on its way out. Revolutionaries, all over the world, are in place to revert monopolism back to capitalism and democracy back to human rights.**

She [Hillary] was the dream for Big Banking, the apartheid Jewish state, and probably a lot more folks. That didn't happen, and some people became unhinged. by Zachary Smith @85 As things have turned out.. we might have all been better off with Hillary than Trump.. Next time around I am going to vote for the most obvious liar, and the candidate with the most stinking capaign promises. looking back over the elections since Abe Lincolm was assassinated by the city of London.. because Lincoln was moving to make USA its own bank and to issue its own currency.. **

At http://representativepress.org/IsraelViolatesResolution.html c/b found the pre conditions, all of which Israel agreed to,
for admission of Israel into the UN..
1. he status of jerusalem w/n/b altered
2. Palestinans w/b permitted to return
3. The partition agreement w/become the final borders.

Text of General Assembly Resolution 273 of May 11, 1949 admitting Israel into the UN, notes Israel agreed to comply with Resolution 194 : UNITED NATIONS General Assembly A/RES/273 (III) 11 May 1949

what is really interesting is to take a look at the low life supporting this UN action at the press, in the white house and at the MIC. Many supporters there played at hugmongous part in the rest of the rise of Economic Zionism which depends on leg breaker USA to get its way..

John Smith , Apr 11, 2019 1:07:35 AM | link

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Instagram March 10, 2019:
"Israel is not a state of all its citizens. According to the Nation-State Law that we passed, Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish People -- and them alone."

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D1T_F00VsAAb25V.jpg

John Smith , Apr 11, 2019 1:16:39 AM | link
Zionism & Wahhabism: Twin Cancers of the Middle East (And Their Veiled Origins)

It is a fascinating, though rather grim, story, spanning the First World War, the creation of the states of Israel, Iraq, Syria and Saudi Arabia, and taking in Lawrence of Arabia, all the way to the fall of Gadaffi in Libya, the Syria Civil War and Rise of the so-called Islamic State, among other things. It's a story of long-term manipulation, insidious indoctrination, and secret, almost 'mythical' works of literature.

These two ideologies -- Wahhabism in Islam and Zionism which is linked primarily to the Jewish religion -- may seem like unrelated entities on the surface of it

https://theburningbloggerofbedlam.wordpress.com/2014/11/07/zionism-and-wahhabism-the-twin-cancers-destroying-the-middle-east-and-their-dark-origins/

John Smith , Apr 11, 2019 12:13:27 AM | link
"Germany still owes Israel $19 billion for the Holocaust. The new estimate was calculated by independent American economist Sidney Zabludoff, a former CIA, White House and U.S. Treasury official."

https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-netanyahu-could-have-prevented-the-submarine-affair-by-collecting-germany-s-debt-1.7086232

https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/East-Germanys-reparation-debt-must-be-demanded-584941
---------------

Chutzpah...

psychohistorian , Apr 11, 2019 1:17:13 AM | link
@ Zachary Smith who wrote about Clinton II
"
She was the dream for Big Banking, the apartheid Jewish state, and probably a lot more folks.
"
So that makes Trump a nightmare for Big Banking, the apartheid Jewish state, etc., right?

I encourage you to understand how much you are being played. If Big Banking has both of them, whom is being played?

snake , Apr 11, 2019 6:18:53 AM | link
@ 92 * time for everyone to stand up for human rights promoter Assange?

The end of capitalism, in disguise. US pol structure does not allow for such, as the US (and other West, the US is just a stellar ex.) are ruled by rapacious coproratist (typo) oligarchs. Won't happen.

[Apr 12, 2019] Trump s Betrayal of White America by Alex Graham

Notable quotes:
"... Trump's failure here is his alone. Closing the border could be accomplished with a simple executive order. It has happened before: Reagan ordered the closing of the border when DEA agent Enrique "Kiki" Camarena was murdered on assignment in Mexico in 1985, for instance. ..."
"... Trump's empty threats over the past two years have had real-world consequences, prompting waves of migrants trying to sneak into the country while they still have the chance. His recent move to cut all foreign aid to Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador is another empty gesture that will probably have similar consequences. The funds directed to those countries were used for programs that provided citizens with incentives not to migrate elsewhere. (The situation was not ideal from an isolationist point of view, but a wiser man would have built the wall before cutting off the aid.) ..."
"... Trump's betrayal of American workers is perhaps best encapsulated by the fact that one of the members of the advisory board of his National Council for the American Worker (which claims to "enhance employment opportunities for Americans of all ages") is the CEO of IBM, a company that has expressed a preference for F-1 and H-1B visa holders in its job postings. ..."
"... There are more former Goldman Sachs employees in the Trump White House than in the Obama and Bush administrations combined. ..."
"... It is hard to escape the conclusion that Trump is not actually interested in curbing immigration and reversing America's demographic decline. He is a con artist and a coward who is willing to betray millions of white Americans so that he can remain in the good graces of establishment neoconservatives ..."
"... As Ann Coulter has put it, "He's like a waiter who compliments us for ordering the hamburger, but keeps bringing us fish. The hamburger is our signature dish, juicy and grilled to perfection, you've made a brilliant choice . . . now here's your salmon. " ..."
"... Third, he put an end to American funding for Palestinians. This coincided with the passing of a bill that codified a $38 billion, ten-year foreign aid package for Israel. Trump also authorized an act allocating an additional $550 million toward US-Israel missile and tunnel defense cooperation. ..."
"... Trump's track record on Israel shows that he is capable of exercising agency and getting things done. But he has failed to address the most pressing issue that America currently faces: mass immigration and the displacement of white Americans. The most credible explanation for his incompetence is that he has no intention of delivering on his promises. There is no "Plan," no 4-D chess game. The sooner white Americans realize this, the better. ..."
"... We elected America's first Jewish president, nothing more" ..."
Apr 08, 2019 | www.unz.com
"Unlike other presidents, I keep my promises," Trump boasted in a speech delivered on Saturday to the Republican Jewish Congress at a luxury hotel in Las Vegas. Many in the audience wore red yarmulkes emblazoned with his name. In his speech, Trump condemned Democrats for allowing "the terrible scourge of anti-Semitism to take root in their party" and emphasized his loyalty to Israel.

Trump has kept some of his promises. So far, he has kept every promise that he made to the Jewish community. Yet he has reneged on his promises to white America – the promises that got him elected in the first place. It is a betrayal of the highest order: millions of white Americans placed their hopes in Trump and wholeheartedly believed that he would be the one to make America great again. They were willing to endure social ostracism and imperil their livelihoods by supporting him. In return, Trump has turned his back on them and rendered his promises void.

The most recent example of this is Trump's failure to keep his promise to close the border. On March 29, Trump threatened to close the border if Mexico did not stop all illegal immigration into the US. This would likely have been a highly effective measure given Mexico's dependence on cross-border trade. Five days later, he suddenly retracted this threat and said that he would give Mexico a " one-year warning " before taking drastic action. He further claimed that closing the border would not be necessary and that he planned to establish a twenty-five percent tariff on cars entering the US instead.

Trump's failure here is his alone. Closing the border could be accomplished with a simple executive order. It has happened before: Reagan ordered the closing of the border when DEA agent Enrique "Kiki" Camarena was murdered on assignment in Mexico in 1985, for instance.

Trump's empty threats over the past two years have had real-world consequences, prompting waves of migrants trying to sneak into the country while they still have the chance. His recent move to cut all foreign aid to Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador is another empty gesture that will probably have similar consequences. The funds directed to those countries were used for programs that provided citizens with incentives not to migrate elsewhere. (The situation was not ideal from an isolationist point of view, but a wiser man would have built the wall before cutting off the aid.)

The past two years have seen a surge in illegal immigration without precedent in the past decade. Since late December, the Department of Homeland Security has released 125,565 illegal aliens into the country. In the past two weeks alone, 6,000 have been admitted. According to current projections, 2019 will witness around 500,000 to 775,000 border crossings. Additionally, about 630,000 illegal aliens will be added to the population after having overstayed their visas. By the end of the year, more than one million illegal aliens will have been added to the population:

These projections put the number of illegal aliens added to the U.S. population at around one to 1.5 million, on top of the 11 to 22 million illegal aliens who are already living across the country. This finding does not factor in the illegal aliens who will be deported, die over the next year, or leave the U.S. of their own will. As DHS data has revealed, once border crossers and illegal aliens are released into the country, the overwhelming majority are never deported.

In February, Trump signed a bill allowing the DHS secretary to add another 69,320 spots to the current H-2B cap of 66,000. On March 29, DHS began this process by announcing that it would issue an additional 30,000 H-2B visas this year. The H-2B visa program allows foreign workers to come to the US and work in non-agricultural occupations. Unlike the H-1B program, a Bachelor's degree is not required; most H-2B workers are employed in construction, maintenance, landscaping, and so on. The demographic most affected by the expansion of the H-2B program will be unemployed working-class Americans. This flies in the face of Trump's promise to protect American workers and stop importing foreigners.

Trump has indicated that he has plans to expand the H-1B visa program as well. "We want to encourage talented and highly skilled people to pursue career options in the U.S.," he said in a tweet in January.

Trump's betrayal of American workers is perhaps best encapsulated by the fact that one of the members of the advisory board of his National Council for the American Worker (which claims to "enhance employment opportunities for Americans of all ages") is the CEO of IBM, a company that has expressed a preference for F-1 and H-1B visa holders in its job postings.

Trump has been working on legal immigration with Jared Kushner, who has quietly been crafting a plan to grant citizenship to more "low- and high-skilled workers, as well as permanent and temporary workers" (so, just about everyone). Kushner's plan proves the folly of the typical Republican line that legal immigration is fine and that only illegal immigration should be opposed. Under his plan, thousands of illegal aliens will become "legal" with the stroke of a pen.

There is a paucity of anti-immigration hardliners in Trump's inner circle (though Stephen Miller is a notable exception). Trump has surrounded himself with moderates: the Kushners, Mick Mulvaney, Alex Acosta, and others. There are more former Goldman Sachs employees in the Trump White House than in the Obama and Bush administrations combined.

The new DHS secretary, Kevin McAleenan, who was appointed yesterday following Kirstjen Nielsen's resignation, is a middle-of-the-road law enforcement official who served under Obama and Bush and is responsible for the revival of the " catch-and-release " policy, whereby illegal aliens are released upon being apprehended. It was reported last week that Trump was thinking of appointing either Kris Kobach or Ken Cuccinelli to a position of prominence (as an " immigration czar "), but this appears to have been another lie.

Trump's failure to deliver on his promises cannot be chalked up to congressional obstruction. Congress. As Kobach said in a recent interview , "It's not like we're powerless and it's not like we have to wait for Congress to do something. . . . No, we can actually solve the immediate crisis without Congress acting." Solving the border crisis would simply demand "leadership in the executive branch willing to act decisively." Kobach recently outlined an intelligent three-point plan that Trump could implement:

Publish the final version of the regulation that would supersede the Flores Settlement. The initial regulation was published by the Department of Homeland Security in September 2018. DHS could have published the final regulation in December. Inexplicably, DHS has dragged its feet. Finalizing that regulation would allow the United States to detain entire families together, and it would stop illegal aliens from exploiting children as get-out-of-jail free cards. Set up processing centers at the border to house the migrants and hold the hearings in one place. The Department of Justice should deploy dozens of immigration judges to hear the asylum claims at the border without releasing the migrants into the country. FEMA already owns thousands of travel trailers and mobile homes that it has used to address past hurricane disasters. Instead of selling them (which FEMA is currently doing), FEMA should ship them to the processing centers to provide comfortable housing for the migrants. In addition, a fleet of passenger planes should deployed to the processing centers. Anyone who fails in his or her asylum claim, or who is not seeking asylum and is inadmissible, should be flown home immediately. It would be possible to fly most migrants home within a few weeks of their arrival. Word would get out quickly in their home countries that entry into the United States is not as easy as advertised. The incentive to join future caravans would dissipate quickly. Publish a proposed Treasury regulation that prohibits the sending home of remittances by people who cannot document lawful presence in the United States. This will hit Mexico in the pocketbook: Mexico typically brings in well over $20 billion a year in remittances , raking in more than $26 billion in 2017. Then, tell the government of Mexico that we will finalize the Treasury regulation unless they do two things to help us address the border crisis: (1) Mexico immediately signs a "safe third country agreement" similar to our agreement with Canada. This would require asylum applicants to file their asylum application in the first safe country they set foot in (so applicants in the caravans from Central America would have to seek asylum in Mexico, rather than Canada); and (2) Mexico chips in $5 billion to help us build the wall. The threat of ending remittances from illegal aliens is a far more powerful one than threatening to close the border. Ending such remittances doesn't hurt the U.S. economy; indeed, it helps the economy by making it more likely that such capital will be spent and circulate in our own country. We can follow through easily if Mexico doesn't cooperate.

It would not be all that difficult for Trump to implement these proposals. Kobach still has faith in Trump, but his assessment of him appears increasingly to be too generous. It is hard to escape the conclusion that Trump is not actually interested in curbing immigration and reversing America's demographic decline. He is a con artist and a coward who is willing to betray millions of white Americans so that he can remain in the good graces of establishment neoconservatives . At the same time, he wants to maintain the illusion that he cares about his base.

As Ann Coulter has put it, "He's like a waiter who compliments us for ordering the hamburger, but keeps bringing us fish. The hamburger is our signature dish, juicy and grilled to perfection, you've made a brilliant choice . . . now here's your salmon. "

Nearly everything Trump has done in the name of restricting immigration has turned out to be an empty gesture and mere theatrics: threatening to close the border, offering protections to "Dreamers" in exchange for funding for the ever-elusive wall, threatening to end the "anchor baby" phenomenon with an executive order (which never came to pass), cutting off aid to Central American countries, claiming that he will appoint an "immigration czar" (and then proceeding to appoint McAleenan instead of Kobach as DHS secretary), and on and on.

While Trump has failed to keep the promises that got him elected, he has fulfilled a number of major promises that he made to Israel and the Jewish community.

First, he moved the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Trump claimed that the move would only cost $200,000, but in reality it will end up being more than $20 million . The construction of the embassy also led to a series of bloody protests; it is located in East Jerusalem, which is generally acknowledged to be Palestinian territory.

Second, he pulled the US out of the Iran nuclear deal. Netanyahu claimed on Israeli TV that Israel was responsible for convincing him to exit the deal and reimpose sanctions on Iran. (Both Trump and Netanyahu falsely alleged that Iran lied about the extent of its nuclear program; meanwhile, Israel's large arsenal of chemical and biological weapons has escaped mention.) Third, he put an end to American funding for Palestinians. This coincided with the passing of a bill that codified a $38 billion, ten-year foreign aid package for Israel. Trump also authorized an act allocating an additional $550 million toward US-Israel missile and tunnel defense cooperation.

Fourth, he recognized Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights (in defiance of the rest of the world, which recognizes the Golan Heights as Syrian territory under Israeli occupation). Trump's Golan Heights proclamation was issued on March 21 and was celebrated by Israel. Trump's track record on Israel shows that he is capable of exercising agency and getting things done. But he has failed to address the most pressing issue that America currently faces: mass immigration and the displacement of white Americans. The most credible explanation for his incompetence is that he has no intention of delivering on his promises. There is no "Plan," no 4-D chess game. The sooner white Americans realize this, the better.

aandrews , says: April 10, 2019 at 3:17 am GMT

Kushner, Inc. Book Review Part I: The Rise of The Kushner Crime Family

Kushner, Inc. Book Review Part II: The Fall of The Kushner Crime Family

If you haven't picked up a copy of Vicky Ward's book, Kushner, Inc.: Greed. Ambition. Corruption. The Extraordinary Story of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump , you really should.

I haven't read Mr. Graham's essay yet, but I thought those two links would fit in nicely. I stay in a low boil, like it is, and having plodded through both those reviews, I can't stand reading too much on this topic at once.

Something's gotta give. Or are the brainless goy just going to let themselves be led off a cliff?

Oh, yes. There's an interview with Ward on BookTV .

Thinker , says: April 10, 2019 at 4:16 am GMT
Yep. Trump's a lying POS pond scum like the rest of the DC swamp that he said he was going to drain, turns out he is one of them all along. We elected America's first Jewish president, nothing more. He needs to change his campaign slogan to MIGA, Make Israel Great Again, that was the plan of his handlers all along.

What I want to know is, who are those idiots who still keep showing up at his rallies? Are they really that dumb?

Even Sanders came out and said we can't have open borders. I've also heard him said back in 2015 that the H1b visa program is a replacement program for American workers. If he grows a pair and reverts back to that stance, teams up with Tulsi Gabbard, I'll vote for them 2020. Fuck Trump! Time for him and his whole treasonous rat family to move to Israel where they belong.

jbwilson24 , says: April 10, 2019 at 4:51 am GMT
@Thinker " We elected America's first Jewish president, nothing more"

Afraid not, there's plenty of reason to believe that the Roosevelt family and Lyndon Johnson were Jewish.

Your major point stands, though. He's basically a shabbesgoy.

peterAUS , says: April 10, 2019 at 5:05 am GMT
@Dr. Robert Morgan

His "implicitly white" supporters would have abandoned him in droves, not wanting to be associated with a racist, thus pointing up the weakness of implicit whiteness as a survival strategy. And is it actually a survival strategy? A closer look at it makes me think it's more of a racial self-extermination strategy. After all, what kind of a survival strategy is it that can't even admit its goals to itself? And it's exactly this refusal of whites to explicitly state that they collectively want to continue to exist as a race that is the greatest impediment to their doing so. It's an interesting problem with no easy solution. How do you restore the will to live to a race that seems to have lost it? And not only lost its will to live, but actually prides itself on doing so? Accordingly, this "betrayal" isn't a betrayal at all. It's what American whites voted for and want. Giving their country away and accepting their own demographic demise is proof of their virtue; proof of their Christian love for all mankind.

You are definitely onto something here.

Still, I feel it's not that deep and complicated. It could be that they simply don't believe that the danger is closing in.

Boils down to wrong judgment. People who haven't had the need to think hard about serious things tend to develop that weakness.
I guess that boils down to "good times make weak men."

Hard times are coming and they'll make hard men. The catch is simple: will be enough of them in time ?

Real Buddy Ray , says: April 10, 2019 at 5:18 am GMT
@Thomm https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/09/trumps-proposal-for-legal-immigration/499061/
JNDillard , says: April 10, 2019 at 5:20 am GMT
Switching to the Democrats is no solution. The DNC has proven itself to be a criminal organization through sabotaging Sander's campaign and then being instrumental in creating Russophobia, in collusion with Obama, the CIA, the FBI, and the DoJ. The DNC has rules in place stating that super delegates – elitists aligned with the DNC – can vote if one nominee does not win on the first ballot at the National Convention.

Because we have a HUGE number of hats in the Democratic ring, the chances that the nomination will not be decided on a first vote are extremely high, with the result being that the Democratic nominee is not going to be decided by voters in the primaries but by super delegates, i.e., the elitists and plutocrats.

Democracy exists when we vote to support candidates chosen by the elites for the elites; when we stop doing that, the elites turn on democracy. It is a sham; we will have a choice in 2020: between Pepsi and Coke. You are free to choose which one you prefer, because you live in a democracy. For more on the rigging of the democratic primaries for 2020, see

https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/04/09/packed-primary-may-let-superdelegates-screw-progressives-again/

[Apr 12, 2019] Trump Panders to His Base at the Republican Jewish Coalition

Apr 12, 2019 | www.unz.com

wayfarer , says: April 10, 2019 at 3:57 pm GMT

@Agent76

"Trump Panders to His Base at the Republican Jewish Coalition"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvpQ2zzOD7g

[Apr 12, 2019] Trump was financed by a slew of Zionist billionares. He's delivering and is the gift that keeps on giving and giving.

Apr 12, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Circe , Apr 11, 2019 1:47:52 PM | link

@110ZS

No one's squeezin' nothin'. Trump was financed by a slew of Zionist billionares. He's delivering and is the gift that keeps on giving and giving.

[Apr 12, 2019] MAGA was always MIGA in disguise

Notable quotes:
"... Gradually I began to hate him. Trump is a liar, a con man, a sellout, a shabbos goy POS. He DOES have agency ..for israel. But not for us. ..."
Apr 12, 2019 | www.unz.com

FreeWilly says:April 10, 2019 at 5:39 am GMT

@Thinker

"He needs to change his campaign slogan to MIGA, Make Israel Great Again, that was the plan of his handlers all along."

What do you mean by "again"? When was it ever great?

Robert Dolan , says: April 10, 2019 at 5:41 am GMT

Gradually I began to hate him. Trump is a liar, a con man, a sellout, a shabbos goy POS. He DOES have agency ..for israel. But not for us.

[Apr 12, 2019] Trump Is America's First Zionist President by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts

Notable quotes:
"... Weakened by "Russiagate" accusations, Trump was forced to back off his agenda of ending the wars. He put policy in the hands of neoconservative warmongers like John Bolton and Pompeo, and expanded the prospect of wars into Iran and Venezuela. Trump in office bears little resemblance to Trump campaigning for the presidency. ..."
"... It is not clear how Trump has benefited from his groveling. If polls can be believed, Trump's pandering has done him no good with American Jews, 70% of whom disapprove of Trump. Moreover, the Israel Lobby failed to use its influence to silence the presstitutes false "Russiagate" accusations against Trump. Perhaps the Lobby wanted to keep Trump in a weak position in order to extract more concessions from him. ..."
"... Trump, who campaigned on peace so that America's attention and resources could be focused on America's own situation, now has the US more embroiled than ever in the affairs of foreign countries, principally Israel, a Zionist state. This fact makes it reasonable to conclude that Trump is America's first Zionist president, a development that bodes more ill for the world. ..."
Mar 24, 2019 | thedailycoin.org

It is impossible not to feel some sympathy for President Donald Trump. His agenda to restore normal relations with Russia and to end Washington's gratuitous wars has been frustrated by the "Russiagate hoax" that the military/security complex and corrupt Democratic Party used in the effort to remove Trump from the presidency. He and his wife have been embarrassed by the fake "Steele Dossier" paid for by the Clinton campaign and used by a corrupt FBI leadership to illegitimately obtain spy warrants on Trump and his associates. Accused of cavorting with prostitutes in Moscow and confronted with claims by a porn star of an affair in order to boost the recognition value of her name, Trump and his wife have experienced uncomfortable times. Now that the lies the presstitutes have told since 2016 have been exposed by Mueller's inability, despite his use of every dirty trick, to come up with any indictable offense connected to "Russiagate," the psychopathic liars who comprise the presstitute media are on the verge of tears. Mueller has betrayed them, they claim, by letting Trump off the hook. https://www.rt.com/usa/454550-mueller-media-reactions-trump-indictment/

In other words, there will be no apology to Trump. Don't be surprised to see the deranged accusation that Mueller himself was part of the Russian collusion and was appointed for the purpose of covering it up.

Weakened by "Russiagate" accusations, Trump was forced to back off his agenda of ending the wars. He put policy in the hands of neoconservative warmongers like John Bolton and Pompeo, and expanded the prospect of wars into Iran and Venezuela. Trump in office bears little resemblance to Trump campaigning for the presidency.

Under such pressure Trump has broken American diplomatic precedent and international law with respect to Jerusalem and the Syrian Golan Heights in his effort to seek the protection of the powerful Israel Lobby. He recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital and moved the US Embassy there, and on March 22 he said it is time to accept the reality of Israel's occupation of Syria's Golen Heights as Israeli territory. This extreme pandering to Israeli Zionism is a disgrace to the United States. https://www.rt.com/news/454528-trump-recognize-golan-heights-netanyahu/

It is not clear how Trump has benefited from his groveling. If polls can be believed, Trump's pandering has done him no good with American Jews, 70% of whom disapprove of Trump. Moreover, the Israel Lobby failed to use its influence to silence the presstitutes false "Russiagate" accusations against Trump. Perhaps the Lobby wanted to keep Trump in a weak position in order to extract more concessions from him.

Nevertheless, by terminating US aid to Palestinians and by being the only head of state to fully recognize Jerusalem as the Israeli capital and to assign Syrian territory to Israel, Trump has established a US relationship with Israeli Zionism that the US has with no other state and that Israel has with no other state. On any issue that pertains to Israel's interest, Trump has placed US foreign policy into Israel's hands.

Various diplomats and analysts are saying that Trump gifted the Golan Heights to Israel in order to help out Netanyahu who faces indictment for corruption. I think the explanation is that the neoconservatives running US foreign policy are Zionists and that the only ally Trump has, other than the remnants of the American working class now dismissed as "white supremacists," is the Israel Lobby.

The hostility of the Trump regime toward Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, Syria, and Venezuela does America no good (except for the shareholders of the military/security complex). But the hostility toward Iran, Syria, and their protector -- Russia -- does benefit Israel. Israel has been frustrated in its desire to occupy southern Lebanon by the Hezbollah militia, which is supported by Syria and Iran. If Washington can destabilize Syria and Iran, as it did Iraq and Libya, Hezbollah would be cut off from support. Moreover, Washington's accusations against Russia and missile bases on Russia's border can distract Russia's attention and resources away from the Middle East and leave Syria and Iran less able to resist the US/Israeli pressures.

Trump, who campaigned on peace so that America's attention and resources could be focused on America's own situation, now has the US more embroiled than ever in the affairs of foreign countries, principally Israel, a Zionist state. This fact makes it reasonable to conclude that Trump is America's first Zionist president, a development that bodes more ill for the world.

Please consider donating to PCR

[Apr 12, 2019] Is Donald Trump a Zionist Chabad Bitch by Pastor Chuck Baldwin

Apr 12, 2019 | phibetaiota.net

King Solomon wrote, "Much study is a weariness of the flesh." (Eccl. 12:12 KJV) I will add that it doesn't make one a lot of friends either -- especially if what one discovers through his studies cuts against the grain of commonly accepted teaching.

In my message to Liberty Fellowship last Sunday , I made the point that Zionism is one of America's greatest threats. I do not say that lightly. Many years and untold hours of laborious study have led me to that conclusion. Only the lack of truth-preaching (including truth-preaching about Zionism) from America's pulpits is a greater threat to our country. Beyond that, Zionism is one of the most politically protected institutions in America. No! It is THE most politically protected institution in the country. Bar none!

The influence and intimidation that Zionism wields over America's major institutions and industries are incalculable -- and seemingly impenetrable. From the church house to the White House, from Main Street to Wall Street, from Hollywood and Vine to Broadway and from the marbled halls of Congress to the hallowed halls of ivy-covered universities, Zionism reigns supreme.

Read full (most extraordinary and detailed) post.

ROBERT STEELE: This is the single best over-all denouncement of the Zionist parasite as it exists in America, that I have ever read. The pastor does three things: itemizes Zionist control and atrocities of control, including the most recent attempts to destroy Senator Rand Paul and Representative Ilhan Omar; challenges our President, whose past includes deep deep Zionist ties suggestive of compromise; and explains how so many Christian Zionists have been bribed and brainwashed -- the two go together -- to place Israel First instead of America First. Zionism in the USA is OVER. The tide has turned.

I personally am hopeful that our President will divorce himself from the Zionists who think they own him, and truly commit to America First.

Now we simply have to make #UNRIG – Election Integrity Act and disclosure of the Zionist role in 9/11 the twin demands of our President if he wishes to be re-elected in 2020, AND to have a Congress free of Zionist bribery, blackmail, and lies in 2020 and beyond.

See Especially:

RELATED (on Trump Being Compromised):

[Apr 12, 2019] Where Trump s and Bibi s Interests Clash Patrick J. Buchanan - Official Website

Apr 12, 2019 | buchanan.org

On Monday, President Donald Trump designated the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization, the first time the United States has designated part of another nation's government as such a threat.

Iran's Supreme National Security Council responded by declaring U.S. Central Command a terrorist group.

With 5,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and 2,000 in Syria, often in proximity to Iranian units, this inches America closer to war.

Why did we do it? What benefit did the U.S. derive?

How do we now negotiate with the IRGC on missile tests?

Israel's Bibi Netanyahu took credit for Trump's decision, tweeting, "Once again you are keeping the world safe from Iran aggression and terrorism. Thank you for accepting another important request of mine."

Previous "requests" to which Trump acceded include moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, declaring Jerusalem Israel's eternal capital, closing the Palestinian consulate and cutting off aid, and U.S. recognition of the Golan Heights, captured from Syria in 1967, as sovereign Israeli territory.

What Bibi wants, Bibi gets.

One hopes his future requests will not include a demand that we cease dithering and deliver the same "shock and awe" to Iran that George W. Bush delivered to Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

With Bibi's election win Tuesday, his fifth, the secret Mideast peace plan Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner has been laboring on these last two years is likely to be unveiled.

Yet it is hard to see how Jared's baby is not stillborn.

Bibi is not going to accept a Palestinian right of return to Israel, or a sharing of the Holy City with a Palestinian state ruled by a successor of Yasser Arafat. And as Bibi fought Ariel Sharon's withdrawal of the 8,000 Jewish settlers from Gaza, he is not going to order the removal of tens of thousands of Jewish settlers from homes on the West Bank.

Have something to say about this column?
Visit Pat's FaceBook page and post your comments .

Indeed, on the eve of his reelection Tuesday, Bibi promised Israelis he would begin the annexation of Jewish settlements on the West Bank.

As for Trump, he is the most popular man in Israel. And he is not going to force Bibi to do what Bibi does not want to do and thereby imperil his major political gains in the U.S. Jewish community.

Given the indulgence of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party for BDS, the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanction movement, and the divisions among Democrats over Netanyahu's expansionism, the president's pro-Israel stance has proven a political winner for the GOP.

But while a U.S. war with Iran may be what Bibi wants, it is not what America wants or needs.

Consider what 20 years of U.S. wars in the Mideast have cost this country, as China has stayed out of the region and pushed its power and influence into Asia, Africa and Europe.

In Afghanistan, the Taliban have regained control of more territory than they have held since 2001, and they are negotiating with the Americans for a withdrawal of our remaining 14,000 troops.

Cost of the Afghan war: 2,400 U.S. dead, 32,000 wounded, $1 trillion sunk, and the U.S. on the precipice of a potential strategic defeat.

So dreadful has become the five-year Yemeni civil war between Iran-backed Houthi rebels and the Saudi-backed regime they ousted that the U.S. House and Senate have invoked the War Powers Act and directed Trump to terminate U.S. assistance for the Saudi intervention.

In Libya, where a U.S.-led NATO intervention overthrew Colonel Gadhafi in 2011, a renegade general now controls two-thirds of the country and is mounting an assault on Tripoli. U.S. soldiers and diplomats fled the capital last week.

In Syria, President Bashar Assad, with the support of Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, defeated the U.S. backed-rebels years ago.

The Syrian Kurdish militia we partnered with to crush ISIS have been designated as terrorists by the Turks, who promise to annihilate the Kurds if they try to return to homes along the Turkish border.

As for Turkey itself, President Erdogan says he will take delivery this summer of a Russian-made S-400 air and missile defense system.

Go through with that, says the U.S., and we cancel your order for 100 F-35s. The justified U.S. fear: Russia's S-400 system will be tested against America's most advanced fifth-generation fighter, the F-35.

If Turkey does not cancel the S-400, a NATO crisis appears imminent.

In Iraq, where 5,000 U.S. troops remain, the government has both pro-U.S. and pro-Iran elements in Baghdad, and mutual designation of the IRGC and CENT-COM as terrorist organizations can only present hellish problems for America's soldiers and diplomats still in that country.

Bottom line: Though Bibi and John Bolton may want war with Iran, U.S. national interests, based on the awful experience of two decades, and Trump's political interests, dictate that he not start any more wars.

Not a single Middle East war this century has gone as we planned or hoped.

[Apr 12, 2019] A Chabad school is NOT a safe place for Jewish children

Apr 12, 2019 | www.chabad-mafia.com

In reality, Chabad's ideology is NOT Jewish. In Israel, Chabad is considered by the most important Rabbis as a religion different from Judaism. Chabad is a different religion. Chabadism is NOT Judaism.

So, why is this bad for the Jews? Chabad is a criminal organization. Chabad is mostly involved in white collar criminal activities such as financial fraud, tax evasion, and money laundering.

Chabad has also been linked to various Jewish child abuse cases

When these criminal activities are discovered and exposed to the public, and because Chabad poses as a Jewish organization, anti-Jewish hatred is created. That is, Chabad creates anti-semitism in the world.

Also, many of Chabad victims are Jewish. Mostly, Jewish children. Chabad runs several schools around the world. The objective of these schools is NOT to provide a good Jewish education for their students. The objective of these schools is to MAKE A PROFIT at the expense of the Jewish children.

... ... ...

Chabad-Lubavitch is also an international organized crime syndicate that strangles free enterprise and raises the level of violence, fraud, and corruption in various cities in the USA, and across the world.

... ... ...

Disclaimer: Please conduct your own investigation about the issues mentioned in this website. This website is only a brief summary of the problems with Chabad. For more information, please talk to your local community Rabbi. Also, if you really care about being Jewish, come live in Israel and study Judaism.

Copyright Notice: According to Jewish Law, it is a Mitzva, a religious obligation, to provide this information to every Jew in the world, in order to protect Jewish children from Chabad, and to save Jewish lives and Jewish souls from being destroyed by Chabad. Therefore, permission is granted to copy and reproduce all of the information found on this website in any form and publication, including any website or blog, and to translate it to any language. The only requirement is that you mention that the information was obtained from this website, and in the case of internet pages, please add a link back to this website.

(C) Yehudim Neged Chabad (Jews Against Chabad)

[Apr 10, 2019] It has been quite an adventure watching the MAGA man transition into the MIGA man.

Apr 10, 2019 | www.unz.com

aandrews says: April 10, 2019 at 3:17 am GMT

If you haven't picked up a copy of Vicky Ward's book, Kushner, Inc.: Greed. Ambition. Corruption. The Extraordinary Story of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump , you really should.

I haven't read Mr. Graham's essay yet, but I thought those two links would fit in nicely. I stay in a low boil, like it is, and having plodded through both those reviews, I can't stand reading too much on this topic at once.

Something's gotta give. Or are the brainless goy just going to let themselves be led off a cliff?

Oh, yes. There's an interview with Ward on BookTV .

Johnny Walker Read says: April 10, 2019 at 12:18 pm GMT

@aandrews

Thanks for sharing the links on the Kushner Crime Family. It has been quite an adventure watching the MAGA man "transition" into the MIGA man. What amazes me are the number of dumb f*ck Americans who still worship this ass hat, all the while he is driving the betrayal dagger deeper into their back.

[Apr 09, 2019] Kushner Extorted Qatar - Or Did He?

Notable quotes:
"... Brookfield Asset Management has agreed to lease the troubled office tower for 99 years and is paying for the lease up front, rather than in the typical yearly ground rent, the Wall Street Journal reports. The financial terms of the deal were not made public, but the New York Times reports that Brookfield is paying $1.1B. ..."
"... Thanks b and you are wise to be sceptical. The up front payment to the Kusher kleptocracy by Brookfield Partners (Asset Management) is not just unusual but more like extraordinary! One test will be how this deal compares to other deals. Was Kushner avoiding taxes by doing a lease? Is this a common practice? ..."
"... It is an old story. From February 12, Bess Levin, Vanity Fair: Qatar Shocked, Shocked to Learn It Accidentally Bailed Out Jared Kushner ..."
"... In 2015, Kushner and his family business, Kushner Cos., bought a portion of the New York Times building on West 43rd Street from Russian /Israeli real estate billionaire Lev Leviev for $295M, where $285M was borrowed from Deutsche Bank to complete the transaction, despite the 666 albatross hanging over Kushners head ..."
"... Qatar paid over a billion dollars to build and expand the US base in Qatar and charges no rent for that base. This allows Qatar to easily brush aside any question of loyalty that may be posed by USA and makes the US/US military reluctant to pressure Qatar. But Israel would have no qualms about apply pressure. The "Jared bailout" allows for a narrative of Qatari leadership as weak and corrupt - much like the ridiculous claims that Putin is pro-Israel. ..."
Mar 30, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Kushner Extorted Qatar - Or Did He? DG , Mar 30, 2019 5:37:23 PM | link

The Hillreporter just published a very juicy story about Jared Kushner, the son in law and senior advisor of President Trump.

It says that Kushner, with the help of the Saudi clown prince Mohammad bin Salman, extorted Qatar for $1 billion to save his families real estate business in New York.

While the story sounds plausible and fits the public known timeline of other events, there is so far no evidence that supports it.

The tale is based on the work and information of author Vicky Ward, who recently published Kushner Inc - Greed. Ambition. Corruption. The Extraordinary Story of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump .

Ward first talked through the story on yesterday's KrassenCast , a podcast by the anti-Trump and somewhat shady Krassenstein brothers who also run the Hillreporter .

In 2007, at the hight of the real estate bubble, the Kushner family bought the 666 5th Avenue building in New York City for $1.8 billion. Ten years later the Kushners were in real trouble. Plans to replace the building with a new one found no financing. The property was losing lots of money and a huge mortgage payment was due in January 2019. The family had to look for a bail out.

In early 2017 the Kushner family had several meetings with Qatari officials to discuss a deal. The Intercept reported :

Joshua Kushner, a venture capitalist and the younger brother of White House adviser Jared Kushner, met with Qatari Finance Minister Ali Sharif Al Emadi the same week as his father, Charles Kushner, did in April 2017, in an independent effort to discuss potential investments from the Qatari government. Both meetings took place at Al Emadi's St. Regis Hotel suite in Manhattan.

This revelation comes after Charles Kushner, in an interview with the Washington Post this week, confirmed for the first time that his meeting with Al Emadi had indeed taken place on the subject of financing for the underwater Kushner property at 666 Fifth Avenue.

According to Vicky Ward this is what happened next :

"What I have learned is that in the ensuing month [May 2017] before the US visit to Riyadh, Jared Kushner got on a plane and flew to Doha, the Qatari capital, and he reamed the Qatari ruling family, the al-Thanis, for not doing the deal with his father They began to feel that he was indirectly threatening their sovereignty. The next thing they know, when they show up to the summit in Riyadh, the Emir, the ruler of Qatar, arrives with an entourage, but his entourage is suddenly cut off from him, and not allowed into the summit at the same time by the Saudis, which he felt was a move to deliberately make him look weak. You have to remember during this summit, Jared and Ivanka go off for a cozy secret unmonitored dinner with [Saudi Crown Prince] MBS. Nobody knows what they talked about."

Fifteen days later the Saudis and the UAE blockade Qatar and send troops to its border. Trump supports the Saudi blockade against the advice of his Secretary of State Tillerson and his Defense Secretary Mattis and despite the fact the the biggest U.S. base in the area is in Qatar.

Nine months later, a Canadian company, Brookfield Partners, who the Qatari Investment Authority owns a $1.8 billion or 9% stake in, bailed out Kushner Properties, with a 99-year lease agreement for 666 5th Ave.
...
Around this same time, President Trump publicly shifts course, no longer supporting the blockade, as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tells Saudi Arabia to stop the embargo.

If the blockade of Qatar originates in a Kushner extortion scheme, as the story insinuates, it would have serious political consequences. But is that true?

The sequencing of the real estate deal and the change in the Trump policy on the blockade is somewhat problematic. The Trump shift was reported on April 29 2018 while the Brookfield Partner deal was first published about three weeks later on May 17:

Charles Kushner, head of the Kushner Companies, is in advanced talks with Brookfield Asset Management over a partnership to take control of the 41-story aluminum-clad tower in Midtown Manhattan, 666 Fifth Avenue, according to two real estate executives who have been briefed on the pending deal but were not authorized to discuss it.

The deal only closed in August 2018 on terms that had changed from the first report and were unusual:

Brookfield Asset Management has agreed to lease the troubled office tower for 99 years and is paying for the lease up front, rather than in the typical yearly ground rent, the Wall Street Journal reports. The financial terms of the deal were not made public, but the New York Times reports that Brookfield is paying $1.1B.

What was the real sequencing here? Was the property deal agreed upon before the Trump administration changed its stand on the Qatar blockade or after that happened? Was it related to it or not? We don't know. There is no public record of the alleged Jared Kushner flight to Qatar. There is so far no other evidence that would support the story. The tale fits the publicly known timeline, but that is not enough to believe it. Its authors may have used the public timeline to then fit a story onto it.

It is possible that the Kushner property deal and the Qatar blockade are intimately intertwined but there is, so far, no proof for it. That idea that Kushner played the Saudis is dubious. The other way around is more likely.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE had plenty of reason to blockade Qatar. Both countries fear the Qatari support for the Muslim Brotherhood. They hate Qatar's Al Jazeerah TV because it often publicly opposes their policies. The Saudis need money and annexing the very rich Qatar would solve all their problems. Brookfield Properties denies that Qatar or the Qatari investment agency had any involvement in 666 5th Ave. deal.

Even if Qatar, through Brookfield, made a deal with the Kushner family, it does not mean that it was extorted. The Qatari rulers might simply have hoped that the deal would help them. It did not. The blockade still continues despite the real estate deal. Trump had his own reasons to support the Saudis Qatar blockade. He wanted them to buy as many U.S. weapon system as possible, if only to beat out Obama, who sold the Saudis all sorts of military trash for a record amount of money.

During the Mueller Russia investigation lots of smoke seemed to show that there was a 'collusion' fire burning somewhere under the hundreds of facts and figures. There wasn't.

The story about the Kushner 'extortion of Qatar' might create a similar ' the walls are closing in ' (vid) farce only to end up with nothing. It is interesting that the Vicky Ward story was published on March 29, a day after Jared Kushner was interviewed behind closed door by the Senate Intelligence Commission:

President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner returned to the Senate Intelligence Committee for a closed door interview Thursday as part of the committee's Russia investigation.
...
The first time Kushner appeared before the panel in 2017, he was interviewed by committee staff. The committee has wanted to re-interview witnesses central to the investigation. On Thursday, senators were sitting in on the interview.

Russiagate is really finished . The Republican's rule the Senate. Why would they continue to interview Kushner and why would senators sit in on it? Might the 'Kushner extorted Qatar' be a planned sequel to Russiagate or why else was it launched right now?

Posted by b on March 30, 2019 at 05:28 PM | Permalink

Sally Snyder , Mar 30, 2019 5:42:24 PM | link

Here is an article that explains how the Trump Administration was trying to export nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia:

https://viableopposition.blogspot.com/2019/02/saudi-arabia-and-american-nuclear.html

One has to wonder whether Kushner's influence was involved in this deal which would have seen the geopolitical balance in the Middle East tilt into Saudi Arabia's favour.

uncle tungsten , Mar 30, 2019 6:27:52 PM | link
Thanks b and you are wise to be sceptical. The up front payment to the Kusher kleptocracy by Brookfield Partners (Asset Management) is not just unusual but more like extraordinary! One test will be how this deal compares to other deals. Was Kushner avoiding taxes by doing a lease? Is this a common practice?

I did like the reference to Trump outdoing Obummer in arms deals and had a good laugh at Trumps childish racism in that game. He sure hates Obummer but he sure won't go after him in any way. Trump wont even go after $hillary and her global empire shakedown Foundation. Sometimes I think he is now a sitting duck but then I am an optimist.

somebody , Mar 30, 2019 6:29:48 PM | link
It is an old story. From February 12, Bess Levin, Vanity Fair: Qatar Shocked, Shocked to Learn It Accidentally Bailed Out Jared Kushner
In addition to likely having had the chance to hear about the deal through Brookfield directly or read about it in the paper of record, one would imagine the Qataris were keeping tabs on all things Kushner on account of Jared's father, Charles Kushner, taking a meeting with Qatar's finance minister, Ali Sharif Al Emadi in April 2017. (Kushner the Elder later said he accepted the invite purely "out of respect" for the Qataris to tell them there was no way "we could do business.")

Of course Trump throwing the full weight of the US behind Saudi Arabia and UAE was a de facto shake down of Qatar. And of course, Saudi and UAE were actively lobbying for it.

james , Mar 30, 2019 7:06:05 PM | link
thanks b.. it will be interesting to see how much traction vicky wards reporting gets and whether any of it gets substantiated..

i do believe the usa is crazy enough to do another witch hunt, so anything is possible here... she works for the huffpost.. that is grounds to discredit here right there in my books..

ben , Mar 30, 2019 7:25:51 PM | link
More theatrics as diversion, while the crooks in D.C. dismantle the agencies that keep the wealthy oligarchs at bay, as they rewrite the rules to allow greed and avarice to become virtues.

"Rules and regulations never changed a man's heart, but they can restrain the heartless."

MLK...

Augustin L , Mar 30, 2019 7:29:22 PM | link
Meanwhile, propaganda organs in America won't publicize real Donald Trump scandals like the case of ''Maria'' a Waterbury 12-year old alleged child rape victim of Donald Trump and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The crimes allegedly occurred at a midtown Manhattan mansion owned by Epstein's friend Les Wexner.

Donald Trump recently named as his Secretary of Labor, Alex Acosta, former U.S. Attorney for South Florida, the federal official directly overseeing sweetheart future immunity deal for Grifter in Chief acolytes like Jeffrey Epstein... As Labor Secretary, Acosta is charged with overseeing federal laws designed to combat domestic and international sex trafficking.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York is currently deciding whether to unseal the documents from a 2017 lawsuit involving one of Epstein's sex trafficking victims and Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's assistant.

Other possible corrupt practices involving stable genius center around China's decision to grant Ivanka Trump 38 new trademarks in the middle of a trade war dispute... Part of current trade war negotiations are EB-5 investment visas. Jared Kushner and Trump stand to benefit from EB-5 visas designed to attract Chinese investment in the United States in return for permanent residency.

Curiously an EB-5 visa scam was being run out of an office in Jupiter, Florida, located across the street from the Orchids of Asia massage parlor raided by police where Trump billionaire friend Kraft was caught in a possible Chinese Honey Trap.

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article227186429.html?fbclid=IwAR1FkjigXKFOf8gcPoKRqwqfqSLRuzPNDig5sg7XWtBQClavo73RQRsVWYs

Pft , Mar 30, 2019 9:05:31 PM | link
Russiagate may be done but thats because it was defined improperly. Sometimes it helps to look back to get a big picture perspective

Starting in 1999, Putin enlisted two oligarchs Lev Leviev and Roman Abramovich, who would go on to become Chabad's biggest patrons worldwide, to create the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia under the leadership of Chabad rabbi Berel Lazar, who would come to be known as "Putin's rabbi."

Roman Abramovich is the owner of the Chelsea Football Club of the English Premier League. He was a victor (along with Paul Manafort's patron Oleg Deripaska) in the aluminum wars of the 1990s and reportedly the person who convinced Boris Yeltsin that Putin would be a proper successor.

Ivanka Trump is very close friends with Abramovich's wife , Dasha Zhukova. Zhukova reportedly attended the inauguration as Ivanka's personal guest. Leviev is the one with the closest links to the Trumps and Israel

It starts with Bayrock . This is the company that Donald Trump teamed up with to build his Trump Soho project. There were three main actors . One was convicted mob associate and FBI informant Felix Sater. Another was Tevfik Arif, a likely Russian intelligence connection who was once was arrested by the Turks . The third was the late Tamir Sapir, another man with ties to Russian intelligence.

The late billionaire Tamir Sapir, was born in the Soviet state of Georgia. Trump has called Sapir "a great friend." In December 2007, he hosted the wedding of Sapir's daughter, Zina, at Mar-a-Lago. The groom, Rotem Rosen, was the CEO of the American branch of Africa Israel, the Putin oligarch Leviev's holding company, and known as Leviev's right hand man.

As mentioned Leviev was one of two oligarch's who Putin had establish the "Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia" under the leadership of Chabad rabbi Berel Lazar, who would come to be known as 'Putin's rabbi.'" Sater, Sapier, Jared, Ivanka are all Chabad members and/or donors

Trump had business discussions in Moscow in 2013 about Moscow real estate projects with Agalarovs, Alex Sapir (son of Tamir Sapir, brother of Zina, and brother-in-law of Rotem Rosen.) and Rotem Rosen, a pair of New York-based Russian . This may also have been discussed during the June 2016 meeting in Trump Tower that was attended by Kushner, Manafort and Donald Trump Jr and a Russian lawyer associated with Fusion GPS (Steele dossier) and the Leviev linked Prevezon

Agalarov is a Moscow-based property developer who had won major contracts from Putin's government. He hosted Trump's 2013 Miss Universe contest at his concert hall in Moscow. He orchestrated the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting and formed a new American shell company a month beforehand with the help of the Russian lawyer who attended the meeting.

In 2015, Kushner and his family business, Kushner Cos., bought a portion of the New York Times building on West 43rd Street from Russian /Israeli real estate billionaire Lev Leviev for $295M, where $285M was borrowed from Deutsche Bank to complete the transaction, despite the 666 albatross hanging over Kushners head

Deutsche Bank and two companies tied to Leviev, Africa Israel Investments and Prevezon, have all recently been the subject of money laundering investigations. A laundering case against Prevezon was settled two months after Trump fired Bharara, with a $6M slap on the wrist settlement that raised some eyebrows.

As for 666, Kushner gets bailed out by Brookfield who has Qatar as its 2nd largest investor. But consider that at the same time they did this deal they also acquired Westinghouse Electric, a nuclear power company. Now members of the Trump administration propose selling nuclear power plants to Saudi Arabia. Interesting.

Can't seem to find a Putin/Russian oligarch connection although that's probably due to the fact you cant use anonymous shell companies to buy property in NYC any longer due to new rules by FinCEN

But so many conflict of interests here, Israel, China, Saudis, Russian oligarchs, etc and virtually no oversight or transparency. With twitter being used to manipulate markets one has to imagine rampant insider trading as well (hey guys, my tweets going out at 3 pm, get your trades in and remember my 5%).

Clueless Joe , Mar 30, 2019 9:11:34 PM | link
Ross Stanford 4: That's the notorious meeting between Roosevelt and Ibn Saud on the way from Yalta, when they made the infamous deal between the US and the Saudis: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/03/Franklin_D._Roosevelt_with_King_Ibn_Saud_aboard_USS_Quincy_%28CA-71%29%2C_14_February_1945_%28USA-C-545%29_%281%29.jpg
For mankind, very few post-WWII events were worse than this.
Jackrabbit , Mar 30, 2019 9:12:38 PM | link
@7 savvy globalist somebody wants us to know that there's nothing to see here!

But the Vanity Fair article he links to, written by Bess L-evin, makes this unsubstantiated(!) point:

So why is Doha taking pains to insist it accidentally bailed out the First-in-Laws on their no good, very bad investment now?
1) Actually, the Reuters article that she refers to explicitly states that Qatar has a minority position and no board representation ! It is a known in the financial world as a "passive investment".

2) L-evin's wording is extremely disingenuous: the Qataris never said they bailed out anyone, accidentally or otherwise!!

Jackrabbit , Mar 30, 2019 9:22:43 PM | link
Ask yourself:

1) Why would Qatar be associated in any way with such a sweetheart deal?

2) why would the Vanity Fair author spin the Reuters story this way?
Jackrabbit , Mar 30, 2019 9:26:20 PM | link
Interestingly, Vicky Ward used to work at Vanity Fair, and is currently an editor at HuffPost (a Democratic rag). And media that broke/promoted this story (Leevin and Krasseenstein) could (naturally) rise some suspicions of a connection to Israel's conflict with Iran. Qatar shares a huge gas field with Iran so Qatar has been reluctant to join KSA and Israel against Iran.
Jackrabbit , Mar 30, 2019 9:27:23 PM | link
Qatar paid over a billion dollars to build and expand the US base in Qatar and charges no rent for that base. This allows Qatar to easily brush aside any question of loyalty that may be posed by USA and makes the US/US military reluctant to pressure Qatar. But Israel would have no qualms about apply pressure. The "Jared bailout" allows for a narrative of Qatari leadership as weak and corrupt - much like the ridiculous claims that Putin is pro-Israel.
vk , Mar 30, 2019 9:31:14 PM | link
I agree with this blog's author.

1) Documentation is scarce and the few that exist don't fit the journalist's story chronology (even though, in the concrete case, you could argue for expediency/bureacratic delay, so this criterium alone doesn't bust the journalist's chronology)

2) The whole narrative simply doesn't have social cohesion. It simply doesn't make any sense for Trump to risk be impeached in such polarized scenario just to rescue his son-in-law. It makes even less sense for the Arab royalties to submit to a much weaker political player such as Kushner. And, as b mentions, Trump had many more powerful reasons to sanction Qatar.

mourning dove , Mar 30, 2019 9:34:29 PM | link
@11 &12
Corruption abounds, but any of it that touches Zionists, the Clinton's, or the royal family (Epstein, Prince Andrew) is off limits. They are untouchable to the MSM.
j , Mar 30, 2019 10:23:04 PM | link
people like Brennan & Clapper are feeding the "trump really, really, no really hearts putin" narrative to the msdnc crowd, and this of an administration being helmed by CIA men like Pompeo.

like the fbi's manufacture wholesale of "islamo-terrorist" non-events in part to distract from the presence of the actual threat of rising fascism & racism (a la Nazism, as in NZ) from the usual suspects, much beloved of the fibbies, it's convenient for all, incl trump, to be painted as bff's with Vlad.

if the goal was to stop or in any way impede the trump admin (not just trump himself, who is a know-nothing shit golem animated by the glad-handing he receives from the people actually in charge, who just feed his narcissistic fantasies), there are other, more practical & achievable ways to do it. in-fighting among the herd who have not yet jumped off the Gadarene cliffs is not the same thing as opposition, not among the Legion possessed swine in D.C. they are just grunting & snorting at each other, occasionally, very occasionally & deliberately, trampling one of their own, as they plummet over the edge.

it's pretty clear that funny things like such pigs' full-throated support of Zionism is more important to Pelosi & Schumer than resisting the Trump admin *in any way,* no matter how much they personally despise trump. and mainly they despise him for helping to reveal what some POTUS would have sooner or later: the pointlessness of Congress; that the "unitary executive", as the titular head of the corporate security state, is already fully in charge; that "dyarchy," dual rule by legislative & executive, is non-existent.

[Apr 09, 2019] On Election Eve Netanyahu Boasts Trump Designated Iran s Guards At His Request

Adelson money are probably in play...
Reconciliation between Palestinians and Israeli might now be impossible. But the county can't keep more then a million people in Bantustan forever. Probably Israel eventually will go the way South Africa went and settlers will repatriate to Western countries, Russia and Ukraine.
Notable quotes:
"... A number of analysts were quick to point out how this sets the stage for further unnecessary tit-for-tat escalation inevitably making things messier for US forces in the Middle East, and significantly increases the changes of direct war. ..."
"... Netanyahu is taking credit for Trump's decision to designate the Revolutionary Guard as terrorists. "Thank you for responding to another important request of mine," Bibi says. ..."
"... He got the Golan 2 weeks ago and now this 1 day before Israel's election ..."
"... Likely the statement was not made in English in order to avoid making President Trump look weak in front of US political leaders and the American public , while at the same bolstering (in Hebrew to Israel's domestic audience) Netanyahu's ability to immediately make Washington bend to Israel's interests. ..."
"... Though Trump has clearly thrown his full support behind a Netanyahu victory, it doesn't bode well for "America First" having the Israeli leader essentially bragging that Washington policy can be dictated from Jerusalem. ..."
"... Netanyahu is the friend one appreciates not having. He's unable to avoid insulting everyone he's around, because he just can't control his need to announce at every opportunity how much better and smarter and prettier than everyone else he is. (Are we sure he's not a New Yorker? :-) ..."
"... Netanyahu over the weekend historically declared that he fully intends to extend Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank. The incumbent prime minister also said he had told President Donald Trump that would not evacuate "a single person" from the 400,000 or so Jews residing in the West Bank. ..."
"... "There will be no Palestinian state," he said, "not like the one people are talking about. It won't happen." ..."
Apr 09, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

We noted Monday that just hours after President Trump formally designated Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps as a terrorist organization, Iran's foreign ministry responded in kind , immediately put forward a bill placing US Central Command on a list of organizations designated as terrorists, akin to Daesh.

A number of analysts were quick to point out how this sets the stage for further unnecessary tit-for-tat escalation inevitably making things messier for US forces in the Middle East, and significantly increases the changes of direct war. Soon after the White House's IRGC designation, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked President Trump in a tweet, the Hebrew version of which bragged it was all the prime minister's idea .

Netanyahu said in the Hebrew-only tweet that he was glad Trump "answered another one of my important requests" which will keep the world safe from Iran. It's unclear what the prime minister mean from "another" of his requests, but less than two weeks ago Trump made a dramatic decisions to overturn decades of official US policy and bestow formal recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights after receiving a "quickie" history lesson .

It's well known that Netanyahu had personally lobbied for weeks and months for that decision, and on Monday appeared to be touting both as his initiative on the eve of Israel's election.

According to The Intercept's translation the statement said: "Thank you, my dear friend, President Donald Trump," Netanyahu tweeted in Hebrew , "for answering another one of my important requests."

Raf Sanchez ✔ @rafsanchez

Netanyahu is taking credit for Trump's decision to designate the Revolutionary Guard as terrorists. "Thank you for responding to another important request of mine," Bibi says.

He got the Golan 2 weeks ago and now this 1 day before Israel's election . https:// twitter.com/netanyahu/stat us/1115265423673573379

Likely the statement was not made in English in order to avoid making President Trump look weak in front of US political leaders and the American public , while at the same bolstering (in Hebrew to Israel's domestic audience) Netanyahu's ability to immediately make Washington bend to Israel's interests.

Though Trump has clearly thrown his full support behind a Netanyahu victory, it doesn't bode well for "America First" having the Israeli leader essentially bragging that Washington policy can be dictated from Jerusalem.

On the further significance of the statement, The Intercept observed :

Joe Dyke, an Agence France-Presse correspondent, pointed out that Netanyahu omitted the claim that Trump's move was made at his request in a subsequent tweet in English. That left the prime minister open to the charge often leveled at Palestinian leaders by Israelis, that they placate the international community in English and then say something quite different for domestic consumption in their native tongue.

Israelis head to the polls to elect a prime minister on Tuesday, and one key feature of Netanyahu's campaign -- lately beset by no less than three corruption charges as prime minister -- has been his warm relations with the American president and close cooperation.

hzp , 1 hour ago link

Don't underestimate Mossad. They might be the ones who have all the dirty info and nudes of you know who. MIGA!!!

ItsAll_aMeansTo_anEnd , 1 hour ago link

while at the same bolstering (in Hebrew to Israel's domestic audience) Netanyahu's ability to immediately make Washington bend to Israel's interests.....

Disgusting. Zionist evil neo-con warmongers pulling strings in DC....what else is new.

HRClinton , 31 minutes ago link

I have to challenge your position for its intellectual integrity...

Is is "disgusting" for a group - any group - to use all methods of influence to reach their goals, or is it disgusting that it's targets fold so easily?

Your indignation at the situation may be just, but your wrath is misplaced. Direct it at the cowards and scumbags who can be flipped so easily.

Do you now understand why Zionists refer to us as "Dumb* Goyim"?

* 'Dumb' seems kind, given how a tiny minority can bridle the large majority so so easily. Other choice words come to mind.

blind_understanding , 14 minutes ago link

HRC: Do you now understand why Zionists refer to us as "Dumb* Goyim"?

* 'Dumb' seems kind, given how a tiny minority can bridle the large majority so so easily.

Blind: Nepotism is why Jews are successful in host nations - Tribalism is a form of nepotism.

Also there is parasitism. The Jewish nation living independently within a host nation, meets the definition of a parasite: one independent entity living within another, and deriving sustenance from it.

And CONCEALMENT is the main form of defense of every PARASITE.

● FOR EXAMPLE: The private-currency Ponzi-scheme PARASITE. In America they call their banks FEDERAL-Reserve banks, and their currency FEDERAL-Reserve Notes. The "FEDERAL" part is to suggest FEDERAL-government and CONCEAL the fact they are PRIVATE. And their FEDERAL-Reserve Notes look just like FEDERAL-government notes - more CONCEALMENT.

● FOR ANOTHER EXAMPLE, click this link: http://static.neatorama.com/images/2006-08/cymothoa-exigua.jpg
[[Cymothoa exigua PARASITE enters the HOST fish and REPLACES it's tongue .. and CONCEALS the job by the PARASITE's body looking just like the HOST's original tongue.]]

3rd Degree, 1 hour ago link

If and when Americans learn who the real perps of 9/11 were, that is Mossad, the blowback against Israel will be vicious and prolonged.

captain noob , 1 hour ago link

The information is out there. They just don't care

CriticalUser , 1 hour ago link

It is not out there.

At best there is the suspicion that Israeli intelligence knew something was coming up. But same can be said about American intelligence, where at some levels suspicions were pronounced, which due to incompetence and/or miscommunication between services weren't followed upon.

CriticalUser , 1 hour ago link

The idea that Israel would stage super-complex false flag massacres against its big brother ally, using no less than 4 planes, with Muslim recruits (mostly Saudis) is ridiculous. There is everything too lose, too little to gain.

Look at the aftermath: Iraq and Afghanistan were invaded. What's the gain here for Israel?!?! It had no big issues with any of those two countries. And Iran was NOT attacked.

CriticalUser , 1 hour ago link

Enlighten me then: what has Israel gained of Iraq and Afghanistan being invaded?!

The power vacuum in Iraq helped Iran greatly. Which is a loss for Israel.

blind_understanding , 1 hour ago link

Critical: Look at the aftermath: Iraq and Afghanistan was invaded. Israel had no big issues with any of those countries.

Blind: Nonsense! Both countries stood in the way of the "Greater Israel" ("from the Nile to the Euphrates") project. Especially IRAQ, the Euphrates River runs right through the middle of it!

CriticalUser , 1 hour ago link

The Greater Israel fantasy is an outlandish theory. Maybe some jewish reli-nutcases adhere to it, but it is mostly a fruit of the mind of conspiracy theorists without geopolitical knowledge and realism.

Proof: Israel gave the Sinai back to Egypt + they left Southern Lebanon + it walled itself in...

falconflight , 1 hour ago link

And the Israelis warned Clapper and company of 'unusual chatter.' Go read the declassified documents

world eater , 1 hour ago link

The perpetrators own the media, own Hollywood and domimate the advertising industry. They've engineered our society so any discussion of their political motives/actions is met with cries of bigotry. They've also used social engineering to turn half of us against the other. We're on the losing end of a cultural war and 99% of us don't even know it's happening and 50% of those people have mush for brains.

The deck is heavily stacked against us.

blind_understanding , 24 minutes ago link

Captain: The [911] information is out there. They [Americans] just don't care.

Blind: The same people who engineered 9/11, also own the American Mainstream Media, and the keep us in the dark and feed us ********. The mushroom syndrome.

Midlife Rambler , 1 hour ago link

Hopefully the people will also be aware that people within our own government in high places and "intelligence agencies" were also involved.

blind_understanding , 1 hour ago link

Yes of course! The Mossad 9/11 project was enabled by traitorous INSIDERS within the US government. Led by Cheney and Bush. 9/11 was an INSIDE job, as well as a false-flag to make Israel's enemies look like ours.

falconflight , 1 hour ago link

To the donkey-cart cadre':

Watch live: Israeli moon mission attempts first private lunar landing ...

https://www.businessinsider.com/israel-moon-landing-live-video-beresheet-lunar-mission-2019-4

SpaceIL, an Israeli nonprofit, launched its Beresheet moon lander on a SpaceX rocket in February. ... Russia, China, and the United States. Could Israel innovate and actually achieve this ...

How to watch Israel's Beresheet land on the moon this week

https://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-watch-israel-beresheet-land-on-the-moon-this-week/

The moon is in reach for Israel's Beresheet mission. The privately funded SpaceIL spacecraft is currently orbiting our lunar neighbor and making preparations to attempt a soft landing Thursday.

Will Israel become the fourth country to land on the moon ? We'll find ...

https://www.chron.com/news/space/article/Will-Israel-become-the-fourth-country-to-land-on-13750065.php

Israel is on track to attempt a moon landing Thursday and, if successful, the tiny nation will become just the fourth to touch down on the lunar surface. The landing attempt of the robotic probe ...

Listen to Full Moon Rising

cracker16 , 2 hours ago link

Netanyahu is the friend one appreciates not having. He's unable to avoid insulting everyone he's around, because he just can't control his need to announce at every opportunity how much better and smarter and prettier than everyone else he is. (Are we sure he's not a New Yorker? :-)

falconflight , 2 hours ago link

Don't be a putz Bibi, carry out your promise.

===

Netanyahu: There Will Be No Palestinian State

TEL AVIV – The U.S. is fully aware of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's flat rejection of the creation of a Palestinian state along with his plans to extend Israeli law to West Bank settlements, the Israeli premier said on Monday.

In an interview with Channel 12 , Netanyahu pushed back against his main challenger Benny Gantz's claims that his vow to annex the West Bank was nothing more than an empty campaign promise.

Netanyahu over the weekend historically declared that he fully intends to extend Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank. The incumbent prime minister also said he had told President Donald Trump that would not evacuate "a single person" from the 400,000 or so Jews residing in the West Bank.

Gantz on Sunday said Netanyahu's statement was "meaningless" and no more than a last-minute bid for Likud to gain the upper hand over Gantz's Blue and White party. Netanyahu, however, countered that such radical moves did not happen overnight.

"Why did it take two years to get recognition of the Golan Heights even with such a friendly president? These things takes time," said Netanyahu in reference to Trump's presidential order last month recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.

Netanyahu said annexation of the West Bank would happen in three stages and he hoped to do it with "full American support."

"I discussed [annexation] with representatives of President Trump and I expressed my belief that there is no other option, I think it is also the right move," he said.

"I want to do it gradually. If possible, I want to do it with full American support," the prime minister added.

"It is going to happen," he stated. "This isn't something I invented for the elections."

"I was under incredible pressure from the Obama administration -- that no prime minister has ever had -- to cease construction in the [West Bank] and yet I withstood them and we continued building and now we will continue," he said.

Netanyahu also told Army Radio that the Palestinians would not have a state or security control.

"There will be no Palestinian state," he said, "not like the one people are talking about. It won't happen."

https://www.breitbart.com/middle-east/2019/04/08/netanyahu-there-will-be-no-palestinian-state/

captain noob , 2 hours ago link

Spoken like a true criminal

[Apr 07, 2019] Yet another piece of Kushner's "Deal of the Century"

Apr 06, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

"The king said that the plan was dangerous and not simple to implement, in particular the part relating to the land swaps in Tzofar, a moshav in the Arava desert, and Naharayim, where Jordan conquered in 1948 the Island of Peace and a hydroelectric power-plant that belonged to Israel.

According to the Trump proposal, Jordan would receive from Saudi Arabia an area equal in size to these territories which Israel would reacquire.

In addition, Jordan has been asked to take in a million "Palestinian" refugees in several stages, in return for $45 billion in investments.

Jordan's entire GDP is only $40 billion. Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states will finance these investments."

Jewish Press

--------------

The full "good deal of the century" will evidently be revealed after the Israeli election. Pieces of the "good deal of the century" have previously been revealed. The move of the US Embassy to Jerusalem has been followed by endless Palestinian waves of self immolation along the Gaza "dead line." This will continue indefinitely unless the Beebster or his successor decide to re-occupy Gaza to stop Palestinian rockets reaching Tel Aviv. Now, that would be a spectacle.

Another piece of "The Kushner Plan" was the cession by the US of the occupied Syrian Golan Heights to Israel. The justification for this was that the Israelis hold it by force of arms. Syria, of, course does not accept the US transfer of title deed to part of its territory. These two things are typical of Trump's NY City real estate methodology. In his mind he is systematically taking points of contention off "the bargaining table" so that he can "close" over what's left. This latest "offer" made to Jordan is part of what is left.

Perhaps some savant can explain what the various parts of this "partial good deal" mean. " A million Palestinians?" Where would they come from? Would they be round up for transportation to The East? Saudi Arabia would transfer land to Jordan? Where? On the Gulf of Akabah coast near Tabuk? Really?

The Saudis and Gulfies would cough up $45 billion for investments in Jordan? To do what? Tourism? Really?

And who would own these enterprises? Lebanon will give its citizenship to the hordes of Palestinian descended people who inhabit the country? They have firmly resisted this for decades. Explain all this, someone. pl

https://www.jewishpress.com/news/eye-on-palestine/al-akhbar-trump-wants-jordan-to-take-in-1-million-palestinians/2019/04/05/

blue peacock , an hour ago

Would King Abdullah accept any of Kushner's offers? He knows that at best Kushner will be around for another 6 years. What happens after? Recent history (past 50 years) shows that the US can't be trusted in any deal.
jdledell , 18 hours ago
According to people I talk with in Israel, when Israel takes over the West Bank the Palestinians would not be offerred Israeli Citizenship or national voting rights. The theory is Israel is not annexing the West Bank but just acting as a Civil Administrator. A semantic justification but Israel would have total control over the West Bank and it's people.
Barbara Ann , 18 hours ago
"Would they be round up for transportation to The East?"

Well that would be the irony to end all ironies; the sight of Jews rounding up millions of citizens, whom the Israeli Reich considers it is better off without. Whoops, forgot we are not supposed to make comparisons with the folk whose own Deal of the Century was aimed at bringing about their ethnically pure state.

Colonel, I wonder, how is this brazen collusion with Zionists likely to go down with the regular people of the Gulf states. Have MbS' bread and forthcoming circuses replaced all solidarity with the Ummah, or might we see some resistance to this planned grand betrayal of the Palestinians?

Keith Harbaugh , a day ago
Why would KSA give some of its land to Jordan? Why would "Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states" finance those "investments"? I don't understand what's in this for SA and the Gulfies.
Pat Lang Mod -> Keith Harbaugh , 21 hours ago
Sucking up to Israel.
Rob Calvert -> Pat Lang , 26 minutes ago
We might recall that the King of Jordan, heir to the Hashemite kingdom, asserted his historical claim and authority over the two holy cities (Mecca and Medina) and a good part of western Saudi Arabia. His declaration to the world came about at the same time as Saddam overran Kuwait and was preparing to take the Northestern Province of Saudi Arabia and the oilfiields there. So the current 'deal of the century' would lay to rest those claims, leaving S.A. with control of the holy cities. The price would be paying off Jordan with billions and giving them some, but not nearly all the land they had claimed and now controlled by Saudi Arabia.
Fourth_And_Long -> Keith Harbaugh , 19 hours ago
Also, as per recent news items, they are getting n tech from uncle sam. Congress gas been up in arms.
John Waddell , a day ago
It gets better. Looks like an attempt to ensure that Syria can never get its land back. Striking when Syria is weak. Not sure how the other Arabs will react, if at all.

Via Middle East Monitor,

Israel is planning to settle some 250,000 settlers in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights over the next 30 years, the Israeli Broadcasting Authority (IBA) revealed yesterday.

LW -> John Waddell , 16 hours ago
"Looks like an attempt to ensure that Syria can never get its land back. "

And what can the Syrians do? Help Hamas in Gaza, and make the situation intolerable for the Israelis?

[Apr 05, 2019] Bolton is protege of Adelson and both fully control Trump foreign policy. Trump became just a ceremonial figure without any real power

Notable quotes:
"... US President John Bolton is a disaster for our country. This is going to end bad. ..."
"... Adelson/Bolton/Netanyahu Remember Israel is in bed with Saudi Arabia. Don Corleone Trump is just their puppet. ..."
"... Well let's get ready for another 20 year war trying to bring "Democracy" or fighting "Terrorists" which will be paid for with U.S. tax dollars. Lets just open up the check book now and write one out to John Bolton so it can save everybody time. ..."
"... Trump drained the swamp and put the worst swamp creatures in his administration. ..."
Apr 05, 2019 | www.youtube.com

EE CC , 1 day ago

US President John Bolton is a disaster for our country. This is going to end bad.

Cece Rider , 1 day ago

It always ends up with the middle east. Adelson/Bolton/Netanyahu Remember Israel is in bed with Saudi Arabia. Don Corleone Trump is just their puppet.

Bianca Dang , 1 day ago

The US must pay for the 1 million people they killed in Iraq

Jimbo Jones , 1 day ago

As it was when he was working the Bush puppet strings.

Bruce Gustafson , 1 day ago

Obama made so many enemies in the world, and then we get this cult in DC. Who are hell bent on supremacy of the world. Batshit crazy times we're witnessing.

PEACE & RESPECT , 23 hours ago

Little man Bolton tells lies about China. Bolton is Trump's nightmare.

Lord Papeles , 1 day ago

Well let's get ready for another 20 year war trying to bring "Democracy" or fighting "Terrorists" which will be paid for with U.S. tax dollars. Lets just open up the check book now and write one out to John Bolton so it can save everybody time.

areUaware , 1 day ago

The US government is a Satanic Cult!

twaters57 , 1 day ago

Trump drained the swamp and put the worst swamp creatures in his administration.

Bobby Chang , 1 day ago

and thinks the US is the master for all countries south of the border.

Cheryl Adams , 1 day ago

Bolton and his mustache finally found his place with unchecked power and the idiot Trump just follows and continue to spill his hate

[Apr 05, 2019] McAdams: Trump White House is a Cult under Bolton

Looks like Trump is a tenant of House of Bolton, not the owner of the White House ;-)
It always ends up with Adelson/Bolton/Netanyahu. Looks like Adelson is a new Don Corleone Trump is just their puppet.
Ilhan is right and DC is ZOGGED!
Notable quotes:
"... How is it that President Trump's national security advisor John Bolton seems to actually be running things and even over-riding his boss's foreign policy? ..."
"... It is similar to the role played by Bolton's ideological comrades in the run-up to the 2003 Iraq war: Keep control of the president and make sure he sees nothing that contradicts what is your desired policy: ..."
Apr 04, 2019 | ronpaulinstitute.org

Via RT Thursday April 4, 2019

How is it that President Trump's national security advisor John Bolton seems to actually be running things and even over-riding his boss's foreign policy?

As RPI Director Daniel McAdams tells Rick Sanchez of RT America, it's because he's frozen everyone else from the intelligence and national security community out and insists on controlling all information that gets to the president.

It is similar to the role played by Bolton's ideological comrades in the run-up to the 2003 Iraq war: Keep control of the president and make sure he sees nothing that contradicts what is your desired policy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQOcf0NAMMo

[Apr 04, 2019] As Trump rages over border, Kushner quietly plans legal immigration boost

Apr 04, 2019 | www.politico.com

Hardline activists are ready to oppose any move to expand immigration.

By ANITA KUMAR

Even as President Donald Trump threatens to shut down the southern border, his administration is quietly working on a plan to expand some forms of legal immigration into the U.S.

Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser, has been working for months on a proposal that could increase the number of low- and high-skilled workers admitted to the country annually, four people involved in the discussions told POLITICO.

The low-profile effort to allow more legal immigrants into the U.S. stands in stark contrast to Trump's increasingly dramatic efforts to curb illegal immigration, an issue he speaks about daily and describes as a national crisis. But Trump himself has publicly said he also supports higher levels of legal immigration, a priority generally backed by a business community short on skilled workers.

The effort began in January when Kushner started to convene a series of meetings with dozens of advocacy groups, including business and agriculture organizations. Some, though not all of them, openly support the expansion of legal immigration. It has continued in recent weeks with a smaller four-person White House working group led by Kushner and could generate a proposal for Congress by summer.

Trump personally tasked Kushner -- who successfully forged a December compromise on criminal justice reform but is still struggling to deliver a Middle East peace plan -- with the priority of legal immigration. But it is a daunting challenge, requiring legislation in an issue area that has confounded Congress in recent years.

[Mar 31, 2019] George Nader (an adviser to the crown prince of Abu Dhab): Nobody would even waste a cup of coffee on him if it wasn't for who he was married to

Notable quotes:
"... She suggests, "Kushner was increasingly caught up in his own mythology. He was the president's son-in-law, so he apparently thought he was untouchable." (Pg. 114) She notes, "allowing Kushner to work in the administration broke with historical precedent, overruling a string of Justice Department memos that concluded it was illegal for presidents to appoint relatives as White House staff." (Pg. 119) ..."
"... She observes, "Those first few days were chaotic for almost everyone in the new administration. A frantic Reince Priebus would quickly discover that it was impossible to impose any kind of order in this White House, in large part because Trump didn't like order. What Trump liked was having people fight in front of him and then he'd make a decision, just like he'd made snap decisions when his children presented licensing deals for the Trump Organization. This kind of dysfunction enabled a 'floater' like Kushner, whose job was undefined, to weigh in on any topic in front of Trump and have far more influence than he would have had in a top-down hierarchy." (Pg. 125) ..."
Mar 31, 2019 | www.amazon.com

Steven H Propp TOP 50 REVIEWER 5.0 out of 5 stars March 27, 2019

AN INFORMATIVE BOOK ABOUT THE PRESIDENT'S DAUGHTER AND SON-IN-LAW

Author Vicky Ward wrote in the Prologue to this 2019 book, "Donald Trump was celebrating being sworn in as president And the whole world knew that his daughter and son-in-law were his most trusted advisers, ambassadors, and coconspirators. They were an attractive couple---extremely wealthy and, now, extraordinarily powerful. Ivanka looked like Cinderella Ivanka and her husband swept onto the stage, deftly deflecting attention from Donald Trump's clumsy moves, as she had done do often over the past twenty years. The crowd roared in approval They were now America's prince and princess."

She notes, "Jared Kushner learned about the company [his father's] he would later run. Jared was the firm's most sheltered trainee. On his summer vacations, he'd go to work at Kushner Companies construction sites, maybe painting a few walls, more often sitting and listening to music No one dared tell him this probably would not give him a deep understanding of the construction process. But Charlie [Jared's father] doggedly groomed his eldest son for greatness, seeing himself as a Jewish version of Joseph Kennedy " (Pg. 17-18)

She states, "Ivanka had to fight for her father's attention and her ultimate role as the chief heir in his real estate empire When Donald Trump divorced her mother, Ivana she would go out of her way to see more of her father, not less she'd call him during the day and to her delight, he'd always take her call. (Trump's relationship with the two sons he had with Ivana, Don Jr. and Eric, was not nearly so close for years.) 'She was always Daddy's little girl,' said a family friend." (Pg. 32-33) She adds, "As Ivanka matured, physically and emotionally, her father talked openly about how impressed he was with her appearance---a habit he has maintained to this day." (Pg. 35)

She recounts, "at a networking lunch thrown by a diamond heir Jared was introduced to Ivanka Jared and Ivanka quickly became an intriguing gossip column item. They seemed perfectly matched But after a year of dating, they split in part because Jared's parents were dismayed at the idea of their son marrying outside the faith Soon after, Ivanka agreed to convert to Judaism Trump was said to be discombobulated by the enormity of what his daughter had done. Trump, a Presbyterian, who strikes no one as particularly religious, was baffled by his daughter's conversion 'Why should my daughter convert to marry anyone?'" (Pg. 51-53)

She observes, "Ivanka Trump was critical in promoting her husband as the smoother, softer counterpart to his father's volatility.. they could both work a room, ask after people's children, talk without notes, occasionally fake a sense of humor And unlike her husband, she seemed to have a ready command of figures and a detail, working knowledge of all the properties she was involved in Ivanka seemed to control the marital relationship, but she also played the part of devoted, traditional Orthodox wife." (Pg. 70-71)

Of 2016, she states, "No one thought Kushner or Ivanka believed in Trump's populist platform. 'The two of them see this as a networking opportunity,' said a close associate. Because Kushner and Ivanka only fully immersed themselves in Trump's campaign once he became the presumptive Republican nominee they had to push to assert themselves with the campaign staff Kushner quickly got control of the campaign's budget, but he did not have as much authority as he would have liked." (Pg. 74-75) She adds, "Ivanka appeared thrilled by her husband's rising prominence in her father's campaign. It was a huge change from the days when Trump had made belittling jokes about him. If Don Jr. and Eric were irked by the new favorite in Trump's court, they did not show it publicly." (Pg. 85)

She points out, "Trump tweeted an image [Hillary with a backdrop of money and a Star of David] widely viewed as anti-Semitic an 'Observer' writer, criticized Kushner in his own newspaper for standing 'silent and smiling in the background' while Trump made 'repeated accidental winks' to white supremacists Kushner wrote a response [that] insisted that Trump was neither anti-Semitic nor a racist Not all of Kushner's relatives appreciated his efforts to cover Trump's pandering to white supremacists." (Pg. 86-87) Later, she adds, "U.S.-Israel relations was the one political issue anyone in the campaign ever saw Kushner get worked up about." (Pg. 96)

On election night, "Kushner was shocked that Trump never mentioned him in his speech and would later tell people he felt slighted. He was going to find a way to get Trump to notice him more. Ivanka would help him the couple would become known as a single, powerful entity: 'Javanka.'" (Pg. 101) She suggests, "Kushner was increasingly caught up in his own mythology. He was the president's son-in-law, so he apparently thought he was untouchable." (Pg. 114) She notes, "allowing Kushner to work in the administration broke with historical precedent, overruling a string of Justice Department memos that concluded it was illegal for presidents to appoint relatives as White House staff." (Pg. 119)

She observes, "Those first few days were chaotic for almost everyone in the new administration. A frantic Reince Priebus would quickly discover that it was impossible to impose any kind of order in this White House, in large part because Trump didn't like order. What Trump liked was having people fight in front of him and then he'd make a decision, just like he'd made snap decisions when his children presented licensing deals for the Trump Organization. This kind of dysfunction enabled a 'floater' like Kushner, whose job was undefined, to weigh in on any topic in front of Trump and have far more influence than he would have had in a top-down hierarchy." (Pg. 125)

She recounts, "Another epic [Steve] Bannon/Ivanka fight came when bannon was in the Oval Office dining room while Trump was watching TV and eating his lunch Ivanka marched in, claiming Bannon had leaked H.R. McMaster's war plan [Bannon said] 'No, that was leaked by McMaster ' Trump [told her], 'Hey, baby, I think Steve's right on this one ' Bannon thought he would be fired on the spot. But he'd learned something important: much as Trump loved his daughter and hated saying no to her, he was not always controlled by her." (Pg. 138-139)

She notes, "[Ivanka] also found a way to be near Trump when he received phone calls from foreign dignitaries -- while she still owned her business. While Ivanka's behavior was irritating, Kushner was playing a game on a whole different level: he was playing for serious money at the time of the Qatari blockade Kushner's family had been courting the Qataris for financial help and had been turned town. When that story broke the blockade and the Trump administration's response to it suddenly all made sense." (Pg. 156)

Arguing that "Kushner was behind the decision to fire [FBI Director James] Comey" (Pg. 163-164), "Quickly, Trump realized he'd made an error, and blamed Kushner. It seemed clear to Trump's advisers, and not for the first time, that he wished Kushner were not in the White House. He said to Kushner in front of senior staff, 'Just go back to New York, man '" (Pg. 167) She adds, "[Ivanka's] reluctance to speak frankly to her father was the antithesis of the story she had been pushing in the media Ivanka had told Gayle King 'Where I disagree with my father, he knows it. And I express myself with total candor.'" (Pg. 170)

She states, "at the Group of 20 summit in Germany she briefly took her father's seat when he had to step out The gesture seemed to send the message that the U.S. government was now run on nepotism." (Pg. 182)

E-mails from George Nader [an adviser to Shiekh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi] "made it clear that Kushner's friends in the Gulf mocked him behind his back Nader wrote 'Nobody would even waste a cup of coffee on him if it wasn't for who he was married to.'" (Pg. 206)

She points out, "since October 2017, hundreds of children had been taken from their parents while attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border and detained separately news shows everywhere showed heartbreaking images of young children being detained. The next month, Ivanka posted on Instagram a photograph of herself holding her youngest child in his pajamas. Not for the first time, her tone-deaf social media post was slammed as being isolated in her elitist, insulated wealthy world On June 20, Trump signed an executive order that apparently ended the border separations. Minutes later, Ivanka finally spoke publicly on the issue Her tactic here was tell the public you care about an issue; watch silently while your father does the exact opposite; and when he moves a little, take all the credit." (Pg. 225)

She asserts, "Kushner's friendship with a Saudi crown prince was now under widespread scrutiny [because] Rather than expressing moral outrage over the cold-blooded murder of an innocent man [Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi], Kushner did what he always does in a crisis: he went quiet." (Pg. 232)

She concludes, "Ivanka Trump has made no secret of the fact that she wants to be the most powerful woman in the world. Her father's reign in Washington, D.C., is, she believes, the beginning of a great American dynasty Ivanka has been carefully positioning herself as [Trump's] political heir " (Pg. 236)

While not as "scandalous" as the book's subtitle might suggest, this is a very interesting book that will be of great interest to those wanting information about these crucial members of the Trump family and presidency.

[Mar 31, 2019] Jared Kushner Called Before Senate Intelligence Committee

Notable quotes:
"... "If true, these new reports raise grave questions about what derogatory information career officials obtained about Mr. Kushner to recommend denying him access to our nation's most sensitive secrets, why President Trump concealed his role in overruling that recommendation, why [former White House chief of staff John] Kelly and [former White House counsel Don] McGahn both felt compelled to document these actions, and why your office is continuing to withhold key documents and witnesses from this Committee," wrote Cummings. ..."
"... Since then, the White House has yet to release the documents, and Kushner has come under further scrutiny for allegedly discussing sensitive government matters over WhatsApp and private email. Cummings wrote another letter demanding documents related to Kushner's communication practices on March 21, 2019, threatening to subpoena if the White House fails to comply by April 1. ..."
"... During his period with top-security clearance, the President's son-in-law had access to the nation's most sensitive information. Like President Trump, Kushner did not put his assets in a blind trust, and he retains extensive real estate properties and substantial ownership of Kushner companies. Kushner Companies sought investment from Qatar in the family's heavily indebted 666 Fifth Avenue property (which has since been rescued by Brookfield Properties), which the Qataris denied, weeks before the Saudi and UAE blockade on the nation. ..."
"... In February 2019, a report titled "Whistleblowers Raise Grave Concerns with Trump Administration's Efforts to Transfer Sensitive Nuclear Technology to Saudi Arabia," House Democrats detailed a push by top Trump officials, including Kushner, to give Saudi Arabia technology to build nuclear power plants. According to the Intercept , the Saudi crown prince boasted to the Emirati prince he had Kushner "in his pocket." ..."
"... Although it appears Kushner may no longer have to worry about the Mueller investigation, the President's son-in law's financial conflicts of interest and foreign policy inexperience make him a dangerous liability to the national security of the United States, and evidence indicates he will remain under the scrutiny of the House Oversight Committee for the foreseeable future. ..."
Mar 30, 2019 | medium.com

Jared Kushner Called Before Senate Intelligence Committee "If true, these new reports raise grave questions about what derogatory information career officials obtained about Mr. Kushner to recommend denying him access to our nation's most sensitive secrets."

On March 28, 2019, the Senate Intelligence Committee called President Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner for a closed-door meeting. It was Kushner's second meeting in front of the panel, having previously testified about his contacts with Russians during the 2016 campaign in July, 2017.

Kushner has faced intense media scrutiny since his nomination, as the 38-year-old real estate developer and investor held no prior foreign policy experience at the time President Trump designated him as the administration's Middle East emissary. His failure to disclose numerous encounters with Russians he made during Trump's campaign, such as Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and banker Sergei Gorkov , fueled suspicions of collusion that have plagued his tenure.

It is unknown what was discussed in Kushner's most recent meeting with the Senate Intelligence Committee, but he later expressed hope the Mueller probe's conclusion would put an end to the suspicions. After his meeting with the Congressional Committee, Kushner gave Axios a statement:

"Today I voluntarily answered follow up questions with the Senate Committee on Intelligence to help them complete their investigation. Which they said would be soon. I hope my cooperation will help the country get the transparency it deserves and puts an end to these baseless accusations. It is time for Congress to complete its work, move on, and to turn its attention to the real problems facing Americans every day."

Jared Kushner's Access to Government Intel Raises Alarm

Intelligence and White House officials have expressed concern about granting Kushner access to government secrets in lieu of his failure to disclose his meetings with foreign contacts in his clearance application.

Reports that President Trump ordered his then-Chief of Staff, John Kelly, to override the misgivings of senior officials and approve Kushner's security clearance led to the House Oversight Committee demanding the White House release documents related to the clearances of top advisors. The committee's chairman, Representative Elijah Cummings (D-MD), wrote a letter to White House counsel Pat Cipollone, ordering the documents to be handed over by March 4, 2019.

"If true, these new reports raise grave questions about what derogatory information career officials obtained about Mr. Kushner to recommend denying him access to our nation's most sensitive secrets, why President Trump concealed his role in overruling that recommendation, why [former White House chief of staff John] Kelly and [former White House counsel Don] McGahn both felt compelled to document these actions, and why your office is continuing to withhold key documents and witnesses from this Committee," wrote Cummings.

Since then, the White House has yet to release the documents, and Kushner has come under further scrutiny for allegedly discussing sensitive government matters over WhatsApp and private email. Cummings wrote another letter demanding documents related to Kushner's communication practices on March 21, 2019, threatening to subpoena if the White House fails to comply by April 1.

During his period with top-security clearance, the President's son-in-law had access to the nation's most sensitive information. Like President Trump, Kushner did not put his assets in a blind trust, and he retains extensive real estate properties and substantial ownership of Kushner companies. Kushner Companies sought investment from Qatar in the family's heavily indebted 666 Fifth Avenue property (which has since been rescued by Brookfield Properties), which the Qataris denied, weeks before the Saudi and UAE blockade on the nation.

Jared Kushner's Cozy Relationship with Saudi Arabia, MBS

Kushner's financial conflicts of interest lead to serious national security concerns. Kushner has maintained a close relationship with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, whom he allegedly messages directly over WhatsApp .

In February 2019, a report titled "Whistleblowers Raise Grave Concerns with Trump Administration's Efforts to Transfer Sensitive Nuclear Technology to Saudi Arabia," House Democrats detailed a push by top Trump officials, including Kushner, to give Saudi Arabia technology to build nuclear power plants. According to the Intercept , the Saudi crown prince boasted to the Emirati prince he had Kushner "in his pocket."

In the report , the whistleblowers stated, "Strong private commercial interests have been pressing aggressively for the transfer of highly sensitive nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia." Around the same time, Brookfield Asset Management made a deal with the Kushner's to bail out the underwater 666 Fifth Avenue property; Brookfield announced the $4.6 billion purchase of Westinghouse Electric, a bankrupt nuclear power company. Westinghouse Electric has previously sought bids to develop atomic energy in the Saudi kingdom.

Although it appears Kushner may no longer have to worry about the Mueller investigation, the President's son-in law's financial conflicts of interest and foreign policy inexperience make him a dangerous liability to the national security of the United States, and evidence indicates he will remain under the scrutiny of the House Oversight Committee for the foreseeable future.

Originally published at citizentruth.org on March 30, 2019

[Mar 31, 2019] Trump family and Russian billionaires

Mar 31, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Pft , Mar 30, 2019 9:05:31 PM | link

Russiagate may be done but thats because it was defined improperly. Sometimes it helps to look back to get a big picture perspective

Starting in 1999, Putin enlisted two oligarchs Lev Leviev and Roman Abramovich, who would go on to become Chabad's biggest patrons worldwide, to create the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia under the leadership of Chabad rabbi Berel Lazar, who would come to be known as "Putin's rabbi."

Roman Abramovich is the owner of the Chelsea Football Club of the English Premier League. He was a victor (along with Paul Manafort's patron Oleg Deripaska) in the aluminum wars of the 1990s and reportedly the person who convinced Boris Yeltsin that Putin would be a proper successor.

Ivanka Trump is very close friends with Abramovich's wife , Dasha Zhukova. Zhukova reportedly attended the inauguration as Ivanka's personal guest. Leviev is the one with the closest links to the Trumps and Israel

It starts with Bayrock . This is the company that Donald Trump teamed up with to build his Trump Soho project. There were three main actors . One was convicted mob associate and FBI informant Felix Sater. Another was Tevfik Arif, a likely Russian intelligence connection who was once was arrested by the Turks . The third was the late Tamir Sapir, another man with ties to Russian intelligence.

The late billionaire Tamir Sapir, was born in the Soviet state of Georgia. Trump has called Sapir "a great friend." In December 2007, he hosted the wedding of Sapir's daughter, Zina, at Mar-a-Lago. The groom, Rotem Rosen, was the CEO of the American branch of Africa Israel, the Putin oligarch Leviev's holding company, and known as Leviev's right hand man.

As mentioned Leviev was one of two oligarch's who Putin had establish the "Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia" under the leadership of Chabad rabbi Berel Lazar, who would come to be known as 'Putin's rabbi.'" Sater, Sapier, Jared, Ivanka are all Chabad members and/or donors

Trump had business discussions in Moscow in 2013 about Moscow real estate projects with Agalarovs, Alex Sapir (son of Tamir Sapir, brother of Zina, and brother-in-law of Rotem Rosen.) and Rotem Rosen, a pair of New York-based Russian . This may also have been discussed during the June 2016 meeting in Trump Tower that was attended by Kushner, Manafort and Donald Trump Jr and a Russian lawyer associated with Fusion GPS (Steele dossier) and the Leviev linked Prevezon

Agalarov is a Moscow-based property developer who had won major contracts from Putin's government. He hosted Trump's 2013 Miss Universe contest at his concert hall in Moscow. He orchestrated the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting and formed a new American shell company a month beforehand with the help of the Russian lawyer who attended the meeting.

In 2015, Kushner and his family business, Kushner Cos., bought a portion of the New York Times building on West 43rd Street from Russian /Israeli real estate billionaire Lev Leviev for $295M, where $285M was borrowed from Deutsche Bank to complete the transaction, despite the 666 albatross hanging over Kushners head

Deutsche Bank and two companies tied to Leviev, Africa Israel Investments and Prevezon, have all recently been the subject of money laundering investigations. A laundering case against Prevezon was settled two months after Trump fired Bharara, with a $6M slap on the wrist settlement that raised some eyebrows.

As for 666, Kushner gets bailed out by Brookfield who has Qatar as its 2nd largest investor. But consider that at the same time they did this deal they also acquired Westinghouse Electric, a nuclear power company. Now members of the Trump administration propose selling nuclear power plants to Saudi Arabia. Interesting.

Can't seem to find a Putin/Russian oligarch connection although that's probably due to the fact you can't use anonymous shell companies to buy property in NYC any longer due to new rules by FinCEN

But so many conflict of interests here, Israel, China, Saudis, Russian oligarchs, etc and virtually no oversight or transparency. With twitter being used to manipulate markets one has to imagine rampant insider trading as well (hey guys, my tweets going out at 3 pm, get your trades in and remember my 5%).

[Mar 30, 2019] MIGA is action: the Colossal Blunder of Reneging on the JCPOA by Daniel Larison

Grey prostitute usually adopts pro-isreal position as for Iran deal. no suprose here. Why Trump admnistration did the same is an interesting question. Is this Kushner influnce? is this Trump jewesh ficnacier influnce? or Both?
Notable quotes:
"... As a nonproliferation agreement, the JCPOA continues to work as intended despite the active sabotage of the Trump administration. That is a testament to the value of the agreement and to the overwhelming international consensus in favor of it. The U.S. has stupidly and unnecessarily broken with that consensus for the sake of its obsession with hostility towards Iran. ..."
Mar 30, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com
tries to claim that reneging on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) has been good for the U.S.:

It's been nearly a year since Donald Trump made the decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal, to loud cries that it would bring nothing but woe to the United States and our interests in the Middle East.

So far, the result has been closer to the opposite.

Nuclear deal opponents always argue in bad faith, and Stephens' latest column is no exception. For starters, virtually no one said that reneging on the deal would bring "nothing but woe." It was nonetheless an irrational, costly decision whose costs continue to add up as time goes by. Some of the worst-case scenarios have not yet happened, but reneging on the deal has done nothing but harm U.S. interests and our relations with major allies. No one can point to any real gains for the U.S., and even by the Trump administration's own standards their Iran policy has failed to achieve anything. U.S. relations with European allies have come under significant strain, and their determination to sustain the deal has led them to create workarounds to allow legitimate trade with Iran to continue. Pressuring Iraq to join the anti-Iran sanctions has likewise strained relations with Baghdad and contributed to the backlash against the U.S. there.

Stephens applauds the damage that the reimposition of U.S. sanctions is doing to Iran's economy, but inflicting pain for its own sake is pointless cruelty. The U.S. gains nothing from this, and it imposes enormous costs on the Iranian people who bear most of the burden. The sanctions were originally created to pressure Iran into making the concessions on the nuclear issue that they have made. The sanctions cannot do anything except inflict damage on Iran's economy because Iran's government is already doing the things that were required to get them lifted. Strangling Iran's economy doesn't make the U.S. any safer, but it does make us seem treacherous and underhanded in our dealings with other states. Reneging on the JCPOA has inflicted diplomatic and political costs on the U.S. that make it more difficult for any other government to trust ours to honor its side of agreements, and it has made a mockery of our government's commitment to nonproliferation.

It needs to be emphasized here that all of the costs of reneging on the deal are purely self-inflicted. The president pandered to the ideologues and hard-liners that hated the deal from the beginning and made an unnecessary, irresponsible decision to give up on a successful agreement. Meanwhile, the vast majority of arms control and nuclear experts opposed the decision. All that the U.S. had to do to keep faith with Iran and the other parties was to lift sanctions and keep them lifted. It cost us nothing to do this, and it created an opening for reduced tensions and improved relations with Iran that stood to benefit both of our countries and the surrounding region. Throwing that away has gained the U.S. nothing, and it has isolated the U.S. internationally from almost all other governments that support the agreement. Any fair and honest reckoning of the costs and benefits of Trump's decision to renege would show that the U.S. is now in a worse and weaker position than it was before that decision. It is the definition of a foreign policy fiasco.

U.S. withdrawal has not caused the agreement to collapse yet, but that is only because all of the other parties to it have made concerted efforts to keep it alive in spite of completely unwarranted sanctions. Contrary to hawkish predictions that Iran would cheat on the agreement, Iran has fulfilled its obligations to the satisfaction of the IAEA for more than three years. Even though Iran has received very few of the promised benefits for complying with the agreement, Iran has done what it said it would do. That doesn't line up very well with the Iran hawks' usual picture of a fanatical government hell-bent on acquiring a nuke.

As a nonproliferation agreement, the JCPOA continues to work as intended despite the active sabotage of the Trump administration. That is a testament to the value of the agreement and to the overwhelming international consensus in favor of it. The U.S. has stupidly and unnecessarily broken with that consensus for the sake of its obsession with hostility towards Iran.

This bit may be the least credible part of Stephens' column:

The point isn't to punish Iran for punishment's sake. It's to create leverage for a better nuclear deal.

If unjustly reimposing sanctions on Iran was meant to "create leverage for a better nuclear deal," it has completely failed. Iran has no interest in renegotiating the agreement that it has honored from the start, and it has no reason to trust the government that just went back on its word that it will obtain sanctions relief by offering more concessions. Quitting agreements does not create additional leverage on the other parties to an agreement. It necessarily weakens the U.S. position by making our promises seem worthless. A "better" deal isn't possible, but then Iran hawks' interest in one has always been disingenuous. They have never wanted a "better" deal. They have wanted Iranian capitulation. That is reflected in the preposterous demands that Pompeo made last year. No Iranian government would ever agree to the vast majority of those demands, and they amount to abandoning its foreign policy and its nuclear program. Stephens marvels that "any of it should be controversial," which should tell you how clueless he is.

It's worth noting here that Stephens has been and still is one of the most fanatical opponents of the nuclear deal. When the P5+1 concluded the interim nuclear deal, the Joint Plan of Action (JPOA), in 2013, he asserted that forerunner to the JCPOA was "worse than Munich." Anyone who invoked Nazi appeasement in the context of negotiations for a nonproliferation agreement has no credibility to chide anyone else about anything related to foreign policy.

Stephens declares:

Non-nuclear states that sponsor terrorism and subscribe to millenarian ideologies should never have access to any part of the nuclear fuel cycle, ever.

Here he is falling back on an old, discredited trope of Iran as a "martyr-state" to support his fanatical position that Iran shouldn't have a nuclear program at all. Not only is the Iranian government not filled with "millenarian" zealots (they are interested in self-preservation and staying in power just like any regime), but Stephens ignores that Iran is entitled to possess and develop nuclear technology for peaceful purposes under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). If the U.S. seeks to deprive them of that access, they might end up choosing to go the North Korea route by leaving the treaty and developing nuclear weapons. That isn't the most likely outcome right now, but the more that the U.S. pressures Iran the greater their incentive to acquire a nuclear deterrent becomes.

Stephens concludes:

The Trump administration has succeeded in dramatically raising the costs to Iran for its sinister behavior, at no cost to the United States or our allies.

U.S.-European relations are frayed and probably worse than at any time since the Iraq war debate, and those strains have mostly been caused by the administration's bankrupt Iran policy. Our government has violated the JCPOA and the Security Council resolution that endorsed it, and that has both left the U.S. isolated on this issue and weakened our position internationally. Our allies have been forced to defend themselves against U.S. sanctions, and their efforts to circumvent the sanctions will have longer term negative consequences for U.S. foreign policy. The Iranian government's behavior has not changed significantly, and the costs borne by the Iranian people are very high. Our government is inflicting collective punishment of an entire nation for no good reason, and we are teaching another generation of Iranians to loathe and distrust us. Stephens can ignore reality if he wants, but the costs to the U.S. and our allies are real and growing.

Reneging on the nuclear deal was a destructive and stupid move, and the U.S. will be paying for it for years to come. If it hasn't led to the worst possible outcomes yet, that doesn't change the fact that it has been a colossal blunder and a huge own goal by the Trump administration. It isn't surprising that a hardened ideologue like Stephens defends such a bad decision, but his readers are poorly served by his propaganda masquerading as analysis.

Advertisement Posted in foreign policy , politics . Tagged Iran , Iraq , Bret Stephens , IAEA , Donald Trump , JCPOA , Mike Pompeo , JPOA . MORE FROM THIS AUTHOR Fortune Cookies, Propositions and Declarations Your Move, Berman Hide comments One Response to The Colossal Blunder of Reneging on the JCPOA

Gene Smolko March 30, 2019 at 2:15 pm

If the anti-deal hawks got their way, Iran would have the bomb by now

How this isn't obvious to them is beyond me, it makes me wonder if their actual plan was to ratchet up tensions so they would have no choice but to invade to stop Iran from getting the bomb. They would get to accomplish their true goal, regime change.

You also have those outraged that Obama 'gave' the Iranians billions. First off Obama gave them nothing, it was their money. Many of them know this but it sounds better to pretend it was US taxpayer dollars instead of Iranian money in frozen accounts. Then it seems they don't know how deals are supposed to work, you can't expect to get something it you offer nothing in return.

[Mar 29, 2019] Trump Supports Israel Sovereignty Over Golan, Aiding Netanyahu by Nick Wadhams and David Wainer

Notable quotes:
"... Netanyahu is scheduled to visit the White House next week ahead of his April 9 re-election vote. While he's officially coming for the AIPAC conference, an annual pro-Israel policy gathering, his visit will serve up excellent campaign material back home. He's certain to be photographed meeting Trump while his speech, delivered in his American-accented baritone, will get plenty of airtime in Israel. ..."
"... "What Trump is doing is totally gratuitous," said Martin Indyk, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel under President Bill Clinton. "He is intervening in an Israeli election for the sake of his friend Bibi Netanyahu, and in the process undermining Israel's chances of achieving peace with its neighbor Syria." ..."
"... Asked about the report, which dropped the previous use of the word "occupied" in reference to the Golan Heights, West Bank, and Gaza, Pompeo said the change in language was intentional. "It wasn't a mistake; it wasn't an error. It was done knowingly. We believe it's the most factual description that was appropriate for the report," he said. ..."
"... "I can say that all of you can imagine what would have happened if Israel were not in the Golan," Netanyahu said. "I think it's time the international community recognizes Israel's stay in the Golan, the fact that the Golan will always remain part of the state of Israel." ..."
"... Pompeo told reporters at a briefing in Kuwait on Wednesday that there had been no change in U.S. policy toward the Golan Heights. In a media roundtable on Thursday, he declined to say whether the U.S. was weighing whether to recognize Israel's annexation of the Golan. ..."
Mar 21, 2019 | www.bloomberg.com

Trump Supports Israel Sovereignty Over Golan, Aiding Netanyahu

President Donald Trump said it's time for the U.S. to "fully recognize" Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, a political gift to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu just weeks before a tough re-election vote.

The remark -- which would break with decades of U.S. policy -- could prove decisive in swaying Israeli voters just as Netanyahu faces corruption allegations that have marred his campaign. It is also likely to draw a rebuke from the international community, which never recognized Israel's sovereignty over the territory it captured in 1967.

"The message that President Trump has given the world is that America stands by Israel," Netanyahu said Thursday after Trump's tweet.

Trump's message came a day after Netanyahu, in a press briefing with Secretary of State Michael Pompeo in Jerusalem, called for the U.S. and the rest of the world to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. Israel extended its law to the area in 1981.

The future of the plateau, a scenic area containing important water sources, had long been considered a subject for negotiation in any potential peace agreement with Syria. Now, with Syria wracked by a civil war that includes support from Iran, Israel wants its control over the area to be recognized worldwide.

"I've been thinking about doing that for a long time," Trump said in an interview to be broadcast Friday on Fox Business Network's "Mornings With Maria." "It's been a very hard decision for every president, no president has done it. This is very much like Jerusalem, moving the embassy to Jerusalem -- I did that."

While the news was welcomed by most Israelis, some saw it as a cynical ploy to interfere in their election and help Netanyahu at a time when he's facing increasing scrutiny in a sprawling corruption probe. Merav Michaeli, a member of the opposition Labor party, said there's little national debate that the Golan should stay in Israeli hands.

It "only helps public opinion for Netanyahu," she added. "That's why it came now. And so it doesn't really benefit Israel now, it benefits Netanyahu."

Netanyahu is scheduled to visit the White House next week ahead of his April 9 re-election vote. While he's officially coming for the AIPAC conference, an annual pro-Israel policy gathering, his visit will serve up excellent campaign material back home. He's certain to be photographed meeting Trump while his speech, delivered in his American-accented baritone, will get plenty of airtime in Israel.

"What Trump is doing is totally gratuitous," said Martin Indyk, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel under President Bill Clinton. "He is intervening in an Israeli election for the sake of his friend Bibi Netanyahu, and in the process undermining Israel's chances of achieving peace with its neighbor Syria."

Trump's move may also give the president a political boost as he courts Jewish voters in the U.S.

The U.S. had signaled strongly in recent weeks it was ready to accept Israeli sovereignty. In an annual report on human rights released last week, the State Department referred to the Golan Heights, the West Bank and Gaza as "Israeli-controlled," not "Israeli-occupied."

Asked about the report, which dropped the previous use of the word "occupied" in reference to the Golan Heights, West Bank, and Gaza, Pompeo said the change in language was intentional. "It wasn't a mistake; it wasn't an error. It was done knowingly. We believe it's the most factual description that was appropriate for the report," he said.

American support for Israel has strengthened under Trump, who moved the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in 2018 and backed out of the nuclear agreement his predecessor Barack Obama negotiated with Iran, a cherished goal of Netanyahu.

Saeb Erekat, a senior Palestinian official, said Trump's move would destabilize the region.

"I can say that all of you can imagine what would have happened if Israel were not in the Golan," Netanyahu said. "I think it's time the international community recognizes Israel's stay in the Golan, the fact that the Golan will always remain part of the state of Israel."

The U.S. recognition underscores the changing reality on the ground, as the chances of Israel returning the northern territory to Syria diminished.

Pompeo told reporters at a briefing in Kuwait on Wednesday that there had been no change in U.S. policy toward the Golan Heights. In a media roundtable on Thursday, he declined to say whether the U.S. was weighing whether to recognize Israel's annexation of the Golan.

"The administration's considering lots of things always, and I try to make sure we get to answers before we talk

[Mar 29, 2019] Initial hopes on Trump attacking neoliberalism proved to be illusions. He is a Republican Obama by Paul Craig Roberts

That was written in March 2017. Looks like Paul Craig Roberts was completely detached from reality
Notable quotes:
"... By standing up for Americans, Trump alienated the global corporations, their executives and shareholders, all of whom benefit from stealing the economic life of Americans and producing abroad where labor and regulatory costs are lower. Neoliberal junk economists describe this labor arbitrage, which reduces the real incomes of the American labor force, as the beneficial working of free trade. ..."
"... These offshoring firms not only have destroyed the economic prospects of millions of Americans, but also have destroyed the payroll tax base of Social Security and Medicare, and the tax base of local and state governments, with the consequence that numerous pension systems are on the verge of failure. The New York Teamsters Road Carriers Local 707 Pension Fund has just failed. This failure, experts predict, is the beginning of a tsunami that will spread into municipal and state pension systems. ..."
"... Once Trump put Flynn's blood in the water, he set the situation for the sacrifice of other of his appointees, ending with himself. At the present time, "the Russian connection" black mark is operating against Trump's Attorney General, Jeff Sessions. If Sessions falls, Trump is next. ..."
"... Despite the facts, the Washington Post, New York Times, CNN and all the rest of the CIA's media whores are consciously and intentionally misrepresenting the facts. Americans do not need any more evidence that the entirety of the American media is totally devoid of integrity and respect for truth. The American media is a collection of whores who lie for a living. The presstitutes are despicable, the scum of the earth. ..."
"... The real question is how has contact with Russian government officials become criminalized, grounds for removing a National Security Adviser, an Attorney General, and impeaching a President himself. President John F. Kennedy had ongoing contact with Khrushchev, the head of the Soviet government, in order to resolve the Cuban/Turkish missile crisis without nuclear war. President Nixon had ongoing contact with the Russians in order to achieve SALT I and the anti-ballistic missile treaty. President Carter had ongoing contact with Russians in order to achieve SALT II. President Reagan worked with the Russian leader in order to end the Cold War. I know. I was there. ..."
"... Dear reader, ask yourself, how did communications with Russians in the interest of peace and the reduction of tensions become a criminal act? Have laws been passed that it is forbidden for US officials to speak with Russian officials? Are you so utterly stupid that a presstitute media that has never in your entire life told you anything that was truthful can convince you that those who seek to avoid a conflict between thermo-nuclear powers are "Russian agents"? ..."
"... The entirety of the world has been put on the knife edge of existence by the arrogance, stupidity, and hubris of the neoconservative pursuit of American world hegemony. The neoconservative ideology is perfect cover for the material interest of the military/security Deep State that is driving the world to destruction. ..."
"... W Bush: "Dad, what's a neocon?" HW Bush: "You want names or description?" W: "Description." HW: "Israel." ..."
"... "To see who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize." -Voltaire ..."
"... Hint: If you criticize them, you're called an anti-Semite. And they're not even Semites. ..."
"... Insouciant is merely Paul Craig Roberts way of registering his extreme disgust, being a gentlemen, unlike me, he doesn't use other, more crude adjectives .. ..."
"... What we are witnessing is calculated, but is driven by desperation.. Trump has resources now that he did not have as a candidate, and he is using them. Yes, it is taking longer than we hoped, but the progressives are doing everything possible to slow if not stop him. I seriously doubt any president has faced such resistance before. We still don't know the story behind Flynn. He surely knew his phones were tapped and is surely smart enough to know they would leak it. And, while he lost his title, he is still there with his team. ..."
"... No, because if he gets too close to anything important his family members start dropping dead. He knows this... he knew it before he ran. If he goes after the rothchild-backed cabal he gets dead. ..."
"... It's war and there is no going back. Trump has the will and the resources, so all we can do is support where possible....and hope. ..."
"... The public does know what is going on. Nobody is being fooled. The problem is that the press presents the narrative (often implicitly) that gives the impression PCR is conveying here. ..."
Mar 04, 2017 | www.zerohedge.com

Via Paul Craig Roberts

The question in the title is V.I. Lenin's question. His answer was to create a revolutionary "vanguard" to spread revolutionary ideas among the workers, the economic class that Karl Marx had declared to be the class rising to the ascendency of political power. Finally, democracy, frustrated by upper class interests in its earlier manifestations, would become reality. The workers would rule.

Given the presence of evil and human failing, it did not work out in that way. But Lenin's question remains a valid one. Americans whose economic life and prospects for their children have been destroyed by the offshoring of American manufacturing and tradable professional skills jobs, such as software engineering, answered the question by electing Donald Trump.

The Americans, dispossessed by the offshoring corporations, elected Trump, because Trump was the only American running for a political office who called attention to the problem and declared his intention to fix it.

By standing up for Americans, Trump alienated the global corporations, their executives and shareholders, all of whom benefit from stealing the economic life of Americans and producing abroad where labor and regulatory costs are lower. Neoliberal junk economists describe this labor arbitrage, which reduces the real incomes of the American labor force, as the beneficial working of free trade.

These offshoring firms not only have destroyed the economic prospects of millions of Americans, but also have destroyed the payroll tax base of Social Security and Medicare, and the tax base of local and state governments, with the consequence that numerous pension systems are on the verge of failure. The New York Teamsters Road Carriers Local 707 Pension Fund has just failed. This failure, experts predict, is the beginning of a tsunami that will spread into municipal and state pension systems.

When you add up the external costs of jobs offshoring that are imposed on Americans, the costs far exceed the value of the profits that flow to the One Percent. Clearly, this is an intolerable situation.

Dispossessed Americans rose up. They ignored the presstitute media, or perhaps were driven to support Trump by the hostility of the media. Trump was elected by dispossessed America, by the working class.

The working class is out of favor with the elite liberal/progressive/left which abhors the working class as racist, misogynist, homophobic, gun nuts who oppose transgendered toilet facilities. Thus, the working class, and their chosen representative, Donald Trump, are under full assault by the presstitutes. "Trump Must Go" is their slogan.

And well he might. Trump, in a fit of stupidity, dismissed his National Security Advisor, Gen. Flynn, because Flynn did what he should have done and spoke with the Russian ambassador in order to avoid a Russian response to Obama's provocation of expelling Russian diplomats at Christmas.

Russians have been demonized and ascribed demonic powers. If you speak to a Russian, you fall under suspicion and become a traitor to your country. This is the story according to the CIA, the Democratic Party, the military/security complex, and the presstitute media.

Once Trump put Flynn's blood in the water, he set the situation for the sacrifice of other of his appointees, ending with himself. At the present time, "the Russian connection" black mark is operating against Trump's Attorney General, Jeff Sessions. If Sessions falls, Trump is next.

Let's be clear. As a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sessions met with the Russian ambassador, just as he met with a number of other countries' ambassadors. There is nothing unusual or surprising about a US senator meeting with foreign diplomatic representatives.

Those who accuse Sessions of lying are misrepresenting the facts. Sessions met with ambassadors in his capacity as a US Senator, not in his capacity as a Trump representative. As a former US Senate staffer, I can attest that it is perfectly normal for US Senators to meet with diplomats. John McCain and Lindsey Graham even fly to the Middle East to meet with terrorists.

Despite the facts, the Washington Post, New York Times, CNN and all the rest of the CIA's media whores are consciously and intentionally misrepresenting the facts. Americans do not need any more evidence that the entirety of the American media is totally devoid of integrity and respect for truth. The American media is a collection of whores who lie for a living. The presstitutes are despicable, the scum of the earth.

The real question is how has contact with Russian government officials become criminalized, grounds for removing a National Security Adviser, an Attorney General, and impeaching a President himself. President John F. Kennedy had ongoing contact with Khrushchev, the head of the Soviet government, in order to resolve the Cuban/Turkish missile crisis without nuclear war. President Nixon had ongoing contact with the Russians in order to achieve SALT I and the anti-ballistic missile treaty. President Carter had ongoing contact with Russians in order to achieve SALT II. President Reagan worked with the Russian leader in order to end the Cold War. I know. I was there.

But if President Trump wants to defuse the extremely dangerous tensions that the reckless Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama regimes have resurrected with a powerful thermo-nuclear state that only wants peace with the US, President Trump and any of his appointees who spoke to a Russian are unfit for office! This madness is the position of the idiot liberal/progressive/left, the CIA, the Democratic Party, the right-wing morons of the Republican Party such as Lindsey Graham and John McCain, and the two-bit whores that comprise the Western media.

Dear reader, ask yourself, how did communications with Russians in the interest of peace and the reduction of tensions become a criminal act? Have laws been passed that it is forbidden for US officials to speak with Russian officials? Are you so utterly stupid that a presstitute media that has never in your entire life told you anything that was truthful can convince you that those who seek to avoid a conflict between thermo-nuclear powers are "Russian agents"?

I have no doubt that the vast bulk of Western populations are insouciant. But if there is no intelligence and awareness left anywhere in the population, and most certainly there is none whatsoever in the governments of the West or in the Western media or the Identity Politics of the liberal/progressive/left, then don't expect to be alive much longer.

The entirety of the world has been put on the knife edge of existence by the arrogance, stupidity, and hubris of the neoconservative pursuit of American world hegemony. The neoconservative ideology is perfect cover for the material interest of the military/security Deep State that is driving the world to destruction.

BabaLooey , Mar 3, 2017 10:14 PM

Trump needs to tighten up. Get even tougher than he is now. Go out and do more speeches. Take the message STRAIGHT to the masses.........unfiltered. LET the MSM "fake" that.

kavlar -> BabaLooey , Mar 3, 2017 10:24 PM

W Bush: "Dad, what's a neocon?" HW Bush: "You want names or description?" W: "Description." HW: "Israel."

The neocons are Israel-first fanatics. They did 9/11 and support all terrorist groups. And because Russia came to Syria's aid, they're after Russia as well.

Stuck on Zero -> kavlar , Mar 3, 2017 10:25 PM

If you want to see just how powerful the neo-con deep state is just declare a general strike for all the people doing real work.

lexxus -> Stuck on Zero , Mar 3, 2017 10:29 PM

The deep state is the money power. http://biblicisminstitute.wordpress.com/2015/07/28/how-the-ashkenazi-jew...

Mano-A-Mano -> lexxus , Mar 3, 2017 10:32 PM

"To see who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize." -Voltaire

Hint: If you criticize them, you're called an anti-Semite. And they're not even Semites.

SofaPapa -> Mano-A-Mano , Mar 3, 2017 10:41 PM

In Dr Strangelove, the mindblowingly stupid response of the characters played by the generals saying "attack Russia no matter what they do" was portrayed as a joke, and the audience got it. Nobody could be that stupid, so it looked funny.

We are in desperately sick times when the attitude displayed by those comedically-stupid characters has become our official policy and our propaganda.

Let's pray the American people are not yet completely stupid, and that there are still enough who see this insanity for the immediate and extreme danger that it is.

Pray hard.

xythras -> DownWithYogaPants , Mar 3, 2017 11:47 PM

Drain The SWAMP -- Starting with Schumer

Pedophile Enabler? Chuck Schumer Helped Accused Child Sex Abuser into US

http://dailywesterner.com/news/2017-03-03/pedophile-enabler-chuck-schume...

# PizzaGate

Byte Me -> xythras , Mar 4, 2017 6:38 AM

Drain The SWAMP -- Starting with Obama, Soros and The Clintons

The purpose of all of this "RussiaDidIt" bollocks has long been postulated as having the purpose of starting the Last War. The question arises: "Who benefits?" (Ordinarily, no-one 'benefits' and only morons think that a 'benefit' could arise)

But, just for a moment, turn it on its head and ask the counter-question: "Who benefits the least ?"

Pretty obviously, the USA and the Russian Federation come out badly. Assume the impossible: that it doesn't spread out and result in planetdeath.

Who just (quite coincidentally - of course) had its main rivals effectively eliminated? Quietly. Efficiently. Anonymously...

Who, currently quietly colonizing Africa for its resorce base, might now divert their attentions to the (much greater and closer) resource base to their North, West and East, ostensibly in the name of "reconstruction?"

Naturally, it's just a coincidence that a large slice of Global Manufacturing has recently been transferred to that country (recent decades)

So congrats are due to the DemoCrud skum who perpetrated this crime against humanity as the willing "useful idiots" of the PuppetMasters. Burn in Hell you motherfukkerz.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ah1JM9mf60

grizfish -> Byte Me , Mar 4, 2017 1:47 PM

The only way to "drain the swamp" is to eliminate the brainwashed masses who enable the warmongering globalist neocons. Without the democratic partys' tens of million sheeple, the power hungry devils like Soros, the Clintons, McCain, Pelosi, Feinstein, and the rest of the "perverted elite" would have no power.

Having considered this FACT, I have decided not to oppose their quest to start a global thermonuclear war with Russia. I saw war up close and personal in Viet-Nam. I am 71 years old, so not much time remaining to waste in a political battle against the snowflakes here in Californicate. I feel confident that I have a better chance of surviving than they do.

I have also decided to sit back, with my personal defenses in hand, and watch them experience, up close and personal for themselves, the horrors of war like they are presently inflicting on the mid-eastern countries. The children of these despots, if they survive, will finally witness proof that their parents are the cause of their misery.

Then, and only then, will the survivors be able to reconstruct toward a peaceful world.

Giant Meteor -> DownWithYogaPants , Mar 4, 2017 1:50 AM

Insouciant adjective

1. free from concern, worry, or anxiety; carefree; nonchalant.

I agree, we're way past that ... Robert's knows this , all too well ..

Insouciant is merely Paul Craig Roberts way of registering his extreme disgust, being a gentlemen, unlike me, he doesn't use other, more crude adjectives ..

I cut him slack on his overuse of the word insouciant, because it would just seem so out of place substituting instead, "fucking assholes," for every place it is prominently used in his writing.

I mean can you imagine?

No, I'm glad he's more refined than me. Makes for a more interesting and gentile world.

Paper Mache -> SofaPapa , Mar 4, 2017 8:52 AM

Hahaa Dr Strangelove. Strange movie, for even stranger times

"They have neither the time, the training, nor the inclination for strategic thought. I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids."

TDK -> kavlar , Mar 4, 2017 3:45 AM

The Right wing Neo-cons and the Right Wing media were always a match made in heaven.

Oldwood -> BabaLooey , Mar 3, 2017 10:28 PM

What we are witnessing is calculated, but is driven by desperation.. Trump has resources now that he did not have as a candidate, and he is using them. Yes, it is taking longer than we hoped, but the progressives are doing everything possible to slow if not stop him. I seriously doubt any president has faced such resistance before. We still don't know the story behind Flynn. He surely knew his phones were tapped and is surely smart enough to know they would leak it. And, while he lost his title, he is still there with his team.

Everything is obvious now and I think this is what Trump has been goading them into. Putting blood in the water to draw the sharks to the surface. We will see.

fbazzrea -> Oldwood , Mar 3, 2017 10:48 PM

i hope you're right. i keep wanting to think he's a clever fox but the acceleration of events is mind-boggling. the liberal onslaught is from all directions and relentless. i pray he's able to withstand their attacks and counter with an epic T-Day rout--one for the history books--that exposes and annihilates the seditious traitors in the world of public opinion, giving him political capital to rid our nation of the unconstitutional Patriot Act and Big Brother's illegal 4th Amendment violations of illegal search and seizure.

it's hard to keep the faith right now... i wanna believe he's got the wherewithall to pull this off. if i get weak and shout for quick solutions, just downvote my stupid butt bigly.

crossroaddemon -> Oldwood , Mar 3, 2017 11:34 PM

No, because if he gets too close to anything important his family members start dropping dead. He knows this... he knew it before he ran. If he goes after the rothchild-backed cabal he gets dead.

Give up guys... there's no winning this. The sooner we accept this the sooner we can maybe fucking DO something.

Oldwood -> crossroaddemon , Mar 4, 2017 9:07 AM

It's war and there is no going back. Trump has the will and the resources, so all we can do is support where possible....and hope.

new game -> Oldwood , Mar 4, 2017 9:40 AM

i think you are suggesting first touch/listen of utah spying. if true, step one. step 2 is to take down the main operatives and bring them down with all the resources of the justice dept.

this is assuming that all parties stay in the confines of law...hmmm

Chris Dakota -> BabaLooey , Mar 3, 2017 10:28 PM

Trump is following my advise.

Pluto gives you enough rope to hang yourself.

He is letting them.

My God no sane person will vote for this crew ever again.

chubbar -> BabaLooey , Mar 3, 2017 10:36 PM

Exactly, Trump needs to go on TV and speak plainly, layout the thesis as outlined in this article. Make sure the country knows EXACTLY what is going on and what the stakes are. Most libtards don't have one fucking clue how they are being used by these sick fucks. Get everything he knows and what he SUSPECTS, even with no direct evidence out into the general public. Time is running short.

HedgeJunkie -> chubbar , Mar 4, 2017 1:03 AM

I don't twit. I don't even 'follow' a twit. I don't know how.

But I'm pretty sure this sort of message would take a hell of a lot more characters than, what is it, 140?

That means he would need some other means to deliver a complicated message that by-passes an inherently hostile media yet still gets viewed by tens of millions.

Anyone have ideas on that?

leeteam -> BabaLooey , Mar 3, 2017 10:51 PM

You are absolutely right, "Take the message STRAIGHT to the masses.........unfiltered."

Now is the time for a TRUMP Network. Daily briefings directly to the people.

skunzie , Mar 3, 2017 10:17 PM

Couldn't agree more. I fail to fathom how meeting with Russian diplomats constitutes any type of crime. That's what diplomats do for God's sake. Wake up people before it's too late.

Future Jim , Mar 3, 2017 10:17 PM

So it's all the Neocons ... No need to look anywhere else ...

The psyop is strong in this one.

Implied Violins -> Future Jim , Mar 3, 2017 10:43 PM

Ah, but everything PCR says is true. It's what he doesn't say that gives away the lie.

All of his articles demonize the west (and he's right). But he's deliberately not looking at the higher dynamics of this globalist, central bank-led kabuki theater.

fbazzrea -> Implied Violins , Mar 3, 2017 10:55 PM

But he's deliberately not looking...

ah, but i disagree. PCR spares not the higher powers. this is but one article. he hones in on them all.

Implied Violins -> fbazzrea , Mar 3, 2017 11:04 PM

I think he's a 'gatekeeper' who's job is to point out the evils of the west and make the east look good in comparison, so that when the 'reset' comes people will buy into the globalist one world currency that will be offered.

I've never seen him talk disparagingly about either China or Russia or the BRICS. Certainly he has mentioned the FED and the IMF, but not the big one - the BIS - that I have seen. And until he does, he's just another Rothschild/Rockefeller plant to me.

fbazzrea -> Implied Violins , Mar 3, 2017 11:26 PM

i subscribe to his donations-based newsletter. you probably do too but just in case, here's his homepage.

http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/category/articles/

he takes on the CIA, State Department, Pentagon, NATO, liberals, Ruling Establishment, Obama the War Criminal Butcherer of Women and Children, Kissinger, pretty much everybody. i agree he's not a Russiaphobe, thankfully someone's got a balanced position.

anyway... we'll have to agree to disagree. i believe he's a patriot true blue... errr, red. nope. red, white and blue.

crossroaddemon -> Implied Violins , Mar 3, 2017 11:36 PM

I agree. Any political pundit as highly placed as him who isn't screaming bloody murder about 9/11 is a plant by default.

fbazzrea -> crossroaddemon , Mar 4, 2017 12:05 AM

he's an economist. that's like accusing Stockman of being a plant. it's just beyond their area of expertise and interest.

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

for example, here's a 2002 article where he examines the Soviet Union's economic shortcomings.

http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2002/10/07/my-time-with-soviet-economics-2/

it's nothing to me and i'm not trying to defend him. i just think he's not what you suggest. professionals feel responsible for their words and only write about what they know. we can all speculate about 9/11 but without launching our own investigation, it's just "talk." and at PCR and Stockman's level, they refrain from flapping their lips to hear themselves speak, metaphorically.

anyway...

namaste

Implied Violins -> fbazzrea , Mar 4, 2017 12:33 AM

IF you are really open-minded, I'll just leave this here for your perusal:

http://redefininggod.com/2015/05/globalist-agenda-watch-2015-update-24-g...

From the article:

> "He is a former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy.

> He is a former editor at the Wall Street Journal.

> He was the "first occupant of the William E. Simon Chair for Economic Policy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies [CSIS], then part of Georgetown University." It's worth noting that Georgetown is a Jesuit institution, and the Board of Trustees of CSIS includes Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and representatives of Exxon Mobil, Boeing, Coca Cola, AIG, GlaxoSmithKline, and Morgan Stanley (to name a few).

Looking at the high positions this guy has held in the Washington/Wall Street Establishment, ask yourself this: "Is PCR really going against all of his lifelong associates or is he simply carrying water for them like he always has?" "

fbazzrea -> Implied Violins , Mar 4, 2017 2:24 AM

i consider myself open-minded and reviewed your link.

as far as the 3 bullet points the author suggests condemn PCR:

  1. Austrian economics are largely followed by most conservative economists as opposed to Keynesian.
  2. I would also argue the American govt pursues global hegemony, i.e., an American empire
  3. Who among us would not believe there is widespread incompetence in DC? Would anyone use the term "competent" with Obama, other than describing his knack for telling untruths and perhaps killing innocent Near East women and children?

He was former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy under Reagan

A strong critic of the Bush (and later Obama ) administrations' handling of the War on Terror , he has taken positions strongly at odds with mainstream politicians: harshly criticising the ineffectiveness, severity and high rates of incarceration associated with the War on Drugs , excessive police violence and use of SWAT teams against civilians. He has criticised the law and order politics and congressional approval of increased government surveillance associated with the War on Terror age, which he views as fundamental threats to the civil liberties and Right to Privacy enshrined in the US constitution, opening the way for an oligarchic police state to be imposed upon the US population... -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Craig_Roberts

sorry, i just don't see it. as far as his association with the WSJ and Georgetown Univ, that would pretty much be the aspirations of most journalists. and lastly, here are the closing statements from his newsletter yesterday:

The voice here at this website, my voice, provides perspectives that permit escape from the Matrix, but it depends on your support. As March is upon us, so is my quarterly request for your support. So far, we have both kept our word. You have supported the site, and I have continued to ruin my reputation in Washington by writing explanations that are unpopular in the ruling circles.

I am prepared to fight for our lives, but I cannot do it without you .-- http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2017/03/02/can-truth-prevail-paul-craig-...

but even more than that, i read his articles and take what i want and discard the rest. no one is mind controlling me. can't be brainwashed. got to have a brain first. (;

Elco the Consti... -> Future Jim , Mar 4, 2017 2:44 AM

This quote was setting off sirens in my mind:

"I have no doubt that the vast bulk of Western populations are insouciant. But if there is no intelligence and awareness left anywhere in the population, and most certainly there is none whatsoever in the governments of the West or in the Western media or the Identity Politics of the liberal/progressive/left, then don't expect to be alive much longer."

The public does know what is going on. Nobody is being fooled. The problem is that the press presents the narrative (often implicitly) that gives the impression PCR is conveying here.

So is PCR part of the problem?

[Mar 29, 2019] Struggling US Gives Israel Largest Aid Package Ever by legitgov

So aid will flow till at least 2027
Notable quotes:
"... By many yardsticks, Israeli citizens enjoy higher living standards than US citizens. ..."
"... President Obama next week is scheduled to sign the most lavish foreign aid package in the country's history - $3.1 billion in military assistance to Israel - raising an urgent question: can the U.S. afford it? ..."
"... The United States already transfers $3.1 billion in taxpayer money to Israel every year, far more than any other country, but the deal that will be signed into law next week will guarantee foreign aid to the country until the year 2027, a decade after Obama has left office. ..."
Aug 03, 2016 | www.legitgov.org

Struggling U.S. Gives Israel Largest Aid Package Ever | 01 Aug 2016 |

By many yardsticks, Israeli citizens enjoy higher living standards than US citizens. With more unemployed people than at any time in U.S. history,

President Obama next week is scheduled to sign the most lavish foreign aid package in the country's history - $3.1 billion in military assistance to Israel - raising an urgent question: can the U.S. afford it?

The United States already transfers $3.1 billion in taxpayer money to Israel every year, far more than any other country, but the deal that will be signed into law next week will guarantee foreign aid to the country until the year 2027, a decade after Obama has left office.

[Mar 28, 2019] Both Clinton and Trump were close to Epstein. To me this smells like there was a bi-partisan consensus to bury Lolita Express scandal

Notable quotes:
"... "I've known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy," Trump said of Epstein during a 2002 interview with New York magazine. "He's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side." ..."
"... "How would he know that?" he said of Trump's acknowledgement of Epstein's penchant for young women. The interview came nearly six years before Epstein's secret sex life exploded into public view when the money manager pleaded guilty to Florida charges of procuring and soliciting a minor for prostitution. "Why would he make a joke like that?" the West Palm Beach attorney asked. ..."
"... Bill has frequent flier points on Lolita Express. He had a 14yr.old toy on the island and the flight logs can prove his attendance. ..."
"... "The Government aligned themselves with Epstein, working against his victims, for 11 years..." ..."
"... THE SAME can be said for this: "The Government aligned themselves with APARTHEID Israhell, working against their Palestinians victims, for over 70 years... " ..."
"... Epstein has dirt on EVERYONE ... If he ever gets in a legitimate court room? - many, many, shitty people will be in trouble ... GOP and Democrat. And Trump? Acosta is in his admin, right? Or, he didn't fire the scum yet? And when is Hillary going to jail? ..."
"... I assume MOSSAD & friends will have to pull some very fancy rabbits out of their hat to get this buried again. The $wamp can't afford to have him cooperating, so I'm guessing Epstein will have to 'retire' to Tel-Aviv - or have an accident/become 'depressed, etc.' ..."
"... Hastert mentioned in WikiLeaks: https://wearechange.org/disgraced-house-speaker-pedophile-dennis-hastert/ As you dig into these stories, one singular theory emerges again and again: Sexual deviants and psychos have been groomed for office because they are easier to blackmail and control. ..."
Feb 23, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Judge Rules Plea Deal For Orgy Island Billionaire Broke Federal Law

youshallnotkill , 1 hour ago link

Both Clinton and Trump were close to Epstein. To me this smells like there was a bi-partisan consensus to bury this, and only now that the Clintons are no longer dominating the Democrat party, do we get some results.

While Trump has recently distanced himself from Epstein, a 64-year-old financier, it wasn't always that way.

"I've known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy," Trump said of Epstein during a 2002 interview with New York magazine. "He's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side."

Attorney Spencer Kuvin, one of dozens of lawyers who successfully sued Epstein on behalf of roughly 30 women who claimed he lured them to his Palm Beach mansion for sexually-charged massages when they were as young as 14, said he always found the comment curious.

"How would he know that?" he said of Trump's acknowledgement of Epstein's penchant for young women. The interview came nearly six years before Epstein's secret sex life exploded into public view when the money manager pleaded guilty to Florida charges of procuring and soliciting a minor for prostitution. "Why would he make a joke like that?" the West Palm Beach attorney asked.

SOURCE: https://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/20170512/will-president-trump-be-used-as-witness-in-sex-offender-epstein-case

Justin Case , 1 hour ago link

Bill has frequent flier points on Lolita Express. He had a 14yr.old toy on the island and the flight logs can prove his attendance.

zeezrom2point0, 2 hours ago link

Be nice if someone found the guest list because Bill Clinton wouldn't be able to kill that many people to cover it up. It'd be sweet if they found evidence that Trump went, because he definitely did. He's probably the one to name it "Lolita Express."...no, that was probably Bill.

TeraByte , 2 hours ago link

Manford´s life time vs a slap on the wrist. I does not matter, what you do, but whom you know.

loop , 2 hours ago link

"The Government aligned themselves with Epstein, working against his victims, for 11 years..."

THE SAME can be said for this: "The Government aligned themselves with APARTHEID Israhell, working against their Palestinians victims, for over 70 years... "

WARNING: Graphic Images

DFGTC , 2 hours ago link

Epstein has dirt on EVERYONE ... If he ever gets in a legitimate court room? - many, many, shitty people will be in trouble ... GOP and Democrat. And Trump? Acosta is in his admin, right? Or, he didn't fire the scum yet? And when is Hillary going to jail?

William Dorritt , 2 hours ago link


Billionaire Palm Beach serial sex offender allowed to serve time in luxurious milieu | Fred Grimm

... ... ...

https://www.sun-sentinel.com/opinion/fl-op-col-fred-grimm-jeffrey-epste ...
2 of 2 2/7/2019, 10:41 AM

4 wheel drift , 3 hours ago link

The ruling comes after Senators on the Judiciary Committee asked that the DOJ open an investigation into the deal, which was offered at a time when Robert Mueller was running the FBI .

LOLOLOL.... THAT explains a lot...

******* criminals the entire lot of them

Baron Samedi , 3 hours ago link

I assume MOSSAD & friends will have to pull some very fancy rabbits out of their hat to get this buried again. The $wamp can't afford to have him cooperating, so I'm guessing Epstein will have to 'retire' to Tel-Aviv - or have an accident/become 'depressed, etc.'

I will further bet that JE has had adequate notice of all this to be getting out of the USA to Balfourstan - a non-extradition country - ASAP.

Reaper , 3 hours ago link

The DOJ can prosecute now for the conspiracy of prosecutors and Epstein.

https://www.justice.gov/jm/criminal-resource-manual-923-18-usc-371-conspiracy-defraud-us

dirty fingernails , 3 hours ago link

Don't hold your breath.

William Dorritt , 3 hours ago link
Hastert mentioned in WikiLeaks: https://wearechange.org/disgraced-house-speaker-pedophile-dennis-hastert/ As you dig into these stories, one singular theory emerges again and again: Sexual deviants and psychos have been groomed for office because they are easier to blackmail and control.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/06/01/1389654/-Dennis-Hastert-as-the-Tip-of-the-Iceberg

[Mar 28, 2019] Neocons have now lowered Trump to the status of rooster one who willingly serves his own rapists

Saker is talking about this episode YouTube. Trump clearly tries to exploit this episode to his advantage...
There is also such thing as Diplomacy... To say "members of Congress support Israel because they are collecting money from Jewish groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)" (as if this is a new) you are clearly positioning herself against the colleagues, not matter who they are. that complicates your position without any return on investment.
Notable quotes:
"... In fact, all Omar did was to say on Twitter that some members of Congress support Israel because they are collecting money from Jewish groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Duh?! Is that really news to anybody? Even Trump himself mentioned that during this campaign. ..."
"... By the way, check out how Rep. Ilhan Omar grills that sorry SOB Abrams here: http://thesaker.is/rep-ilhan-omar-vs-elliott-abrams/ . This young lady clearly has more courage and integrity that all her colleagues taken together! ..."
"... But the Neocons have now "lowered" Trump to the status of "rooster" and he now is acting like a willing "combat rooster" for those who "lowered" him to that status, which makes Trump the worst and most despised kind of "rooster": one who willingly serves his own rapists. See for yourself: ..."
Feb 18, 2019 | www.unz.com

In the bad old days of the Soviet Union, one of the tricks used by the prison/camp administration to break a prisoner (be he political or not) was to stick him into a cell with the so-called "roosters". In the slang of the Russian criminal underworld, the "roosters" are the very lowest category of prisoners (in what is a rather complex hierarchy): "roosters" are either homosexuals, rapists, child molesters or men who have been down-ranked ("lowered" in slang) to that status as a punishment for some kind of action which the criminals consider reprehensible (like interacting with other "roosters", mistakenly sitting down next to one, not repaying a card-debt, etc.).

I won't go into all the details here, but suffice to say that one thing which was well known in the Soviet jails/camps is that somebody who has committed some kind of trespass can be "lowered" to the status of "rooster" and that the prison/camp administration often uses these man as "combat roosters" – they send them to attack and even rape some prisoner who needs to be broken. And, needless to say, after you have been raped by such "roosters" you yourself get that status for the rest of your life.

What Trump did in the case of Rep. Ilhan Omar is act like a "lowered combat rooster", sent to abuse somebody else on the behalf of the prison/camp administration. Of all people, Trump ought to know that accusations of anti-Semitism are absolutely, total hogwash. This is just a verbal whip used by AIPAC/ADL/etc to beat up their opponents. In fact, all Omar did was to say on Twitter that some members of Congress support Israel because they are collecting money from Jewish groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Duh?! Is that really news to anybody? Even Trump himself mentioned that during this campaign.

By the way, check out how Rep. Ilhan Omar grills that sorry SOB Abrams here: http://thesaker.is/rep-ilhan-omar-vs-elliott-abrams/ . This young lady clearly has more courage and integrity that all her colleagues taken together!

But the Neocons have now "lowered" Trump to the status of "rooster" and he now is acting like a willing "combat rooster" for those who "lowered" him to that status, which makes Trump the worst and most despised kind of "rooster": one who willingly serves his own rapists. See for yourself:

jacques sheete, February 17, 2019 at 12:07 pm GMT • 100 Words

@der einzige

Thanks for that! Still the article was excellent just for this alone.:

But the Neocons have now "lowered" Trump to the status of "rooster" and he now is acting like a willing "combat rooster" for those who "lowered" him to that status, which makes Trump the worst and most despised kind of "rooster"

The only beef I have with that statement is that no one did it to him and he obviously volunteered for the job right from the start.

[Mar 27, 2019] Alternatives, alternatives...

Mar 27, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Hoarsewhisperer , Mar 26, 2019 8:45:54 PM | link

@somebody | Mar 26, 2019 6:51:56 AM | 43
(March of Return protests)

"This type of protest was really hurting Israel internationally."

Thank G-d Bibi has decided that bombing the crap out of Gaza will be better for "Israel's" image than shooting unarmed protesters...?

Don Wiscacho , Mar 26, 2019 12:08:59 PM | link

This rocket attack was a gift to Bibi, not a constraint in any manner. The one thing that could save that pathetic waste of oxygen is another war in Gaza. Taken together with the upcoming election, it's even harder to see how Hamas could possibly benefit from the situation. Therefore my money would be on a splinter group in Gaza aiming to erode popular support for Hamas, or a false flag by Netanyahoo and cohorts.

Israel now has the pretext the media desires to whitewash its crimes and the Israelis will once again be picnicking along the Palestinian border in Gaza cheering the destruction.

I can only agree with Gideon Levy quoted @51 as the explanation for the Israeli madness: they have thoroughly brainwashed themselves. Bibi isn't the cause for the racism, he is a symptom. There will be no one stepping forward from that populace who would even poke at the status quo. Change will only be imposed from the outside. Much like in the US where the 'progressives' (maximum snark) have deluded themselves into thinking Trump is the problem. Trump is the symptom, not the cause. We ourselves, both the left and the right, are the problem.

karlof1 , Mar 25, 2019 4:24:24 PM | link
The recent missile attack was denied by Hamas and claimed by what was a new unknown group whose name I can't recall. Interesting that in the very limiting confines of Gaza there could arise a group armed with missiles unknown to Hamas. That led me to think in terms of Zionist provocation to help criminal Bibi.

Nutty clearly reached a dead-end policy-wise long ago and has done nothing to solve Palestine's fundamental problem of the presence of so many Zionists. Trump hasn't helped Zionistan with his illegal declaration of Golan belonging to it as it only ensures Syria will eventually regain it in what will be a ruinous war.

Nobody has mentioned the presence of an enlightened Zionist leader (is there such a thing?) amongst the candidates. But if there is one, s/he needs to be elected as at some future point Israel will be replaced by Palestine.

John Smith , Mar 26, 2019 12:25:05 AM | link
Bibi's false flag "Hamas rocket attack": Kevin Barrett vs. Maxine Dovere

Was this the most obvious false flag PR stunt in history?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cS4OwptFVx8

John Smith , Mar 26, 2019 12:39:40 AM | link
Department of State :
‏
"Israel should be admired, not attacked. Embraced, not vilified. Emulated, not ostracized." -- @SecPompeo #AIPAC2019
Julian , Mar 26, 2019 3:42:38 AM | link
April-May-June sure looking like some very interesting months geopolitically.

Israel/Gaza
Ukraine
Brexit/UK - bye-bye May?
EU Elections - bye-bye Merkel?
Indonesia Elections
India Elections
South Africa Elections
Australia Elections
That's 25% of the G20 right there potentially changing leaders.

Topped off by a G20 Summit in Japan in June!

Some more interesting than others obviously.

pantaraxia , Mar 26, 2019 8:53:25 AM | link
"But whoever wins the election will have an interest in a fundamental change of the situation. A new leader in Tel Aviv might have ideas on how to do that."


Gideon Levy, in a recent article in Haaretz, dispels any notion that fundamental change is even possible in Israel.

Levy: Netanyahu Isn't the Problem. The Israeli People Are
https://israelpalestinenews.org/levy-netanyahu-isnt-the-problem-the-israeli-people-are/

from the article:

"Simply put, the people are the problem. Netanyahu has voters. There are those who vote for his kind. There are those who have hated Arabs long before Netanyahu. There are those who despise blacks, detest foreigners, exploit the weak and look down their noses at the whole world – and not because of Netanyahu. There are those who believe they are the chosen people and therefore deserve everything.

There are those who think that after the Holocaust, they are permitted to do anything. There are those who believe that Israel is tops in the world in every field, that international law doesn't apply to it, and that no one can tell it what to do.

There are those who think Israelis are victims – always victims, the only victims – and that the whole world is against us. There are those who are convinced that Israel is allowed to do anything, simply because it can.

There are those who believe in the sword alone. There are those who champion aggression, in the territories and on the roads, and who don't know any other language. There are unprecedented levels of ignorance.
There's brainwashing to an extent unknown in a democracy. Is Netanyahu responsible for all of this? Come on.

The problem is the atmosphere, the spirit of the times, the values and outlooks that have become ingrained here during decades of Zionism.

...The apartheid did not start with him and will not end with his departure; it probably won't even be dented. One of the most racist nations in the world cannot complain about its prime minister's racism....That there is no ideological alternative has nothing to do with Netanyahu."


One can only imagine the reaction stateside if this article appeared in a major American publication. Politicians would be falling over themselves in a frenzy of outrage and the jewish lobbies would be pounding the drumbeats of 'anti-semite'.

Chevrus , Mar 26, 2019 1:56:02 PM | link
As per the above assessment, the 'single missile at long range near a fine hospital, with seven "wounded" and none killed' seems like the most likely scenario.
So what would this accomplish? Well most people here have been saying that Benny will most likely pull some sort of military escalation in the face of being tried for various things and being called 'soft' on Palestinian "terrorists". In his position how can he not? With the official nod from The Orange One re: the annexation of the Golan to ratchet up the tension, maybe even some further escalation? A recently installed USAn base and a few pledge of allegiance papers signed might be a good trip-wire in case thins heat up... As we have seen seemingly disparate events are often planned to coincide at pivotal times. What might be some others that are ready to be sprung? Is the Donbass line ready to burst as the temps warm? Are there a few B-52s lumbering around the airspace? Maybe the regime change dream-team is brewing up something nasty and new in Venezuela having exhausted the rather dated playbook? Perhaps when the Brexit fiasco begins to boil over, there will be a chaotic chorus of events unleashed to thrill us all...!!!
karlof1 , Mar 26, 2019 1:56:24 PM | link
Walid makes observation; asks vital question :

"Trump & his crew have made a mockery of both #AmericaFirst & #MAGA concepts by putting the interests of a foreign country before those of the US. I just cant understand how Americans put up w/ this shit. Zionists & Evangelicals support it but why do the rest stay silent?"

My simple answer: Small minds dominated by BigLie Media.

[Mar 26, 2019] Donald Trump Recognizing Israel's Sovereignty Over the Golan Heights Is Both Controversial and a Big Favor to Netanyahu by Nicole Goodkind

Sheldon Adelson money at work...
Notable quotes:
"... The president's tweet does not signal any definitive action or official state recognition, but it does do much to boost Netanyahu's profile with possible voters. ..."
Mar 26, 2019 | www.newsweek.com
President Donald Trump announced on Twitter Thursday that he would recognize and support Israel's control over the disputed Golan Heights territory on the border of Syria.

The decision immediately followed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's meeting with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu Thursday, nearly a year after Trump officially recognized Jerusalem as the sole capital of Israel and announced that he would move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv.

"After 52 years it is time for the United States to fully recognize Israel's Sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which is of critical strategic and security importance to the State of Israel and Regional Stability!" Trump tweeted early Thursday afternoon.

Smoke from explosions rises during fighting in the village of Jubata Al Khashab, held by Syrian rebel groups fighting to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad, as seen from the Israeli side of the border fence between Syria and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, on September 11, 2016. REUTERS/Baz Ratner

Netanyahu, a conservative leader who is currently facing the threat of indictment for bribery and three counts of breach of trust, has a tough election coming up in early April. The president's announcement, followed by a planned trip to the White House, will surely bolster the Israeli leader's chances of retaining his seat.

In fact, in 2015, President Barack Obama refused to meet with Netanyahu close to his election date, saying, "He needs to be far away enough from the election that it doesn't look like in some ways we're meddling or putting our thumbs on the scale."

But President Trump has signaled that he doesn't mind putting his thumb on the scale for his political ally, even when it involves the controversial and much-disputed Golan Heights territory.

"At a time when Iran seeks to use Syria as a platform to destroy Israel, President Trump boldly recognizes Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights," Netanyahu tweeted on Thursday. "Thank you President Trump!"

The Golan Heights, a strategically situated 400-plus square mile area that overlooks Damascus, was first captured by Israel from Syria in the 1967 Arab war. In 1973, Syria attempted to take the land back during the Yom Kippur War and during a surprise attack, Egyptian and Syrian troops managed to kill 2,688 Israeli soldiers. Israel, however, prevailed and retained control. They annexed the Golan Heights in 1981, but the move was never officially recognized by the international community, including the United States. Syria and Israel are still technically in a state of war over the land, but the area is now a demilitarized zone occupied by U.N. observers.

The Golan Heights are an atypically fertile land in the desert that holds key water sources: About one-third of Israel's water supply currently comes from Golan. The territory also provides Israel with a high vantage point to monitor the Syrian military and ward off attacks.

There are currently about 30 Israeli settlements on the land, which are home to 20,000 citizens. Experts estimate that there are likely about 20,000 Syrians living in Golan, as well. They are mostly part of the Druze sect. The Druze, however, are typically at odds with the Syrian government.

There are also military concerns about Trump's move. Israel is currently in the middle of a precarious situation with its neighbors: It has been striking Iranian targets in Syria and this latest development, created by the Trump, could provoke Syria, Russia and Iran to further isolate and perhaps attack Israel, complicating matters immensely.

The situation also hurts America's standing on Russia's annexation of the Crimean Peninsula. "It makes it quite hard for the US to continue to contest Russia's annexation of Crimea under the principle that taking territory by force is illegal," wrote Ilan Goldenberg, Middle East security director at the Center for a New American Security, on Twitter. "We now have no leg to stand on and the Russians will use it."

The president's tweet does not signal any definitive action or official state recognition, but it does do much to boost Netanyahu's profile with possible voters. Related Stories

[Mar 26, 2019] Trump ordered John Kelly to give Jared Kushner a security clearance

Feb 28, 2019 | nypost.com

President Trump reportedly ordered former Chief of Staff John Kelly to give son-in-law Jared Kushner a top-secret security clearance, even though the decision was not supported by the intelligence community.

Trump directed Kelly to give his senior adviser the security clearance early last year after both Kushner and wife, Ivanka Trump, told the president to intervene in the process, according to The Washington Post .

Kelly was apparently so concerned about the move, he documented Trump's request in a memo, the paper said. Kushner finally received the clearance in May.

Both Ivanka and the president have said in the past that they did not interfere in the security-clearance process.

Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), chairman of the House Oversight Committee, said on Thursday that his committee is already probing the process and is awaiting documents they had requested from the White House.

A spokesman for Kushner's lawyer told the paper that in 2018, "White House and security clearance officials affirmed that Mr. Kushner's security clearance was handled in the regular process with no pressure from anyone."

[Mar 26, 2019] Jared Kushner accused of using WhatsApp and personal email for state business by Bob Fredericks

Highly recommended!
Is he really that stupid? After Hillary Clinton email scandal ? Amazing ! Those people really feel that they are above the law.
Notable quotes:
"... But Lowell said Kushner was not violating federal law requiring official communications to be preserved because he takes screenshots of his messages and then sends them to his White House email account, Cummings wrote. ..."
"... Cummings said Lowell also told him and then-South Carolina GOP Rep. Trey Gowdy, who was the chair at the time of the December meeting, that first daughter and presidential adviser Ivanka Trump conducts official White House business on her personal email account. ..."
Mar 21, 2019 | nypost.com
President Trump's adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner used the encrypted messaging service WhatsApp as well as his personal email account to conduct official business, a top House Democrat charged Thursday.

The revelation came during a Dec. 19 meeting of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, which released the information in a letter Thursday.

Chairman Elijah Cummings wrote to White House counsel Pat Cipollone to tell him that Kushner's lawyer, Abbe Lowell, had confirmed during the meeting that Kushner "continues to use" WhatsApp to conduct White House business.

But Lowell said Kushner was not violating federal law requiring official communications to be preserved because he takes screenshots of his messages and then sends them to his White House email account, Cummings wrote.

Kushner, whom the president put in charge of finding peace in the Middle East, regularly communicates with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman via WhatsApp, Politico reported.

It was unclear whether Kushner continued to use WhatsApp after the December meeting.

Cummings said Lowell also told him and then-South Carolina GOP Rep. Trey Gowdy, who was the chair at the time of the December meeting, that first daughter and presidential adviser Ivanka Trump conducts official White House business on her personal email account.

"These communications raise questions about whether these officials complied with the Presidential Records Act and whether the White House identified this personal email use during its internal review and took steps to address it," Cummings wrote.

[Mar 26, 2019] Jessica Finn For Dailymail.com

Mar 26, 2019 | dailymail.co.uk

Published: 13:05 EDT, 7 August 2018 | Updated: 19:20 EDT, 7 August 2018

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Before Jared Kushner became a senior White House adviser, he was at the helm of the New York Observer - where he would personally order the removal of content that was critical of his associates.

According to a report by Buzzfeed , the president's son-in-law ordered a software developer at his newspaper to kill a handful of stories that were unfavorable to his cronies.

One of the stories that he had removed from online was a seemingly benign story from 2012 about NBA Commissioner Adam Silver purchasing a $6.75million apartment, however personal real estate purchases are something privacy-conscious famous New Yorkers typically like to keep out of the press.

The NBA commissioner has since publicly praised his friend, Kushner, for helping the NBA find space for a retail store.

Kushner also had a legal story about a 2010 settlement between a then-New York attorney general Andrew Cuomo and real estate firm Vantage Properties wiped from the Observer site.

That suit alleged Vantage illegally forced tenants out of their apartments to raise rents.

'Nothing Sacred But the Truth': Before Jared Kushner went to work for the Trump administration he was at the helm of the New York Observer after purchasing the publication in 2006 for $10million. According to a report, Kushner used his power to have stories that were critical of his rich friends wiped from the site +5

'Nothing Sacred But the Truth': Before Jared Kushner went to work for the Trump administration he was at the helm of the New York Observer after purchasing the publication in 2006 for $10million. According to a report, Kushner used his power to have stories that were critical of his rich friends wiped from the site Jared Kushner used his position as owner of the New York Observer to wipe stories from the site that his upper-echelon associates would not want out. One of the vanished pieces was about NBA Commissioner Adam Silver's (pictured) purchasing a $6.7million apartment +5

Jared Kushner used his position as owner of the New York Observer to wipe stories from the site that his upper-echelon associates would not want out. One of the vanished pieces was about NBA Commissioner Adam Silver's (pictured) purchasing a $6.7million apartment

Additionally Kushner ordered another 2010 article deleted about Vantage's top executive Neil Rubler removed that apparently had him on a '10 worst landlords' list.

The Observer's articles often took aim at the city's upper-echelon but it faltered under Kushner's leadership.

He stepped down from the helm of the publication to join the Trump administration. The ownership of the Observer is currently in a family trust, with the Observer Media Group saying he does not currently have a hand in editorial matters.

Austin Smith, the software employee who handled the eye-raising requests for content to be deleted, told Buzzfeed: 'That Kushner, a newspaper owner of all people, would participate in an administration that labels news media the enemy of the people, is an affront to the very notion of the freedom of the press and an utter betrayal of those who worked hard and in good faith for him at the Observer,'

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Meanwhile Elizabeth Spiers who was the Editor-in-Chief at the time Kushner was purging articles he found unfavorable, said she was not aware that he was doing so, and that he purposely went behind her back to get the underhanded job done.

'If I had known about it, Jared and I would have had a big problem,' she said.

'Jared's such a coward. Went directly to Austin because he knew I wouldn't do it.' Spiers said adding that that Smith didn't have any choice in the matter but to delete the stories since he was not an editorial employee.

Spiers took to Twitter Monday night with some choice words for Kushner.

'I found out a few months ago that while I was the editor in chief of the Observer, Jared was instructing our third party tech provider to delete articles critical of his business associates w/out my knowledge. I don't have enough choice expletives describe my feelings about that,' she tweeted in response to the report published by Buzzfeed.

Elizabeth Spiers pictured with Kushner at an Observer event in 2011 had choice words for the president's son-in-law's under-handed deletion of articles to the favor of his wealthy friends +5

Elizabeth Spiers pictured with Kushner at an Observer event in 2011 had choice words for the president's son-in-law's under-handed deletion of articles to the favor of his wealthy friends +5

+5

... Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump made $83 million in 2017 Loaded: 0% Progress: 0% 0:00 Previous Play Skip LIVE Mute 00:00 Current Time 0:00 / Duration Time 0:55 Fullscreen Need Text Video Quality Minimize Expand Close

'But if you want to be the worst possible owner of a news operation, vindictively and unethically erasing the work of your own your own (severely underpaid, hardworking) journalists solely to lubricate the volume and frequency of your cocktail party invites is a good way to do it,' Spiers added.

Kushner's under-the-table favors via his news publication did not end when Spiers was out.

Instead, he continued wiping the pages clean for his friends in high places under Aaron Gell as well.

Gell, Spiers' deputy editor and successor, said he also was unaware that Kushner was deleting the work of his editorial staff as favors to his friends, as the president's son-in-law was still using the tech team to remove the articles.

'When Jared announced I was out, he told me, ''I just needed someone I could trust,'' Gell said to BuzzFeed News.

'The more I learn about how he wanted to run the paper, the more I've been able to take that as a compliment.'

Kushner purchased the New York Observer in 2006 for $10million, with money he made from real-estate investments. The money for those property investments was gifted to him by his family. Advertisement Read more:

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[Mar 26, 2019] Kushner family s Observer fires editor-in-chief -- again by Keith J. Kelly

Kushner clan is really can with tarantuls...
Jan 06, 2019 | nypost.com

Observer Media has once again bounced its editor-in-chief -- the latest sign of turmoil at the New York publication with ties to Jared Kushner, the real estate scion and senior adviser to President Trump.

Ben Robinson , a former chief creative officer of Thrillist, was out on Friday after only 10 months as the editor-in-chief. Observer president James Karklins said the EIC job is not being replaced and that instead there would be "continued executive direction."

Also gone in the Friday shakeup is deputy editor Adam Laukhuf.

The top edit job now falls to social media editor Mary von Aue, according to changes posted on the Observer website, which listed her as editorial director.

Kushner, married to Ivanka Trump, said he was stepping away from involvement with the publication he bought in 2005 shortly after becoming an unpaid senior adviser to President Trump in early 2017. At that time, he handed the Observer to a family trust and appointed his brother-in-law Joseph Meyer as CEO.

Karklins did not mention the new role for von Aue in his statement to The Post.

"Ben Robinson is no longer with the organization and has stepped down as Editor-in-chief of Observer," he said. "At this time the Observer is not replacing the Editor-in-chief position and will continue to execute our content strategy with our current editorial team in place and continued executive direction."

Said one former staffer, "Working at the Observer, you get used to unpleasant surprises. And every setback -- especially the latest one, which I fear may signal the death of the Observer -- is entirely the fault of upper management."

Observer names former Thrillist executive to top editor job The Observer Media Group finally tapped a new editor-in-chief, naming...

The ex-staffer said that Robinson had hoped to rekindle some of the Observer's past glory when he joined on Feb. 14, 2018. He had staffers read "The Kingdom of New York," a collection of classic Observer stories.

"Upper management treated Ben horribly and they should be ashamed of themselves though I know they're not," the ex-staffer added.

The publication, once a salmon-colored print weekly, in its glory days had been a must-read for the media and political chattering classes following its founding by Arthur Carter. Graydon Carter had once been its editor-in-chief before landing at Vanity Fair. Under EIC Peter Kaplan, its "Sex and the City" column by Candice Bushnell inspired the hit TV show that starred Sarah Jessica Parker.

The publication dropped New York from its title and abandoned its print edition in early 2017 in favor of chasing a national digital audience.

Kushner reportedly paid $10 million to acquire the money-losing publication from Arthur Carter in 2005.

Since then, there has been a parade of top editors. Ken Kurson, a public relations executive and a Kushner pal, left in early 2017 , shortly after the decision was made to abandon print. He was later accused of sexual harassment by a writer. He denied the charges and is currently working in public relations again.

Said former executive editor Merin Curotto, "More than anything, I think it's really sad. When our last EIC Ken Kurson resigned, the editorial team -- one that for nearly two years had weathered the Trump-Kushner turmoil -- was left essentially lost at sea. It took nine months not only to find Ben Robinson, but to convince him the Observer really was an environment ripe for change."

Robinson could not be reached at press time.

[Mar 26, 2019] Chris Christie rips Kushner s dad One of the most loathsome, disgusting crimes that I prosecuted - The Washington Post

Notable quotes:
"... "Mr. Kushner pled guilty, he admitted the crimes. So what am I supposed to do as a prosecutor?" Christie asked. "If a guy hires a prostitute to seduce his brother-in-law, and videotapes it, and then sends the videotape to his sister in an attempt to intimidate her from testifying before a grand jury, do I really need any more justification than that?" ..."
"... Christie now writes that Jared Kushner retaliated after the 2016 election by having Stephen K. Bannon, then an executive for Trump's campaign, fire him. The White House and a spokesperson for Jared Kushner did not immediately respond to a request for comment. ..."
"... Jared is ethically deficient if he thinks his father's behavior was acceptable. ..."
"... Two crime families: a marriage made in "heaven".! ..."
Mar 26, 2019 | www.washingtonpost.com

Chris Christie rips Kushner's dad: 'One of the most loathsome, disgusting crimes that I prosecuted' - The Washington Post

Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie took several shots at White House senior adviser Jared Kushner in his new book " Let Me Finish ," alleging that in an act of spite, Donald Trump's son-in-law coordinated his removal from the president's transition team shortly after the 2016 election.

He claims Kushner was still "seething" from events that took place more than a decade prior -- when Christie, as a U.S. attorney, prosecuted Kushner's father, Charles, for tax evasion, witness tampering and illegal campaign contributions, sending the elder Kushner to prison for 14 months.

The former governor did not mince words while discussing the case Tuesday:

"Mr. Kushner pled guilty, he admitted the crimes. So what am I supposed to do as a prosecutor?" Christie asked. "If a guy hires a prostitute to seduce his brother-in-law, and videotapes it, and then sends the videotape to his sister in an attempt to intimidate her from testifying before a grand jury, do I really need any more justification than that?"

He added, "It's one of the most loathsome, disgusting crimes that I prosecuted when I was U.S. attorney," Christie said during a segment with PBS's "Firing Line With Margaret Hoover." "And I was a U.S. attorney in New Jersey, Margaret -- so we had some loathsome and disgusting crime going on there!"

"It's one of the most loathsome, disgusting crimes that I prosecuted...and I was the U.S. attorney in New Jersey." @ChrisChristie talks about prosecuting Charles Kushner for tax evasion, illegal campaign contributions and witness tampering. #FiringLineShowPBS pic.twitter.com/rBNn0j0bCY

-- Firing Line with Margaret Hoover (@FiringLineShow) January 29, 2019

Charles Kushner, a wealthy and well-connected real estate developer, pleaded guilty in 2004 to 18 counts of filing false tax returns, retaliating against witnesses and making illegal campaign contributions. He was sentenced to 24 months in prison and served 14.

Christie at the time wrote in a news release that Kushner's guilty plea was a "great victory for the people of New Jersey."

"No matter how rich and powerful any person may be, they will be held accountable for criminal conduct by this office," he wrote.

Christie now writes that Jared Kushner retaliated after the 2016 election by having Stephen K. Bannon, then an executive for Trump's campaign, fire him. The White House and a spokesperson for Jared Kushner did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

"Jared Kushner, still apparently seething over events that occurred a decade ago, was exacting a plot of revenge against me, a hit job that made no sense at all for the man we had just helped elect," Christie wrote in "Let Me Finish." "And Steve Bannon, hot-shot, big-balls campaign executive, was quietly acquiescing to it."

He continued, "What wimps, what cowards. And how disloyal to Donald Trump."

MollyNYC, 1 month ago (Edited)

So Charles Kushner (by way of suborning a witness) hires a hooker to destroy his own sister's marriage, humiliate her, and cause what was probably profound emotional harm.

His own sister.

What does it say about Jared Kushner that after all those years, he still couldn't wrap his head around the idea that his father -- not the federal attorney -- was the bad guy in this story?

Marilynn Gray-Raine, 1 month ago (Edited)
A SNAKE PIT, People !!! What slimy vipers, every one of them! Rotten, deeply flawed creatures in human guise! Mobsters! Soul-less ignoranus's*. Beyond contempt. White collar crime "punishment" should be much harsher. 14 months in jail?! Really?

The cancerous crimes these capitalist thugs commit against weaker individuals and the planet at large are IMMENSE , and the punishment should fit the crime! I say they should all be sardined in a sewer cell with Bernie Madoff forever !

*"ignoranus" someone who is both ignorant and an a**hole !

Wolfie Smith, 1 month ago (Edited)

tax evasion, witness tampering and illegal campaign contributions ... WTF!!!

Am I alone in seeing patterns in this White House, only the best people can attend the court of King Donald.

Aumale, 1 month ago

More proof that Trump and his ilk operate like mobsters.

UrbanLover, 1 month ago

Jared is ethically deficient if he thinks his father's behavior was acceptable.

A_Cappella, 1 month ago

Two crime families: a marriage made in "heaven".!

[Mar 26, 2019] Chris Christie accuses Jared Kushner of political hit job by Bob Fredericks

Highly recommended!
This is one of the best summaries of Chris christi book. Bravo !
It is important to understand that Flynn approached Russian at Kusher request with the goal to derail anti-Isreali resoluition in the US.
So if Jared then initiated firing of Flynn then Jared is a really dangerous ruthless shark.
Notable quotes:
"... When Bannon canned him at Trump Tower not long after the 2016 election, Christie demanded to know who was behind it, threatening that he would publicly finger Bannon if he didn't spill the beans. Bannon blamed Kushner, saying he was still furious over Christie's prosecution of Charles Kushner in 2005. "The kid's been taking an ax to your head with the boss ever since I got here," Bannon told him, according to the book. ..."
"... Christie also reveals how Jared Kushner bad-mouthed him to Trump in 2016, begging the future president not to name him transition chairman. "He implied I had acted unethically and inappropriately but didn't state one fact to back that up. Just a lot of feelings -- very raw feelings that had been simmering for a dozen years," he writes. ..."
"... Christie also slams Kushner for giving his father-in-law tone-deaf political advice. He says Kushner thought firing Flynn would end talk of collusion with Russia's election meddling, and that firing FBI chief James Comey would not spark "an enormous sh-t-storm" in Washington. "Again, the president was ill-served by poor advice," he writes. ..."
Jan 15, 2019 | nypost.com

Chris Christie, in his new tell-all about working on Donald Trump's campaign, paints a scathing portrait of first son-in-law Jared Kushner -- depicting him as a vengeful, underhanded dullard ill equipped to work in the White House.

In " Let Me Finish ," the former New Jersey governor accuses Kushner of orchestrating a "hit job" on him in revenge for Christie's prosecution of Jared's dad, Charles Kushner, which resulted in him doing time in a federal pen.

"Steve Bannon made clear to me that one person and one person only was responsible for the faceless execution that Steve was now attempting to carry out. Jared Kushner, still apparently seething over events that had occurred a decade ago," Christie writes in the book, a copy of which was obtained by The Guardian.

In other revelations:

Christie mocked the former Army general as "a train wreck from beginning to end a slow-motion car crash."

But most of his venom is directed at Kushner, who talked Trump out of naming Christie the head of his transition team, a position that ultimately went to Vice President Mike Pence.

When Bannon canned him at Trump Tower not long after the 2016 election, Christie demanded to know who was behind it, threatening that he would publicly finger Bannon if he didn't spill the beans. Bannon blamed Kushner, saying he was still furious over Christie's prosecution of Charles Kushner in 2005. "The kid's been taking an ax to your head with the boss ever since I got here," Bannon told him, according to the book.

Charles Kushner pleaded guilty to 18 charges and served 14 months in a federal pen in Alabama. He also hired a hooker to seduce his brother-in-law, recorded them doing the deed and sent a tape of the encounter to his sister -- an effort to force his brother-in-law's silence about Kushner's crimes.

Christie also reveals how Jared Kushner bad-mouthed him to Trump in 2016, begging the future president not to name him transition chairman. "He implied I had acted unethically and inappropriately but didn't state one fact to back that up. Just a lot of feelings -- very raw feelings that had been simmering for a dozen years," he writes.

Kushner insisted the sex tape and blackmailing were a family matter and that his father should not have been prosecuted for it. "This was a family matter, a matter to be handled by the family or by the rabbis," Christie writes.

Christie also slams Kushner for giving his father-in-law tone-deaf political advice. He says Kushner thought firing Flynn would end talk of collusion with Russia's election meddling, and that firing FBI chief James Comey would not spark "an enormous sh-t-storm" in Washington. "Again, the president was ill-served by poor advice," he writes.

Christie also claims that the Trump White House -- which other exposes have portrayed as beset by chaos and scandal -- would be running like a Swiss watch if he had been in charge of the transition. Pence's transition team had a "thrown-together approach" that resulted in bad hires for top posts "over and over again." Unlike other tomes by former White House staffers and journalists, Christie takes it easy on the president, admitting only that he often speaks off the cuff, creating needless controversy.

The book is slated for publication on Jan. 29 .

[Mar 26, 2019] How did 'less than stellar' high school student Jared Kushner get into Harvard- - Daniel Golden - Opinion - The Guardian

Mar 26, 2019 | www.theguardian.com

I would like to express my gratitude to Jared Kushner for reviving interest in my 2006 book, The Price of Admission . I have never met or spoken with him, and it's rare in this life to find such a selfless benefactor. Of course, I doubt he became Donald Trump's son-in-law and consigliere merely to boost my lagging sales, but still, I'm thankful.

My book exposed a grubby secret of American higher education: that the rich buy their underachieving children's way into elite universities with massive, tax-deductible donations. It reported that New Jersey real estate developer Charles Kushner had pledged $2.5m to Harvard University not long before his son Jared was admitted to the prestigious Ivy League school, which at the time accepted about one of every nine applicants. (Nowadays, it only takes one out of 20.)

I also quoted administrators at Jared's high school, who described him as a less-than-stellar student and expressed dismay at Harvard's decision.

"There was no way anybody in the administrative office of the school thought he would on the merits get into Harvard,'' a former official at the Frisch school in Paramus, New Jersey, told me. "His GPA [grade point average] did not warrant it, his SAT scores did not warrant it. We thought, for sure, there was no way this was going to happen. Then, lo and behold, Jared was accepted. It was a little bit disappointing because there were at the time other kids we thought should really get in on the merits, and they did not.''

Risa Heller, a spokeswoman for Kushner Companies, said in an email on Thursday that "the allegation'' that Charles Kushner's gift to Harvard was related to Jared's admission "is and always has been false". His parents, Charles and Seryl Kushner, "are enormously generous and have donated over $100m to universities, hospitals and other charitable causes. Jared Kushner was an excellent student in high school and graduated from Harvard with honours.'' (About 90% of Jared's 2003 class at Harvard also graduated with honours.)

My Kushner discoveries were an offshoot of my research for a chapter on Harvard donors. Somebody had slipped me a document I had long coveted: the membership list of Harvard's Committee on University Resources. The university wooed more than 400 of its biggest givers and most promising prospects by putting them on this committee and inviting them to campus periodically to be wined, dined and subjected to lectures by eminent professors.

My idea was to figure out how many children of these corporate titans, oil barons, money managers, lawyers, high-tech consultants and old-money heirs had gone to Harvard. A disproportionate tally might suggest that the university eased its standards for the offspring of wealthy backers.

I began working through the list, poring over Who's Who in America and Harvard class reunion reports for family information. Charles and Seryl Kushner were both on the committee. I had never heard of them, but their joint presence struck me as a sign that Harvard's fundraising machine held the couple in especially fond regard.

The clips showed that Charles Kushner's empire encompassed 25,000 New Jersey apartments, along with extensive office, industrial and retail space and undeveloped land. Unlike most of his fellow committee members, though, Kushner was not a Harvard man. He had graduated from New York University. This eliminated the sentimental tug of the alma mater as a reason for him to give to Harvard, leaving another likely explanation: his children.

Sure enough, his sons Jared and Joshua had both enrolled there.

Charles Kushner differed from his peers on the committee in another way: he had a criminal record. Five years after Jared entered Harvard, the elder Kushner pleaded guilty in 2004 to tax violations, illegal campaign donations and retaliating against a witness. (As it happens, the prosecutor in the case was Chris Christie, recently ousted as the head of Trump's transition team.) Charles Kushner had hired a prostitute to seduce his brother-in-law , who was cooperating with federal authorities. Kushner then had a videotape of the tryst sent to his sister. He was sentenced to two years in federal prison.

I completed my analysis, which justified my hunch. Of the 400-plus tycoons on Harvard's list – which included people who were childless or too young to have college-age offspring – more than half had sent at least one child to the university.

I also decided that the Kushner-Harvard relationship deserved special attention. Although the university often heralded big gifts in press releases or a bulletin called, in a classic example of fundraising wit, Re:sources, a search of these outlets came up empty. Harvard didn't seem eager to be publicly associated with Charles Kushner.

While looking into Kushner's taxes, though, federal authorities had subpoenaed records of his charitable giving. I learned that in 1998, when Jared was attending the Frisch school and starting to look at colleges, his father had pledged $2.5m to Harvard, to be paid in annual instalments of $250,000. Charles Kushner also visited Neil Rudenstine, then Harvard president, and discussed funding a scholarship programme for low- and middle-income students.

I phoned a Harvard official, with whom I was on friendly terms. First I asked whether the gift played any role in Jared's admission. "You know we don't comment on individual applicants,'' he said. When I pressed further, he hung up. We haven't spoken since.

At Harvard, Jared Kushner majored in government. Now the 35-year-old is poised to become the power behind the presidency. What he plans to do, and in what direction he and his father-in-law will lead the country, are far more important than his high school grades.

[Mar 26, 2019] The sordid case behind Jared Kushner s grudge against Chris Christie by Byron York

Notable quotes:
"... On May 9, 2004, according to the court documents, Kushner got in touch with one of the private detectives and instructed him to mail the tape and still photos to his sister Esther, who opened the package and saw her husband having sex with the prostitute. If Charles Kushner's plan was to "gain leverage" over his sister, it didn't work. Esther and Schulder took the tape to law enforcement, and another count, retaliating against a cooperating witness, was added to the charges against Kushner. ..."
"... Charles Kushner was charged in July 2004. He had all the resources anyone would need to fight the charges, but instead chose to plead guilty. He was sentenced to two years in prison and served 14 months, at a facility in Alabama. His son Jared flew down to visit him every Sunday. ..."
"... Last November, Kushner told Forbes that, "Six months ago, Gov. Christie and I decided this election was much bigger than any differences we may have had in the past, and we worked very well together. The media has speculated on a lot of different things, and since I don't talk to the press, they go as they go, but I was not behind pushing him out or his people." Maybe. Maybe, as Jared Kushner maintains, all the reports of "differences" between him and Christie are inaccurate. But if the case of Kushner's father, and his uncle, and his other uncle, and his aunt, and their business is any indication, putting aside differences is not the family way. ..."
Apr 16, 2017 | washingtonexaminer.com

Jared Kushner is thought to have been behind the purging of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie from the presidential transition.

By all accounts, Jared Kushner, the husband of President Trump's favorite daughter, has become an extraordinarily powerful man in the White House. To formally appoint Kushner a senior adviser, with a top security clearance, the president sought and received a Justice Department opinion declaring the White House exempt from federal anti-nepotism laws. That meant Kushner could have an official White House title to go along with his trusted-member-of-the-family influence. But Kushner wielded plenty of power before joining the White House staff.

For one thing, he is thought to have been behind the purging of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie from the presidential transition. Of course, Christie, tainted by Bridgegate, had problems of his own. But opposition from Kushner is said to have blocked Christie at key points during the campaign and transition. Kushner's ire reportedly targeted others, too, for their Christie connections. After Christie was fired from heading the transition, two colleagues Christie had brought into the effort, Mike Rogers and Matthew Freedman, were dumped as well. "Both were part of what officials described as a purge orchestrated by Jared Kushner," the New York Times reported on November 15. "Mr. Kushner, a transition official said, was systematically dismissing people like Mr. Rogers who had ties with Mr. Christie."

"As a federal prosecutor, Mr. Christie sent Mr. Kushner's father to jail," the Times noted. Many other sources have confirmed the origin of Kushner's animus was Christie's prosecution of the elder Kushner. But most public mentions of the reason have been as brief as the Times'. It turns out the story behind the story is much longer, and more complicated. And ugly. The short version is: In 2004, Jared Kushner's father Charles, a real estate magnate in New Jersey and New York, pleaded guilty to a tax fraud scheme in which he claimed hundreds of thousands of dollars in phony deductions for office expenses at the partnerships he created to manage the apartment buildings he owned. Kushner, a major donor to the Democratic Party, also pleaded guilty to fraudulently making hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions in the names of employees and associates who didn't know their names were being used. Finally, Kushner pleaded guilty to retaliating against a cooperating witness in the case -- his sister. He did so by setting a trap in which he hired a prostitute to lure his sister's husband into a sexual encounter in a New Jersey hotel, where the action was secretly photographed and videotaped. Kushner sent the pictures and tape to his sister as revenge, apparently motivated by Kushner's belief that she and her husband were helping U.S. Attorney Christie and his prosecutors. Another Kushner brother-in-law, his wife's brother Richard Stadtmauer, was charged in the tax evasion scheme, and was convicted and sentenced to three years in prison. Beyond that, the Kushner family also brought employees into the fraud, with three Kushner Companies workers charged in the matter. All pleaded guilty.

Given the extent of the criminal behavior involved -- confirmed by guilty pleas and a conviction at trial -- it's hard to imagine that one could examine the Kushner family case and conclude that the prosecutor was the bad guy. But in the Trump campaign and presidency, Christie has apparently suffered for his role in bringing members of the Kushner family and their employees to justice. The criminal case began as a family feud. (For a detailed look at the complicated and intense relations between the various Kushners, see this Gabriel Sherman New York magazine article from 2009.) Some of the problems seemed rooted in the lifelong competitiveness between Charles Kushner and his brother Murray. In the early 2000s, Murray Kushner came to believe there was serious mismanagement going on in Kushner Companies. Murray sued Charles. The suit was settled and sealed. But then, while the suit was still in arbitration, a Kushner Companies employee, accounting manager Robert Yontef, filed a suit of his own against Charles. Yontef alleged that Charles used monies from various real estate properties (referred to as "the entities" in the lawsuit) for activities that had nothing to do with the companies, like paying speaking fees to Benjamin Netanyahu ($100,000), Bill Clinton ($125,000), Paul Volcker ($50,000), and Terry Bradshaw. (Alas, the lawsuit gave no dollar figure for the former quarterback's speaking appearance.)

Yontef also charged that Charles Kushner had made millions in campaign contributions through a fraudulent bundling scheme. "Initially, contributions that Charles made through the entities were returned because there was a requirement that the names of partners be given when a partnership makes a political contribution," the suit said. "As a result, Charles issued partnership checks for the contribution and then attributed the contribution to particular partners. These partners, however, were not notified that certain contributions had been made in their names until after the contributions were made, and in many instances were never notified that other political contributions were being made by Charles with partnership funds in their names." In a declaration attached to the suit, Yontef said that he had become increasingly upset by what he had seen at the Kushner Companies, and that he told Charles' sister Esther and her husband William Schulder, who also worked for the company, what Charles was doing. According to Yontef, Esther introduced Yontef to Murray Kushner, and Yontef also told him the story. "Over the next months, I would occasionally provide Murray with samples of the documents which demonstrate these wrongdoings," Yontef said. The lawsuits did more than aggravate existing family antagonisms. They also raised the suspicions of law enforcement and gave investigators a roadmap into what was going on inside Kushner Companies.

And indeed, in February 2003, the office of U.S. Attorney Christie began a grand jury investigation. In the months that followed, the grand jury heard evidence of tax fraud, illegal political contributions, and more. An attachment to the criminal information ultimately filed against Charles Kushner refers to Cooperating Witness 1 (CW1), Cooperating Witness 2 (CW2), and Cooperating Witness 3 (CW3). They are not named in the case, but a look at circumstances and other documents strongly suggests that CW1 was Esther, CW2 was her husband William Schulder, and CW3 was Yontef. The three of them, court papers noted, provided information and documents to the FBI and prosecutors. The criminal information laid out an extensive scheme to use "the entities," that is, Kushner-created companies that owned and managed individual Kushner properties, as vehicles for phony deductions. An entity known as Pheasant Hollow Associates filed for $41,356 in "fraudulent office expenses" on Tax Day, 1999, the information said, and for $142,030 in such expenses on Tax Day, 2000. Another entity, Quail Ridge Associates, filed for $119,000 in fake office expenses on Tax Day 2000 and $349,123 in 2001.

Still another entity, Westminster Management, filed for $112,250 in phony expenses on Tax Day 2001. In another count, the criminal information says Charles Kushner, "without the knowledge or permission of certain partners," made federal campaign contributions "in excess of $385,000" in the names of those unwitting partners. (Kushner was a major supporter of New Jersey Democratic Gov. Jim McGreevey, who in 2002 appointed Kushner to the board of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. McGreevey wanted to make Kushner chairman of the Port Authority, but backed down after accusations the appointment would have been a political payoff.) The criminal information says Charles Kushner became aware of the grand jury investigation in March 2003, and that his sister Esther was "providing information to investigating law enforcement." In the weeks and months that followed, authorities said, Kushner's lawyers made "regular efforts" to convince investigators that CW1, CW2, and CW3 were "generally untrustworthy." The efforts were, apparently, to no avail.

Then, in August 2003, according to court documents, Kushner "initiated a scheme" to "gain leverage" over Esther and William Schulder. The idea was to "orchestrate the covert videotaped seduction" of Schulder and then hit Esther with video of her husband committing adultery. Charles Kushner recruited two private investigators to do the work. In New York , Gabriel Sherman reported that Kushner complained to one of the men that Schulder "has been f -- king around on my sister forever." Kushner paid the two men a total of $25,000 to set the trap. The problem was, they didn't do it. According to court papers, the men spent weeks complaining that they couldn't find a woman who would agree to have sex with Schulder on camera. "The scheme stalled," according to court papers. Things went nowhere for about four months. Then, in November 2003, a frustrated Charles Kushner took matters into his own hands and "personally recruited" a New York prostitute for the job. The two private investigators took a room in the Red Bull Inn in Bridgewater, New Jersey and wired it for video. It took a couple of tries, but the Kushner-recruited prostitute found Schulder in a diner, introduced herself, told him her car had broken down, and asked for a ride back to the hotel. When Schulder agreed, she invited him to her room. He declined, but got her phone number.

The next day, he came back, and Charles Kushner got the video he wanted. After the sexual encounter, one of the private investigators took the video to Kushner. "In a conference room with an associate present, defendant Charles Kushner viewed the videotape and expressed satisfaction with it," the criminal information says.

Kushner was so pleased, the court papers say, that he wanted the two investigators to set the same trap for Robert Yontef. In December, another woman was recruited, the hotel room was wired, the my-car-broke-down approach was made. But Yontef turned the woman down twice. There was no sex, and no tape. According to the papers, Kushner didn't use the Schulder videotape until May 2004, when he learned that some of his associates had been told they were targets of the grand jury investigation.

On May 9, 2004, according to the court documents, Kushner got in touch with one of the private detectives and instructed him to mail the tape and still photos to his sister Esther, who opened the package and saw her husband having sex with the prostitute. If Charles Kushner's plan was to "gain leverage" over his sister, it didn't work. Esther and Schulder took the tape to law enforcement, and another count, retaliating against a cooperating witness, was added to the charges against Kushner.

Of course, the sex angle got the most coverage in the New Jersey and New York media. When the prostitute who had been with Schulder cooperated with authorities, the New York Post ran a story headlined, "Sex Gal Now Helping Feds -- Hooker Turns On Kushner."

Charles Kushner was charged in July 2004. He had all the resources anyone would need to fight the charges, but instead chose to plead guilty. He was sentenced to two years in prison and served 14 months, at a facility in Alabama. His son Jared flew down to visit him every Sunday.

Brother-in-law Richard Stadtmauer went to trial in 2009 and was convicted and sentenced to three years. The others charged in the case pleaded guilty and received lesser sentences. While it was all going on, Jared Kushner was a student at Harvard and, later, studied for law and business degrees at New York University. He was not involved in the family's criminal activity. His father's spectacular flameout meant that Jared, who conferred with Charles constantly on matters of business, had to take a much bigger role in the family's business affairs.

Chris Christie, has paid a price for bringing a case in which every single defendant was guilty.

Who did Jared blame for what had happened? Not his father. "Charlie and Jared blamed papers in general and more specifically the Newark Star-Ledger for besmirching the family name," Gabriel Sherman wrote in 2009: And, the crimes notwithstanding, [Jared] sees his father as a victim. "His siblings stole every piece of paper from his office, and they took it to the government," Jared maintained.

"Siblings that he literally made wealthy for doing nothing. He gave them interests in the business for nothing. All he did was put the tape together and send it. Was it the right thing to do? At the end of the day, it was a function of saying 'You're trying to make my life miserable? Well, I'm doing the same.'"

Five years later, in a 2014 interview with the New York real estate publication The Real Deal, Jared called his father's treatment "obviously unjust" and said the experience had soured him on an earlier ambition to become a prosecutor.

"If you're convicting murderers, it's one thing," Jared said. "It's often fairly clear. When you get into things like white-collar crime, there are often a lot of nuances. Seeing my father's situation, I felt what happened was obviously unjust in terms of the way they pursued him."

Now the pursuer, the prosecutor-turned-governor-turned-Trump-supporter Chris Christie, has paid a price for bringing a case in which every single defendant was guilty. Both Jared Kushner and Christie deny there's a problem. "That stuff is ancient history," Christie told ABC two weeks ago, on March 29.

Last November, Kushner told Forbes that, "Six months ago, Gov. Christie and I decided this election was much bigger than any differences we may have had in the past, and we worked very well together. The media has speculated on a lot of different things, and since I don't talk to the press, they go as they go, but I was not behind pushing him out or his people." Maybe. Maybe, as Jared Kushner maintains, all the reports of "differences" between him and Christie are inaccurate. But if the case of Kushner's father, and his uncle, and his other uncle, and his aunt, and their business is any indication, putting aside differences is not the family way.

Byron York is the chief political correspondent for the Washington Examiner, a Fox News contributor and the author of The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy.

[Mar 25, 2019] Why is Donald Trump blaming son-in-law Jared Kushner for not being able to secure wall funding?

Notable quotes:
"... Jared sold himself as the only man who could make a deal between Dems and the GOP. He pointed to "his" recent success with prison reform as proof of his bonafides. ..."
"... Of course, he blew it as usual. He told his side that Dems would vote for Trump's $5.7 billion "wall, or whatever you want to call it" -- and they didn't. He said the Dems would break ranks -- and they didn't. ..."
"... The Senate votes came, and the Trump proposal got FEWER votes than the Democratic proposal, which managed to get 6 GOP Senators to jump ship. Kushner had not only failed; he'd embarrassed the boss. ..."
"... Of course, it was Donald who appointed Jared, and gave him the reins on this critical project -- ignoring the fact that Pence had actually served in Congress, knew the players, and knew the game. Even after two years' worth of evidence that a political neophyte cannot solve all the nation's most intractable problems just because he sleeps with the boss's daughter, the First Con fell for a con man. ..."
"... They both got what they deserved. ..."
Mar 25, 2019 | www.quora.com

David W. Rudlin Answered Jan 29 · Author has 1.8k answers and 8m answer views

Jared sold himself as the only man who could make a deal between Dems and the GOP. He pointed to "his" recent success with prison reform as proof of his bonafides.

Of course, he blew it as usual. He told his side that Dems would vote for Trump's $5.7 billion "wall, or whatever you want to call it" -- and they didn't. He said the Dems would break ranks -- and they didn't.

It appears that Kushner talked to a few junior Dems, who were too wet behind the ears to tell the president's son in law that he needed to change his meds. He read their silence as meaning they were prepared to commit mutiny and, putting all his chips on that bet, stopped talking to both Pelosi (where the real power lies) and Schumer.

Then he told everyone he'd cracked it.

The Senate votes came, and the Trump proposal got FEWER votes than the Democratic proposal, which managed to get 6 GOP Senators to jump ship. Kushner had not only failed; he'd embarrassed the boss.

As others have said below, Trump always finds someone to blame for his mistakes. But in this case there were very good reasons for pointing the finger at Kushner.

Of course, it was Donald who appointed Jared, and gave him the reins on this critical project -- ignoring the fact that Pence had actually served in Congress, knew the players, and knew the game. Even after two years' worth of evidence that a political neophyte cannot solve all the nation's most intractable problems just because he sleeps with the boss's daughter, the First Con fell for a con man.

They both got what they deserved.

[Mar 25, 2019] Meet The Kushners First Couple In-Waiting by Ilana Mercer

Highly recommended!
More entertaining writing then Wolff's
Dec 21, 2018 | www.unz.com

In itself, criminal justice reform for non-violent offenders is not anathema to Trump's libertarian supporters (check).

For what it symbolizes in the broader political context, however, the passing of the First Step Act -- as the criminal justice reform bill is called -- is a bit of an abomination.

Good or bad, the First Step Act is Jared Kushner's baby. And Kushner, Trump's liberal son-in-law, should not be having legislative coups!

Yes, Jared and Ivanka are on a tear. The midterm congressional elections of President Trump's first-term have culminated in a legislative victory for an anemic man, who provides a perfect peg on which to hang the forceful first daughter's ambition.

In no time at all have Jared and Ivanka Trump moved to consolidate power. This, as intellects like the Steven Bannon and Stephen Miller were either fired, or confined to the basement, so to speak.

Today, Bannon is just a flinty glint in Ivanka's eyes. But by January, 2017, the president's former White House chief strategist had already "assembled a list of more than 200 executive orders to issue in the first 100 days. The very first EO, in his view, had to be a crackdown on immigration. After all, it was one of Trump's core campaign promises." So said Bannon to Michael Wolff, author of Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House .

Many a pundit has suggested that Trump give a kick-ass rah-rah address to explain immigration to the nation.

Nonsense on stilts. The Make America Great Again (S.O.S.) agenda needed to be explained daily and repetitively by someone with a brain. It should have been MAGA every morning with Steve Miller, or Gen. John Kelly or Kirstjen Nielsen. Instead, we got stumblebum Sarah Huckabee issuing a meek, meandering daily apologia.

About that promise to put in place only "the best of people": Ice princess Kirstjen Nielsen is super smart with a cool temperament and looks to match. Homeland Security Secretary Nielsen had been brought into the Trump Administration by retired United States Marine Corps Gen. John Kelly, formerly White House chief of staff. Nielsen might not be optimal in her current position. But she would've made a great MAGA mouthpiece.

It's quite clear that President Trump's promise to hire only "the best" ought to have begun with firing The Family. Instead, Mr. Kushner's national security portfolio has expanded in a manner incommensurate with his skills. It now includes, I believe, China, Mexico, Iraq, Israel and Saudi Arabia.

The same can be said of Ivanka, who was soon briefing the South Korean president on sanctions against North Korea. That Ivanka lacked a permanent security clearance was the least of the country's worries, given Steve Bannon's assessment of her cerebral acuity: "as dumb as a brick" .

Alas, political connections ensured that two branding experts beat Braveheart Bannon of the mighty Breitbart.com! "'The Trump presidency that we fought for, and won, is over," he lamented, in August of 2017.

If Breitbart.com is to be believed -- and it should -- Ivanka was the one to give Bannon the boot (or, rather, the Choo ): "Trump's daughter Ivanka pushed Bannon out because of his 'far-right views' clashing with her [recently acquired] Jewish faith." (Funny that, because my own rightist views clash not at all with my Jewish faith.)

"Jarvanka" (the Jared-Ivanka organism) were also said to have orchestrated the ousting of the last of the old MAGA Guard, John Kelly, aforementioned, a most excellent man. Kelly took his role as chief of staff seriously. He was a hardliner who limited Ivanka's access to Pater.

One of Trump's superb personnel choices, Kelly's fate, however, was sealed when he stated how sick-and-tired he was of the first daughter "playing government." The Goldman-Sachs wing of the White House, commandeered by the Kushners, had always wished him away. So, Kelly got the Choo , too.
Of former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, archconservative Heather Mac Donald observed the following: Sessions was "the only member of the Trump administration who was absolutely staunch in speaking up for the right of Americans to determine what the character of their country should be."

It takes a strong woman (Mac Donald) to recognize a scheming one. Mac Donald has recently expressed "'no confidence' that the president will stop being advised by his daughter, Ivanka Trump, on the issue of immigration."

Following the midterms, the not-so-sleepy sleeper cell of leftist social climbers in the Trump administration moved to pack the court. It was out with the old (Kelly and Sessions), and in with the Nauert, the reference being to the "nomination [to the UN] of former Fox anchor and State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert."

Again, the reason for selecting Ms. Nauert, a former "Fox & Friends" host, was that she is "telegenic." The order came from " Ms. Trump and Mr. Kushner [ who declared Nauert] 'a favorite and pushed for her selection.'"

Telegenic, too, is 36-year-old Nick Ayers. He was slated to replace Gen. Kelly. Why? Because he " had the endorsements of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump ."

It so happened that Ayers chose not to play. A trial balloon was quickly floated, but was punctured just as fast. The idea that Jared would be chief of staff was just too preposterous. But oh, the audacity of that fleeting experiment!

So, here we are. The promised land (America) is without the promised Wall. But, liberal legislation in hand, the "Honorable" Kushners ( so listed ) are off to hobnob at the World Economic Forum in Davos, in January of 2019 .

First Lady Melania has been shoved aside, or ceremonially shivved, to use prison parlance. The first couple in-waiting will get to press flesh with local and global elites, while flashing their liberal credentials: criminal justice reform.

Oh how fun it is to schmooze the gilded globalists, rather than to woo Trump voters.

Ilana Mercer has been writing a weekly, paleolibertarian column since 1999. She is the author of " Into the Cannibal's Pot: Lessons for America From Post-Apartheid South Africa " (2011) & " The Trump Revolution: The Donald's Creative Destruction Deconstructed " (June, 2016). She's on Twitter , Facebook , Gab & YouTube

[Mar 25, 2019] Jared Kushner reorganises the Middle East by Thierry Meyssan

It is interesting to read how naive Thierry Meyssan was in 2018
Notable quotes:
"... Over the last 70 years, Israël has continually been stealing its neighbours' territory. It currently occupies the Syrian Golan, the farms of the Lebanese Shebaa, and a very large part of the Palestinian territories of 1967, including almost all of East Jerusalem. ..."
"... For Fatah, Israël is a second Rhodesia, a colonial State which pronounced itself independent. For Hamas, based on an interpretation of the Hadiths (not the Coran), the problem is that a Muslim land cannot be governed by non-Muslims. ..."
"... Equally, it is today extremely unjust, not to transfer the US embassy to West Jerusalem, but to give up on establishing the Palestinian government in East Jerusalem. Here again, the responsibility does not lie with Jared Kushner, but with the " international community ", and in particular with the Arab Sionist governments, who have allowed Israël, for the last 70 years, to eat up the city, apartment by apartment. ..."
"... So while, for 70 years, Western diplomats have contrived to multiply and complexify the conflicts in the Middle East, Jared Kushner is the first to have brought a resolution. The angel-faced Presidential advisor is a talented organiser. Thierry Meyssan ..."
Jan 01, 2018 | www.voltairenet.org

Jared Kushner is a very secret personality about whom we know very little. At best, we know he has a high regard for the Law, and was destined to become a prosecutor. However, when his father was arrested and incarcerated for tax evasion, he was sure this was an injustice. According to him, his father had fallen victim to a sting operation. He therefore abandoned his law studies and set to work rescuing the family business, a real estate development firm - which he managed with success. During this period, he developed for himself the smoothest image possible in order to distance himself from the accusations leveled against his father.

His father-in-law, Donald Trump, seems to trust him implicitly, to the point of tasking him de facto with the organization of his electoral campaign. Certain of his adversaries expressed their surprise that he was able to run this campaign with minimal means, and yet lead it to victory.

As soon as he arrived at the White House, President Trump asked him to participate in the most secret meetings, despite the fact that he does not have Top Secret accreditation – which in fact he still does not have.

Hoping to leave a name in History by succeeding in a task that his predecessors have all addressed without ever having realised, President Trump tasked him with resolving the Israëli-Arab conflict and pacifying the Middle East. This is a gamble which is all the more perilous in that the young man (age 36) has previously taken a stand alongside Israël by financially supporting Tsahal and the Jewish colonies on Palestinian land. However, Kushner has a great need of being accepted by his milieu, so it is quite possible that these gifts have another meaning.

Nominating for this assignment a trusted personality who is devoid of diplomatic experience is a second challenge for President Trump. Considering the failure of US professional diplomats, he is attacking an old problem from a new angle. For this mission, Jared Kushner has obtained a rare privilege – he is the only senior administrator whose meetings with foreign political personalities are not the object of written records. In this way, no-one can rebuke him for his mistakes, nor even criticise the way in which he approaches the subjects - not even the Secretary of State, since he is accountable only to the President.

In the opinion of those personalities who have met him, Kushner follows the same principles as his father-in-law:

The only difference with his father-in-law is his perfect mutism, as compared to the provocative and contradictory declarations used by the President to destabilise his listeners.

During the last ten months, Jared Kushner has multiplied his journeys to the Middle East - particularly to his favorite destinations – Saudi Arabia and Israël. We have just experienced, without understanding it, the beginning of his operation.

Saudi Arabia

- The reality of Arabia, from Trump's point of view during his electoral campaign, was as follows:
• the accumulation of petro-dollars, or the massive sums in dollars paid by the USA for oil that the Saudis do not produce.
• the central role of the Kingdom, under the control of MI6 and the CIA, in the fight against Arab nationalism and the manipulation of Islamic terrorism.
• Its crisis of succession.

The bilateral agreements are the Quincy agreements signed by Franklin Roosevelt in 1945, renewed by George Bush Jr. in 2005, and valid until 2065. Although they have never been published, many people who participated in their negotiation have described them as follows:

• The King of Arabia accepts the control of its oil by the United States, while in return, the US agrees to protect the King, and by extension, his private property, Saudi Arabia.

• The King of Arabia agrees to raise no obstacle against the creation of a state for the Jewish population of the ex-Ottoman Empire, while the United States favors its regional role.

So Jared Kushner prepared the summit on 21 May 2017 in Riyadh which brought together almost all of the heads of state of the Muslim world around President Trump. Saudi Arabia immediately broke its ties with the Muslim Brotherhood and ceased financing the jihadist groups all over the world – at least, almost all, except for Yemen [ 1 ]. The Kingdom used its influence to convince the other Muslim states present. However, this success had a price:
• Qatar refused the new US policy. Not wishing to have wasted the 137 billion dollars it had spent in the fight against Syria [ 2 ], it continued its support for certain jihadists. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates unilaterally decided on an embargo. While Secretary of State Rex Tillerson tried to distance himself from this quarrel, Kushner and President Trump took sides with Arabia.
• Kushner agreed to help King Salman sort out his succession to the throne as he saw fit.

The palace coup of 4 November

At the end of October, Jared Kushner went to Saudi Arabia for three days. He shared long work sessions with the King's son, Prince Mohammed ben Salmane (MBS), and drew up with him a list of the members of the royal family who were to be neutralised. Unsure of the possible reactions of the Royal Guard once Prince Mutaib had been dismissed, he offered MBS the assistance of the mercenaries of Academi (ex-Blackwater) in order to proceed with the arrests. Finally, remembering the media campaign against his father, he provided the spin doctors with a soothing tale of " the fight against corruption " with which to gloss over the palace coup.

He had already left Riyadh when the Lebanese Prime Minister, Saad Hariri – the legal son of Rafic Hariri, but the biological son of a Fadh prince [ 3 ] – was invited to an emergency meeting in Riyadh, " where he would be received by King Salman ". We know the end of this story [ 4 ] – the resignation speech of Hariri and the arrest or execution of all the princes capable of contesting or claiming the succession to the throne.

Hundreds of cousins of MBS were arrested, and placed under house arrest or in detention. One after the other, they agreed – often under torture – to hand over their fortunes to their sovereign. In this way he collected more than 800 billion dollars, according to the Wall Street Journal [ 5 ].

No voices anywhere in the world spoke up to come to the aid of these fallen billionaires, who until then had sat in the most prestigious board of directors.

Witnesses declared that certain members of the royal family were hospitalised and treated before they were taken back into the interrogation room. MBS affirmed that he had liberated several personalities, including Prince Mutaib himself, Turki ben Abdallah, Doctor Ibrahim ben Abdelaziz ben Abdallah al-Assaf (ex-Saudi Minister of finances) and Mohammad ben Abdel Rahman al-Toubaichi (ex-head of protocol to the Court).

This is certainly not the end of the story. In conformity with the instructions of President Trump, Jared Kushner will now attempt to recuperate part of the confiscated fortunes for his country.

The Hariri affair

Contrary to what the French Press pretends, the liberation of the Lebanese Prime Minister owes little to Paris. It is true that President Emmanuel Macron intervened, since Saad Hariri has triple nationality - Saudi-Lebanese-French. It is true, Macron went to Riyadh, but only succeeded in being insulted [ 6 ]. The only useful action came from his Lebanese counterpart, President Michel Aoun.

France was blocked by a simple reality – in international consular Law, multinationals are not allowed to benefit from diplomatic immunity in a country of which they are citizens. However President Aoun overturned the situation by defending not Saad Hariri the man, but his Prime Minister Saad Hariri. There is no doubt whatsoever that arresting and placing under house arrest the head of the government of another country outside of any judicial procedure is an act of war – and indeed, the international press whispered rumours of a possible Saudi bombardment of Lebanon. Immediately, the Baabda palace threatened to bring the affair before the arbitration court of the United Nations, and simultaneously, to alert the Security Council. And via his Syrian counterpart Bachar el-Assad, he also contacted Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi, who made the connection between the pro- and anti-US. It was al-Sissi who telephoned Jared Kushner and obtained, with his support, the liberation of the Prime Minister. And in fact, as soon as Hariri was freed, he went to Cairo to thank al-Sissi.

The Israëli-Arab question

This leaves us with the Israëli-Palestinian question.

The naked reality is this:

The bilateral agreements are:

The multilateral agreements are:

Only President Trump and a few of his advisors know the scenario written by Jared Kushner. He has followed the policy of his predecessors by reducing the situation to a simple Israëli-Arab dispute. Following the line of John Kerry, he has favored the reconciliation of Fatah and Hamas against Israël, and has succeeded in persuading them (but not the FPLP-CG, nor the Islamic Jihad) to sign an agreement, on 12 October in Cairo [ 12 ]. He has engineered the election to the head of Hamas of a childhood friend of the leader of Fatah, Mohammed Dahlan, in preparation for the fusion of the two movements.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian factions continue to express radically different ideas. For Fatah, Israël is a second Rhodesia, a colonial State which pronounced itself independent. For Hamas, based on an interpretation of the Hadiths (not the Coran), the problem is that a Muslim land cannot be governed by non-Muslims.

The beginning of events came with the announcement of the transfer of the US embassy from Tel-Aviv to Jerusalem.

Clearly, the White House is testing its ability to force its way through. Indeed, on one hand, the plan for the sharing of Palestine in fact anticipates that West Jerusalem will be the capital of the Hebrew state. But on the other hand, the Security Council has condemned Israël for designating West Jerusalem as its capital [ 13 ].

The strange meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, which has just been held in Istanbul, proposed to transfer the capital of the Palestinian State from Ramallah to East Jerusalem [ 14 ]. Except that this seems difficult to realise, and in fact has not been realised. Perhaps this was simply a gallant last stand designed to force the acceptance of this abandon by Muslim public opinion.

Provisional Conclusion

The adversaries of President Trump are attempting by any means possible to oblige him to give up on his advisor Jared Kushner. Nevertheless, he is still in office. He has, for the moment, managed to end Saudi support for terrorist groups and resolve the question of the succession to the throne by cutting the Gordian knot, in other words, by neutralizing the royal family. We may regret the method chosen – hanging old men by their feet and torturing them until they hand over their bank accounts. The fact remains that all the other solutions, or even worse, the absence of solutions, could have led to a civil war. The fault lies not with Jared Kushner, but with those who have for so long accepted the barbaric and medieval régime of the Saudis.

Equally, it is today extremely unjust, not to transfer the US embassy to West Jerusalem, but to give up on establishing the Palestinian government in East Jerusalem. Here again, the responsibility does not lie with Jared Kushner, but with the " international community ", and in particular with the Arab Sionist governments, who have allowed Israël, for the last 70 years, to eat up the city, apartment by apartment.

So while, for 70 years, Western diplomats have contrived to multiply and complexify the conflicts in the Middle East, Jared Kushner is the first to have brought a resolution. The angel-faced Presidential advisor is a talented organiser. Thierry Meyssan

[Mar 25, 2019] Jared Kushner And Donald Trump To Partner For The First Time In A New Jersey Development - Jewish Business NewsJewish Business

Mar 25, 2019 | jewishbusinessnews.com

The thirty three year old member of the Kushner real estate family, Jared Kushner , is married to Ivanka Trump, Donald Trump's daughter. His Kushner Companies and Donald Trump's Trump Organization have announced plans for a joint venture to build a 447 unit rental apartment building in Jersey City, New Jersey.

The new development is located next to Trump Plaza Residences at 88 Morgan Street, a 55-story condominium completed six years ago. It will be called Trump Bay Street and is expected to cost $193.5 million.

The two companies will be joined by the KABR Group of New Jersey.

The site went through a series of owners during the recession before being purchased by the Kushner and KABR partnership. Kushner chose to use the Trump name due to the success of the neighboring Trump Plaza. They bought the debt on the property for $6 million in 2011. It was valued at $35 million at the time.

Kushner-KABR will be putting up $38.5 million of its own equity for the project, according to reports. Another $90 million will be acquired through a construction loan and another $65 million will come from a mezzanine loan tied to a Federal visa program. This was reported in the Wall Street Journal.

The Journal says that the details of Trump Organization's involvement in the development have not yet been made public. Donald Trump told the Wall Street Journal, ""Jared is a very talented young man. It is going to be a great project."

[Mar 25, 2019] Kushners Belong to Jewish Supremacist Cult

Apr 10, 2017 | themillenniumreport.com
(Jared & Ivanka visit the Chabad Rebbe for a pre-election blessing Nov. 5, 2016)

Is Trump's Jared Kushner connection to the Chabad Lubavitch sect the cause for his dramatic U-turn? The sect is deliberately fomenting a prophesied Third World War.

It believes Jews are God's chosen people and everyone else is trash. In the book "Gatherings of Conversations" Rebbe Schneerson tells his followers that Jewish people are an extension of God and Gentiles are destined to serve the Jews .

... ... ...

Jared Kushner attended Chabad House at Harvard.

"Israel wasn't a political discussion for him; it was his family, his life, his people," said Hirschy Zarchi, rabbi at the Chabad House at Harvard. Between 2003 and 2013, his family foundation donated a total of $342,500 to various institutions and projects associated with the movement. Especially endowed was the Chabad center at Harvard University, which received $150,000 in 2007 (the foundation's single biggest donation to a Lubavitch-affiliated enterprise) and then another $3,600 in 2013. In addition , the Donald J. Trump Foundation has donated $11,550 to three Chabad institutions. In 2006, Kushner's father Charles was sentenced to 24 months in prison for making illegal campaign donations & witness tampering.

[Mar 25, 2019] What do you think of Jared Kushner getting ready to unveil his economic plan for peace in the Middle East

Notable quotes:
"... He and the rest of his family are all crooks as are most politicians. Deals are made between thieves. Wealth serves as a mask. ..."
Mar 25, 2019 | www.quora.com

What do you think of Jared Kushner getting ready to unveil his economic plan for peace in the Middle East?

https://thehill.com/news-by-subject/foreign-policy/429053-kushner-to-unveil-economic-plan-for-middle-east-peace-report

Christina Fabian , lives in San Francisco Answered Feb 8

He and the rest of his family are all crooks as are most politicians. Deals are made between thieves. Wealth serves as a mask.

I wonder how much he will make! Am so sick at the lack of morals among officials all over the world. Do good because it is the right thing to do not because of the accolades. Let thereby real judge!

[Mar 25, 2019] Is Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, the man to bring peace to the Middle East- - Quora

Jan 21, 2017 | www.quora.com

John-Paul Wilson Answered Jan 21 2017

No! Of course not. Why does anyone believe this nonsense!

First off, I think by "bring peace to the Middle East" you must be referring to "solve the Israeli-Palestinian dilemma". There are numerous conflicts in the broader Middle East that make broader peace impossible.

Jared Kushner has no diplomatic experience. He doesn't seem to have any special knowledge about the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Being raised an Orthodox Jew, I think it will be impossible for the Palestinians to see him as a neutral party.

Here's something that people should have learned before the election: p... (more)

[Mar 25, 2019] Jared Kushner Is Beating Heart of Corrupt and Deeply Evil Trump Administration, Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe Says by Jason Lemon

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... "Jared Kushner of 666 Fifth Avenue is the beating heart of this unprecedentedly corrupt and deeply evil administration," Tribe wrote . "He'll eventually be exposed as an insatiably greedy Benedict Arnold." ..."
"... "Kushner is going to get us into a *devastating* war with Iran. Jared, singlehandedly. Jared, to make money for himself [sic]," the attorney wrote. "I'll say now that Jared more richly deserves to be in prison for the rest of his life than Manafort, and Manafort richly deserves it," he argued. "That's how bad this is." ..."
"... "Don't believe anything you hear from Kushner's attorney or from Kushner. *Ever*. The latter will always be lying to you, and the former will either be lying to you or will have been lied to by his client [sic]," Abramson continued. He then pointed to the reports surrounding Kushner's top-secret security clearance, which he allegedly was granted despite the disapproval of intelligence agencies and top administration officials. ..."
"... "Our foreign policy is totally off the rails in a way that is dangerous, and the sole reason for this is the Kushner-Trump axis. Our values have been betrayed in ways that we may shortly feel so keenly our heads will spin. We need whistleblowers to blow their whistles now," he said. Abramson also argued that Kushner should go to prison for "a very, very long time." ..."
"... Trump's former chief of staff John Kelly and top intelligence officials opposed granting Kushner access to viewing sensitive top secret materials pertaining to the nation's security, according to a recent report from The New York Times . However, the president reportedly ordered his son-in-law be granted the clearance, allegedly disregarding the objections. ..."
Mar 10, 2019 | www.newsweek.com

Laurence Tribe, a professor of constitutional law at Harvard Law School, slammed President Donald Trump's son-in-law of Jared Kushner in a tweet this weekend, suggesting he would soon be "exposed" as a traitor.

Sharing a long Twitter thread by attorney and academic Seth Abramson, who is also a columnist for Newsweek , Tribe on Saturday referred to Kushner as "Smarmy, slimy, smiling."

Kushner, who is married to Ivanka Trump, was appointed by the president as a senior White House adviser in January 2017.

"Jared Kushner of 666 Fifth Avenue is the beating heart of this unprecedentedly corrupt and deeply evil administration," Tribe wrote . "He'll eventually be exposed as an insatiably greedy Benedict Arnold."

Tribe is referring to the infamous General Benedict Arnold, an early hero of the American Revolution against the British, who later switched sides and betrayed his young nation in 1779. "His name has since become synonymous with the word 'traitor,'" according to History .

Abramson's thread , shared by Tribe, laid out a case for why Kushner is allegedly the "greatest domestic danger to America."

The attorney and columnist made the claim after "many months" of research for a forthcoming book titled Proof of Conspiracy . "Many former US government officials know for a fact that what I've just said is true," Abramson wrote in his first tweet in the series.

"Kushner is going to get us into a *devastating* war with Iran. Jared, singlehandedly. Jared, to make money for himself [sic]," the attorney wrote. "I'll say now that Jared more richly deserves to be in prison for the rest of his life than Manafort, and Manafort richly deserves it," he argued. "That's how bad this is."

"Don't believe anything you hear from Kushner's attorney or from Kushner. *Ever*. The latter will always be lying to you, and the former will either be lying to you or will have been lied to by his client [sic]," Abramson continued. He then pointed to the reports surrounding Kushner's top-secret security clearance, which he allegedly was granted despite the disapproval of intelligence agencies and top administration officials.

"Trump circumventing our intelligence community to give his son-in-law that access is the shibboleth that made the current danger to America *possible* [sic]," Abramson warned.

"Our foreign policy is totally off the rails in a way that is dangerous, and the sole reason for this is the Kushner-Trump axis. Our values have been betrayed in ways that we may shortly feel so keenly our heads will spin. We need whistleblowers to blow their whistles now," he said. Abramson also argued that Kushner should go to prison for "a very, very long time."

Trump's former chief of staff John Kelly and top intelligence officials opposed granting Kushner access to viewing sensitive top secret materials pertaining to the nation's security, according to a recent report from The New York Times . However, the president reportedly ordered his son-in-law be granted the clearance, allegedly disregarding the objections.

Jim Boyle Kathy Rhodarmer The article said the details will be revealed soon, so I guess we'll all just have to wait for the investigation to decide. Traitor is pretty strong accusation, but the massive Qatar loan, secretive relationship with MSB and intelligence agencies concern with his security clearance are all big red flags. The oversight will continue... Martin Wulfe Tribe is a highly respected constitutional lawyer, but so far this article is a real disappointment and lacks any details. We'll just have to wait until the full article comes out to see what actual evidence there is to back this up, if there is any.

Danny LaMaster Trump and Kushner are selling American secrets for personal gain

Bud Dailey Kushner is not and never will be a American patriot , and has no business in American government.

Kathy Dreher The same is true of the Trump crime family.

Joan Nelson Jared is too cozy with our enemy, no, not ally, Saudi Arabia.Setting up some opportunities for himself and his family after he leaves the WH. The scummy atmosphere in the WH is reflective of the presence of incompetent family members who have no business there...

[Mar 25, 2019] Another SIGINT compromise ...

Highly recommended!
In Ber 2018 Kusher security clearance wasdongraded.
Notable quotes:
"... Among those nations discussing ways to influence Kushner to their advantage were the United Arab Emirates, China, Israel and Mexico, the current and former officials said. ..."
"... Kushner's interim security clearance was downgraded last week from the top-secret to the secret level, which should restrict the regular access he has had to highly classified information, according to administration officials. Washpost ..."
Feb 28, 2018 | turcopolier.typepad.com

" Officials in at least four countries have privately discussed ways they can manipulate Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law and senior adviser, by taking advantage of his complex business arrangements, financial difficulties and lack of foreign policy experience, according to current and former U.S. officials familiar with intelligence reports on the matter.

Among those nations discussing ways to influence Kushner to their advantage were the United Arab Emirates, China, Israel and Mexico, the current and former officials said.

It is unclear if any of those countries acted on the discussions, but Kushner's contacts with certain foreign government officials have raised concerns inside the White House and are a reason he has been unable to obtain a permanent security clearance, the officials said.

Kushner's interim security clearance was downgraded last week from the top-secret to the secret level, which should restrict the regular access he has had to highly classified information, according to administration officials. Washpost

------------------

Most people will probably be struck by the fall from grace of Kushner and other WH staff dilettantes. I am not terribly interested in that. What strikes me is that this is the third major compromise of US SIGINT products in the last year. The first was the felonious disclosure to the press of US intelligence penetration of Russian diplomatic communications. the second was the disclosure to the press of penetration of GRU communications. In this one the oral or written discussions among the officials of several foreign countries are revealed. These conversations were probably encrypted.

Is Jeff Sessions still alive? Why are there no prosecutions for these felonies? pl

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/kushners-overseas-contacts-raise-concerns-as-foreign-officials-seek-leverage/2018/02/27/16bbc052-18c3-11e8-942d-16a950029788_story.html?utm_term=.e3639623e918

[Mar 25, 2019] Book Donald Trump Mocked Key Early White House Staff, Thought 'Jared and Ivanka Should Never Have Come to Washington'

Notable quotes:
"... In phone conversations with friends, Trump would share his frustrations concerning members of his staff and the internal chaos that drove the White House. ..."
"... Kushner was a suck-up. ..."
"... Jared and Ivanka should never have come to Washington. ..."
Jan 03, 2018 | www.breitbart.com

In phone conversations with friends, Trump would share his frustrations concerning members of his staff and the internal chaos that drove the White House.

Wolff reports:

When he got on the phone after dinner, he'd speculate on the flaws and weaknesses of each member of his staff. Bannon was disloyal (not to mention he always looks like shit). Priebus was weak (not to mention he was short -- a midget). Kushner was a suck-up. Sean Spicer was stupid (and looks terrible too). Conway was a crybaby. Jared and Ivanka should never have come to Washington.

Wolff reveals that the small group of friends did not keep details of Trump's calls to them confidential.

... ... ...

Trump fired Priebus and brought Gen. John Kelly in to serve as the White House chief of staff. Bannon left the White House soon after, and Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump are serving a more diminished role in the White House. Sean Spicer also quit, and Kellyanne Conway remains a counselor to the president.

[Mar 25, 2019] Trumps son-in-law Kushner under FBI scrutiny in Russia probe report by WangXuejing

There is a probably difference between contacts with officials of Russian state and member of Jewish mafia of Russia/USSR origin. But it never ne investigated.
See also Jewish-American organized crime - Wikipedia "
The Soviet and Russian émigré community in New York's Brighton Beach contains a large Jewish presence. Some of these newer American-based Jewish gangsters, such as Ludwig Fainberg (who has lived in Ukraine, Israel and the United States, but never in Russia), share more in common culturally with Russia and the Soviet republics than their predecessors, such as Meyer Lansky. [36] [ page needed ]
Russian Jewish mafia figures, such as Semion Mogilevich , have attempted to penetrate the United States, including participating in a US$10 billion money laundering scheme through the Bank of New York in 1998.
Israeli mobsters also have had a presence in the United States. The Israeli mafia (such as the Abergil crime family ) is heavily involved in ecstasy trafficking in America. [37]
May 25, 2017 | en.people.cn
US President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, who is also a senior adviser to the White House, is under FBI scrutiny as part of its probe into Russia's meddling in the 2016 US election, NBC News reported on Thursday.

The report citing multiple sources said Kushner's interaction with the Russians has been a focus of the investigation. In December, Kushner met with the Russian ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak and a banker from Moscow, according to NBC.

But it remains unclear exactly what activities have drawn the FBI's attention, and investigators' interests in Kushner "does not mean they suspect him of a crime or intend to charge him," the report said.

This came after reports that Trump's former national security adviser Michael Flynn and campaign manager Paul Manafort have been examined for their connections with the Russian government.

The 36-year-old Kushner, who is married to Trump's daughter Ivanka, is an American real estate investor and worked in his father-in-law's presidential campaign team as a key adviser on US policy toward Israel and campaign strategy. In January, he was named senior adviser to the president and became a powerful figures in the West Wing.

[Mar 25, 2019] Senators, Please Ask Jared Kushner About 666 Fifth Avenue by Timothy L. O'Brien

Mar 01, 2029 | www.bloomberg.com

Senators, Please Ask Jared Kushner About 666 Fifth Avenue A Chinese financier has pulled out of a bailout for Trump's son-in-law. Now let's talk about his meetings with a Russian bank.

In a happy moment in the otherwise cloudy world of the Trump family and the flood of financial conflicts they've carted into Washington, a major Chinese investor has decided not to pour billions of dollars into a Manhattan skyscraper owned by the Jared Kushner clan.

Had this deal gone forward -- the effect would have been to bail Kushner out of a huge, misbegotten investment while letting his family take home at least $400 million and retain a minority ownership stake in the building -- it would have compromised President Donald Trump's diplomacy with China.

The background: Anbang, an insurer and prolific deal-maker close to China's government, had considered investing $4 billion in 666 Fifth Avenue. Kushner had overpaid for the building in 2007, when he bought it with the help of bank loans for $1.8 billion. The financial crisis ensued, occupancy rates plummeted and Kushner had to be rescued by outside investors to keep the troubled building afloat. Anbang's investment would have valued the building at a handsome $2.85 billion, and also refinanced about $1.15 billion in debt.

The possibility of a transaction brought scrutiny from two Bloomberg news reporters, Caleb Melby and David Kocieniewski, as well as from Congress and the New York Times . I discussed it in a column here two weeks ago. And for good reason: Kushner is a senior White House adviser who has Trump's ear on foreign policy. The math of Trump's 36-year-old son-in-law being saved from a reckless investment by China presented all sorts of conflicts of interest and the potential for disastrous policy moves by the White House.

So Anbang is now gone and all has been made right? Well, no.

Kushner's family still owns a building that needs a financial lifeline, so 666 Fifth Avenue presents something that Congress may want to examine more closely when Jared Kushner meets with the Senate Intelligence Committee as part of an inquiry into possible collusion between Trump's campaign team and Russia during the 2016 presidential election.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is also investigating the Trump-Russia connection, its director, James Comey, confirmed during a congressional hearing last week. There has been no suggestion that Kushner is part of the FBI probe, but the Senate's decision to question him makes him, as the Times pointed out when it broke the story of Kushner's upcoming testimony, "the closest person to the president to be called upon in any of the investigations, and the only one currently serving in the White House."

Kushner's meetings with Russian bankers during the presidential transition last fall and winter apparently help explain why the Senate is interested in speaking with him.

The timeline matters. Kushner began talking with Chinese investors about 666 Fifth Avenue last summer, around the time that Trump locked up the Republican nomination. Then he spearheaded more serious talks that took place in New York about a week after his father-in-law was elected in November.

According to the Times, Kushner met with Russia's ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Kislyak, in early December as part of what appeared to be normal presidential transition meetings. A second Kislyak meeting with a Kushner deputy followed in December, as well as another, brokered by Kislyak, between Kushner and the head of a Russian bank, Vnesheconombank. The U.S. had imposed financial sanctions on that bank because of Russian President Vladimir Putin's military incursions in Ukraine and annexation of Crimea.

Vnesheconombank has close ties to the Kremlin and its chief executive, Sergey Gorkov, attended a training academy for members of Russia's security and intelligence services.

A Trump spokeswoman described Kushner's meetings with the Russians as routine, which they may have been given his role at the time as Trump's liaison to foreign powers.

But given how important 666 Fifth Avenue was for Kushner at the time, it's also possible that he saw the Russians as potential investors alongside the Chinese. Or as financial backups should the Chinese walk away from a deal.

The Times, citing a government source, said that the Senate plans to ask Kushner if financial help for 666 Fifth was part of his chats with Gorkov and Vnesheconombank.

Kushner's responses to questions about Russian and Chinese financing for his family's building may clarify what inspired him to negotiate so diligently with foreign lenders at a time when he surely understood the negotiating value of having his father-in-law on the cusp of assuming power in the White House.

His appearance in the Senate will also offer a chance to quiz him about the intersection of personal financial dealings and public policymaking. That's an issue that remains troubling because Kushner, and his wife Ivanka Trump, and the president himself, have avoided adequately separating themselves from their private business interests even as they wield power.

[Mar 25, 2019] Kushner Companies and Michael Cohen accused of falsifying documents to push out tenants by Charles V Bagli

Aug 28, 2018

Family real estate company fined $210,000 for filing fake construction permits by New York City regulators as tenants rights watchdog says former Trump lawyer engaged in same practice. Earlier this week, the city's Department of Buildings fined Kushner Companies a total of $210,000 (£163,00) for 42 instances in which it says the company falsified construction permits at 17 residential buildings, where many of the tenants were protected by rent regulations from steep rent increases and eviction.

Cohen may not be the only one involved in campaign finance violations. A spokeswoman for Kushner Companies said that the violations were "paperwork errors". The company can contest the citations before an administrative judge.

"In no case did the company act in disregard of the safety of our tenants," said Christine Taylor.

Tenant activists also issued a report based on city and state records that suggested that an investment group led by Mr Cohen had also falsified construction permits by claiming that three buildings in Manhattan were vacant or without rent-regulated tenants, when they were occupied and many tenants had rental protections.

Landlords are required in New York City to disclose whether tenants in their buildings are rent regulated to obtain a construction permit. This requirement is designed to safeguard rent-regulated tenants from harassment.

Unscrupulous landlords sometimes push out rent-protected tenants so they can sharply increase rents on those units.

[Mar 25, 2019] Deal Gives Kushners Cash Infusion on 666 Fifth Avenue

Mar 25, 2019 | www.nytimes.com

In a deal that eases the financial pressure on the Kushner Companies, Brookfield Asset Management said on Friday that it had taken a 99-year lease on 666 Fifth Avenue, the troubled Midtown tower owned by the family of Donald Trump's son-in-law.

Jared Kushner, now a top White House adviser, paid a record-setting $1.8 billion for the building in 2007, and it has been a drag on his family's real estate company ever since.

The deal, in which Brookfield paid the rent for the entire 99-year term upfront, helps remove the family's biggest financial headache: a $1.4 billion mortgage on the office portion of the tower that was due in February next year. The Kushners have spent more than two years on an international search for new partners or fresh financing that stretched from the Middle East to China.

The deal would enable the Kushners to pay off at least a large portion of what they owe lenders and retain ownership of the land beneath the tower. But they may not make any money from it.

While the deal relieves some of the Kushners' troubles, difficulties persist across their real estate empire, at least in part because of their connection to the White House. "If you do business with the Kushners, there's a headline reality," said Kenneth Pasternak, executive chairman of the real-estate firm KABR Group and an investing partner of the Kushner family in multiple developments. "I don't want to say it's a headline risk," he added. "There's a headline reality."

In the 666 Fifth Avenue deal, Brookfield paid about $1.1 billion in upfront rent, according to an executive who requested anonymity because he had been briefed on the deal but was not authorized to discuss it. Charles Kushner, Jared's father, who now runs the company, in turn, negotiated with his lenders to pay less than the company owed to satisfy the debts, the executive said.

Analysts have long said that 666 Fifth was worth less than its debts. The building was 30 percent vacant and only generated about half the annual mortgage payments. In recent months, the building's largest remaining tenant, Millennium Management, signaled that it too planned to leave.

A spokeswoman for Kushner Companies declined to comment on the Brookfield deal.

The purchase of the aluminum-clad tower was intended to vault the Kushners into the top ranks of New York real estate from their perch in New Jersey, where they were known for a huge portfolio of garden apartment complexes. They moved their company headquarters to 666 Fifth, from where they presided over a new and rapidly expanding empire that included former industrial buildings in Brooklyn, apartments in Maryland and development sites in Jersey City, N.J.

But they ran into trouble almost immediately. They were unable to get the office rents they expected in 2007, making it difficult to pay the initial $1.75 billion debt on the building. Then the recession hit.

[Mar 25, 2019] Is Ivanka lady Mackbeth of Trump presidency?

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... Ivanka got upset watching a piece of Wag the Dog nonsense and begged daddy to blow up the "bad guys". ..."
Apr 12, 2017 | thesaker.is
The thought occurred to me, what if Trump did this as a "give them enough rope to hang themselves" maneuver, where he "finds out" the chemical attack intelligence was false, and then goes after everyone who pushed it, "you're fired", as well as the each media that beat the celebratory war drums, as a showcase of "fake news" examples. That would sure catch them off guard, ha. But I don't think Trump is that Machiavellian, more like a real estate salesperson than a chess master. But that idea, if applied, might save Trump from the trap he is in, and turn things around, no?

Trump's man could visit Moscow and say, yeah it looked bad but we did it to get the hawks feeding the president false intelligence to out themselves so we could fire them using the fabricated intelligence as the reason, and also to identify the honest brokers who held firm. Surely a good way to find out who your friends are vs who works for the Machine. But again, i don't see it likely unless someone suggested to Trump, and even then very unlikely to pan out when Trump is so surrounded by folks of the opposite persuasion.

Anonymous on April 11, 2017 , · at 2:33 am UTC

Well, live in hope but plan for the alternative.
HDan on April 11, 2017 , · at 2:20 pm UTC
The dog wiggles not through his tale. I'm also getting more and more the impression Trump is done for. He is now a doll, and the Handlers will fully unleash it onto the World, in the fashion .now let's see what happens if we turn this knob fully counter clockwise what will our nice little rag doll do
Gabriel the Seagull on April 11, 2017 , · at 5:16 pm UTC
That's exactly what I'm "concentrating" on being the "probable outcome" of all this
Really keeping fingers crossed like a fool but sometimes dreams come true.
Give them some rope to see how far they will go then, hang them "you're fired" with their own decisions and false news.
Standing with all of you folks
White whale on April 11, 2017 , · at 11:59 pm UTC
Trump theatrically sends a 59-missile tweet, and four "beautiful babies" in Syria become "collateral damage". ***
Several billion people take a sharp intake of breath and say: WTF?
A trillion collective hours are spent analysing, deconstructing, psychoanalysing:
WHYdid he do this, and why now?
Now we know.

Ivanka.

Ivanka got upset watching a piece of Wag the Dog nonsense and begged daddy to blow up the "bad guys".

Good to know, now that the world is standing at the very precipice of thermo-nuclear war, it's because Daddy's princess couldn't determine the difference between a Disneyesque cartoon and the diabolical mass-death a real "sarin" attack would precipitate.

****to paraphrase (and contort) Orwell, all "beautiful babies" are equal, but some beautiful babies just have to die if they are obstructing American "interests"

[Mar 24, 2019] Kushner, Inc Vicky Ward on How Jared and Ivanka's Greed Ambition Compromise U.S. Foreign Policy

Mar 24, 2019 | www.youtube.com

Vincent Masci , 2 days ago

This is clear that the Emollients Law is being broken. Kushner is making a ton of money and using over seas trips to create a larger establishment for his own empire . He is trying to make up for his big loses . This truly Breaks all laws of our Government .Using his position to make money . He needs to go ................

IFREEDOMI , 2 days ago

Our government is Israeli Occupied

friedrich nietzsche , 2 days ago

The Family Trump, the people are absolutely no shame, not 1%, to the Millions of poor Americans, on the Streets, in Tents, on Highways, under Highways!!! Ivanka Trump, she a young Women, no heart!!! No Empathy to the Millions of poor Amer.

Wake Up! , 2 days ago

It's not rocket science people! They were raised by corrupt parents and grandparents who taught them well. Children will model what their parents teach them. They are also children who are inexperienced & way over their head and very unqualified so they are overwhelmed.

[Mar 24, 2019] The tale of 666 Fifth Avenue: If your last name is Kushner id does not matter if you have money to pay for you real estate loan or not -- missing payments never result in foreclosure

Mar 24, 2019 | www.amazon.com

Susan TOP 1000 REVIEWER

The Diabolical Duo: the Sins of the Fathers March 22, 2019

As a political wonk and news junkie, I was not surprised by KUSHNER, INC., but Vicky Ward's well-sourced book is nonetheless a fascinating and maddening read. If this were a work of fiction, I would deem it unbelievable: a grade B story of political intrigue. How can this be happening, unchecked, before my eyes? How serendipitous that the book's release coincided almost exactly with news that Congressman Elijah Cummings requested details of the Kushner Kouple's use of private email and WhatsApp. And as I sit in anticipation of what I might soon learn from Robert Mueller. And as I hope for additional criminal indictments.

I assume that the majority of Vicky Ward's audience is comprised of anti-Trumpers who will be further inflamed by the chutzpah of Javanka. The tale of 666 Fifth Avenue in itself should infuriate everyone who has a mortgage: after a few missed payments, the lender stands at the front door with a foreclosure notice. On the other hand, no penalties are incurred on a $1.2 billion loan, AND a bank will lend more money if your last name is Kushner, no matter that one of the principles has been convicted of financial crimes related to real estate deals.

My takeaway from KUSHNER, INC.: not only are the Kushners sleazy, greedy, and imperious (and more than a little creepy), but they are dangerous. Jared, in particular, will go to any length to find money, even if it means secretly negotiating with actors like Qatar, while he sits in the West Wing. The amount of money the Kushner Kouple continues to make while working for the taxpayers is staggering. They follow no rules. The irony of their use of private email and WhatsApp is not lost on me, but rather than LOCK THEM UP, their defenders see nothing amiss about their chitchat with the despotic MBS and others.

Vicky Ward does nothing in her book to assuage my distrust of the Kushners and my disgust that nothing has been done to stop them. I have no doubt that any pro-Trumper who reads KUSHNER, INC. will deem the book to be a hit job, but based on Vicky Ward's sourcing (how big a role does Steve Bannon play, as he does in Michael Wolff's FIRE AND FURY?) and news reports from reputable media, I find her account to be credible. Is it any wonder that the offspring of two corrupt real estate moguls not only found one another and married, but also followed in their fathers' footsteps?

[Mar 24, 2019] Kushner Companies offloads troubled 666 Fifth Avenue flagship

Aug 03, 2018 | money.cnn.com

The Kushner Companies has finally struck a deal to get the building that was supposed to be the centerpiece of its portfolio, but instead had weighed it down for years, off its hands.

Brookfield Properties announced Friday afternoon that it has acquired a 100% leasehold interest in the building, a 1.5 million square foot property at 666 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, for 99 years through one of its funds. The financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

Brookfield, which has major real estate holdings around the world, said it's planning a significant redevelopment of the building.

The Kushners bought the Fifth Avenue skyscraper in 2007 for a then-record $1.8 billion. It was supposed to have been the crown jewel of their real estate empire, and Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law and a senior White House adviser, played a prominent role in the deal.

But the property didn't bring in as much revenue as expected, making it difficult to repay loans on the building.

The building carries $1.4 billion in debt, the bulk of which comes due in February 2019.

Jared Kushner divested his equity interest in the building when he took his current role at the White House.

Kushner Companies and Brookfield declined to comment.

Special counsel interest

CNN previously reported in February that Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigators were looking into Kushner's efforts to shore up financing for 666 Fifth Avenue during the presidential transition, according to people familiar with the special counsel investigation.

One line of questioning from Mueller's team involved discussions Kushner had with Chinese investors, according to the sources familiar with the inquiry.

A week after Trump's election, Kushner met with the chairman and other executives of Anbang Insurance, the Chinese conglomerate that bought the Waldorf Astoria in 2014, according to The New York Times.

Kushner divests from his most expensive NYC property

At the time, Kushner and Anbang's chairman, Wu Xiaohui, were close to finishing a deal for the Chinese insurer to invest in 666 Fifth Avenue. Talks between the two companies collapsed a few months later, according to the Times.

Mueller's team also asked about Kushner's dealings with a Qatari investor regarding the same property, according to one of the sources. Kushner and his company were negotiating for financing from a prominent Qatari investor, former prime minister Hamad bin Jassim Al Thani, according to The Intercept. But as with Anbang, these efforts stalled.

In February, Kushner attorney Abbe Lowell said in a statement, "Another anonymous source with questionable motives now contradicts the facts -- in all of Mr. Kushner's extensive cooperation with all inquiries, there has not been a single question asked nor document sought on the 666 building or Kushner Co. deals. Nor would there be any reason to question these regular business transactions."

Troubled property

The 666 Fifth Avenue purchase in 2007 was supposed to be a big break for Kushner Companies, which has roots buying middle-income housing in the tri-state area.

But it came under financial pressure during the housing crisis.

In 2011, Vornado Realty Trust stepped in with financing, taking on a 49.5% stake in the building. Vornado agreed to sell its stake back to Kushner Companies in June.

Charles Kushner, Jared's father, told CNN in April that his son expressed reservations about buying the office tower.

"I pushed Jared to do the deal," Charles said.

In the interview, the elder Kushner called the decision to purchase the property "bad timing and bad judgment."

[Mar 24, 2019] Jared Kushner's family's real estate company 'subpoenaed over investment-for-visas programme' by Samuel Osborne

They are going after Kushners, aren't they ?
Aug 03, 2017 | independent.co.uk

New York federal prosecutors have reportedly subpoenaed Kushner Companies, the New York real estate business owned by the family of Donald Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner.

The subpoenea concerns the company's use of the controversial EB-5 visa programme to finance its development in New Jersey called One Journal Square, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The EB-5 programme allows wealthy foreign investors to effectively buy US immigration visas for themselves and their families by investing at least $500,000 (£378,000) in US development projects.

[Mar 24, 2019] Qatar admits it unwittingly helped bail out Jared Kushner's skyscraper The Independent

Notable quotes:
"... The Qatari wealth fund was not involved in the 666 Fifth Avenue deal, a source close to Brookfield Asset Management told Reuters . There was no requirement for Brookfield to inform the QIA beforehand. ..."
Feb 12, 2019 | independent.co.uk

Fifth Avenue building cost $1.8 billion

Mr Kushner was chief executive of Kushner Companies when it acquired 666 Fifth Avenue in 2007. ( Getty )
When news emerged that Qatar may have unwittingly helped bail out a New York skyscraper owned by the family of Jared Kushner , Donald Donald Trump 's son-in-law, eyebrows were raised in Doha .

Mr Kushner, a senior White House adviser, was a close ally of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman - a key architect of a regional boycott against Qatar, which Riyadh accuses of sponsoring terrorism. Doha denies the charge.

Brookfield, a global property investor in which the Qatari government has placed investments, struck a deal last year that rescued the Kushner Companies ' 666 Fifth Avenue tower in Manhattan from financial straits.

The bailout, in which Doha played no part and first learned about in the media, has prompted a rethink of how the gas-rich kingdom invests money abroad via its giant sovereign wealth fund, two sources with knowledge of the matter told the Reuters news agency.

The country has decided that the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) will aim to avoid putting money in funds or other investment vehicles it does not have full control over, according to the sources, who are familiar with the QIA's strategy.

"Qatar started looking into how its name got involved into the deal and found out it was because of a fund it co-owned," said one of the sources. "So QIA ultimately triggered a strategy revamp."

The QIA declined to comment.

Canada's Brookfield Asset Management Inc bailed out 666 Fifth Avenue via its real estate unit Brookfield Property Partners , in which the QIA acquired a 9 per cent stake five years ago. Both parent and unit declined to comment.

The QIA's strategic shift was made late last year, according to the sources. It offers a rare insight into the thinking of one of the world's most secretive sovereign wealth funds.

The revamp could have significant implications for the global investment scene because the QIA is one of the world's largest state investors, with more than $320bn (£248bn) under management.

The wealth fund has poured money into the West over the past decade, including rescuing British and Swiss banks during the 2008 financial crisis and investing in landmarks like New York's Plaza Hotel and the Savoy Hotel and Harrods store in London.

Qatari boycott

Mr Kushner was chief executive of Kushner Companies when it acquired 666 Fifth Avenue in 2007 for $1.8bn, a record at the time for a Manhattan office building. It has been a drag on his family's real estate company ever since. The debt-laden skyscraper was bailed out by Brookfield last August, when it took a 99-year lease on the property, paying the rent for 99 years upfront. Financial terms were not disclosed.

The QIA bought a 9 per cent stake in Brookfield Property Partners, which is known as BPY and is listed in Toronto and New York, for $1.8bn in 2014.

BPY has about $87bn in assets, part of more than $330bn managed by its parent Brookfield. The stake purchase by QIA was in line with its strategy to boost investments in prime US property. The investment gave QIA no seat on the board of BPY.

The Qatari wealth fund was not involved in the 666 Fifth Avenue deal, a source close to Brookfield Asset Management told Reuters . There was no requirement for Brookfield to inform the QIA beforehand.

[Mar 24, 2019] Brookfield, the fund saving Kushner, is linked to both Qatar and UAE by Jed Shugerman

May 21, 2018 | shugerblog.com
The news broke this Saturday afternoon that Donald Trump, Jr. had met George Nader, an emissary from Saudi Arabia and UAE , along with Erik Prince, Stephen Miller, and Joel Zamel, an Israeli social media expert on Aug. 3, 2016 in Trump Tower:

During the Trump Tower meeting, the Times said, George Nader, the emissary for the two crown princes, indicated that leaders in Saudi Arabia and the UAE wished to help Trump. Nader, the Times said, is now cooperating with Mueller It is not known if anything came of the alleged offer for assistance. The Times stated that Trump Jr responded "approvingly".

This report raises many enormous questions. But it also connects back to another explosive story last week: Brookfield, an enormous fund linked to Qatar, was negotiating to buy Kushner's disastrous $1.8 billion investment in 666 5th Ave. I've written a blogpost and a Google Doc timeline connecting Qatar as the possible intermediary between the Russia-Trump quid pro quo deal of lifting sanctions in return for Rosneft sale commissions. I've also written about Kushner's terrible real estate investment , and how he allegedly escalated a Gulf crisis against Qatar, which coincidentally was followed by a Qatar-linked loan of $184 million. The Brookfield deal could save Kushner from an upcoming balloon payment that his family cannot afford, which could mean financial ruin. I addressed the Qatar links in the Brookfield deal in detail at p. 11-12 of my time line here, with public sourcing. Qatar is the largest outside investor in BPY, even though that's only 9%, and I cite Wendy Siegelman's research showing how Qatar is often a lead manager in some major Brookfield projects in New York and London. We need to see the details of the deal.

And it turns out that Brookfield is also linked to the United Arab Emirates.

  1. Brookfield Property Partners (BPY) is the unit of Brookfield Assets Management that is negotiating the deal. Its annual report shows that BPY has eight directors, one of which is Soon Young Chang. See p. 109: "Dr. Chang is a member of the board of directors of Dubai World . Dr. Chang serves as Senior Advisor to the Investment Corporation of Dubai, providing strategic counsel and lending his global perspective to the investment arm of the Dubai Government. Dr. Chang is the founder and chairman of Midas International Asset Management Company, an international asset management fund which manages over $5 billion. He is also a founding partner of Sentinel Advisor, a New York-based arbitrage fund."
  2. Chang is a director of Dubai World , the investment company for the Government of Dubai, one of the two most powerful emirates in the UAE. Wikipedia summarizes: "As a subsidiary of Dubai Inc. , it is the emirate's flag bearer in global investments and has a central role in the direction of Dubai's economy. Assets include DP World , which caused considerable controversy when trying to take over six US ports " It is chaired by Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum , the youngest son of Dubai's former ruler Saeed bin Maktoum bin Hasher Al Maktoum, the half-brother of Dubai's former ruler Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum , and the uncle of Dubai's ruler Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum .
  3. Chang advises the Investment Corporation of Dubai, the state-owned holding company, a sovereign wealth fund owned by the government. Its chair is Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, "the ruler of Dubai," and the Vice President and Prime Minister of UAE . He offers some interesting remarks about the 2016 election addressing conspiracy theories here ."Yes, I believe in some conspiracy theories Even during the US elections there was talk about conspiracies, but if a country says we are victims of a conspiracy and then stops working, this is a mistake. Here in the UAE we have faced conspiracies, media campaigns, economic wars. But we never stopped, it only made us more determined."
  4. Brookfield (BPY) lists (at p. F-60) one of its most significant developments as ICD Brookfield Place in Dubai, UAE ($163 million).
  5. Brookfield Asset Management's annual report states: "We currently have approximately 6 million square feet of active development projects, including properties in New York, London and Dubai." Again, BAM highlights Dubai. One of their eight corporate offices is in Dubai.

There was excellent coverage of the Saudi Arabia/UAE meeting over the weekend. I highly recommend Chris Hayes's interview of Middle East expert Dexter Filkins here . Filkins explains the axis of conflict in the Middle East of Saudi/UAE/Egypt (plus Israel) vs. Iran/Syria/Lebanon, with Qatar getting caught in between. One might wonder if UAE and Qatar are at odds, why would they both be involved in the same deal to help Kushner? If UAE had made an arrangement with the Trump campaign, Qatar had even more incentive to be helpful and not get frozen out. The Saudi/UAE blockade of April 2017 show the risks of not being in with the Trump administration. (Filkins puzzles at how Kushner knew all about this blockade before it happened, while Tillerson and Mattis were in the dark ) It is conceivable that Qatar was either cooperating with UAE or competing with UAE in assisting the Trump campaign. The Brookfield negotiations might reflect Qatar's response to the blockade "stick" by offering cooperating now with UAE in return for a carrot.

Another innocent explanation is that both Qatar and UAE have so much cash, and they are often in the middle of massive energy and real estate deals around the world. It may actually be a coincidence that Qatar and UAE keep showing up in these events. But the number of coincidences are remarkable, and it is a problem that anyone has a reasonable doubt that the Trump administration is compromised by massive debts, foreign bailouts, and rampant conflicts of interest.

I am speculating from public reports and connecting dots. Nader is reportedly cooperating with Mueller, but so far we see no smoking gun. I don't have any conclusions here, just three observations and three questions: It is clear that Soon Young Chang has significant relations with UAE's upper-most leadership. It is clear that Brookfield has a significant relationship with UAE. And it is now reported that UAE sent an emissary to the Trump campaign to discuss assisting it. What does Soon Young Chang know? And when did he know it? What does George Nader know? And when did he know it? What does Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum know? And when did he know it? Brookfield's annual report states under "conflicts of interest": "While Brookfield acts in good faith to resolve all potential conflicts in a manner that is fair and balanced taking into account the facts and circumstances known to it at the time, there can be no assurance that any determination made by Brookfield will be most beneficial to us, favorable to us or would not have been different if additional information were available to it." I'd like to hear Brookfield address this massive conflict of interest, from the UAE and Soon Young Chang, to Qatar, and to Kushner. Maybe their investors would like an explanation, too.

[Mar 24, 2019] The Curse of 666 Fifth Avenue, the Skyscraper That Could Sink the Kushners

Mar 24, 2019 | www.thedailybeast.com

According to a report by NBC News , special counsel Robert Mueller's investigators are looking at multiple efforts made by Kushner to obtain financing for the project from the sovereign wealth fund of Qatar, but they were rejected. Later Qatar's neighbors in the Persian Gulf, including Saudi Arabia, began a blockade against Qatar, alleging that the state was a supporter of terrorism. As a Trump adviser on Middle East policy, Kushner, with close ties to Saudi Arabia, was a party to launching this blockade. This and other attempts to get financing for 666 Fifth from Russia, China, and Turkey have drawn the investigators to scrutinize what seem to be Kushner's serious conflicts of interest.

[Mar 23, 2019] Trump's Golan Move Was Timed To Guarantee Netanyahoo's Reelection

Notable quotes:
"... The people who paid for Trump's election campaign, foremost casino magnate and zionist Sheldon Adelson, want to keep the Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahoo in office. ..."
"... Trump needs money for his re-election campaign and is willing to do anything to get it. ..."
"... Trump is colluding with Netayahoo to influence the Israeli election. It is the reason why he decided yesterday to claim that Israel has sovereignty over the Golan Heights : ..."
Mar 23, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

The people who paid for Trump's election campaign, foremost casino magnate and zionist Sheldon Adelson, want to keep the Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahoo in office.

Netanyahoo is under investigation in several corruption cases and has a serious competitor in the upcoming general elections in Israel. Trump needs money for his re-election campaign and is willing to do anything to get it.

Trump is colluding with Netayahoo to influence the Israeli election. It is the reason why he decided yesterday to claim that Israel has sovereignty over the Golan Heights :

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump - 16:50 utc - 21 Mar 2019
After 52 years it is time for the United States to fully recognize Israel's Sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which is of critical strategic and security importance to the State of Israel and Regional Stability!

The Heights are Syrian lands that were occupied by Israel during its 1967 war of aggression against Egypt and Syria.

[Mar 23, 2019] Kushner said in February the White House was poised to unveil the peace plan after Israel's election in April.

Mar 23, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Zachary Smith , Mar 22, 2019 10:31:08 PM | link

The business of Trump giving away something he doesn't own is insane. But insanity has been the theme of most everything else him and his neocon helpers have been doing of late.

I believe it's time to start paying attention to the truly nutty stories. The crazier sounding ones ought to get the most attention. After all, who would have conceived the Trumpies declaring a genuine nobody to be the true President of Venezuela? Early finds:

U.S., Taiwan: Washington Ponders a Military Presence on a Taiwanese Island (Nov 5, 2018)

A US military base on Taiwan. New weapons to Taiwan. More high-level contacts with that nation. All proposed by the Trumpies. Who benefits most from a small or large war with China? Headline from the neocon york times:

Israel Is on the Brink of Disaster. Trump Just Made Things Worse. (March 22, 2019)

On Twitter on Thursday, he wrote that "it is time for the United States to fully recognize Israel's Sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which is of critical strategic and security importance to the State of Israel and Regional Stability!" It is the latest, and most important, signal from Washington that Mr. Trump is ready to acknowledge Israeli control of the Golan Heights.

But those signals are also being read by the Israeli right wing as an encouragement to pursue annexation of territory in the West Bank -- a far more dangerous step that would present Israel with an unparalleled existential threat to its Jewish and democratic character.

I'd ask if there is any reason for the murdering and stealing rightwingnut settlers not to celebrate? Trump has been doing their bidding at every turn, even when it does direct harm to the US. Are there any indications the Trumpies have something planned for the subhuman Palestinians. As a matter of fact, YES.

Jordan-Saudi Arabia land exchange appeared in draft of Jared Kushner's Middle East peace plan (March 19, 2019)

The are much better 'Kushner, boy wonder' articles than this one floating around, but I want to focus on a single part:

Kushner said in February the White House was poised to unveil the peace plan after Israel's election in April. While in Warsaw, Kushner said the plan will impact the entire Middle East region and is "really about establishing border and resolving final-status issues," according to Sky News Arabia.
Change "final-status" to Final Solution and that would be just about right. Death-March time, Baby, and to the exultant Republican & End-Timers chant of "they had their chance, but blew it".

[Mar 23, 2019] Ira Greenstein: Jared Kushner's Criminal Deal With Israel Behind U.S. Involvement In Syria For Genie Energy's Control of the Golan Heights

Mar 23, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

PavewayIV , Mar 22, 2019 4:36:07 PM | link

Sheesh.... sorry. Zanting's article from last year with proper formatting:

https://animeright.news/zanting/ira-greenstein-jared-kushners-criminal-deal-with-israel-behind-u-s-involvement-in-syria-for-genie-energys-control-of-the-golan-heights/

The Trump administration along with Jared Kushner employed in the White House, a lawyer by the name of Ira Greenstein from Newark, New Jersey, who was by all accounts still acting as President and/or in the interest of his energy corporation when the U.S. bombed Syria.*

Genie Energy.

An energy corporation operating privately in Syrian territory  -- the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

U.S. President Donald Trump and his administration are inherently subjugated by this paradigm of interests. When commencing with hostile military action against Syria, they did so while having a direct conflict of interest, primarily related to business ties with this corporation. This, along with seemingly ulterior political dealings with the Israeli government, has gone part and parcel to the destabilization of Syria. While benefiting Genie Energy, its backers and involved officials.

Officials such as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

This essentially represents extortion against Syria, as part of a behind-the-scenes deal between parties, with Greenstein's boss, the founder of Genie Energy and top Netanyahu donor Howard Jonas having made billions through a telecommunications deal made possible under the watch of both the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and White House Office of American Innovation (OAI ) --  for which to benefit said parties for their actions.

* The U.S. has since attacked Syria's government a number of times, furthering the risk of nuclear war or a widened conflict in the Middle East. Ira Greenstein left the White House on March 30th, 2018 following earlier reporting by this author. U.S. Navy's USS Porter strikes Syria in April of 2017.

On April 6th, 2017, the U.S. launched 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at Syria. Targeting Shayrat Airbase (FAA LID: OS65), numerous aircraft were destroyed, primarily Mikoyan Mig-23ML and Sukhoi Su-22M3 models. These being the same parent models which had been involved in operations over Daraa, which is a choke point near the Golan Heights, it remains as of this posting as being under the control of hostile actors such as Islamic State (ISIS).*

* Syria has since made strides in retaking this key area.

On April 14th, 2018, about a year later, this act was repeated with U.S.-led military strikes against a large number of targets within Syria  --  both France and the U.K. participated in this escalation despite the associated risks.

Ira Greenstein
Troop deployments had preceded the airstrikes, with a permanent presence with or without ISIS being touted in 2017, setting U.S. involvement in Syria at an ever increasing rate . Continued or further involvement in Syria by the Trump administration or other U.S.-led actors, as shown below in this article, is illegal.

me title=

James Mattis claimed at the time that approximately 20% of the Syrian Arab Air Force (SyAAF) was destroyed; impacting Syria's military capabilities, this would then continue with further bombings on Syria by the Israeli Air Force. Israel would find herself losing an F-16 this year after Syrian Air Defenses retaliated in self-defense due to these bombings.

More recently , activity has included an increasing amount of U.S. military action against the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) or its pro-government forces, despite inherent conflicts of interest present within the Trump administration.

This type of behavior sits in stark contrast to Iran and Russia having been formally invited by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to participate in Syria's affairs militarily.

To get to the very heart of the matter, we have to go back to the presidential transition period, when Newark lawyer Ira Greenstein was a member of ex-Congressman John Sweeney's "Tiger Team." While he was still Genie Energy's acting President.

This made Greenstein an official presidential transition team member for the incoming Trump administration, as some may recall, Jared Kushner was a member of this team as well.

[Mar 23, 2019] Is Kushner in trouble?

Mar 23, 2019 | twitter.com

PoliticusUSA ‏ 4:00 PM - 22 Mar 2019

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) said that there is a strong possibility that Trump's family could be indicted by other entities based on the work of Mueller. http:// ow.ly/ZibI30o9PFQ

[Mar 21, 2019] US Gives Syrian Golan Heights to Israel

Notable quotes:
"... State sovereignty means nothing to these people. The post-Westphalia international system means nothing to them. Trump does not have a clue about the ME but Ivanka and Jared are pleased I am sure. pl ..."
Mar 21, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Flash! US Gives Syrian Golan Heights to Israel

"President Donald Trump on Thursday overturned longstanding US policy regarding the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, announcing "it is time" for the US to "fully recognize Israel's sovereignty" over the region. "After 52 years it is time for the United States to fully recognize Israel's Sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which is of critical strategic and security importance to the State of Israel and Regional Stability," Trump tweeted." CNN

This sounds like the Mustachioed Menace (Bolton) and his All Star team at work.

  1. Help Bibi.
  2. Weaken the Syrian government.
  3. Demonstrate to the Lebanese that parts of their strange little country could experience something similar in the south.
  4. Show everyone that the US is in charge of - everything.

State sovereignty means nothing to these people. The post-Westphalia international system means nothing to them. Trump does not have a clue about the ME but Ivanka and Jared are pleased I am sure. pl

https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/21/politics/trump-golan-heights-tweet/index.html

[Mar 21, 2019] Trump s Terrible Golan Heights Recognition Decision by Daniel Larison

Notable quotes:
"... Perhaps most dangerous of all is the signal that it sends to Israeli hard-liners that want to annex some or all of the West Bank. ..."
"... Trump's statement is just the latest in a string of bad decisions that are absurdly biased in favor of Israel. No U.S. interests are advanced by doing this, and it discredits any criticisms that the U.S. wants to make of any other government's illegal occupation and annexation of territory. The double standard that the U.S. applies when it comes to violations of international law by itself and its clients could not be more obvious, and it will make it much more difficult to challenge similarly egregious violations in the future. ..."
Mar 21, 2019 | www.theamericanconservative.com

• March 21, 2019, 1:11 PM

There were hints in recent days that U.S. recognition of Israel's claim to the Golan Heights was coming, and now the president has done it. Israel's control of this territory dates back to the 1967 war, when Israel grabbed this part of Syria and refused to return it. Israel has no legitimate claim to this territory, and in recognizing Israeli sovereignty over land that it seized during a war the U.S. is sending a potentially very dangerous message to governments all around the world.

Perhaps most dangerous of all is the signal that it sends to Israeli hard-liners that want to annex some or all of the West Bank. It tells them that illegal occupation will eventually be rewarded with full U.S. recognition, and it also tells them that the U.S. isn't going to pay any attention to international law when it comes to making decisions regarding Israeli control over occupied territories.

Trump's statement is just the latest in a string of bad decisions that are absurdly biased in favor of Israel. No U.S. interests are advanced by doing this, and it discredits any criticisms that the U.S. wants to make of any other government's illegal occupation and annexation of territory. The double standard that the U.S. applies when it comes to violations of international law by itself and its clients could not be more obvious, and it will make it much more difficult to challenge similarly egregious violations in the future.

[Mar 21, 2019] Trump supports annexation of Holland heights losing all Arab votes in the US, if he has one in 2016

Mar 21, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

shlichim , Mar 21, 2019 5:08:46 PM | link

Drumpf just declared GOLAN as Zionist sovereign turf. THAT should be the top concern

Trump Supports Israel Sovereignty Over Golan, Aiding Netanyahu

[Mar 21, 2019] Jared Kushner WhatsApp, Private Email Democrats Demand Records - Bloomberg

Notable quotes:
"... The White House didn't immediately respond to requests for comment. But in another stand-off with House Democrats, Cipollone on Thursday rejected a request renewed last week from Cummings and two other committee chairmen for information on Trump's communications with Russian President Vladimir Putin. ..."
"... Cummings said the committee obtained a document that "appears" to show that McFarland conducted official business on her personal email account. He said the document was related to efforts by McFarland and other White House officials to transfer sensitive U.S. nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia "in coordination with Tom Barrack, a personal friend of President Trump and the chairman of President Trump's inaugural committee." ..."
"... Regarding Trump's communications with Putin, Cummings, House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff and Foreign Affairs Chairman Eliot Engel say they are examining the substance of in-person meetings and phone calls, the effects on foreign policy, and whether anyone has sought to conceal those communications. ..."
"... The Constitution gives the executive branch exclusive power to conduct foreign relations, Cipollone said. "Congress cannot require the president to disclose confidential communications with foreign leaders." ..."
Mar 21, 2019 | www.bloomberg.com

A key House Democrat is renewing demands that the White House turn over documents about the use of private texts or emails by Jared Kushner, saying Kushner's lawyer acknowledged that the senior aide used the non-secure WhatsApp application to communicate with foreign leaders.

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings said in a letter sent Thursday to White House Counsel Pat Cipollone that the administration has failed to produce documents tied to Kushner and other officials despite requests from the committee since 2017. Cummings also sought a briefing on how the official messages are being preserved.

... ... ...

The White House didn't immediately respond to requests for comment. But in another stand-off with House Democrats, Cipollone on Thursday rejected a request renewed last week from Cummings and two other committee chairmen for information on Trump's communications with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

WhatsApp

Cummings, to underscore his concern about whether unsecured White House communications have included classified information, said in his letter that Lowell acknowledged during the December meeting that Kushner had used WhatsApp to communicate with foreign leaders.

Kushner is a senior White House adviser and the son-in-law of President Donald Trump , overseeing the administration's Middle East policies among other issues. Cummings said he and then-Oversight Chairman Trey Gowdy , a Republican who has since retired from Congress, met with Lowell in December.

Cummings's letter said Lowell said that Kushner has been in compliance with the law, and that he takes "screenshots" of communications on his private WhatsApp account and forwards them to his official White House email account or to the National Security Council.

Cummings wrote that when asked whether Kushner ever used WhatsApp to discuss classified information, Lowell replied, "That's above my pay grade."

The focus on Kushner and others follows the earlier investigations by the Justice Department and Republican-controlled congressional committees of Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server when she served as secretary of state during the Obama administration.

'Alternative Means'

In Thursday's letter, Cummings said the White House's refusal to turn over documents is "obstructing the committee's investigation into allegations of violations of federal records laws" and potential breaches of national security. He demanded that the White House say by March 28 whether it intends to comply voluntarily with the renewed requests.

"If you continue to withhold these documents from the committee, we will be forced to consider alternative means to obtain compliance," Cummings said.

... ... ....

K.T. McFarland

Cummings also wrote that his committee has obtained new information about other White House officials that raises additional security and federal records concerns about the use of private email and messaging applications.

His letter said others may have been involved in the practice while they worked at the White House, including former deputy national security adviser K.T. McFarland and former chief strategist Steve Bannon.

Cummings said the committee obtained a document that "appears" to show that McFarland conducted official business on her personal email account. He said the document was related to efforts by McFarland and other White House officials to transfer sensitive U.S. nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia "in coordination with Tom Barrack, a personal friend of President Trump and the chairman of President Trump's inaugural committee."

The chairman said another document appeared to show that Bannon received documents "pitching the plan from Mr. Barrack through his personal email account," at a time Bannon was at the White House and working on broader Middle East policy.

Regarding Trump's communications with Putin, Cummings, House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff and Foreign Affairs Chairman Eliot Engel say they are examining the substance of in-person meetings and phone calls, the effects on foreign policy, and whether anyone has sought to conceal those communications.

In a written response Thursday, Cipollone wrote, "While we respectfully seek to accommodate appropriate oversight requests, we are unaware of any precedent supporting such sweeping requests."

The Constitution gives the executive branch exclusive power to conduct foreign relations, Cipollone said. "Congress cannot require the president to disclose confidential communications with foreign leaders."

In a joint statement on Thursday night, Cummings, Engel and Schiff said that the Obama administration had "produced records describing the president and secretary of state's calls with foreign leaders." The congressmen added that "President Trump's decision to break with this precedent raises the question of what he has to hide."

( Updates with statement from Cummings, Schiff and Engel, in final paragraph.

[Mar 20, 2019] Shades of Trump betrayal: Trump says he agrees 100% with keeping US troops in Syria

Notable quotes:
"... In a copy of the letter obtained by NBC News, Trump highlighted a paragraph in the letter about the U.S. goals in Syria, which said, "Like you, we seek to ensure that all of the gains made in Syria are not lost, that ISIS never returns, that Iran is not emboldened, and that we consolidate our gains and ensure the best outcome in Geneva for American interests." ..."
Mar 07, 2019 | www.nbcnews.com

Two months after saying all U.S. troops are leaving Syria, the president wrote members of Congress that he agrees with keeping a U.S. presence in Syria. A bipartisan group of Senators and Representatives wrote to Trump on Feb. 22, applauding his decision to keep a small residual force in Syria.

"We support a small American stabilizing force in Syria," the group wrote, adding that a force "which includes a small contingent of American troops and ground forces from our European allies, is essential to ensure stability and prevent the return of ISIS ."

In a copy of the letter obtained by NBC News, Trump highlighted a paragraph in the letter about the U.S. goals in Syria, which said, "Like you, we seek to ensure that all of the gains made in Syria are not lost, that ISIS never returns, that Iran is not emboldened, and that we consolidate our gains and ensure the best outcome in Geneva for American interests."

"I agree 100%. ALL is being done," President Trump responded, writing directly on the letter and signing it.

Click here to read the letter

[Mar 19, 2019] Kushner, Inc. Greed. Ambition. Corruption. The Extraordinary Story of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump (978125018594

Notable quotes:
"... In Kushner, Inc. , investigative journalist Vicky Ward digs beneath the myth the couple has created, depicting themselves as the voices of reason in an otherwise crazy presidency, and reveals that Jared and Ivanka are not just the President's chief enablers: they, like him, appear disdainful of rules, of laws, and of ethics. ..."
"... They are entitled inheritors of the worst kind; their combination of ignorance, arrogance, and an insatiable lust for power has caused havoc all over the world ..."
"... In Kushner, Inc. , Ward holds Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump accountable: she unveils the couple's self-serving transactional motivations and how those have propelled them into the highest levels of the US government where no one, the President included, has been able to stop them. ..."
Mar 19, 2019 | www.amazon.com

Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump are the self-styled Prince and Princess of America. Their swift, gilded rise to extraordinary power in Donald Trump's White House is unprecedented and dangerous.

In Kushner, Inc. , investigative journalist Vicky Ward digs beneath the myth the couple has created, depicting themselves as the voices of reason in an otherwise crazy presidency, and reveals that Jared and Ivanka are not just the President's chief enablers: they, like him, appear disdainful of rules, of laws, and of ethics.

They are entitled inheritors of the worst kind; their combination of ignorance, arrogance, and an insatiable lust for power has caused havoc all over the world, and may threaten the democracy of the United States.

Ward follows their trajectory from New Jersey and New York City to the White House, where the couple's many forays into policy-making and national security have mocked long-standing U.S. policy and protocol. They have pursued an agenda that could increase their wealth while their actions have mostly gone unchecked.

In Kushner, Inc. , Ward holds Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump accountable: she unveils the couple's self-serving transactional motivations and how those have propelled them into the highest levels of the US government where no one, the President included, has been able to stop them.

Natalie4211 March 19, 2019

5.0 out of 5 stars Insight into the most dangerous couple in America.

To paraphrase the author, on the dangerous scale, Jared & Ivanka are #1 & #2 with Donald Trump, as terrible as he is, coming in at #3. Imagine that. While Donald Trump is acting out, getting all of the attention, these two are like sharks below the surface, making policy in the Middle East in order to make the Saudi's happy and being paid personally & handsomely for that policy". It's like Donald Trump is running cover for Jared & Ivanka. The biggest question remains. How much longer is the Republican Party going to allow this kind of nepotism and corruption to continue?

psw March 19, 2019

Pompous know nothing Kushners

Inside the Kushner pompousness. Vicky did a great job showing how dangerous these two ignorant no nothing people are ruining our democracy. A must read.

[Mar 17, 2019] Epstein, Clinton and Trump are all connected to Lolita Express scandal

Notable quotes:
"... Both Clinton and Trump were close to Epstein. To me this smells like there was a bi-partisan consensus to bury this, and only now that the Clintons are no longer dominating the Democrat party, do we get some results. ..."
"... "I've known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy," Trump said of Epstein during a 2002 interview with New York magazine. "He's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side." ..."
"... "The Government aligned themselves with Epstein, working against his victims, for 11 years..." THE SAME can be said for this: "The Government aligned themselves with APARTHEID Israhell, working against their Palestinians victims, for over 70 years... " WARNING: Graphic Images ..."
"... Epstein has dirt on EVERYONE ... If he ever gets in a legitimate court room? - many, many, shitty people will be in trouble ... GOP and Democrat. ..."
"... The ruling comes after Senators on the Judiciary Committee asked that the DOJ open an investigation into the deal, which was offered at a time when Robert Mueller was running the FBI . ..."
"... I assume MOSSAD & friends will have to pull some very fancy rabbits out of their hat to get this buried again . The $wamp can't afford to have him cooperating, so I'm guessing Epstein will have to 'retire' to Tel-Aviv - or have an accident/become 'depressed, etc.' ..."
Feb 23, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

Judge Rules Plea Deal For Orgy Island Billionaire Broke Federal Law

youshallnotkill, 1 hour ago link

Both Clinton and Trump were close to Epstein. To me this smells like there was a bi-partisan consensus to bury this, and only now that the Clintons are no longer dominating the Democrat party, do we get some results.

While Trump has recently distanced himself from Epstein, a 64-year-old financier, it wasn't always that way.

"I've known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy," Trump said of Epstein during a 2002 interview with New York magazine. "He's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side."

Attorney Spencer Kuvin, one of dozens of lawyers who successfully sued Epstein on behalf of roughly 30 women who claimed he lured them to his Palm Beach mansion for sexually-charged massages when they were as young as 14, said he always found the comment curious.

"How would he know that?" he said of Trump's acknowledgement of Epstein's penchant for young women. The interview came nearly six years before Epstein's secret sex life exploded into public view when the money manager pleaded guilty to Florida charges of procuring and soliciting a minor for prostitution. "Why would he make a joke like that?" the West Palm Beach attorney asked.

SOURCE: https://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/20170512/will-president-trump-be-used-as-witness-in-sex-offender-epstein-case

Justin Case, 1 hour ago link

Bill has frequent flier points on Lolita Express. He had a 14yr.old toy on the island and the flight logs can prove his attendance.

zeezrom2point0, 2 hours ago link

Be nice if someone found the guest list because Bill Clinton wouldn't be able to kill that many people to cover it up. It'd be sweet if they found evidence that Trump went, because he definitely did. He's probably the one to name it "Lolita Express."...no, that was probably Bill.

TeraByte, 2 hours ago link

Manford´s life time vs a slap on the wrist. I does not matter, what you do, but whom you know.

loop, 2 hours ago link

"The Government aligned themselves with Epstein, working against his victims, for 11 years..." THE SAME can be said for this: "The Government aligned themselves with APARTHEID Israhell, working against their Palestinians victims, for over 70 years... " WARNING: Graphic Images

DFGTC , 2 hours ago link

Epstein has dirt on EVERYONE ... If he ever gets in a legitimate court room? - many, many, shitty people will be in trouble ... GOP and Democrat.

And Trump? Acosta is in his admin, right? Or, he didn't fire the scum yet? And when is Hillary going to jail?

William Dorritt , 2 hours ago link

Billionaire Palm Beach serial sex offender allowed to serve time in luxurious milieu | Fred Grimm

... ... ...

https://www.sun-sentinel.com/opinion/fl-op-col-fred-grimm-jeffrey-epste ...

2 of 2 2/7/2019, 10:41 AM

4 wheel drift , 3 hours ago link

The ruling comes after Senators on the Judiciary Committee asked that the DOJ open an investigation into the deal, which was offered at a time when Robert Mueller was running the FBI .

LOLOLOL.... THAT explains a lot... ******* criminals the entire lot of them

Baron Samedi , 3 hours ago link

I assume MOSSAD & friends will have to pull some very fancy rabbits out of their hat to get this buried again. The $wamp can't afford to have him cooperating, so I'm guessing Epstein will have to 'retire' to Tel-Aviv - or have an accident/become 'depressed, etc.'

I will further bet that JE has had adequate notice of all this to be getting out of the USA to Balfourstan - a non-extradition country - ASAP.

Reaper , 3 hours ago link

The DOJ can prosecute now for the conspiracy of prosecutors and Epstein: https://www.justice.gov/jm/criminal-resource-manual-923-18-usc-371-conspiracy-defraud-us

dirty fingernails , 3 hours ago link

Don't hold your breath.

William Dorritt , 3 hours ago link
Hastert mentioned in WikiLeaks: https://wearechange.org/disgraced-house-speaker-pedophile-dennis-hastert/
As you dig into these stories, one singular theory emerges again and again: Sexual deviants and psychos have been groomed for office because they are easier to blackmail and control.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/06/01/1389654/-Dennis-Hastert-as-the-Tip-of-the-Iceberg

[Mar 15, 2019] Book review of Kushner, Inc. Greed. Ambition. Corruption. The Extraordinary Story of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump by Vicky Ward by Michael Kranish

Notable quotes:
"... Ward delves into questions about whether Kushner misused his role as a way to find financing to rescue a Fifth Avenue property in Manhattan and suggests that Kushner dimwittedly nearly dragged the United States into a war in the region. It is a dark and mostly one-sided portrait, one with which the Kushner and Trump families no doubt will disagree. ..."
"... The greatest challenge of the book, and one that is likely to raise questions, is fulfilling the third element of Ward's subtitle: "Greed. Ambition. Corruption." The latter word connotes criminality; while Kushner's father served time in prison, neither Jared nor Ivanka has been accused of crimes by a prosecutor. ..."
"... To be sure, President Trump and his family have thrown around such concepts loosely, and without hedging. During the 2016 campaign, he called Hillary Clinton the " Most Corrupt Candidate Ever! ," retweeting an image that encased the words in a Jewish star against a backdrop of U.S. currency, a tweet widely criticized as anti-Semitic. (Trump said he thought it was a sheriff's star.) Clinton, like Jared and Ivanka, has not been charged by prosecutors with corruption. ..."
"... To rehabilitate the family image, Ward writes, the elder Kushner adopted a plan that called for transitioning from owning garden apartments in New Jersey to acquiring a Fifth Avenue office tower, a "trophy" that would dazzle the doubters. In addition, Jared would buy the New York Observer to get friendly media treatment, and he would "date someone prominent." While the father pulled the strings, the son got the credit -- and later the blame -- for buying the nation's most expensive office property just before the Great Recession, leaving him with a staggering debt. As for the prominent woman, Kushner dated Ivanka Trump. ..."
"... In the rather cynical portrait Ward draws, Ivanka, too, was strategic. Ward quotes her as saying in her own book, " The Trump Card ": "If someone perceives something to be true, it is more important than if it is in fact true." ..."
"... She writes that only after a thorough investigation by Congress and other authorities might they "finally face a reckoning." ..."
Mar 15, 2019 | www.washingtonpost.com
Kushner, Inc. Greed. Ambition. Corruption. The Extraordinary Story of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump By Vicky Ward St. Martin's. 286 pp. $28.99

... ... ...

There are no blockbuster revelations here regarding Kushner's meeting with a Russian banker or his involvement in a meeting with a Russian lawyer at Trump Tower, two issues that have drawn the interest of investigators. Ward is, however, particularly critical of Trump's decision to hand over Middle East policy to Kushner, which led to clashes with then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and others.

Ward delves into questions about whether Kushner misused his role as a way to find financing to rescue a Fifth Avenue property in Manhattan and suggests that Kushner dimwittedly nearly dragged the United States into a war in the region. It is a dark and mostly one-sided portrait, one with which the Kushner and Trump families no doubt will disagree.

For much of the book, as is often the case with volumes seeking to tell an inside story of the White House, the sources are anonymous and highly critical. If Ward secured on-the-record interviews with her two main subjects, she does not say so; their voices are mostly filtered through the mouths of others, most of whom may have a vested interest in spinning conversations a certain way. It is, to be sure, a particularly challenging task that Ward has undertaken, given Kushner's rare public comments and the couple's obsession with maintaining their image and protecting the president.

The greatest challenge of the book, and one that is likely to raise questions, is fulfilling the third element of Ward's subtitle: "Greed. Ambition. Corruption." The latter word connotes criminality; while Kushner's father served time in prison, neither Jared nor Ivanka has been accused of crimes by a prosecutor.

In the text, while Ward hammers the couple on page after page, she doesn't explicitly accuse them of corruption as defined by legal statutes. Perhaps the closest she comes is when she writes that "it's been reported" that Ivanka Trump oversaw her family's project in Azerbaijan in which a partner's brother had been described in a U.S. diplomatic cable as corrupt.

"As a result, it's possible that the Trump Organization violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act," Ward writes, providing a notable hedge.

To be sure, President Trump and his family have thrown around such concepts loosely, and without hedging. During the 2016 campaign, he called Hillary Clinton the " Most Corrupt Candidate Ever! ," retweeting an image that encased the words in a Jewish star against a backdrop of U.S. currency, a tweet widely criticized as anti-Semitic. (Trump said he thought it was a sheriff's star.) Clinton, like Jared and Ivanka, has not been charged by prosecutors with corruption.

Ward, who relies heavily on the reporting of others (noted in endnotes), as well as her own sources, has a tendency, particularly in the first half of the book, to make sweeping statements and repeat rumors, some of which she then bats down. She writes that one man "was rumored to sleep with men and hired prostitutes," and says another was "not one to be troubled by ethics."

Ward paints a sordid portrait of Kushner's coming-of-age, retelling tales of how his father's contributions to Harvard may have greased his way into the college. A war within the Kushner family led his father, Charles Kushner, to arrange for a prostitute to entrap a relative with whom he had feuded. Charles Kushner went to prison for his part in the scheme and other matters. Jared later told New York magazine that his father's viewpoint was: " You're trying to make my life miserable? Well, I'm doing the same. "

To rehabilitate the family image, Ward writes, the elder Kushner adopted a plan that called for transitioning from owning garden apartments in New Jersey to acquiring a Fifth Avenue office tower, a "trophy" that would dazzle the doubters. In addition, Jared would buy the New York Observer to get friendly media treatment, and he would "date someone prominent." While the father pulled the strings, the son got the credit -- and later the blame -- for buying the nation's most expensive office property just before the Great Recession, leaving him with a staggering debt. As for the prominent woman, Kushner dated Ivanka Trump.

Donald Trump was not pleased at first, according to Ward. "Why couldn't she have married Tom Brady?" he said, referring to the New England Patriots quarterback, Ward writes. "Have you seen how he throws a football?"

In the rather cynical portrait Ward draws, Ivanka, too, was strategic. Ward quotes her as saying in her own book, " The Trump Card ": "If someone perceives something to be true, it is more important than if it is in fact true."

When President Trump said there were " very fine people, on both sides " of a Charlottesville clash during which white supremacists shouted "Jews will not replace us," Trump's economic adviser Gary Cohn threatened to resign, noting that some of his family members had been killed in the Holocaust. Ivanka urged him to stay, telling him: "My dad's not a racist. He didn't mean any of it; he's not anti-Semitic," according to Ward. Cohn remained in his post.

At first, Jared and Ivanka didn't plan to work in the White House, but after Trump brought them in as advisers, they frequently clashed with chief strategist Stephen Bannon and others. An "epic" and profane fight took place between Bannon and Ivanka over who was leaking stories, Ward writes.

"Everybody knows you leak," Bannon is reported to have told Ivanka.

"You're a f---ing liar," she is said to have responded. "Everything that comes out of your mouth is a f---ing lie."

"Go f--- yourself. . . . You are nothing," Bannon reportedly said.

The president, according to Ward, eventually wanted to send Jared and Ivanka back to New York, but after so many firings and resignations in the White House, he needed them more than ever.

Some of their activities have remained largely opaque. And Ward can take speculation about corruption only so far. She writes that only after a thorough investigation by Congress and other authorities might they "finally face a reckoning."

Michael Kranish is an investigative political reporter with The Washington Post and a co-author of "Trump Revealed." He is the author of "The World's Fastest Man: The Extraordinary Life of Cyclist Major Taylor, America's First Black Sports Hero," to be published in May.

[Mar 13, 2019] Jared Kushner challenged on conflicts of interest by Trump aides, book claims by Jon Swaine

Notable quotes:
"... Revealed: Donald Trump's son-in-law challenged by Rex Tillerson and Gary Cohn for mixing personal interests with US foreign policy ..."
"... Jared Kushner was told by the secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, that his interference had 'endangered the US', while his wife Ivanka's team was derided as the 'home of all bad ideas'. Photograph: Jim Bourg/Reuters Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner , was confronted by two of the most senior US government officials for mixing his personal interests with US foreign policy, according to a new book. ..."
"... Ward reports that Tillerson blamed Kushner for Trump's abrupt endorsement of a provocative blockade and diplomatic campaign against Qatar by Saudi Arabia and several allies in June 2017. ..."
"... "You've got to be crazy," Cohn is said to have told Kushner in front of others. Kushner met the executives around the time he hosted Chinese government officials at the Fifth Avenue tower. The building was eventually refinanced by a Qatari-backed investment fund. ..."
"... Ward's book portrays Kushner and Ivanka Trump as relentlessly ambitious operators who are loathed by many forced to work with them. She reports that White House staffers mocked Kushner as the "secretary of everything" for his wide-ranging meddling and derided Ivanka Trump's team as Habi – "home of all bad ideas". ..."
"... Bannon recalls Kushner furiously shouting at him at the White House in 2017 after he confronted Kushner about holding secret talks with senators on immigration reform. "He goes from a little boy to, like, this fucking devil," Bannon is quoted as saying. ..."
"... Bannon also claims to have told Ivanka Trump: "Go fuck yourself you are nothing" in front of her father, during an argument over who was the bigger leaker to the media. Ivanka Trump is said to have called Bannon a "fucking liar". ..."
Mar 13, 2019 | www.theguardian.com

The Guardian

Revealed: Donald Trump's son-in-law challenged by Rex Tillerson and Gary Cohn for mixing personal interests with US foreign policy

Jared Kushner was told by the secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, that his interference had 'endangered the US', while his wife Ivanka's team was derided as the 'home of all bad ideas'. Photograph: Jim Bourg/Reuters Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner , was confronted by two of the most senior US government officials for mixing his personal interests with US foreign policy, according to a new book.

Kushner, an envoy to the Middle East for his father-in-law, is said to have been robustly challenged by both Rex Tillerson, then secretary of state, and Gary Cohn, formerly Trump's top economic adviser.

The confrontations are detailed in Kushner Inc by the journalist Vicky Ward, who also describes interference in foreign relations by Kushner's wife, Ivanka Trump . The book is scheduled to be released on 19 March. A copy was obtained by the Guardian.

https://www.theguardian.com/email/form/plaintone/4300

Ward reports that Tillerson blamed Kushner for Trump's abrupt endorsement of a provocative blockade and diplomatic campaign against Qatar by Saudi Arabia and several allies in June 2017. The US has thousands of troops stationed in Qatar.

Tillerson "told Kushner that his interference had endangered the US", an unidentified Tillerson aide tells Ward. Tillerson is also said to have read negative "chatter" about himself in intelligence reports after Kushner belittled him to Kushner's friend Mohammed bin Salman, the controversial Saudi crown prince.

Meanwhile, Cohn is said to have rebuked Kushner in January 2017 after it was revealed Kushner had dined with executives from the Chinese financial corporation Anbang, which was considering investing in the Kushner family's troubled tower at 666 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.

The heart of the US-Saudi relationship lies in the Kushner-prince friendship | Mohamad Bazzi Read more

"You've got to be crazy," Cohn is said to have told Kushner in front of others. Kushner met the executives around the time he hosted Chinese government officials at the Fifth Avenue tower. The building was eventually refinanced by a Qatari-backed investment fund.

Ivanka Trump is reported to have interfered in telephone calls between her father and foreign dignitaries despite having overseas business interests. "Thanks so much for the CD you sent me," she is quoted as having told an Indian leader by someone who heard the call. The Trump Organization owns several residential towers in India.

Ward's book portrays Kushner and Ivanka Trump as relentlessly ambitious operators who are loathed by many forced to work with them. She reports that White House staffers mocked Kushner as the "secretary of everything" for his wide-ranging meddling and derided Ivanka Trump's team as Habi – "home of all bad ideas".

John Kelly, formerly Trump's chief of staff and homeland security secretary, is quoted as dismissing the couple as "just playing government".

The book also details disagreements between them and Steve Bannon, Trump's former campaign chief and top White House strategist. Bannon clashed with the couple, who are former Democrats, while pushing to convert Trump's aggressively nationalist campaign rhetoric into government policy.

Bannon recalls Kushner furiously shouting at him at the White House in 2017 after he confronted Kushner about holding secret talks with senators on immigration reform. "He goes from a little boy to, like, this fucking devil," Bannon is quoted as saying.

Bannon also claims to have told Ivanka Trump: "Go fuck yourself you are nothing" in front of her father, during an argument over who was the bigger leaker to the media. Ivanka Trump is said to have called Bannon a "fucking liar".

For her part, Ivanka Trump is focused on cementing a Trump dynasty to rival the Kennedys and Bushes by becoming commander-in-chief herself one day, according to Ward. "She thinks she's going to be president of the United States," Cohn is quoted as saying.

[Feb 27, 2019] Trump as a sucker to neocons and MIC

He was elected using Israel lobby money, so now he heed to pay them off.
Notable quotes:
"... B..b..but his campaign promises .. the upcoming election .. his noninterventionist principles .. MAGA! The cynics were right. Pro-Trump dreamers (including the pro-Russian/anti-US contingent at MoA) were wrong. Another misleading narrative bites the dust. Another populist outsider is revealed to be a faux populist bullshitter. ..."
"... For anyone paying attention, this kind of thinking (that Trump is a hero that is undermined by the Deep State) is not dumb, it is suspect. We saw the same rear-action BS from Obamabots who sought to excuse every betrayal of the faux populist hero. Faux populists like Trump, Obama, Sanders, Macron, Guaido, etc. are members of the establishment (which the Deep State works for) that pretend to be on the side of ordinary people. ..."
Feb 27, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org

Jackrabbit , Feb 22, 2019 7:43:58 PM | link

Trump will keep troops in Syria

B..b..but his campaign promises .. the upcoming election .. his noninterventionist principles .. MAGA! The cynics were right. Pro-Trump dreamers (including the pro-Russian/anti-US contingent at MoA) were wrong. Another misleading narrative bites the dust. Another populist outsider is revealed to be a faux populist bullshitter.

Jackrabbit , Feb 25, 2019 10:00:23 PM | link

Pat Lang sees the Borg as winning out .

For anyone paying attention, this kind of thinking (that Trump is a hero that is undermined by the Deep State) is not dumb, it is suspect. We saw the same rear-action BS from Obamabots who sought to excuse every betrayal of the faux populist hero. Faux populists like Trump, Obama, Sanders, Macron, Guaido, etc. are members of the establishment (which the Deep State works for) that pretend to be on the side of ordinary people.

[Feb 23, 2019] Trump appoints the prosecutor who slapped Epstein on the wrist for Lolita Express crime

Notable quotes:
"... Trump didn't drain the swamp, he pour fertilizer in it. ..."
"... The shekel counting big snout alligators? They're particularly nasty. ..."
"... Acosta = Epstein Pedogate Prosecutor "When I first heard the name Alexander Acosta, Trump's new pick for Labor Secretary, I knew it sounded eerily familiar. And then it dawned on me. He was the U.S. Attorney in charge of the Southern District of Florida from 2006 through 2009, and oversaw a sweetheart deal for Jeffrey Epstein." ..."
"... Trump - Epstein civil suit COMPLAINT FOR RAPE, SEXUAL MISCONDUCT, CRIMINAL SEXUAL ACTS, SEXUAL ABUSE, FORCIBLE TOUCHING, ASSAULT, BATTERY, INTENTIONAL AND RECKLESS INFLICTION OF EMOTIONAL DISTRESS, DURESS, FALSE IMPRISONMENT, AND DEFAMATION ..."
"... Over 200 children. 12,13,14 years old. Broken homes. Different countries. "Punishment" = Empty wing of a comfy 'prison' with liberal leave privledges for him to work from his office, where he could receive guests including females. That's not prison Tyler's, it's ******* daycare - which is the kind of place he's attracted to. Stop calling it / quoting it as a "prison sentence". ..."
Feb 23, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com

gildedtime , 3 hours ago link

So Trump appoints the prosecutor who slapped Epstein on the wrist for a cabinet position. This is so obvious as Trump was part of the Lolita Express as was lifelong Democrat Alan Dershowitz who has suddenly flipped to Trump's most ardent supporter as well as the usual group of pervs like Clinton and Spacey (who cares I guess).

Trump didn't drain the swamp, he pour fertilizer in it.

Karl Malden's Nose , 54 minutes ago link

The shekel counting big snout alligators? They're particularly nasty.

William Dorritt , 3 hours ago link
Acosta = Epstein Pedogate Prosecutor "When I first heard the name Alexander Acosta, Trump's new pick for Labor Secretary, I knew it sounded eerily familiar. And then it dawned on me. He was the U.S. Attorney in charge of the Southern District of Florida from 2006 through 2009, and oversaw a sweetheart deal for Jeffrey Epstein."
http://lawnewz.com/high-profile/trumps-new-labor-secretary-pick-protected-convicted-pedophile-billionaire-jeffrey-epstein-from-prosecution/
Anonymous_Beneficiary , 3 hours ago link

https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000158-26b6-dda3-afd8-b6fe46f40000

Trump - Epstein civil suit COMPLAINT FOR RAPE, SEXUAL MISCONDUCT, CRIMINAL SEXUAL ACTS, SEXUAL ABUSE, FORCIBLE TOUCHING, ASSAULT, BATTERY, INTENTIONAL AND RECKLESS INFLICTION OF EMOTIONAL DISTRESS, DURESS, FALSE IMPRISONMENT, AND DEFAMATION

SpinDrift , 4 hours ago link

Over 200 children. 12,13,14 years old. Broken homes. Different countries. "Punishment" = Empty wing of a comfy 'prison' with liberal leave privledges for him to work from his office, where he could receive guests including females. That's not prison Tyler's, it's ******* daycare - which is the kind of place he's attracted to. Stop calling it / quoting it as a "prison sentence".

Must be some really compromising video footage with some very powerful people on it to get that kind of deal. Day of the rope for that **** and all who let him walk. No exceptions.

Return_of_Byzantium , 4 hours ago link

I had to search this up to believe what you said. Holy ****... the rabbit hole is deeper than most realize:

" Instead of being sent to state prison, Epstein was housed in a private wing of the Palm Beach County jail. And rather than having him sit in a cell most of the day, the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office allowed Epstein work release privileges, which enabled him to leave the jail six days a week, for 12 hours a day, to go to a comfortable office that Epstein had set up in West Palm Beach. This was granted despite explicit sheriff's department rules stating that sex offenders don't qualify for work release ."

Helena Bonham-Carter , 3 hours ago link

When you have dirt on the Clintons, and you **** up, and they can't kill you, this is what you get.

Anonymous_Beneficiary , 3 hours ago link

https://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/new-photos-bill-clinton-trump-melania-227945

Groundround , 4 hours ago link

Note how they spent hours to placate and kowtow to the pedophile while dumping on the victims. That is because the government is loaded with dog **** like the half monkey Epstein and his fellow tribe members. The only justice left to Americans will come from the streets. I am completely against torture and war, yet this piece of scum should be waterboarded for names. They need to clear out those members of government who have been compromised by the activities of the tribe.

Realname , 4 hours ago link

Well, the swamp would, finally, be drained.

ashu.lsa56 , 4 hours ago link

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Miss Tick , 2 hours ago link

Those spammers are criminals

The websites contain not only virus, malware, spyware whatever. .. (depends on your PC protection)

It is a ripoff . You never get paid a cent. But if one is gullible and naive enough to give away to shady strangers personal data as address, birth date, social security number, credit card number, bank account etc., they empty your account , and they do Identity theft.

p.e. They ask for an initial payment for training, or they sell you a starter kit etc., so they get your data. Or they promise you to pay salary in advance, before they ever saw you. Sometimes they have "real" job interviews with a "recruiter" by Skype or Smartphones facial, no skills required, with faked websites of real companies, faked or personal email addresses.

Grandad Grumps , 4 hours ago link

Cage Mueller!!

SocratesSolutions , 4 hours ago link

Every last pedophile is dead meat just like Judaica is dead meat which promoted it. No, you cannot touch a kid any longer, ignorant arrogant sick followers of the Talmud and Kabbalah, for the Talmud and Kabbalah will be burned out of every last Synagogue on the planet just as the entire religion will be burned down to the ground. Including many dumb parts of the Bible. Take for example that sick *** stupid mother ******* event where some guy holds a knife up to his son because God told him to. You ignorant arrogant assholes. God never said any such thing, and God sure as hell never said you were chosen! Well, I take that back. You see, God told me that you are actually especially chosen for the *** kicking of a millenia.

www.21stcenturyworldmessage.com

charlie_don't_surf , 4 hours ago link

Root em out.

Walter Melon , 4 hours ago link

Ruh roh!

That's right, I said it.

RayUSA , 4 hours ago link

This is the manner that the scum in the so called "Justice Department" works to protect pedophiles. If it wasn't for an intense amount of corruption, Epstein would have been prosecuted by the full extent of the law. Instead, sneaky deals by the scum bags that "prosecuted" this fraud of a case ended up with a plea agreement which "punished" this slimy creep with a measly 13 month sentence.

To add insult to injury to the victims, the civil case is dragged on for 11 years.

This is the same type of "justice" that is in place that has protected the Catholic clergy pedophiles, which for the most part, never saw the inside of a court room for their unspeakable crimes.

Why are pedophiles seemingly protected in this society? Is it because pedophilia is rampant among so many that are in powerful positions? I think we all know the answer to that one.

stubb , 4 hours ago link

LOL. Since when do the courts or any other part of the government care about breaking laws.

dirty fingernails , 4 hours ago link

When you and I do it. 2 tier justice system.

ConservativeOldMan , 4 hours ago link

And then there are all Epstein's friends, who enjoyed themselves with little girls on that benighted island: hearsay includes both the Clintons among them, and the Queen of England's second son, prince someone or the other. I assume that what they did on that island was felonious. Need to go after them.

And then there's ACOSTA - our current Federal Secretary of Labor. TRUMP NEEDS TO FIRE HIM, perhaps to prosecute him.

Realname , 4 hours ago link

Hasnt Trump, also, been a guest there?

Karl Malden's Nose , 4 hours ago link

Shhhh, never let the facts get in the way of a good story. Orange Jesus is their messiah. He can do no wrong. He was misquoted when he said he'd bang his daughter, ignore those creepy photos too.

Realname , 4 hours ago link

Apparently, critical thinking is becoming rare. Go team!

Proud-Christian-White-American-Man , 3 hours ago link

Karl Malden's Nose: Guess you are letting Trump Derangement Syndrome get in the way of the facts.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-12-12/fusion-gps-tried-and-failed-link-trump-jeffrey-epstein

Karl Malden's Nose , 1 hour ago link

Facts? Oh you mean like the Donald Trump, Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislane Maxwell connection? Yeah. Wait, they obviously never met right? "He's a lot of fun to be with," "It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side."

https://fitzinfo.files.wordpress.com/2016/10/trump-and-epstein.jpg

https://fitzinfo.files.wordpress.com/2016/10/epstein-and-trump-at-mar-a-lago.jpg

https://i0.wp.com/thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/JeffreyEpsteinDonaldTrumpBillClintonSexOffenderBearStearnsChildMolestation.jpg?w=1920&ssl=1

Who could forget this gem?

https://fitzinfo.files.wordpress.com/2016/10/trump_daughter-ivanka_creepy_01.jpg

tmosley , 4 hours ago link

No, he just borrowed the plane.

gildedtime , 3 hours ago link

Trump needs to fire him? Trump hired him! It wasn't a coincidence.

MasterPo , 4 hours ago link

This ****** is toast. If you don't get that, you're just not ready for what's happening, and it's OK. The adults have stepped in, and are cleaning house. The streets will be paved with the carcases of these pedophiles, satanists, and assorted scumbags. Some will be from the dregs of society, others from the highest echelons, but none will escape.

[So it has been spoken, so it shall be done... (Yul Brenner as Pharoah - from The Ten Commandments)]

Groundround , 4 hours ago link

I think the only justice to be done will be that we do ourselves. But that time is coming. A lot of folks have had enough of Epstein and his cronies.

Ignorance is bliss , 4 hours ago link

Double jepopardy. Can't go to trial twice for the same crime. The pedophile walks among us.

UmbilicalMosqueSweeper , 4 hours ago link

Multiple crimes, not just one crime.

Karl Malden's Nose , 4 hours ago link

Except he was never tried for sex trafficking. He plead guilty to two prostitution charges. Send the **** to the slammer, better still the gallows.

Shadow1275 , 4 hours ago link

Got Em!

khnum , 4 hours ago link

You can run on for a long time

run on for a long time

run on for a long time

Sooner or later God'll cut you down

Sooner or later God'll cut you down,

(from Johnny Cash,God's Gonna Cut You Down)

johnnycanuck , 4 hours ago link

One can only hope, but hope never amounts to anything so long as the robber barons continue to run everything.

As my old bro used to say; We thank God for the blessings we are about to receive, the ones I worked hard for.

khnum , 4 hours ago link

I figure God helps those that help themselves,there is an afterlife though,the trick is being in this world but not of it.I have a roof over my head,a full belly,an income and good family and friends hell thats better than 70 per cent on this planet so I tend not to be much of a God botherer.

johnny two shoes , 4 hours ago link

And Epstein was there at Chelsea Hubbell's wedding...

UmbilicalMosqueSweeper , 4 hours ago link

Think he banged her?

RufusMacDuff , 4 hours ago link

Nah, it was far too old...

Karl Malden's Nose , 4 hours ago link

Come now, even Chelsea's hubby hasn't fucked around in that hairy cabbage patch. They sent her to the vet to get inseminated.

johnny two shoes , 4 hours ago link

I must apologize, it seems his pimpette (?) named Ghislaine was there, representing Prince Andrew, who also seems to like them young, ... not sure if thats why Fergie left him... its complicated...

As far as the Clinton Foundation paying for the 3 million dollar wedding, well that's murky too

sorry

johnnycanuck , 4 hours ago link

Far more important in the here and now is Bernie Sanders refused to go with the Dims and back fat Mike's 'Guido' in Venezuela. The head of the Clinton Foundation , a Congresswoman from Florida and ex Bill Clinton Secretary of something, loudly condemned Bernie and said he will NEVER be the Dems candidate for President.

https://www.rt.com/usa/452141-sanders-venezuela-guaido-maduro/

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

[Feb 18, 2019] Problem with Trump is that Kushner who is like an Israeli agent has so much influence over him, just ask Chris Christie

Notable quotes:
"... The Russia stuff is BS if you had a bottle of vodka in your house, they would call that Russian collusion ..."
Feb 18, 2019 | www.youtube.com

Mel Gibson , 1 week ago (edited)

Problem with Trump is that Kushner who is like an Israeli agent has so much influence over him, just ask Chris Christie

Also neo-cons like John Bolton Trump could have been better but they got their claws into him and they will try do same to Gabbard

The Russia stuff is BS if you had a bottle of vodka in your house, they would call that Russian collusion.

[Feb 17, 2019] Was Trump was a deep state man from day one, just like Obama, Bush, Clinton and all the rest?

Highly recommended!
Being pro-Zionism is New York way of being militarist
Notable quotes:
"... Trump just appointed John Bolton ! Trump has betrayed us ! How did they turned him ? Blah blah blah .. Forchrissake ! ..."
"... It boggles the mind that even at this stage, so many peoples are still bamboozled by this duopoly dog and pony show , aka the mukkan election ! ..."
Mar 23, 2018 | www.unz.com

denk , March 23, 2018 at 4:44 am GMT

Trump just appointed John Bolton ! Trump has betrayed us ! How did they turned him ? Blah blah blah .. Forchrissake !

Trump was a deep state man from day one, just like Obama, Bush, Clinton and all the rest,.

It boggles the mind that even at this stage, so many peoples are still bamboozled by this duopoly dog and pony show , aka the mukkan election !

hehehehhe

[Feb 11, 2019] Jared Kushner HUMILIATED on Live Television

The full interview is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67y2V3ksdlA it's a interesting interview, especially considering Kushner lack of experience in this area and composition of his team.
This interview was in 2017. As of 2019 the results were zero and with recent Israeli actions problem probably became worse. Palestine conflict after so many Palestinian brood was spilled by Israel looks like a permanent feature which, unfortunately, might one day to bring Israel down iether by unleashing a war with Iran (without USA support), or when the USA might decide to toss Israel to wolfs.
Notable quotes:
"... You can view the complete interview here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZyGpirUMvk . ..."
"... Watch the full interview before making a judgment. ..."
"... Try to grasp the real power struggles underneath the headlines and hype. ..."
"... It's almost as if cronyism and nepotism breed incompetence. Who knew? ..."
"... One reason Jared has been chosen to interact with Israel is because he is a practicing Koshier Jew and long time family ties and friends with Israli PM Netanyahu since Jared was a young child and in fact Jared would give up his bedroom when Netanyahu came to visit. ..."
Dec 03, 2017 | www.youtube.com

Jared Kushner, President Trump's senior adviser and son-in-law, is interviewed at the Saban Forum on the topic of Israeli-Palestinian peace and his talking points get crushed by Israeli telecom billionaire Haim Saban

P K, 1 year ago

...You can view the complete interview here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZyGpirUMvk.

reeblite, 1 year ago (edited)

....Watch the full interview before making a judgment. Because he's betting that you won't because of your short attention span.

silverskid1, year ago

There's no story here. I watched the interview. It's a nothing-story. Of course the premise of Trump and his team as peacemakers in Israel is a bad joke-- but Kushner hasn't been "taken down" and "humiliated."

His demeanor throughout the interview was normal for him. The problem lies in what he says, and that's a different matter entirely. You're show is way to shallow. Try to grasp the real power struggles underneath the headlines and hype.

Kim Nguyen, 1 year ago (edited)

Jared sounds like that guy in your international relations class who is presenting his term paper, which he composed by collecting the cliff notes.

In terms of social issues, the achievement of peace between Palestine and Israel may be somewhere around P vs NP. There's no better person to expose the ridiculous of this team and how grossly unqualified they are than an Israeli or a Palestinian person. You can tell he feels insulted by the composition of this team.

Lady V , 10 months ago

So Ivanka converted to Judaism for him? There are many good reasons to convert to a different religion. Kushner ain't one of them.

Sass Afras , 8 months ago (edited)

When Kushner says; "We have a bankruptcy lawyer" ....(really?) Lol, When Saban says "it's a bankrupt situation, so yeah" BURN!

Chump still thinks he's "winning" what a joke! Newsflash Jarred, they're laughing AT you, NOT with you.

mike sandmire , 1 year ago

Touting a bankruptcy lawyer for a committee to solve the middle east problem, jesus h. Christ we are in trouble. Kushner sounds like daddy-in-law on the campaign trail. Every thing is so vague as to be rendered useless. We are going to fix the middle east. Yeah, how?

We are going to fix the problems there. Yeah, you said that but how are you going to fix it? Well the Iranians are a problem. Uh huh, we know that, how are you going to fix it? Also the Palestinians and Israelis don't seem to get along either. The talking while saying nothing just keeps going with this Administration.

Chris Lee , 1 year ago

Trump Admin is full of embarrassing unqualified personnel! As long as they are loyal. World voted against Trump on Palestine issue. Very SAD!

Brent Geery , 1 year ago (edited)

It's almost as if cronyism and nepotism breed incompetence. Who knew?

Jennifer Morris , 1 year ago

Priceless, when I first heard that Kushner was tasked with working on bringing peace to the Middle East my first thought was who? That that idiot Trump could throw this milk toast Jewish nobody into such a complex, sensitive protracted policy issue speaks volumes. From what I now know Kushner is a failed real estate agent with a father who is a convicted felon. Just cause he's married to Big orange daddies equally vacuous dumb daughter seems to be the only reason he is even in the White House. What a disgrace.

Elizabeth Czepiel , 2 months ago

With apologies to Mario Puzzo and the Godfather but "I'm going to make them an offer they can't understand!"

Gerard Vous , 10 months ago

How in the WORLD did he graduate with an JD degree from an elite university???

G Macka , 1 month ago

1 year on, and this little pecker wood is still just as inept, but at least we can finally begin to see through that fake (and very creepy) smile. The criminal Trump organization is falling apart at the seems, I think the only thing holding it all together is the sheer strength of the criminal investigations. Once those are all wrapped up, the Trump org. Will just collapse into a nasty little pile of rubble at Trumps feet. Fingers crossed Jared and Ivanka will be swept right up into the collapse and find themselves and in prison as well

tapolna , 1 year ago

And Jared Kushner is President Trump's "senior adviser"? Senor advisor!

Michael Garcia , 4 months ago (edited)

So what he saying is Israel is still just a victim they do nothing wrong to stimulate the wars going on in the Middle East don't do anything they're just playing victims. ??? It's well-known what part did Jesus play in the explosion of the Mesopotamia Cruise liner for the Americans to get into the war and save England where the Jews benefit in and got his real out of it through the Rothschild.

The Jewish bankers have been front and center of every war right in the middle stirring up the problems every country that took them in the Jew would find out their secrets their dislikes for the enemy that you will then go to the enemy and tell him everything hit the Jews host said causing War then the Jew finances both sides.

I know people like that who was start s***and watch the fight Jews have also claimed that they are A different race from your average Caucasian. Rh-positive bloodline

thehome man , 2 months ago

I grew up around them and i know that to be true about their conversational interactions them and Italians I just like black American people in that aspect, you may think it's an argument but it's not, you may think they are joking but they're expressing the irony of a situation or a persons stupidity.

panfluteman2000 , 1 year ago

Trump seems at times to be allergic to real knowledge, competence and expertise - except for the crooks in his cabinet that he hired to do his dirty work, like Mnuchin. And Trump could have hired real Middle East experts to be on his team. But no, he hired his son in law - someone he trusts, but also someone with no real expertise in the field, someone who's totally clueless. It seems like loyalty is 100% to Donald Trump, and knowledge, competence and expertise count for absolutely nothing.

Janet Johnson2 weeks ago (edited)

Ok Packman... so what is your expertise or qualifications? Your experience.. if any? IQ? What are you..15..16?? What qualifies you to peck away at the Trumps and all interactions with world leaders?

One reason Jared has been chosen to interact with Israel is because he is a practicing Koshier Jew and long time family ties and friends with Israli PM Netanyahu since Jared was a young child and in fact Jared would give up his bedroom when Netanyahu came to visit.

I understand Jared has a very high IQ. You Packman are just plain mean. Your friend there with you is even less impressive. You both sit around and poke fun of brave people who actually go out and try to do something to contribute and better this messed up world. I hope you aren't old enough to vote bc you aren't capable of making a wise choice yet.

Super Sonic 1 year ago (edited)

Good god we have complete fcking idiots running this country. This guy was absolutely SPOT ON! More people like this need to tell Trump and his cronies exactly this. The best bankruptcy lawyer to negotiate peace in the Middle East-wtf?? They have not the dimmest dullest notion on how to run a country starting with that orange ape at the top! ISIS on the run, good economy, low unemployment rate, Thank-you Obama!

MARK SUTTON, 1 year ago
David everyone keeps on talking about the Trump team and how its biased toward Israel. But what about all the other so called teams of other administrations. What about the Obama team?

What about the Bush team when Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered the PLO peace, what about the Clinton team when Ehud Barak practically offered 97% of the West Bank and East Jerusalem?

Oh and again while Bush was in office what about the fact that Israel removed itself and all of its settlers from Gaza? And what we got in return was an Iranian based about 40 minutes from Tel Aviv??

Why do you concentrate on the Trump team and not the "teams" we've had for the past 20 years or since the Oslo accords began. People keep on saying that the Trump team is not good for the peace process but I insist what peace process???

We've had this peace process since the late 80's and nothing has happened under the most leftist governments in Israel: Rabin, Peres, Barak, Olmert, all these Prime Ministers couldn't bring peace with the varying American teams....so why do you pick on Kushner???

Kushner had the balls to come out and say it like it is: There is NO solution to the conflict...

Eric Grosch1 month ago

So Trump and Kushner won't solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. So, who is your exemplar of someone who has done so? The United States government has been funding Israel greatly and the Palestinians less so for years. Trump came to understand that Israel knows which side its bread is buttered on, so it sides with the US on most questions and the US sides with Israel on most questions.

Palestinians hate the US and Israel more or less equally, so Trump rationally withdrew funding from the Palestinians.

That was a divisive move, but the parties, Israel and Palestinians have already been divided since 1948, the year of the founding of modern Israel. It has long been US-policy to promise recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and move its embassy there.

Trump finally did it. Divisive? Sure, but so what? The parties are already divided.

sam n1 year ago

Stop Zionism. It preaches the same ideology and Isis and Nazism. it considers one group of people more superior.

Abban A7 months ago

Kushner only in the picture because his father in law and because he is a Jewish. He has zero international ,foreigners policies . Basically trump forcing Arab world leaders to pass this deal or else . There will be no peace in Middle East with those guys in charge and in office. Just more innocent people will die .

[Feb 04, 2019] The Ziocons are now fully in charged at the WH. They are wild and giddy with power, ready to set the whole world on fire.

Notable quotes:
"... Trump's White House Has a Massive Security Problem. Jared Kushner isn't the only Trump official who got a special pass after security experts said he shouldn't be allowed to access national-security secrets. ..."
"... After he was cleared by the White House, Kushner's file was reportedly submitted to the C.I.A. to be evaluated for an S.C.I., or "sensitive compartmented information" clearance -- an even higher designation. It didn't go well: ..."
"... After reviewing the file, CIA. officers who make clearance decisions balked, two of the people familiar with the matter said. One called over to the White House security division, wondering how Kushner got even a top-secret clearance, the sources said. Given his various entanglements, the CIA.'s alarm makes sense. ..."
"... I don't trust Kushner, but denying clearances is the main weapon used by the Deep State to retain control, and Trump was right to place his own man in charge. Note the media sources mentioned are Deep State media, who quote "the CIA" as though that is a person to be trusted. ..."
"... I'm sure people like Ron Unz and the Saker would be denied clearances if appointed to a position in Washington if Deep Staters were gatekeepers. The "CIA" prefer narcissistic retired military officers who lack a soul and wave the flag. ..."
"... In my opinion Kushner is Mossad. ..."
Feb 04, 2019 | www.unz.com

renfro , says: February 3, 2019 at 6:55 am GMT

@Anon

The Ziocons are now fully in charged at the WH. They are wild and giddy with power, ready to set the whole world on fire.

Pence has no need to undermine Trump. He can just wait. All the militant Zionist Trump brought into the WH have already done that ..and Trump let them. Who do you suppose Kushner has shared US secret intelligence with Israel for sure, probably Saudi in exchange for their allying with Israel. We use to worry about spies and moles in government but now they are the government.

Trump's White House Has a Massive Security Problem. Jared Kushner isn't the only Trump official who got a special pass after security experts said he shouldn't be allowed to access national-security secrets.

by Tina Nguyen
January 25, 2019 11:44 am
AFP

The CIA took one look at Kushner's SCI application and freaked out, calling over to the White House to find out how he even got the lower level clearance.

[MORE]

In May, after months working under an interim clearance, Jared Kushner's request for a permanent security clearance, which would allow him to see top-secret material, was finally granted. At the time, observers took this as an indication that Donald Trump's son-in-law, who'd reportedly attracted Robert Mueller's attention for his ties to various foreign entities, was in the clear.

On Thursday, however, an NBC News report threw that conclusion into doubt. In fact, two sources familiar with the matter told the outlet, Kushner's clearance was only approved because Trump's handpicked director of security personnel overruled two career White House security specialists, who had recommended against Kushner receiving top-secret clearance after seeing the results of his F.B.I. background check.

Kushner's case represents a worrisome pattern for the White House. Per NBC, Trump's director of security, Carl Kline, overruled security experts in at least 30 cases, recommending that Trump officials be granted clearances despite troubling information uncovered in their background checks. That number is indeed extraordinary.

Prior to the Trump administration, White House security experts had only been overruled once in the past three years. (The White House told NBC, "We don't comment on security clearances." A CIA. spokesman said the same, and Kushner's lawyer, Abbe Lowell, had "no comment." Kline, a former Pentagon employee, could not be reached for comment.)

Denying a security clearance to a White House official, noted Daniel Jacobson, a former lawyer in Barack Obama's administration, is not something that's done lightly. "It is not normal for the head of the Personal Security Office to ever overrule the career employees who adjudicate clearances," he wrote on Twitter. "It takes some pretty bad stuff to be denied a clearance. The fact that there have been thirty denial recommendations of WH staff in the last 1.5 years is itself crazy, before you even get to the overruling part."

After he was cleared by the White House, Kushner's file was reportedly submitted to the C.I.A. to be evaluated for an S.C.I., or "sensitive compartmented information" clearance -- an even higher designation. It didn't go well:

After reviewing the file, CIA. officers who make clearance decisions balked, two of the people familiar with the matter said. One called over to the White House security division, wondering how Kushner got even a top-secret clearance, the sources said. Given his various entanglements, the CIA.'s alarm makes sense.

Carlton Meyer , says: Website February 3, 2019 at 4:06 pm GMT
@renfro I don't trust Kushner, but denying clearances is the main weapon used by the Deep State to retain control, and Trump was right to place his own man in charge. Note the media sources mentioned are Deep State media, who quote "the CIA" as though that is a person to be trusted.

I'm sure people like Ron Unz and the Saker would be denied clearances if appointed to a position in Washington if Deep Staters were gatekeepers. The "CIA" prefer narcissistic retired military officers who lack a soul and wave the flag.

DESERT FOX , says: February 3, 2019 at 4:19 pm GMT
@Carlton Meyer In my opinion Kushner is Mossad.

[Nov 21, 2018] Is Ivanka really that stupid

Notable quotes:
"... The content of the email is irrelevant to me. It's the appearance of the same disregard for rules that the rest of the swamp displays ..."
Nov 21, 2018 | the-fringe.com

The content of the email is irrelevant to me. It's the appearance of the same disregard for rules that the rest of the swamp displays . Of course she wasn't sending special access info, setting up her own server or trying to bypass FOIA. It's unprofessional and unnecessary. Nothing good can come from it.

RE: Is Ivanka really that stupid? (Posted: Yesterday, 02:59 PM) (This post was last modified: Yesterday, 03:02 PM by Dr Evil .)
(Yesterday, 01:47 PM)Яudis Wrote: I got this feeling She Is BAITING the Dems!

And I bet the Content of these Emails is Exceeding Low Security!

I Mean its NOT like She Bought a BlackBerry CellPhone/Email Server and 26 Blackberry Phones!
For her self and all her aids, So Send Top Security Government SECRETS!
To AVOID Using Gov Devices and Servers! Then Used BleachBit to SCRUB THe DRIVES!
Then Started SMASHING Laptops and Phones With Sledge Hammers!

I don't SEE Ivanka Murdering over 30 People to Cover a Career In CRIME and Corruption!

She is definitely baiting them. This is the statement from her spokesman:
Quote: Later today Ivanka's spokesman, Peter Mirijanian, released a blistering statement to the liberal anti-Trump press.

"Like most people, before entering into government service, Ms. Trump used a private email. When she entered the government, she was given a government email account for official use. While transitioning into government, until the White House provided her the same guidance they had to others who started before she did, Ms. Trump sometimes used her private account, almost always for logistics and scheduling concerning her family.

To address misinformation being peddled about Ms. Trump's personal email, she did not create a private server in her house or office, there was never classified information transmitted, the account was never transferred or housed at Trump Organization, no emails were ever deleted, and the emails have been retained in the official account in conformity with records preservation laws and rules.

When concerns were raised in the press 14 months ago, Ms. Trump reviewed and verified her email use with White House Counsel and explained the issue to congressional leaders. "

Note how that statement carefully mentions all the major crimes Killary committed in relation to her server. That's not an accident.

They're going to let the idiot media go on and on and on about this. Then sometime within the recent memory of the sheeple one of the Senate committees will release all the material on Killary's server and the sheeple will believe it since it comes from govt sources and they will wait expectantly for their beloved MSM to cover it as extensively as they covered Ivanka and they will witness nothing of the sort and millions of them will finally realise they've been being played like idiots by the media and because people hate that they will become very angry and that anger will drive them to review in their minds everything the media's been telling them since Trump was elected and when it's all over the Great Awakening will have a few million more converts. You need about 10% of the people to get on board with something before it becomes an avalanche because that's approximately the threshold where enough people in the office know the same things you do that you feel safe voicing your opinions at the water cooler without fear of ridicule.

That seems to be the plan and it'd be very interesting to know who leaked this to whom in the media because clearly this was a leak because otherwise why haven't the media previously covered it? Nothing is more vigorously defended than a vested interest disguised as an intellectual conviction.

[Jul 14, 2018] Ja>red and Ivanka's marriage is anything but normal

Ivanka is Lady Macbeth of Trump administration. She insisted Trump to bomb Syria of false pretences and he obliged.
Notable quotes:
"... Another source close to the couple, speaking to Esquire, put it more cynically, "Power, power, power, power. Jared's got plenty of money, but the only way he can separate himself from his family is power. They're a great match because that's also what Ivanka is after." ..."
Jul 14, 2018 | www.nickiswift.com

For all of the speculation and media scrutiny surrounding the Trump family, Jared and Ivanka's marriage actually shows no signs of strain. Granted, they play everything extremely close to the chest, but most normal marriages would falter under the stress of just the 24 hour media coverage, let alone the privacy intrusion of a presidential election. But Jared and Ivanka's marriage is anything but normal, and the introduction of the stressful world of politics has only seemed to strengthen their bond.

Telling Vogue that she believes "your choice of spouse is really everything," Ivanka said that Jared is her ideal partner because his drive and ambitions match her own. "His own dreams are bold, and I love that in someone," she also said.

Another source close to the couple, speaking to Esquire, put it more cynically, "Power, power, power, power. Jared's got plenty of money, but the only way he can separate himself from his family is power. They're a great match because that's also what Ivanka is after."

Read More: https://www.nickiswift.com/54196/whats-really-going-ivanka-trumps-marriage/s/theyre-unconventional-but-perfect-for-each-other/?utm_campaign=clip

[Jun 12, 2018] Jared Kushner didn t disclose his business ties with George Soros, Peter Thiel, and Goldman Sachs, or that he owes $1 billion in loans, The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday.

Notable quotes:
"... The top White House adviser and son-in-law of Trump failed to identify his part ownership of Cadre, a real-estate startup he founded, which links him to the Goldman Sachs Group and the mega-investors George Soros and Peter Thiel, sources told The Journal. ..."
"... Vampire Squid. Tentacles everywhere. ..."
Jun 12, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com

JelloBeyonce -> gwar5 Mon, 06/11/2018 - 20:24

I guess the "Deep State" is deeper than the White House is reporting.....

Jared Kushner didn't disclose his business ties with George Soros, Peter Thiel, and Goldman Sachs, or that he owes $1 billion in loans, The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday.

The top White House adviser and son-in-law of Trump failed to identify his part ownership of Cadre, a real-estate startup he founded, which links him to the Goldman Sachs Group and the mega-investors George Soros and Peter Thiel, sources told The Journal.

Oldguy05 -> JelloBeyonce Mon, 06/11/2018 - 20:45 Permalink

Vampire Squid. Tentacles everywhere.

[May 16, 2018] Trump's Family Applauds Zionist Massacre Of Palestinians In Gaza

Notable quotes:
"... The illiterate orange Chump was a known front goy of the jewish mafia in New York for years. It's not surprising that he's dancing to Sheldon Adelsons tune and acquiescing to zionist commands. In a few months deplorable goyims will probably have to bleed in the Persian gulf for the chosen ones. Made your bed, now lie in it... ..."
"... It's apparent to me that Kushner & Ivanka is being groomed for the Imperial Throne post-2024, or 2020 if Trump loses the midterms. IMO, the Two-State solution is no longer a viable option as long the US and UK continues to exists, which they will in the foreseeable future. The only viable solution is a one state solution where the Palestinians are given full rights. ..."
"... We all knew that Kushner is a hyper-Zionist. However, what bothers me is how many other people are incapable of seeing the immorality of such an attitude. ..."
"... Jared's insanely dishonest and triumphalist Victory Speech/ Gloatfest was entirely predictable ..."
May 16, 2018 | www.moonofalabama.org

Augustin L , May 14, 2018 3:27:56 PM | 4

The illiterate orange Chump was a known front goy of the jewish mafia in New York for years. It's not surprising that he's dancing to Sheldon Adelsons tune and acquiescing to zionist commands. In a few months deplorable goyims will probably have to bleed in the Persian gulf for the chosen ones. Made your bed, now lie in it...
Ian , May 14, 2018 3:36:58 PM | 5
Brave of South Africa. Color revolution anyone?

It's apparent to me that Kushner & Ivanka is being groomed for the Imperial Throne post-2024, or 2020 if Trump loses the midterms. IMO, the Two-State solution is no longer a viable option as long the US and UK continues to exists, which they will in the foreseeable future. The only viable solution is a one state solution where the Palestinians are given full rights.

Eve Human , May 14, 2018 3:43:20 PM | 6
We all knew that Kushner is a hyper-Zionist. However, what bothers me is how many other people are incapable of seeing the immorality of such an attitude.
WorldBLee , May 14, 2018 3:57:56 PM | 11
The attitude of the Israelis vis a vis Palestinians is strikingly similar to that of the Ukrainians vs. East Ukrainians or Russians: Kill them all, for they are not human beings.
Turkey has recalled its ambassadors to Israel and US
https://sputniknews.com/news/201805141064453871-turkey-recalls-us-israeli-ambassadors/

Posted by: Peter AU 1 , May 14, 2018 4:29:02 PM | 20

Turkey has recalled its ambassadors to Israel and US
https://sputniknews.com/news/201805141064453871-turkey-recalls-us-israeli-ambassadors/

Posted by: Peter AU 1 | May 14, 2018 4:29:02 PM | 20 div

Babyl-on , May 14, 2018 4:47:23 PM | 23
It has been unimaginable to me that I would see this much damage to the US led Empire in my lifetime. The damage to the US on every level is astonishing from this move and the reneging on the JCPOA. People are suffering, but people suffer under any scenario. The US has killed people every single day for the past 73+ years and it is time they stopped. The more damage Trump does the better.
Don Bacon , May 14, 2018 4:49:06 PM | 25
from Hurriyet, Turkey
US has lost its status as mediator in Middle East peace process with embassy move: Erdoğan
The U.S. has lost its status as a potential mediator in the Middle East peace process with its decision to move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on May 14.
"[The U.S. decision to move the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem] is unfortunate. We cannot help but feel like we are living through the dark times prior to World War II," Erdoğan said at an event at the Chatham House think tank in London.
Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdağ also said on May 14 that Washington "shares responsibility" with Israel for the "massacre" along the Gaza border that left at least 37 Palestinians dead as a result of Israeli fire.
" The U.S. administration is just as responsible as the Israeli government for this massacre ," Bozdağ wrote on Twitter, saying the incidents were caused by "unjust and unlawful decisions" as the United States moves its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. . . here
Bart Hansen , May 14, 2018 5:07:14 PM | 30
12 - This works for me - https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/
karlof1 , May 14, 2018 5:07:21 PM | 31
I seldom have issues getting onto Murray's site with IE8. Murray's two entries for today point out the choice of terms Big Lie media use to continue its Big Lie: "If you look through the Google search of News this time for "clashes" [instead of massacre], you discover that the western and Israeli media peculiarly have precisely the same preference for this entirely inappropriate word. That, again, is fascinating." Concluding his first entry, Craig intones this important point: "In order to help redress the terrible agony of the Palestinians, we must first effect a change in our own system of elite exploitation of the people at home . [My Emphasis] His second entry deals with how the group "Labour Friends of Israel" is no more than a stenographer for Big Lie Zionist propaganda, demanding that Labour immediately cut its ties to this obviously racist, demented, genocidal organization.
karlof1 , May 14, 2018 5:19:42 PM | 35
Garrie provides a small collection of recent tweets and statements by Erdogan and Turkish government, which is following me in calling Zionists acts Genocide. The Turks have vowed to send aid to Gaza; but in light of recent history, they'll need to send their entire Navy and provide it with 100% air cover. Erdogan should never have entered into a rapprochement with the Zionists or their scheme along with the Outlaw US Empire to overthrow Assad.
Circe , May 14, 2018 5:57:43 PM | 44
Trump's family applauds massacre? What about coward Trump appearing on a giant screen like Big Brother in 1984???

I hardly see Trump's name equated with this depravity in Jerusalem and Gaza in any post. Don't be afraid to speak it: TRUMP IS A ZIONIST. The fish rots from the head (of the family)! Trump has become the mangod of Zionism. He's a blowhard sleaze who slept his way and bragged about his exploits while others had to send their children to war. He's everything dumb Americans deserve and Zionists dreamed of.

He's bullying and threatening European companies not to do business with Iran as he'll bully and threaten Palestinians to sign on to a grand swindle. He'll squeeze them dry to get his deal and cares less they're already impoverished. He's exactly what Zionists wanted for President. Trump is stomping on the last hope for justice Palestinians are bravely keeping alive. What a tawdry, disgraceful bargain and means to an end some Trump supporters here bought into, and now the usual periodic lip service on Israel's acts; such blatant hypocrisy. Arrgh.

jsb , May 14, 2018 6:14:21 PM | 51
Statement on the atrocities committed by IDS by Jeremy Corbyn:

https://twitter.com/thepileus/status/996106107528667136


Yasser Fathi, freelance photographer From Gaza who took this iconic photo, was shot today in the stomach while wearing a bulletproof PRESS vest covering #Gaza. This is how Israeli forces are responding to press and photographers at #GreatMarchReturn protesting #USEmbassyJerusalem

https://twitter.com/jvplive/status/996056822866833409

These tweets sums up today's massacre:
https://twitter.com/STUD6699/status/996150544782807043
https://twitter.com/nesifdn/status/996150428843814913
https://twitter.com/aamiraltaf71/status/996150306160263169
https://twitter.com/gsemprunmdg/status/996151197064204289


Dublin mayor urges Eurovision boycott as Israel commits another massacre

https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/dublin-mayor-urges-eurovision-boycott-israel-commits-another-massacre

dan , May 14, 2018 6:17:54 PM | 52
Ian@5 and Augustin L@9
I don't have a link, but its on record that the reason S. Africa abstained from voting in the UN Libya debacle was because Mbheki had been threatened with color revolution if he voted against it. Word has it that the warning came directly from Hillary. Also, one of these unmentionable (in this case Danish) banks predictions for 2018 was color revolution in S. Africa.

I am not sure that Cyril Ramaphosa is it, or even, for that matter, that he is in charge. It would seem so for now, but wait. The ANC still has a lot of depth. If he starts to move away from China, that will be a dead giveaway.
I am always fascinated by how all over the world, politicians make it to their posts by proclaiming change of whatever sorts, and once they "get into power" they start behaving. Mandela was no different. The only remnant of the Freedom Charter is a monument somewhere in Soweto...
I liked Zuma, warts and all. But the glaringly obvious truth is that it makes almost fuckall difference who is president here, on the larger scale of things. They all seem to be subservient to forces much greater than themselves, and end up looking and behaving like spokespeople for the elite, while "championing" socialist causes that rarely come to fruition.
However, this whole diplomatic slap for Israel gives me cause to believe that the ANC roots still have plenty sway. God knows somebody needed to say something, and I think S. Africa holds good sway with the rest of Southern Africa. But I don't doubt for a second that our punishment will be slow and painful.

Daniel , May 14, 2018 6:22:12 PM | 53
pessimist @ 33

This US "Embassy" is really just a few offices in a long-existing US Consulate building. The US hasn't even picked a location for the planned real Embassy building.

But yeah, one can bet that every signal of every sort coming from any foreigners in Israel can be precisely monitored and recorded. In fact, through Unit 8200 and Operation Talpiot, the Israeli Secret Intelligence Services likely have their digital fingers in every bit of internet-capable equipment everywhere on earth.

Can you say "kill switch?" I think that may be one of the reasons Israel (really the supra-national bankster cabal) get to do whatever they want, wherever they want.

Add in the "Samson Option" of nuclear weapons ready to take out capital cities globally and good old fashioned Roy Cohn blackmail evidence and much of the news of the world comes into focus.

Hoarsewhisperer , May 14, 2018 6:41:33 PM | 57
Jared's insanely dishonest and triumphalist Victory Speech/ Gloatfest was entirely predictable from the instant Trump announced the (illegal & offensively stupid) relocation of the US Embassy to Jerusalem. He knew exactly what he was doing because he knows that if you give Zionists an inch, they'll take a mile.

Now the whole world knows and can see what Trump wanted everyone to know and see. i.e. The bloodthirsty "Israelis" are completely, utterly insane. Trump gave them enough rope to hang themselves and they almost killed each other in the scramble to be first to shove their heads in the noose. It's a bit worse for "Israel" than Trump could have imagined because he couldn't have known that "The most moral army in the world" would in the middle of a Slaughter and Maim-fest when the time came to gloat about their 'victory' in Jerusalem.

psychohistorian , May 14, 2018 8:52:12 PM | 78
Has anyone here pointed out how absent discussion of this situation is at the UN?

There was no meeting of the Security Council after last weeks Israel attack and I have not heard of any....anyone else. It confirms my opinion of the bought circus that the UN has unfortunately been corrupted to.

Geo-political conversation now consists of expelling ambassadors. The last I heard there were two....any others with human morals?

And some call this civilization.

psychohistorian , May 14, 2018 8:52:12 PM | 78 George Lane , May 14, 2018 8:58:18 PM | 79
@78, psychohistorian, yes certainly, and of course also it seems after the nausea-inducing Nikki Haley vetoed the declaration condemning yet another concerted brutal massacre of Palestinaians after the first week of the protests, the UN has been totally silent. As you say another example of the "international community" being a euphemism for "US-led hegemonic opinion".
imo , May 14, 2018 9:12:59 PM | 83
How does it go? ... "not a cigarette paper's thickness between government and business" ... as usual.

Perhaps in current context it's hardly a cigarette paper between 'crooked Hillary' and 'crooked Trump'?

china-contributing-500-million-trump-linked-project-indonesia

Daniel , May 14, 2018 9:51:38 PM | 88
Jackrabbit @ 82

I've come to much the same conclusion as you. I guess one could have called me a "never HRCer" during the primaries and into the election. I saw her as "more of the same" in what was clearly becoming what I call "The Election of Rejection." But even more so, I saw her as the most dangerous candidate in my lifetime with her threats against Russia (in addition to a long and bloody record, claiming that hacking is an act of war worthy of a military response, and calls to "obliterate" Iran terrified me).

At least Trump made some (often contradictory) claims to work with Russia and end "regime change" wars. But about the time of the Conventions, I started to look more deeply into Trump's history, and realized that he was clearly wholly beholden to the supra-national bankster cabal that Circe refers to as "the Rothschilds."

Dan and I (honest, not the same person) have posted links to this video(not the URL)

The creator was a Trump supporter, who didn't start to see through the facade until after the election. He's gotten a lot of grief from "fans" who are still Trumpsters, but though I don't share much of his ideology, I greatly admire his integrity for following the facts where they lead.

Please take a half hour to watch it. If you want more published evidence, I can provide a great deal.

Jackrabbit , May 14, 2018 10:14:21 PM | 95
Circe

Every candidate sucks up to AIPAC.

Hillary wouldn't have been any different. The problem isn't any particular candidate/President, it's the system itself.

See Ian @93.

Jackrabbit , May 14, 2018 10:28:22 PM | 96 OJS , May 14, 2018 10:35:17 PM | 97

" ..."The War Prayer" was written in 1905, and is believed to be a response to both the Spanish–American War and the subsequent Philippine–American War.[1] It was left unpublished by Mark Twain at his death in April 1910, largely due to pressure from his family, who feared that the story would be considered sacrilegious.....

The War Prayer. by Mark Twain

Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth into battle -- be Thou near them! With them -- in spirit -- we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended in the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames in summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it --

For our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimmage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet!

We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.

Circe , May 14, 2018 10:53:39 PM | 98
@88

bankster cabal that Circe refers to as "the Rothschilds.

I never made such a statement. Now that's not to say that I don't firmly believe that certain forces mostly Zionist helped to push Trump over the edge because Trump was even more aligned with the Zionist agenda than Hillary, regarding Iran and Jerusalem, and more vulnerable to blackmail and bribery. Although, I also agree with Jackrabbit on this: Hillary wouldn't have been any different. The problem isn't any particular candidate/President, it's the system itself. and Ian 93. The system is rigged by Zionists. Unfortunately, Americans either don't care or they're too stupid to see it.

A whole lot of their treasure (human and taxes) is spent on Zionism's geopolitical agenda. To add insult to that injury, Trump cut taxes permanently for the wealthiest Americans; so who's left to pay for the close to a trillion investment in the military?

Robert Snefjella , May 14, 2018 11:00:07 PM | 101
How do we write this, boss?

From Aljazeera: "Turkey has recalled its ambassadors to Israel and the United States following the killing of dozens of Palestinian protesters by Israeli forces...."

The Hill: "Turkey is recalling its ambassadors to the United States and Israel following the official inauguration of the new U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem, CNN and other news outlets reported."

Fox news: "...while violence and deadly protests erupt Gaza...."; "The Turkish government has recalled its ambassadors to the U.S. and Israel for 'consultations,' ."

Times of Israel: "Turkey on Monday recalled its ambassadors to Israel and the United States in protest of the Israeli military's deadly response to riots...."

Sputnik News: "In response to Israel's ongoing violent suppression of Palestinian protesters in Gaza,Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has recalled his ."

Israel National News: "Turkey has recalled its ambassadors to Israel and the United States for consultations because of the violence in Gaza ."

jsb , May 14, 2018 11:19:54 PM | 102
Let's add some context to this ongoing struggle:

Rocks in sling shots
VS
an Air Force, Navy, Army (of worthless coward terrorists), tank and mortar shelling, live hollow-point bullets that MAXIMIZE victim's injuries when they enter the flesh and tumble around before exiting with a massive area of impact when compared to its entry point, "tear-gas" (one that induces bloody eyes, virulent vommiting, extreme panic due to gasping for air as a consequence, living in the world's largest outdoor prison, and being subject to constant home raids and brutal torture, incarceration -- for just the simplest infractions, non-stop physical and psychological intimidation...and most of this going on for 70+ existence of this psychopathic-led and followed (for the most part, it seems as there is little objection heard from these chosen wannabes) devotees to a lunatic cult of death-worshippers and practitioners.

Beg your pardon?....When will Israel finally pay for its genocide against humanity?!?!

Better yet when will humanity awaken from its trance to finally hold this Iraeli regime accountable for its CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY??? When will Israel be made to pay for reparations in its crimes and blatant slaughter of unarmed peoples who want their human rights respected and their properties given back?

Not anytime soon, I suspect, as the world at large is largely silent, distracted, and impervious to what is REALLY happening in this Israeli genocide!

What's next will the disgusting IDF terrorists resort to executing babies in incubators...despicable excuse for and an excrement to humanity these "people" are!

Circe , May 14, 2018 11:26:07 PM | 103
@99

I have to repeat what you wrote:

Now the whole world knows and can see what Trump wanted everyone to know and see. i.e. The bloodthirsty "Israelis" are completely, utterly insane. Trump gave them enough rope to hang themselves and they almost killed each other in the scramble to be first to shove their heads in the noose.

He just handed them Jerusalem and compared himself to Truman in how momentous an act on behalf of Zionism's advancement this is! There is no ulterior interpretation possible. And no not every opinion is valid. You rightly singled out A P's comment regarding Hillary as being nonsense. So forgive me, but this comment was just too outrageously false to let it slide.

Bianca , May 14, 2018 11:26:13 PM | 104
Turkey also recalled its Ambassador from Israel AND from the USA. With the indication that it is US that is enabler, and has lost every pretense of being a mediator in the conflict.

I have a feeling that something is afoot. There will be an attempt to take Gaza away from Israel, the question is only who would be actors. Gaza can be taken away from Israel, as it has borders with Israel, and no Israeli authority on the ground. Israel controls illegally its maritime border. So, if anyone wants to address the problem assymetrically, this may be the way. Then find a way to reconstruct, redevelop Gaza. But for this, Israel will have to be put in its place, and the situation not worth US ratcheting up the drumbeat of additional war.

Grieved , May 14, 2018 11:48:56 PM | 107
As to the dead and wounded of Gaza

"The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry."

― Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms

~~

As to the way of the world

Guernica

~~

And all of this is true and even so I do not despair. Life is bigger than all this death. Find your own way to this answer .

Jackrabbit , May 15, 2018 12:57:00 AM | 111
Daniel

The video is not about an international conspiracy but it comes close. As I noted, there may well be such a conspiracy. Trump's family and business connections make for interesting reading.

Emails that Hillary released include correspondence with the Rothschilds. Why is that not mentioned? Wikileaks has them.

Presidents are a lightening rod for criticism and many of Trump's fans will have an emotional, knee-jerk reaction to harsh criticism that is leveled at him. It seems to me that it would be more effective to show that the election was a farce. We've all been had.

psychohistorian , May 15, 2018 2:15:43 AM | 114
So I have found a China Net reference to an upcoming meeting of the UN Security Council but they wanted Flash player and I don't do Flash player so don't know more

The 1st link I am providing from ChinaNet has this caption below it
"
U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin (R, Front) and U.S. President Donald Trump's daughter Ivanka (L, Front) attend the inauguration ceremony of the new U.S. embassy in Jerusalem, on May 14, 2018. The inauguration ceremony of the new U.S. embassy in Jerusalem started on Monday afternoon, as Israeli and U.S. officials gathered in the city amidst deadly clashes in the Gaza Strip. (Xinhua/JINI)
"
The 2nd link I am providing from ChinaNet has this caption below it
"
U.S. President Donald Trump's senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner speaks during the inauguration ceremony of the new U.S. embassy in Jerusalem, on May 14, 2018. The inauguration ceremony of the new U.S. embassy in Jerusalem started on Monday afternoon, as Israeli and U.S. officials gathered in the city amidst deadly clashes in the Gaza Strip. (Xinhua/JINI)
"

John Gilberts , May 15, 2018 2:30:01 AM | 115
I wish to also state that as compares the settler-state of Israel to the settler-state of Canada, Canada has achieved what Israel can only drool and dream of. 'Our object is to continue until there is not a single Indian that has not been absorbed into the body politic of Canada and there is no more 'Indian question', that is the whole purpose of our legislation.' - Indian Affairs Canada
Zanon , May 15, 2018 2:32:37 AM | 116
Jackrabbit
Circe's attacks on Trump have always been over-the-top but when criticism of Zionist influence devolves into claims of his being a Rothschild puppet then he has gone too far. This is a small step from anti-jewish, 'Protocol of Zion' hysteria which could discredit MoA as anti-semetic.

Why not stop criticism against Israel too? That is also antisemitic? Stop this nonsense claims.

michaelj72 , May 15, 2018 3:28:01 AM | 117
there is no end to their madness or their crimes


https://news.antiwar.com/2018/05/14/top-israeli-mp-army-has-enough-bullets-for-everyone-in-gaza/

Top Israeli MP: Army Has Enough Bullets for Everyone in Gaza
Strategic Affairs Minister calls Gazans 'Nazis,' says deaths don't mean anything


.....Strategic Affairs Minister Gilad Erdan repeatedly referred to the protesters killed in Gaza as "Nazis," saying that there were no demonstrations, just "Nazi anger." He later added that the number killed doesn't mean anything because they're just Nazis anyhow.

Likud MP Avi Dichter, the chair of the defense committee, went on to dismiss concerns in an interview of his own. Dichter insisted that protests in Gaza pose no danger, because "the IDF has enough bullets for anyone," and open-fire regulations to shoot people allowing the military to deal with it....

Perimtr , May 15, 2018 4:13:05 AM | 118 Yeah, Right , May 15, 2018 4:35:05 AM | 119
Interesting news that the Palestinians have decided to refer the issue of Israeli settlements in the West Bank to the International Criminal Court for prosecution as a war crime.

I know that the PLO has previously threatened to refer Israel to the ICC, but usually the threats have to do with allegations of unlawful killings during one of the IDF's many, many instances of "mowing the lawn". And, of course, in every instance the Palestinians have stepped away under US pressure.

But they really should persevere in this case, not just because the illegality of Israeli settlements is such an open-and-shut case, but also because once the court does rule that this is a war crime (and, again, no int'l court could possibly find otherwise) then the guilty persons are.... well.... every single Israeli gov't minister from June 1967 to the present day.

Each and every one of them are complicit in this crime. From top to bottom, from mewling left to far, far right.

All of 'em, because if they were a gov't minister then they voted to support the committing of this ongoing war crime.

I think the PLO should see this through. Lodge the complaint, and neither back down nor allow the Prosecutor to wriggle off the hook.

Coz' the Israeli leadership past and present are damn well guilty of a war crime. Each. And. Every. One. Of. Them.


somebody , May 15, 2018 5:45:07 AM | 123
Posted by: oldenyoung | May 14, 2018 6:24:59 PM | 54

That is the (European descent) Israeli stupid propaganda that Palestinians can be compared to Red Indians and Israel is a " settler " country like the US.

You must have built walls around you and be blind to what is going on to believe that. Or you live in the US countryside and don't notice much of the world anyway.

Palestinians sometimes called Arab Israeli are some 50 percent of "Greater Israel" and people with the same language and culture inhabit all the countries surrounding the "settler state". These people some Israelis pretend to colonize invented script, law, algebra, they also knew that the world was not flat. They also know how to remember history.

To try to impose a European "settler" narrative in an environment like this is an exercise in futility.

Israel has become a pet project of US billionaires and evangelicals.

Part of the new Gaza tragedy is not covered: Trump cut the funding for Gaza

Palestinians trying to storm the border are acting in desperation.
Trump will offer the Palestinians some type of deal after this. Same strategy he attempts with Iran.


john , May 15, 2018 6:35:01 AM | 127
Trump's Family Applauds Zionist Massacre Of Palestinians In Gaza

indeed, the optics are fucking creepy as hell. dig a little and they get even creepier . in my waking dream of billowing black smoke and blood draining head shots, I christen the blond dryad, the poster girl for Levantine murder, Lady Gaza.

somebody , May 15, 2018 8:06:18 AM | 129
Posted by: Christian Chuba | May 15, 2018 7:24:30 AM | 128

Probably in Hebrew. You can count on English speaking media in countries with their own languages to be government propaganda of some sort.

That does not mean they cannot be revealing to read, it is always interesting to read what propaganda thinks it is supposed to do. It is very likely far from any truth though.

Israel at this stage has short term tactics but no long term strategy.

This here is Newsweeks assessment :

srael celebrates its 70th birthday in May with the opening of the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem. Yet the country is grappling with an existential crisis -- one that doesn't involve Iranian nukes or Palestinian protests. Spurred by the high cost of living, low salaries, and political and demographic trends, Israelis are leaving the country in droves, trying to build their lives elsewhere, mostly in the United States. Many of these young Israelis are moving to big cities, and yet, even in these often expensive places, they see more opportunities to advance.

The available data is telling, analysts say. Between 2006 and 2016, more than 87,000 Israelis became U.S. citizens or legalized permanent residents, according to the most recent data from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. That's up from 66,000 between 1995 and 2005. These figures take into account only those who took the legal route (many Israelis, analysts say, arrive on temporary tourist, student or work visas, then stay). And in addition to the Israelis now living stateside, according to the country's Ministry of Immigrant Absorption, hundreds of thousands have moved to Europe, Canada and elsewhere.
...
The country's brain drain isn't new. For years, many of its most talented scholars and researchers moved to the U.S., where the salaries are far higher and there are more jobs at top-tier universities. One report by Dan Ben-David, an economist at Tel Aviv University, found that the emigration rate of Israeli researchers was the highest in the Western world. Recently, however, the exodus has expanded to include average young people, many of whom say there's simply no future in Israel.


somebody , May 15, 2018 8:39:47 AM | 130
There is a good discussion on what is going on in the Middle East militarily and strategically here .

Also read the comments section.

And finally

Saudi statement on US embassy

The Saudi Arabian government on Tuesday said it opposed the US decision to relocate its Israel embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

"The kingdom rejects the American administration's decision to transfer its embassy to Jerusalem," the council of ministers said in a state carried by state-run Saudi Press Agency.

"This step represents a significant prejudice against the rights of the Palestinian people which have been guaranteed by international resolutions," it said.

So either Kushner did not have Saudi buy-in or things have become too toxic for Saudi Arabia.

And this here from oilprice.com

US sanctions threaten the Petro Dollar

fastfreddy , May 15, 2018 10:02:39 AM | 133
In this modern era, it should be very difficult to impose and maintain an expanding (religious, ethnic) apartheid state without anyone noticing. Worse, is that it has the full backing and support of the USA and most of its citizenry.
Don Bacon , May 15, 2018 10:22:43 AM | 134
@aaaa 133
Wait, there are still Trumptards here?

Any event, such as the current one, which upsets the "world order" which includes the US as the world hegemon, in this matter including control over Israel/Palestine, is a good thing. The alternative is continued US financial and military control of the world, which is a bad thing. Omelettes can't be made w/o breaking eggs.

People are dying for their countries in many places, that's how history is made, unfortunately. In this case it hopefully will include some local MENA initiatives to take some responsibility for the continuing and worsening situation in Palestine. We've already seen signs from Turkey and perhaps there will be more.

The US reign over Palestine has been a disaster and change is needed, and if the current sacrifices contribute to meaningful change, it's a good thing.

[Apr 07, 2018] Said the Spider to the Fly

Notable quotes:
"... EXCLUSIVE: Saudi crown prince bragged that Jared Kushner gave him CIA intelligence about other Saudis saying 'here are your enemies' days before 'corruption crackdown' which led to torture and death ..."
"... What does current DCI Pompeo have to say about Kursher's disclosures of CIA Intelligence to MBS? ..."
"... Since Saudi is not an official 'Ally', under the Treason Statute it's called Treason what Kushner did, not Espionage. Espionage pentalty is only for 'Allies', Treason is for all others (according to the Treason Statute). ..."
Apr 07, 2018 | turcopolier.typepad.com

EXCLUSIVE: Saudi crown prince bragged that Jared Kushner gave him CIA intelligence about other Saudis saying 'here are your enemies' days before 'corruption crackdown' which led to torture and death

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5575395/Saudi-crown-prince-brags-Jared-Kushner-handed-U-S-intelligence.html

Said the spider to the fly, come closer my lovely let me play with you.

Now who on earth would be the spider, appears it's Mohammed-Bin Salman, the new Saudi king apparent, and the fly is Jared Kushner.

I call your attention to the following article:

Look at the second photo of Kushner and MBS at the Murabba Palace in Riyadh last May, BEFORE their October meeting where Kushner according to MBS, Kushner gave MBS Classified CIA Intelligence concerning MBS's purported enemies before his crackdown. Now doesn't that photo speak volumes of a spider eyeing a potential fly? MBS's body language speaks volumes.

What does current DCI Pompeo have to say about Kursher's disclosures of CIA Intelligence to MBS?

Since Saudi is not an official 'Ally', under the Treason Statute it's called Treason what Kushner did, not Espionage. Espionage pentalty is only for 'Allies', Treason is for all others (according to the Treason Statute).

What slice of the Treason execution pie does Jared pick, gallows or other?

[Mar 06, 2018] Kelly Has No Idea What Jared And Ivanka Do All Day

Looks like "Javanka" does not have many friend among pro-Trump crown at Zerohedge...
Notable quotes:
"... Trump denied reports that he was displeased. "As I told Jared days ago, I have full confidence in his ability to continue performing his duties in his foreign policy portfolio including overseeing our Israeli–Palestinian peace effort and serving as an integral part of our relationship with Mexico," ..."
Mar 06, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com
Associated Press

"I am not a person who has sought the spotlight. First in my business and now in public service, I have worked on achieving goals, and have left it to others to work on media and public perception," Kushner told congressional investigators last July.

But it is not immediately obvious what he's achieved. There has been little progress on Mideast peace and relations with Mexico, another top Kushner priority, remain contentious over Trump's proposed border wall. Kushner's much ballyhooed project to reinvent the federal government has gained little traction. And questions persist about his family business's global hunt for cash just a year before a $1.2 billion mortgage on a Manhattan skyscraper must be paid off by the company . -AP

Kushner has come under fire of late, as Special Counsel Robert Mueller is reportedly probing his family's Real Estate dealings - including whether foreign nationals sought to manipulate him over his family's financial position.

The Kushner Co. says it is financially sound, however skeptics point to the company scrambling to raise funds from investors whose country of origin may present a conflict of interest. The Intercept reported that Kushner supported a blockade against Qatar after his father, Charles Kushner, sought and failed to obtain financial support from the Qatari financial minister for the family's troublesome 666 Fifth Avenue property.

"If it's true it's damning, " Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told ABC on "This Week" Sunday. " If it's true he's got to go."

Kushner also lost his ability to access top-secret intelligence last week, as President Trump - who could have granted Jared a permanent clearance - left the decision to Chief of Staff John Kelly.

"I will let General Kelly make that decision," Trump told reporters. "I have no doubt he'll make the right decision."

The couple perceives Kelly's crackdown on security clearances as a direct shot at them, according to White House aides and outside advisers. But one White House official disputed that account, suggesting that Kushner welcomed Kelly's efforts to organize the West Wing, allowing him to more singularly focus on his portfolio.

Kelly, in turn, has been angered by what he views as the couple's freelancing. He blames them for changing Trump's mind at the last minute and questions what exactly they do all day , according to one White House official and an outside ally. - AP

Kushner's clearance was downgraded from "Top Secret/SCI-level" to "secret" - walling them off from the most sensitive information. The decision was the first major shakeup since the dismissal of former White House staff secretary Rob Porter, who was exposed for abusing both of his ex-wives. The FBI insinuated that it had informed the White House of Porter's conduct, appearing to contradict a timeline of events initially offered by Kelly.

"Only a son-in-law could withstand this sort of exposure and not be fired," said former Obama communications director, Jennifer Palmieri " Kushner's vulnerable and in an accelerated fall from grace . Even though his departure would leave Trump even more isolated, a decision could be made that it's just not worth it for him to stay."

That said, Trump has reportedly grown frustrated with both Kelly and over negative press surrounding Jared and Ivanka, according to the New York Times - and has been quietly seeking a solution to remove them from the White House.

Trump denied reports that he was displeased. "As I told Jared days ago, I have full confidence in his ability to continue performing his duties in his foreign policy portfolio including overseeing our Israeli–Palestinian peace effort and serving as an integral part of our relationship with Mexico," said Trump. "Everyone in the White House is grateful for these valuable contributions to furthering the president's agenda. There is no truth to any suggestion otherwise."

The AP reports that Jared and Ivanka have no plans on leaving Washington anytime soon.

Slippery Slope -> SH_Resurrected Mon, 03/05/2018 - 22:42 Permalink

I thought Kushner was solving the Middle East problem by giving Israel everything it wants.

Pandelis -> ACP Mon, 03/05/2018 - 22:46 Permalink

it is on a need to know basis my friend. you just go and look after the paperwork and clearance bs.

Kushner is there for some very good reasons ... trump cannot remove him even if his life depend on it ...

IridiumRebel -> Pandelis Mon, 03/05/2018 - 22:47 Permalink

Probably fake news, but then again, I don't know what they do. There are droves of useless fucks in government.

booboo Mon, 03/05/2018 - 22:42 Permalink

can't be any worse than the Clinton Foundations pay to play scheme ... By the way, I don't know what general Kelly does all day either but I will put money he will go to work for the MIC industry capitalizing on his position so fuck that pot says the kettle.

Juggernaut x2 -> booboo Mon, 03/05/2018 - 22:57 Permalink

Trump will do nothing to the Clintons or their Foundation so you don't need to worry about it.

Freddie -> Juggernaut x2 Mon, 03/05/2018 - 23:28 Permalink

Jared and Ivanka are good friends with Soros and the Clintons. So much for draining the swamp.

Mzhen Mon, 03/05/2018 - 23:06 Permalink

Since Jared and Ivanka aren't getting paid, maybe General Kelly can find something else to worry about.

Mustafa Kemal -> Mzhen Mon, 03/05/2018 - 23:12 Permalink

"Since Jared and Ivanka aren't getting paid, maybe General Kelly can find something else to worry about."

Or maybe since they aren't doing anything they could get out of the way.

[Mar 03, 2018] Jarvanka out? Kushner's business problems add to talk of DC exit by Edward Helmore

Notable quotes:
"... Meanwhile, the FBI has reportedly been examining Ivanka Trump's negotiations over the financing of Trump International Hotel and Tower in Vancouver. ..."
Mar 03, 2018 | www.theguardian.com

Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner in 2017. The couple appears to be facing an uncertain future in the White House. Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo
Life at the White House for Donald Trump's senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner and his wife, Ivanka Trump, may be rapidly losing its appeal as conflict of interest claims against the couple mount and the president himself is said to be cooling on continuing their roles in the administration.

Kushner, who this week was stripped of his top-level security clearance, faces intensifying scrutiny on a number of fronts, including loans on his family's real estate assets agreed with creditors who stand to gain from White House economic policy, and from special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation.

Meanwhile, the FBI has reportedly been examining Ivanka Trump's negotiations over the financing of Trump International Hotel and Tower in Vancouver.

Like many Trump-badged properties, the company receives licensing and marketing fees from the developer, in this case the wealthy Malaysian Joo Kim Tiah. Peter Mirijanian, a spokesman for Ivanka Trump's ethics counsel, told CNN that no "hurdle, obstacle, concern, red flag or problem has been raised with respect to Ms Trump or her clearance application".

In both cases law enforcement officials are concerned that the couple's foreign dealings leave them vulnerable to pressure from foreign agents.

Seemingly, Kushner's inability to receive security clearance stems from his family's real estate dealings and the business' pressing need for investment, often from foreign lenders.

Kushner had to make more than 100 revisions to his security-clearance application; his financial filings had to be amended 39 times in four months after he "inadvertently omitted" millions of dollars in assets.

According to the Washington Post, US intelligence agencies have learned that numerous foreign government officials discussed how to exploit his business interests. These include four countries: Israel, China, Mexico and the UAE.

The paper also reports that the president has told aides it might be preferable if the couple returned to civilian life in New York.

These are some of the business problems plaguing Kushner. 666 Fifth Avenue

The flagship of the Kushner empire, Jared Kushner's first big deal is looking increasingly like a potentially ruinous burden. The $1.8bn property was purchased at the top of the market in 2007 before prices for commercial real estate crumbled.

The property is facing $1.2bn refinancing at the end of this year and the search for lenders has reportedly , at various times, led to contacts with Putin ally and head of Russian state investment bank Vnesheconombank (VEB) Sergei Gorkov, as well as Anbang , the Chinese insurance giant, and members of the Qatari Investment Authority .

Chicago skyscraper

The company has reportedly taken out loans totaling $509m from lenders with whom Kushner has held White House meetings. These are reported to include a $184m loan on a Chicago skyscraper – the midwest headquarters for AT&T – from private equity firm Apollo Global, a company that stands to benefit from the Trump administration's infrastructure spending as well as the decision to leave carried-interest provisions so beloved of private equity investors in place.

Brooklyn development

The $509m also reportedly includes a $325m Citigroup loan on a Brooklyn development, soon after the Citigroup CEO, Michael Corbat, met with Kushner at the White House.

Spokespeople for Apollo and Citigroup denied that the meetings had anything to do with the loans. "Stories like these attempt to make insinuating connections that do not exist to disparage the financial institutions and companies involved," a Kushner Companies spokeswoman, Christine Taylor, told the New York Times.

Deutsche bank loan

A $285m Deutsche bank loan to Kushner Companies is reportedly the focus of New York banking regulators. According to Reuters last week, the New York state department of financial services (DFS) made the requests to Deutsche Bank, Signature Bank and New York Community Bank for information on loans and other financial arrangements including lines of credit and loan guarantees.

Taylor said the company had not received a copy of any letter from regulators. "Prior to our CEO voluntarily resigning to serve our country, we never had any type of inquiries," Taylor said in an email. "These types of inquiries appear to be harassment solely for political reasons."

EB-5 visas

In addition, the Securities and Exchange Commission is reportedly looking into Kushner company's promotion of White House ties to pitch EB-5 visas to Chinese investors. Kushner's use of EB-5, a congressionally approved visa-for-investment system, came under renewed scrutiny last year after the Kushner family members conducted sales pitches in Shanghai and Beijing seeking investment in a New Jersey project One Journal Square.

According to reports in the Washington Post and the New York Times , the pitch included a photograph of the president in a slideshow that described him as a key decision-maker on the fate of the EB-5 program. A Kushner spokesman said the photograph was included by the Chinese organizer of the event.

[Mar 02, 2018] Kushner s Business Got Loans From Companies After White House Meetings

Notable quotes:
"... Maybe there is a clear and present danger in the White House? Kushner's Business Got Loans From Companies After White House Meetings ..."
"... For Kushner's vulnerability to foreign manipulation, there seems to be a lot out there beyond this one WAPO story. This month old article lays out the problems existence over the last year with China. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/01/29/jared-kushner-is-chinas-trump-card ..."
"... I think what TTG is alluding to is that the source may be from another SIGINT establishment, not the USA. Correct me if I'm wrong. Given the vague nature of the allegations against Kushner, for all we know, it's Turkey, Brazil, or the UK leaking. ..."
Feb 01, 2028 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Leaky Ranger , 28 February 2018 at 09:20 PM

Maybe there is a clear and present danger in the White House? Kushner's Business Got Loans From Companies After White House Meetings

Apollo, the private equity firm, and Citigroup made large loans last year to the family real estate business of Jared Kushner, President Trump's senior adviser.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/28/business/jared-kushner-apollo-citigroup-loans.html The Twisted Genius , 28 February 2018 at 10:14 PM

... ... ...

For Kushner's vulnerability to foreign manipulation, there seems to be a lot out there beyond this one WAPO story. This month old article lays out the problems existence over the last year with China. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/01/29/jared-kushner-is-chinas-trump-card

plantman , 01 March 2018 at 10:00 AM
I think the attacks on Kushner are particularly evil and calculating.... And they could pose a real danger to the country! Look: The reason Trump's enemies want Kushner gone is because Trump does not have a wide circle of friends he can trust, so his enemies want to further isolate him so he can be controlled BY THEM.

The danger is that he will get increasingly embattled, erratic and paranoid.

Then what?? Maybe they think that's a reliable way to control someone like Bill Clinton or Richard Nixon, but Trump??? No way. Trump has shown time and again that he does not respond to situations like other people. I think that creates a potentially grave situation for the country, the country these deep-state vermin never think about. They only think about themselves.

Green Zone Café , 01 March 2018 at 10:35 AM
I think what TTG is alluding to is that the source may be from another SIGINT establishment, not the USA. Correct me if I'm wrong. Given the vague nature of the allegations against Kushner, for all we know, it's Turkey, Brazil, or the UK leaking.

The reason why Jeff Sessions isn't prosecuting anyone is because he has no evidence against an American who is leaking.

egl , 01 March 2018 at 11:25 AM
The leaks could have come from inside the White House. There's no shortage of insiders and wanna-be insiders who don't like Javanka's access to Trump.
Sid Finster , 01 March 2018 at 11:36 AM
I do hope that this is a rhetorical question - nothing will be done because the Deep State, the Borg, whatever you want to call it, does not particularly want Kushner involved in policy.

I do not want Kushner involved in policy either, but I am not leaking anything to get him forced to the side.

[Mar 01, 2018] Jared Kushner Doesn't Read, Calls His Father 'Daddy,' Former Employee Says Defend Democracy Press by Harriet Sinclair

Notable quotes:
"... New York Observer ..."
"... Columbia Journalism Review ..."
10/29/17 | www.defenddemocracy.press

A former employee of Jared Kushner has claimed the senior adviser doesn't read and calls his father "daddy." Kyle Pope, who worked as an editor for the New York Observer while Kushner was publisher, described his time working for Kushner in a tell-all article for the Columbia Journalism Review , where he is currently editor-in-chief and publisher.

Despite Kushner being responsible for the publication, Pope said he did not take much interest in actually reading the paper -- or any other publication. "Most weeks, Kushner not only didn't read the Observer , he didn't appear to read anything else, either. I never knew him to discuss a book, a play, or anything else that was in the Observer 's cultural wheelhouse," Pope wrote, also stating he could see where the first strains of anti-media sentiment began.

Read more at http://www.newsweek.com/jared-kushner-doesnt-read-calls-his-father-daddy-former-employee-says-695795?utm_source=internal&utm_campaign=most_read&utm_medium=most_read1

[Mar 01, 2018] Civil War in the Imperial Center

Notable quotes:
"... By MICHAEL D. SHEAR and KATIE ROGERS ..."
"... Mr. Kushner's clearance was reduced to the level of secret and his official portfolio inside the West Wing, especially with regard to his globe-trotting conduct of foreign affairs on behalf of President Trump, is expected to be sharply reduced as well, the people said. ..."
Mar 01, 2018 | www.defenddemocracy.press

Jared Kushner's Security Clearance Downgraded

By MICHAEL D. SHEAR and KATIE ROGERS
FEB. 27, 2018

WASHINGTON -- Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law and senior adviser, has been stripped of his top-secret security clearance after months of delays in completing his background check, and will now be limited in his ability to view highly classified information, a White House official and another person familiar with Mr. Kushner's situation said on Tuesday.

Mr. Kushner's clearance was reduced to the level of secret and his official portfolio inside the West Wing, especially with regard to his globe-trotting conduct of foreign affairs on behalf of President Trump, is expected to be sharply reduced as well, the people said.

Read more at https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/27/us/politics/jared-kushner-security-clearance-trump.html?emc=edit_na_20180227&nl=breaking-news&nlid=60114417&ref=cta&mtrref=undefined&gwh=7D15D084599A082540D291ECEC79573C&gwt=pay

[Feb 28, 2018] The Knives Are Out For Kushner: Loans With Deutsche Under Scrutiny By Regulator

If Kushner was/is involved with such risky staff, why he tried to join Trump administration. It does not requires any IQ to understand that he will be the target and that knife are out to depose Trump. In view of color revolution against Trump the best strategy would be to stay in NYC. You need to be squeaky clean to work for him.
Notable quotes:
"... A spokeswoman for the Kushner Cos, Christine Taylor, said "We have not received a copy of any letter from the New York State Department of Financial Services," adding "Our company is a multi-billion enterprise that is extremely financially strong. Prior to our CEO voluntarily resigning to serve our country, we never had any type of inquiries. These type of inquiries appear to be harassment solely for political reasons. " ..."
"... Kushner's family business, the Kushner Companies, has had longstanding financial troubles related to 666 Fifth Avenue, "the most expensive building ever purchased", in New York City. ..."
"... After Kushner bought the Fifth Avenue property in late 2006 for $1.8 billion - with zero skin in the game coming from Kushner, the building came under intense pressure during the financial crisis. Vornado Realty Trust stepped in with financing in exchange for a 49.5% stake in the building, which is now carrying over $1.4 billion in debt according to a March release by Vornado ..."
"... While Jared has separated himself from his family's business and placed assets in a trust, he has fallen into the crosshairs of Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Of interest are discussions between Kushner and Chinese investors during the transition, according to sources familiar with the investigation. Kushner met with executives of troubled Chinese conglomerate Anbang Insurance which was recently taken over by China's insurance regulator. Talks between Kushner and Anbang's chairman, Wu Xiaohui, broke down in March 2017, according to the New York Times . ..."
"... Also of interest to Mueller are Kushner's dealings with a Qatari investor over the 666 property, for which Kusher reportedly sought financing from former Prime Minister Jassim Al Thani, according to The Intercept. The discussion apparently went nowhere , similar to the Anbang deal. ..."
"... Dovetailing off of the reports of Kushner's meetings to shore up his finances, the Washington Post reported this week that officials from at least four countries - China, Israel, Mexico and the United Arab Emirates have explored ways to manipulate Kushner by taking advantage of his "complex business arrangements, financial difficulties and lack of foreign policy experience." The story cited current and former US intelligence officials - and noted that it is unclear on whether the cited countries took any action. ..."
"... Kushner is absolute scum, but how come he gets the treatment and not the Clinton foundation ..."
"... Back door attack. The inlaws, the sacred family structure. Eventually trump is going down. ..."
"... They will stop at nothing. They already committed treasonous crimes. ..."
"... They are the majority within gov.org. top to bottom -- Trump is fighting a completely stacked deck of swamp cards. They have no fear of the law. Look at every step they have taken. Look at the reactions. deflection, non-action. Behind the scenes the deals have been made-they will take down Trump ..."
"... If any dirt is found it wasn't an issue worthy of the integrity of the FBI before Kushner gained political office. So the FBI is only discrediting their felonious selves, past and politicized, craven present. ..."
"... Trump's example proved that it is pointless trying to go there and fight them alone. There needs to be a (new) party behind the individual, otherwise one does not stand a chance. ..."
"... Kushner has been systematically targeted by allies and foes alike because he has no foreign diplomacy expertise and they know he can be manipulated. Manipulated due to ignorance and arrogance. The worst kind of manipulation! ..."
"... You don't get unsecured lines from banks anymore unless you are GOD. Not personally. It may be that the company got one, but if Jared got one something funky is going on. ..."
"... NYCB is a garbage bank. They are essentially a 1980s S&L running a book of long maturity multi family loans and funding with purchased CD's in the overnight - 90 day market. (DISCLOSURE: I have been and will be short this stock). As the Fed tightens and the curve flattens, their margins go to shit. They did well in the free money QE world, but their game has been over for a while. They rely on credit underwriting to avoid adding defaults to the litany of woes this environment brings. In fact, taking no credit risk has been their hallmark for years. They generally don't do office or mixed use lending. That they would be making an unsecured line to Kushner is BIZARRE. ..."
"... I would be surprised if DJT is involved in anything illegal in his business. The guy knows how to bend the rules, but risking his great life to launder money for a bunch of Russians?? Just don't see it. Running for the Presidency with skeletons would be suicide, and he knows that. You don't want the antiseptic light of justice shining on the roaches if you've done something not nice. ..."
"... It may be Kushner is as dirty as they come. God knows his Dad is a piece of detritus. I know DJT as a crass vulgarian, with a genius for the common weal and leveraging off OPM. But stupid felon? Not buying it. ..."
"... Thank goodness the FBI and Justice have all the Democrat/Clinton crimes solved so they can dispense equal Justice to the Republicans ..."
Feb 28, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com

The knives are out for Jared Kushner.

After losing his top secret security clearance and reportedly falling under intense scrutiny by Robert Mueller's probe, the New York Department of Financial Services has asked Deutsche Bank two local lenders for information about their dealings with Jared Kushner, the Kushner companies and his family , according to Bloomberg .

Letters were sent by department superintendent Maria Vullo to Deutsche Bank, Signature Bank and New York Community Bank last week, said a person who had seen the letter which seeks a response by March 5. Vullo was appointed by New York's Democratic governor, Andrew Cuomo.

The requested information is broad, and include the banks' processes for approving loans.

Vullo requested copies of emails and other communications between the Kushners and the banks related to financing requests that have been denied or are pending. She also asked whether the banks have conducted any internal reviews of the Kushners and their companies and the results of any such inquiries revealed.

The most detailed information about the Kushners' finances can be found in their government disclosures. The couple had unsecured lines of credit of $5 million to $25 million each from Deutsche Bank, Signature Bank and New York Community Bank according to a late December filing.

Deutsche Bank's line of credit was extended to Kushner and his mother; lines from the other two banks were extended to Kushner and his father. Signature Bank also extended a secured line of credit to the couple of $1 million to $5 million, according to the disclosure. - Bloomberg

A spokeswoman for the Kushner Cos, Christine Taylor, said "We have not received a copy of any letter from the New York State Department of Financial Services," adding "Our company is a multi-billion enterprise that is extremely financially strong. Prior to our CEO voluntarily resigning to serve our country, we never had any type of inquiries. These type of inquiries appear to be harassment solely for political reasons. "

Kushner's family business, the Kushner Companies, has had longstanding financial troubles related to 666 Fifth Avenue, "the most expensive building ever purchased", in New York City.

After Kushner bought the Fifth Avenue property in late 2006 for $1.8 billion - with zero skin in the game coming from Kushner, the building came under intense pressure during the financial crisis. Vornado Realty Trust stepped in with financing in exchange for a 49.5% stake in the building, which is now carrying over $1.4 billion in debt according to a March release by Vornado.

The Kushner companies are also reportedly negotiating with Vornado to buy their stake back.

While Jared has separated himself from his family's business and placed assets in a trust, he has fallen into the crosshairs of Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Of interest are discussions between Kushner and Chinese investors during the transition, according to sources familiar with the investigation. Kushner met with executives of troubled Chinese conglomerate Anbang Insurance which was recently taken over by China's insurance regulator. Talks between Kushner and Anbang's chairman, Wu Xiaohui, broke down in March 2017, according to the New York Times .

Also of interest to Mueller are Kushner's dealings with a Qatari investor over the 666 property, for which Kusher reportedly sought financing from former Prime Minister Jassim Al Thani, according to The Intercept. The discussion apparently went nowhere , similar to the Anbang deal.

Kushner in the crosshairs

Dovetailing off of the reports of Kushner's meetings to shore up his finances, the Washington Post reported this week that officials from at least four countries - China, Israel, Mexico and the United Arab Emirates have explored ways to manipulate Kushner by taking advantage of his "complex business arrangements, financial difficulties and lack of foreign policy experience." The story cited current and former US intelligence officials - and noted that it is unclear on whether the cited countries took any action.

Meanwhile, the presidential son-in-law's security clearance was downgraded from "Top Secret/SCI-level" to "secret" this week, walling him off from the most sensitive information.

Many had expected that Trump would grant Kushner a waiver, even though Trump himself said Friday that he would let Chief of Staff John Kelly decide if such an exception should be granted. In a statement issued last week, Kelly said that any changes to Kushner's security clearance wouldn't impact his ability to do his job:

"As I told Jared days ago, I have full confidence in his ability to continue performing his duties in his foreign policy portfolio including overseeing our Israeli-Palestinian peace effort and serving as an integral part of our relationship with Mexico," Kelly said in the statement.

At the end of the day, unless Kushner or his company broke the law, it appears that this entire exercise is meant to embarrass the president's son-in-law over his troubled 666 property.

gatorengineer Wed, 02/28/2018 - 17:26 Permalink

Kushner is absolute scum, but how come he gets the treatment and not the Clinton foundation..... .yeah I know but how in your face are they going to get... wait dont answer that

NumbersUsa -> giovanni_f Wed, 02/28/2018 - 18:08 Permalink

Trump's Jewish Agenda

January 7, 2018

By CUFPa

Trump, the first US President with two Jewish children , beholden to the money power of the US establishment (i.e., Jewish money ) that supported his presidential bid (or bought the presidency for him), is making the Israeli dream of stealing Jerusalem and the whole of Palestine a reality; especially since he owes Jewish investment banks hundreds of millions of dollars, which can be easily written off the books if certain conditions are met.

"I have determined that it is time to officially recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel," Trump said .

In one fell swoop, Donald Trump overturned decades of international consensus and laws. He also ignored recorded history: Jerusalem was NEVER the capital of even ancient Israel.

Furthermore, he constantly and nonchalantly overlooks the fact that Israel today is an inhumane, apartheid country that uses its carte blanche from the US to do as it pleases in the Middle East. It oppresses the Palestinians, treats them like caged animals , and spreads chaos in the region regardless of how it affects the peace of the world.

The reason is because the Jews control the Federal Reserve , the real center of power in the United States or the money power of the establishment (i.e., Jewish money ). In turn, the Fed wags every other financial institution in America, and consequently ends up being the root cause of all of America's economic ills.

Trump's Jewish Entourage

Not even Trump , who supposedly wants to "make America great again," dares mention the need to dismantle the Fed. Worse, he drools every time he talks about Apartheid Israel , not unlike every other American politician.

The anti-Christ spirit of hate thy neighbor , which revs up the engine of the state of Israel and that of its Prime Minister, seems to fire up Trump's motor as well with his loathing of immigrants , especially of his Mexican neighbors. He and Netanyahu are two peas in a pod – both arrogant, haughty, and supercilious narcissists.

"Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall." Proverbs 16:18

new game -> Consuelo Wed, 02/28/2018 - 17:52 Permalink

Back door attack. The inlaws, the sacred family structure. Eventually trump is going down.

They will stop at nothing. They already committed treasonous crimes. All the righteous types just don't get it, they are being played to heighten the drama and division.. they don't give a shit.

They are the majority within gov.org. top to bottom -- Trump is fighting a completely stacked deck of swamp cards. They have no fear of the law. Look at every step they have taken. Look at the reactions. deflection, non-action. Behind the scenes the deals have been made-they will take down Trump.

Rex Andrus -> new game Wed, 02/28/2018 - 17:59 Permalink

Drain the Beltway start at your state capitol

If any dirt is found it wasn't an issue worthy of the integrity of the FBI before Kushner gained political office. So the FBI is only discrediting their felonious selves, past and politicized, craven present.

Remember WACO. Remember Ruby Ridge. Remember 911. Remember Lynch. Remember DACA. Remember Obama stealing from Freddie and Fannie. Remember all the government assistance programs you are paying for, that you are not eligible for because of the color of your skin, that you had no say in. Nice work, FBI.

EndOfDayExit -> new game Wed, 02/28/2018 - 20:35 Permalink

Trump's example proved that it is pointless trying to go there and fight them alone. There needs to be a (new) party behind the individual, otherwise one does not stand a chance.

GoingBig -> aliens is here Wed, 02/28/2018 - 17:50 Permalink

Kushner has been systematically targeted by allies and foes alike because he has no foreign diplomacy expertise and they know he can be manipulated. Manipulated due to ignorance and arrogance. The worst kind of manipulation!

Rex Andrus Wed, 02/28/2018 - 17:52 Permalink

How much of the loot from the US taxpayer did Deutche get from the "bailout"? The credibility of their organized bankster cartel is lower than that of a belarus hooker in jail in Thailand, because they practice fraud professionally. The FBI is an active enemy of the United States. The masks are coming off.

california chrome Wed, 02/28/2018 - 18:04 Permalink

"The Knives Are Out For Kushner: Loans With Deutsche Under Scrutiny By Regulator"

Will this be the catalyst for Trump to fire Muler's sorry-ass or does he just become more defensive every day about taking action and hope the issue will just sort itself out?

I too would continue unabated like a crazy man until stopped, if I were Muler.

LaugherNYC Wed, 02/28/2018 - 19:21 Permalink

Kushner wants a security clearance? They get to ream, steam and dry clean his ass. This is no game. Now, it just so happens I ran one of the biggest commercial real estate shops on the Street. I have been in the market recently for a major developer. 5-10X the size of Kushner. You don't get unsecured lines from banks anymore unless you are GOD. Not personally. It may be that the company got one, but if Jared got one something funky is going on.

You see, on a secured credit line, the bank only has to reserve about 4-8% of the limit as a capital charge. That allows them to operate at about 12X leverage. If they are charging LIBOR + 300 for the line, and they fund art LIBOR-50, and the line is fully drawn (no bank wants a line that isn't utilized, that's why they charge non-utilization fees), their 350BP spread translates into a nice ~35% ROE. That's good business. On an unsecured line, there is a 100 % capital charge. That's a 3.5% ROE. That sucks balls.

I have literally had a major bank walk away from an unsecured $50mm line when it would have given them the inside track for a $800 million loan they could securitize and make a quick and easy $25 million on. The regulatory headache and capital charges just made it a non-starter.

NYCB is a garbage bank. They are essentially a 1980s S&L running a book of long maturity multi family loans and funding with purchased CD's in the overnight - 90 day market. (DISCLOSURE: I have been and will be short this stock). As the Fed tightens and the curve flattens, their margins go to shit. They did well in the free money QE world, but their game has been over for a while. They rely on credit underwriting to avoid adding defaults to the litany of woes this environment brings. In fact, taking no credit risk has been their hallmark for years. They generally don't do office or mixed use lending. That they would be making an unsecured line to Kushner is BIZARRE.

If I were working for Mueller, I would be very curious about this stuff, too. If they called me, I would give them a list of things to look for. Something sounds screwy. Either the reporter has the details wrong, or something IS wrong.

I would be surprised if DJT is involved in anything illegal in his business. The guy knows how to bend the rules, but risking his great life to launder money for a bunch of Russians?? Just don't see it. Running for the Presidency with skeletons would be suicide, and he knows that. You don't want the antiseptic light of justice shining on the roaches if you've done something not nice.

It may be Kushner is as dirty as they come. God knows his Dad is a piece of detritus. I know DJT as a crass vulgarian, with a genius for the common weal and leveraging off OPM. But stupid felon? Not buying it.

onlooker Wed, 02/28/2018 - 21:21 Permalink

Thank goodness the FBI and Justice have all the Democrat/Clinton crimes solved so they can dispense equal Justice to the Republicans.

[Jan 24, 2018] Wolff book: Hope Hicks is his daughter and Ivanka his wife

This sleazy Wolff just can't stop...
This "Trump chicks theme" was definitely underutilized in fire and Fury" Wolff later tried to revive and capitalize of it as the tool to support the declining book sales with "Triumph mistress" rumor.
Notable quotes:
"... Former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon, who Trump blames for the bulk of the book, as he was one of Wolff's most prominent sources, reportedly told people that 'The daughter ... will bring down the father.' ..."
"... Me thinks Mr. Wolff has got bats in the belfry. ..."
"... ''I have included that which I believe to be true'' - a quote from Wolff himself. Also, The Author's Note to Wolff's book states the quotes in it are all "recreations". ..."
Jan 22, 2018 | dailymail.co.uk

Hope Hicks is his real daughter and Ivanka is his real WIFE: How Trump can't say no to his family and is totally reliant on his communications director

With Melania Trump often keeping a low profile, White House staffers refer to first daughter Ivanka Trump as her father's 'real wife' and Communications Director Hope Hicks as the president's 'real daughter,' a new book alleged.

Author Michael Wolff, who wrote the forthcoming 'Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House' revealed these designations in the context of who is now closest to Trump, with many high-level aides leaving within the president's first year.

That distinction goes to Hicks, the president's 29-year-old former campaign press secretary who Wolff said is now Trump's 'most powerful White House advisor.'

'Hicks' primary function was to tend to the Trump ego, to reassure him, to protect him, to buffer him, to soothe him,' Wolff wrote in a story about the writing of his book, published Thursday by the Hollywood Reporter.

'It was Hicks who, attentive to his lapses and repetitions, urged him to forgo an interview that was set to open the 60 Minutes fall season,' the author continued. 'Instead, the interview went to Fox News' Sean Hannity who, White House insiders happily explained, was willing to supply the questions beforehand.'

In a preview of the book published Thursday in the Hollywood Reporter, Wolff also explained how Trump couldn't say no to his kids, casting this characteristic as 'foolishness.'

'It's a littleee, littleee complicated,' the president reportedly told his first Chief of Staff Reince Priebus when explaining why he wanted to give Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner official White House jobs.

They're now serving as senior advisers in the West Wing. However, Wolff did not describe their tenure as a happy one. 'By July, Jared and Ivanka, who had, in less than six months, traversed from socialite couple to royal family to the most powerful people in the world, were now engaged in a desperate dance to save themselves, which mostly involved blaming Trump himself,' Wolff wrote Thursday in the Hollywood Reporter.

'It was all his idea to fire Comey!' the couple nicknamed 'Javanka' reportedly said, referring to Trump's ouster of the former FBI director that prompted the appointment of a special counsel.

Former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon, who Trump blames for the bulk of the book, as he was one of Wolff's most prominent sources, reportedly told people that 'The daughter ... will bring down the father.'

Ashley Parker is a White House reporter for The Washington Post. She joined The Post in 2017, after 11 years at The New York Times, where she covered the 2012 and 2016 presidential campaigns and Congress, among other things.  Follow @ashleyrparker

EmmaJanesMommy , Jacksonville, United States, 2 weeks ago

Me thinks Mr. Wolff has got bats in the belfry.

Sen Dog, Everywhere, United Kingdom, 2 weeks ago

''I have included that which I believe to be true'' - a quote from Wolff himself. Also, The Author's Note to Wolff's book states the quotes in it are all "recreations". Nice try liberals .

[Jan 13, 2018] Trump After Bannon What Next by Andrew Levine

Notable quotes:
"... A matter of enormous consequence for the whole world depends on the thoughts fleeting through what there is of the Donald's mind and on the calculations of the leaders of the more odious of our two semi-established, neoliberal political parties. With the rules of the game being what they are, and with Republican majorities in both the House and Senate, only Republicans can force Trump out. ..."
"... Why stick with a "stable genius" who is only good for rabble rousing and tweeting up a storm when Mike Pence, one of their own, could be in charge? Being less scary – Pence was born without a personality -- opposition to their machinations would diminish, enabling them to do more of the nefarious things they want done. ..."
"... If, as reported, Trump is mentally deteriorating at an alarming rate, the urgency of dispatching him becomes greater with each passing day; and the more the general public knows about it, the more political cover Republican leaders could muster if only they would dare. ..."
"... Democrats and their media flunkies on MSNBC and elsewhere still get all hot and bothered about the Democratic National Committee's leaked emails. Anything to be able to tell fatuous stories that impugn the Russians and Wikileaks! ..."
"... However, there was precious little in those emails that anybody who had been paying even casual attention didn't already know. The fix was in: the political machines and informal networks that the Clintons and their co-thinkers had been putting together since the eighties had been hard at work since even before the election season began. The Sanders insurgency never had a chance. The powers that be saw to it that their anointed one, Hillary Clinton, would be the Democratic nominee. ..."
"... wie es eigentlich gewesen ..."
"... History of the Peloponnesian War ..."
"... But it is Democrats, not Republicans or Trump, who are now promoting love for the pillars of the National Security State, especially the FBI and the CIA. ..."
"... I would bet all I have that, if humankind survives, future historians will conclude that, in our time, the National Security State posed a greater danger to (small-d) democracy, at home and abroad, and to Americans' basic rights and liberties, than any of our purported adversaries. ..."
"... Also Democrats are way out ahead of Republicans in encouraging Russophobia, reviving Cold War animosities, and generally laying the groundwork for World War III. ..."
"... remember that the idea that any good can come from a party led by the likes of Chuck Schumer, Ben Cardin, Nancy Pelosi, and others of their ilk, a party that fields media flacks like Rachel Maddow, is nothing more than a snare and a delusion. ..."
Jan 13, 2018 | www.counterpunch.org

A matter of enormous consequence for the whole world depends on the thoughts fleeting through what there is of the Donald's mind and on the calculations of the leaders of the more odious of our two semi-established, neoliberal political parties. With the rules of the game being what they are, and with Republican majorities in both the House and Senate, only Republicans can force Trump out.

It is not necessary to hold those Republican leaders in any higher regard than they deserve to be confident that they understand that were Trump gone, replaced by the Vice President as the Constitution requires, they could do a lot more for their donors and for themselves, in both the short and long term.

Why stick with a "stable genius" who is only good for rabble rousing and tweeting up a storm when Mike Pence, one of their own, could be in charge? Being less scary – Pence was born without a personality -- opposition to their machinations would diminish, enabling them to do more of the nefarious things they want done.

Add on a diminished likelihood of a nuclear Armageddon, and setting impeachment in motion or activating the Twenty-fifth amendment become no-brainers too.

... ... ...

If, as reported, Trump is mentally deteriorating at an alarming rate, the urgency of dispatching him becomes greater with each passing day; and the more the general public knows about it, the more political cover Republican leaders could muster if only they would dare.

With all the media attention now raging around Michael Wolff's Fire and Fury, it is finally dawning on the general public not only that, with Trump in the White House, the situation is and always has been dire, but that it is rapidly becoming worse -- not so much in kind as in intensity. This is not just news to the general public. We now know that the situation is worse even than diligent observers of Trump, his family and his close associates imagined.

Democrats and their media flunkies on MSNBC and elsewhere still get all hot and bothered about the Democratic National Committee's leaked emails. Anything to be able to tell fatuous stories that impugn the Russians and Wikileaks!

However, there was precious little in those emails that anybody who had been paying even casual attention didn't already know. The fix was in: the political machines and informal networks that the Clintons and their co-thinkers had been putting together since the eighties had been hard at work since even before the election season began. The Sanders insurgency never had a chance. The powers that be saw to it that their anointed one, Hillary Clinton, would be the Democratic nominee.

... ... ...

Ever since Leopold von Ranke (1795-1886) proclaimed the goal, historians, some of them anyway, have endeavored to tell the story of the past wie es eigentlich gewesen (as it actually was). Journalists are also supposed to follow this precept.

But this is not always the best advice. Thucydides' (460-400 BCE) History of the Peloponnesian War falls short of von Ranke's standard. He plainly made a great deal up. But his way of making sense of the past, and putting the story he told in perspective, is as good as it gets.

... ... ...

Thanks to Wolff's reporting – and therefore to Bannon's blabbing – it is now clear that, with very few exceptions, the goals of those ostensibly public spirited plutocrats, military honchos and Republican bigwigs had less to do with serving their country by doing damage control than with feathering their own nests and furthering their own agendas.

... ... ...

Let's face it too: it would be a delight to see the Donald decline (even more than he already has) and fall. "Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad." Let them have at it!

Let his children cut him loose as well -- to save their fortunes and their wretched necks. And let Melania break free from her gilded captivity, renouncing the Faustian bargain that turned her into the trophy bride of a repellent creature with too much money and too little couth.

But caution is in order: Trump could take the whole world down with that button of his.

Before long -- perhaps in just a few days time when his administration's one year anniversary comes around – many a Trumpian will decide to spend more time with his or her family; rats are always on the ready to abandon a sinking ship.

But others will replace them; the swamp that Trump said he would drain but that he instead brought into the White House itself, is full of other rats waiting to take over.

... ... ..

Trump is as bad, or worse, than Democratic voters think; and Republicans of all stripes and factions are noxious sons of bitches or bitches of equal or greater perniciousness.

But it is Democrats, not Republicans or Trump, who are now promoting love for the pillars of the National Security State, especially the FBI and the CIA.

I would bet all I have that, if humankind survives, future historians will conclude that, in our time, the National Security State posed a greater danger to (small-d) democracy, at home and abroad, and to Americans' basic rights and liberties, than any of our purported adversaries.

The Democratic Party, these days, speaks for those malefactors.

Also Democrats are way out ahead of Republicans in encouraging Russophobia, reviving Cold War animosities, and generally laying the groundwork for World War III.

... ... ...

So, even when voting for mainstream Clintonite Democrats is the only way to counter the even clearer and more present dangers posed by the Greater Evil Party, remember that the idea that any good can come from a party led by the likes of Chuck Schumer, Ben Cardin, Nancy Pelosi, and others of their ilk, a party that fields media flacks like Rachel Maddow, is nothing more than a snare and a delusion.

... ... ...

[Jan 09, 2018] Kushner s Israel Business Ties Raise Concern

Notable quotes:
"... Kushner Companies received a $30 million investment from Israeli insurer Menora Mivtachim; that investment went to Maryland apartment complexes that Kushner still has a stake in despite stepping down from the company after accepting a White House job last year. The company has also taken out large loans from Israeli banks. ..."
Jan 09, 2018 | www.newser.com

Jared Kushner's family real estate firm has continued to extend its business ties to Israel despite his role leading the administration's peace efforts in the Middle East, raising concerns that he may be breaking the spirit -- though not the letter -- of conflict-of-interest laws. The New York Times reports that shortly before President Trump's son-in-law departed on a diplomatic trip to Israel last year, Kushner Companies received a $30 million investment from Israeli insurer Menora Mivtachim; that investment went to Maryland apartment complexes that Kushner still has a stake in despite stepping down from the company after accepting a White House job last year. The company has also taken out large loans from Israeli banks.

With Kushner playing such a big role in the peace process, "I think it's reasonable for people to ask whether his business interests are somehow affecting his judgment," government ethics expert Matthew Sanderson, a lawyer who advised Rand Paul's campaign, tells the Times. Kushner's lawyers and White House officials, however, stress that he is in full compliance with ethics rules. We have "tremendous confidence in the job Jared is doing leading our peace efforts, and he takes the ethics rules very seriously and would never compromise himself or the administration," White House spokesman Raj Shah tells the Jerusalem Post.

[Jan 07, 2018] Bannon's Target Isn't Trump, It's Still Kushner

In foreign coverage, where is Guardian you also probably can find MI6. In other words they dig under trump. and it might be interesting to analyze how this reporter got such a broad access. Aren't recorders prohibited in WH grounds?
Jan 05, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com

The January 3 rd edition of the British newspaper Guardianopens with "explosive revelations". Michael Wolff interviews Steve Bannon about the latter's book "Fire and Fury: inside the Trump White House" , which calls Donald Jr's (Trump's first born son) meetings with the Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya "treasonous" and "unpatriotic" .

Most media stop there. Most liberals, fueled by their hatred towards Donald Trump, also stop there and take it to Twitter because that's how far their political slacktivism can go. Then Trump replied on the wave of emotions and everything went nuclear. Since everyone seems to be too emotional not only to read through the lines, but actually to simply read the lines, we'll offer some strategic analysis and put everything into context.

Let's start with Bannon's quotes: "Even if you thought that this was not treasonous, or unpatriotic, or bad shit, and I happen to think it's all of that, you should have called the FBI immediately. ( )You realise where this is going. This is all about money laundering. Mueller chose [senior prosecutor Andrew] Weissmann first and he is a money-laundering guy. Their path to fucking Trump goes right through Paul Manafort, Don Jr and Jared Kushner It's as plain as a hair on your face."

If you want to know what Bannon thinks, you either ask him or read Breitbart, which presents the same revelations with a rather different focus , ignoring Donald Jr. while highlighting Kushner's role.

A second article on the topic targets the power couple Jared and his wife Ivanka.

Most importantly, the first article on the home page, highlighted in capital letters, is again about Jared Kushner. The article is penned by Adam Shaw, who happens to be one of Bannon's most trusted writers, and lists essentially everything that's wrong with Kushner, suggesting what Trump should do with him.

The opening is nothing short of an insult, underscoring how the husband of Trump's daughter Ivanka appeared to the US troops in Iraq: under the flak jacket, Jared sported his typical rich-boy blazer and khakis, because that's all he is about and he can't renounce his materialistic symbols not even when on a military trip. As such, in the eyes of Bannon, Jared Kushner is nothing but a spoilt heir, who never had a real job in his life, owes everything he has to his family's wealth and connections and is exclusively preoccupied with his own lavish lifestyle; he's not fit to understand the problems of marines overseas, nor the middle-class American, who would be the main beneficial of Bannon's economic nationalist platform.

... ... ...

The second and third paragraph present how Kushner is not a conservative at all, but a Democratic mole in the Trump administration, for his support for open borders immigration policies and LGBT causes; he's also a fountain of bad advice, as allegedly Trump himself called him.

The fourth to sixth paragraphs are a hint of Donald Trump himself: if Mueller's special counsel is ever going to find anything, it'll be Kushner, therefore Trump should get rid of him as soon as possible. Kushner is involved in too many shady deals like those in real estate and very much like the Democrat mole he is, he'll repeat the same lax behaviour Hillary had in her use of non secure servers to handle confidential emails.

The last one highlights Kushner's alleged poor understanding of geopolitics.

In conclusion, for Breitbart and therefore Bannon, Kushner is a spoilt rich heir, with no real life skills whatsoever that could be useful to the Trump presidency, a source of bad advice, detached from the real problems afflicting middle America, focusing on frivolous issues like LGBT or his preppy shoes, a person who could be used to incriminateTrump. He's the perfect representative of the out of touch globalist elites and their policies that Trump ran against and won. If Trump wants to achieve anything with his presidency, Kushner must go. Otherwise Kushner will destroy the Trump presidency and drag Trump down with him.

Paragraph three also has a hint for Kushner and Ivanka themselves: leave of your own will.

Fortunately for them, Trump has taken the assault on them as a declaration of war against himself. He fired back at Bannon the same way he fires back and forth with Kim-Jong-Un, had already got his lawyers involved and didn't get the message at all. Bannon's New Year's first shot against Kushner backfired and ended up hitting Trump.

[Jan 06, 2018] Donald Trump Did not Want to Be President by Michael Wolff

Never trust a Wolff in sheep's clothing. The neoliberal elite was desperate for such a stooge, and in Wolffe they've found one.
This is clearly a hatchet job of Democratic operative. Judging from "burn rate" he is not bad writer, but here he really does not understand what he is writing about and what fighte with neocons and intelligence agencies Trump WH was forced for fight. His attempt to present Bannon as the person who runs White House is pathetic and wrong.
Kushner (if it was he) was actually right about firing Comey, but it was done clumsily and too late. It should have been done on the first day of the presidency.
Still while I view the book highly negatively, as a typical hatchet job, he sometimes provide some interesting bits of information, which might or not be true. But his exaggeration of the role of Bannon is very annoying. The campaign actually was greatly promoted the universal disgust at Hillary and the crisis of neoliberalism in the country. With those drivers who can make huge mistakes and still win because you are on the right side of the history. which is what happened.
Wolff provides a lot of dirty laundry style information but none of importance from the point of view of Trump election promises and neocon attempt to subdue him (in close cooperation with intelligence agencies). His is hired gun.
His praise of Bannon looks disingenuous and he essentially burned his source, ending his political career.
Notable quotes:
"... His longtime friend Roger Ailes , the former head of Fox News, liked to say that if you want a career in television, first run for president. Now Trump, encouraged by Ailes, was floating rumors about a Trump network. It was a great future. He would come out of this campaign, Trump assured Ailes, with a far more powerful brand and untold opportunities. ..."
"... "This is bigger than I ever dreamed of," he told Ailes a week before the election. "I don't think about losing, because it isn't losing. We've totally won." ..."
"... Bannon, who became chief executive of Trump's team in mid-August, called it "the broke-dick campaign." Almost immediately, he saw that it was hampered by an even deeper structural flaw: The candidate who billed himself as a billionaire -- ten times over -- refused to invest his own money in it. Bannon told Kushner that, after the first debate in September, they would need another $50 million to cover them until Election Day. ..."
"... Michael Flynn , the retired general who served as Trump's opening act at campaign rallies, had been told by his friends that it had not been a good idea to take $45,000 from the Russians for a speech. "Well, it would only be a problem if we won," ­Flynn assured them. ..."
"... Not only did Trump disregard the potential conflicts of his own business deals and real-estate holdings, he audaciously refused to release his tax returns . Why should he? Once he lost, Trump would be both insanely famous and a martyr to Crooked Hillary. His daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared would be international celebrities. Steve Bannon would become the de facto head of the tea-party movement. Kellyanne Conway would be a cable-news star. Melania Trump, who had been assured by her husband that he wouldn't become president, could return to inconspicuously lunching. Losing would work out for everybody. Losing was winning. ..."
"... From the moment of victory, the Trump administration became a looking-glass presidency: Every inverse assumption about how to assemble and run a White House was enacted and compounded, many times over. The decisions that Trump and his top advisers made in those first few months -- from the slapdash transition to the disarray in the West Wing -- set the stage for the chaos and dysfunction that have persisted throughout his first year in office. This was a real-life version of Mel Brooks's The Producers , where the mistaken outcome trusted by everyone in Trump's inner circle -- that they would lose the election -- wound up exposing them for who they really were. ..."
"... Ailes, a veteran of the Nixon, Reagan, and Bush 41 administrations, tried to impress on Trump the need to create a White House structure that could serve and protect him. "You need a son of a bitch as your chief of staff," he told Trump. "And you need a son of a bitch who knows Washington. You'll want to be your own son of a bitch, but you don't know Washington." Ailes had a suggestion: John Boehner , who had stepped down as Speaker of the House only a year earlier. "Who's that?" asked Trump. ..."
"... As much as the president himself, the chief of staff determines how the Executive branch -- which employs 4 million people -- will run. The job has been construed as deputy president, or even prime minister. But Trump had no interest in appointing a strong chief of staff with a deep knowledge of Washington. Among his early choices for the job was Kushner -- a man with no political experience beyond his role as a calm and flattering body man to Trump during the campaign. ..."
"... It was Ann Coulter who finally took the president-elect aside. "Nobody is apparently telling you this," she told him. "But you can't. You just can't hire your children." ..."
"... So Trump turned to Reince Priebus, the RNC chairman, who had became the subject of intense lobbying by House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. If congressional leaders were going to have to deal with an alien like Donald Trump, then best they do it with the help of one of their own kind. ..."
"... "Here's the deal," a close Trump associate told Priebus. "In an hour meeting with him, you're going to hear 54 minutes of stories, and they're going to be the same stories over and over again. So you have to have one point to make, and you pepper it in whenever you can." ..."
"... Priebus demonstrated no ability to keep Trump from talking to anyone who wanted his ear. The president-elect enjoyed being courted. On December 14, a high-level delegation from Silicon Valley came to Trump Tower to meet him. Later that afternoon, according to a source privy to details of the conversation, Trump called Rupert Murdoch, who asked him how the meeting had gone. ..."
"... "Oh, great, just great," said Trump. "These guys really need my help. Obama was not very favorable to them, too much regulation. This is really an opportunity for me to help them." "Donald," said Murdoch, "for eight years these guys had Obama in their pocket. They practically ran the administration. They don't need your help." "Take this H-1B visa issue . They really need these H-1B visas." ..."
"... Ailes's Fox News, with its $1.5 billion in annual profits, had dominated Republican politics for two decades. ..."
Jan 03, 2018 | nymag.com

On the afternoon of November 8, 2016, Kellyanne Conway settled into her glass office at Trump Tower. Right up until the last weeks of the race, the campaign headquarters had remained a listless place. All that seemed to distinguish it from a corporate back office were a few posters with right-wing slogans.

Conway, the campaign's manager, was in a remarkably buoyant mood, considering she was about to experience a resounding, if not cataclysmic, defeat. Donald Trump would lose the election -- of this she was sure -- but he would quite possibly hold the defeat to under six points. That was a substantial victory. As for the looming defeat itself, she shrugged it off: It was Reince Priebus 's fault, not hers.

She had spent a good part of the day calling friends and allies in the political world and blaming Priebus , the chairman of the Republican National Committee. Now she briefed some of the television producers and anchors whom she had been carefully courting since joining the Trump campaign -- and with whom she had been actively interviewing in the last few weeks, hoping to land a permanent on-air job after the election.

... ... ...

How He Got the Story

This story is adapted from Michael Wolff's book Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House , to be published by Henry Holt & Co. on January 9. Wolff, who chronicles the administration from Election Day to this past October, conducted conversations and interviews over a period of 18 months with the president, most members of his senior staff, and many people to whom they in turn spoke. Shortly after Trump's inauguration, Wolff says, he was able to take up "something like a semi-permanent seat on a couch in the West Wing" -- an idea encouraged by the president himself. Because no one was in a position to either officially approve or formally deny such access, Wolff became "more a constant interloper than an invited guest." There were no ground rules placed on his access, and he was required to make no promises about how he would report on what he witnessed.

Since then, he conducted more than 200 interviews. In true Trumpian fashion, the administration's lack of experience and disdain for political norms made for a hodgepodge of journalistic challenges. Information would be provided off-the-record or on deep background, then casually put on the record. Sources would fail to set any parameters on the use of a conversation, or would provide accounts in confidence, only to subsequently share their views widely. And the president's own views, private as well as public, were constantly shared by others. The adaptation presented here offers a front-row view of Trump's presidency, from his improvised transition to his first months in the Oval Office.

*Excerpted from Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House by Michael Wolff (Henry Holt and Co., January 9, 2018). This article appears in the January 8, 2018, issue of New York Magazine. Subscribe Now!

*This article has been updated to include more information from Wolff's book about the nature of Trump's conversation with the Mercers.

Related

[Jan 05, 2018] Mr. Trump, He Crazy

Hatchet job.
Notable quotes:
"... Donald Trump's small staff of factotums, advisors and family began, on Jan. 20, 2017, an experience that none of them, by any right or logic, thought they would -- or, in many cases, should -- have, being part of a Trump presidency. Hoping for the best, with their personal futures as well as the country's future depending on it, my indelible impression of talking to them and observing them through much of the first year of his presidency, is that they all -- 100 percent -- came to believe he was incapable of functioning in his job. ..."
"... At Mar-a-Lago, just before the new year, a heavily made-up Trump failed to recognize a succession of old friends. ..."
"... A "cease and desist" letter on Wolff and his publisher from the president's lawyer is the best possible thing a writer and a publisher can hope for. It's pointless, but it makes it look like Wolff inserted his proton torpedo into the Trump White House's exhaust chute. ..."
"... Verily, a New Hope ..."
Jan 05, 2018 | www.theamericanconservative.com

What Wolff reports in the new installment (and oh boy, you're gonna want to read the whole thing ) is jaw-dropping, certainly, but also weirdly familiar, the kind of things that make you shake your head as if to say, "I knew it!" Excerpts:

Reigning over all of this was Trump, enigma, cipher and disruptor. How to get along with Trump -- who veered between a kind of blissed-out pleasure of being in the Oval Office and a deep, childish frustration that he couldn't have what he wanted? Here was a man singularly focused on his own needs for instant gratification, be that a hamburger, a segment on Fox & Friends or an Oval Office photo opp. "I want a win. I want a win. Where's my win?" he would regularly declaim. He was, in words used by almost every member of the senior staff on repeated occasions, "like a child." A chronic naysayer, Trump himself stoked constant discord with his daily after-dinner phone calls to his billionaire friends about the disloyalty and incompetence around him. His billionaire friends then shared this with their billionaire friends, creating the endless leaks which the president so furiously railed against.

More:

As the first year wound down, Trump finally got a bill to sign. The tax bill, his singular accomplishment, was, arguably, quite a reversal of his populist promises, and confirmation of what Mitch McConnell had seen early on as the silver Trump lining: "He'll sign anything we put in front of him." With new bravado, he was encouraging partisans like Fox News to pursue an anti-Mueller campaign on his behalf. Insiders believed that the only thing saving Mueller from being fired, and the government of the United States from unfathomable implosion, is Trump's inability to grasp how much Mueller had on him and his family.

Steve Bannon was openly handicapping a 33.3 percent chance of impeachment, a 33.3 percent chance of resignation in the shadow of the 25th amendment and a 33.3 percent chance that he might limp to the finish line on the strength of liberal arrogance and weakness.

Donald Trump's small staff of factotums, advisors and family began, on Jan. 20, 2017, an experience that none of them, by any right or logic, thought they would -- or, in many cases, should -- have, being part of a Trump presidency. Hoping for the best, with their personal futures as well as the country's future depending on it, my indelible impression of talking to them and observing them through much of the first year of his presidency, is that they all -- 100 percent -- came to believe he was incapable of functioning in his job.

At Mar-a-Lago, just before the new year, a heavily made-up Trump failed to recognize a succession of old friends.

That gossipy last detail will have set off alarms in intelligence agencies around the world.

Here's the thing: even if you deny that everything Wolff writes in this adaptation from his book is true, all of it has the ring of truth. The inside-the-White-House stuff sounds exactly like what I was hearing second-hand from an unnerved insider last spring, though with more detail in Wolff's telling. Would you bet money that Wolff's tale is entirely a lie?

A "cease and desist" letter on Wolff and his publisher from the president's lawyer is the best possible thing a writer and a publisher can hope for. It's pointless, but it makes it look like Wolff inserted his proton torpedo into the Trump White House's exhaust chute.

Michelle January 4, 2018 at 11:51 am

Wolff reportedly recorded hundreds of hours worth of conversations with Bannon and other Trump administration officials, so good luck with that lawsuit. If anything, as you indicate, Trump's bellowing will serve to increase sales as people rush to buy the book Dear Leader doesn't want them to read. I know I will.

I've read the two Wolff articles and, while salacious, they don't differ in kind from numerous articles about the inside workings of Trumpworld that have come out since the election. While the book might contain numerous exaggerations, there's no doubt lots of truth contained therein, which is why Trump, for all his posturing, probably won't sue. As Kevin Drum writes, we won't get lucky enough to see the ultimate feces-slinging contest between Trump and Bannon. Too bad.

If Trump has succeeded in one thing, it's in turning the presidency into the ultimate reality TV show. Unfortunately, unlike the usual variety, this one has serious consequences for the actual world.

Bernie , says: January 4, 2018 at 11:59 am
"Would you bet money that Wolff's tale is entirely a lie?"

On the other hand, how much money would you bet as to what percent of Wolff's writing about Trump is entirely accurate? Ten percent? 30 percent? 60% percent? I hate to see this type of post on Rod's blog. It's tabloid quality and in all probability includes scandalous information. You can argue with my conclusion, but can you prove otherwise? This post is disappointing.

[NFR: A prominent pro-Trump conservative with White House access told me two months into the Trump administration that the place was a "snake pit" with all Trump's advisers out to destroy each other, and an incompetent and disconnected president at the center of the maelstrom. "All he wants to do is watch TV," said my source, who predicted disaster, and that GOP bigs would blame the eventual collapse of the Trump presidency on Christian conservatives, because they were suckers, and the only ones who had no wider support in the Establishment. I believed him then and that has something to do with why I believe Wolff. -- RD]

Franklin Evans , says: January 4, 2018 at 12:02 pm
I never condone trial and conviction by innuendo and implication. I will, however, in this case engage in a bit of personal gloating that the King of "fake news!" accusations is having his own credible (better than plausible) statements of the recent and not so recent past coming back to haunt him.

Trump is more than a symptom of the degeneration of American politics and society. He is the poster child, nay the divine avatar of my patron deity Momus, heaping scorn and ridicule on every aspect of America that so richly deserves it.

Upon his certification as the Republican nominee for the office of President of the United States, I publicly (and with significant backlash) predicted that Trump was going to be the enema so sorely needed by a constipated American electorate, gladly feasting on the indigestible roughage of decades of partisan polarizing rhetoric. The first flood of expulsion is already in full swing. It is odorous, scummy, and glorious.

The story of Momus is sketchy at best, but what is known explains the sketchiness: Zeus was well-entertained by Momus' take-downs of the other deities, until the day Momus set his sights on Zeus, and did his job too well. Zeus banished Momus, who quickly faded into obscurity (and never had much in the way of a human following anyway).

I see Trump on that very same path, the only problem being that there is no Zeus to act decisively at the appropriate moment.

Momos (Momus) .
Mardi Gras society and krewe Knights of Momus .

Youknowho , says: January 4, 2018 at 12:08 pm
Does anyone STILL has to justify having voted for Hillary?
charles cosimano , says: January 4, 2018 at 12:15 pm
Anyone who wants the job of President is a little crazy. Personally, I think crazy is fun. Sanity is too boring for words but nothing here points to crazy at all. It's all seriously inside baseball and there is nothing there that the voters give a damn about.

You still don't get it. His supporters in their many millions love Trump for the very reasons you can't stand him.

Patrick , says: January 4, 2018 at 12:16 pm
Yeah, boy: wait until everyone finds out Trump is self-centered and know nod of nutty! You really got him now!
collin , says: January 4, 2018 at 12:25 pm
I am with Matt Yglesias on this Is there really anything new here? Doesn't Daniel Drezner have a twitter feed of 200 occasions where Trump staff is treating him like a toddler? Heck, just read Trumps's twitter feed for evidence! (Are you going to watch the Trumpies on Monday 5:00?)

The Wolff book is like the Steele dossier with lots salacious over the top stories but nothing really new.

HildaMary , says: January 4, 2018 at 12:25 pm
None of this has "the ring of truth". What it does have is the ring of propaganda. I suppose it might appear to have the ring of truth if one was predisposed to believe the worst kind of caricatures of Trump.

It would be very easy to rewrite these excerpts using the same factual statements but framing them in a positive light rather than the negative spin preferred by Mr. Wolff. As a writer yourself, Rod, you should know this.

The last part, about Trump being heavily made-up and "failing to recognize old friends", is obviously blatant disinformation intended to undermine the administration. Publishing it is an act of political sabotage and borders on treasonous.

This is some deep-state *excrement* we're dealing with here, Rod, and I'm honestly surprised you've been suckered by it.

Adamant , says: January 4, 2018 at 12:27 pm
I have no idea if some of the more eye-opening quotes are legit or if Wolff is a fantasist, but what in God's name was the WH's thought process in letting a journalist just hang out in the West Wing for months on end? The incompetence is staggering.
DM , says: January 4, 2018 at 12:31 pm
Wow, too bad we elected the batty old man instead of the batty old woman.
EngineerScotty , says: January 4, 2018 at 12:35 pm
A "cease and desist" letter on Wolff and his publisher from the president's lawyer is the best possible thing a writer and a publisher can hope for. It's pointless, but it makes it look like Wolff inserted his proton torpedo into the Trump White House's exhaust chute.

Of course, "small thermal exhaust port, right below the main port" is one of the dirtiest lines in cinema, as brilliantly exposed in this college production of Verily, a New Hope , a brilliant Shakespearean retelling of Star Wars that was publish'd some years back:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdUEF5i_hpc

(NSFW, skip to 40 minutes in for the relevant scene)

But a "cease and desist letter" against Bannon, I think, would be pointless. Wolff's book is in the can already. When it comes to what Bannon knows, the horse has already left the barn.

VikingLS , says: January 4, 2018 at 12:45 pm
"Does anyone STILL has to justify having voted for Hillary?"

Um, no.

And nobody has to justify voting for Trump. Not if we're being fair. Particularly not in the light of a book that hadn't been written yet.

You don't want to be fair though. You want to come here and take over the conversation and make certain it's always you that's the center of attention.

You know, sort of like Trump.

grumpy realist , says: January 4, 2018 at 12:45 pm
Bernie–it makes no difference how much is actual truth in Wolff's writings. The fact is, it all is horribly plausible, based on what we've already seen from this clown car of an administration. Screeching about said reports as being "tabloid!" doesn't work very well in such a case .

And do you think that Trump is ever going to allow himself to go under the laser beam of discovery if he DOES actually insist on suing for libel? Ho ho ho.

Alex Curbelo , says: January 4, 2018 at 12:47 pm
I wouldn't worry too much about the GOP "bigs" blaming Christians, and I would encourage you not to let them get away with scapegoating social conservatives who have been betrayed and abused enough over the years by the establishment. They don't need Rod Dreher piling on. Trump is in fact a creation of the GOP bigs; he is only in the presidency in the first place because they made a point of ignoring for decades the legitimate concerns and grievances of the typical non-rich Republican voter.

[NFR: My source is a conservative Christian, and he was not saying that blaming us (himself) is fair, but that it is going to be what the GOP establishment does to shift blame from itself. -- RD]

Simon James , says: January 4, 2018 at 12:52 pm
I can't see the "gossipy last detail" causing any alarm, nor any of the rest of these gossipy details. What is so "jaw-dropping" about an admittedly unreliable reporter sprinkling a few context-free alleged quotes into a substrate of invective in order to destroy Trump? My jaw dropped into a yawn.
minimammal , says: January 4, 2018 at 12:53 pm
Incidentally, have you seen the new Star Wars, Rod? What did you think of it?

[NFR: I have not. I was going to take the kids today, but two of them seem to be coming down with flu. -- RD]

JonF , says: January 4, 2018 at 12:55 pm
Re: It's tabloid quality and in all probability includes scandalous information.

Bernie, is "scandalous" a synonym for "false" in your usage? Because scandalous news can sometimes be factual news. (See: Watergate; Monica Lewinsky)

Alex Curbelo , says: January 4, 2018 at 12:57 pm
As for the book, there is just no way to know to what extent the claims are colored by embellishment, exaggeration, subjective interpretation, cognitive bias, quotes taken out of context and outright lies.
Andrew , says: January 4, 2018 at 12:59 pm
This time, Trump is truly done for! Lol :-).

I'm not sure how much of the allegations are true, but regardless, most of this is typical Trump street theater. He's provoking chaos and allowing his adversaries (especially the news media) to be focused on distractions. Meanwhile, he and his administration are getting things done behind the scenes.

I have no way of knowing this, but my instinct is that this is a set-up, and Trump and Bannon are on the same side. There are plenty of good political reasons why Trump would rather the two of them be seen as enemies. I could be completely wrong, and there really is bad blood between them. But it just seems so contrived. One more laser pointer to distract all the cats. And even if it is all genuine and legitimate, Trump will still use it to his advantage.

Remember when the whole world was in danger of nuclear war because of a Trump tweet? That was, what, two days ago? Trump is "crazy" like a fox, he enjoys being underestimated by his opponents, and he is engaging in very effective strategies that allow him to accomplish a great deal.

Does anyone else notice that the economy is improving, burdensome regulations are being undone, government corruption is being exposed, ISIS is virtually defeated on the ground, North Korea is reaching out to South Korea, etc.? Trump is a very peculiar president, but he is a lot more intelligent than people give him credit for.

I personally think that the Trump era is very much like the book of Esther. The plot to kill Trump and his supporters will eventually trap and kill the plotters themselves. (I mean "kill" only in the political sense.) The Russia-collusion conspiracy is the most obvious example.

Mark VA , says: January 4, 2018 at 1:00 pm
My mind is fairly resistant to apocalyptic imagery. Rather, I see this:

[Jan 03, 2018] REPORT Bannon Says Mueller Investigation Will Target Kushner, Manafort s Greasy Money Laundering Deals

Notable quotes:
"... Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House ..."
Jan 03, 2018 | www.breitbart.com

Former Trump Chief Strategist Steve Bannon says the Mueller investigation is targeting the alleged "greasy" money laundering of Trump associates like Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort as a path to attack President Trump, according to a new book by Michael Wolff called Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House .

David Smith reports in the Guardian :

Bannon has criticised Trump's decision to fire Comey . In Wolff's book, obtained by the Guardian ahead of publication from a bookseller in New England, he suggests White House hopes for a quick end to the Mueller investigation are gravely misplaced.

"You realise where this is going," he is quoted as saying. "This is all about money laundering. Mueller chose [senior prosecutor Andrew] Weissmann first and he is a money-laundering guy. Their path to fucking Trump goes right through Paul Manafort, Don Jr and Jared Kushner It's as plain as a hair on your face."

Last month it was reported that federal prosecutors had subpoenaed records from Deutsche Bank, the German financial institution that has lent hundreds of millions of dollars to the Kushner property empire. Bannon continues: "It goes through Deutsche Bank and all the Kushner shit. The Kushner shit is greasy. They're going to go right through that. They're going to roll those two guys up and say play me or trade me."

Scorning apparent White House insouciance, Bannon reaches for a hurricane metaphor: "They're sitting on a beach trying to stop a Category Five."

Read the rest here .

[Dec 27, 2017] Bannon Puts Jared Through the Grinder

Notable quotes:
"... After scorning the Russia collusion theories as fiction, Bannon acknowledged the grisly reality that the Russia investigation poses for his former boss. And he blamed it all on Kushner, for having created the appearance that Putin had helped Trump. Dropping Kushner head first into the grinder, Bannon turned the crank. ..."
"... "[Kushner was] taking meetings with Russians to get additional stuff. This tells you everything about Jared," Bannon told the magazine's Gabriel Sherman. "They were looking for the picture of Hillary Clinton taking the bag of cash from Putin. That's his maturity level." ..."
"... Informing Vanity Fair that Kushner's hunt for political smut led him to over-fraternize with the Russians might not be the best way for Bannon to throw special counsel Robert S. Mueller III off the collusion scent. ..."
"... Sherman's piece reveals the cognitive split that evolved between Bannon and others, specifically Trump, on how to handle the mess that had been created. "Goldman Sachs teaches one thing: don't invent shit. Take something that works and make it better," Bannon told Sherman. He said he consulted with Bill Clinton's former lawyer Lanny Davis about how the Clintons responded to Ken Starr's probe. "We were so disciplined. You guys don't have that," Bannon recalls Davis advising him. "That always haunted me when he said that," Bannon told Sherman. Bannon said the investigation was an attempt by the establishment to undo the election, but he took it seriously and warned Trump he was in danger of being impeached. ..."
"... There's even more hot Bannon on Kushner action. Bannon tells of an Oval Office meeting he attended with Trump, Kushner and Kushner's wife Ivanka Trump in which he called Ivanka "the queen of leaks." "You're a fucking liar!" Ivanka allegedly responded. Hard to know how to score this round, but shattering the public image of Ivanka as poised princess must have been satisfying for a guy who called Javanka "the Democrats." ..."
"... Although "people close to Kushner, who decline to be named" told the Times they don't think the Mueller investigation exposes him to legal jeopardy, the young prince isn't taking chances. The Washington Post reports that his lawyer, Abbe Lowell, has been shopping for a "crisis public relations firm" over the past two weeks. (Senator Robert Menendez, the recent beneficiary of a deadlocked corruption trial, is another Lowell client.) ..."
"... Why hire super flacks now? Does Kushner sense disaster? Another Bannon offensive? The Flynn plea bargain exposed him -- according to the press -- as the "very senior member" of the Trump transition team described in court documents who told former national security adviser Michael Flynn to lobby the Russian ambassador about a U.N. resolution on Israeli settlements. Maybe he's just buying reputation insurance. Or maybe he's taken to heart Chris Christie's scathing comments. Christie was squeezed out of the Trump transition early on, some say by Kushner who is said to hold a grudge against Christie who, when he was federal prosecutor, put Kushner's father in jail . This week Christie said that Kushner "deserves the scrutiny" he's been getting. It was almost as if Christie and Bannon were operating a twin-handled grinder, cranking out an extra helping of Kushner's tainted reputation. ..."
"... President Putin and President Trump occupied the same page about the scandal this week in what was either a matter of collusion or of great minds thinking alike. Speaking at a four-hour media event in Moscow, Putin blamed the scandal on the U.S. "deep state" and said, "This is all made up by people who oppose Trump to make his work look illegitimate." According to CNN , Trump took the opportunity this week to call the Russia investigation "bullshit" in private. In public, he told reporters, "There's absolutely no collusion. I didn't make a phone call to Russia. I have nothing to do with Russia. Everybody knows it." ..."
Dec 27, 2017 | www.politico.com

Former Trump chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon milled his former Oval Office colleague Jared Kushner into a bloody chunk of battle sausage this week and smeared him across the shiny pages of Vanity Fair . You've got to read Bannon's quote three or four times to fully savor the tang of its malice and cruelty. After scorning the Russia collusion theories as fiction, Bannon acknowledged the grisly reality that the Russia investigation poses for his former boss. And he blamed it all on Kushner, for having created the appearance that Putin had helped Trump. Dropping Kushner head first into the grinder, Bannon turned the crank.

"[Kushner was] taking meetings with Russians to get additional stuff. This tells you everything about Jared," Bannon told the magazine's Gabriel Sherman. "They were looking for the picture of Hillary Clinton taking the bag of cash from Putin. That's his maturity level."

Informing Vanity Fair that Kushner's hunt for political smut led him to over-fraternize with the Russians might not be the best way for Bannon to throw special counsel Robert S. Mueller III off the collusion scent. So what was the big man in the Barbour coat up to?

That Bannon and Kushner skirmished during their time together in the White House has been long established. Kushner advocated the sacking FBI Director James B. Comey, for example, and Bannon opposed it. He later told 60 Minutes that the firing was maybe the worst mistake in "modern political history" because it precipitated the hiring of the special counsel and had thereby expanded the investigation.

Sherman's piece reveals the cognitive split that evolved between Bannon and others, specifically Trump, on how to handle the mess that had been created. "Goldman Sachs teaches one thing: don't invent shit. Take something that works and make it better," Bannon told Sherman. He said he consulted with Bill Clinton's former lawyer Lanny Davis about how the Clintons responded to Ken Starr's probe. "We were so disciplined. You guys don't have that," Bannon recalls Davis advising him. "That always haunted me when he said that," Bannon told Sherman. Bannon said the investigation was an attempt by the establishment to undo the election, but he took it seriously and warned Trump he was in danger of being impeached.

Bannon's gripe against Kushner in Vanity Fair continues: He claims that Donald Trump's disparaging tweets about Attorney General Jeff Sessions were designed to provide "cover" for Kushner by steering negative media attention toward Sessions and away from Kushner as he was scheduled to testify before a Senate committee.

There's even more hot Bannon on Kushner action. Bannon tells of an Oval Office meeting he attended with Trump, Kushner and Kushner's wife Ivanka Trump in which he called Ivanka "the queen of leaks." "You're a fucking liar!" Ivanka allegedly responded. Hard to know how to score this round, but shattering the public image of Ivanka as poised princess must have been satisfying for a guy who called Javanka "the Democrats."

Getting mauled by Steve Bannon might not be the worst thing to happen to the president's son-in-law this week. He and Ivanka were sued by a private attorney for failing to disclose assets from 30 investment funds on their federal financial disclosure forms. Perhaps more ominous for Kushner, and according to the New York Times , federal prosecutors in Brooklyn have subpoenaed Deutsche Bank records about Kushner's family's real estate business. "There is no indication that the subpoena is related to the investigation being conducted by Robert S. Mueller III," the Times allowed. Yeah, but wouldn't you want to be there when Mueller's team invites Bannon in to talk to him about the Vanity Fair article, and they ask him, "What did you mean about Jared taking meetings with Russians to get additional stuff? Like, what stuff?"

Although "people close to Kushner, who decline to be named" told the Times they don't think the Mueller investigation exposes him to legal jeopardy, the young prince isn't taking chances. The Washington Post reports that his lawyer, Abbe Lowell, has been shopping for a "crisis public relations firm" over the past two weeks. (Senator Robert Menendez, the recent beneficiary of a deadlocked corruption trial, is another Lowell client.)

Why hire super flacks now? Does Kushner sense disaster? Another Bannon offensive? The Flynn plea bargain exposed him -- according to the press -- as the "very senior member" of the Trump transition team described in court documents who told former national security adviser Michael Flynn to lobby the Russian ambassador about a U.N. resolution on Israeli settlements. Maybe he's just buying reputation insurance. Or maybe he's taken to heart Chris Christie's scathing comments. Christie was squeezed out of the Trump transition early on, some say by Kushner who is said to hold a grudge against Christie who, when he was federal prosecutor, put Kushner's father in jail . This week Christie said that Kushner "deserves the scrutiny" he's been getting. It was almost as if Christie and Bannon were operating a twin-handled grinder, cranking out an extra helping of Kushner's tainted reputation.

President Putin and President Trump occupied the same page about the scandal this week in what was either a matter of collusion or of great minds thinking alike. Speaking at a four-hour media event in Moscow, Putin blamed the scandal on the U.S. "deep state" and said, "This is all made up by people who oppose Trump to make his work look illegitimate." According to CNN , Trump took the opportunity this week to call the Russia investigation "bullshit" in private. In public, he told reporters, "There's absolutely no collusion. I didn't make a phone call to Russia. I have nothing to do with Russia. Everybody knows it."

Everybody, perhaps, except former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. Appearing on CNN , Clapper used direct language to bind former KGB officer Putin to Trump tighter than a girdle to a paunch. "[Putin] knows how to handle an asset, and that's what he's doing with the president," Clapper said. "I think some of that experience and instincts of Putin has come into play here in his managing of a pretty important account for him, if I could use that term, with our president."

Writing in Newsweek , Jeff Stein collected other tell-tale signs of Trump's cooptation: He refused to take Russian meddling in the election seriously. He responds favorably to Putin's praise and seems to crave more. He dismisses worries about his circle's connections to Kremlin agents before the election and during the transition -- and he tried to call off the Flynn investigation.

It's enough to make you wonder why Bannon thinks Kushner is the enemy, not Trump.

******

If you've read this far, you're probably disappointed that more didn't happen in the Trump Tower scandal this week. Sue me in small claims court via email to [email protected] . My email alerts never believed in collusion, my Twitter feed is set to cut a plea deal with Mueller, and my RSS feed has several crisis PR firms on retainer.

[Dec 13, 2017] Jared Kushner is wreaking havoc in the Middle East by Moustafa Bayoumi

While Israel is a US ally, violating UN resolutions by Trump is a dangerous and reckless game. Trump as geopolitical cowboy. One day the USA elite might regret their behaviour since 1991.
What is interesting is that the USA foreign policy is practically independent of who is elected as a Present. It has its own independence dynamics and string continuity. In a sense the President is just a figurehead. That said "Kushner is totally out of his depth and playing with fire. The damage done by the shambolic Trump maladministration will take years, if not decades, to repair. "
Notable quotes:
"... The 36-year-old is a Harvard graduate who seems to have a hard time filling in forms correctly . ..."
"... He is also said to have told Michael Flynn last December to call UN security council members to get a resolution condemning Israeli settlements quashed. Flynn called Russia. ..."
"... Days before bin Salman's unprecedented move, Kushner was with the crown prince in Riyadh on an unannounced trip. The men are reported to have stayed up late, planning strategy while swapping stories. We don't know what exactly the two were plotting, but Donald Trump later tweeted his "great confidence" in bin Salman. ..."
"... But the Kushner-bin Salman alliance moves far beyond Riyadh. The Saudis and Americans are now privately pushing a new "peace" deal to various Palestinian and Arab leaders that is more lop-sided toward Israel than ever before. ..."
"... Ahmad Tibi, a Palestinian parliamentarian in the Israeli Knesset, explained the basic contours of the deal to the New York Times: no full statehood for Palestinians, only "moral sovereignty." Control over disconnected segments of the occupied territories only. No capital in East Jerusalem. No right of return for Palestinian refugees. ..."
"... But it's not just Israel, either. Yemen is on the brink of a major humanitarian disaster largely because the country is being blockaded by Saudi Arabia. Trump finally spoke out against the Saudi measure this week, but both the state department and the Pentagon are said to have been privately urging Saudi Arabia and the UAE to ease their campaign against Yemen (and Lebanon and Qatar) for some time and to little impact. Why? Because Saudi and Emirati officials believe they "have tacit approval from the White House for their hardline actions, in particular from Donald Trump and his son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner," journalist Laura Rozen reported . ..."
"... The Kushner-bin Salman alliance has particularly irked secretary of state Rex Tillerson. Kushner reportedly leaves the state department completely out of his Middle Eastern plans. Of special concern to Tillerson, according to Bloomberg News , is Kushner's talks with bin Salman regarding military action by Saudi Arabia against Qatar. The state department is worried of all the unforeseen consequences such a radical course of action would bring, including heightened conflict with Turkey and Russia and perhaps even a military response from Iran or an attack on Israel by Hezbollah ..."
"... What about the US ambassador to Saudi Arabia? That seat's also vacant. And the US ambassador to Jordan, Morocco, Egypt? Vacant, vacant, and vacant. What about assistant secretary for Near Eastern affairs, a chief strategic post to establish US policy in the region? No one's been nominated. Deputy assistant secretary for press and public diplomacy? Vacant ..."
"... It's partly this vacuum of leadership by Tillerson that has enabled Kushner to forge his powerful alliance with bin Salman, much to the detriment of the region. And in their zeal to isolate Iran, Kushner and bin Salman are leaving a wake of destruction around them. ..."
"... The war in Yemen is only intensifying. Qatar is closer to Iran than ever. A final status deal between Israel and the Palestinians seems all but impossible now. The Lebanese prime minister went back on his resignation. And the Saudi state must be paying the Ritz-Carlton a small fortune to jail key members of the ruling family over allegations of corruption. ..."
"... There's a long history of American politicians deciding they know what's best for the Middle East while buttressing their autocratic allies and at the expense of the region's ordinary people. ..."
"... The US has honestly broken many Palestinians into pieces. Where do you think all those fighter jets, tanks and gun boats come from ..."
"... In 1948 my father, who knew the Middle East well, said of the creation of Israel 'it will never work'. Of course, throwing thousands of people off their land is not the best way to create a peaceful country. And, while the Western guilt about the Holocaust furthered the creation of a homeland for the Jews, the plight of the Palestinians was completely neglected. ..."
"... The Trump administration has certainly increased tensions in the area...significantly. Much of this seems to have to do with challenging Iran's influence in the area. I suspect that is why Saudi Arabia and Trump are in cahoots. Saudi Arabia wants to be the new dominant country in the region and Iran is their main competitor. I expect a new war in the region against Qatar/Iran and Yemen. And we all know where Kushner will place his allegiance. ..."
"... The book Allies for Armageddon by Victoria Clark states that right-wing Israeli political groups exploit the Christian Fundamentalists in American into giving Israel their support and funding, as the latter believe Israel's full control of Jerusalem etc will bring forth the rapture. ..."
"... Good questions. Trump has declared that the department should be reduced significantly. The vacant posts are partly due to that and partly due to the fact that Tillerson has rejected most of the administration's recommendations because of their being political picks. ..."
"... Tillerson in the mean time seems to have barricaded himself behind a very few loyal lieutenants. He has not been able or interested in enabling or supporting the rest of the department ..."
"... Trump constantly ridicules Tillerson, privately and publicly and Tillerson called Trump a moron after a meeting in which Trump expressed his desire to increase our nuclear arsenal 10 times. ..."
"... Until the recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital the US could at least pretend to be an honest peace broker in the ME/Palestine issue - they have now dropped even this. The Palestinians have always considered the US to be biased against their interests and pro-Israel and this confirms it, why should they listen to the people who want to achieve a Palestine State by peaceful means when they kicked in the teeth at every twist and turn? The militants have just gained a brigade of new volunteers and elsewhere Daesh/Isis will be rubbing their hands at this propaganda gift. ..."
"... Tillerson and co represent the continuation of the NeoCon doctrine of Cheney and Rumsfeld. Its foreign policy lead by oil and gas interests. Trump really is busy shoring up his constituency base for the future with tax cuts for old money and oligarchs, while the right wing christian brigade which is also seriously loaded (its big business) are of cause delighted with the Jerusalem embassy decision. It also helps an embattled Likud establishment which is under the kosh and faces huge challenges to get reelected. ..."
"... Standard Republican playbook: when things are going badly at home, pick a fight in the middle east. This was timed to distract from Deutsche Bank releasing Trump's financial records to Muller. Expect Trump to escalate as Muller closes in - my guess is he'll bomb Iran, but who knows... ..."
"... There is one benefit from Trump's decision. It is now fully clear that the USA is foursquare behind the Israelis and has always been so. Far from being and "honest broker" for peace they haveaccepted for 40 years any initiative the Israelis have made to ectend theor land area. ..."
"... Large parts of West Jerusalem were occupied by Zionist militias in 1948. Including the most expensive neighborhoods today, Qatamon, Talbiyeh, Baqa. All ethnically cleansed. The rest of the city was occupied by force in 1967. Jerusalem has been an Arab city for centuries, Muslim Jewish and Christian. European settlers have very little to do with it. ..."
"... Apart from all the other reasons for Kushner not having the leading role in the middle east, his financial support to settlers should automatically rule him out of any participation in brokering deals between Palestine and Israel. How can someone who is actively supporting illegal settlements have any semblance of being neutrality? However, in terms of the ethics of the Trump administration, it is simply business as usual. ..."
"... But what underlies all this is waning US and Saudi power in the region. They might burn the place down but they cannot remake it. The Saudis have devastated Yemen, killed thousands of children, and overseen a cholera epidemic. And still they can't defeat the Houthis. Their proxies have been routed in Syria and Iraq. The Qatar blockade has failed. So has the gambit to reshape Lebanon. ..."
"... Kushner is a toady duplicitous operator no doubt, but the whole American Israeli Saudi vision for the region is a nightmare that has no chance of success. ..."
"... Trump's announcement in recognising Jerusalem as Israeli capital shows his cunning strategic genius. It has united the governments of the Muslim Middle East in coming together and made it more unlikely that Saudi Arabia could align with Israel in triggering a wider conflict with Iran without incurring huge public disapproval within the country. ..."
"... The Guardian also ran an overly-reverential article about the Saudi crown prince a while back. It's worrying that they and the Americans are doing all of this with hardly a murmur of disapproval. Where's the UN resolution and sanctions? Where's the sanctions from the EU? America will veto everything at the UN and the EU mostly does what America wants it to do. Shows how useless the major organisations really are. I used to think that the EU was a good counter to American power, but they seem to have joined forces with the US recently, which is worrying when you have an unpredictable American president like Trump. ..."
"... Kushner is totally out of his depth and playing with fire. The damage done by the shambolic Trump maladministration will take years, if not decades, to repair. ..."
"... He wanted to tick off a box on his lunatic list of campaign pledges before Christmas. Consequences schmonsequences. I think he's also a willing tool of the end of times, rapture crazy Christian fundamentalists. ..."
"... I assume the announcement that the US now recognises Jerusalem as the capital of Israel was more to do with Trump attempting to deflect interest away from Mueller now that he, his family and other chums in the administration are coming under financial scrutiny by the inquiry. At a stroke its certainly made Kushner's job in the Middle East much-harder if not impossible and surely makes him a target for every disaffected Palestinian. ..."
Dec 13, 2017 | www.theguardian.com

he entire Middle East, from Palestine to Yemen, appears set to burst into flames after this week. The region was already teetering on the edge, but recent events have only made things worse. And while the mayhem should be apparent to any casual observer, what's less obvious is Jared Kushner's role in the chaos.

Kushner is, of course, the US president's senior advisor and son-in-law. The 36-year-old is a Harvard graduate who seems to have a hard time filling in forms correctly .

He repeatedly failed to mention his meetings with foreign officials on his security clearance and neglected to report to US government officials that he was co-director of a foundation that raised money for Israeli settlements, considered illegal under international law. (He is also said to have told Michael Flynn last December to call UN security council members to get a resolution condemning Israeli settlements quashed. Flynn called Russia.)

In his role as the president's special advisor, Kushner seems to have decided he can remake the entire Middle East, and he is wreaking his havoc with his new best friend, Saudi Arabia's crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, the 32-year-old who burst on to the international scene by jailing many members of his country's ruling elite, including from his own family, on corruption charges.

Days before bin Salman's unprecedented move, Kushner was with the crown prince in Riyadh on an unannounced trip. The men are reported to have stayed up late, planning strategy while swapping stories. We don't know what exactly the two were plotting, but Donald Trump later tweeted his "great confidence" in bin Salman.

But the Kushner-bin Salman alliance moves far beyond Riyadh. The Saudis and Americans are now privately pushing a new "peace" deal to various Palestinian and Arab leaders that is more lop-sided toward Israel than ever before.

Ahmad Tibi, a Palestinian parliamentarian in the Israeli Knesset, explained the basic contours of the deal to the New York Times: no full statehood for Palestinians, only "moral sovereignty." Control over disconnected segments of the occupied territories only. No capital in East Jerusalem. No right of return for Palestinian refugees.

This is, of course, not a deal at all. It's an insult to the Palestinian people. Another Arab official cited in the Times story explained that the proposal came from someone lacking experience but attempting to flatter the family of the American president. In other words, it's as if Mohammed bin Salman is trying to gift Palestine to Jared Kushner, Palestinians be damned.

Next came Donald Trump throwing both caution and international law to the wind by recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

But it's not just Israel, either. Yemen is on the brink of a major humanitarian disaster largely because the country is being blockaded by Saudi Arabia. Trump finally spoke out against the Saudi measure this week, but both the state department and the Pentagon are said to have been privately urging Saudi Arabia and the UAE to ease their campaign against Yemen (and Lebanon and Qatar) for some time and to little impact. Why? Because Saudi and Emirati officials believe they "have tacit approval from the White House for their hardline actions, in particular from Donald Trump and his son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner," journalist Laura Rozen reported .

The Kushner-bin Salman alliance has particularly irked secretary of state Rex Tillerson. Kushner reportedly leaves the state department completely out of his Middle Eastern plans. Of special concern to Tillerson, according to Bloomberg News , is Kushner's talks with bin Salman regarding military action by Saudi Arabia against Qatar. The state department is worried of all the unforeseen consequences such a radical course of action would bring, including heightened conflict with Turkey and Russia and perhaps even a military response from Iran or an attack on Israel by Hezbollah.

Here's where state department diplomacy should kick in. The US ambassador to Qatar could relay messages between the feuding parties to find a solution to the stand-off. So what does the ambassador to Qatar have to say about the Kushner-Salman alliance? Nothing, since there still is no confirmed ambassador to Qatar.

What about the US ambassador to Saudi Arabia? That seat's also vacant. And the US ambassador to Jordan, Morocco, Egypt? Vacant, vacant, and vacant. What about assistant secretary for Near Eastern affairs, a chief strategic post to establish US policy in the region? No one's been nominated. Deputy assistant secretary for press and public diplomacy? Vacant.

It's partly this vacuum of leadership by Tillerson that has enabled Kushner to forge his powerful alliance with bin Salman, much to the detriment of the region. And in their zeal to isolate Iran, Kushner and bin Salman are leaving a wake of destruction around them.

The war in Yemen is only intensifying. Qatar is closer to Iran than ever. A final status deal between Israel and the Palestinians seems all but impossible now. The Lebanese prime minister went back on his resignation. And the Saudi state must be paying the Ritz-Carlton a small fortune to jail key members of the ruling family over allegations of corruption.

There's a long history of American politicians deciding they know what's best for the Middle East while buttressing their autocratic allies and at the expense of the region's ordinary people. (The New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has traditionally provided the rationale for America and its allies in the region, and his recent sycophantic portrayal of bin Salman certainly didn't disappoint!)

But the Kushner-bin Salman alliance also represents something else. Both the US and Saudi Arabia are concentrating power into fewer and fewer hands. And with fewer people in the room, who will be around to tell these men that their ideas are so damaging? Who will dare explain to them how they already have failed?

Moustafa Bayoumi is the author of the award-winning books How Does It Feel To Be a Problem?: Being Young and Arab in America Topics Trump administration Opinion US foreign policy

DirtWorshiper -> curiouswes , 9 Dec 2017 11:39

We've made war all over the world for decades, sponsored coups, propped up dictators all so our own ruling elites can make out like bandits. We are a rogue state and becoming an oligarchy too.
zolotoy -> redux00 , 9 Dec 2017 11:39
If European settlers had very little to do with it, where did all of those Zionist militias in 1948 come from?
BParker -> Addicks123 , 9 Dec 2017 11:39
The US has honestly broken many Palestinians into pieces. Where do you think all those fighter jets, tanks and gun boats come from.
shemarch -> MetellusScipio , 9 Dec 2017 11:39

In 1948 my father, who knew the Middle East well, said of the creation of Israel 'it will never work'. Of course, throwing thousands of people off their land is not the best way to create a peaceful country. And, while the Western guilt about the Holocaust furthered the creation of a homeland for the Jews, the plight of the Palestinians was completely neglected.

The increasing encroachment by Israel's settlements have been making the only creditable solution - the two states -increasingly difficult. Now Trump's declaration over Jerusalem has made the situation completely impossible.

wardpj -> Blubbers , 9 Dec 2017 11:38
I think you need a more cogent "analysis" than that. It doesn't really say anything, does it. There's religion everywhere, so what's specific about the middle East? Start from that question and you may get somewhere.
zolotoy -> MaryLeone Sullivan , 9 Dec 2017 11:38
America sure as hell does support it .
dancer693 , 9 Dec 2017 11:37
The Trump administration has certainly increased tensions in the area...significantly. Much of this seems to have to do with challenging Iran's influence in the area. I suspect that is why Saudi Arabia and Trump are in cahoots. Saudi Arabia wants to be the new dominant country in the region and Iran is their main competitor. I expect a new war in the region against Qatar/Iran and Yemen. And we all know where Kushner will place his allegiance.

One of the interesting things to me about all this is that Kushner is really the major focus right now in the Russia investigation. He has clearly been implicated in crimes for which he will be indicted. And soon. I have a hard time (in addition to the overwhelming everything else) with the fact that the President would give Kushner so much influence in the discussion. He's about to be indicted!!! Why would anyone negotiate with him?

urfanali -> TonyBennWasRight , 9 Dec 2017 11:37
The Zionist settler state helping to spread its illegal settlements across the Palestinians land with the help needed of the US, UK and the House of Saud
MaryLeone Sullivan -> TonyBennWasRight , 9 Dec 2017 11:35
Israel never existed until 1949.
hubbahubba -> umrkgermany , 9 Dec 2017 11:34
The book Allies for Armageddon by Victoria Clark states that right-wing Israeli political groups exploit the Christian Fundamentalists in American into giving Israel their support and funding, as the latter believe Israel's full control of Jerusalem etc will bring forth the rapture.
2020Vision4 , 9 Dec 2017 11:34
Oh man, and all this while Trump runs a distractionary, hedge fund supporting operation to allow tax avoiders to now have access to their off shore cash at a lower tax rate. Where is the infrastructure rebuilding or are Trump supporters blinded even more now by Trumps enlarging butt cheeks blaming Obama and Bush.
Charles Demers -> workshy_freeloader , 9 Dec 2017 11:34
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. - H. L. Mencken
dancer693 -> Kathleen John O'Donnell , 9 Dec 2017 11:30
Good questions. Trump has declared that the department should be reduced significantly. The vacant posts are partly due to that and partly due to the fact that Tillerson has rejected most of the administration's recommendations because of their being political picks.

Tillerson in the mean time seems to have barricaded himself behind a very few loyal lieutenants. He has not been able or interested in enabling or supporting the rest of the department.

Trump constantly ridicules Tillerson, privately and publicly and Tillerson called Trump a moron after a meeting in which Trump expressed his desire to increase our nuclear arsenal 10 times. Finally, Trump's vision of foreign policy is to have it concentrated in the White House instead of the State Department and Trump is totally uninterested in ANY of the State Department's advice or consultation. I guess the answer to your question is "all of the above".

Addicks123 , 9 Dec 2017 11:28
I get the impression that Trump is moving quickly with the Mueller investigation closing its net.

Until the recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital the US could at least pretend to be an honest peace broker in the ME/Palestine issue - they have now dropped even this. The Palestinians have always considered the US to be biased against their interests and pro-Israel and this confirms it, why should they listen to the people who want to achieve a Palestine State by peaceful means when they kicked in the teeth at every twist and turn? The militants have just gained a brigade of new volunteers and elsewhere Daesh/Isis will be rubbing their hands at this propaganda gift.

Hopefully Trump won't last much longer - but that means a President Pence and if you watch Trump's speech announcing this he is there in the background nodding. One set of religious nutcases are egging on another lot and that's not going to be good for the Middle East.

Swilkerin , 9 Dec 2017 11:28
Tillerson and co represent the continuation of the NeoCon doctrine of Cheney and Rumsfeld. Its foreign policy lead by oil and gas interests. Trump really is busy shoring up his constituency base for the future with tax cuts for old money and oligarchs, while the right wing christian brigade which is also seriously loaded (its big business) are of cause delighted with the Jerusalem embassy decision. It also helps an embattled Likud establishment which is under the kosh and faces huge challenges to get reelected.
angie11 , 9 Dec 2017 11:25
Trump, Netanyahu, Salman: The true 'axis of evil'. And so it goes...
joiwomcow , 9 Dec 2017 11:25
Standard Republican playbook: when things are going badly at home, pick a fight in the middle east. This was timed to distract from Deutsche Bank releasing Trump's financial records to Muller. Expect Trump to escalate as Muller closes in - my guess is he'll bomb Iran, but who knows...
johnbig , 9 Dec 2017 11:24

There is one benefit from Trump's decision. It is now fully clear that the USA is foursquare behind the Israelis and has always been so. Far from being and "honest broker" for peace they haveaccepted for 40 years any initiative the Israelis have made to ectend theor land area.

Just one question for Israel which all other countries in the world can answer easily: Where are the frontiers of your nation ?

Fabmothz , 9 Dec 2017 11:24
It's OK, the Palestinians have just recognized Washington DC as the capital of Israel.
MichaelGerard1990 -> fredimeyer , 9 Dec 2017 11:24
Jared has been funding illegal settlements. He's aim is to end Palestine.

Norman_Finklesteen 9 Dec 2017 11:22

Last week there were crowds of people in the streets protesting at the corruption within Netenyahu's government, potentially very dangerous in respect to instigating investigations. A distraction was necessary and Trump handed him a loaded one with the Embassy debacle. Of course things are going to escalate, deaths, bombings, threats, retaliation. Now the streets will be filled with people supporting 'strongman' Netenyahu, demanding reprisals and safety measures. Job done. But at what cost?
MetellusScipio -> TonyBennWasRight , 9 Dec 2017 11:20
I'm not saying it should be ignored, not at all. I was simply making the point that the Palestinians will see things very differently, and any solution, if there is one, can only be found in a compromise.
fredimeyer , 9 Dec 2017 11:20
Jared is indeed responsible for what is happening. It was very obvious two years ago that Trump had not the slightest idea of politics in the region. Also Trump's astonishing characteristic of actually listening to people, and being persuaded by whoever has his ear, is unprecedented in the presidency.

Jared is a member of what can only be called a cult, far removed from the mainstream of American jews. Jared's views manifestly place his interpretation of what is good for Israel ahead of what is good for the American people, and even ahead of what is in fact the majority viewpoint among Israelis. There are limits to what an American president can do, and this embassy issue is mostly window dressing.

But what is important is that the international community now step in to offset trump's position and make it clear that Israel's policies are not rewarded

KrisFernie -> lotoole , 9 Dec 2017 11:19
In order to bait Iran? Trump's pleasing the Saudis, for what reason? The answer is to follow the money
AlGilchrist -> MetellusScipio , 9 Dec 2017 11:18
The PLO founding charter only claimed Gaza as Palestinian land. Before Israel recaptured the eastern part of Jerusalem from Jordan, not the Palestinians.
leanttotheleft , 9 Dec 2017 11:18
This is the Empire in a further excess of dysfunction. The 'benevolent hegemon' of the 'new world order' often talked about in the post Cold War era has morphed into a poker table of over-entitled dick-swingers gambling with other people's money, countries and lives.

And of course Trump and his dubious entourage arrive after several terms of both Republican and Democrat misrule. George W Bush plumbed new depths of cock-eyed middle eastern policy, which often seemed to have been prompted by war criminal Ariel Sharon and Israel. Meanwhile the Democrats mixed with the Wall Street financiers, facilitating the liberalisation of the finance sector, and the culture of debt dependency and asset-stripping - 'vulture capitalism' - which has only grown more ruthless since the financial crash of 2008.

redux00 -> TonyBennWasRight , 9 Dec 2017 11:14
Large parts of West Jerusalem were occupied by Zionist militias in 1948. Including the most expensive neighborhoods today, Qatamon, Talbiyeh, Baqa. All ethnically cleansed. The rest of the city was occupied by force in 1967. Jerusalem has been an Arab city for centuries, Muslim Jewish and Christian. European settlers have very little to do with it.
zolotoy -> logos00 , 9 Dec 2017 11:13
America has always supported illegal Israeli settlements. The current gang is just a bit more honest (because more blatant and crude) about it.
tc2011 , 9 Dec 2017 11:08
Trump's announcement represents nothing less than the theft of the putative Palestinian capital of East Jerusalem. His announcement is illegal under international law and contravenes all previous diplomatic agreements on the subject. What the wider world is finally starting to see is that US conservatives and the Israeli government do not want a peace deal, they want capitulation and to turn the Palestinians into non-people.

Ramus , 9 Dec 2017 11:05

Trump and his people would like a war. They don't really care where. Because the main US export is war stuff..our owners make money from war..any war, anywhere.
redux00 -> GoingUp , 9 Dec 2017 11:01
The days when the US with the Israelis in tow would rule over this region are finished. The one good thing about Trumps Jerusalem debacle is that it makes clear how dead the fiction of the two state solution is. And though it scares the racists and supremacists, we are moving closer and closer to one democratic secular state.
logos00 , 9 Dec 2017 10:56
Apart from all the other reasons for Kushner not having the leading role in the middle east, his financial support to settlers should automatically rule him out of any participation in brokering deals between Palestine and Israel. How can someone who is actively supporting illegal settlements have any semblance of being neutrality? However, in terms of the ethics of the Trump administration, it is simply business as usual.
redux00 , 9 Dec 2017 10:56
But what underlies all this is waning US and Saudi power in the region. They might burn the place down but they cannot remake it. The Saudis have devastated Yemen, killed thousands of children, and overseen a cholera epidemic. And still they can't defeat the Houthis. Their proxies have been routed in Syria and Iraq. The Qatar blockade has failed. So has the gambit to reshape Lebanon.

Kushner is a toady duplicitous operator no doubt, but the whole American Israeli Saudi vision for the region is a nightmare that has no chance of success.

KarlNaylor75 , 9 Dec 2017 10:53
Trump's announcement in recognising Jerusalem as Israeli capital shows his cunning strategic genius. It has united the governments of the Muslim Middle East in coming together and made it more unlikely that Saudi Arabia could align with Israel in triggering a wider conflict with Iran without incurring huge public disapproval within the country.

Trump is advancing the cause of Humanity by means that less appreciative and simple minds cannot fathom. All governments in the Middle East will be far more fearful in not knowing what Trump might do next or why. This is the secret essence of power and diplomacy in keeping others guessing and thus less likely to feel they have his support.

It's all part of a long term master plan whereby Trump could extricate the US from having much of a role in the Greater Middle East. Governments will have to compete before Trump for influence and raise their game and money before he will deal from strength. Trump is playing all the rival forces off to get the best deal and to preserve and enhance peace.

algae64 , 9 Dec 2017 10:53
The Guardian also ran an overly-reverential article about the Saudi crown prince a while back. It's worrying that they and the Americans are doing all of this with hardly a murmur of disapproval. Where's the UN resolution and sanctions? Where's the sanctions from the EU? America will veto everything at the UN and the EU mostly does what America wants it to do. Shows how useless the major organisations really are. I used to think that the EU was a good counter to American power, but they seem to have joined forces with the US recently, which is worrying when you have an unpredictable American president like Trump.
AndPulli , 9 Dec 2017 10:47
Kushner is totally out of his depth and playing with fire. The damage done by the shambolic Trump maladministration will take years, if not decades, to repair. These years will be looked back on as those during which America slid into disaster. Where are Trump's babysitters when you need them? They need to keep an eye on Baby Kushner too.
umrkgermany -> Izzybe , 9 Dec 2017 10:46
He wanted to tick off a box on his lunatic list of campaign pledges before Christmas. Consequences schmonsequences. I think he's also a willing tool of the end of times, rapture crazy Christian fundamentalists.
Robape , 9 Dec 2017 10:41
The USA should be declared a Rogue state. It certainly behaves worse than all other states. Trump needs locking up as well.
Madmacstoo , 9 Dec 2017 10:37
I assume the announcement that the US now recognises Jerusalem as the capital of Israel was more to do with Trump attempting to deflect interest away from Mueller now that he, his family and other chums in the administration are coming under financial scrutiny by the inquiry. At a stroke its certainly made Kushner's job in the Middle East much-harder if not impossible and surely makes him a target for every disaffected Palestinian.

Jared, who needs enemies when you've got a father-in-law like Donald.

Tony Stopyra , 9 Dec 2017 10:36

And with fewer people in the room, who will be around to tell these men that their ideas are so damaging?

This is terrifying when you realise there are those close to Trump who are clearly telling him that this sort of this is not only not damaging, but may have divine sanction... http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/jerusalem-donald-trump-israel-capital-decision-reason-why-evangelical-voters-us-fear-a8099321.html

[Dec 13, 2017] All the signs in the Russia probe point to Jared Kushner. Who next?

Highly recommended!
Notable quotes:
"... More like he's denying the story peddled by the Democrats in some vain attempt at reducing his legitimacy over smashing Hillary in the elections. ..."
"... What is he going to prison for, again? Colluding with Israel? ..."
"... The most anger in the media against the POTUS seems to be directed against Russia gate. Time and energy is wasted on conjecture, most 'probables will not stand in a court of law. This media hysteria deflects from the destruction of the affordable healthcare act and the tax changes good for the rich against the many. I think the people are being played. ..."
"... In the 1990s and 2000s a large section of the American establishment was effectively bought off by people like Prince Bandar. These are the ones that are determined that the anti-Russian policy then instigated be continued, even at the cost of slandering the current President's son-in-law. The irony is that in the meantime an effective regime change has taken place in Saudi and Bandar's bandits are mostly locked up behind bars. ..."
"... True, and not just hypocrisy either. This has to be seen in the context of a war, cold for now, on Russia - with China, via Iran and NK, next in line. Dangerous times, as a militarily formidable empire in economic decline looks set to take us all out. For the few who think and resist the dominant narrative - and are thereby routinely called out as 'kremlin trolls' - it is dismaying how easily folk are manipulated. ..."
"... Your points are valid but, alas, factual truths are routinely trumped (!) by powerful mythology. Fact is, despite an appalling record since WW2, Washington and its pet institutions - IMF/World Bank/WTO - are still seen as good guys. How? Because (a) all western states have traded foreign policy independence for favoured status in Washington, (b) English as global lingua franca means American soft propaganda is lapped up across the world via its entertainment industry, and (c) all 'our' media are owned by billionaire corps or as with BBC/Graun, subject to government intimidation/market forces. ..."
"... Truth is, DRT is not some horrifically new entity. (Let's not forget how HRC's 'no fly zone' for Syria promised to take us into WW3, nor her demented "we came, we saw, he died - ha ha" response to Gaddafi's sodomisation by knife blade, and more importantly to Libya's descent into hell.) As John Pilger noted, "the obsession with Trump the man – not Trump as symptom and caricature of an enduring system – beckons great danger for all of us". ..."
"... If all Meuller has is Flynn and the Russians during the transition period, he's got nothing. ..."
"... It's alleged that Turkey wanted Flynn to extradite Gullen for his alleged involvement in Turkey's failed coup. Just this weekend, Turkey have issued an arrest warrant for a former CIA officer in relation to the failed coup. So, IF the CIA were behind the failed coup and Flynn knows this - well, a good way to silence him would be to charge him with some serious crimes and then offer to drop them in return for his silence. But, like your theory, it's just speculation. ..."
"... The secret deep state security forces haven't been this diminished since Carter cleared the stables in the 70's - they fought back and stopped his second term ... ..."
"... Seeing how the case against Trump and Flynn is based on 'probable' and not hard proof its 'probable that the anti Trump campaign is directed from within the murky enclaves of the US intelligence community. ..."
"... Hatred against Trump deflects the anger, see the system works the US is still a democracy. Well it isn't, its a sick oligarchy run by the mega rich who own the media, 90% is owned by 5 corporations. Americans are fed the lie that their vast military empire with its 800 overseas bases are to defend US interests. ..."
"... Wow this is like becoming McCarthy Era 2.0. I'm just waiting for the show trials of all these so-called colluders. ..."
"... the interest of (Russian Ambassador) Kislyak in determining the position of the new administration on sanctions is not unheard of in Washington, or necessarily untoward to raise with one of the incoming national security advisers. Ambassadors are supposed to seek changes in policies and often seek to influence officials in the early stages of administrations before policies are established. Flynn's suggestion that the Russians wait as the Trump administration unfolded its new policies is a fairly standard response of an incoming official ..."
"... "The problem is charging Flynn for lying. A technicality. But not charging Hillary for email server. Another technicality. That's all the public will see if no collusion proved, and will ruin credibility of the FBI and the Dems" ..."
"... It's not just collusion is it, what about the rampant, naked nepotism, last seen on this unashamed scale in ancient Rome? ..."
"... So he lobbied for Israel not Russia then? Whoops. How does the author even know where Mueller's probe is heading, and which way Flynn flipped? Flynn worked much longer for the Obama administration than for Trump's. ..."
"... You can easily impeach Trump for bombing Syria's military airfield, which is by UN definition war crime of war aggression, starting war without the Congress approval; and doing so by supporting false flag of AQ, is support of terrorists and so on ..."
"... Oh you can't do it, of course, it was so - so presidential to bomb another country and it is just old habit and no war declaration, if country is too weak to bomb you back. And you love this exiting crazy balance of global nuclear annihilation too much, so you prefer screaming Russia, Russia to keep it hot, for wonderful military contracts. ..."
"... If the US wanted to do itself a massive favour it should shine the spotlight on Robert Mueller, the man now in charge of investigating the President of these United States for "collusion" with Russia and possible "obstruction of justice" himself obstructed a congressional investigation into the 9/11 terrorist attacks. ..."
"... Dealing with western backed coups on its own doorstep and being the only country actually to be legally fighting in Syria - a war that directly threatens its security - does not amount to global belligerence. ..."
"... Clinton lied under oath ..."
"... The logan act is a dead law no one will be prosecuted for a act that has never been used... plus the president elect can talk to any foreign leader he or she wishes to use and even talk deals even if a current president for 2 months is still in office... ..."
"... Should all countries which try to influence elections be treated as enemies? Where do you set the threshold? If we go by the actual evidence, Russia seems to have bought some Facebook ads and was allegedly involved in exposing HRC's meddling with the Democratic primaries. Compare that to the influence that countries like Israel and the Gulf Arabs exert on American politics and elections. Are you seriously claiming that Russia's influence is bigger or more decisive? ..."
"... The goal of weakening the US is also highly debatable. Accepting for a moment that Russia tried to tip the balance in favor of Trump, would America be stronger if it were engaged more actively in Syria and Ukraine? Is there a specific example where Trump's administration weakened the American position to the advantage of Russia? And how is the sustained anti-Russian information warfare helping anyone but the Chinese? ..."
"... The clues that Kushner has been pulling the strings on Russia are everywhere... He then pushed Flynn hard to try to turn Russia around on an anti-Israel vote by the UN security council. ..."
"... And Russia didn't turn, so hardly a clue that Kushner was pulling strings with any effect. What this clue does suggest however, is that Israel pressured/colluded with the Trump Team to undermine the Obama administrations policy towards a UN resolution on illegal settlements. The elephant in the room is Israels influence on US politics. ..."
"... In relation to the "lying" charge - In December, Flynn (in his role as incoming National Security Advisor) was told to talk to the Russians by Kushner (in his role as incoming special advisor). In these conversations, Flynn told the Russians to be patient regarding sanctions as things may change when Trump becomes President. All of this is totally legal and is what EVERY new adminstration does. Flynn had his phoned tapped by the FBI so they knew he had talked to the Russian about sanctions - they also knew the conversation was totally legal - but when they asked him about it, he said he didn't discuss sanctions. So Flynn is being charged about lying about something that was totally legal for him to do. That's it. ..."
"... All those thinking this is the beginning of the end of Trump are going to be disappointed. Just look at the charges so far. Manafort has been charged with money laundering and not registering as a foreign agent - however, both of those charges pre-date him working for Trump. Flynn has been charged with lying to the FBI about speaking to the Russians - even though him speaking to the Russians in his role as National Security Advisor to the President-elect was not only totally legal, it was the norm. And this took place in December, after the election. ..."
"... So the 2 main players have been charged with things that have nothing to do with the Trump campaign, and lets not forget the point of the investigation is to find out if Trump's campaign colluded with the Russians to win the election. Manafort's charges related to before working for the Trump campaign whilst Flynn's came after Trump won the Presidency, neither of which have anything to do with the election. As much as I wish Trump wasn't President, don't get your hopes up that this is going anywhere ..."
"... Gross hypocrisy on the US governments side. They have, since WW2 interfered with other countries elections, invaded, and killed millions worldwide, and are still doing so. Where were the FBI investigations then? Non existent. US politicians and the military hierarchy are completely immune from any prosecutions when it comes down to overseas illegal interference. ..."
"... America like all governments are narcissistic, they will cheat, steal, kill, if it benefits them. It's called national interest, and it's number one on any leader's job list. Watch fog of war with Robert McNamara, fantastic and terrifying to see how it works. ..."
"... The US has also been meddling in other countries elections for years, and doubtless most Americans neither know or care about that! So it's perhaps it's best to simply term them a 'rival', most people should be able to agree on that ..."
"... Gallup have been polling Americans for the past couple of decades on this. The last time I read about it a couple of years ago 70% of Americans had unfavourable views of Russia, ranging from those who saw them as an enemy (a smaller amount) through to those who saw them as a threat. ..."
Dec 13, 2017 | www.theguardian.com

polpont , 4 Dec 2017 08:32

Mueller will have to thread very carefully because he is maneuvering on a very politically charged terrain. And one cannot refrain from comparing the current situation with the many free passes the democrats were handed over by the FBI, the Department of Justice and the media which make the US look like a banana republic.

The mind blowing fact that Clinton sat with the Attorney General on the tarmac of the Phoenix airport "to chit-chat" and not to discuss the investigation on Clinton's very wife that was being overseen by the same AG, leaves one flabbergasted.

And the fact that Comey essentially said that Clinton's behaviour, tantamount in his own words to extreme recklessness, did not warrant prosecution was just inconceivable.

Don't forget that Trump has nearly 50 M gun-toting followers on Tweeter and that he would not hesitate to appeal to them were he to feel threatened by what he could conceive as a judicial Coup d'Etat. The respect for the institutions in the USA has never been so low.

ID1456161 -> Canadiman , 4 Dec 2017 08:30

...a judge would decide if the evidence was sufficient to warrant a trial.

Actually, in the U.S. a grand jury would decide if the evidence was sufficient to warrant formal charges leading to a trial. There is also the possibility that Mueller has uncovered both Federal and NY State offenses, so charges could be brought against Kushner at either level. Mueller has been sharing information from his investigation with the NY Attorney General's Office. Trump could pardon a federal offense, but has no jurisdiction to pardon charges brought against Kushner by the State of NY.

Anna Bramwell -> etrang , 4 Dec 2017 08:28
I watched RT for 24 months before the US election. They favoured Bernie Saunders strongly before he lost to Hilary. Then they ran hustings for the smaller US parties, eg Greens, and the Libertarians , which could definitely be seen as an interference in the US election, but which as far as I know, was never mentioned in the US. They were anti Hilary but not pro Trump. And indeed, their strong anti capitalist bias would have made such support unlikely.
EduardStreltsovGhost -> JonShone , 4 Dec 2017 08:28
What's he lying about? More like he's denying the story peddled by the Democrats in some vain attempt at reducing his legitimacy over smashing Hillary in the elections.

Obama and Hillary met hundreds of foreign officials. Were they colluding as well?

pretzelattack -> Atticus_Finch , 4 Dec 2017 08:28
What is he going to prison for, again? Colluding with Israel?
oddballs -> Taf1980uk , 4 Dec 2017 08:26
The most anger in the media against the POTUS seems to be directed against Russia gate. Time and energy is wasted on conjecture, most 'probables will not stand in a court of law. This media hysteria deflects from the destruction of the affordable healthcare act and the tax changes good for the rich against the many. I think the people are being played.
Krautolivier , 4 Dec 2017 08:21
In the 1990s and 2000s a large section of the American establishment was effectively bought off by people like Prince Bandar. These are the ones that are determined that the anti-Russian policy then instigated be continued, even at the cost of slandering the current President's son-in-law. The irony is that in the meantime an effective regime change has taken place in Saudi and Bandar's bandits are mostly locked up behind bars.
It's all too funny.
zerohoursuni -> damientrollope , 4 Dec 2017 08:19
True, and not just hypocrisy either. This has to be seen in the context of a war, cold for now, on Russia - with China, via Iran and NK, next in line. Dangerous times, as a militarily formidable empire in economic decline looks set to take us all out. For the few who think and resist the dominant narrative - and are thereby routinely called out as 'kremlin trolls' - it is dismaying how easily folk are manipulated.

Your points are valid but, alas, factual truths are routinely trumped (!) by powerful mythology. Fact is, despite an appalling record since WW2, Washington and its pet institutions - IMF/World Bank/WTO - are still seen as good guys. How? Because (a) all western states have traded foreign policy independence for favoured status in Washington, (b) English as global lingua franca means American soft propaganda is lapped up across the world via its entertainment industry, and (c) all 'our' media are owned by billionaire corps or as with BBC/Graun, subject to government intimidation/market forces.

Truth is, DRT is not some horrifically new entity. (Let's not forget how HRC's 'no fly zone' for Syria promised to take us into WW3, nor her demented "we came, we saw, he died - ha ha" response to Gaddafi's sodomisation by knife blade, and more importantly to Libya's descent into hell.) As John Pilger noted, "the obsession with Trump the man – not Trump as symptom and caricature of an enduring system – beckons great danger for all of us".

cookcounty , 4 Dec 2017 08:15
I missed Jill Abramson's column about all the meetings the Obama administration held -- quite openly -- with foreign governments during the transition period between his election and his first inauguration.

But since she's been demonstrably and laughably wrong about predicting future political events in the USA (see her entire body of work during the 2016 election campaign), why should she start making sense now?

It's completely possible, of course, that some as-yet-to-be-revealed piece of evidence will prove collusion -- before the election and by candidate Trump -- with the Russians. But the Flynn testimony certainly isn't it. All the heavy breathing and hysteria is simply a sign of how the media, yet again, always gravitates toward the news it wishes were true, rather than what really is true. If all Meuller has is Flynn and the Russians during the transition period, he's got nothing.

themandibleclaw -> SteveMilesworthy , 4 Dec 2017 08:12
Flynn was charged with far more serious crimes which were all dropped and he was left with a charge that if he spends any time in prison, it will be about 6 months. Now, you could say for him to agree to that, he must have some juicy info - and he probably does - but what that juicy info is is just speculation. And if we are speculating, then maybe what he traded it for was nothing to do with Trump? After all, one of the charges against him was failing to register as a foreign agent on behalf of Turkey.

It's alleged that Turkey wanted Flynn to extradite Gullen for his alleged involvement in Turkey's failed coup. Just this weekend, Turkey have issued an arrest warrant for a former CIA officer in relation to the failed coup. So, IF the CIA were behind the failed coup and Flynn knows this - well, a good way to silence him would be to charge him with some serious crimes and then offer to drop them in return for his silence. But, like your theory, it's just speculation.

WallyWillage , 4 Dec 2017 08:05
Still no evidence of Russian collusion in Trump campaign BEFORE the election...... whatever happened after being president elect is not impeachable unless it would be after taking office.

The secret deep state security forces haven't been this diminished since Carter cleared the stables in the 70's - they fought back and stopped his second term ...

EduardStreltsovGhost -> CitizenOfTinyBlue , 4 Dec 2017 08:03

You can easily impeach Trump for bombing Syria's military airfield, which is by UN definition war crime of war aggression

if that were the case, Clinton, Bush and Obama would be sitting in jail right now.
oddballs -> Taf1980uk , 4 Dec 2017 07:58
Seeing how the case against Trump and Flynn is based on 'probable' and not hard proof its 'probable that the anti Trump campaign is directed from within the murky enclaves of the US intelligence community.

Trumps presidency could have the capability of galvanising a powerful resistance against the 2 party state for 'real change, like affordable healthcare and affordable education for ALL its people. But no its not happening, Trump is attacked on probables and undisclosed sources. A year has passed and nothing has been revealed.

Hatred against Trump deflects the anger, see the system works the US is still a democracy. Well it isn't, its a sick oligarchy run by the mega rich who own the media, 90% is owned by 5 corporations. Americans are fed the lie that their vast military empire with its 800 overseas bases are to defend US interests.

Well their not, their only function is, is to spend tax dollars that otherwise would be spent on education, health, infrastructure, things that would 'really' benefit America. Disagree, well go ahead and accuse me of being a conspiracy nut-job, in the meantime China is by peaceful means getting the mining rights in Africa, Australia, deals that matter.

The tax legislation for the few against the many is deflected by the anti-Trump hysteria based on conjecture and not proof.

EduardStreltsovGhost , 4 Dec 2017 07:52
Wow this is like becoming McCarthy Era 2.0. I'm just waiting for the show trials of all these so-called colluders.
RelaxAndChill -> Silgen , 4 Dec 2017 07:46
Crimea was and is Russian. Your mask is slipping, Vlad .

Your ignorance is showing. I have no connection to Russia what so ever. Crimea was legally ceded to Russia over 200 years ago, by the Ottomans to Catherine the Great. Russia has never relinquished control. What the criminal organization the USSR did under Ukrainian expat Khrushchev, is irrelevant. And as Putin said , any agreement about respecting Ukraine's territorial integrity was negated when the USA and the EU fomented and financed a rebellion and revolution.

StillAbstractImp , 4 Dec 2017 07:40
Decelerating Fascism - Is Kushner a Putin operative, too?
mikedow -> Karantino , 4 Dec 2017 07:35
Australia, Canada, and S. Africa supply the lion's share of gold bullion that London survives on. And the best uranium in the world. All sorts of other precious commodities as well. If you're not toeing the line on US foreign policies religiously, the Yanks will drop you.
themandibleclaw -> Toastface_Killah , 4 Dec 2017 07:34

You are selectively choosing to refer to this one instance, but even here Obama administration were still in charge - so not very legal, was it.

I am "selectively choosing to refer to this one instance" because that's all Flynn has been charged with. Oh, and it is totally legal for a member of the incoming administration to start talks with their foreign counterparts. Here's a quote from an op-ed piece in The Hill from a law professor at Washington University.

the interest of (Russian Ambassador) Kislyak in determining the position of the new administration on sanctions is not unheard of in Washington, or necessarily untoward to raise with one of the incoming national security advisers. Ambassadors are supposed to seek changes in policies and often seek to influence officials in the early stages of administrations before policies are established. Flynn's suggestion that the Russians wait as the Trump administration unfolded its new policies is a fairly standard response of an incoming official .

http://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/362813-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly-of-the-flynn-indictment

backstop -> EdwardFatherby , 4 Dec 2017 07:31
"The problem is charging Flynn for lying. A technicality. But not charging Hillary for email server. Another technicality. That's all the public will see if no collusion proved, and will ruin credibility of the FBI and the Dems"

It's not just collusion is it, what about the rampant, naked nepotism, last seen on this unashamed scale in ancient Rome?

BustedBoom , 4 Dec 2017 07:31

He then pushed Flynn hard to try to turn Russia around on an anti-Israel vote by the UN security council.

So he lobbied for Israel not Russia then? Whoops. How does the author even know where Mueller's probe is heading, and which way Flynn flipped? Flynn worked much longer for the Obama administration than for Trump's.
CitizenOfTinyBlue , 4 Dec 2017 07:26
You can easily impeach Trump for bombing Syria's military airfield, which is by UN definition war crime of war aggression, starting war without the Congress approval; and doing so by supporting false flag of AQ, is support of terrorists and so on

Oh you can't do it, of course, it was so - so presidential to bomb another country and it is just old habit and no war declaration, if country is too weak to bomb you back. And you love this exiting crazy balance of global nuclear annihilation too much, so you prefer screaming Russia, Russia to keep it hot, for wonderful military contracts.

Oh, and I have to be supporter of Putin's oligarchy with dreams of great tsars of Russia, if I care about humans survival on this planet and have very bad opinion about suicidal fools playing this stupid games.

ConCaruthers , 4 Dec 2017 07:25
If the US wanted to do itself a massive favour it should shine the spotlight on Robert Mueller, the man now in charge of investigating the President of these United States for "collusion" with Russia and possible "obstruction of justice" himself obstructed a congressional investigation into the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
moonsphere -> Hydro , 4 Dec 2017 07:24
Dealing with western backed coups on its own doorstep and being the only country actually to be legally fighting in Syria - a war that directly threatens its security - does not amount to global belligerence.
etrang -> CraftyRabbi , 4 Dec 2017 07:14

Mueller could charge/indict Kushner or Trump Jr under New York state criminal statutes

But not for crimes relating to federal elections or conspiring with Russia.

John Edwin -> OlivesNightie , 4 Dec 2017 07:13
Clinton lied under oath
John Edwin -> SoAmerican , 4 Dec 2017 07:11
The logan act is a dead law no one will be prosecuted for a act that has never been used... plus the president elect can talk to any foreign leader he or she wishes to use and even talk deals even if a current president for 2 months is still in office...
emiliofloris -> Sowester , 4 Dec 2017 07:08

I am not sure any level of scandal will make much difference to Trump or his supporters. They simply see this as an elitist conspiracy and not amount of evidence of wrongdoing will have an impact.

So far the level of scandal is below that of Whitewater/Lewinsky, and that was a very low level indeed. What "evidence of wrongdoing" is there? Nothing, that's why they charged Flynn with lying to investigators. It's important to keep in mind that the he did nor lie about actual crimes. Perhaps that's going to change as the investigation proceeds, but so far this is nothing more than a partisan lawfare fishing expedition.

Billsykesdoggy -> reinhardpolley , 4 Dec 2017 06:55
<blockquoteSpecifically, it prohibits citizens from negotiating with other nations on behalf of the United States without authorization.>

So Trump authorized Obama's talks with Macron last week?

Don't think so.

braciole -> Karantino , 4 Dec 2017 06:55

Because they attempted to covertly influence a general election in order to weaken the US.

And your evidence for this is what exactly? As for countries trying to influence elections in other countries, I'm all for it particularly when one of the candidates is murderous, arrogant and stupid.

BTW, in Honduras after supporting a coup against the democratically-elected president because he sought a referendum on allowing presidents to serve two terms, you'd think the United States would interfere when his non-democratically-elected replacement used a "packed" supreme court to change the constitution to allow presidents to serve more than one term to at least stop him stealing an election as he is now doing/has done. But they didn't and that hasn't stopped the United States whining that Evo Morales is being undemocratic by trying to extend the number of terms he can serve.

emiliofloris -> Karantino , 4 Dec 2017 06:53

Because they attempted to covertly influence a general election in order to weaken the US.

Should all countries which try to influence elections be treated as enemies? Where do you set the threshold? If we go by the actual evidence, Russia seems to have bought some Facebook ads and was allegedly involved in exposing HRC's meddling with the Democratic primaries. Compare that to the influence that countries like Israel and the Gulf Arabs exert on American politics and elections. Are you seriously claiming that Russia's influence is bigger or more decisive?

The goal of weakening the US is also highly debatable. Accepting for a moment that Russia tried to tip the balance in favor of Trump, would America be stronger if it were engaged more actively in Syria and Ukraine? Is there a specific example where Trump's administration weakened the American position to the advantage of Russia? And how is the sustained anti-Russian information warfare helping anyone but the Chinese?

technotherapy , 4 Dec 2017 06:46
The clues that Kushner has been pulling the strings on Russia are everywhere... He then pushed Flynn hard to try to turn Russia around on an anti-Israel vote by the UN security council.

And Russia didn't turn, so hardly a clue that Kushner was pulling strings with any effect. What this clue does suggest however, is that Israel pressured/colluded with the Trump Team to undermine the Obama administrations policy towards a UN resolution on illegal settlements. The elephant in the room is Israels influence on US politics.

themandibleclaw -> Simon Denham , 4 Dec 2017 06:44

Can someone please actually tell us what Flynn/Jared/Trump is supposed to have done.

In relation to the "lying" charge - In December, Flynn (in his role as incoming National Security Advisor) was told to talk to the Russians by Kushner (in his role as incoming special advisor). In these conversations, Flynn told the Russians to be patient regarding sanctions as things may change when Trump becomes President. All of this is totally legal and is what EVERY new adminstration does. Flynn had his phoned tapped by the FBI so they knew he had talked to the Russian about sanctions - they also knew the conversation was totally legal - but when they asked him about it, he said he didn't discuss sanctions. So Flynn is being charged about lying about something that was totally legal for him to do. That's it.

moonsphere -> SoAmerican , 4 Dec 2017 06:44
These days "US influence" seems to consist of bombing Middle Eastern countries back to the bronze age for reasons that defy easy logic. Anything that reduces that kind of influence would be welcome.
reinhardpolley -> Simon Denham , 4 Dec 2017 06:33
The Logan Act (18 U.S.C.A. § 953 [1948]) is a single federal statute making it a crime for a citizen to confer with foreign governments against the interests of the United States. Specifically, it prohibits citizens from negotiating with other nations on behalf of the United States without authorization.
https://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Logan+Act
themandibleclaw , 4 Dec 2017 06:22
All those thinking this is the beginning of the end of Trump are going to be disappointed. Just look at the charges so far. Manafort has been charged with money laundering and not registering as a foreign agent - however, both of those charges pre-date him working for Trump. Flynn has been charged with lying to the FBI about speaking to the Russians - even though him speaking to the Russians in his role as National Security Advisor to the President-elect was not only totally legal, it was the norm. And this took place in December, after the election.

So the 2 main players have been charged with things that have nothing to do with the Trump campaign, and lets not forget the point of the investigation is to find out if Trump's campaign colluded with the Russians to win the election. Manafort's charges related to before working for the Trump campaign whilst Flynn's came after Trump won the Presidency, neither of which have anything to do with the election. As much as I wish Trump wasn't President, don't get your hopes up that this is going anywhere.

damientrollope , 4 Dec 2017 06:15
Gross hypocrisy on the US governments side. They have, since WW2 interfered with other countries elections, invaded, and killed millions worldwide, and are still doing so. Where were the FBI investigations then? Non existent. US politicians and the military hierarchy are completely immune from any prosecutions when it comes down to overseas illegal interference.

But now this Russian debacle, and at last they've woken up, because another country had the temerity to turn the tables on them. And I think if this was Bush or Obama we would never have heard a thing about it. Everybody hates the Dotard, because he's an obese dick with an IQ to match.

Boojay , 4 Dec 2017 06:15
Nothing will happen to Trump, It's all bollocks. You've all watched too many Spielberg films, bad guys win, and they win most of the time.
Trump is the real face of America, America like all governments are narcissistic, they will cheat, steal, kill, if it benefits them. It's called national interest, and it's number one on any leader's job list. Watch fog of war with Robert McNamara, fantastic and terrifying to see how it works.
formerathlete -> vacantspace , 4 Dec 2017 06:15

when American presidents were rational, well balanced with progressive views we had.... decent American healthcare? Equality of opportunity? Gun laws that made it safe to walk the streets?

Say who, what an a where now????????? Since when has the US EVER had any of the three things that you mentioned???

If ever, then it was a loooooong time before the pilgrim fathers ever landed.

Hugh Mad -> JonShone , 4 Dec 2017 06:10

The US has also been meddling in other countries elections for years, and doubtless most Americans neither know or care about that! So it's perhaps it's best to simply term them a 'rival', most people should be able to agree on that.

That is the bottom line, yes. People view the world through west = good and Russia = bad, while both make economic and political decisions that serve the interests of their people respectively. Ultimately, I think people are scared that the West's monopoly on global influence is slipping, to as you said, a rival.

JonShone -> Hugh Mad , 4 Dec 2017 06:06
You are right that calling Russia the US enemy needs justification, but these threads often deteriorate into arguments of the yes it is/no it isn't variety.

Gallup have been polling Americans for the past couple of decades on this. The last time I read about it a couple of years ago 70% of Americans had unfavourable views of Russia, ranging from those who saw them as an enemy (a smaller amount) through to those who saw them as a threat.

It's certain that their ideals and goals run counter to those generally held in the US in many ways. But let's not forget that the US' ideals are often, if not generally, divergent from their interests and US foreign policy since 1945 has been responsible for countless deaths, perhaps more than Russia's.

The US has also been meddling in other countries elections for years, and doubtless most Americans neither know or care about that! So it's perhaps it's best to simply term them a 'rival', most people should be able to agree on that.

RelaxAndChill , 4 Dec 2017 05:59
All the signs in the Russia probe point to ..

How the liberals and the Democrats don't give a damm about the USA or the world's political scene, just some endless 'sore loser' witch hunt. So much could be achieved by the improving of relations with Russia. Crimea was and is Russian. Let Trump have a go as POTUS and then judge him. He wants to befriend Putin and if done it would help solve Syrian, Nth Korean and other global problems.

variation31 -> Sowester , 4 Dec 2017 05:50

They simply see this as an elitist conspiracy and not amount of evidence of wrongdoing will have an impact

Whereas if it's a Democrat in the spotlight, these same dipshits see it as an élitist cover-up and no lack of evidence of wrongdoing will have an impact. If anything, lack of evidence is evidence of cover-up which is therefore proof of evidence.

These cynical games they play with veracity and human honesty are a very pure form of evil.

[Dec 12, 2017] We are all just hapless passengers on the Neocon Titanic, unable to influence what is playing out on the bridge

Highly recommended!
Of course, UNZ is more radical on this issue then most (actually they use the terms "Jew", "neocons" and "Zionist" almost interchangeably, but in most case the meaning is neocon -- ideology, not nationality ) , but it looks like public support of neocons in the USA now dropped dramatically, especially after their attacks on Trump during 2016 elections.
Notable quotes:
"... They are not a threat to the US and while I think we will be in a support capacity -- with Israel obviously -- to a bunker buster attack it will be regarded as US backed war throughout the Islamic world. Trump may be too weak to resist Netanyahu's best sales pitch. ..."
"... The Neocons are turning up at MSNBC of late. In addition to Podhoretz, Brooks, Kristol, we are now seeing E. Johnson, B. Stephens, D. Pletka on the scene as regular rotation players. No doubt where they will be leading. Moving in where opportunities abound for some reason? ..."
"... "Trump may be too weak to resist Netanyahu's best sales pitch." Trump is an Israeli sycophant ..a loser. ..."
"... That US missile attack on the Syrian airport cost Trump a lot of domestic and international support for zero benefit... ..."
"... This is a war of an elite. [Tom] Friedman laughs: I could give you the names of 25 people (all of whom are at this moment within a five-block radius of this office) who, if you had exiled them to a desert island a year and a half ago, the Iraq war would not have happened. ..."
"... Yet if you point out the obvious, that our foreign policy has been hijacked by an element whose first loyalty is to Israel, you will catch all sorts of hell, be banned from making comments on blogs and news sites, or like the brave Mr. Giraldi, lose your job. And be blasted with the worn-out canard of being an anti-Semite. Maybe even a Jew hater, all because you show concern for the nation you love and are loyal to. ..."
"... While Pompeo would be not good, Tillerson has been a big disappointment with his latest statements on Crimea and Ukraine included. ..."
"... You obviously do not live here. 99% of Americans have a flat screen TV installed in their living rooms and believe everything (jooie managed images and info) spewing forth from it. ..."
"... The "problem" is that the whole American "business model" is based on global economic supremacy, which means, essentially, the dollar as world reserve currency. If that goes, the whole US house of cards will probably implode, Soviet-style. That requires unchallenged American "world leadership". The big threat to the "American model" isn't the EU and certainly not the Russian Federation. It's China. ..."
"... Yeah, yeah, yeah big bad ISIS. The Israeli Secret Intelligence Service. "Keeping Fools and Idiots At Each Other's Throats". Since 1950. I don't know what to tell you ..."
"... The US is expansionist, projecting itself all over the globe and uses force against anyone who resists. Force is all it understands. What happens when the irresistible force bumps into the immovable object? War hysteria, of which we've had an unending amount for the past three generations. Objectively there's nothing conservative about the so-called neocons. They're hardly any different from fascists except the rhetoric is different. Mussolini had limits as to how much territory he wanted to conquer for his empire unlike the US which recognizes no limits. ..."
"... BTW, I still don't see an attack on Iran as being very likely. If Russia and China would not greenlight an attack on Syria, they will be doubly reluctant to greenlight an attack on Iran. ..."
"... The "democracy" the neocons want to push is the one in which (((mass media))) successfully lobotomizes the electorate into thinking it has democracy. The zombies then make their way to the polls seeking "hope & change" but with no choice. Hegemony is the goal, not democracy. ..."
"... American has an all volunteer armed forces (mercenary), they are paid to kill or be killed, their fates is only a few seconds on the screens if the MSM decided to air them, otherwise the wars and the American soldiers' lives have nothing to do with the American public. Mayhem in far away land in out of sight and out of mind. ..."
"... The real issue is how to finance the war, as long as the war does not cause hyper inflation in the USA, the warmongers in the Washington beltway will go ahead with the war without much concern, with EU, Australia, Japan and S Korea in line paying the bills, the American should be able to wage another regime change war in the ME without much difficulty. ..."
"... Having some small portion of Scotch-Irish ancestry myself, and having ancestors who pioneered Tennessee, I don't think General Andrew Jackson would support the Israel First foreign policy of Tom Cotton. ..."
"... Yet if you point out the obvious, that our foreign policy has been hijacked by an element whose first loyalty is to Israel, you will catch all sorts of hell, be banned from making comments on blogs and news sites, or like the brave Mr. Giraldi, lose your job. And be blasted with the worn-out canard of being an anti-Semite. Maybe even a Jew hater, all because you show concern for the nation you love and are loyal to. ..."
"... Re: At the time, I agreed, but I did note that the neoconservatives have proven to be remarkable resilient, particularly as many of them have remained true to their Democratic Party values on nearly everything but foreign policy, where they are irredeemable hawks, hostile to Russia and Iran and always reliably in the corner of Israel ..."
"... And when it comes to foreign policy, of course the Neocons are globalists, like the international bankers whom they serve. ..."
"... The Neocons are nothing less than a parasitical foreign body which has us thinking in accordance with its interests; in fact they are mortal enemies, nothing less. ..."
"... Wall Street power held a gun to the head of the entire US economy and said 'Give us money, OR we will take ALL OF YOU down with us.' ..."
"... My knowledge of foreign policy is headline-quality only. My knowledge of some domestic policy is pretty good. I've been on the public stump in my area. The reality of American policy, as I've seen it, is that it's bought and paid for. There is no "public interest", no "national interest". I'm not even sure there's an America, in the sense of a people joined by some common values. Sometimes I think of America as an agglomeration of rackets. You're goddamned right I don't like thinking this way. ..."
"... Dump's second big mistake was firing Comey again on the advice of Kushner. Which got the Mueller ball rolling. Some have rightly drawn the parallels of Kushner whispering in Dump's ear to the same role of Kissinger vis a vis Nixon's downfall ..."
"... Then Kushner appeared to connive with his buddy KSA Clown Prince MBS to engineer the Hariri fiasco [which Tillerson managed to "deftly undo..."] ..."
"... That is a useless statement on many levels Tillerson deftly managed what is arguably America's most important corporation in what is surely the most strategic and geopolitical global industry energy ..."
"... The neocons are of course insane they are picking fights with Iran, Venezuela and others who are going to be the first to ditch the petrodollar and accelerate the tipping point to the new global financial order that is going to impoverish the US overnight ..."
"... The same neocons are also the ones who are undermining US demographics because their Ponzi scheme economy is based on perpetual growth which, in turn, requires perpetual population growth which means more immigration. Also the immigration keeps the wages low which is just extra gravy for the Plutocracy ..."
Dec 12, 2017 | www.unz.com

Mark James , December 12, 2017 at 5:57 am GMT

I'm really concerned an attack on Iran is a correct assessment Philip. They are not a threat to the US and while I think we will be in a support capacity -- with Israel obviously -- to a bunker buster attack it will be regarded as US backed war throughout the Islamic world. Trump may be too weak to resist Netanyahu's best sales pitch.

Tillerson will be gone sooner or later: No question, perhaps the week between Christmas and New Year?

Cotton and Pompeo: Pompeo may have problems with the Mueller probe. Cotton has a number of rumors in his past and maybe they are just unfortunate talk? But I don't see him at CIA (we shall see?)

The Neocons are turning up at MSNBC of late. In addition to Podhoretz, Brooks, Kristol, we are now seeing E. Johnson, B. Stephens, D. Pletka on the scene as regular rotation players. No doubt where they will be leading. Moving in where opportunities abound for some reason? At least two (Halperin, Ford) aren't around anymore on Coffee Joe.

Anonymous , Disclaimer December 12, 2017 at 7:22 am GMT
Well, if the rumours about Cotton and Pompeo appointments materialise, Trump might as well move his own office to Jerusalem
Fran Macadam , December 12, 2017 at 7:42 am GMT
We're all just hapless passengers on the Neocon Titanic, unable to influence what's playing out on the bridge. Steady as she goes on the unsinkable U.S.S.
Realist , December 12, 2017 at 9:08 am GMT
@Mark James

"Trump may be too weak to resist Netanyahu's best sales pitch." Trump is an Israeli sycophant ..a loser.

Philip Smeeton , December 12, 2017 at 11:02 am GMT
From the movie Iron Sky, meant as a condemnation of Nazism, but inadvertently conveying a sensible message about the merits of purity.

Renate Richter:

This is very simple. The world is sick, but we are the doctors. The world is anemic, but we are the vitamin. The world is weary, but we are the strength. We are here to make the world healthy once again, with hard work, with honesty, with clarity, with decency. We are the product of loving mothers and brave fathers. We are the embodiment of love and bravery! We are the gift of both God and Science. We are the answer to the question. We are the promise delivered to all mankind. For that, we raise our hands to one Nation. We step to the beat of one drum. We march to the beat of one heart and it is this song that we will sing to this world. We are the people who carry the children on our shoulders in the same way that our fathers carried us and their fathers carried them. We are the one people united and strong. We are the one people with certainty, moral certainty. We are invincible and we have no fear because the truth makes us wise.

Anonymous , Disclaimer December 12, 2017 at 11:23 am GMT
@peterAUS

Well, if conflict is simply air assault on Iranian nuclear facilities that shouldn't be a problem for either party. Israelis/Americans bomb a bit and then everything goes back to normal. Something as that cruise missile launch on Syria.

That US missile attack on the Syrian airport cost Trump a lot of domestic and international support for zero benefit...

jacques sheete , December 12, 2017 at 11:53 am GMT

I do not even want to guess at what kind of insanity

Insanity. That's the key. Sick beyond redemption. No rational person could ever begin to understand their motives. Somehow the jackals need to be restrained.

Greg Bacon , Website December 12, 2017 at 12:46 pm GMT
We see the same usual suspects time and again, waving their pom-poms lustily cheering on endless war that does NOT help or benefit the USA. In fact, it is destroying our nation economically, spiritually and politically.

From an April 2003 Haaretz article:

The war in Iraq was conceived by 25 neoconservative intellectuals, most of them Jewish, who are pushing President Bush to change the course of history. Two of them, journalists William Kristol and Charles Krauthammer, say it's possible.

This is a war of an elite. [Tom] Friedman laughs: I could give you the names of 25 people (all of whom are at this moment within a five-block radius of this office) who, if you had exiled them to a desert island a year and a half ago, the Iraq war would not have happened.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/features/white-man-s-burden-1.14110

Yet if you point out the obvious, that our foreign policy has been hijacked by an element whose first loyalty is to Israel, you will catch all sorts of hell, be banned from making comments on blogs and news sites, or like the brave Mr. Giraldi, lose your job. And be blasted with the worn-out canard of being an anti-Semite. Maybe even a Jew hater, all because you show concern for the nation you love and are loyal to.

Will Americans ever realize they are being played for fools by a country and Zionist con artists which doesn't give a tinkers damn about us or will we keep jumping up and down to the pom-pom waving?

Den Lille Abe , December 12, 2017 at 1:43 pm GMT
Yes all this Newspeak, to hide the fact that the US is a threat in anyone that disagrees with them
Z-man , December 12, 2017 at 2:18 pm GMT
Of course I hope you're wrong Phil. While Pompeo would be not good, Tillerson has been a big disappointment with his latest statements on Crimea and Ukraine included.

Cotton would be another matter altogether and even though there is a 'collegial spirit' in the Senate I would hope that Rand Paul and other senators with common sense would squash this guys nomination. Even if he has to carry himself back from Kentucky, broken ribs and all, to squash this Neocon stooge Cotton. Also, I'm hopping there are some boys in the closet when it comes to Cotton. lol

Zumbuddi , December 12, 2017 at 2:22 pm GMT
@LondonBob

Faith in Bush the OLDER is misplaced. In 1979 he stood shoulder to shoulder w/ Bibi and Benzion Netenyahu, and Midge Decter & other neocons, in Jerusalem, as they drafted the blueprint for GWOT. Planning went so far as to name the 7 states to take out. USSR was #1 at the time. Jews got Jews Who had been highly educated at Russian expense – out of Russia, now Russia is back in the crosshairs.

... ... ...

Anonymous , Disclaimer December 12, 2017 at 3:10 pm GMT

Americans are stoopid and cowardly fucks for being so easily manipulated by the Jew.

Not so much anymore. Meanwhile, didn't the Muslims spend five years fighting each-other right on the Israeli border? But wait – they did attack Israel once – and apologised:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-04-28/isis-apologized-israel-attacking-idf-soldiers

I don't know what to tell you

nsa , December 12, 2017 at 3:24 pm GMT
@peterAUS

"the American public isn't as gullible as before ."

Ha, Ha. You obviously do not live here. 99% of Americans have a flat screen TV installed in their living rooms and believe everything (jooie managed images and info) spewing forth from it. More than 50% of Americans have multiple flat screen TV in their homes so they can be sure not to miss the latest disinfo or lies.

.... ... ...

Michael Kenny , December 12, 2017 at 3:41 pm GMT
The "problem" is that the whole American "business model" is based on global economic supremacy, which means, essentially, the dollar as world reserve currency. If that goes, the whole US house of cards will probably implode, Soviet-style. That requires unchallenged American "world leadership". The big threat to the "American model" isn't the EU and certainly not the Russian Federation. It's China. 1.4 billion people and rapidly heading for global economic hegemony. To say nothing of a rising India at 1.2 billion. At 300 million, the US is small beans. How to ward off the Yellow Peril? That's the problem the US hegemonists had to resolve.

... ... ...

DaveE , December 12, 2017 at 3:45 pm GMT
@Anonymous

Yeah, yeah, yeah big bad ISIS. The Israeli Secret Intelligence Service. "Keeping Fools and Idiots At Each Other's Throats". Since 1950. I don't know what to tell you ..

anonymous , Disclaimer December 12, 2017 at 3:47 pm GMT
@jacques sheete

Somehow the jackals need to be restrained.

It's not that difficult to strategize HOW to go about "restraining the jackals." 99 44/100% of what ziocons accuse others of is projection. They say, "They [_____ Iran, ISIS, Palestinians, Russians - fill in the blank] understand only force." This projects that the only thing that will restrain psychopathic Israel is force.

When an Iranian nuclear engineer was assassinated in Tehran, Ronen Bergman told Brian Williams that "Israel has used assassination more than any other state; not even Stalin or Hitler used assassination as much as Israel. . . ."

... ... ...

anonymous , Disclaimer December 12, 2017 at 3:58 pm GMT
@Ben Frank

So far the President has proved much smarter than most people expected him to be

Exactamundo, Ben Frank (any relation to Anne, Princess of the Ballpoint Pen?). Naming Jerusalem the capital of Israel was fucking brilliant. Don't you worry your pretty little head about all the US forces in the multiple bases in the region that are accessible to mad-as-hornets Muslims; Israel will have their backs, fer shur.

--

Come to think of it, maybe Trump can burnish his "much smarter-ness" by taking a page out of Reagan's playbook: Immediately after the first US soldier is plinked by an Angry Arab, Trump should pull ALL US FORCES out of the region: do a Reagan-post-Black Hawk down.

If the Israelis want to stir the pot, let them stand over the steam-heat and wield the spoon. We're outa there.

anonymous , Disclaimer December 12, 2017 at 3:58 pm GMT
The people of the ME can't catch a break. Since being pried away from the Ottoman empire a hundred years ago they've been the plaything of various western countries. Their national borders drawn up by distant foreigners, they've been interfered with constantly, their regimes dictated by foreigners. Then the selfsame westerners turn around and point to their backwardness as proof that they're incapable of doing anything on their own.

The US is expansionist, projecting itself all over the globe and uses force against anyone who resists. Force is all it understands. What happens when the irresistible force bumps into the immovable object? War hysteria, of which we've had an unending amount for the past three generations. Objectively there's nothing conservative about the so-called neocons. They're hardly any different from fascists except the rhetoric is different. Mussolini had limits as to how much territory he wanted to conquer for his empire unlike the US which recognizes no limits.

Rurik , December 12, 2017 at 4:21 pm GMT

replaced at CIA by Senator Tom Cotton.

it was faint, and barely perceptible, but at some level, I did actually tremble when I read those words. Cotton is the new John McCain. The ultimate traitor to this nation and its people and all people of good will on the planet and every tenet of decency known to the universe

a lickspittle to Sheldon Adelson and everything that repulsive toad represents. if Cotton is exalted to head the CIA, I'll have to think very hard about leaving these shores. perhaps Bobby Fischer was right, and the ZUSA is endemically, irredeemably evil.

there can be no doubt that the zio-Fiend is the incarnation of evil itself, but I always keep hoping that the good people of the ZUS will repudiate the zio-Fiend- that has them waging serial wars all over the planet to benefit the Jews. As their infrastructure crumbles back home, and their veterans can't get health care, and the jobs are 'in' and outsourced to the third world. what will it take to wake up the bovine, cud-chewing sheople?!

their children come home in body bags, or with their souls so eviscerated by the sheer evil of the wars they're forced to fight, that they often just 'snuff it' as the only escape from their nightmares. (and the realization that the ZUSA is a drooling fiend and that they've murdered innocent people and destroyed nations on its behalf)

those young people can not abide the evil that the ZUS government has become, and their only salvation is to end their young lives.

for those of us with more choices at hand, why can't we finally and simply repudiate the zio-scum who've done us and so many others so much harm?!

NOT TOM COTTON!!!!!

fuck no!

SolontoCroesus , December 12, 2017 at 4:39 pm GMT
@SolontoCroesus

PS If the USA / American people and their representatives conformed foreign as well as economic policy to the vision of George Washington rather than Louis Brandeis -- > Benjamin Netanyahu & fellow psychopaths and traitors, USA would engage with OBOR rather than attempt to destroy it.

Check out anon20171212′s comment at #21, above http://www.unz.com/pgiraldi/bad-moon-rising/#comment-2115106

Destruction (and deception) are the way of the Talmudists. Even Heinrich Graetz, the Germanophilic Jew who authored the first modern history of the Jewish people, had nothing but opprobrium to heap on Talmudists.

https://archive.org/details/historyofthejews014022mbp

The American 'way' is not the way of the Talmud. Christian values are not Talmudic values. George Washington's legacy was not Talmudic, it was America First :

https://www.varsitytutors.com/earlyamerica/milestone-events/george-washingtons-farewell-address-full-text

Astuteobservor II , December 12, 2017 at 4:43 pm GMT
@Anonymous

doesn't matter, we are still the ones doing the dirty work. there is no escape from the responsibility. it is like a hitman claiming he is a professional, it is just business. that doesn't fly.

Ken S , December 12, 2017 at 4:47 pm GMT
What's with it with neoconservative Israel lackeys like Tom Cotton and Ted Cruz graduating from a prestigious and supposedly left-wing school like Harvard? Are they book-smart without common sense? The country would be better off if Cotton stayed in the Senate. He can do less damage if 1 of 100. Plus, the shelf-life of anyone in the Trump admin seems to be very short – and he'd better not have groped any Harvard classmates, who might just be waiting in the wings to destroy his career.
Seamus Padraig , December 12, 2017 at 5:34 pm GMT
As recently as a month ago, I was still willing to give Trump the benefit of the doubt. But it should now be obvious to all what a total zio-muppet he really is. If there's any silver lining in all of this, it's the fact that the Jew-media have expended so much effort in attacking Trump that he'll now make a very poor spokesman for their cause abroad.

BTW, I still don't see an attack on Iran as being very likely. If Russia and China would not greenlight an attack on Syria, they will be doubly reluctant to greenlight an attack on Iran.

Frank Walus , December 12, 2017 at 7:24 pm GMT
The "democracy" the neocons want to push is the one in which (((mass media))) successfully lobotomizes the electorate into thinking it has democracy. The zombies then make their way to the polls seeking "hope & change" but with no choice. Hegemony is the goal, not democracy.

Trump may have been skeptical as a candidate about America's role as policeman of the world, but the establishment knives are out and he might (correctly?) surmise that the only way to stay in office is to make the ziocons happy. Even Bill Kristol would see the error in never-Trump_vs_deep_state if bombs started falling on Iran.

Joe Wong , December 12, 2017 at 8:04 pm GMT
@peterAUS

American has an all volunteer armed forces (mercenary), they are paid to kill or be killed, their fates is only a few seconds on the screens if the MSM decided to air them, otherwise the wars and the American soldiers' lives have nothing to do with the American public. Mayhem in far away land in out of sight and out of mind. Citing the American public gullibility is really a residual sentiment of old days cold war mentality and trying to attach some kind of morality to the wars the American has been fighting. American has long been demonstrated they are just as morally defunct imperialist as the British and their mentor, the Romans.

The real issue is how to finance the war, as long as the war does not cause hyper inflation in the USA, the warmongers in the Washington beltway will go ahead with the war without much concern, with EU, Australia, Japan and S Korea in line paying the bills, the American should be able to wage another regime change war in the ME without much difficulty.

Charles Pewitt , December 12, 2017 at 8:14 pm GMT
Tom Cotton is not to be trusted. Many gave US Senator Tom Cotton credit for his offering a bill that would cut legal immigration in half and would significantly reduce illegal immigration. It is now clear that the immigration reduction ploy proffered by Tom Cotton was a sneaky way to mollify the White Core American voter base of President Trump.

Tom Cotton is a stooge for Sheldon Adelson and the Neo-Conservatives. The Neo-Conservatives know they are highly vulnerable on the immigration issue and the national question. That is why they sent their puppet Tom Cotton out with instructions to bang the pot on reducing immigration.

Recently, the Neo-Conservative-controlled, Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal gave Tom Cotton a half page, above the fold puff piece where Tom Cotton is said to be offering a foreign policy fit for "Jacksonian America." I think Tom Cotton must be referring to Michael Jackson or some other Jackson, and not General Andrew Jackson. Having some small portion of Scotch-Irish ancestry myself, and having ancestors who pioneered Tennessee, I don't think General Andrew Jackson would support the Israel First foreign policy of Tom Cotton.

IMMIGRATION and the NATIONAL QUESTION are the two things that will finally dislodge the nation-wrecking Neo-Conservatives and their politician puppets from the ruling class of the American Empire.

Z-man , December 12, 2017 at 8:22 pm GMT
@Greg Bacon

Yet if you point out the obvious, that our foreign policy has been hijacked by an element whose first loyalty is to Israel, you will catch all sorts of hell, be banned from making comments on blogs and news sites, or like the brave Mr. Giraldi, lose your job. And be blasted with the worn-out canard of being an anti-Semite. Maybe even a Jew hater, all because you show concern for the nation you love and are loyal to.

If you remember what happened to Rick Sanchez, the former talking head of NBC and CNN when he was pushed into calling out the Jew in a 'gotcha' interview as he sarcastically replied that yeah Jews are underrepresented in the media. He was gone in '60 seconds'!

Whatever happened to Rick Sanchez??? LOL!!!

Veranon , December 12, 2017 at 8:25 pm GMT
Re: At the time, I agreed, but I did note that the neoconservatives have proven to be remarkable resilient, particularly as many of them have remained true to their Democratic Party values on nearly everything but foreign policy, where they are irredeemable hawks, hostile to Russia and Iran and always reliably in the corner of Israel.
-- -- -- -- -
Of course. The Jewish Neocons and their "useful idiots," whether "bought and paid for" or voluntarily enlisted, are necessarily "liberal" in relation to domestic policy because the idea is to destroy all Western and Christian norms and values by means of cultural marxist "critical theory." And it's working very well. The mass media and the educational system have hopelessly corrupted American and European minds with this profoundly subversive "intellectual" garbage.

And when it comes to foreign policy, of course the Neocons are globalists, like the international bankers whom they serve. Israel first, because they are not there to defend their country's interests, but to defend Israel's, in accordance with the permanent goal of Eretz Ysrael and world hegemony in accordance with the ultimate goal of Jewish supremacy via the money power, and in preparation for their "messiah". It's all disguised as for the sake of American greatness and "our values."

The Neocons are nothing less than a parasitical foreign body which has us thinking in accordance with its interests; in fact they are mortal enemies, nothing less. The Western goyim–as well as innocent Jews here and in Israel itself–will be cheerfully sacrificed by the Zionists, who serve darker forces and interests than those of their people. Western humanity has been rendered helpless because they are intellectually helpless and because in consequence they have been dispossessed of deep faith and corresponding real virtues. This was noted years ago by Solzhenitsyn, among others. Ideas rule human beings for good or ill, since we are thinking beings. But when the ideas that determine us are profoundly wrong and when intellectual chaos and unbridled individualism reign, nothing real can be accomplished. However, in due time vincit omnia veritas –the Real has the last word. "Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord."

Priss Factor , Website December 12, 2017 at 9:50 pm GMT
North Korea's survival strategy is "If you invade us, we will blow up South Korea and maybe even Tokyo." Ruled by a vile regime but with rational concern for survival, even if it has no moral right to survive. But then, what is the other option? South Korea is a puppet state of US globalist empire. If NK was ruled by wiser people, its case would be made more intelligently. It would tell the world community that it needs for defense given US record in the Middle East and North Africa. But it's ruled by some egotistical brat-boy whose idea of culture is Dennis Rodman and Rap trash-talking.

As different as NK and Jewish Power, they have one thing in common: WGYG or We Go, You Go. The idea is that if they are destroyed, they will take others with them.

Jewish Power pulled this off in 2008. When Lehman Brothers wasn't bailed out by the government, Wall Street pushed a 'too big to fail' scheme and threatened Total Collapse of the Economy UNLESS it was showered with super-generous bailouts that would eventually come to enrich the banks during a severe recession for most Americans. Bush couldn't do anything about it except go along. Obama bailed out Wall Street. And McCain would have done the same had he won. Jewish Wall Street power held a gun to the head of the entire US economy and said 'Give us money, OR we will take ALL OF YOU down with us.'

The system is rigged so that a major collapse of Jewish Power will trigger total collapse of the entire system. It's been wired that way. The whole tower will collapse. So, if anyone tries to cut the wire of Jewish Power, kaboom, the whole thing blows up, and everyone dies. Gentiles must carry Jewish Power like a crate of nitroglycerin. One false step and Kaboom.

JackOH , December 12, 2017 at 10:04 pm GMT
Phil, thanks.

"Tom [Cotton] is completely owned by the Israeli lobby."

" . . . [Nikki] Haley is stupid. And ambitious. And is also owned by the Israeli lobby . . .".

My knowledge of foreign policy is headline-quality only. My knowledge of some domestic policy is pretty good. I've been on the public stump in my area. The reality of American policy, as I've seen it, is that it's bought and paid for. There is no "public interest", no "national interest". I'm not even sure there's an America, in the sense of a people joined by some common values. Sometimes I think of America as an agglomeration of rackets. You're goddamned right I don't like thinking this way.

There are only insider players who bankroll and blackmail their way into getting the decisions they want. I wish I could say something high-minded, but I can't.

anon , Disclaimer December 12, 2017 at 10:52 pm GMT
@Priss Factor

India and Pakistan have nukes. How would they respond to an Israeli Sampson Option?

How about China? An Izzie attack on European capitals could destroy a lot of Chinese investment. China has sufficient nuclear capability to detach Israel from the Mediterranean littoral and create an irradiated submerged island.

Does van Crevald think Putin will sit on his hands and wait a thousand years for the dust to clear?

van Crevald says Israel can hit Rome. That's zionism's wet dream, to completely obliterate Rome.
How many Jews live a parasitical life in Rome and other European capitals?

Can Izzies reach USA? Didn't think so. What do they think would happen to hundreds of Jewish institutions, and Jewish people, in USA if Israel destroys Europe -- again?

FB , December 13, 2017 at 12:03 am GMT
People need to let go of the idea that Dump is anything but a conman and a weak one at that

The office of President holds a lot of authority that Dump has not been able [or willing] to wield that speaks to his own weakness as a leader

It's time to admit that he is not the messiah that many Lunchpail Joes wanted to believe

As to the specifics of this article yes I agree with Mr. Giraldi that the neocons are back in the driver's seat if they ever left in the first place

Exhibit One is Jared Kushner the Clown Prince of the Shite House. This is the guy who has inflicted most of the damage on Dump starting with his advice to dump Flynn. Dump was under zero pressure to do any such thing the neocon Pence is the one who demanded Flynn's head. Dump could have pushed back there was nothing wrong with Flynn the incoming National Security Adviser speaking to the Russians or anyone else and what he spoke of with the Russians was in lobbying THEM in the US interest not the other way round

Dump's second big mistake was firing Comey again on the advice of Kushner. Which got the Mueller ball rolling. Some have rightly drawn the parallels of Kushner whispering in Dump's ear to the same role of Kissinger vis a vis Nixon's downfall

Then Kushner appeared to connive with his buddy KSA Clown Prince MBS to engineer the Hariri fiasco [which Tillerson managed to "deftly undo..."]

' Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who was accompanying the president during his Asia tour at the time of the Saudi-engineered initiative, was "completely blindsided" by the move, as several senior Middle East diplomats confirmed to TAC.

While Tillerson would later be accused of being "totally disengaged" from the crisis, several former and current U.S. diplomats have told us that just precisely the opposite was the case '

' The unlikely hero in all of this might well be Rex Tillerson, who quietly engineered a U.S. policy at odds with the views of Donald Trump -- and his son-in-law. The exact details of how Tillerson pulled this off remain unknown ("I think Tillerson just told Trump what he was going to do," the senior diplomat with whom we spoke speculates, "and then just did it.") '

So that's the backstory right there about why the neocons are agitating for Tillerson's ouster. I have to strongly disagree with Mr. Giraldi's characterization of Tillerson as

' a somewhat bumbling businessman adept at dealing in energy futures contracts who has been struggling with reducing State's enormously bloated payroll '

That is a useless statement on many levels Tillerson deftly managed what is arguably America's most important corporation in what is surely the most strategic and geopolitical global industry energy

The global oil trade is 14 trillion dollars even at today's prices and the petrodollar is the underpinning of the entire US system a free ride for printing free money because every nation has to buy US dollars to buy or sell oil. In 1971

' I was informed at a White House meeting that U.S. diplomats had let Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries know that they could charge as much as they wanted for their oil, but that the United States would treat it as an act of war not to keep their oil proceeds in U.S. dollar assets '

Writes economist Michael Hudson" from personal recollection of the many meetings he had at the WH

This whole saga surrounding Dump's readiness to tie the can to Tillerson is proof positive if any more were needed that conman Dump has been a fake from the beginning

If the neocons are ascendant and back in the driver's seat it is no one's fault but the Dumpster

He has cast his lot with Kushner who appears to be the neocons' Trojan Horse

There can be no more sympathy or understanding anymore for Dump

If we recall his campaign rhetoric of 'draining the swamp' and rebuilding America's failing infrastructure improving relations with Russia all good things

we must also recall that he has been vehemently anti-Iran from the get-go

One has to ask why ?

Iran is a completely Israeli-owned issue Iran has nothing to do with the interests of the US other than to benefit leading US industries like aircraft manufacturing which were immediately rewarded with a $100 billion order of Boeing aircraft in the aftermath of the Obama nuclear deal

That vehement anti-Iran attitude even on the campaign trail should have been a red flag to everyone

Even Hellary would have been better in that regard and as for the Russia 'issue' what could Hellary or the US to do Russia anyway ?

Militarily nothing even in Syria the US military would certainly not go for an open war against Russia neither would the regional players hosting US bases which would need to be on board for such an adventure

same goes for the breakaway region of eastern Ukraine

Germany and France are anyway moving closer to Russia, which has de facto established itself as an energy distribution superpower for the continent and for China

The big picture is that the petrodollar and the free ride for US prosperity is living on borrowed time China is the world's biggest energy importer and is not going to support the petrodollar forever

Already an alternative financial architecture is being built and the BRICS countries now outpace the combined GDP of the G7 so the writing is on the wall

Dump has shown himself to be a conman first and an incredibly weak president he deserves no sympathy or support

The neocons are of course insane they are picking fights with Iran, Venezuela and others who are going to be the first to ditch the petrodollar and accelerate the tipping point to the new global financial order that is going to impoverish the US overnight

The same neocons are also the ones who are undermining US demographics because their Ponzi scheme economy is based on perpetual growth which, in turn, requires perpetual population growth which means more immigration. Also the immigration keeps the wages low which is just extra gravy for the Plutocracy

The US will be a white-minority country by 2050 much of the Southwest already is

None of that is going to change when the party is over and the Titanic sinks the handful of necons and Plutocrats will have their lifeboats ready

FB , December 13, 2017 at 12:14 am GMT
@FB

Sorry my link to the Kushner role in the Hariri circus and Tillerson's save did not come through here it is: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/kushner-kept-tillerson-in-the-dark-on-saudi-lebanon-move/

[Dec 09, 2017] Tillerson: Status of Jerusalem not final

Notable quotes:
"... Earlier Friday Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital by the US ran counter to common sense while Russia warned that US recognition may lead to escalation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and called on all parties to show restraint. ..."
"... Turkish sources said Russian President Vladimir Putin will visit Turkey next week to discuss recent developments surrounding Jerusalem and the situation in Syria with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The Kremlin verified the visit and said the leaders will discuss "important international problems." ..."
"... Erdoğan and Putin spoke on the phone Thursday and concurred the US decision to recognize Jerusalem as capital will negatively impact the peace process and the region's stability. ..."
Dec 09, 2017 | www.ynetnews.com

United States Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Friday the "status of Jerusalem was not final" and that it will be some time before the US is able to move its embassy to from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, pursuant to President Donald Trump's speech earlier this week recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital and announcing the planned embassy move. Any final decision on the status of Jerusalem will depend on negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians, Tillerson said, appearing to add nuance to President Trump's decision.

"With respect to the rest of Jerusalem the president ... did not indicate any final status for Jerusalem," Tillerson said, speaking at a news conference in Paris alongside French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian.

... ... ...

Earlier Friday Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital by the US ran counter to common sense while Russia warned that US recognition may lead to escalation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and called on all parties to show restraint.

Turkish sources said Russian President Vladimir Putin will visit Turkey next week to discuss recent developments surrounding Jerusalem and the situation in Syria with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The Kremlin verified the visit and said the leaders will discuss "important international problems."

Erdoğan and Putin spoke on the phone Thursday and concurred the US decision to recognize Jerusalem as capital will negatively impact the peace process and the region's stability.

[Dec 09, 2017] Is Trump Prepared for What Happens If His Jerusalem Gambit Backfires? by Jonah Shepp

Dec 09, 2017 | nymag.com

The idea certainly is to remove ambiguity, but not in the way these officials mean. Let's not forget that Kushner, who is leading the president's so-called peace team, is a family friend of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has openly dreamed of killing the peace process started at Oslo in 1993 since his first prime ministry in the late 90s. Kushner also spent nine years running a foundation that funded West Bank settlement projects, which he reportedly failed to disclose in his filings with the Office of Government Ethics. He's also close with the rising leadership of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, who don't much care for Israel but agree with Netanyahu that Iran is a much bigger threat to their security and prosperity than his country is.

In other words, the person in charge of our Middle East policy has an agenda of his own, as do the people pulling his strings, and these agendas appear to be driven more by regional interests than those of the U.S. (perhaps this is what Trump means by not interfering in the affairs of other countries). This is also not entirely about Palestine and Israel: Wednesday's move is mostly about Iran, Middle East expert Marc Lynch believes -- specifically, squaring the circle of how to form an Israeli-Arab alliance against it without resolving the Palestinian issue first.

As Trump put it in his announcement, his decision simply recognizes reality and acknowledges that our longstanding approach to the peace process so far has failed. He's not wrong about that: The peace process has been at a virtual standstill for over a decade by now, some would say even longer. However, what Trump is doing may not turn things around.

[Dec 09, 2017] Is Kushner next

Notable quotes:
"... I would think that Flynn's guilty plea is about developing leverage with regard to Kushner's oddness. ..."
"... It's hard to imagine anyone who carries water for Israel taking a big hit. It will be interesting. Kushner's relationship with Trump makes him vulnerable - nay, a target - to Borgist machinations. His relationship with Israel should make him invulnerable to the same. ..."
Dec 04, 2017 | turcopolier.typepad.com

"Jared Kushner failed to disclose his role as a co-director of the Charles and Seryl Kushner Foundation from 2006 to 2015, a time when the group funded an Israeli settlement considered to be illegal under international law , on financial records he filed with the Office of Government Ethics earlier this year.

The latest development follows reports on Friday indicating the White House senior adviser attempted to sway a United Nations Security Council vote against an anti-settlement resolution passed just before Donald Trump took office, which condemned the structure of West Bank settlements. The failure to disclose his role in the foundation -- at a time when he was being tasked with serving as the president's Middle East peace envoy -- follows a pattern of egregious omissions that would bar any other official from continuing to serve in the West Wing, experts and officials told Newsweek ." newsweek

------------

Syria is quiescent at the moment, North Korea hangs in the balance as a possible scenario for a major war. Some people would like to steer me away from the subject of the Mueller investigation but the story is far too interesting for me to accept that.

I would think that Flynn's guilty plea is about developing leverage with regard to Kushner's oddness.

  • - He did a poor job of filling out security clearance forms. He did that repeatedly. Too good to obey the law? I have filled out the same tedious forms many times and I can understand his reluctance, but, people can be hired to interview you and fill them out for you.
  • - He thinks that he and his perfect group of experts (identities?) can bring the Palestinians and Israelis to an agreement over what I long ago came to see as a problem without a solution. The difficulty is that the two groups' deeply felt desires and aims are mutually exclusive and not really subject to compromise. The truth is that they both want ALL of the land between the sea and the Jordan River and in Israel's case a good many of them want a piece of Jordan as well. Kushner will learn that both Bibi and the Palestinians are lying to him about their willingness to compromise. But, his blindness to that is not a crime. It is simply the result of his conceit and actual ignorance of these people.
  • - IMO he is an agent of the Israeli state or the Jewish Agency who is unregistered under FARA.
  • - It now appears that Kushner sent Flynn (perhaps the dumbest Irishman in the world - I am part Irish) to seek in the president elect's name Russian government cooperation in blocking a resolution at the UN that was unfavorable to Israel. Did Trump know that Flynn was so dispatched or did Kushner take it upon himself to use his father in law's influence to send Flynn on this errand on behalf of a foreign state? Is this a crime? I know not as yet. pl

http://www.newsweek.com/jared-kushner-disclosure-form-west-bank-settlements-israel-white-house-729290

Eric Newhill , 04 December 2017 at 03:37 PM

Sir,
It's hard to imagine anyone who carries water for Israel taking a big hit. It will be interesting. Kushner's relationship with Trump makes him vulnerable - nay, a target - to Borgist machinations. His relationship with Israel should make him invulnerable to the same.

The Borg faces a quandary? Perhaps a rift in the Borg develops? I can't see Israel throwing Kushner under the bus and incurring Trump's wrath. I can't see Israel allowing it's name to be very publicly associated with underhanded behavior.

The Beaver , 04 December 2017 at 04:27 PM
Colonel,

The irony: From the guy in charge of peace process in the Middle East

In addition, yesterday at the Saban17 Forum, Kushner described the Trump Middle East peace team as made up of "3 orthodox jews and a coptic Egyptian". Since Haim Saban was the moderator , he thanked the Whiz Kid for trying to derail UNSC resolution on settlements. "as far as I know there's nothing illegal there" he told Kushner.

Will try to locate the You Tube video and post it later on

The Beaver , 04 December 2017 at 04:36 PM
Colonel

Another article :
https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/1.826751

and the video of yesterday:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67y2V3ksdlA

Alaric , 04 December 2017 at 05:35 PM
Well said:

"IMO he is an agent of the Israeli state or the Jewish Agency who is unregistered under FARA."

He also seems to lack any common sense when it comes to geopolitics. Him, Netanyahu, and MBS together.....oh my

Yeah, Right said in reply to Eric Newhill... , 04 December 2017 at 05:44 PM
"It's hard to imagine anyone who carries water for Israel taking a big hit"

I suspect it might be the reverse i.e. once someone does take a big hit then everyone who carries water for Israel will be in serious trouble.

Once the floodgates open there may be no stopping it.

Keith Harbaugh , 04 December 2017 at 06:02 PM
Some sad news about Ireland (IMO):

"How Ireland Moved to the Left: 'The Demise of the Church' "
By LIAM STACK. 2017-12-02
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/02/world/europe/ireland-abortion-abuse-church.html

outthere , 04 December 2017 at 06:06 PM
JOSEPH CAMPBELL: that wonderful Irish saying, you know, "Is this a private fight, or can anybody get into it?"
me too
confusedponderer said in reply to Eric Newhill... , 04 December 2017 at 06:41 PM
Eric Newhill,
I strongly doubt that Israel will ' throw Kushner under the bus '.

They won't be asked for their advice, view or preference in the matter whether Kushner is to stay in the whitehouse or whether he is to be kicked out. They have no saying in that matter, despite their considerable influence in the US.

IMO, what will count is simply domestic - that is, to what extent Kushner is a problem for Trump, and that'll be what solely counts in the question whether Kushner will get the boot or not.

It speaks for itself, in its own way, that the role and tasks of Kushner have been greatly reduced recently.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/11/jared-kushner-horizons-are-collapsing-within-the-west-wing

That's likely to for one to limit the damage the man can or could cause in addition to the damage he has caused, and, if there is someone else doing his former tasks, a boot won't create a great gap if he gets the kick.

So, why that reduction of Kushner's role, I wonder? Well, actually, I don't wonder. I daresay it's because what Kushner has advised as policy has and is gnawing at the reputation of Trump.

Trump by himself is, well, what he is, but in addition to the advice he got and likely still gets from Kushner he isn't exactly getting 'well considerated advice'.

Kushner's poor and ill advice is no problem for Israel, rather they see it as an advantage, but poor and ill policy resulting from such advice is a political and a poll problem for Trump. That IMO is all that'll count here.

Kushner was after all the genius recommending Trump to fire Comey, Kushner was responsible for 'middle east peace', and Kushner was rather friendly to the Saudis and all that.

Now, how well again did firing Comey do Trump? How far is that middle east peace? I haven't seen it yet. And what about the Saudis and what they do? What about Yemen and Quatar? In sum, all of that is hardly a series of successes, a series successes for America that is.

Pissing into Trumps policies Kushner may have done just what Israel and/or the Saudis wanted. But then: What for the US? Where is US, or, naturally, Trump's grand success based on Kushner's briliant advice? Is there any such succes?

Nope, there isn't anything like that and that's the problem for Kushner as an advisor and for Trump as well.

Firing Comey likely wasn't a wise thing to do, and middle east peace is far away, etc. pp. Trump may not be wise or smart but he probably understands when he is getting poor advice from Kushner.

Just to sum it up: ISIS is being kicked by the Syrians, Hezbollah, Iran and Russia - not by the US or Iraq, or by Turkey or Saudi Arabia. What a success. The Turks play their own 'post-NATO' games, with post-osmanian terriotorial ambitions and their support of so far by and large friendly sunni jihadis in Syria and likely in Lebanon. What a success.

The Israelis for their part don't succeed in 'breaking the Shia highway from Iran to Hezbollah', nor did they succeed in overthrowing Assad. What a success for America.

The Saudis, despite being absurdedly rich, cannot get their act together in Yemen. The Saudis got US backing, US aid in their siege of Yemen and likely they get US recce or air refuelling but still fail in Yemen, and fail also in getting Egypt or Pakistan doing the dirty work that the Saudis alone cannot do and fail doing when they try.

What the Saudis excel at in Yemen is besieging and blockading and blowing up a lot of things from the air. Oh yes, and then there is that nasty Cholera desease in Yemen with something like 400.000 being sick and some 2000 or so having died last time I looked.

Yemen's cholera is likely one of the worst human cathastrophies in recent time. The UN speaks of 'a cholera outbreak of unprecedented scale'.

http://www.who.int/dg/speeches/2017/security-council-yemen/en/

I suppose that for Saudis, Israelis and Kushner likely the cholera is ... hmm ... oh yes, it is Iran's and Houthi's fault and certainly not the fault of some neighbour blowing up water cleansing facilities, infrastructure, hospitals and/or bridges and the like ...

IMO if Kushner gets the boot, good riddance.

Huckleberry , 04 December 2017 at 06:50 PM
While I like the Colonel's "Borg" notion, this all strikes me as ZOG.
jdledell , 04 December 2017 at 06:51 PM
I've talked with Israelis who have met with David Friedman, the Trump bankruptcy lawyer, hard right Jew and now U.S. Ambassador to Israel. Quietly, he has told important Israelis to pay no attention to Kushner's ideas about Israel, the mideast, and a peace agreement but treat him nicely so not to P.O. Trump. The consensus is Kushner is in way over his head in many of his foreign affairs ideas.
JohnH , 04 December 2017 at 07:32 PM
It is interesting that media reports leave out the purpose of Flynn's contacts with Russia. Had he just been upfront and said, "I contacted Russia on behalf of the Israeli lobby," I suspect that he would never have been fired or indicted...since violating the law on behalf of Israel seems not to be considered illegal.
notlurking , 04 December 2017 at 09:07 PM
Never a good idea to have family members serving in government positions when you are the president...Daddy Trump does not want to hurt the feelings of darling Ivanka....
Fred -> Keith Harbaugh... , 04 December 2017 at 10:14 PM
Keith,

Next time turn the bold off when you are done.

Eric Newhill said in reply to Yeah, Right... , 04 December 2017 at 10:25 PM
Yeah Right,
Well "everyone who carries water for Israel" would be, well, just about everyone. So, ok, maybe it's not totally Israel's call, but it sure will be the Borg's call. I agree that once they take the lid of that box, unspeakable furies will be released. So they won't.

Whatever Trump thinks of Kushner and whatever his loyalties may be (or not be), Trump isn't running the investigation. Mueller is. Mueller appears to be an assimilate. Ergo, I say that Kushner has nothing to worry about.

FB Ali -> Keith Harbaugh... , 04 December 2017 at 11:27 PM
Keith Harbaugh,

For SST, the "sad news" is that you don't know how to close Bold Lettering after using it.

I would suggest you don't try such fancy stuff until you have discovered how to use it properly.

I have tried to close it off.

Laura , 05 December 2017 at 12:25 AM
Trump is a micro-manager on stuff he thinks 1) he is interested in 2) might know something about and 3) affects him directly. There are actually very few people he interacts with...so it seems to me that if you are "White House," you are following Trump's dictates. Everyone is so afraid of ticking him off (legendarily nasty temper and abusiveness) that they just go with his flow.

Of course, this only works for a while...we may be coming up on the point at which it rather spectacularly stops working.

WJ , 05 December 2017 at 12:30 AM
In my opinion Kushner will be passed over and the move will be directly against Teump on an obstruction of justice charge, which I believe is constitutionally-speaking an impossible charge to prosecute but which can and will be used to pressure Congress to open impeachment proceedings with the aim of either (1) actually removing Trump from office or (2) so thoroughly discrediting his administration that he loses all political wiggle room, esp on foreign policy and trade, for the remainder of his term. Are there enough neocon and establishment Republican types in Congress open to pursuing this? I don't know. There is little Trump can do at this point except to find a way of calling the FBI's bluff more convincingly than he has done, although the media's absolute refusal to do anything but parrot FBI/CIA talking points on the issue has made that task an almost impossible one to achieve. The whole damn FBI investigation into Flynn from the beginning must be shown to be thoroughly empty of real content and entirely politically motivated, as it is; but it is hard to show this when the entire narrative of corporate media has established (by the empty repetition of the same unsubstantiated assertions) that just the opposite is the case.
confusedponderer said in reply to Keith Harbaugh... , 05 December 2017 at 02:25 AM
... let's kill the bolding ;)
dogear , 05 December 2017 at 02:42 AM
Entertaining yarn with running bear

We are all je seus jimmy

confusedponderer said in reply to Huckleberry... , 05 December 2017 at 02:46 AM
Huckleberry,
likely it's more than the ZOG, but simply a grand-standing cross party consensus on nonsense.

Recently I almost spilled my coffe trying not to laugh loud when I read Trump's EPA head, iirc tellingly a guy from industry and a guy hostile to environmental protection, tell me and America why Trump kicking the Kyoto protocoll is a brilliant idea and won't harm the environment.

Why? Well, that's because, so he said, because American coal is very special and very different from the coal found on the rest of the world.

According to him, unlike the coal of the jealous rest of the world, American coal doesn't produce CO2 when being burnt, so it poses no environmental risk. And that the rest of the world only is jealous about that and they want to curb CO2 emissions only to harm America. See? No problem.

IMO that's a hard case of hard idiocy at work. If you don't like what science tells you, speak of 'fake news' and make it up as you like while you go along?

I had chemistry as a focus class in school and thus I very strongly doubt the assertion of the 'EPA head' on how special all that super American coal is.

But isn't that a brilliant leader for a enviromental protection agency? I'd bet that the advice from that genius is about as brilliant as what Kushner offers.

It is so idiotic that I even see the possibility of a Trumpian subversive destruction course: What I mean? Well, not filling so many agency seats is a deliberate policy IMO.

Deliberately don't fill open job slots at agencies, get rid of all these unwanted and unwilling scientists telling you all these bad things and have reliably hostile but reliably happy loons ruin an unwanted agency, to then close it 'because it doesn't work'?

Adrestia , 05 December 2017 at 02:56 AM
stops the bold
LondonBob said in reply to confusedponderer... , 05 December 2017 at 04:39 AM
Trump's mistake was not firing Comey sooner, and appointing Rosenstein, the idea Comey could have stayed on as FBI Director is fantastical.
Dubhaltach said in reply to Keith Harbaugh... , 05 December 2017 at 04:50 AM
In reply to Keith Harbaugh 04 December 2017 at 06:02 PM

Attempting to fix your HTML

Turning to the substance of your post. How is "How Ireland Moved to the Left: 'The Demise of the Church' " even remotely relevant to

My dad was born in 1960 and reared in 1960 - 1970s Catholic Ireland. His description of the viciousness with which the institutional church behaved is chilling. His description of the way in which children were beaten so savagely in the first school he attended that they needed several days to recover sufficiently to be physically capable of attending school is downright horrific. The way in which he and other Irish people of his generation describe the way in which the Catholic church actively promoted sectarianism is horrific. His entirely matter-of-fact description of how he personally was repeatedly singled out because his mother was a protestant is horrific. The revelations of institutionalised sexual abuse are horrific. The revelations of the suffering of children who underwent forced adoptions are horrific. The revelations of mass graves of orphans are horrific. The role of the Catholic hierarchy in preventing the introduction of a healthcare programme for low income children and their mothers at a time when in Ireland TB was killing Irish children in their droves is revolting. If ever there was an institution that illustrates the dictum that "absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely" the Catholic church in Ireland is it.

And you think the decline of the Catholic church's power in Ireland is a pity? In my private life I'm a conservative Catholic and I don't think the decline of the Catholic church's institutional power is a bad thing. On the contrary I think it's a very good thing. Fewer raped and abused children for a start. There was an Irish trade union leader called Jim Larkin who coined the slogan "You'll crucify Christ in this town no longer." conservative Catholic though I am I have to agree that he had a point.

Finally this pattern of institutionalised savagery wasn't just in Ireland. Ireland, Scotland, England and Wales, all have statutory Tribunals of Enquiry running at present and all of them are revealing the same pattern of systematic savagery and sexual abuse. From what I've read and been told by Americans whose word I trust the same appalling and revolting pattern is far from unknown in your country.

John_Frank , 05 December 2017 at 06:02 AM
Was the decision to make contact with various foreign governments, including Russia, to seek to a delay in the UN SC vote on the Palestinian question illegal?

According to Professor Dershowitz, No.

If it was, what about what Reagan did with the Iranians while Carter was President, or what Carter did with Arafat, while Clinton was President?

Also, as others have noted, what about what Obama did in 2008 with Iran, Russia and Syria?

Returning to the topic at hand, what if one can show that Obama's decision making process was motivated by his personal animosity towards the Israeli Prime Minister?

An interview with Alan Dershowitz
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/interrogation/2017/12/an_interview_with_alan_dershowitz_on_trump_and_the_mueller_investigation.html

That written, people may find the following piece by Byron York of interest:

Byron York: In Trump-Russia probe, was it all about the Logan Act?
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/byron-york-in-trump-russia-probe-was-it-all-about-the-logan-act/article/2642434

If individuals within the outgoing administration deliberately contrived to start an investigation, based on an Act that is arguably no longer enforceable, by leaking highly classified intercepted communications, given everything else that has transpired, including allegations of corrupt practices within the Justice Department and the FBI concerning the conduct of the Hillary Clinton investigation and the Russian counter-intelligence investigation, (or if you prefer the Donald Trump investigation), Mr. Mueller's conflicts of interest and legitimate questions about his authority, a defendant with funds, who was determined to fight any allegation by Special Counsel, could quite possibly "tip the whole process over."

LeaNder said in reply to Keith Harbaugh... , 05 December 2017 at 06:51 AM
let's close this.
confusedponderer said in reply to LondonBob... , 05 December 2017 at 08:16 AM
LB,
well, I think I disagree.

IMO Comey was a problem because he investigated things that Trump didn't want to get public and didn't weant to see investigated.

My point is this:

I simply assume there were things Trump didn't want to see investigated or discussed openly, and that's why and how Comey became a problem for Trump.

It's IMO not that Comey was evil or vile or a nasty democrat, but that it was the nasty things he was looking at and into.

Was not Paul John Manafort, Trump's campaign manager, engaged in doing odd policy things in Ukraine and getting money for that from ukie oligarchs? Assuming that the oligarchs likely got that money not entirely legally, it suggests that that was something that was unwanted to get public. And so on.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/19/us/politics/paul-manafort-russia-trump.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/15/us/politics/paul-manafort-ukraine-donald-trump.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/10/30/who-did-manafort-and-gates-work-for-in-ukraine-and-russia/

Or how did Trump get all that money to build all these golf sites when banks were down? That wasn't cheap. And then banks were not lending money, and Trump had a bad rep for being banktrupt a few times - so who did lend him money? And so on.

That's the sort of things I assume Trump didn't want to see investigated or being talked about publicly.

Kicking out Comey was saying: " Oh, well, why not let us talk about something else and do that quickly?

b , 05 December 2017 at 08:18 AM
Slight correction:
"It now appears that Kushner sent Flynn to seek in the president elect's name Russian government cooperation in blocking a resolution at the UN that was unfavorable to Israel."

Kushner sent Flynn to talk to ALL UNSC countries. Russia was just one on that list and to make this about Russia is thereby not adequate.

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/12/01/politics/jared-kushner-michael-flynn-russia/index.html
(CNN)Jared Kushner is the "very senior member" of President Donald Trump's transition team who directed incoming national security adviser Michael Flynn to contact the Russian ambassador to the United States and other countries about a UN Security Council vote on Israeli settlements, sources familiar with the matter tell CNN.

turcopolier , 05 December 2017 at 08:20 AM
confusedponderer

Yes, you are confused. The great majority of unfilled "slots" in the executive branch are for bureaucratic managers and various other kinds of drones. pl

turcopolier , 05 December 2017 at 08:25 AM
confusedponderer

"That's the sort of things I assume Trump didn't want to see investigated or being talked about publicly." That is quite an assumption in the absence of any evidence. pl

turcopolier , 05 December 2017 at 08:28 AM

Thanks. IMO that actually makes Kushner's action as an unregistered Israeli agent worse. pl

The Beaver said in reply to jdledell... , 05 December 2017 at 08:48 AM
@ jdledell
an à propos observation:

As for how Kushner's potential legal exposure in the Mueller probe might complicate the administration's peace efforts, the former Israeli security official said it might be able to survive his distraction or even absence. Kushner's function has largely been "to translate the Greenblatt product to the president and when [needed], to show up with Greenblatt and be the message" that the Greenblatt team speaks for the president.

"If you want to look for a silver lining, this administration has been accumulating pro-Israeli credentials," the former Israeli official said. "When they table a deal, it will be very hard for this [Netanyahu] administration to say no."

https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2017/12/russia-investigation-jared-kushner-mideast-peace-push-saban.html#ixzz50M3gqWCw

turcopolier -> dogear... , 05 December 2017 at 08:56 AM
dogear
"je seus jimmy?" What is it that you are trying to say? pl
ex-PFC Chuck , 05 December 2017 at 09:01 AM
Here's the URL for The Intercept story:
https://theintercept.com/2017/12/04/trump-white-house-weighing-plans-for-private-spies-to-counter-deep-state-enemies/
Greco said in reply to notlurking... , 05 December 2017 at 09:04 AM
The Kushner family is very influential and holds some sway in Democrat circles. I don't know if Trump could have become president without him. And he played the key role in bringing in men like Gary Cohn.
LeaNder said in reply to jdledell... , 05 December 2017 at 09:15 AM
jdledell, what's your take on Trump's campaign promise and so far only postponed decision to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem?

The consensus is Kushner is in way over his head in many of his foreign affairs ideas.

Whoever wasn't before including Clinton?

I read Powers complete statement or her explanation of why the Obama admin choose abstention versus the usual veto on The Times of Israel. Published by the TOI staff.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/full-text-of-us-envoy-samantha-powers-speech-after-abstention-on-anti-settlement-vote/

Greco said in reply to confusedponderer... , 05 December 2017 at 09:17 AM
Because cheaper energy prices in China, who use coal to fuel their country, makes them a more attractive alternative for setting up production than in the US, where they're banning coal. Lower energy prices in the US means its more affordable for manufacturing in the US.

You want to see the economy sputter and eventually collapse on the weight of its own welfare commitments to a jobless public? Ban coal, it will get the US there all the quicker.

ex-PFC Chuck said in reply to Dubhaltach... , 05 December 2017 at 09:20 AM
If ever there was an institution that illustrates the dictum that "absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely" the Catholic church in Ireland is it.

When Lord Acton uttered this famous quote, he was referring specifically to Pope Pius IX and his minions as they were ramming through the approval of doctrine of papal infallibility at the Vatican I Council. In violation of the precedents of Canon Law, free expression on the part of the bishops and other clergy who opposed it was suppressed and the lay Catholic Acton was the de facto leader of what opposition there was.

SR Wood said in reply to Dubhaltach... , 05 December 2017 at 09:35 AM
You mean the popular BBC series Ballykissangel was just looking at 60's Ireland through rose colored glasses. Darn!
Greco , 05 December 2017 at 09:47 AM
He's set to leave according to rumours, but I think Flynn will give up Kushner in exchange. Kushner's lawyers will attack Flynn's credibility, since Flynn plead guilty to lying. Unlike Flynn, Kushner can afford very good lawyers and beat the case. I imagine Kushner will take the flack for ordering Flynn, thus "exonerating" Trump of any potential wrongdoing regardless of whether Trump did in fact order Flynn or not. And I don't see Kushner being exposed as some kind of Israeli operative, not while Zucker, Lack, Rhodes and others head major corporate news networks.
LeaNder said in reply to John_Frank ... , 05 December 2017 at 09:50 AM
Thanks Frank, have been missing "the Dersh". Bias alert: I was highly pleased that a South African case in which he seems to have been involved as legal adviser has taken a different turn recently.

But strictly in our present context, I wondered too. My nitwit take: Considering we live in a 'democratic' society wouldn't we either as simple humans or collectively representing some interest groups have been quite free to lobby to change the vote too?

If we at least 'theoretically' are, then neither Flynn nor Kushner can have done anything wrong.

Steve G said in reply to Dubhaltach... , 05 December 2017 at 11:19 AM
Dubhaltach
Grew up in a Polish Catholic neighborhood. I attended
public school where as the majority of the kids went
to the now renamed Pope John Paul II school within
the church. Had to fight my way home and on the
local school yard a half a block where I lived too
many times to remember. The boys seemed the meanest
group I had ever encountered. Later learned the nuns
were ruthless disciplinarians as well as the " brothers"
who taught high school.
And yes the Pope did visit the school.
jsn -> confusedponderer... , 05 December 2017 at 12:50 PM
Confusedponderer,
I agree with almost all of what you wrote here, in addition, entrapment was Muellers expertise at FBI: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/how-fbi-entrapment-is-inventing-terrorists-and-letting-bad-guys-off-the-hook-20120515 Which looks to be what he is up to now for an obstruction charge against the Donald: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/454311/mueller-strategy-obstruction-justice-investigation-leading-impeachment

What information Trump has on Clinton with regards to Russian uranium stock purchase and the Clinton Foundation is critical here as this Clinton Cluster**** happened on Mueller's watch at FBI and could make him look both partisan and corrupt.

John_Frank , 05 December 2017 at 03:03 PM
On a somewhat related basis, this morning the media was reporting that Mueller had subpoenaed records from Deutsche Bank.

1. Read for example this piece by Reuters:

Deutsche Bank gets subpoena from Mueller on Trump accounts: source
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-deutsche-bank/deutsche-bank-gets-subpoena-from-mueller-on-trump-accounts-source-idUSKBN1DZ0XN

However, according to John Roberts of Fox News:

Fox News John Roberts: Mueller has NOT issued a subpoena for Deutsche Bank
https://t.co/vy6NRdvi77

According to the Reuters report, the reason that Mueller wanted to see certain records are two fold:

"A U.S. official with knowledge of Mueller's probe said one reason for the subpoenas was to find out whether Deutsche Bank may have sold some of Trump's mortgage or other loans to Russian state development bank VEB or other Russian banks that now are under U.S. and European Union sanctions.

Holding such debt, particularly if some of it was or is coming due, could potentially give Russian banks some leverage over Trump, especially if they are state-owned, said a second U.S. official familiar with Russian intelligence methods.

"One obvious question is why Trump and those around him expressed interest in improving relations with Russia as a top foreign policy priority, and whether or not any personal considerations played any part in that," the second official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

A source close to Deutsche Bank said the bank had run checks on Trump's financial dealings with Russia.

During his election campaign, Trump said he would seek to improve ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin, which were strained during President Barack Obama's administration.

There was no immediate response to the Deutsche Bank subpoena from Trump's lawyers.

The subpoena was earlier reported by German daily Handelsblatt."

To repeat, according to one unnamed US official, Mueller wants to know:

"One obvious question is why Trump and those around him expressed interest in improving relations with Russia as a top foreign policy priority, and whether or not any personal considerations played any part in that," the second official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

So, wanting to have better relations with Russia is now a crime?

2. As to Bloomberg, this morning, Jennifer Jacobs tweeted:

Deutsche Bank management is ready to share information about the lender's dealings with Trump, a bank executive told Bloomberg.
https://twitter.com/JenniferJJacobs/status/938033568198033413

She did that after posting a link to this article with the headline in her tweet:

Mueller investigation goes after Trump's bank records.
https://twitter.com/JenniferJJacobs/status/938018356476727296

Mueller Subpoenas Trump Deutsche Bank Records
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-05/deutsche-bank-is-said-to-have-received-subpoena-on-client-trump

3. Also, if John Roberts is correct, (and I suspect that he is) that no subpoena has been issued, has not the reputation of Reuters and Bloomberg been blown up by their reporting?

It looks like someone is seeking to "shape the narrative" with misleading reporting.

Croesus said in reply to LeaNder... , 05 December 2017 at 03:23 PM
Perhaps "nitwit" is not the word you're looking for; that word is demeaning. You might be looking for something more like, "from my limited understanding," or, "as clearly as I can figure it out . . ."

"Nitwit" just means, "i'm scatterbrained and dumb," and you are not that.

Laura said in reply to Greco... , 05 December 2017 at 03:50 PM
Greco -- I'll bet Kushner is the one they love to hate...someone is going to give him up because of who he is married to. They can't go after her, but they can sure do him in.

"Sacraficial zink."

Babak Makkinejad said in reply to Croesus... , 05 December 2017 at 04:07 PM
I agree with this.

But I have my doubts about her being a German; or else they do not teach anything useful in the gymnasia.

Fred -> Dubhaltach... , 05 December 2017 at 04:30 PM
Dubhaltach,

"this pattern of institutionalised savagery ..."
I am reliably informed by multiple US Senators that 1 in 5 women on college campuses in the US are sexually assaulted. There are zero warnings posted on any of them; zero university presidents have been fired because of this particular version of "instutionalized" savagery. Zero of these senators nor the president from the same political party have called for a "statutory Tribunal of Enquiry" - yet. However there is a fine campaign to create a narrative about male sexuality. "Toxic Masculinity". Today's edition of USA Today has a page and a half contribution to same. I am shocked, just shocked, that the author, Jessica Guynn, made zero mention of Senator (((Franken))) or Harvey (((Weinstein))) or just what political party they belong to. Who - Whom is still a question forbidden in the mainstream media. All of which has nothing to do with the topic of the thread.

Fred -> John_Frank ... , 05 December 2017 at 04:33 PM
John Frank,

Did you miss that ABC News suspending Brian Ross for his last fake news report about the Trump investigation?

John_Frank -> Fred... , 05 December 2017 at 04:49 PM
No.
John_Frank -> John_Frank ... , 05 December 2017 at 04:52 PM
More from John Roberts of Fox News:

On the record from @realDonaldTrump attorney @JaySekulow - NO SUBPOENA TO DEUTSCHE BAN

https://twitter.com/johnrobertsFox/status/938144926956695552

How difficult is it for members of the press to trot on down to the Federal District Court in Washington, D.C. and check the court records?

Keith Harbaugh said in reply to Fred... , 05 December 2017 at 07:21 PM
Fred, and others:
As usual, I intended to "Preview" that comment before posting it.
I was working fast, and after entering the draft text,
with a number of embedded carriage returns,
(like those in this comment),
I entered my name and email address,
then intended to Preview the message.
Unfortunately, working fast and without thinking, I again hit "Enter" (on the keyboard) after entering the email address,
rather than clicking on "Preview".
That keyboard "Enter", outside of the text entry box,
posted the offending comment.
Very sorry; I apologize.
Thanks to FB Ali for closing the guilty HTML tag
(his reply is where the bolding currently ends).
And thanks to Col. Lang for accepting the comment.
LeaNder said in reply to Croesus... , 06 December 2017 at 09:38 AM
Croesus, thanks for the linguistic support, appreciated.

Fact is, I love the word wit. For longer now, for reasons that would take to long to explain. Wit, (Witz), nitwit? Thus almost naturally I love nitwit too. Just as I like Shakespeare's fools or jesters. ... Dimwit? Fool? Stupid (as noun)?

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/nitwit

But yes, absolutely no doubt it could be an insult or at least demeaning. But also if I use it as signifier for myself?

Strictly, it would be more complex to explain but this partly triggered it, a part of a comment I stumbled across here was at the back of my mind to. Thus a bit scatterbrained? Not always completely focused. Without any doubt. The evidence:

The Big Dersh: "I predicted the deal with Flynn," he said, offering an example of his predictive capacities. "Not because I am smarter, but because I am more objective."

Did you follow John Frank's links to Slate's Isaac Chotiner, the linked Slate article The Dersh mistook as written by Isaac too and beyond? Was an interesting journey.

LeaNder said in reply to Babak Makkinejad... , 06 December 2017 at 09:47 AM
Babak, remember not my fault, the Diocletian Line! Useful, useless.
Babak Makkinejad said in reply to Fred... , 06 December 2017 at 09:47 AM
You live in Michigan, how many such cases are there at Ferris, Grand Valley, MSU, Oakland, Wayne, UofM, Central, Mich Tech, Western Michigan?

[Aug 20, 2017] Mr. Bannon openly complained to White House colleagues that he resented how Ms. Trump would try to undo some of the major policy initiatives that he and Mr. Trump agreed were important to the presidents economic nationalist agenda

Notable quotes:
"... "Those days are over when Ivanka can run in and lay her head on the desk and cry," he told multiple people. ..."
"... Mr. Bannon made little secret of the fact that he believed "Javanka," as he referred to the couple behind their backs, had naïve political instincts and were going to alienate Mr. Trump's core coalition of white working-class voters. ..."
"... He also advised that ideological softening would buy the president no good will from Democrats or independent voters, whom Mr. Kushner and Ms. Trump believe Mr. Trump still has a chance of reaching. ..."
"... "They hate the very mention of his name," Mr. Bannon told them. "There is no constituency for this." ..."
"... His advice for the president: "You've got the base. And you grow the base by getting" things done. ..."
Aug 20, 2017 | www.msn.com

With little process to speak of, tensions over policy swelled. Ideological differences devolved into caustic personality clashes. Perhaps nowhere was the mutual disgust thicker than between Mr. Bannon and Mr. Trump's daughter and son-in-law.

Mr. Bannon openly complained to White House colleagues that he resented how Ms. Trump would try to undo some of the major policy initiatives that he and Mr. Trump agreed were important to the president's economic nationalist agenda, like withdrawing from the Paris climate accords. In this sense, he was relieved when Mr. Kelly took over and put in place a structure that kept other aides from freelancing.

"Those days are over when Ivanka can run in and lay her head on the desk and cry," he told multiple people.

Mr. Bannon made little secret of the fact that he believed "Javanka," as he referred to the couple behind their backs, had naïve political instincts and were going to alienate Mr. Trump's core coalition of white working-class voters.

He told White House colleagues including the president that too many conservative Republicans in Congress would balk if Mr. Trump took their advice and showed more flexibility on immigration, particularly toward young undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children.

He also advised that ideological softening would buy the president no good will from Democrats or independent voters, whom Mr. Kushner and Ms. Trump believe Mr. Trump still has a chance of reaching.

"They hate the very mention of his name," Mr. Bannon told them. "There is no constituency for this."

His advice for the president: "You've got the base. And you grow the base by getting" things done.

[May 29, 2017] Jared Kushner Reportedly Discussed Setting Up Secret Communication Channel With Moscow by Mary Papenfuss

Is really Russian ambassador so negligent that he posted such an information over open channel? I doubt it. that means that Hayden may be lying and this is just a part of Purple revolution campaign of discreditation of Trump administration. Otherwise he reveals that the NSA broke Russian diplomatic communication cipher, which is biog NO-NO.
Notable quotes:
"... Without specifically mentioning the report about Kushner, Trump tweeted Sunday in an apparent response to a number of recent stories about his administration that "leaks coming out of the White House are fabricated lies." ..."
"... Kushner's reported plan is evidence of an extreme cynicism about "organs of the state," said Hayden, and a belief that government institutions only serve the self-interests of the president currently in power. The apparent implication of such a Kremlin link was that the Trump team trusted Russian agents more than the outgoing Obama administration or the U.S. intelligence community. ..."
May 29, 2017 | www.huffingtonpost.com

Kushner's reported actions suggest "we are in a really dark place as a society," Michael Hayden said.

Former CIA Director General Michael Hayden said that the reported plan by chief White House adviser Jared Kushner's to arrange secret communications with the Russians during President Donald Trump's transition was "off the map" and like nothing he has seen in his lifetime.

Hayden wants to chalk up the stunning plan to "naivete" rather than evil intentions - but that's not reassuring, he said in an interview on CNN.

"Right now, I'm going with naivete, and that's not particularly comforting for me," he said. "What manner of ignorance, chaos, hubris, suspicion, contempt would you have to have to think that doing this with the Russian ambassador was a good or an appropriate idea?"

Hayden was commenting on reports, which first appeared in The Washington Post Friday, that Kushner discussed last December establishing a secret communication channel with the Kremlin - using Russian facilities - without any monitoring by the U.S.

Kushner discussed the idea in Trump Tower with Sergei Kislyak, Russia's ambassador to the U.S., who was surprised by the request, the Post reported, because of security risks such an arrangement would pose to both countries.

Kushner emerged last Thursday as a person of interest in the FBI's investigation of Russian interference in the U.S. presidential election.

Without specifically mentioning the report about Kushner, Trump tweeted Sunday in an apparent response to a number of recent stories about his administration that "leaks coming out of the White House are fabricated lies."

Kushner's reported plan is evidence of an extreme cynicism about "organs of the state," said Hayden, and a belief that government institutions only serve the self-interests of the president currently in power. The apparent implication of such a Kremlin link was that the Trump team trusted Russian agents more than the outgoing Obama administration or the U.S. intelligence community.

"What degree of suspicion of the existing government, what degree of contempt for the administration they were replacing would be required again to think this was an acceptable course of action?" he asked.

Hayden added: "It says an awful lot about us as a society that we could actually harbor those kinds of feelings that the organs of the state would be used by my predecessor to come after me or ... to disrupt my administration in a way that made it seem legitimate to me to use the secure communications facilities of a foreign power - a foreign power that some in government alleged you were cooperating with to affect the American election."

It's evidence, he added, that "we are in a really dark place as a society."

[May 29, 2017] The anger toward Kushner among former Observer employees runs deep

Notable quotes:
"... Elizabeth Spiers, a former Observer editor, has told the story of how Kushner directed her to dig up dirt on Richard Mack, another real estate developer who held some of the debt on one of Kushner's buildings, after he refused to write down the loan during a cash-flow crunch. ..."
"... "Jared told me he had a story he wanted us to pursue and that it was very important to him." Spiers says she knew Kushner had an agenda, but agreed to run it down. "Apparently, Richard Mack had been on the other end of some transaction nearly gone wrong and it had rubbed Jared the wrong way," she wrote. ..."
"... Vicky Ward, a well-regarded journalist who profiled Kushner for Esquire, disclosed last year that he then ordered Spiers to find an authority outside the newsroom to write the same story: her. She declined. ..."
"... Spiers departed on amicable terms with Kushner, she says, but the anger toward him among former Observer employees runs deep ..."
"... Just before the election, Kahlon described her former boss on Facebook thusly: "We're talking about a guy who isn't particularly bright or hard-working, doesn't actually know anything, has bought his way into everything ever (with money he got from his criminal father), who is deeply insecure and obsessed with fame (you don't buy the NYO, marry Ivanka Trump, or constantly talk about the phone calls you get from celebrities if it's in your nature to 'shun the spotlight'), and who is basically a sh!thead." ..."
May 29, 2017 | economistsview.typepad.com
EMichael May 27, 2017 at 10:32 AM Sounds like Ivanka married her daddy.....
"Elizabeth Spiers, a former Observer editor, has told the story of how Kushner directed her to dig up dirt on Richard Mack, another real estate developer who held some of the debt on one of Kushner's buildings, after he refused to write down the loan during a cash-flow crunch. "[D]uring one of our weekly meetings," she wrote in a blog post, "Jared told me he had a story he wanted us to pursue and that it was very important to him." Spiers says she knew Kushner had an agenda, but agreed to run it down. "Apparently, Richard Mack had been on the other end of some transaction nearly gone wrong and it had rubbed Jared the wrong way," she wrote.

Spiers put her most aggressive real estate reporter, Dan Geiger, on the case-but after calling up "everyone within a 100-mile radius of the subject," the best he could find were vague suggestions that Mack could be "kind of an !!shole." Kushner was disappointed and insisted she assign another reporter to the story-who also came up empty. Vicky Ward, a well-regarded journalist who profiled Kushner for Esquire, disclosed last year that he then ordered Spiers to find an authority outside the newsroom to write the same story: her. She declined."

Spiers departed on amicable terms with Kushner, she says, but the anger toward him among former Observer employees runs deep. Harleen Kahlon was an experienced digital media maven when she was hired by Kushner in 2010 to boost the paper's digital outreach. The two worked closely to redesign the website, with a weekly one-on-one meeting in her office in which Kushner would come in, put his feet up on her desk and check in on the progress of the site's redesign, for which he hired one of New York's top digital firms. "He would compensate his lack of knowledge by saying stuff like, 'Let's just blow up the whole concept of digital.' It would sort of sound interesting for a second and then you would just forget about it and get on with the work."

At the end of the year, when she went to collect her performance bonus at his real estate office for meeting agreed upon metrics on page views and audience growth, Kushner told her that they couldn't pay, citing financial concerns, and asked her to "take one for the team." Instead, Kahlon abruptly quit. Ever since, whenever she sees him on TV or on the streets of New York, she points him out to people as: "the guy that stole my money."

Just before the election, Kahlon described her former boss on Facebook thusly: "We're talking about a guy who isn't particularly bright or hard-working, doesn't actually know anything, has bought his way into everything ever (with money he got from his criminal father), who is deeply insecure and obsessed with fame (you don't buy the NYO, marry Ivanka Trump, or constantly talk about the phone calls you get from celebrities if it's in your nature to 'shun the spotlight'), and who is basically a sh!thead."

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/05/25/jared-kushner-russia-fbi-donald-trump-215191

[May 16, 2017] US President Jared Kushner called Canadian PM to stop Trump from ending NAFTA

Notable quotes:
"... Kushner told his Canadian counterpart that this was a matter the leaders needed to discuss themselves, according to the White House official, who insisted on anonymity in order to discuss private conversations. ..."
"... But accounts of Kushner's involvement differed Monday in Canadian media reports, which claims it was he who first reached out to Trudeau's chief of staff to suggest a call between the two leaders. ..."
May 16, 2017 | www.eutimes.net
Before everything else, America needs to know that US President Jared Kushner violated the Logan act and this is punishable by 3 years imprisonment by calling Canadian prime minister in order to convince Zio-slave Donald Trump not to scrap NAFTA.

Jared Kushner urgently asked Canada's prime minister, Justin Trudeau, to persuade President Trump to reconsider his decision to withdraw from NAFTA, according to Canadian media reports.

A White House official insists that it was the other way around – Trudeau aides in Ottawa desperately tried to get Kushner to intervene and prevent Trump from pulling out of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Earlier on Monday, it was reported that 'aides to Trump' asked Trudeau two weeks ago to call their boss and persuade him to back down from his pledge to quit NAFTA, according to the National Post.

It later emerged that the White House aide who contacted Ottawa was the president's son-in-law, Kushner, Metro reported.

On April 26, Trump told Trudeau and Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto that he would not immediately pull out of NAFTA, just hours after administration officials said he was considering a draft executive order to do just that.

Kushner, who has an expansive profile that includes foreign policy, speaks regularly to Canadian officials on a range of issues.

Trudeau has also sought to publicly engage Trump's daughter, Ivanka, as part of his efforts to build bridges with the new administration.

Trudeau sat in on a White House meeting chaired by Ivanka Trump about empowering women in the workplace and supporting female-owned businesses.

The Canadian premier and the president's daughter also attended a Broadway show about welcoming immigrants.

An unnamed White House source claims that Trudeau aides urgently phoned Kushner after hearing that the president was about to sign an executive order to pull out of NAFTA.

Kushner told his Canadian counterpart that this was a matter the leaders needed to discuss themselves, according to the White House official, who insisted on anonymity in order to discuss private conversations.

The Canadians asked when Trudeau should call.

After checking at the White House, Kushner called back to say Trump was ready to talk now.

Trump has cited the call from Trudeau that quickly followed as the impetus for his decision to abandon the executive order and instead move to renegotiate NAFTA with Canada and Mexico.

The president also wielded the call from Trudeau, as well as a separate call from Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto.

But accounts of Kushner's involvement differed Monday in Canadian media reports, which claims it was he who first reached out to Trudeau's chief of staff to suggest a call between the two leaders.

After the phone calls with Trudeau and Pena Nieto, the White House made the surprise announcement that the US would remain in NAFTA pending a re-negotiation of its terms with its two neighbors.

'President Trump agreed not to terminate NAFTA at this time and the leaders agreed to proceed swiftly, according to their required internal procedures, to enable the renegotiation of the NAFTA deal to the benefit of all three countries,' said the White House.

Trump is also said to have reconsiders after his top advisers pleaded with him to do so.

Trump had pledged during his election campaign to end US participation in the agreement, which he branded 'one of the worst deals ever'.

But Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and Agricultural Secretary Sonny Perdue – who showed the President a map showing the areas which would be badly affected – talked him out of the move.

In an interview in the Oval Office, Trump told Washington Post: 'I was all set to terminate. I looked forward to terminating. I was going to do it.'

After being shown the impact the move would have on farmers in areas which supported him in the election last year, the President agreed to listen.

He said: 'It shows that I do have a very big farmer base, which is good. They like Trump, but I like them, and I'm going to help them.'

Trump was reportedly being lobbied to take the US out of NAFTA by Steve Bannon, the White House chief strategist, and Peter Navarro, who heads the National Trade Council.

The two men are believed to have drafted an executive order that just needed the president's signature in order to begin the process of terminating US participation in NAFTA.

'You never know how much of it is theater, but it didn't feel that way,' a Canadian government official told National Post.

'Maybe they're just learning how to be a government. At least they were open to the conversation, and that stopped them doing something rash and destructive.'

WHAT IS NAFTA?

The North American Free Trade Agreement between Canada, Mexico and the United States was signed into law in 1994 under President Bill Clinton.

The framework of the deal was first drafted under President Ronald Reagan in 1987.

NAFTA essentially eliminated almost all tariffs among the three nations, allowing for the seamless flow of goods and supplies across borders.

Today, approximately $1.4billion in goods cross the US-Mexico border every day.

NAFTA also makes it easy for companies to move operations from the US to Mexico.

NAFTA also ushered in a new era of regional and bilateral free trade agreements, which have proliferated as the World Trade Organization's global trade talks have stagnated.

The United States now has FTAs with twenty countries, and is pushing for major new regional deals with Asia and Europe.

NAFTA also pioneered the incorporation of labor and environmental provisions in US trade agreements, provisions which have become progressively more comprehensive in subsequent FTAs.

Economists largely agree that NAFTA has provided benefits to the North American economies.

Regional trade increased sharply over the treaty's first two decades, from roughly $290 billion in 1993 to more than $1.1 trillion in 2016.

Cross-border investment has also surged, with US foreign direct investment (FDI) stock in Mexico increasing in that period from $15 billion to more than $100 billion.

But experts also say that it has proven difficult to tease out the deal's direct effects from other factors, including rapid technological change, expanded trade with other countries such as China, and unrelated domestic developments in each of the countries.

Debate persists regarding NAFTA's legacy on employment and wages, with some workers and industries facing painful disruptions as they lose market share due to increased competition, and others gaining from the new market opportunities that were created.

Source

[May 11, 2017] I'm Starting To Worry About Ivanka Trumps Moderating Influence by Jason Linkins

Syria strike is not mentioned, but this HaffPo junk after all ;-)
Notable quotes:
"... concocted out of thin air ..."
"... Ivanka Trump ― along with her husband, Jared Kushner ― has been thought to occupy rarified space within Trump's constellation of voices, if only because she is one Trump adviser that can never lose her job. ..."
"... And weeks ago, The New York Times reasserted Ivanka's bona fides depicting her as an "all-around confidante" for her father, an "adviser whose portfolio has few parameters," and one of the "highest-ranking women" in Trump's senior staff. ..."
May 11, 2017 | www.huffingtonpost.com
On the other hand it could be that Ivanka Trump is actually complicit in her father's decisions ( as is her husband , who reportedly backed Trump's decision to fire Comey) and all this talk about the way she has the unique power to steer her father from his most reckless decisions is just something that was ― I don't know ... concocted out of thin air ? Wow, you know, if that were the case, then her role as a White House adviser might have to be reassessed. But surely there's no need. Based on the way the media has covered Ivanka Trump over the past year, consistently asserting her as a "moderating influence," it's clear that the real story is that her ability to guide her father's decision-making process is now decidedly on the wane. Yeah, that has to be what's happening. In a way this is nothing new. Since its inception, the Trump White House has been a hothouse of factional infighting , with various players in opposing camps gaining or losing leverage over the president's decision-making process.

But Ivanka Trump ― along with her husband, Jared Kushner ― has been thought to occupy rarified space within Trump's constellation of voices, if only because she is one Trump adviser that can never lose her job.

... ... ...

And weeks ago, The New York Times reasserted Ivanka's bona fides depicting her as an "all-around confidante" for her father, an "adviser whose portfolio has few parameters," and one of the "highest-ranking women" in Trump's senior staff. According to this report, she and her father "trade thoughts from morning until late at night," and she has a role in reviewing "some executive orders before they are signed." Per the Times:

In interviews last week, she said she intended to act as a moderating force in an administration swept into office by nationalist sentiment. Other officials added that she had weighed in on topics including climate, deportation, education, and refugee policy.

However, the Times noted that there was scant evidence to indicate she'd ever actually successfully manifested this ability to influence her father's thinking or change his mind. Obviously, only a nattering nabob of negativism would suggest that she may, in fact, have actually been very influential to Trump's thinking all this while, or that she is personally approving of his policy choices and comfortable with the ethno-nationalist tinge to her father's politics. Nevertheless, Trump's decision to fire Comey ― along with his daughter's decision to not attempt to intervene ― demonstrates that she might be becoming an increasingly marginalized figure in her father's administration.

... ... ...

[May 11, 2017] Im Starting To Worry About Ivanka Trumps Moderating Influence by Jason Linkins

Syria strike is not mentioned, but this HaffPo after all ;-)
Notable quotes:
"... concocted out of thin air ..."
"... Ivanka Trump ― along with her husband, Jared Kushner ― has been thought to occupy rarified space within Trump's constellation of voices, if only because she is one Trump adviser that can never lose her job. ..."
"... And weeks ago, The New York Times reasserted Ivanka's bona fides depicting her as an "all-around confidante" for her father, an "adviser whose portfolio has few parameters," and one of the "highest-ranking women" in Trump's senior staff. ..."
May 11, 2017 | www.huffingtonpost.com
On the other hand it could be that Ivanka Trump is actually complicit in her father's decisions ( as is her husband , who reportedly backed Trump's decision to fire Comey) and all this talk about the way she has the unique power to steer her father from his most reckless decisions is just something that was ― I don't know ... concocted out of thin air ? Wow, you know, if that were the case, then her role as a White House adviser might have to be reassessed. But surely there's no need. Based on the way the media has covered Ivanka Trump over the past year, consistently asserting her as a "moderating influence," it's clear that the real story is that her ability to guide her father's decision-making process is now decidedly on the wane. Yeah, that has to be what's happening. In a way this is nothing new. Since its inception, the Trump White House has been a hothouse of factional infighting , with various players in opposing camps gaining or losing leverage over the president's decision-making process.

But Ivanka Trump ― along with her husband, Jared Kushner ― has been thought to occupy rarified space within Trump's constellation of voices, if only because she is one Trump adviser that can never lose her job.

... ... ...

And weeks ago, The New York Times reasserted Ivanka's bona fides depicting her as an "all-around confidante" for her father, an "adviser whose portfolio has few parameters," and one of the "highest-ranking women" in Trump's senior staff. According to this report, she and her father "trade thoughts from morning until late at night," and she has a role in reviewing "some executive orders before they are signed." Per the Times:

In interviews last week, she said she intended to act as a moderating force in an administration swept into office by nationalist sentiment. Other officials added that she had weighed in on topics including climate, deportation, education, and refugee policy.

However, the Times noted that there was scant evidence to indicate she'd ever actually successfully manifested this ability to influence her father's thinking or change his mind. Obviously, only a nattering nabob of negativism would suggest that she may, in fact, have actually been very influential to Trump's thinking all this while, or that she is personally approving of his policy choices and comfortable with the ethno-nationalist tinge to her father's politics. Nevertheless, Trump's decision to fire Comey ― along with his daughter's decision to not attempt to intervene ― demonstrates that she might be becoming an increasingly marginalized figure in her father's administration.

... ... ...

[May 07, 2017] Breaking Trump Clan Embraces Chinese Immigration The American Conservative

Notable quotes:
"... Over several hours of slide shows and presentations, representatives from the Kushner family business urged Chinese citizens gathered at a Ritz-Carlton hotel to consider investing hundreds of thousands of dollars in a New Jersey luxury apartment complex that would help them secure what's known as an investor visa. ..."
"... Mr. Kushner has said that he has stepped back from the day-to-day operations of the family business. But government ethics filings show that he and Ivanka Trump, his wife and the president's daughter, continue to benefit from Kushner Companies' real estate and investment businesses, a stake worth as much as $600 million, and probably much more. ..."
May 07, 2017 | www.theamericanconservative.com
This report from the Washington Post has to be fake news , because there is no way that any entity connected to the administration of President Donald J. Trump would attempt to draw Chinese immigrants into the US for their own personal financial benefit, given the president's strong views on immigration and China. Right? Right?! Excerpts:

BEIJING - The Kushner family came to the United States as refugees, worked hard and made it big - and if you invest in Kushner properties, so can you.

That was the message delivered Saturday by White House senior adviser Jared Kushner's sister Nicole Kushner Meyer to a ballroom full of wealthy Chinese investors in Beijing.

Over several hours of slide shows and presentations, representatives from the Kushner family business urged Chinese citizens gathered at a Ritz-Carlton hotel to consider investing hundreds of thousands of dollars in a New Jersey luxury apartment complex that would help them secure what's known as an investor visa.

The potential investors were advised to invest sooner rather than later in case visa rules change under the Trump administration. "Invest early, and you will invest under the old rules," one speaker said.

The tagline on a brochure for the event: "Invest $500,000 and immigrate to the United States."

More:

And the highlight of the afternoon was Meyer, a principal for the company, who was introduced in promotional materials as Jared's sister.

The event underscores the extent to which Kushner's private business interests have the potential to collide with his powerful role as a top official in his father-in-law's White House, particularly when it comes to China, where Kushner has become a crucial diplomatic channel between Beijing and the new administration.

While Kushner has reported divesting from elements of the family business, including the specific project that his sister pitched in Beijing, the session Saturday demonstrated that the company is perceived as enjoying close ties to the Trump administration. Ethics laws prohibit government officials from profiting personally from their public-sector work.

Watchdogs and ethics experts on Saturday criticized the Beijing event as an attempt to cash in on Kushner's newfound proximity to power.

"It's incredibly stupid and highly inappropriate," said Richard Painter, the former chief White House ethics lawyer in President George W. Bush's administration, who has become a vocal critic of the Trump administration. "They clearly imply that the Kushners are going to make sure you get your visa. . . . They're [Chinese applicants] not going to take a chance. Of course they're going to want to invest."

Read the whole thing. This thing wouldn't pass the smell test even down here in the Banana Republic of Louisiana. Just to get this straight: to the Trump administration, immigration is bad, unless the immigrants come bearing fortunes that stand to benefit to Kushner clan. Some bunch of nationalists this lot is!

What a racket, this administration. It does appear from this that the family is so greedy that it doesn't care that its godfather, Donald Trump, sold himself to the American people as someone who opposes liberal immigration policies and who thinks China is sticking it to the American people on trade matters. And you know what? Why should he care, if Americans who voted for him are content with, "But but but Gorsuch !"?

Look:

I was threatened, harassed and forced to delete recordings and photos of The Kushner family recruiting Chinese investors in US Green cards. https://t.co/8IG5LzjbaU

- Congcong Zhang (@daphnewelkin5) May 6, 2017

Here's a slide shown during Kushner Co. event in Beijing identifying @realDonaldTrump as "key decision maker" on EB-5 investor visa program pic.twitter.com/j1M4E7eGtQ

- Javier C. Hernández (@HernandezJavier) May 6, 2017

UPDATE: It's on to Shanghai for the shameless Kushners, reports the NYTimes :

Mr. Kushner has said that he has stepped back from the day-to-day operations of the family business. But government ethics filings show that he and Ivanka Trump, his wife and the president's daughter, continue to benefit from Kushner Companies' real estate and investment businesses, a stake worth as much as $600 million, and probably much more.

The Shanghai event, at the opulent Four Seasons Hotel, was patrolled by burly security guards who screened those in attendance and kept journalists outside, in an elevator lobby. The organizers had refused on Saturday to allow late registration as word spread of the Beijing event. One guard at the Shanghai event was heard saying that at least some of the participants would be leaving through a private back exit.

But some who attended described an investor pitch similar to the one in Beijing, and Mr. Trump's political power was palpable at the Shanghai event even if his name went unsaid. As on Saturday in Beijing, one slide presented to the Shanghai audience on Sunday showed a photograph of Mr. Trump when describing who will decide the future of the visa program for foreign investors, according to a snapshot taken by an audience member.

The Kushner Companies' marketing push comes as Mr. Kushner is emerging as a crucial voice on China relations, brokering meetings between his father-in-law and top Chinese government officials.

While the Trump connection piqued the interest of many people in attendance, such events soliciting investors for projects in the United States are not unusual in China. The so-called EB-5 visa program awards foreign investors the right to live in the United States for two years and a path to permanent residency, in exchange for investments of at least $500,000 in American development projects. A bright red line near the top of the posters in the Four Seasons lobby prominently mentioned EB-5 visas.

About three-quarters of the roughly 10,000 investor visas issued last year went to Chinese nationals.

Although the program was created as a way to finance projects in economically troubled neighborhoods, it has instead turned into a form of cheap financing for luxury real estate developers. Applicants are primarily seeking the visa, so they do not seek a significant return on their investment.

Posted in China , Immigration , Weimar America , All Things Trump . Tagged China , immigration , Trump , Kushners .
  • MH - Secular Misanthropist , says: May 7, 2017 at 10:10 am
    I completely understand why engaging in this should be off limits the Kushners. But this sort of thing is big business in Boston for years. It seems a lot Chinese who make a lot of money realize the value of the rule of law. So they invest in projects to move their money to the US, and then immigrate to the US. Many of their children were already going to schools here as well, so it was basically a multi-generation exodus.
    Oakinhou , says: May 7, 2017 at 10:14 am
    I wonder if Kushher made it clear that people that invest 500k in any business is entitled to a visa. Investing in Kushner Properties is not a requirement.

    The brother of one of my best friends is applying for an Investor green card right now. Let's see how fast his is processed compared to those for investors in the Trump and family businesses

    MikeCA , says: May 7, 2017 at 11:46 am
    You can't feel shame if you have no sense of it. The presidency is nothing but a money making exercise for Trump & Co and of course an ego trip. " I'm President". Yes you are Mr. Trump. Why not try acting like one?
    Trump's die hard base will stick with him;will they be enough to keep the GOP in charge of congress and to reelect him in 2020?
    EngineerScotty , says: May 7, 2017 at 11:56 am
    But he's rounding up the illegal aliens, and appointed Gorsuch to the court. Who cares if he's hawking real estate to Chinese gazillionaires? Trump is not Hillary, and that's all that really matters.

    As Freddie Trumper (sic) taunted at the end of the musical _Chess_, "you just don't have the instincts of a winner".

    EngineerScotty , says: May 7, 2017 at 11:58 am
    At any rate, we should drop the letters A, L, and D from the President's first name, and just call him Don Trump.
    collin , says: May 7, 2017 at 12:11 pm
    I am with Josh Barro, I don't think the average Trump voter really cared that much about this stuff and it has not hurt Trump yet. (It was draining the Multicultural swamp!) As long as the economy is growing jobs and health care & Social Security is not taken away, Trump ratings will not lose many supporters. I would argue that Trump simply reached 40% approval ratings in month 3 instead month 18 like most Prez in the past. So this stuff has yet to effect his Presidency and supporters are happy ICE is increasing their deportations. (Even if doesn't bring manufacturing jobs back.)

    That if something does go wrong, this stuff, much like HRC e-mail/Foundation/More E-mail/Goldman Sachs/Comey E-mails, could be used a narrative against Trump in 2020. And there a few concerns:

    1) If healthcare does not go well. Notice Ds in the MT & GA06 Special Elections are a louder about AHCA.
    2) Retail location job loss in an historical long expansion. (We are close to 7 years so it is longer than the Bush Boom.) Not this high paying jobs, but there are a lot people getting by with these jobs and it appears it is going hit the WWC towns the hardest.
    3) I am still concerned Trump is gets us into a war.

    Noah172 , says: May 7, 2017 at 12:44 pm
    This is disturbing to me, without question. There should be more investigation. Kushner should ideally leave the White House, or at least lose influence (there was also recent news he failed to disclose some other financial interests). Some caveats, however:

    We don't know if Trump himself knew about, much less approved, this caper. It is very plausible that people who aren't really personally close to Trump but who can pretend to be would name-drop him without his permission (that would go for any other powerful person).

    If I read the WaPo story correctly, Jared Kushner himself sold his interest in the development in question.

    The slide showing Trump as a "key decision maker" also shows former (as in, Obama) Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, current Secretary John Kelly, and Senators Grassley and Leahy (latter a Democrat). Are they all in on this scam? Grassley and Leahy, BTW, are opponents , repeat, opponents, of the current EB-5 visa program.

    The WaPo story implied that rich foreigners are rushing to get EB-5's because they fear Trump will end the program.

    I would ask everyone, Trump fans and haters alike, to consider the possibility that it's these rich and perhaps overeager Chinese who are the ones getting played. The Kushners name-drop Trump to shake down the Chinese, but, golly gee, they don't get their visas because of unforeseen bureaucratic difficulties.

    The silver lining to this sordid tale might be more public scrutiny of EB-5 - I repeat, Senators Grassley and Leahy, featured in this very presentation in China, are prominent opponents of the visa - and reform or abolition of the program.

    BTW, liberals in the audience:

    Go ahead and snicker at this story if you want, but it is YOU - not nationalist deplorables like me - who want Jared to stay in the White House, as he is a major, maybe the major influence on Trump to cave on his nationalist populist campaign pledges. Careful what you wish for.

    Noah172 , says: May 7, 2017 at 1:15 pm
    To clarify my 12:44 comment:

    I don't trust Trump - or almost any political figure - to do the right thing (according to my policy preferences) without incentive and political pressure to do so. In a way, I am heartened that Jared is getting embarrassing scrutiny, which might force Trump's hand to distance himself from his son-in-law. I would have thought that the liberal (and neocon) press would protect Jared as a check on the influence of Bannon and the nationalists. Maybe there still is actual journalism going on.

    Trump's waffling and bad influences are all the more reason for people of my political persuasion, which does not have big money to back it up, to be more active and organized and always demand better of our leaders. In the end, even a corrupt, unprincipled Trump is more likely with the right incentives and pressure to move the needle on nationalist causes than any of his 2016 or likely 2020 opponents.

    Noah172 , says: May 7, 2017 at 1:20 pm
    This thing wouldn't pass the smell test even down here in the Banana Republic of Louisiana

    Speaking of which, you voted for Edwin Edwards because you believed his opponent to be unacceptably dangerous.

    Why should he care, if Americans who voted for him are content with, "But but but Gorsuch!"?

    Why should Edwards have cared if his voters, including you, were content with, "But but the klucker!"?

    (And there's also the obvious whataboutist retort with HRC: "But but Garland!")

    All In The Family , says: May 7, 2017 at 1:21 pm
    Do you really think Trump would betray his voters with an obviously corrupt program like this just to help sustain real estate bubbles in the big coastal cities? Nah

    Seriously, the Kushner family is to Trump as the Rodham family and Brother Roger were to Bill Clinton, a continuous source of embarrassment with criminal implications that serves to divert attention from his own embarrassments with criminal implications.

    Phillip , says: May 7, 2017 at 1:33 pm
    Chinese billionaires who made their fortunes through low wage exports to the United States, which undermined the manufacturing sector and jobs here. Seems like candidate Trump had a few things to say about this issue. But hey, its just business, right?

    Unbelievable

    Just Git , says: May 7, 2017 at 1:40 pm
    The GOP establishment thinks American citizenship and being American has no deeper meaning than cash on the barrel-head.

    And they'll sell American citizenship to Red Chinese Communists just as soon as anybody else. After all, they sell their own votes to Saudi Arabia, Israel, Korea, whoever. Why shouldn't they sell American citizenship the same way?

    Ms. Kushner is exactly right that these corrupt Chinese would be citizens in the same sense as the Kushners themselves. What she doesn't get is that most real Americans want "Americans" of that kind kicked out.

    hb , says: May 7, 2017 at 1:45 pm
    I just emailed my senators and representative in Congress. This so called legal immigration stinks to me like those indulgences the Catholic Church sold at the time of the Reformation.
    Richard2 , says: May 7, 2017 at 1:52 pm
    About the only good thing I've heard about Trump is a rumored comment that being President has been a lot harder than he expected. One such difficulty is that hordes of greedy relatives may pretend they have Presidential access in order to defraud foreigners. Legally little can be done about this, if the scammers exercise some care, and hinting that embarrassing relatives may be dropped into the Pacific tied to large rocks is itself illegal. Probably President Trump is not personally involved in such schemes, as they add to his own troubles, so citizens should ignore such reports unless evidence surfaces that stealing everything in sight has become official White House policy.
    Kid Charlemagne , says: May 7, 2017 at 2:01 pm
    But isn't this just one of many conflicts of interest we see in the Trump presidency? China, Turkey, the Philippines Trump properties, Ivanka's business etc. etc
    See Donald Trump's Conflicts of Interest: A Crib Sheet below

    https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/508382/

    Kid Charlemagne , says: May 7, 2017 at 2:04 pm
    As an outsider, what is remarkable is how accepting of all this the American people are
    Call them like I see them , says: May 7, 2017 at 2:07 pm
    I cannot believe some of the replies on this article.
    Yes, this is real, yes other corps/families have Chinese investors, but they are not the POTUS's family.
    Don't any of you see this is like mixing religion & politics at the very least.
    If you are the POTUS you need to reassure the country that your decision-making is based on what's best for the nation and not your family business.
    I would expect that from anyone serving in the highest office in the land!
    What is wrong with you people? Before you start I am a lifelong Republican, but I am not going to say it is ok for my team when I would never want the other side doing this.
    John Gruskos , says: May 7, 2017 at 2:22 pm
    If Rand Paul embraces immigration restriction, or if Ted Cruz embraces a non-interventionist foreign policy, Trump could very well lose the 2020 Republican presidential primary.
    Agnikan , says: May 7, 2017 at 2:37 pm
    Surly, according to Trump, Seattle–like Korea–was once part of China, so that's no big deal.
    a foul odor , says: May 7, 2017 at 2:42 pm
    So Trump is making it possible for his family members to offer US citizenship to people who buy real estate from them. US citizenship must make a nice, glittering little trinket in the gifting bag at Kushner real estate promotions in China.

    Sounds like "swamp" to me. Sounds like Trump is pumping more sewage into the swamp he was supposed to drain.

    Lord Help Us , says: May 7, 2017 at 2:50 pm
    What could possibly go wrong?

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/05/us/eb5-visa-investigation.html

    Can someone tell me why Trump hasn't cancelled this corrupt ripoff scheme out of hand? Apparently, as with the H-1B program he has so far failed to stop, the whole country is being put on the block to enrich people the Kushners and their ilk, rich crooks who use government programs to make themselves even richer by importing foreigners.

    Skeptic , says: May 7, 2017 at 3:16 pm
    Surly: Tell me about it. J. Jacobs called it 'catastrophic capital.' It works well for the people who have it. But it destroys cities. Memo to White House: uhm, re-read Death and Life of Great American Cities.
    George , says: May 7, 2017 at 3:47 pm
    Your sort right that this is fake news. Jared Kushner and the administration say they had nothing to do with this, and I see no reason to believe that isn't true. His sister is an idiot, but so are many people 's siblings.
    RS Rogers , says: May 7, 2017 at 4:02 pm
    Normally, I would not hold any politician accountable for the behavior of his distant relations and extended family. But normally, a politician doesn't employ his extended family in an official capacity; and normally, a politician does not retain direct, personal business investment with his distant relations.

    That is, I don't care what Billy Carter or Rogers Clinton or Neil Bush get up to, and I don't hold their misbehavior against their brothers or father in the White House. But Bobby Kennedy or the Trump children and the Kushner clan? Their actions do rub off on President Kennedy or Trump, for good or ill.

    • [May 07, 2017] The Empire Expands by Nomi Prins

    Notable quotes:
    "... The ways that Jared, " senior adviser to the president," and Ivanka, " assistant to the president," have already benefited from their links to "Dad" in the first 100 days of his presidency stagger the imagination. Ivanka's company, for instance, won three new trademarks for its products from China on the very day she dined with President Xi Jinping at her father's Palm Beach club. ..."
    "... Here's where things get tricky. We can't pinpoint the exact gains generated from any one meeting of the next generation Trump. They rely on the idea that, because their brand was so huge to begin with, profits and deals would have come anyway. That's why we won't ever see their books or tax returns. ..."
    "... The Trumps and Kushners will behave in ways that will benefit their global businesses. There's just one catch. They have to get away with it, legally speaking. So the first law of family business in the Oval Office turns out to be: get stellar legal counsel. And they've done that. Their lawyers have by now successfully created trusts that theoretically - but only theoretically - separate Ivanka from her businesses and deflect any accusations over activities that may, now or in the future, violate federal rules. And there are two of those in particular to consider. ..."
    "... The Code of Federal Regulations is a set of rules published by the executive departments and agencies of the government. Title 18 section 208 of that code deals with "acts affecting a personal financial interest." This criminal conflict of interest statute states "an officer or employee of the executive branch of the United States Government" can't have a "financial interest" in the result of their duties. ..."
    "... New York Times ..."
    "... Forbes ..."
    "... Ivanka noted in her book, The Trump Card: Playing to Win in Work and Life ..."
    "... Making the future yet murkier, the family may be on the precipice of major problems. The most striking of them: Kushner's marquee building, 666 Fifth Ave (an 80-story, ultra-luxury Manhattan skyscraper) has a greater than 25% vacancy rate . It hasn't made enough money to even cover its interest payments for several years, and in two years it will have to pay principal as well on its $1.2 billion mortgage. That's going to hurt if foreign companies don't step in to staunch the flow of dollars out of the firm and that, undoubtedly, could require a quid pro quo ..."
    May 02, 2017 | www.unz.com

    President Trump, his children and their spouses, aren't just using the Oval Office to augment their political legacy or secure future riches. Okay, they certainly are doing that, but that's not the most useful way to think about what's happening at the moment. Everything will make more sense if you reimagine the White House as simply the newest branch of the Trump family business empire, its latest outpost.

    It turns out that the voters who cast their ballots for Donald Trump, the patriarch, got a package deal for his whole clan. That would include, of course, first daughter Ivanka who, along with her husband, Jared Kushner, is now a key political adviser to the president of the United States. Both now have offices in the White House close to him. They have multiple security clearances , access to high-level leaders whenever they visit the Oval Office or Mar-a-Lago, and the perfect formula for the sort of brand-enhancement that now seems to come with such eminence. President Trump may have an exceedingly " flexible " attitude toward policymaking generally, but in one area count on him to be stalwart and immobile: his urge to run the White House like a business, a family business.

    The ways that Jared, " senior adviser to the president," and Ivanka, " assistant to the president," have already benefited from their links to "Dad" in the first 100 days of his presidency stagger the imagination. Ivanka's company, for instance, won three new trademarks for its products from China on the very day she dined with President Xi Jinping at her father's Palm Beach club.

    In a similar fashion, thanks to her chance to socialize with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, her company could be better positioned for deal negotiations in his country. One of those perks of family power includes nearing a licensing agreement with Japanese apparel giant Sanei International , whose parent company's largest stakeholder is the Development Bank of Japan - an entity owned by the Japanese government. We are supposed to buy the notion that the concurrent private viewing of Ivanka's products in Tokyo was a coincidence of the scheduling fairy. Yet since her father became president, you won't be surprised to learn that global sales of her merchandise have more or less gone through the roof .

    Here's where things get tricky. We can't pinpoint the exact gains generated from any one meeting of the next generation Trump. They rely on the idea that, because their brand was so huge to begin with, profits and deals would have come anyway. That's why we won't ever see their books or tax returns.

    Conflicts of interest? They now permeate the halls of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, but none of this will affect or change one thing President Trump holds dear - and believe it or not, it's not the wishes of his base in the American heartland. It's advancing his flesh and blood, and their flesh-and-blood-once-removed spouses and relatives.

    Federal Regulations and Trump Family Interpretations

    The Trumps and Kushners will behave in ways that will benefit their global businesses. There's just one catch. They have to get away with it, legally speaking. So the first law of family business in the Oval Office turns out to be: get stellar legal counsel. And they've done that. Their lawyers have by now successfully created trusts that theoretically - but only theoretically - separate Ivanka from her businesses and deflect any accusations over activities that may, now or in the future, violate federal rules. And there are two of those in particular to consider.

    The Code of Federal Regulations is a set of rules published by the executive departments and agencies of the government. Title 18 section 208 of that code deals with "acts affecting a personal financial interest." This criminal conflict of interest statute states "an officer or employee of the executive branch of the United States Government" can't have a "financial interest" in the result of their duties. What that should mean, legally speaking, for a family occupying the executive office is: Ivanka could not have dinner with the president of China while her business was applying for and receiving provisional approval of pending trademarks from his country, if one of those acts might impact the other. To an outsider, the connection between those acts seems obvious enough and it's bound to be typical of what's to come.

    Meanwhile, there are real penalties for being convicted of violating this rule. These include fines or imprisonment or both as set forth in section 216 of Title 18.

    Certain lawyers have argued that Ivanka's and Jared's appointments don't violate Rule 208 or other nepotism statutes because they are not paid advisers to the president. In other words, because Ivanka doesn't get a salary for her service to her uh, country conflicts automatically vanish. She's already done her Trumptilian best to demonstrate her affinity for ethical behavior by cordoning herself off from her business responsibilities (sort of). According to the New York Times , "Ivanka has transferred her brand's assets into a trust overseen by her brother-in-law, Josh Kushner, and sister-in-law, Nicole Meyer." Phew, no family connections there! Or maybe she just doesn't care for her siblings-in-law.

    But not all assets, it turns out, are created equal. So the daughter-in-chief will, it seems, keep her stake in the Trump International Hotel, a 15-minute stroll from the White House, which just happens to boast "the Ivanka Trump Suite " and " The Spa by Ivanka Trump ." ("The Spa by Ivanka Trump™ and Fitness Center transitions guests from the Technogym setting of the Fitness Center to the tranquil spa haven that is calming, balancing, purifying, revitalizing, and healing ") There, many a foreign diplomat or special interest mogul can "calm, energize, [and] restore" himself or herself, while angling for an "in" with the family. We don't know precisely the nature of what the Trump family stands to gain from the hotel because its books aren't made public, but it's reasonable to assume that we're not talking losses. Besides this other D.C. domain, Ivanka and Jared will remain the beneficiaries of their mutual business empires now valued at about three quarters of a billion dollars, according to White House ethics filings.

    But wait. There's an even more explicit rule against using public office (like, say, the White House) for private gain: Title 5 section 2635.702 . On that subject, the section states that "an employee shall not use his public office for his own private gain, for the endorsement of any product, service, or enterprise, or for the private gain of friends, relatives, or persons with whom the employee is affiliated in a nongovernmental capacity."

    Okay, that's wordy. And though the rule doesn't apply to the president or vice president - we have Nelson Rockefeller to thank for that, but more on him later - for any other executive office position, the rule explains that "status as an employee is unaffected by pay or leave status." That means that you can't say someone is not an employee just because she isn't drawing a paycheck, which means she isn't, in fact, exempt just because she can't show a W-2 form.

    The second rule of family business is undoubtedly: control the means of enforcement. And President Trump just got his man onto the Supreme Court, so even if ethical charges rose to the highest court in the land, the family has at least a little insurance.

    Bankers and Presidents: A Walk Through History

    The idea of powerful bloodlines collaborating is nothing new in either business or politics. At the turn of the twentieth century, mogul families routinely intermarried to spawn yet more powerful and profitable business empires. And when it comes to Oval Office politics, American history is littered with multi-generational public servants with blood ties to presidents. Abraham Lincoln's oldest son, Robert, a Republican, served as secretary of war in the administrations of Presidents James Garfield and Chester Arthur, and finally as U.S. minister to Great Britain during President Benjamin Harrison 's administration. Dwight D. Eisenhower's son, John, became a decorated brigadier-general, served as assistant staff secretary in the White House while his father was in office and was later appointed ambassador to Belgium under President Richard Nixon (once his father's vice-president). But neither of them inflated the coffers of the family business in the process.

    Whether family business connections might influence prominent figures in the White House isn't a subject new to the Trump era either. In 1974, when Gerald Ford, who took over the presidency after Richard Nixon's impeachment, nominated Nelson Rockefeller to be his vice president, Nelson's brother David ran the Chase Manhattan Bank (now JPMorgan Chase). Questions naturally arose about the notorious wealth and political reach of the Rockefeller family. Nelson, the grandson of oil magnate John D. Rockefeller, had even worked at the bank and had been on the boards of multiple oil companies.

    That same year, the Department of Justice conveniently concluded that conflict of interest laws did not apply to the office of the vice president - but not before Democratic Senator Robert Byrd asked, "Can't we at least agree that the influence is there, that it is a tremendous influence, that it is more influence than any president or vice president ever had?" And yet, as fabulously wealthy and linked in as Nelson Rockefeller was, his situation doesn't even compare to the family business tangle in the Trump White House.

    There have been other family members than the Trumps and Jared Kushner in positions of significance in the White House. When, for instance, Woodrow Wilson fell gravely ill in 1919, his second wife, Edith, stepped in to act on his behalf, essentially running the government in a blanket of secrecy from his bedside. Her intention, however, was never to make hay with a family business, but to ensure that her husband's policies prevailed. The two Bush presidents, with a business and banking legacy that snaked back a century, were elected, not handed power. And though Bill Clinton's reign in the Oval Office enabled wife Hillary to garner enough public recognition (and banking connections) to successfully run for senator in New York State, become secretary of state under President Obama, and launch two ultimately unsuccessful presidential bids, the Clintons only became super-wealthy after Bill's time in office. Though their charity foundation's ties to foreign governments remain suspect, they never had a private business while Bill was in the White House.

    What can't be found in the historical record is someone's child, wife, or relations holding court in the West Wing while expanding a family business, no less a network of them. The present situation, in other words, is unique in the annals of American history. Only 100 days into Donald Trump's presidency, he already has something of the look of the authoritarian kleptocrats elsewhere on the planet who siphon state wealth into their own bank accounts and businesses.

    And remember, the Trump empire is also the Kushner empire. Jared's family business depends on global investors hailing from countries that just happen to be in his White House portfolio. He, for example, led the efforts to prepare for the state visit to Mar-a-Lago of the Chinese president (while the Kushner business was engaged in high-level talks with a major Chinese financial conglomerate). A Russian state-owned bank under U.S. sanctions whose chairman met with Jared in December referred to him as the head of Kushner Companies, though he was already visibly if not yet officially a Trump adviser.

    He is similarly the administration's point man for Middle East "peace," even though his family has financial relationships with Israel . Meanwhile, in his role as head of the newly formed White House Office of American Innovation, the potential opportunities to fuse government and private business opportunities are likely to prove endless.

    Nepotism on Parade

    Faced with the dynasty-crushing possibility of selling his business or even placing it in a blind trust, Donald Trump chose instead to let his two older sons, Eric and Donald Jr., manage it. Talk about smoke and mirrors. While speaking with Forbes in March, Eric indicated that he would provide his father with updates on the Trump Organization "quarterly" - but who truly believes that father and sons won't discuss the family empire far more frequently than that?

    The family has already racked up a laundry list of global conflicts of interest that suggest ways in which the White House is likely to become a moneymaking vehicle for the Trump line. There's Turkey, for instance, where the Trump Organization already has a substantial investment, and where President Trump recently called President Recip Tayyip Erdogan to congratulate him on his power-grabbing, anti-democratic victory in a disputed election to change the country's constitution. Given Trump business interests globally, you could multiply that call by the world.

    Meanwhile, Ivanka's brand isn't just doing business as usual, it's killing it. Since 2017, according to the Associated Press, "global sales of Ivanka Trump merchandise have surged." As a sign of that, the brand's imports, mostly from China, have more than doubled over the previous year. As for her husband, he remained the CEO of Kushner Companies through January, only then abdicating his management role in that real-estate outfit and 58 other businesses, though remaining the sole primary beneficiary of most of the associated family trusts. His and Ivanka's children are secondary beneficiaries. That means any policy decision he promotes could, for better or worse, affect the family business and it doesn't take a genius to know which of those options he's likely to choose.

    Kleptocrats, Inc.

    Despite an already mind-boggling set of existing conflicts of interest, ranging from business affiliations with oligarchs connected to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard to the Secret Service and the Pentagon leasing space in Trump Tower (for at least $3 million per year), the Trump family business is now looking to the glorious, long haul. The family is already scouting for a second hotel in Washington. Trump has reportedly used nearly $500,000 from early campaign money raised for his own 2020 presidential bid to bolster the biz. It's evidently been poured into "Trump-owned restaurants, hotels and golf clubs," as well as rent at Trump Tower in New York City.

    According to the latest polls, the majority of registered voters believe that the installation of Ivanka and Jared in the White House is inappropriate. But that could matter less to Donald Trump. Ask Stephen Bannon or Chris Christie what happens when Ivanka or Jared don't like you. That's the family version of mob-style power.

    Ivanka noted in her book, The Trump Card: Playing to Win in Work and Life , that "in business, as in life, nothing is ever handed to you." Except, of course, when your father is president and he hands you the keys to grow the family business on a silver platter.

    Four decades ago, at a Senate hearing on his potential conflicts of interest, Vice President Rockefeller was asked , "Can you separate the interests of big business from the national interest when they differ?" It's a question some senator should pose to Ivanka and Jared, replacing "big business" with "big family business."

    Making the future yet murkier, the family may be on the precipice of major problems. The most striking of them: Kushner's marquee building, 666 Fifth Ave (an 80-story, ultra-luxury Manhattan skyscraper) has a greater than 25% vacancy rate . It hasn't made enough money to even cover its interest payments for several years, and in two years it will have to pay principal as well on its $1.2 billion mortgage. That's going to hurt if foreign companies don't step in to staunch the flow of dollars out of the firm and that, undoubtedly, could require a quid pro quo or two.

    In our era, it's no secret that presidents leave office with the promise of quickly growing exponentially wealthier. But for the first family to gain such wealth while still in the White House would be a first. Yet the process that could make that possible already seems to be well underway. All this, as Donald Trump, his children, and his son-in-law continue to carve out an unprecedented role for themselves as America's business-managers-in-chief, presiding not so much over the country as over their own expanding imperial domains.

    Nomi Prins, a TomDispatch regular , is the author of six books. Her most recent is All the Presidents' Bankers: The Hidden Alliances That Drive American Power (Nation Books). She is a former Wall Street executive. Special thanks go to researcher Craig Wilson for his superb work on this piece.

    jilles dykstra ,

    May 6, 2017 at 4:58 pm GMT \n • 100 Words

    @Agent76

    Mar 20, 2017 Trump Embraces the Goldman Sachs Vampire Squid

    It's business as usual in Washington. Trump promised to drain the swamp. Instead, he is busy populating it with Goldman Sachs vampire squids. On this edition of The Geopolitical Report, we take a look at the outsized influence of the notorious global investment banking firm, its ability to navigate both Democrat and Republican administrations, and its disastrous effect on the economy as it socializes risk and pockets.

    https://youtu.be/x2OK-m7fcUk

    Indeed, money rules the USA.
    But I'm not at all sure that the money that is now in Washington has the same goals as the Obama money.

    The Dutch professor Laslo Maracs, Amsterdam University, UVA, explains that the money now surrounding Trump, sees that continuing the Obama policies for military world supremacy will ruin them.

    Deep State is not concerned with what happens to the USA, and its citizens, rich of poor, they want to rule the world.
    It is possible that Deep State calculates that who rules the world cannot have any debt to anyone in the world, in other words, USA debts to the Chinese do not matter any more.

    Maybe Hillary meant this when she wrote in an e mail 'how does one handle one's banker ?'.

    hyperbola , May 6, 2017 at 6:03 pm GMT \n
    200 Words Perhaps the real problem is that so many of the "methods" used to enable political corruption are in fact "legal". For example, what should we think about someone from a terrorist family who is sponsored by an "elite" that make him rich in the "financial swamp" in a handful of years so that he can play politics? Where was Naomi Prins then?

    The Book of Rahm

    http://www.counterpunch.org/2006/10/24/the-book-of-rahm/

    Rahm Emmanuel, Laquan McDonald and Black Rebellion in Chicago

    http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/12/04/rahm-emmanuel-laquan-mcdonald-and-black-rebellion-in-chicago/

    The Doctrine of 'Superior People': The Bond between Israel and World Zionism

    http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-doctrine-of-superior-people-the-bond-between-israel-and-world-zionism/5473831

    The disastrous US war against Iraq was largely organized, promoted and justified by a disproportionate percentage of US Jews (Zionists), including leading Neocon policymakers in the Bush and Obama administration – Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, Elliott Abrams, Dennis Ross, Martin Indyk, David Frum, Shulsky, Levey, Cohen, Rahm Emanuel etc They continue to push for war against Iran and should be seen as the 'godfathers' of the tragedies of Iraq, Syria and Libya where millions have fled .. Read More Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter Display All Comments

    Agent76 , May 6, 2017 at 6:18 pm GMT \n
    100 Words @jilles dykstra Indeed, money rules the USA.
    But I'm not at all sure that the money that is now in Washington has the same goals as the Obama money.

    The Dutch professor Laslo Maracs, Amsterdam University, UVA, explains that the money now surrounding Trump, sees that continuing the Obama policies for military world supremacy will ruin them.

    Deep State is not concerned with what happens to the USA, and its citizens, rich of poor, they want to rule the world.
    It is possible that Deep State calculates that who rules the world cannot have any debt to anyone in the world, in other words, USA debts to the Chinese do not matter any more.

    Maybe Hillary meant this when she wrote in an e mail 'how does one handle one's banker ?'. This link will give you a clear view most cannot see. Meet the new boss same as the old boss!

    "Who controls the issuance of money controls the government!" Nathan Meyer Rothschild

    June 13, 2016 Which Corporations Control The World?

    A surprisingly small number of corporations control massive global market shares. How many of the brands below do you use?

    http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article44864.htm Read More Agree: Amanda Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments

    Anonymous , May 6, 2017 at 6:29 pm GMT \n
    Isn't one of the foundational pillars of the so called Judeo-Christian way of life, Greed?

    That being the case, kudos to the Americans for selecting such good Judeo-Christians (given the Trump & Kushner combo, that is so appropriate, isn't it ), as their looters-in-chief.

    You guys certainly deserve the leaders you get. Read More Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter Display All Comments

    Z-man , May 6, 2017 at 6:37 pm GMT \n
    @Father O'Hara Lock em up! Specially that dumb cunt Ivanka and her Jew fag husband! LOL!!! Not too subtle but to the point. Yo'vanka and Kushy boy have to kicked out of the WH. Let Trump Be Trump!!! Read More Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
    Anon , May 6, 2017 at 6:41 pm GMT \n
    100 Words As Ms. Prins surely knows, "presiding over the country" is in the claws of neocons/banksters et al., bonafide members of a Zionist Mafia Empire - & Trump is as well. Trump may have believed he could do something for the unfortunate majority and quickly found out otherwise in any case, why focus on the lower echelon of profiteering Ms. Prins? Why not at least connect the dots to the top puppeteers? To avoid doing so is gatekeeping. Read More Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter Display All Comments
    Alden , May 6, 2017 at 7:16 pm GMT \n
    @Inertiller Nice gossip. Nomi typically follows the astro-turf formula of cognitive dissonance so favored by the whore-media. A tool of distraction to keep any reader entertained, creating a fake, magical version of how Washington and it's owners actually operate. The propaganda typically focuses on the head puppet who happens to be Trump this time 'round, but it doesn't matter.

    You must believe that it matters however, so that's the role of the professional copyist. They come in various flavors; right, left, libertarian or car salesman. Supermarket tabloids are long a dying breed - supplanted by serious sounding op-ed monkeys with serve a the same insidious purpose with unprecedented technology advanatages. (They all call each other fake, how gracious.)

    Nomi lists the serious sounding codes, laws and statutes. These don't impress anyone anymore other than the most deluded and credulous saps who are seriously addicted to their flavor of social media. Law what?

    A recap of the obvious: First the Russian accusations, following that, the emoluments. Anything else on American's minds at the moment? If you've been paying attention, there shouldn't be much other than Trump on the brain.

    These charges may all be true or relevant, but that doesn't matter, it may rain tomorrow, which is important, but only so much. The "laws" don't apply until the PTB want them too - and when that happens the whore media will be sure to let us know. Trump's impeachment would be an exciting show, and would take up hours of time from billions everywhere, fans would shriek for and against. Now that's entertainment!

    Ask yourself, what is it that you could be doing at the moment? How can you thrive in a country where worthless shit is thrown at you 24/7, mostly from your beloved muck rackers, which ever device you choose to use? Once they have you addicted, you are pretty much harmless. Best post I've read on the Internet in 20 years. Whoever you are, chapeaus!!!!!!

    Alden , May 6, 2017 at 7:54 pm GMT \n
    200 Words Kushner's new 5th AV building still has vacancies because it is not completely finished. Some of the upper floors are just floors, partial ceilings and exterior walls. They are still putting in the electricity and plumbing.

    Tenants in those kind of buildings are not naive innocents. They are hard core business people who drive hard bargains with the landlords. For the kind of rent the Kushners want, they will get tenants who demand all sorts of concessions and extras.

    Sometimes it's better for a landlord to keep a unit vacant and wait for a tenant who can and will pay a high rent.

    Sometimes it's better for a landlord to charge low rents and get the building filled up fast.

    Ms Nomi, like Michael Hudson doesn't know anything about real estate. But like Michael Hudson, she claims she knows about it. I'll always remember Hudsons pontificating about NYC residential real estate without a mention of NYC's rent control laws. Read More Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter Display All Comments

    Sean , May 6, 2017 at 8:28 pm GMT \n
    400 Words First it must never be forgotten that Trump wagered against the odds for an increase in wealth if the long shot of him becoming president came about, yet there was certain financial extinction if if his run at the Presidency had ended as most informed people had expected.

    Trump is no Rockefeller inasmuch his wealth is nebulous; the businesses runs on confidence in his brand, and is consequently very vulnerable to hostile government investigation. He was expected to win by absolutely no one, and could expect the administration of Hilary's to have come for him, and the judges would not be sympathetic. He along with his family would have ended up on the street with a tin cup if he hadn't won. As a business decision, it was a crazier bet than any made in his casinos.

    The Code of Federal Regulations is a set of rules published by the executive departments and agencies of the government. Title 18 section 208 of that code deals with "acts affecting a personal financial interest." This criminal conflict of interest statute states "an officer or employee of the executive branch of the United States Government" can't have a "financial interest" in the result of their duties. What that should mean, legally speaking, for a family occupying the executive office is: Ivanka could not have dinner with the president of China while her business was applying for and receiving provisional approval of pending trademarks from his country, if one of those acts might impact the other. To an outsider, the connection between those acts seems obvious enough and it's bound to be typical of what's to come.

    Secondly, sIn October 2013, the US sent the general in command of nuclear weapons on an official trip to Moscow. He, wit his unrivalled knowledge of the most sensitive secrets in the US was thus exposed to all kinds of possible compromising situation at the hands of a foreign regieme. As it happens he seems to have simply got drunk (he got sacked), but really there are better thing to worry about than Trump's daughter selling some cosmetics. Non of this stuff is going to make much difference to Trump's wealth anyway.

    Thirdly, I don't see any parallel at all with Nelson Rockefeller. In my view, Trump is most similar to Peisistratos tyrant of Athens Like him Trump is a very capable businessman, who relies on the suport of the common people. Like Peisistratos, Trump may be a transition from elite rule to one based on the will of the lower orders.

    Bragadocious , May 7, 2017 at 12:49 am GMT \n
    100 Words I'm not a huge fan of Ivanka "those photos made me cry" Trump being in the Oval Office, nor her husband. But this whole article's a nothing burger that would fit in quite well at the NY Times or Bezos's personal blog. There's simply no evidence of corruption, just innuendo, guesswork ("she's killing it") and accusatory fingers being pointed by someone with an obvious grudge. (Oh and thanks for the non-working AP story link too. Helpful!) So what if Ivanka did sell a few more handbags or hotel rooms? The Republic will survive. I'm much more concerned about her presence marginalizing Bannon or convincing Trump to bomb Middle Eastern countries. That bothers me. Of course, given this reporter's clear biases, that would be the thing that bothers her least . Read More Reply Agree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter Display All Comments
    Wizard of Oz , May 7, 2017 at 1:39 am GMT \n
    Isn't it reassuring to know that any promises rich foreigners think they've got from Trump are worth nothing.

    [May 05, 2017] Jared a billionaire arch-Zionist trust-fund baby

    Some comments are over top, but the term "Kosher Nostra" is pretty interesting. Jared's father sevred a jail term...
    Notable quotes:
    "... 'Jewish-American organized crime emerged within the American Jewish community during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It has been referred to variously in media and popular culture as the Jewish Mob, Jewish Mafia, Kosher Mafia, Kosher Nostra, or Undzer Shtik (Yiddish: אונדזער שטיק‎). The last two of these terms refer to the Italian Cosa Nostra (Italian pronunciation: [kɔza nɔstra]); the former is a play on the word kosher, referring to Jewish dietary laws, while the latter is a direct translation of the phrase (Italian for "our thing") into Yiddish, which was at the time the predominant language of the Jewish diaspora in the United States ..."
    "... In more recent years, Jewish-American organized crime has reappeared in the forms of both Israeli and Jewish-Russian mafia criminal groups, and Orthodox kidnapping gangs ..."
    "... Several notable Jewish American mobsters provided financial support for Israel through donations to Jewish organizations since the country's creation in 1948. Jewish-American gangsters used Israel's Law of Return to flee criminal charges or face deportation ..."
    "... Even the staff at his own Jewish day school were surprised he was accepted at Harvard. ..."
    "... He was described as a lacklustre student his father bought his entry, and they were disappointed that more qualified students from his school didn't make the cut. ..."
    "... They have good reason to hide him – he and his family have some shady business dealings – his father is a x-convict. How did he come into billions of dollars? They say that Jared inherited his money – how did that happen when his father is still living – did they get special tax treatment? ..."
    "... p.s. Jared Kushner is 100% Zionist ..."
    May 05, 2017 | ...

    wayfarer , April 20, 2017 at 10:12 pm GMT

    The problem with fiat money is that if one has enough of it, one can buy just about anything under the sun that they please, including even large parts of a country's political system and government.

    Take for example, Jared (a.k.a. billionaire arch-Zionist trust-fund baby) Kushner

    source: https://www.sott.net/article/348461-The-controversy-of-Jared-Kushner-A-suspected-gangster-within-the-Trump-White-House

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vtf6TgQgWr4

    Seraphim , April 20, 2017 at 11:52 pm GMT
    @Talha Kosher Nostra!!!

    Oh man - that was awesome!!!

    Peace. It is not my invention. All From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

    "Jewish-American organized crime":

    'Jewish-American organized crime emerged within the American Jewish community during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It has been referred to variously in media and popular culture as the Jewish Mob, Jewish Mafia, Kosher Mafia, Kosher Nostra, or Undzer Shtik (Yiddish: אונדזער שטיק‎). The last two of these terms refer to the Italian Cosa Nostra (Italian pronunciation: [kɔza nɔstra]); the former is a play on the word kosher, referring to Jewish dietary laws, while the latter is a direct translation of the phrase (Italian for "our thing") into Yiddish, which was at the time the predominant language of the Jewish diaspora in the United States

    In more recent years, Jewish-American organized crime has reappeared in the forms of both Israeli and Jewish-Russian mafia criminal groups, and Orthodox kidnapping gangs .

    Several notable Jewish American mobsters provided financial support for Israel through donations to Jewish organizations since the country's creation in 1948. Jewish-American gangsters used Israel's Law of Return to flee criminal charges or face deportation "

    Anonymous , April 21, 2017 at 3:31 am GMT

    @wayfarer

    Even the staff at his own Jewish day school were surprised he was accepted at Harvard.

    He was described as a lacklustre student his father bought his entry, and they were disappointed that more qualified students from his school didn't make the cut.

    Art , April 21, 2017 at 6:56 pm GMT
    @Alden

    I just read the latest ADL diktat.

    As of today any mention of Jared Kushner is deemed anti Semitic. Consequences will be severe. I just read the latest ADL diktat. As of today any mention of Jared Kushner is deemed anti Semitic. Consequences will be severe.

    They have good reason to hide him – he and his family have some shady business dealings – his father is a x-convict. How did he come into billions of dollars? They say that Jared inherited his money – how did that happen when his father is still living – did they get special tax treatment?

    Hmm?

    Peace - Art

    p.s. Jared Kushner is 100% Zionist

    [May 05, 2017] Jared Kushner A Suspected Gangster Within the Trump White House by Wayne MADSEN

    Highly recommended!
    Notable quotes:
    "... The warning signs that Kushner was fronting for the neo-conservatives was always present. His media company, Observer Media, which publishes the weekly on-line New York Observer, prominently featured several neo-conservative writers. ..."
    "... The narrow gap of separation between Jared Kushner and some of Israel's top gangsters is cause for alarm. This situation became especially acute after it was revealed that Kushner failed to provide all the requested information on his national security questionnaire forms concerning his contacts with foreign persons and interests, has led for congressional calls for his security clearance to be suspended. ..."
    "... The feud between Jared Kushner and Bannon is not the first personality conflict Kushner has had with members of the Trump team. The first demonstration of Kushner's powerful influence over Trump was evidenced in his firing of Trump transition team chairman New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and his loyalists, who included former U.S. Representative Mike Rogers and Matthew Freedman. For Kushner, the firings were an ultimate payback for Christie. While the U.S. Attorney for Northern New Jersey, Christie successfully prosecuted Kushner's father for tax evasion, witness tampering, and illegal campaign contributions. Christie wanted a three-year prison sentence for the elder Kushner but he ended up serving a year at a federal penitentiary in Alabama. ..."
    "... Christie's federal law enforcement investigation discovered that Charles Kushner tried to lure his brother-in-law and employee, William Schulder, into a prostitution honey trap at the Red Bull Inn motel in Bridgewater, New Jersey. The elder Kushner paid $10,000 to a high-end prostitute, who reportedly worked for a Manhattan escort agency linked to the Mossad, to lure Schulder into a trap, complete with a videotape system, designed to prevent him from testifying on behalf of Christie at Kushner's trial. ..."
    "... Charles Kushner also managed to get New Jersey Democratic Governor Jim McGreevey to appoint him to the New York-New Jersey Port Authority Commission, which owned the World Trade Center, a plum position on 9/11 for a suspected asset of Israel's Mossad. Hudson County and Jersey City law enforcement authorities were well-aware that Mossad elements were involved in many of the intelligence activities surrounding and in support of the 9/11 event in the months leading up to the attack in 2001. ..."
    "... After becoming governor, McGreevey appointed Cipel, an Israeli national and employee of Kushner, as his chief counselor on political strategy, foreign affairs, and relations with the Jewish community. But it was McGreevey's appointment of Cipel as his director for homeland security that raised eyebrows across the state, especially after 9/11. ..."
    "... Undoubtedly, Christie, who had his eyes already set upon the New Jersey governor's mansion in Princeton, knew all about the role that Charles Kushner played in the ultimate blackmailing of one of his predecessors as governor. With the sort of background information possessed by a federal prosecutor like Christie, who had access to wiretap transcripts gathered from the Kushner family's phone and other communications, it is clear that Jared Kushner saw Christie as a major threat to the future Kushner family agenda within the Trump administration. ..."
    "... With Christie, and, possibly soon, Bannon out of the way, Jared Kushner will be able to cement his Svengali-like control over Trump. Considering the record of political muscle exercised by the Kushner klan against two New Jersey governors, one can only surmise the Kushners have a great deal of blackmailable information on Mr. Trump. ..."
    Apr 17, 2017 | www.strategic-culture.org

    Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner has emerged as a significant influence within the policy-making apparatus of the White House. After a rather public imbroglio with Trump's strategic policy adviser Stephen Bannon over the U.S. cruise missile attack on the Shayrat airbase in Syria, Kushner is "in", as they often say in Washington, and Bannon is "out". In any case, the anti-globalist faction, which is led by Bannon, has received verbal "thumbs down" on several fronts from Trump.

    Trump's adoption of Clintonesque Democratic Party policies of opposing the Syrian government, confronting Russia, supporting NATO, backing the U.S. Export-Import (EXIM) Bank, and militarily confronting North Korea and China in East Asia have neo-conservatives and globalists cheering but many within Trump's political base of "America First" nationalists and libertarians crying foul.

    The warning signs that Kushner was fronting for the neo-conservatives was always present. His media company, Observer Media, which publishes the weekly on-line New York Observer, prominently featured several neo-conservative writers. Kushner, who also led the real estate firm Kushner Companies, turned over control of the newspaper to his brother-in-law after being named as senior adviser to President Trump.

    Kushner inherited a real estate empire from his father, Charles Kushner. In 2007, Jared Kushner made the largest single purchase of a single building in U.S. history, he paid $1.8 billion for a 41-story building at 666 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. In 2015, Jared Kushner bought a 50.1 percent share in the Time Square Building in Manhattan from Africa Israel Investments, Ltd. (AFI), an investment and holding company owned by Israeli-Uzbek diamond magnate Lev Leviev. In what could spell trouble for U.S. relations with the Palestine and Africa, AFI has been involved in the building of illegal settlements on the West Bank and the acquisition of diamonds from Africa's bloodiest of conflict zones.

    AFI and its subsidiary, Danya Cebus, have been subjected to disinvestments by a number of governments and companies over its West Bank activities. In August 2010, the Norwegian pension fund divested in the two firms. Leviev is also involved in dodgy casino operations, which puts him in the same business circles as casino operator Trump. In 2009, Playtech Cyprus, Ltd., one of AFI's companies, began providing casino equipment to a new casino in Bucharest, Romania. Playtech was started in 1999 by four Israelis, Teddy Sagi, Elad Cohen, Rami Beinish, and Amnon Ben-Zion. Playtech's on-line gambling software is primarily provided by software programmers in Estonia. Sagi is a convicted stock fraudster, having been convicted of fraud in the 1996 "Discount Bank affair", a stock and bond manipulation scheme that shook the Tel Aviv business community. Leviev's Africa diamond mining operations involve several "former" Mossad officers, most notably in Sierra Leone, Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Namibia, and Angola.

    The narrow gap of separation between Jared Kushner and some of Israel's top gangsters is cause for alarm. This situation became especially acute after it was revealed that Kushner failed to provide all the requested information on his national security questionnaire forms concerning his contacts with foreign persons and interests, has led for congressional calls for his security clearance to be suspended.

    The feud between Jared Kushner and Bannon is not the first personality conflict Kushner has had with members of the Trump team. The first demonstration of Kushner's powerful influence over Trump was evidenced in his firing of Trump transition team chairman New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and his loyalists, who included former U.S. Representative Mike Rogers and Matthew Freedman. For Kushner, the firings were an ultimate payback for Christie. While the U.S. Attorney for Northern New Jersey, Christie successfully prosecuted Kushner's father for tax evasion, witness tampering, and illegal campaign contributions. Christie wanted a three-year prison sentence for the elder Kushner but he ended up serving a year at a federal penitentiary in Alabama.

    Christie's federal law enforcement investigation discovered that Charles Kushner tried to lure his brother-in-law and employee, William Schulder, into a prostitution honey trap at the Red Bull Inn motel in Bridgewater, New Jersey. The elder Kushner paid $10,000 to a high-end prostitute, who reportedly worked for a Manhattan escort agency linked to the Mossad, to lure Schulder into a trap, complete with a videotape system, designed to prevent him from testifying on behalf of Christie at Kushner's trial.

    After Schulder's wife was sent a videotape of the tryst at the motel, Christie managed to not only ensure that an embarrassed but angered Schulder remained a star witness but also got the prostitute to testify against Kushner. Another witness for the prosecutors, Robert Yontef, Kushner's chief bookkeeper, was also subjected to a Kushner prostitution trap and a "smoking gun" videotape arranged by another call girl hired by Kushner.

    Charles Kushner also managed to get New Jersey Democratic Governor Jim McGreevey to appoint him to the New York-New Jersey Port Authority Commission, which owned the World Trade Center, a plum position on 9/11 for a suspected asset of Israel's Mossad. Hudson County and Jersey City law enforcement authorities were well-aware that Mossad elements were involved in many of the intelligence activities surrounding and in support of the 9/11 event in the months leading up to the attack in 2001.

    The Kushner family appears to relish in the politics of revenge and blackmail as McGreevey discovered the hard way.

    While he was mayor of Woodbridge, McGreevey met an Israeli intelligence asset named Golan Cipel during a 2000 fact finding trip to Israel arranged by Charles Kushner, who was a generous donor to McGreevey's political coffers. Although the trip was sponsored by the United Jewish Federation of MetroWest, the goal was to ensure future loyalty from an up-and-coming New Jersey politician being groomed for governor of his state. Cipel was the chief spokesman for the Israeli city of Rishon LeZion, but he soon ended up on McGreevey's gubernatorial campaign staff, thanks to the influence, U.S. work visa clearance, and money arranged by the elder Kushner. It is noteworthy that Rishon LeZion represents one of the right-wing Likud Party's most important bases of support in Israel. A powerful political kingmaker, Charles Kushner secured McGreevey's Democratic nomination for the governor's race after seeking the support – that is, arm twisting – the Democratic Party chairmen of the counties of Union, Essex, Middlesex, and Camden.

    After becoming governor, McGreevey appointed Cipel, an Israeli national and employee of Kushner, as his chief counselor on political strategy, foreign affairs, and relations with the Jewish community. But it was McGreevey's appointment of Cipel as his director for homeland security that raised eyebrows across the state, especially after 9/11.

    During McGreevey's governorship, Cipel decided to file a sexual harassment lawsuit against the governor in Mercer County Court. Cipel, a one-time "diplomat" – read that as a Mossad agent – at the Israeli Consulate General in New York, in a single legal action, destroyed McGreevey's political career. The suit forced McGreevey, who was married with two children, to admit that he led a parallel and secret gay lifestyle. With that bombshell news hitting the media, McGreevey was forced to resign. Several New Jersey political observers believe that Charles Kushner was behind Cipel's lawsuit after McGreevey did not turn out as the kind of puppet Kushner expected him to be. In fact, during the Cipel suit, McGreevey's lawyers contacted the Federal Bureau of Investigation and tipped them off about a possible Kushner-Cipel extortion operation directed against the governor.

    Undoubtedly, Christie, who had his eyes already set upon the New Jersey governor's mansion in Princeton, knew all about the role that Charles Kushner played in the ultimate blackmailing of one of his predecessors as governor. With the sort of background information possessed by a federal prosecutor like Christie, who had access to wiretap transcripts gathered from the Kushner family's phone and other communications, it is clear that Jared Kushner saw Christie as a major threat to the future Kushner family agenda within the Trump administration.

    With Christie, and, possibly soon, Bannon out of the way, Jared Kushner will be able to cement his Svengali-like control over Trump. Considering the record of political muscle exercised by the Kushner klan against two New Jersey governors, one can only surmise the Kushners have a great deal of blackmailable information on Mr. Trump.

    [May 04, 2017] Jared Kushner fired me over Israel ten years ago by Philip Weiss

    Highly recommended!
    Notable quotes:
    "... This couldn't last. In February 2007 Kaplan closed his office door and said he was a Zionist, Kushner was a Zionist, Kempner was a Zionist, and the janitor was a Zionist, too, and the newspaper would not pay for me to blog, as I was demanding (at that time I was only paid for published columns). It was fitting; I was gone. ..."
    "... Kushner reminds me of a few bosses I have had. They only know what they know which means SFA . Zero interest in the wider world. He probably knows loads about NY real estate and not much else ..."
    "... Very good profile, Phil. One thing struck me, as it did Keith. The only "peace" that Kushner and people like him want for Israel is the "peace" of total domination and rule over others with no disturbance. So, talking about him bringing "peace" makes no sense whatsoever. That's not at all what he or anyone around him wants. ..."
    "... Israelis and their supporters are forever talking about peace, when anyone of sound mind knows that the issue is not peace but justice for the Palestinians who have had their land stolen by European colonists. ..."
    "... Israel pushes the peace line because it knows the issue is not about peace and that a subjugated people like the Palestinians have not a snowball's chance in hell of wielding any sort of power which might contribute to peace. ..."
    "... While the appointment of Kushner is clearly nepotistic, it does not seem much worse than JFK's appointment of his brother. The historical record indicates that Robert Kennedy was if anything much more vile on Israel Palestine issues than Jared Kushner is. ..."
    www.unz.com

    Donald Trump has now named his son-in-law Jared Kushner as a senior adviser, notably on Middle East/Israel issues, and as Kushner fired me ten years ago over these issues, it seemed a good time to review my memories of our (limited) interactions and do what journalists do, make a prognosis about his future efforts.

    Kushner was 25 when he bought the New York Observer from investment banker/artist Arthur Carter in 2006, and as all such transactions do, the move set off panic on the editorial side of the paper. The editor, my dear friend Peter Kaplan, now deceased, was at once engaged in a struggle with his new boss over the paper's news budget and independence. For my part I had been a columnist for a few years, protected against attacks and my own ineptitude by my Harvard chum Kaplan (yes, Virginia, that's how media works), and had lately started Mondoweiss there as a personal blog, and because I was vehemently against the Iraq war and beginning to connect that tragedy to the US relationship to Israel in my postings, I was apprehensive about Kushner's view of the blog and me. I knew that he had been a big supporter of the orthodox Jewish Chabad House at Harvard and had lauded Alan Dershowitz there. Not a good sign - when I was discovering Rachel Corrie and The Israel Lobby.

    Peter Kaplan was a great student of character; it was his chief delight in life (after a cigar, a turkey leg, and a Preston Sturges film in the middle of the night); and my understanding of Kushner's character was formed by closed-door conversations with Peter. He told me that Kushner was smart, ambitious, and full of hubris. The two statements Peter made that resonate down through the years are: "Jared has ice in his veins." And: "He doesn't know what he doesn't know."

    For a little while the clear-skinned young owner took Kaplan on as his grizzled guide to the world of journalism, but that interval was short-lived. It was somewhat shocking to Kaplan that a guy who had no experience of journalism, and was a boob about literature, wasn't a very good reader, had spent his college years doing real estate deals, etc., was eager to make decisions about the paper's values. But such is the way of the world, and after an agonizing couple of years Peter went back to Conde Nast.

    I didn't last as long. Jared and I had a few polite conversations in the year that we cohabited on Broadway, and two very uncomfortable meetings over Israel and Palestine. One was before I went out there in July 2006 on his dime to see the country for the first time, during the Lebanon War, and the second one was after I got back that August. In the first, Kushner told me about his Holocaust background, his grandparents who barely survived , and his regard for Israel. When I got back, Kushner and Brian Kempner, the newspaper's publisher who had worked at the Israel lobby group AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee), couldn't wait to hear what I had seen out there, they said. But when I started talking about the occupation, the room went cold as the poles, and Kushner gazed right through me with those unsmiling dark little eyes. Kaplan was even more uncomfortable than I was, and thankfully brought the tortuous meeting to a close.

    But I managed to get a frank description of apartheid in Hebron into the pages of the Observer .

    This couldn't last. In February 2007 Kaplan closed his office door and said he was a Zionist, Kushner was a Zionist, Kempner was a Zionist, and the janitor was a Zionist, too, and the newspaper would not pay for me to blog, as I was demanding (at that time I was only paid for published columns). It was fitting; I was gone.

    My interactions with Jared were limited, but they don't give me hope about his ability to achieve peace in the Middle East. He lived in a deeply-Zionist-patriarchal mental space then; I never saw him take a step out of it. There was a provincial element to his commitment. As Peter said, he didn't know what he didn't know. The guy who replaced Kaplan was even more of a Zionist than Kaplan, while the nimble-footed Kempner went on to work in the Kushner real estate firm. Kushner's ambition and political shrewdness were evident to us, but I never saw any worldliness or largeness of spirit. He was very impressed by his own family. The big asterisk is that he was 25 and 26. I wouldn't want anyone to judge me on the basis of stuff I said at that age . . .

    Lastly, I bear no ill will to Jared Kushner. He paid for my first trip to Israel and Palestine (at 50!); he paid for me to see the occupation. My firing was also a blessing; he cut me loose from the paternalist mainstream media, and I was forced to sink or swim on the internet. To some smaller or bigger degree, I can thank Jared for this website, and the wonderful relationships I have formed through the internet with people of strong hearts and principle, qualities prestige media culture does not select for. For the sake of all of us, I can only hope Kushner gets to enter a larger world too.

    Maghlawatan January 10, 2017, 5:09 pm
    Kushner reminds me of a few bosses I have had. They only know what they know which means SFA . Zero interest in the wider world. He probably knows loads about NY real estate and not much else
    Mivasair January 10, 2017, 9:37 pm
    Very good profile, Phil. One thing struck me, as it did Keith. The only "peace" that Kushner and people like him want for Israel is the "peace" of total domination and rule over others with no disturbance. So, talking about him bringing "peace" makes no sense whatsoever. That's not at all what he or anyone around him wants.
    echinococcus January 11, 2017, 1:52 am

    I suppose the peace of cemeteries is the best quality of peace if you're the undertaker.

    eljay January 11, 2017, 7:30 am

    Kushner likely desires the same sort of Zionist "peace" that jon s advocates, one which:

    • allows Israel to remain a religion-supremacist "Jewish State";
    • allows Israel to keep as much as possible of what it has stolen;
    • absolves Israel of responsibility and accountability for its past and on-going (war) crimes; and
    • absolves Israel of its obligations under international law (including RoR).
    rosross January 11, 2017, 5:29 pm
    Israelis and their supporters are forever talking about peace, when anyone of sound mind knows that the issue is not peace but justice for the Palestinians who have had their land stolen by European colonists.

    Justice first and then peace is possible. Israel pushes the peace line because it knows the issue is not about peace and that a subjugated people like the Palestinians have not a snowball's chance in hell of wielding any sort of power which might contribute to peace.

    hungrydave January 14, 2017, 2:44 am Brilliant.

    I will remember this. I've had the same thoughts but never realised how to enunciate it so clearly.

    Marnie January 11, 2017, 1:04 am

    I read somewhere that the soon to be FLOTUS (ivanka kushner) is scared s#%&less of israel. That's good. I don't imagine her husband has any plans to make it one of his homes.

    Lack of experience/knowledge in the positions being filled is the hallmark of the tRUMP administration, especially wrt tRUMP himself. I have no idea what the next 4 years are going to be like, but i imagine the worst.

    http://pre04.deviantart.net/5b05/th/pre/f/2016/272/2/7/end_of_the_world_by_alexiuss-dajaesc.jpg

    Pixel January 11, 2017, 5:27 pm

    " [Ivanka} is scared s#%&less of israel."

    Marnie, can you say more? I'm not sure what you mean

    Marnie January 12, 2017, 12:39 am

    No, I can't find the article I'd read about her fear for husband traveling to zioland. I shouldn't have brought it up without backup. Sorry everybody.
    YoniFalic January 11, 2017, 1:28 pm
    While the appointment of Kushner is clearly nepotistic, it does not seem much worse than JFK's appointment of his brother. The historical record indicates that Robert Kennedy was if anything much more vile on Israel Palestine issues than Jared Kushner is.

    [May 03, 2017] Prez Trump You Can not Fight the Whole World by Eric Margolis

    Notable quotes:
    "... "We control America." -Former Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon ..."
    "... IDF vs Hezbollah round 2 should be interesting. All the Pauly Shores and Jared Kushners in uniform shat their panties when they faced a tough disciplined adversary immune to air superiority. Asymmetrical warfare is the 21st century's antidote to gunboat diplomacy. ..."
    "... Actually, Shel Adelson put all his casino chips in Rubio's corner, and considered Trump unreliable at best. Until Trump won. Then I guess Adelson did support him, though I doubt Trump is bought and paid for to the extent Rubio would have been. ..."
    "... Trump, at the order of Netanyahu, will destroy Iran in order to establish Israel as the only hegemonic power over the whole Middle East and Northern Africa. That's why they are destroying one country after another according to sectarian and religious lines such as the Yinon Plan outlined. The whole chaos in the Middle East serves only Israel. Just recently, Netanyahu said that Israel is one of the superpowers. How right he is. ..."
    "... Mr. Margolis. Everything in Trumpland has to be magnified to huge. The attack on the Iran agreement fits nicely in Trump's idiosyncrasy that every achievement of president Obama must be dragged through the mud and declared the worst thing ever done by a US president. As in the case of NAFTA Trump may actually do nothing after he has talked to two women: May and Merkel. There is even an outside chance that he will talk to a third: Le Pen. ..."
    "... Kushner and the military have the foreign policy portfolio. Trump has no idea whats going on. All of a sudden everybody likes him. That's enough for Trump. So "we" have gone full Zio. Duck and cover! ..."
    Apr 29, 2017 | www.unz.com

    Maybe the president believes he's won a great victory over the wicked Syrians by lobbing cruise missiles at one of their underused air bases. Maybe Trump believes that he's scared the evil Russians and the too big for their sampans Chinese into obedience.

    His 22,000 lb MOAB terror bomb on Afghanistan should keep those pesky Taliban quiet for a while even though the Pentagon claimed the intended target was a group- Khorosan – that may not actually exist.

    Those major malefactors, the crazy North Koreans, could be about to feel America's full military might if they so much as twitch.

    Not content with nearly stirring up a new war with North Korea, President Donald Trump is now waving the big stick at another of Washington's favorite bogeymen, Iran. For the Trumps, Iran is poison.

    In recent days, President Trump has threatened to renounce the six-power nuclear agreement to freeze or shrink Iran's nuclear infrastructure. This sensible pact was signed during the Obama administration by the great powers: US, Britain, France, Russia, Germany and China. Trump appears willing to abrogate the treaty and outrage the other great powers just because he hates Iran for some reason and, it appears, Muslims in general.

    The Trump administration seems increasingly influenced by Israel's far right Netanyahu government. In fact, PM Netanyahu often appears the most moderate member of his rightist coalition which is dominated by militant West Bank settlers.

    Trump has surrounded himself with ardent supporters of Israel's right. One of his major bankrollers is casino mogul Sheldon Adelson who is a key supporter of Jewish expansion on the illegally occupied West Bank.

    Israel's right has made a hate fetish of Iran and incessantly calls for war against the Islamic Republic. However, the mighty US Israel lobby twice failed to push the Obama administration to attack Iran. The US Congress, by contrast, is totally under the thumb of Israel's American lobby and pays more respect to PM Netanyahu than the president. He who pays the piper .

    In fact, Congress sought to block sales of Boeing civilian airliners to Iran worth $16.6 billion even though it would have cost thousands of American jobs. Congress has been trying to sabotage the Iran nuclear deal ever since it was signed, putting American national interests on a collision course with those of Israel's right.

    But now President Trump says he's found a new reason to sabotage the six-power deal: Iran, insists Trump, supports 'terrorism' and has bad intentions. This charge has been around for decades, cited by Israel as a compelling reason to attack Iran because Tehran supports the 'terrorist' Lebanese movement Hezbollah and the Palestinian movement Hamas.

    The 'terrorist' label is slapped onto all enemies of Israel and the United States. It's a handy, meaningless sobriquet that automatically denies those so named political or moral justice.

    I was with the Israel army when it invaded Lebanon in 1982 and saw first-hand how its arrogance turned formerly pro-Israel Shia Lebanese in the south into anti-Israel fighters. Israel actually encouraged and may have secretly financed the growth of Hezbollah and Hamas hoping they would drain support from the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and Lebanon's Amal militia.

    Israel hates Hamas and Hezbollah and is determined to eradicate them. The principal supporter of Hamas and Hezbollah has long been Syria. Large parts of Syria have now been destroyed by a US-engineered uprising and bands of Saudi-financed mercenaries. That has left Iran as the main supporter of Hamas and Hezbollah, and a principal backer of Syria's Assad government. The PLO has become a puppet of Israel and the US.

    So Israel is now determined to destroy Hezbollah in its strongholds in Lebanon and then crush Hamas with Trump's blessing, so ending any dreams of a Palestinian state. Iran is now being blamed for all Washington's problems in the Mideast. So war fever against Iran is again mounting.

    Interestingly, Iran

    Mark Green , April 29, 2017 at 4:54 pm GMT \n

    "The Trump administration seems increasingly influenced by Israel's far right Netanyahu government." -Eric Margolis

    More to the point:

    "We control America." -Former Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon

    Timur The Lame , April 30, 2017 at 12:26 pm GMT \n
    IDF vs Hezbollah round 2 should be interesting. All the Pauly Shores and Jared Kushners in uniform shat their panties when they faced a tough disciplined adversary immune to air superiority. Asymmetrical warfare is the 21st century's antidote to gunboat diplomacy.

    We in the west got scant information of the drubbing the Edomites got in that scrap. If you read between the lines of major media coverage (as obviously should be done) one got the distinct impression that they ran out of euphemisms to try to paint that conflict as anywhere near positive.

    It turns out that the mighty Israeli army had feet of clay. And hurt feelings too judging by the massive 48 hour air assault they conducted before the peace agreement came into effect.

    My prediction is that the next time around the IDF will use all modern MOAB and fuel air ordnance weapons (gifted by Uncle Sugar) to clear the ground before their snowflake grunts appear on the scene. A real holocaust (by dictionary definition) as it were. Of course militarily it is the proper thing to do but politically problematic. If Hezbollah has accounted for this by burrowing ever more deeply, there will be dragons. Israel cannot allow for any kind of casualty count domestically.

    It is written that the French killed 75,000 0f their own due to artillery barrages in WW1. Those days are long over.

    Cheers-

    KenH , April 30, 2017 at 1:22 pm GMT \n
    It looks like Trump hasn't gotten Eric's memo. He's also not afraid to think really big. Besides, Trump is one of those people who double down and try to prove anyone wrong who says he can't do something, so we should prepare for war with Iran, Syria, N. Korea, and Russia no matter the consequences.

    The Trump administration seems increasingly influenced by Israel's far right Netanyahu government.

    Ditto that. Trump is a Judaized white man who was surrounded by many American Jews with longstanding ties to the Likud party, so I always thought his talk of non-interventionism and "America first" seemed fanciful and merely designed to ensnare "deplorabes". It was only a matter of time before his court Jews employed their wiles to change Trump from populist with a humble foreign policy into a cross between George W. Bush and Bibi Netanyahu bent on regime change and more reckless and insane than both combined.

    Bragadocious , April 30, 2017 at 4:17 pm GMT \n
    Actually, Shel Adelson put all his casino chips in Rubio's corner, and considered Trump unreliable at best. Until Trump won. Then I guess Adelson did support him, though I doubt Trump is bought and paid for to the extent Rubio would have been.

    Let's look at the alternatives here. Any other Republican except for Rand Paul wanted confrontation with Iran, and on a faster timetable than Trump. Hillary was more hawkish than Trump, on that nearly everyone agrees. So really, the odds of any other major candidate starting a war with Iran were greater than they are with Trump.

    But what of this?

    Trump is a Judaized white man who was surrounded by many American Jews with longstanding ties to the Likud party, so I always thought his talk of non-interventionism and "America first" seemed fanciful and merely designed to ensnare "deplorabes."

    Again, it would be nearly impossible for anyone to serve as President without "American Jews with longstanding ties to the Likud Party" to be lurking around somewhere. They are everywhere , in both parties, and at a synagogue near you. But if Trump gets into the morass of regime change, he's a one-term President and a massive failure. I think he knows that.

    Ludwig Watzal , Website April 30, 2017 at 4:36 pm GMT \n
    Donald Trump's rhetorical bravado in Syria and Afghanistan is a prelude of a looming attack on Iran that will evolve, at the end, into an outright war across the Middle East. Such a war of aggression will break America's neck and will be the beginning of the end of the State of Israel. Both crazy states have nuclear weapons and they will use them. Both, Israel and the US, don't have any ethics. They are driven by a domination of other peoples. The US have been waging wars since its establishment, except for 17 (!) years. A real peace-loving nation. The same holds true for Israel. Since 1948, Israel has been at war with its neighbors and threatens Iran with war.

    Trump, at the order of Netanyahu, will destroy Iran in order to establish Israel as the only hegemonic power over the whole Middle East and Northern Africa. That's why they are destroying one country after another according to sectarian and religious lines such as the Yinon Plan outlined. The whole chaos in the Middle East serves only Israel. Just recently, Netanyahu said that Israel is one of the superpowers. How right he is.

    Druid , May 1, 2017 at 12:52 am GMT \n
    @Anonymous By all means sell all the guided missiles, sorry... airliners, that Persian hearts desire! They will go up in smoke, torched by 500 lb bombs, or maybe by Standard missiles while trying to hit a high-rise building in the civilized world.

    And Israel wins without fighting yet again. Sun Tzu is smiling, but looks a bit tired. Sorry, 911, inside job!

    Duglarri , May 2, 2017 at 6:26 am GMT \n
    Hey Eric- in your list of threats by Trump, you skip his threats to Mexic0, China, Australia, Germany, Sweden, Britain, the EU, and most recently South Korea. And not to forget: Canada.

    Of course, he's not threatening war against any of those. Just trade war.

    Except China.

    It's hard to tell whether he knows the difference between friends and foes.

    Oh, wait, there is one country and one leader he has never threatened, never spoken a bad word of, and never so much as hinted at being any sort of issue for the United States.

    Wonder why that is?

    Proud_Srbin , May 2, 2017 at 9:44 am GMT \n
    Thank you for frankness Mr. Margolis. Humanity always prevails, terrorists always lose!
    God Bless Mankind!
    george Archers , May 2, 2017 at 12:30 pm GMT \n
    Only sure cure, to get Americans to stop terrorizing the planet earth-Remove/relocate UN into Palestine (West Bank).
    Didi , May 2, 2017 at 12:30 pm GMT \n
    Mr. Margolis. Everything in Trumpland has to be magnified to huge. The attack on the Iran agreement fits nicely in Trump's idiosyncrasy that every achievement of president Obama must be dragged through the mud and declared the worst thing ever done by a US president. As in the case of NAFTA Trump may actually do nothing after he has talked to two women: May and Merkel. There is even an outside chance that he will talk to a third: Le Pen.
    mr meener , May 2, 2017 at 12:46 pm GMT \n
    head rabbi in Israel .goyim were born to serve Israel. trump has been kosherized by all the traitor jews around him with the master of them all kosher Kushner. the Syrian air force base was bombed because Syria did shoot down an Israeli jet. even the NK fiasco is tied to Israel. when Israel bombed the Syrian reactor in 2006 they killed 10 north Korean scientists who they knew were there. EVERY foreign policy war blockades sanctions bombing are ALL for israel. there is utterly no hope for this country
    mr meener , May 2, 2017 at 12:48 pm GMT \n
    @Proud_Srbin Thank you for frankness Mr. Margolis. Humanity always prevails, terrorists always lose!

    God Bless Mankind! when the terrorist army is ISIS Israel's private army they will not lose. they have the backing of the whole west and saudia arbia. keep dreaming evil never loses in a world controlled by satan and his spawn

    bob balkas , May 2, 2017 at 1:19 pm GMT \n
    China and Russia, both bordering Korea, have not yet drawn their redlines to any attack on NK.

    And why not? Is it because they know or feel sure that US dares not wage a full scale war against NK?

    Surely, surely mad US generals, fake MSM, fake Congress are not that mad to attack a country like Korea.
    How about by a pinprick; similar to that on the Shayrat airbase?

    Carroll Price , May 2, 2017 at 2:25 pm GMT \n

    Israel hates Hamas and Hezbollah and is determined to eradicate them. The principal supporter of Hamas and Hezbollah has long been Syria. Large parts of Syria have now been destroyed by a US-engineered uprising and bands of Saudi-financed mercenaries. That has left Iran as the main supporter of Hamas and Hezbollah, and a principal backer of Syria's Assad government. The PLO has become a puppet of Israel and the US.

    I've said all along that the war being waged by the US against Syria is for the purpose of destroying the supply line used to transfer advanced weapons from Iran to Hezbollah. Israel simply cannot abide the thought of being unable to invade Lebanon at will, and will never, ever get over having their plow cleaned by Hezbollah in 2006.

    Don G. , May 2, 2017 at 5:19 pm GMT \n
    Obama has left an indelible mark with his signing on of the US to the deal on Iran's nuclear program. It's irreversible now because Russia is a party to the deal. As is the Syria war because of Russia's influence and it's MAD deterrent. And North Korea is safe because of China's influence.

    Throughout the world the situation is going to be different now for the US. Russia and China have stood up and drawn a line in the sand. The deterrent to US aggression that was missing since the fall of the Soviet Union is now back.

    Don G. , May 2, 2017 at 5:33 pm GMT \n
    @bob balkas China and Russia, both bordering Korea, have not yet drawn their redlines to any attack on NK.

    And why not? Is it because they know or feel sure that US dares not wage a full scale war against NK?

    Surely, surely mad US generals, fake MSM, fake Congress are not that mad to attack a country like Korea.
    How about by a pinprick; similar to that on the Shayrat airbase? Make no mistake Bob, the red lines have been drawn by China and Russia that forbid a US strike against North Korea. Much goes on in the background that is not fed to the US media. This is why the US media is useless for letting us know what is really happening in foreign affairs that include the US. It's also the reason why 90% of what we read on antiwar.com is useless too.

    Barzini , May 2, 2017 at 6:30 pm GMT \n
    It's a good idea to avoid military action against Iran. No matter how many military victories you chalk up on the battlefield, you can't win in the long run fighting in an area in which the vast majority of the population does not want you there.
    WorkingClass , May 2, 2017 at 8:27 pm GMT \n
    Kushner and the military have the foreign policy portfolio. Trump has no idea whats going on. All of a sudden everybody likes him. That's enough for Trump. So "we" have gone full Zio. Duck and cover!
    eric siverson , May 2, 2017 at 9:45 pm GMT \n
    I think a lot of people are confusing the little independent State of Israel with the international bankers often referred to as the new world order NWO I don't agree they are the same force and Israel has been and will continue to be as much of a victim as all the rest of us .
    Carroll Price , May 3, 2017 at 2:52 am GMT \n
    @eric siverson I think a lot of people are confusing the little independent State of Israel with the international bankers often referred to as the new world order NWO I don't agree they are the same force and Israel has been and will continue to be as much of a victim as all the rest of us . With American tax payers forking over in excess of 5 billion dollars per year to Israel (and that's only what we know about) you could hardly refer to that shitty little aberration as an independent state.

    [Apr 12, 2017] Outraged Ivanka influenced Donald Trumps decision to strike Syria, Eric Trump says

    Apr 12, 2017 | watoday.com.au

    He also confirmed that President Trump's decision to bomb a Syrian airbase to punish President Bashar al-Assad for a nerve gas attack last week was influenced by the reaction of his sister Ivanka, who said she was "heartbroken and outraged" by the atrocity.

    [Nov 19, 2016] Trump and the Neoconservatives by Jon Basil Utley

    Notable quotes:
    "... as sheltered intellectuals, often in cluttered small offices, many found it exciting to imagine themselves ruling much of the world, like the old Roman proconsuls. ..."
    "... But more unending wars will continue to sap America's strength and prejudice the world's former goodwill toward our nation. Empires all eventually make a transition from where they are profitable to when they become destructively bankrupting. ..."
    Nov 13, 2016 | www.theamericanconservative.com
    Even before the Iraq War, John Bolton was a leading brain behind the neoconservatives' war-and-conquest agenda. Long ago I wrote about him, in "John Bolton and U.S. Lawlessness," "The Bush administration's international lawlessness did not come from nowhere. Its intellectual foundations were laid long before 9/11 by neoconservatives." I quoted Bolton, "It is a big mistake to for us to grant any validity to international law because over the long term, the goal of those who think that it really means anything are those who want to constrict the United States." In fact I set up a web page, the John Bolton File , containing various links about him and the neocons.

    Nearly all of Donald Trump's appointments to his transition team are very encouraging. Indeed, I have known many of them for years. But he could undermine his whole agenda by allowing neocons back into their former staffing and leadership role over Republican foreign policy. The New York Times reported how many are now scrambling to get back into their old dominant positions. And now National Review , which supported all the disasters in Iraq, has come out to promote Bolton for secretary of state.

    I have written about the neocons for many years. Their originators were former leftists who later became anti-communists. After the collapse of communism, they provided the intellectual firepower for hawks and imperialists who wanted an aggressive American foreign policy. Having lived and done business for many years in the Third World, I thought they would only bring about disasters for America. What especially interested me was their almost total lack of experience in and knowledge about the outside world, particularly Asia and Latin America. I even set up a web page called War Party Neoconservative Biographies as I researched their education and experience.

    Brilliant academics as many of them were, their "foreign" experience was at best a semester or two in London or, for the more daring, some studies in Paris or, for the Jewish ones, a summer on a kibbutz in Israel.

    They are above all Washington insiders. John Bolton is very typical. A summa cum laude graduate of Yale, then Yale Law School, time with a top Washington law firm, and then various academic and political appointments, but no foreign living or work experience.

    Also, as sheltered intellectuals, often in cluttered small offices, many found it exciting to imagine themselves ruling much of the world, like the old Roman proconsuls.

    Long ago Peter Viereck explained them with his observation about the vicarious "lust of many intellectuals for brute violence." No wonder they urged Bush on to his disastrous war and occupation policies. Even before Iraq they were first urging dominance over Russia and then military confrontation with China, when a U.S. spy plane was collided by a Chinese fighter plane. It wasn't just the Arab world which was in their sights.

    I write about all this based on my own experience of studying in Germany and France, working 15 years in South America, and speaking four languages fluently.

    Trump appointments so far are really showing his focus upon getting America back on track with faster economic growth, which has been so stunted by Obama's runaway regulatory regime. To understand their costs, see analysis in the Competitive Enterprise Institute's "Ten Thousand Commandments."

    But more unending wars will continue to sap America's strength and prejudice the world's former goodwill toward our nation. Empires all eventually make a transition from where they are profitable to when they become destructively bankrupting. Few would now doubt that America has crossed this threshold. When it costs us a million dollars per year per man to field combat infantry in unending wars, we will face economic ruin just like happened with the Roman Empire.

    The risk is that Trump's foreign-affairs transition team becomes infiltrated. Much of the transition is being run out of the Heritage Foundation, which was a big promoter of the Iraq War.

    Mainly, however, Vice President Mike Pence, who heads up the transition team, was another war wanter and still supports the neoconservative agenda-e.g., he strongly supported the attack on Libya . He also wants much more military spending.

    Pence is great on domestic issues but not on foreign policy. Although a Catholic, he also is very close to those evangelicals who believe that supporting Israel's expansion will help to speed up the second coming of Christ and, consequently, Armageddon. One must assume that he, together with the military-industrial complex, is plugging for the neoconservatives again to work their agenda upon America and the world.

    Jon Basil Utley is publisher of The American Conservative .

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